AJV (00:02): Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. So excited today to introduce you guys to a new friend of mine, the one and only Britney Ruby Miller. And if you don’t know her by name, then you’re missing out. And we’re gonna talk about a lot of different things today. But before I formally introduce her, as you guys get to know her, I wanna kind of just tell you why I wanted to have her on our podcast. And Britney and I got introduced by a mutual friend couple of months ago now, and she was so gracious to give me a copy of her book. If you’re watching, you can see it’s five star Life. If you’re not watching, then you just need to go pick it up and read it. But she sent this book to me along with one of the sweetest, kindest packages of all time, because if you know anything about me, you know, the way to my, my heart is really through my children. AJV (00:59): And my sweet 7-year-old Jasper came to a, an adult dinner party at Britney’s family’s restaurant in Nashville, Jeff Ruby’s. And not only did she have the, you know, team bring him out food so he could chop he was so enthralled with that. She was so kind, sent him his own knife and his own apron, and one for my little one. And it was the perfect display of generosity and hospitality. And we have been on a year long adventure at Brand Builders Group finding new ways to have unreasonable hospitality and loving on people and loving them well. And Brittany, honestly, for me, being a pretty, pretty, pretty much a stranger at that point, the unbelievable love that you showed my family was just nothing short of extraordinary. And then as I started reading her book, I was like, oh my gosh, everyone else needs to meet you too. AJV (01:59): So if you guys are listening, the reason I think you should stick around is all things culture. And that’s what I would say it’s like, doesn’t matter if you’re trying to be a build a culture in your family or in your community, or with your clients or with your company. What I’ve summed this all up is, is a, it’s a radical journey through what does it mean to love people really well. And to me, that’s culture. It’s like how do you set a tone and a culture of love and hospitality and generosity and, and, and a and a very politically charged environment that we find ourselves in the United States? These are the types of conversations and interviews that I think will make us better, make our businesses better, thus make everyone around us better. So that is why I am having her on the show. That is why you need to listen to this episode. This episode is one of those episodes that doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, it’s applicable to you. So listen to the whole thing, and then you can check out the recap episode. Now, let me quickly formally introduce her, and then we’re gonna actually get to this interview. Otherwise, I could spend the next half hour just telling you why she’s so awesome. But Brittany Ruby Miller is the best. Oh, we’ve BR (03:04): Got whole bio. Don’t read that entire thing. You better summarize it. I AJV (03:07): Love it. She’s, I think she, what I want you guys to know is that she’s the CEO of the Jeff Ruby Entertainment Group. And Jeff Ruby’s is one of our favorite restaurants. It’s iconic, especially the one here in Nashville. I don’t know about all the other ones, but I love it here because this is where we take all of our clients out to dinner. She didn’t even know that BR (03:25): . AJV (03:26): But what I think is amazing, and what I didn’t know about the Jeff Ruby organization is that you guys almost have a thousand employees and you guys are doing a hundred million dollars in revenue. And what I love about that is not only is that extraordinary in the entertainment and hospitality environment, but you’re also a mom and an author and a wife, and running this massive organization in a family business environment where it’s going from generation to generation and you know, trying to maintain legacy, but innovate and do things new in a new way. You also have a culinary background and you and your husband Caleb, are coming up with this whole new brand, and it’s like you’re the epitome of, I’ve got a lot going on. So how do you manage all of that? And this is, this is a part of what I’m so fascinated with when it comes to not only entrepreneurship and business ownership, but also, you know, parenting and marriage and making it all work together. So without further ado, Brittany, welcome to the show. BR (04:35): Thank you for having me. And your little man was so cute. He was just sitting there chopping away at the adult table. And when I bought him the knife, I’m like, I, I, she’s either gonna think it’s super sweet or I’m a crazy, crazy human being because I bought him a Japanese chef knife. And I, it was, it was fun to, I like to buy little kids their first chopping knife. And so that meant a lot that you appreciated it and made sure we threw in the apron. But he’s the next generation of, of carnivores eating at Ruby, so we gotta get him young . AJV (05:09): And he uses the knife all the time, regardless of, it’s like he’s chopping up a string cheese. BR (05:16): Yes. AJV (05:16): Or, you know, it’s just, he loved it. And I think that’s too, it’s how you help people fall in love with brands at an early age, is you create these memorable connections. And so that’s what I want you to kind of start with is just talk about being in this family business. ’cause You grew up in this business, now you’re leading this business, and I think it would be really great for you just to talk about what, what have you learned leadership wise from stepping into a family business and also the process of making it your own as you’ve stepped into this role of CEO BR (05:49): Ooh family businesses are, they, they can be a blessing and a curse. Luckily for us, it’s a blessing. And I think just staying on the family business side. And then I wanna talk a little bit about the restaurants and like, what that is because and, and honestly, most family businesses, or most restaurants end up, they are family businesses. And it’s a, it could be a very tough industry, let alone throwing the dynamics of, you know, those types of relationships. And we learned really quick that we have to develop some sort of communication and agreement on how our family wants to treat each other. So we, I think first and foremost, the, the foundation is through our social covenant. That’s through our leadership training. That’s through transformational leadership. And coming to an agreement on how we would like to communicate with each other. BR (06:38): What do we do if there’s conflict? What do we do? You know, how do we approach that? We go one-on-one first. If that doesn’t work, we go two on one. We try not to go around. And unless you’re part of the solution we don’t, we try not to gossip in our family and teaching our kids that as well and how to handle things very, very directly and typically within 48 hours. So we go through an apology process. There’s a six step apology process when you screw up. And the last piece of it is after you ask for accountability and, and forgiveness. The last piece is, is there anything else that I need to apologize for? And when you first kick this thing off and you start living and doing this social covenant kind of lifestyle, you, there’s things that come up that were five years ago, 10 years ago. BR (07:25): And, and sometimes we have to revisit it and say, Hey, I thought that we already squashed this thing. Essentially, you wanna get to a point where you always know where you stand and you can have clear communication. You’re not gonna have hurt feelings. You know, I, I think about situations, you know, that I’ve had with my dad. I know when I walked through that first six step apology with him he tweeted something to his 90,000 Twitter followers, political. And this was years ago. And, and I’m like, why are you doing this to me? Like, please, I gotta sell sakes to the left and the right. Okay. And, but the way that I told him not to do that was disrespectful. My mentor said, you need to go apologize to your, to your father. I’m like, look at what he did to me. BR (08:09): Like this is, now I gotta clean up this mess. Right? And once I apologized for one, he was my boss at the time being disrespectful. I’m very sorry, will you hold me accountable? And if and when you’re ready, can you forgive me? And then when you say, is there anything else going on that maybe I need to apologize for you, clear the air. Luckily that day he was very kind. There was nothing else that was festering up inside of him. But that was the first day he said that he knew I was ready for leadership. And, and so there’s a culture within our family. And then we rolled this thing out company-wide. So I, we started that with our home office, which is, we’re up to about 60 employees now and and then leadership within the restaurants. And so they’ve all, you know, gone through our transformational leadership process and all the Ruby iss and everything like that. So I think on the business side and the family business side, we all, there’s a mutual respect. There’s a way that, you know, we wanna handle our relationships and treat our relationships. And then comes AJV (09:10): From like, I feel like that’s pretty rare in any company, much less a family business. Where did that come from? BR (09:21): This, this guru who I call Ford Taylor. He’ll like that. , he’s my mentor. And and he’s the one really I talk about in a lot in my book. But Ford you know, has a leadership background and, and then his whole world came crashing down and he, he built this huge company all the wrong ways and ended up getting out of it. And then, you know, basically now what he does is, is consulting and life coaching, so, Hmm. He has been the key to everything, leadership that I know beyond my father and, and also kind of my industry mentors. So, yeah. So, and we still use him. It’s been 10 years that Ford has been a life coach to our family and a family counselor. And when things come up that we can’t sort through, we call him and he mediates it for us. Okay. And yeah, so he’s been the, he’s been the glue. That’s where it came from. AJV (10:14): I love that. And so I think, I think two things in here that I think is really amazing is, one, the fact that you guys have a social covenant. Mm-Hmm. And so does that trickle down to all of like your restaurants and everyone else too? BR (10:30): Yes, it’s a consistent document. And so, you know, we wanna go in humility. We wanna walk in pre forgiveness, we wanna walk in grace, we wanna have love for, you know, our employees and treat them with respect. And we don’t want to gossip. It’s like, it’s this big list of things and it’s pretty universal across the board. So yeah, we did that at our home office and the GMs have all seen it. Next year’s goal is for really to get ingrained into all the restaurant folks boots on the ground. And but that it takes time. You know, we were building, it takes about 18 months ’cause what we’re trying to do right now is a proprietary tl, which includes all the Ruby iss, the transformational leadership and Enneagram. So , we have a big emphasis around, you know, different styles of personalities and, and incorporating that has been helpful as well. AJV (11:20): So one of the things here, you kind of mentioned this, like mentors, clearly this person for Taylor’s been in your life for 10 years. That’s amazing. What, what else would you say? Because I think a lot of people are listening are like, I’m sorry, you have an apology standard in your family and in your business. I, I would say that’s, I have personally never heard that before. I hear lots of leadership training, but even processes for apologies and standards and families and in, and in businesses. I’m gonna definitely take this from this interview and be like, putting it in place right now. But I think more than that, it’s like, I love that you said you got that from your mentor, and I think that’s, that’s so important for everyone to realize. It’s like, you don’t have to come up with these ideas. It’s like, we need to learn from those who’ve gone before us. So what would you say when it comes to books, mentors or experiences, what would you say for anyone who’s listening, if that resonates with them, of going like, how do I just be a better person? How do I love people better to create better family culture, business culture? What else would you say has been impactful for you? BR (12:25): Well, I think for me, I mean, that was the process. I, Caleb met Ford because he went to a training for two days. And Ford does them all over the world. And so he opted into this training. The good news is he also wrote a book, it’s called Al Leadership. It’s an excellent book. It includes that process, it includes what a social covenant is. It talks about everything that we do. Leadership is in that book. Hmm. And, and so, you know, that, that was key. And I think on the mentor side, I realized, you know, I grew up the Ruby way and everything that I knew and you know, was taught was through Jeff Ruby. So I get brand, I get quality, I understand five stars is what we strive for in the restaurants. Fine dining over the top, changing the game, you know, servant’s Heart, all of our core values, you know in, in our, we call it our VP Mosa, our vision purpose, mission objective strategies and action steps. BR (13:25): That’s in the book too. So you map this whole thing out for your organization, which is all culture. But what I also needed was a business mentor. A leadership mentor. And so I, I got that with Russell Mankas. He, he was he worked for my father back in 1986. He opened one of our restaurants and then he graduated onto Hilton and started open Hi opening Hilton’s worldwide. And so my dad always tried to recruit him back, and he’s always like, Jeff, I make way too much money for you, my friend Hilton pays better than your little restaurant group. And so, you know, but they stayed in touch. When he retired, he called my father and said, I wanna go out making a difference. And so I’m going to retire from Hilton. I’m gonna move back from New York to Cincinnati for two years, and I wanna mentor Brittany, and I’ll also be your managing director. BR (14:20): And so when I went to, to our, from, I was in operations for 15 years, I would say. Then Russell came to me and we convinced him to stay for three years. And then one day he was just like, all right, peace out. Here’s the keys. You’re good. Truly, the next day he left. And I had no idea. I mean, he was just like, today’s the day. And, and so I worked, you know, it was hustle. I worked my day job at the corporate office. And that was, you know, in operations and marketing and some of the guest relations and the things that I was doing for our organization. But then he handed me a binder the size of Texas and said, I need you to read every single operating agreement, every single lease. So at that point, we had had, we had, I think five, five restaurants or so. BR (15:00): I mean, they’re huge. And each lease is 150 pages probably. And, and then once you do that, you’re gonna help me negotiate Nashville. And that was the business IQ that I needed. And I didn’t write. He goes, you know, one day you’re gonna be signing these leases. This is not, you’re gonna be your father’s, which is where we are now. My brothers and I own the business and we’ve transitioned G one to G two successfully. And if I’m guaranteeing a note or if I’m signing, you know, for the next, some, some of these leases are like 15, 20 years long. And and then maybe my daughters will be in the same situation, or my son or my nieces and my nephews. That’s really our goal is to be able to give G three the same opportunity that we had. So I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that without Russell. BR (15:45): The other thing that I did was built a board, a board of advisors. That’s been very helpful. Helpful. And so there’s a book, actually the five steps to a successful board. You know, they, they have been there through covid. They’ve been there through, you know, we had a family emergency recently. And thank God everything’s okay. But, but I had to step away from the business and my family. We stepped away from the business and the board was there as a sounding board for our executive team. And so my board of advisors, you know, we’ve got a strategist, Harvard, MBA, former p and g engineer, Darcy Bean, she built our strategy and came on board, pun intended. And, you know, we’ve got a data guy from Xavier University, we’ve got a former retired CFO for Kroger on there. And Ford’s on the board as well. And then David Cassidy with our accountant. And so, you know, it’s all different departments that really, and then I have small committees that I meet with and, and they’re amazing. And I think it’s good accountability for me as well. So I got my board of advisors. I got my restaurant and hotel mentor of my father, the Jeffrey B. Wade, and then Ford. And my cup is pretty full with experts around me to hold me accountable when I need to get, you know, whipped back into shape basically. AJV (17:00): You know, it’s so interesting ’cause I was on a phone call this morning with a girlfriend. We do like a monthly accountability call, right? Two female business entrepreneurs. And one of the things that we were talking about this morning is, man, like, who do I go to for this, this, and this for my leadership team? Like, how do I not be, you know, the one size fits all for everything for my leadership team? And we were just having this conversation about coaches and mentors and masterminds and books, and we were doing like a cross sharing of all the things that we were doing or have done. And I love hearing you say this because anyone who is listening, I just wanna encourage you that if it’s going slow because you’re trying to do it all on your own, it’s because you’re not supposed to do it alone. AJV (17:48): Hmm. Right? And that’s what I just heard from you. It’s like, nowhere in life are we supposed to do this alone. Right? I just, I was, over the weekend, I was having the same conversation about raising kids. Like, we’re not meant to do this alone. Right? It’s like we need grandparents, aunts, uncles, nannies, friends, what, however it is. But it’s like nowhere in the history of humanity have people been succeeding alone. But yet so many of us are trying to figure it out in our little dark offices in our basements, or we’re, we’re trying to do it alone. And what I love what you just said is like, no, like you have an entire community of business experts, mentors, coaches, family, other leaders that are alongside you said, my cup is full with other people. And I don’t think a lot of people say that today. BR (18:41): You know, it’s, I was just talking to my best friend about this, where, you know I think before I had kids, I assumed I was just gonna be their everything. Like what a narcissistic thought that would be. Like, my poor kids, like I’m your only leader, or Caleb, and it’s the tribe, you know, our tribe is so awesome. And and they’re, I can see parts of my nanny’s personality, you know, that I love in all of, in my kids. And I can see parts of my best friend that, you know, and she, and honestly, there’s times that I’m just going, I am not in the place to discipline right now. Maria, you need to call your Aunt , you know, . BR (19:19): And, and they’re like, yeah, can we please let her handle this for us? ? But, and sometimes you just gotta step out and take a break. You know, I’ll give you an example for why with, with our board specifically you know, my, my brother is expected to recover. He had a brain, brain brain bleed in July. He was in the ICU for four weeks, and now he’s recovering at a world class TBI traumatic brain injury facility in Denver. And so what do you do when your entire business, like you said, we have 900 employees, we just crossed a hundred million threshold we’re on fire. We just launched two new businesses that, that are basically startups that we haven’t really catering events. That’s not our wheelhouse. And and then we’re also trying to push forward and, and what do you do when everything just comes to a screeching halt? BR (20:14): There’s nothing else that all we needed to do right then was surround ourselves our, our, the, the Brandon’s family and his wife and his kids, and, you know, so we all had different roles. Brandon was in the hospital. My dad was really involved in the hospital. I had the kid role, you know, keeping, making sure all these kids are happy and, and their babysitters are coordinated and meals are coordinated. And, and then and then when he luckily started to we realized that he was gonna be okay ’cause it got really, it, it, we almost lost him. I just remember in that at that point, I made a call to our CFO and our COO and said, I need you to just run the business, step in call me if you need me. You know, but my Dylan handles talent and acquisition and, and he, you know, he’s a vice president. BR (21:05): He stepped away. My dad had to step away and I step away as CEO. And guess what happens when four active owners step away from the business? You have a record breaking month in August . So it’s like, it was unbelievable how, I mean, and so here’s what I learned. Had I not done that, there’s no chance I would be in the grind every day. I mean, you think about my, I’m in the restaurant business. This isn’t a nine to five job, okay? But I was in the office nine to five. So I’m in the office getting through all the emails, participating in every leadership meeting that I thought I needed to be involved in. And and even the nuances of, you know, just little things because I, I really genuinely thought like, if this event or whatever, deep down I’m going, like I know I can help bring the vision if I’m in the meeting. BR (21:54): Like, I wanna be there to cast the vision. I wanna be there for all the little million details and whatnot. And I had to give all of that up. And so I’m going back to work in January. I’m taking sabbatical like the rest of the year. And the other piece was, you know, the podcast, the networking. I, I’m, I’m going to dinners. I’m, I’m, and I do dinners at our restaurant so that I can till kill two birds of one stone and look at the quality and then also talk to the staff and, you know, do that whole thing. And it, and then, by the way, I do have kids and they’re pretty busy. They’re all in sports . So it wouldn’t have worked. I mean, it wasn’t working. People ask me all the time, like, how’s your work life balance? And I’m going, yeah, it’s fine. BR (22:36): I’m like, no, no, no. Something drastically had to change. Mm-Hmm. . And so, you know, my, my new for me, again, this isn’t, this isn’t because I’m in the restaurant that might not part pertain to people who are nine to five, but I have a feeling nine to five bleeds into a lot of business dinners, you know, and, and networking events that happen that are outside the office. And that’s where things can get really, really muddy. And so, you know, my new thing is I just wanna kind of pitter around in the mornings and get my prayer time in, get my workout, be with the kids, you know, make sure I’m have enough time, couple hours, 10, 12, 10 to 12 or something like that where I’m, I’m not just rushing out the door. And then I have the freedom to go be in the restaurants and to do these types of things. And what that’s done for my mental space is I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have the team. Why would I build a, an, an executive team anyways if I’m not going to lean on them for high pressure situations that benefit, you know, their company as well. It’s a waste of money. AJV (23:38): Yeah. So I’m gonna hire you, pay you, and yet do your job for you. Yeah. But BR (23:43): There’s a, AJV (23:44): So many of us do that BR (23:46): And, and I preach it te it’s teach, train, equip, empower, let go. So what I realized through this process is I got to the empower part, you’re empowered, but I just wouldn’t let go. Yeah. Like, I’m still gonna do the high level business stuff. I’m still in my board meetings. I still look at cashflow, I still look at the financials. I still look at, I have a CEO scorecard. That has been great. We did tee that thing up so I know how the company’s performing, you know, guest satisfaction and, and down to food costs and beverage costs and all of that. And if something’s wrong, then I go to those two people , what’s happening here? You know? AJV (24:19): Would you say that this mindset shift really happened when your brother went into the hospital? BR (24:28): Yeah. That, that was a silver lining. He called me when he was able to talk. About four weeks later, he call, he FaceTimed me from, and I was at the Reds game because at this point now we’re like, okay, the crisis is over. We still fly out there. My brother Dylan and I were out there every single week and giving Christie a break. And we don’t want him to be alone out there. And so but when I flew back, I took the kids to a Reds game and he FaceTimed me with this huge smile. Brandon smile was like, I am, well, he said, I’m so happy you quit your job. And I said, Brandon, I, it’s on pause, but , I’m going back at the beginning of the year. And he said, well, I’m just, it’s so good to see you with your family, spending time and having a good time. BR (25:10): And that meant everything to him. The beauty, I always, I say now, Brandon’s even a better version of Brandon now. And what I learned through, and he was already amazing. What I learned at the Craig, where he is, you know, they, they, they kept him for the maximum amount. They wanna keep him for a pretty long time. And we’re like, okay. But he is walking again. You know, he’s talking, he’s, and they said that more often than not, and it doesn’t matter if these people come out fully recovered or, you know, maybe they’re in a wheelchair. It’s really, even with them being in a wheelchair, they’re coming out better versions of themselves because of what the time that they’re allowed to themselves that they allot this time to the mental game as well. And making sure, you know, you, you have a totally different perspective on life when something like that happens. I know for you with, you had a crazy situation with your brother growing up, and it, it’s, I can’t, I mean, that, that blows my mind. It’s just, this is something I, well, I think for you, it changed your life forever. This has changed my life forever for the good. Yeah. AJV (26:16): You know, it is so interesting that I, again, perhaps this interview was really just for me today. I don’t know if it was for everybody else, but we’ve been having a lot of these, why does it have to take a crisis to get our attention conversations in our house? And over the summer, this past summer, we had two really close friends die unexpectedly. And it was, it’s been, man, it’s been a really deep time of going, why does it take this to make us all stop and reevaluate the choices that we’re making? And we’ve had a couple of friends with diagnoses and, and it’s like, so much of this has just caused Rory and I to go, , please, dear God, do not make a crisis in this tiny little family of ours before we wake up. Right. And I would, you know, I would be curious to hear from you, like, what advice would you have for everyone listening does, like, how can we wake up before the crisis happens? Like, how do, how do we get in touch with the choices that we’re making before we’re faced with, oh, I don’t, I don’t get the luxury of planning for this. It’s happening right now. BR (27:31): No, I mean, I think I wanna know the answer to that too, because I’m saying the same thing. I am speaking at an event in October to 800 women, and it was supposed to be my testimony and the I am second in the book and all of that. And so I was writing it from a perspective of how I’ve healed from being at the Meyer clinic in 2008, a Christian psychiatric place, and how I healed from all the things, you know? And so it was this kind of past tense, been there, done that perspective of being in just the darkest place of my life. And I remember saying to Caleb as I’m writing this, and it’s a, it’s a lot about perfectionism. And I, I was asked to speak at a church recently on perfection, going like, I don’t even remember what it feels like, you know, which is amazing thing, right? BR (28:24): So I felt almost like a fraud. I’m, I’m building this speech, I’m writing this speech, trying to relate to people, but I really can’t relate because it’s, it’s, it’s like, it’s happened and I’m healed. And that’s the beauty of God, the cycle of life, right? And the healing process and whack like out of nowhere, there we are in our crisis. And now I’m like, wow, okay, now I know exactly what to speak about and I can reference the things that have happened, but what I’m feeling right now, and in the suffering, there’s so much beauty and, and you can’t live in a life without any suffering. Right? But I agree with you. It’s scary. I’m going, like I said, the same exact thing, please, God, do not let, I just don’t wanna deal with this. I can’t deal with any right now. Like, we just had enough with the Ruby family, right? BR (29:09): Like, can we, can we heal a little bit more? But by the way, that was really awesome to get to a good place of silver lining of, you know, stepping back and, and being intentional. And it really relates back to Covid. You look at the shutdown and it’s like, so much beauty came outta that. So how do you take the Covid shutdown or your life experiences and you, you get into that place and you have some sort of intentionality, some sort of reminder without going through it. How do you do that? I don’t know. I, I don’t know if it’s some sort of question you ask yourself before you go to bed at night and then you wake up. Is there some routine you can get into to stop? I mean, is there, are there habits, you know, spiritually that you can do to, to wrestle that out? I don’t know. I if you find your AJV (29:53): Next book, we all need to know . But it’s like, it’s one of those things where it’s like, I mean, I know every, I mean, I know so many people where it’s like, life was a hamster wheel until right, until, and it’s like, man, how do we prevent the, until now you, you mentioned something that I, I wanna kind of circle back to. And you do speak and you do have this amazing book and you are a mom. And so I, I have like three or four questions before we completely run out of time. But I, I wanna know what, with everything else that you have going on, which is a lot, what inspired you to want to write this book, five Star Life? BR (30:40): I always felt a calling. At some point I took religious studies in college. I just felt you know, and I, I didn’t, I knew I was going into the restaurant business but I always thought maybe one day I’ll write a book. Well, I didn’t know it would be about healing from, you know, infidelity and and from multiple miscarriages and losing those babies and, and what we had been through when I remember when Caleb, we went through this process with our marriage, fighting for our marriage, and Caleb confessed and he had to go get help first. My mentor called her. My spiritual mom said, if you can get through this with Caleb, you will have the most rock solid marriage that you can ever imagine. And that was so foreign to me. Hmm. Like, there is no chance, like, I don’t even know if I’m gonna stay with this guy, by the way. BR (31:33): And, and so we went through two years of healing from what had happened, and then also healing from the, the pregnancy losses. And you get to a point where then I was able to do that same speech that Kathy gave me, my spiritual mom to other women. I started to say like, Hey, and, and it was so like, taboo. Like, oh my gosh, Caleb did that too. You, I’m like, yeah, you know, and I remember Ford told me, ’cause he talks about his marriage and confession as well, and he really walked Caleb through those, those times in his life. And Caleb, I said to Ford, by the way, I will never do what you do Ford. He laughs at still to this day. I will never be up on a stage talking like, that is not gonna be my story. That is something very private. BR (32:23): But you get to this point where you’re just so healed. My life is so much better. I’m married to my best friend. I’m married, he’s a, he’s a life coach to me. It’s my, you know, and, and so I just, I felt super, super called to do it. And I wrote it for in three months during Covid, actually on Mondays. I would write a chapter on Monday and and then handed it off to Caleb and he would co-write and edit it. So it was a cathartic process. And we were, we just, I don’t know, it’s just, it felt right. AJV (32:53): Yeah. You know, I love that. ’cause You know, a big part of our life and our business is books. That’s a huge thing that, you know, we believe in. And what I tell people all the time, it was so interesting to hear you say this. I’m like, I, people say, should I write a book? And I’m like, I cannot answer that question for you. I just know that, you know, it’s time to write a book if you feel called to it. Like, if you can’t not talk about it. Right? And you know, the whole idea of like, you know, people write books as business cards and I’m like, nobody