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Business without culture is dead. Culture is what defines a group of people. How they communicate, how they celebrate, how they mourn, what they do when things get hard, how they work as a team. Culture is what defines a group of people. One thing that makes culture great is when people actually believe that they know each other, that there is a connection beyond just the work. Culture is something that you have the ability to create. Companies with great culture last typically the longest. If you're not intentional about it, the culture will be created for you. An entrepreneur straight out of New York City, Michael Chernow. What's cracking? What's going on, guys? Welcome back to the Creatures. Have a podcast. Another Monday moment for you. Today, I want to talk about culture. Culture is key. Culture's critical. I had a lunch with a guy named Mickey Drexler years ago, probably 2016. Mickey was the president or CEO of J. Crew. Prior to that, he was at Gap. He's just a legend. He's a legend in the fashion business and really cool New Yorker that I just love. Such a good guy. I haven't seen him in a while reminds me. And I got got to give him a buzz. But he came to Seymour's, and we were having lunch and we were talking about business, and I said something to him that he was like, wow, I've never heard anybody say that before. But at both meatball shop and Seymour's, I was sort of coined as the culture cowboy. That is how I thought of my role, and that is ultimately what I did best at the restaurants was really set the culture, live the culture, cultivate the culture, and. And make sure that everybody was aligned. And I said to Mickey, business without culture is dead. And he was like, wow, that's like a statement. And I was like, I believe that to my core, business without culture is dead. And culture is something that you have the ability to create. If you're not intentional about it, the culture will be created for you. And when culture is created for you, chances are it is not going to be a, great culture, and B, confusing, confusing. Culture is what defines a group of people. How they communicate, how they celebrate, how they mourn, what they do when things get hard, how they dance, what they eat, how they work as a team. Culture is what defines a group of people. And typically, when you travel to Europe or Africa or Asia, you're really going to experience the culture. You want to experience the people, the art, the cuisine. And the same thing goes for companies. Companies with great culture last typically the longest because everybody that works there is bought into the mission. And everybody that works there is proud to be a part of it. Everybody that works there tells all their friends that they work there and how awesome it is. And that doesn't mean that it all has to be fun and games, right? Like there are some cultures that you know in organizations that are really, really tough and the leaders of those, of those organizations challenge the employees all the time. And it becomes a really, really hard environment to stay in for a long time. Now that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing necessarily if you know what you're getting into, if you're going to apply to be a part of an organization that you know is going to challenge the daylights out of you and it's going to be really, really hard. Go in with that mindset and that's what they conduct. Not all cultures are going to be tiptoeing in the tulips, but I believe culture is everything in an organization. And it's really hard to creating, setting and sustaining culture in a remote world, which is a lot of what we are all living in today. A lot of people are still working from home once the pandemic hit and we kind of found out that we can, through technology, work from a coffee shop, work from a co working space, work from home, kind of set a new tone. And so creating culture virtually is not the easiest thing. And it's a priority for me at Creatures of Habit we are remote and we meet a lot. And so what I do intentionally to create this culture is typically before every meeting we have, we small talk, we shoot the shit for about five minutes. And I do it intentionally because I want to get to not only know the people I work with outside of just like dollars and cents and marketing, but I just like to loosen everybody up so that when we get into the bulk of the meeting, into the meat of the meeting, we're coming from a place of aligned, intention, optimism, ideally and community. And so that's what I do with Creatures of Habit when we have meetings. We have a number of meetings a week. You know, I have more than everybody because I do have check ins with pretty much everybody on staff. And that has been such a great tool for me, really kicking off a meeting by just like first checking in and catching up and asking the team how they're doing and what's been going on in their lives because we don't get to see each other in person. Right. Like it's so easy to do that when you see people every day. And honestly, in some organizations, people don't check in, even in person. They don't know about their co workers. They don't have any background. I know one thing that makes culture great is when people actually believe that they know each other, that there's a connection beyond just the work. Culture is so, so critical. It's so important. And I am a massive advocate for it because I really do believe that if there is not a culture where everybody feels like they know what's going on and they feel supported and they feel honored and. And there's a sort of a reverence to this, like, bigger mission, it's big trouble. And I'll also say that culture within the house, within the home, is also a big deal. So it's not just at work. You can create the culture at home. And the way my wife and I do that is through our very aligned parenting style. But another thing that we do is every night at 6 o', clock, we have dinner around the dinner table and we check in with our kids and we ask them questions. And, you know, and that might not seem like, like out of this world for some of you listening, but I could honestly say that I grew up in an apartment where we never had dinner together. Not once ever. We never had dinner together. If there was, you know, when dinner time would come, everybody would eat at different times. My mom, my dad, my sister and I eat at different times. And we take the plate of food and go sit in the living room or, you know, wherever. We had a small apartment, we didn't have a dinner table. But I can also tell you that, like, the culture at my house growing up was not awesome. And so little things like that where you're checking in. Another thing that, you know, I do with my wife is, like, after dinner every single night, the kids excuse themselves and Donna and I sit at the dinner table and just talk for a half an hour. And we do that because it's really important for us to just check in on a daily basis. How was your day? What did you do? Anything come up? That was tough. Anything come up that was amazing. You know, we talk about, like, our vacation plans, even if they're six months out, like, what are we going to do for vacation? You know, I just think constant communication and knowing what's going on in other people's lives is a really important piece of culture and community, and it can easily get overlooked. Right? Like, I like to know what's going on with people in the company. I also like to know what is going on with my wife and my kids on a daily basis because it just, it just keeps everybody up to, up to speed. So culture is critical and business without culture is dead, my friends. So if you are an entrepreneur or if you work within an organization where the culture is struggling, you just know that you can change, that you can make an impact even if you're not in leadership. You can change the way people communicate at least in your on your team or in your direct vicinity and actually talk about it intentionally. Hey guys, like I don't think the culture is great here so let's try to all team up and figure out a way to sort of lift the spirits and lift the culture so that we all feel like we're marching at the same time to the same beat. I hope this one hit you somewhere struck a chord with you. Share the podcast Subscribe 5 star rating and a review would be incredible. Until the next one y'. All, I hope you have a great week. Peace. Sam.