PODCAST: How I built this (Danny Meyer - Shake Shack)

How I built this from Guy Raz tells the story of entrepreneurs on their story from the beginning to the current moment. Guy Raz is an expert at dissecting the story and helping understand the story. I have learned so many lessons from these stories and I'm hoping you learn from them. You can listen to it here.

Danny is an awesome character because he is driven by his passion for food and his career with so many different restaurants with many failures and successes reflects this. One of my favorite moments from this episode was when he tells a story of the eve of taking the LSAT and he was out to dinner. He was all upset and his uncle said why and he explained how he didn't want to be a lawyer. His uncles said, "Do you have any idea how long you are going to be dead?" "I don't either" "But it's a helluva alot longer than you'll be alive". It's this quote that stuck with me at the moment because I have been thinking about law school because I truly don't know what I want to do. This convinced me I should only go to law school if I truly want to. We will see if that happens.

Break the barrier of fast-food chain: Chipotle and Shake shack. Create brands that serve quality food and can be appreciated for that. Not terrible food like fast food.

Lessons Learned:

1. Follow your passion

Danny is someone who followed his passion for food and this has driven his career. He didn't take the path people expected but instead created his own. This is something that's hard when people have expectations. Many of these founders made huge sacrifices and went off the beaten path. I hope to also find my way off the beaten path when I find the right idea. But of course, timing is everything.

2. Social Intelligence

Top performers exhibit 6 emotional skills: Kind optimism, curious intelligence, work ethic, empathy, self-awareness, integrity

You celebrate and spot them, but you couldn't teach them. It's this idea that I love. There are so many people I know that are brilliant and so smart, but they lack the social skills that will come in handy in crucial moments. It's this quote that reflects this. Social intelligence is key.

3. Hospitality

He wanted to take this hospitality aspect and bring that to a fast food hot dog stand in madison square garden. He speaks to this also when he speaks about the rule of 2's. You can't have quality food, r

4. Know when to fail

In the restaurant business, failure is inevitable. Danny tells a story of waiting too long to close because he didn't want to put people out of a job. But these people weren't getting promotions and that's not fair to them. He held job fairs for those who lost jobs and learned to fail harder with his next business. I love this sentiment.

5. Adaptabiltiy

Danny was famous for Gramercy tavern and other fine dining restaurants. However, when he made Shake Shack he had to completely change the way he ran the business. He wanted to keep the idea of fine dining and high quality, but also make it fast. He uses the rule of 2 to explain it. The idea is you can have it cheap, fast, but not great quality--which two do you want. He flipped the script by thinking of it as taking portions of each instead of having to completely ignore one. It's this focus on creating quality food, but giving up some of the services that makes shake shack such a unique and successful business.

Quotes:

"Stop complaining about problems, problems is the dentition of business. The people who do best in business are those who solve them the best and have more fun"

"How did you make the recipient of your food feel" (In regards to hospitality)

"The restaurant business is a hospitality business. It's a place to come together. "

"Only a fifth of restaurants make it to 5 years"

"I didn't think of New York as friendly" ( In regards to hiring people from outside of the city to create hospitality.