reads those, right? And so , and if they do, they don’t recommend it. And it’s like, if you’re gonna write a book, do it because you feel called to, it’s like you can’t not do it. Right. I think that’s, that’s a really important thing for everyone who’s listening to this to take hold of. It’s like, this isn’t a resume builder, it’s not a notch on your belt. It’s not to increase your fees. It’s a calling because it’s a lot of work. BR (33:45): It’s a lot of work. And no matter how confident and, and how sure you are that you’re supposed to write a book. And I’ve talked to other women who’ve written kind of the same type of testimonial books, you still have a vulnerability hangover when it’s out . It’s like, wait a minute, what did I need to share that detail? But as Ford says, the more details in there, the more relatable it people are. And, and you know, for our testimony, getting to the place, you know, this is 15, 15 years ago, and being able to, you know, part of my VP Mosa, my, my vision, purpose and mission for my life is to save marriages, to be dangerously transparent, to save marriages and to save, save lives. And so the book is an easy way to open the door where people read it, and then you hear from somebody a year later, like, they know, you know what they’re going through. And so that’s, you know, it’s just a way to get that all out there. And, and to be honest, Caleb and I, as much as we like to mentor couples and walk them through that process we don’t, we don’t have the wherewithal to do it to as many couples as we would like to. And so it’s, here’s the book. Yeah. Here’s the Meyer Clinic in Dallas, here’s the next steps. Like, here’s a go-to for us on what transformation looks like. AJV (35:07): Yeah. Well, just a reminder to everyone, , this is the five star Life book. I will put the link where you can pick up yours in the show notes. But I, I have never been reminded so much is in the last couple of years of how much power that a book has to change a life. And, you know, somebody was asking me the other day about the difference between books and content creation and blogs and podcasts, and I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not even in the same realm. It’s like I spend about 15 minutes prepping for a podcast. I, I might spend 10 prepping for a blog. You spend years, a lifetime putting together the content in a book, a good one. Not all books, but a good one. It’s a lifetime of stories and points and anecdotes and months, if not years of editing and production and publishing. Not even comparable to a blog or a podcast, but a book has the power to change a life if you’ll let it. BR (36:09): There’s so many, so many books out there that, that have totally changed my life. If they weren’t there, I, there’s, I’m, I remember at the Meyer Clinic, Audrey, my counselor said, you need to go home and read the book boundaries. Like, that’s their curriculum, you know, and this is a three week process. I’m like, I’m here for you to teach me. It’s like, no, no, no, go home and this is your homework. You have to read this. And that’s why when people, we onboard people, you know, there’s a list of five books you have to read in order to be a Ruby manager. And AJV (36:37): What are those five books? BR (36:39): So you got, I, you’ve got Good To Great, which is one of the best five dysfunctions of a team, I think is amazing. And I’m going to throw re Unreasonable Hospitality. And right now it’s a Danny Meyer setting the table. But our, our mutual acquaintance I think that would be good. And so, you know, and then one is the, not Counting Tomorrow my dad’s book. And I would hope if you work for me, you re wanna read my book as well. So it’s, it’s it’s a, but there’s so many, so many good ones out here. I would say in on the personal side, you know, I think boundaries is probably the number one thing for perfectionism, anxiety, how to deal, you know, with people with personality disorders, which I have in my family. Not my immediate family, but people I have to deal with. And reading that book’s going like, oh yeah, I’m an enabler. I’m codependent. That’s what that means. And oh, I actually need better boundaries for myself as a perfect, when I went to the Meyer Clinic, I was diagnosed with perfectionism, not anything else. That was it. Perfectionism. So I’m in recovery for perfectionism. And that book was, is something I went back and read it a couple weeks ago. I read it so long ago and I’m highlighting again everything. And I’m like, gosh, one day I am gonna get it. Just AJV (37:53): . Just keep rereading it every year. But I love that. I think having like, that was like, that’s a really big takeaway of like, hey, it’s like if you wanna be a leader here, like these are the prerequisites that we can all speak the same language, right? That’s back to setting really good culture. It’s like, do we speak the same language? Do we have the same foundation of knowledge? And I think that that’s a really significant thing. So if you use these little terms, everyone’s like, I know what she means. BR (38:20): I speak the same like language. We just went to Chick-fil-A a couple of weeks ago. I took our a, a group of folks down there and with their home office and we spent two days learning the Chick-fil-A way. And that was our number one takeaway was how many books, I mean, they’re all culture. And the way that those leaders and the owners, franchise owners of each Chick-fil-A train, you would think they have multiple, multiple, multiple pro processes, procedures, SOPs, they have none. , they have not. They read Truit Kathy’s books. I AJV (38:51): Love that BR (38:53): Truet did things, how the Kathy family operates, what’s near and dear to them. And then they’re empowered and let go to go run your business according to the ways that the Kathy family did it. And so we came back and said, man, we gotta get everything, Jeff, Ruby, everything that’s up in here, one book’s not enough. We need all his tips, his Ruby iss, we need the coffee table books. We need the 10 Commandments of service. Like all of those things are individual little books that if you go to Chick-fil-A you can see in their bookstore, it’s not just merch. I mean, it is basically their training models for their entire company that they give to all their employees. AJV (39:28): That’s so good. ’cause You can get so inundated and overwhelmed with SOPs and training docs and it’s like, let’s bring it up. Not here people, let’s just all speak the same language so that we all know what we’re working with. I love that. I think that’s amazing. And I think, you know, one of the things too, it’s like, you know, on the topic of, you know, this is a, a podcast about personal branding, but personal brands aren’t just for marketing and, you know, attracting clients. It’s also does your team, your employees, do they know what you believe? Right? Mm-Hmm. That is also a part of building a significant and influential personal brand. It’s just allowing people into the inner workings of this is what I think believe. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask you, ’cause this comes up to me a lot, and not everyone listening shares my faith. AJV (40:16): Not everyone in our company shares my faith. And so I just wanna, before I go into this conversation, I wanna preface all the welcome here. And you do not have to believe what I believe for us to mutually coexist. So just wanna preface that. But if you follow me on social media, you know, I talk about God and Jesus a whole bunch. And that wasn’t always that way. For the majority of my career. I did not talk about that publicly for a lot of various reasons. But I felt like in 2021, I was a deep, dark depression. I had a, I-I-I-I-I was in a deep dark depression for pretty much the most part of that year. And when I started to come out of it people kept asking, like towards the end of 2022 and into 2023, they said, man, like, you’re different. AJV (41:02): What, what have you been doing? And I felt like I heard the Lord say, tell ’em tell me, tell ’em the truth. Tell ’em what you’ve been doing. Don’t, don’t talk about the books you’ve been reading or don’t talk about the Bible studies. You join up. Tell them what you’ve been doing. And what I was doing was I was reading the word of God, and I hadn’t read it consistently in a long time. In fact, 2021 was the first time in my entire life I read every single word of the Bible, and then I did it again, and now I’m doing it again. And I felt like God was saying like, no, tell ’em what you are doing. And I said, y’all, I’m opening up the word of God and I’m reading every word and I’m letting the Holy Spirit into my life. And people are like, what? AJV (41:46): What? And I’m like, yes. I did not get a therapist. I did not go to counseling. I am reading the word of God. Right? Nothing wrong with those other things. And I started being vocal about it. And now I get asked all the time, like, aren’t you afraid if you talk about this, you’re gonna turn people off? Or do you, do you talk about this just here? Or how do you talk about it in your company? How do you talk about it with your clients? And I know you talk about this, it’s in your books, it’s in your social media. You’ve mentioned it briefly today. And I would love to hear from you because there’s a lot of people asking the question, like, in a pretty polarizing environment, how do you talk about it? And so I’d love to hear from you, like, why do you talk about it? And then how do you talk about it? BR (42:33): You know, that’s the same question I asked Dan Kathy face to, I said, you all have, they’ve been through the ringer in the past. And you know what, he owned the past and said, we didn’t always handle things the right way. What we do, and this is all that matters, is people will know who we are by our love for all, for everybody. And, and so they don’t feel the need to shove their certain agendas down people’s throats. They really are saying now everybody knows we’re believers. Everybody knows that, you know, we’re a company of faith. And first and foremost, you love people, love God, love people, and that’s it. And I didn’t go to seminary when I was baptized in 2001 because I wanted to appreciate all world religions. And that for me was, I took a ton of Buddhism class in college. I took Judaic studies Hindu, Wiccan, I had a Wiccan class. BR (43:37): And because I wanted to appreciate all faiths and all people and what you just said, you know, so I switched my major from business to religious studies. And that I think gave me such an appreciation for all the faiths that are out there. But it’s, my faith isn’t for everybody. And, but I think if you work for me, people know when we talk about it, ’cause we are, you know, especially, I mean, we’re doing prayer services with my employees for Brandon. You know, we were worshiping together. And I hope our team knows that this isn’t something. And I talk about it a lot, like there’s an appreciation for all of it out there. But, but you also choose to work for a family of faith. And so this is what goes along with the territory and from a public standpoint. So it’s basically, you know, there’s two different versions that I can tell my story. BR (44:35): The Plain glass or the stained glass versions. I have a speech for both . I’m writing rewriting two of them right now. So there’s one that I go to in marketplace where I know that it’s the word of God, and I know how look, the reason why we go one-on-one and the, and then two on one, and then you bring in the group is ’cause that’s what the disciples did. Mm-Hmm. , it’s Jesus. And that’s how he communicated. But I don’t put all of our employees through the third day as the stained glass version. And it’s for anybody who wants to come and listen. Like, Hey, here’s where we get all this from. Everything that you need in leadership is in the Bible, everything that you need. And and so it, it’s really just the time and a place. But even when I’m giving a secular marketplace kind of speech or discussion, I, I always do share, you know, this is where I’m coming from and this is my ministry. BR (45:29): This is what God has called me to do. What has he called you to do? You know, what is it? 90% of all people out there believe in something ? It’s a higher power of something or someone, whatever they, you choose to believe in. And so I just am really careful that I, I never, there is never any judgment on my end on when people have other beliefs than I do. I think that if, if we all did that right, like what you just said, this is my, this is how I feel and have an appreciation, especially in such a polarized world right now, I wish that there was more of that from a political standpoint of , this is how I, you wanna talk about your side, you wanna, we just don’t do it. It’s, it’s, it’s hard. So it’s something that’s important to me. BR (46:19): It’s, you just held me accountable too because when I was going through my dark depression, what did I do? I, that’s the same thing. I actually opened the Bible and I got in there and I did a chapter a day. And then I would underline it, then I would highlight it, then I would note, do the notes. And I have never felt more peace in my life than when I was doing that. And now I feel like it’s, you know, I’ll open it during church and fill out the verses and here and there, but when you actually study that, there is, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like your anxiety’s immediately gone. It’s, and there’s a peace. And I’m like, why? It’s the same thing. Like, life’s too short. Why don’t we, why do we have, why does it take a crisis? You know what, why does it take whatever to get back in the word and to feel that overwhelming peace that you can’t explain and that it can come from nothing else other than God and from the word of God. AJV (47:10): Amen. You know, it’s so interesting because we were just talking about literally like this. I feel like you’ve been like had microphones in my house the last few days because this is like so many other things we’ve been talking about. And one of the things we were talking about is how it’s like we, we, I hear so many people today go, things are so crazy. Like, has there ever been a time in history where things are so out of whack? And I’m like, have you ever read the Old Testament BR (47:39): ? Right? AJV (47:40): And I just tell you some stories, the Old Testament, it’s like, it has always been this crazy it just looks different. And it’s like every BR (47:47): Election’s the most important election ever, AJV (47:49): You know? And it’s like everything is like, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s the pandemic or the economy or gender issues or whatever people are talking about. I’m like, listen, y’all, none of this is new. None of it, right? All of it is documented from thousands of years ago. And I think one of the things that gives you overwhelming unexplainable peace through reading the Bibles knowing this is not unique . BR (48:17): Mm-Hmm. . Yeah, AJV (48:18): It’s been done before. It’s been said before. It’s been seen before. Nothing that we are experiencing today is for the first time. BR (48:26): Well, at the Meyer Clinic, you know, when they talk about depression and anxiety, what the homework is is go home and study David, go home and read Psalms and see when the pit of depression and darkness and how he cried out and cried out for so, so long. And so their training and, and it’s still a medical place, there’s still medicine involved and you’re doing blood work and all of it, but you’re doing nine to five every hour on the hour. You have a different class. And one of ’em is going and really seeing how prevalent depression and real feelings are in all these emotions in the Bible. And and then seeing how he came out of it and got through it. AJV (49:05): Yeah, I know. And it’s again you know, it’s like I wanted to ask is I know that you’re vocal with it and with such a large org organization and, you know, such a a public figure, I think it’s really important for those who are going, like, how, how do I weave that in? How do I know how to do it? And a lot of it is just being honest. It’s like we don’t all have to believe the same thing, but this is what I believe and I think it’s really convicting for everyone just to step into. It’s like we can all coexist and accept each other’s differences. We don’t have to agree with them to be around them. And so, all right, this is my last question. I’m watching the clock. I’m very I’m cognizant of our time, but my last question is, if there was one piece of advice that you could give to someone listening of how to build better culture in their organization, does it matter if they have a team of one or 1000? What would be your number one piece of advice to build better culture? BR (50:02): You have to define what your VP Mosa is. You have to articulate it on paper. So you’ve gotta go through a process to write down what is near and dear to you. So our core values are true to self change the game hustle, right? X be exceptional. And Servant’s Heart, those are the core values that, you know, we real, that embody Jeff Ruby. You gotta write your vision, mission, and purpose for what, if it’s your company or if it’s your family. We really have three different VPMs. I have my own personal, we have our family, and then I have our business one. And until you’re able to articulate it on paper, I think, you know, obviously be a good person and, you know, you wanna live a good life and, and show people that you’re a quality. That’s the number one recruiting tool is being a good, a good leader. A good human being is what people wanna work for. But with turnover and the labor crisis and everything, you’re not gonna keep people once they finally understand, you know, you just have to be able to articulate it. People leave ’cause they’re not well trained or they don’t understand the vision. And so I think you have to be able to go through a process to articulate what your, what your vision, mission, and purpose is. AJV (51:10): Yeah. It’s really finding alignment with the people within the organization. And if you can all do that, then you’re all gonna be on the same page. And it’s kinda like the whole thing. Somebody once told me, it’s like not everyone is gonna be for your organization for, they might be for it for some time, right? But it’s not everyone is for you forever. And that, but that doesn’t mean that as some exit, you know, better comes in and it’s being okay with the release. And I think all the huge part is that it’s like as you change and the company changes, the people change, right? They come and they go. Brittany, thank you so much for spending some time in the midst of so much that you have going on. This has been so helpful in so many different ways and I would just encourage everyone who’s listening, if you’re not familiar with the Jeff Ruby organization check them out, jeff ruby.com. AJV (51:59): Definitely get a steak at one of the restaurants. It’s world class, none other. But also I’m gonna put Brittany’s Instagram profile in the show notes because she’s got all kinds of cool stuff coming up with her Five Star brand, five star Life. I also put the link to pick up five Star Life book because I think it’s awesome for anyone who is going, like, how do I just have general improvements in all the areas of my life? Brittany, is there anything else that you feel like they should know or, or where should people go to connect with you? I BR (52:34): Don’t think so. You nailed it. . My Instagram, you know, we got a lot of things kind of cooking right now, so but if you’re in Nashville, we’d love to have you at Jeffrey b Steakhouse. And even if you are a vegetarian or vegan, we challenge ourselves to make sure that that’s five stars as well. So all are welcome. AJV (52:53): Well, thank you so much. This has been so awesome. And for everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode, which will be coming up next. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.