Dan Simons on Allocating Time

Dan Simons is the Co-Owner of the innovative Farmers Restaurant Group — majority owned by American family farmers — with a mission to earn farmers a larger share of the food dollar while delivering thoughtfully-sourced, scratch-made food, and exceptional hospitality. Farmers Restaurant Group operates 7 restaurants and 1 distillery throughout the DC, MD, VA, and PA area, and most recently pivoted their business model to include a Founding Farmers Market + Grocery- selling everything from prepared dinners and hand sanitizer made in their DC distillery, Founding Spirits to homemade chocolates and bottled cocktails. Passionate about the health of the planet, Simons founded the non-profit Our Last Straw, a business-led coalition working to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics, and is on the Advisory Board of Conscious Capitalism DC. In this episode, we discuss past failures and successes (7:18), more on success (8:53), conscious capitalism (10:54), if he loved wrestling (13:40), what it was like competing in an individual sport that also had a team component, and how that impacted the way he sees the world (15:15), what he thought his future would be while in college (16:68), his family history’s impact on his life (19:56), parallels between wrestling and business (22:25), where he gets peace of mind in his life (24:50), 168 hours in a week (28:12), discipline (31:20), how to say no (32:59), saying yes (41:50), the restaurant industry as a business (45:13), what he loves about the restaurant business (47:17), how the pandemic has affected his business (50:49), company constitutions (54:15), if the pandemic changed the company constitution (56:20), partnership (57:35), if others have replicated his model (1:00:34), mental health in the workplace (1:01:56), getting people back to work from the pandemic (1:06:27), and dining in at restaurants (1:09:18). You can check out Dan’s website here! You can also follow him on Twitter @DanSimonsSays. Thank you so much to Dan for coming on the podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian