Show Notes

• One of the hardest ways in the world to make a living
• How to scale and still maintain a high level of hospitality
• Creating a high level guest experience
• Hiring for culture
• The hardest guest to please
• Rehearsing in restaurants, and in life
• Enduring the test of time
• The Bottomless Cup
• Advice for some struggling with mental health issues
• Kevin’s three pillars in life
• The infinite game
• “I’m grateful for it all.”

Connect With Kevin Boehm

✩ Website – https://www.bokagrp.com/

✩ Website – https://www.thebottomlesscupbook.com

✩ Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/kevinboehmboka 

✩ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-boehm-4826a326b 

✩ Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kevin.boehm2/#

Summary

James Beard Award-winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm has built Boka Restaurant Group into one of the most celebrated hospitality companies in the world. With partner Rob Katz, he has launched over 40 acclaimed concepts, earning Michelin stars, national awards, and widespread recognition. In 2019, the duo won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur. Kevin discusses his successes and challenges in the restaurant business, and his recently published memoir, “The Bottomless Cup.”

Full Transcript

Brian  

Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field, so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success. If you enjoy great food and memorable dining experiences, then you’re going to love this episode of LifeExcellence, and even if you’re not a foodie, today’s conversation is really about people, connection, and hospitality, regardless of the business you’re in. After opening 50 restaurants over the last 30 years, James Beard winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm has become one of the world’s foremost visionaries in the field of hospitality. Kevin has built a restaurant group based on great chefs, inspired design, and enlightened hospitality. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Kevin told his mother at age 10 that he wanted to open a restaurant someday. That day would come in 1993 when Kevin opened a six table restaurant in Seaside, Florida. By age 30, he had already opened and sold four restaurants. In 2002 Kevin partnered with Rob Katz to form what would become Boka Restaurant Group. Together they’ve opened more than 40 restaurants, earning 20 James Beard nominations and 13 consecutive Michelin stars. In 2019 Kevin and Rob won the coveted Outstanding Restaurateur in America at the James Beard Awards. Kevin is also the author of The Bottomless Cup, a deeply personal memoir about hospitality, humanity, and the idea that when you create a place where others feel cared for, you often discover who you are in the process. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation, and I’m excited and honored to have him with us today. Welcome Kevin, and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence.

Kevin  

Brian, thank you so much for that kind introduction.

Brian  

Oh, of course, I’m really looking forward to our conversation. Kevin, the restaurant business has a reputation for being one of the hardest ways in the world to make a living; huge upfront costs to get started, razor thin margins—I don’t have to tell you—constant staffing challenges, demanding guests, and competition around every corner. Knowing all that, what inspired you to open your first restaurant and what still excites you enough to continue doing it after 30 years—which is just remarkable.

Kevin  

They didn’t get that reputation by accident. I live right next door to Mr. Beef, which was the entire basis of the show The Bear. And I know so many people in this industry that have trouble watching that show because it is so nerve wracking and so true that it makes them feel like they’re working in it, and living it again, and they feel that stress. But for me, I got this amazing level of accomplishment when I had any level of success in this business because it is so difficult. So as a kid, who was wrestling with a lot of issues when I was very young, I liked the idea that I went in every night, and I was kind of trying to land the plane and, like, right before I crashed it, I pulled the nose up. It was like the restaurant version of… almost like cutting yourself. I was this bipolar kid who was looking for dopamine injection wherever he could find it and the restaurant business and that chaos was the perfect place for me to find it.

Brian  

Well, you’ve certainly gotten it, the number of successful restaurants you’ve been a part of is astounding. At one point—and I hope I have these numbers right—you opened 13 restaurants in seven years, and in another stretch, you opened seven restaurants in 18 months. Now, Kevin, you know how difficult it is to open and manage just one restaurant, and yet, Boka Group operates at a remarkably high level across diverse concepts in multiple cities. What does it take to grow at that level while still delivering the kind of hospitality you value so highly?

Kevin  

Well, that’s a great question. We opened a restaurant called Girl & the Goat in 2010 and at the time it was by far the most successful restaurant I had ever opened. We were four restaurants at that point, and then we went on a run where we opened seven in three years. Our corporate office at that point was myself, my partner Rob Katz, and a gentleman named Ian Goldberg, who became our COO, and the three of us were trying to build this plane as we were flying it. In a lot of ways, we were successful, but it was also a disaster. We were killing ourselves personally while we were building ourselves up professionally. We learned real quickly that if we continued that pace without enough infrastructure, at some point we were going to run out of cast or someone was going to have a heart attack. That’s when we started to build up this incredible team. And so the easy answer to that question, how do you do it, is you do it with a great team of people who buy into it the same way that you do, who love it and hopefully are smarter than you are. That was one of the keys; Rob and I finding all these little areas within our company and then finding the best possible people for each of those areas. Because there are very few people in life, no matter what industry they’re in—whether you’re President of the United States or president of a restaurant company—that are good at everything. That’s why a general is called a general, because they have a general knowledge of everything. Rob and I had gotten to a point where we had done everything, and then we just started looking for people who were the masters of those specific areas. For instance, a woman named Julie Rhew, who’s the president of our business strategy, she didn’t even work in the restaurant business. She worked for Microsoft for a decade, but we figured she was the best person for that specific area in our bespoke company. So we got very good at finding the right talent for the right spot. I looked at it like in the movies when they’re putting the heist team together, that’s kind of how I felt about putting our company together. I was like, okay, who’s the best safe cracker? You know what? This Jami Madonia girl seems pretty freaking good at it; she became our CFO. Who’s the getaway car driver, you know? And so that’s what we did after that first stretch of seven, was put this crazy heist team together, almost all of which are still with the company.

Brian  

That’s one of the characteristics of great leadership; hiring great people who, even if you can do those things you can’t do everything. You have so many restaurants and they’re in different cities, you can’t be more than one place at once, but hiring people who are either better than you or are great in particular areas. Then I always say, get out of their way so they can do the thing that you hired them to do. I mean, that’s the other part, (Kevin: 100%) giving them the autonomy, and you do this creatively with chefs that you hire and partner with. But even in other areas, not looking over their shoulder because you’ve brought them in because they’re strong in a particular area, and so you get out of their way and let them do what you’ve brought them in to do.

Kevin  

You have to have a lot of self awareness though, to know which areas your specific DNA should still have its fingerprints on, and what are the things that you should give away. I’ve always looked at the restaurant business as identify the problem, solve the problem, teach the solution. And as those problems got bigger as we got bigger, it was doing that and then as someone took over that problem, they might find a better solution for it. We’re a much more sophisticated company than we were five years ago, let alone 15 years ago when we opened up Girl & the Goat. You look at the old days, it’s really interesting the things that you kept and the things that you’ve given away. There are still things that I wrap my arms around, because I think it’s important that I still do them.

Brian  

Sure. Kevin, I’ve had the pleasure of dining in three of your restaurants, all in Chicago, where our oldest son lives. You mentioned Girl & the Goat. I’ve been there, and I’ve been to Swift & Sons, and then most recently, to Swift Tavern. When Michigan played Northwestern at Wrigley Field, we had brunch right across the street, and that was terrific. All three of those were great experiences. I wonder, at a basic level, what is the experience you strive to create for your guests?

Kevin  

First of all, we do a lot of different restaurants. I have Michelin starred restaurants, I have a diner, I have a rooftop deck, I have a steakhouse, I have a Japanese restaurant. We do all different levels of service, from the finest of dining to the very casual. I think it just starts with humanity. It’s hard to teach a good person to be a good person. Every interview I think that I’ve ever done in the last at least 15 years, I’ve opened with the question, What did you have for breakfast this morning? Because I just want to get them talking and hear who they are as a human being, not a planned question. And within that, I try to figure out, do I like them, and do I think they’re smart? And if you can find somebody that you like that is smart and has a good emotional IQ, I can run a restaurant with you, because teaching you how to hold a plate, teaching you to serve somebody from the left side with your left hand to keep your body open to them—those are rules, that’s service. Hospitality is the way you make somebody feel. It’s said in our business:  service is black and white, hospitality is color. We can teach that black and white pretty fast. It’s hard for me to teach the color so I try to learn that before we open up a restaurant, get a group of people together. I think that’s the symmetry in all our places, that we have good human beings working in the front of it. But it really is great hospitality, great food—which we do by having chef partners in every single restaurant who are taking ownership of that food—incredible, innovative design—design that makes people feel good inside of it—and then an underlying sense of financial responsibility. And if you could put those four together, then you could have a successful restaurant. You could have checked two boxes in the 80s and 90s and still succeeded. These days it’s tough without checking all four.

Brian  

Sure. I think I read that you have 2000 people on your team, (Kevin: More, over 3000 now.) 3000 now, so that stated, lots of people. You mentioned hiring for humanity. I was going to say… I’m guessing, but I actually know this. I talked to somebody who knows you a little bit and knows a little bit about the Boka Restaurant Group. And the thing that he said was—he remarked about the culture of Boka—he said, no matter who I’m speaking with, whether it’s—I don’t know all the jobs in a restaurant, but the entry level job, to chef in the restaurant, to somebody in corporate—that there is this cultural synchronicity that exists within your organization. So how do you hire for culture? Is that something that evolves over time? I know a lot of your people have been with you for a long time. They’ve started out maybe at entry level, and who knows what they’re doing now, probably running some of your concepts. How do you hire for culture?

Kevin  

Life’s a lot of pulling levers, isn’t it, Brian, like you say, let’s see what happens if I do this. I’m 33 years in as an owner now, and I’ve had moments in my life where I go, Hey, let’s hire somebody from this company and see what happens. Or let’s hire somebody based on this resume that’s 25 places strong and they have so much experience. Most of the time when we’ve hired someone just based on experience, we’ve lost. Who does well in our company have been the people who grew up in it, or someone who specifically chose our company for the culture. I’ve still had a lot of success with people coming to our company who’ve worked for a long time and said, I chose you because of the ethos specifically in your company. We’ve done well there too. I think it’s just something that has to be important to you. It’s part of our guiding principles to hire people who ask a question with a question mark, not a period, someone who is actually concerned about the people that they’re dealing with. So our interview style might be a little bit different than somebody else’s because we’re really trying to find out who they are as humans. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Rob and I really take quality of life as a big priority, and we spend a lot of time with these people. I would rather spend time with soulful people doing soulful projects, especially at this point in my life. So when people say it’s not personal, it’s business, I instantly know that’s somebody I don’t want to do business with, because everything is personal. And so I think most of the things I do there’s some sort of personal edge to it, and I think that’s benefited the company.

Brian  

I eat out a fair amount, and I know that in restaurants, things don’t always happen the way the restaurant owner wants them to happen, the way the server wants them to happen, the way that the chef wants them to happen, and certainly not the way customers want them to happen. Now, I wasn’t describing any of your restaurants, but I’ve noticed that in other places, obviously things go wrong, and it’s fascinating to see. And this isn’t just true of restaurants, it’s true in life; things go wrong, and we know that things are going to go wrong. I always think that the important thing isn’t the event, it’s what happens after the event. So in other words, how people respond to that, how the customer responds to that, how the server responds to that, how the manager responds to that. Kevin, you’ve hosted everyone from well known figures like Mick Jagger and Barack Obama, to business leaders, to families celebrating milestones—which is a very special occasion, maybe family that doesn’t eat out often, but they’re celebrating a special birthday, or maybe an anniversary—to loyal customers, and of course, lots of people visiting for the very first time. I wonder, across that whole spectrum, who’s the hardest guest to please? 

Kevin  

Hmm, god, that’s a really interesting question. I serve three and a half million people dinner a year. I think the hardest guest to please is the one who walks in the door and already wants to be upset. There is that person. I was always the person that, in the early days, got sent in when somebody was upset. I had a tried and true approach to it. I would ask, “Tell me everything that happened. Why is position two at table 31 upset?” I’d gather all the information I possibly could then I would go to the table and I would say, I’ve been briefed on what happened, but I’d really like to hear it from you, because I want to make sure I didn’t miss anything. And them talking about it would actually de-escalate them. I would actively listen while they were talking about it, so they knew that I was hearing them. Then at the end of it, I would do something, I would say, “Listen, we screwed up tonight and here’s what I’d like to do for you. I’d like to buy your dinner this evening. I’d also like to give you my contact so the next time you come in, you talk to me directly.” Pretty much, I could sniff out that person who just wanted to be angry, because in almost every case—and I talked to the head FBI negotiator one time; it’s the same way that he would handle a hostage situation. He was like, god, I think you could do my job. And at the end of that, if a guy’s like, that’s not enough and he just wants to be angry, then I’ll let somebody be angry. But that is a specific type of human. Every once in a while, I’m going to encounter somebody like that who’s angry about something else in life and I’m going to handle the projection, and I can take it. I was always that person who could just take that hit. I would apologize and I would move on. But honestly, when you’re dealing with people who are very high level, usually the highest level, those were the people that were really incredible and true gentlemen, like the President of the United States. I mean, Obama couldn’t have been more generous with this time and wonderful when I spent time with him.

Brian  

Did you train your staff for those kinds of scenarios? Not necessarily the one where the person can’t be pleased, but that things aren’t always going to go perfectly and how to respond to that. Is that just a superpower that restaurant staff have the ability to think on their feet and diffuse situations that go sideways?

Kevin  

I’m a big believer in rehearsal in life, not just in restaurants. When we do mock service—and it could be anything from the host stand to the dining room floor—we rehearse all those situations. I tell a story of my buddy who was in a play on Broadway, it was a play about a basketball game and a guy who’d bet on the game. At the end of the play, he makes a 12 foot jump shot and they win; it’s like a real basketball game. Philip Seymour Hoffman was at my buddy’s play, and he waited till he came off stage and said, what happens if you miss it? And he goes, it’s a different play, we have a different ending. When he told me that story, I was like, that’s what I do. Like, the two women at table 33 might have the greatest meal of their lives or they might catch their hair on fire on the candle—I’ve had that happen before. I know what I’m going to do in both areas. When we go through a [restaurant] opening, we do full mock service where a guest is asking a question and see what they say. What happens if a woman trips? What happens if they tell us they have an allergy and we still send it to them? I mean, we go through all these scenarios. We’re all about rehearsal all the time because I do truly believe that the way to really make a guest into a customer who comes all the time is handling a problem with grace and with elegance and with that soigné. When I look at those things that happen—it sounds super cliche and like I’m making it up—I really do look at them as an opportunity, as long as they’re not too awful, where I can sweep in and say we’re going to make this right and we’re going to rally right now. We’re good at rallying. We have enough things in our arsenal when something goes wrong that I can make their dinner really special.

Brian  

Can you share a particular occasion if one comes to mind? I mean, you mentioned the woman whose hair caught on fire, I guess you could do that one. But if there’s another one that comes to mind that could have turned into a disaster or was going sideways but was averted by your providing what our friend Will Guidara calls unreasonable hospitality.

Kevin  

I remember very early on in the Boka days, we had a table for ten who was 40 minutes late, and they were followed up by another table for ten who was going to come on the heels of them. By the time we got the first table down, they sat long, so I’m at about an hour and ten minutes. On the second table, they were at the bar and were fully angry. I’d run out of moves that I could do with placating them with free drinks. I built a ten top in the restaurant that didn’t exist, and one of the things that I had to do was no longer use the bathrooms that were downstairs; I had to close that door and tape off the back so nobody would come up through the back and come through that door. I had one old table and a table we had to build downstairs. I remember, I had to take my suit off, and I’m screwing tables together to put upstairs. We built a ten top on the fly. They saw the effort that we were putting into it and I went with honesty. I said, the table ahead of you were 45 minutes late and they’re taking their time. I’m going to build a table for you right now, and I’m going to make something happen. And then we just went for it on their table. I go, guys, we’re going to descend on this table to the point that at the end of that meal—it was their birthday, and we had two opera singers who worked in the restaurant—we had them sing happy birthday in opera. I know people—still, to this day—that were at that table, who are still great customers, and will always say, Kevin built a table to accommodate us one night. So you do what you have to do. I think it’s a combination of elbow grease and ideation and thinking in the moment and trying to not let them see you sweat, if possible, and you could build some pretty special moments for people.

Brian  

That’s a great story, I appreciate you sharing it. I think it really transcends industries. That’s not about the restaurant business, it’s about adversity and how we respond to adversity with customers. That’s great insight. You certainly had to think on your feet. I mean, it’s one thing to do a two top right at the entrance, next to the hostess stand, quite another to do a ten top. Kevin, you’ve been in the business a long time, obviously, certainly long enough to see restaurants open and close, even really good ones, and yet, Boka Group has continued to grow and thrive for more than two decades. What’s your secret sauce? What do you—you’ve talked about some of it—what do you, Rob, your chefs and your team do differently that’s enabled Boka Group to not just succeed—because there are lots of restaurants that succeed for a season—but to endure the test of time, which is so difficult to achieve, as you know.

Kevin  

Well, I’ll start off with an analogy. Old quarterbacks in the National Football League do really well, because if they can keep their bodies together, the game slows down. You can go back to the 1960s from Johnny Unitas to Jim Plunkett, in the 80s to Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, and Matthew Stafford who, at 38, went to the final four teams this year. If they can keep their bodies together, the game slows down, they kind of know what’s happening and they can navigate the NFL better. The key to life is staying interested. By the time you get to 25 years in a company, in theory you should be better. That doesn’t happen very often, because people get complacent, they get lazy and they get bored. So what we always talk about is, how do we stay interested? I’ve watched it also with Let Us Entertain You, a company that’s been around since 1971 who is still doing innovative restaurants. I have a lot of respect for what they do. For us, it’s keeping people in our circle that are still excited to come to work each day and want to sit at that brainstorming meeting and ideate about what we do next. We very rarely repeat the same concept, because we want to stay interested and it’s just not that exciting to us. We’re both artists and businessmen, and I think that’s kept us young. We’re still thinking of way out of the box ideas when we come in and do a new concept. I think it keeps us excited. When we opened up our steakhouse ten years ago that you went to, one of the things we did was we had a board that said “core competencies and the bend.” Core competencies are what do you have to have to be a steakhouse? You have to have a Caesar salad, three kinds of potatoes. You have to have a big steak selection. You have to have shrimp cocktail. The other side was, let’s have a chocolate trolley that we roll out at the end of the night. Let’s have a beef wellington cart. Let’s have a concierge desk up front that somebody can get a list of jazz clubs or just a Tide White Out [pen]. Let’s have a magician on the floor who will do 20 minutes at your table for 60 bucks and let’s put it on the menu. And so still being creative and still being artists and still drawing weird pictures this many years into my career, that’s what keeps me interested and I think that’s one of our special sauces, if not the one.

Brian  

I love that—being interested—and related to that is curiosity. That’s a trait that I think is a wonderful trait to have that keeps you young and vibrant and full of energy. Being interested is certainly one of those great traits as well. As you know, Kevin, our show is called LifeExcellence, and I’m curious, what does excellence mean to you?

Kevin  

Excellence means, to me, trying really hard. I love watching people try hard at every level, from an apprenticeship to… when I got to have a cameo role in The Bear, I got to watch Olivia Coleman act, and I was like, that’s amazing. I love seeing talented people work really hard. Everybody has excellence inside them, they’ve just got to find it. They’ve got to find out—you said superpower before—find out what their superpower is. I love watching people work hard, and it’s the only way that excellence comes out, to me. I don’t think you can half ass it and be excellent. You have to be nervous enough that you’re thinking about what you’re doing, but confident enough to pull it off, and that’s kind of where excellence falls.

Brian  

I was going to say confident enough to go for it anyway.

Kevin  

Yeah, that’s right.

Brian  

That hesitation, that reservation, that nervousness, and just not being—I have goosebumps as I’m saying this—100% sure, being far from 100% sure, that you can pull it off and yet going for it anyway. 

Kevin  

That’s 100% true. I’ve watched plenty of very smart, brilliant people who mail it in still, who have done it so many times that they’re just going through the rap and it’s sort of automatic and that doesn’t speak excellence to me. I can tell when somebody’s mailing it in.

Brian  

Totally agree. Kevin, your book, The Bottomless Cup: A Memoir of Secrets, Restaurants and Forgiveness was published late last year. I read it right after it came out and I have to tell you, your story was unexpected, revealing, and frankly, far more raw than I thought it was going to be. You’re a gifted writer, too. I was actually a little surprised by that. I’m not sure why I was surprised by that, but I was candidly captivated in the first few pages of the prologue. When I read the first sentence of the book, in chapter one, Kevin, I’m not kidding, my heart stopped for a second. I highly recommend the book, by the way, for lots of reasons. If you’re a foodie, it’s great. We’ll talk about some of the other reasons it’s great. But the book is a brutally honest—my synopsis of it—a brutally honest and vulnerable account of the highs and lows of your turbulent life growing up; struggles with mental health, both personally and in your family. And your wild, crazy and incredibly successful career in the restaurant business, which you describe—and I quote this, I think it was brilliant the way you described it—”…the magic of hospitality and the thrill of a dining room on the edge of chaos.” I think you actually alluded to that earlier. Why was it so important for you to share your story, and why now, at this stage in your life, in your career?

Kevin  

There was a moment after I hit rock bottom, which I talked about in the book, where I just I felt a little bit like a fraud. For the first time, I was telling a therapist all these secrets that I had kept my whole life, and all of a sudden I started becoming the authentic me. I was tired of playing a part that I’d played for a long time, and so I was like, I don’t want to play this avatar anymore. I thought the quickest way to dispel who I pretended to be for such a long time was to write about it. It just happened that a book agent had seen something I’d written in Esquire and I ended up getting a book deal. As I wrote it, I just wanted it to be out there, because I just wanted to start being myself. So my number one goal with that book was to strip all the coats of varnish off of all the stories I’d always told and really tell the truth.

Brian  

Who did you write the book for? I got the sense as I was reading it, that maybe you wrote it for yourself. You mentioned therapy, almost as a form of therapy?

Kevin  

I wrote it for myself, for sure. It was a meditation every single morning and it was therapy. But I also wrote it for the amount of people in this life who live life as an avatar and are really a sad person behind that. I knew a number of those people, and as soon as I cracked the door open a little bit and told people what was going on with me there’s not a day that goes by since I put this book out that I’ve not gotten between five and ten emails or texts from people who had a life just exactly like me. I found out some things after I put the book out, because I didn’t know a lot about my father’s side of the family. I found out that my grandmother committed suicide, my aunt committed suicide. I knew my mom was bipolar and her mom was bipolar. So it’s kind of like if you’re in a car with a bunch of people who have the measles, you’re probably going to get the measles. I was in a family tree that all had a lot of mental issues and I learned to navigate it, but behind the scenes I was a very sad person a lot of times. As soon as I figured it out, through a lot of work and medication and therapy and all that sort of stuff, and I found my way to a happy life, it almost felt like a responsibility to tell the people that were having the same things happening to them that were happening to me that there’s a better way to do it, and if you think you’re going to outsmart it, you’re wrong. I don’t have very many regrets in life, but when I got medicated and after I’d had three really great months of therapy and had gone to Hoffman and done ayahuasca, and I started to feel how I feel right now, I was like, you dumb SOB, you could have done this a long time ago. And so I hurt for the former me that I had to go through a lot of that and wasn’t able to grab some low hanging fruit.

Brian  

Well, I give you credit for getting to where you are today. I hope you’re not beating yourself too much up about how long it took to get there. You have to give yourself grace too. I’m happy you are where you are today. I certainly hope that anyone who’s going through, or has been through, anything close to what you’ve gone through will read the book because—for lots of reasons—but I think it could be incredibly helpful for people to know that they’re not alone in their struggles, and I know that you want that for people. What advice do you have for someone who might be struggling right now, either with mental health, but it could be relationship challenges or even just trying to figure out their purpose in life? What do you hope people will take away from the book?

Kevin  

Yeah, step one, get a therapist, and if you’re already seeing a therapist and it’s not working, get another one. So first of all, your relationship with a therapist is like no other relationship you’re ever going to have in life, because they’re not there to like you, they’re there to help you. So it should be the most honest relationship that you’ve ever had, and you should just lay it all out there. Therapists are a lot like spouses and mates—it takes a few to find the right one. So if it’s not working, choose another one. And I hope, out of the book, what they’ll find is that the development of yourself as a human is a lot more important than blind ambition towards building something in your world. Ambition can be great, but you really do need a foundation first, of a human being who feels like he’s part of the ride. I never was in the moment with the stuff that I was doing, not most of the time, and so I missed out on a lot of those beautiful moments. Sometimes you need to take a step back and say, I’m going to work on myself as a human and then maybe go back to this. The work can wait sometimes.

Brian  

What was the catalyst that changed things for you?

Kevin  

Well, I almost took my own life. I was standing on a ledge in Los Angeles and was ready to pack it all in. Fortunately, my phone rang that night and stopped that process. When I came out of that room, it was an easy bargain for me to say, wait a second, if the alternative is death, what am I so worried about these other things for? Let me write down the 20 things that I know I need to do right now to get myself right. And that was—for the first time in my life—I took some time off of work just to concentrate on myself. There were a bunch of really hard things on that list:  don’t walk a dining room for a few months, you’re going to stop drinking, you’re going to get therapy five days a week, you’re going to get medicated. All these massive changes in my life. I was literally seconds from taking my own life and rock bottom is a gift—if you can survive it. Most people don’t. I was able to survive it that night and I took full advantage of it so I’m grateful and lucky there.

Brian  

I’m certainly happy that you’re here to talk about it and I’m sure there are a lot of people who are very close to you who share that sentiment. Can you give us a sense when was that? Where was that in your life?

Kevin  

Five years ago, not quite five years ago, four and a half years ago.

Brian  

Fairly recent. I mentioned that you are a gifted writer, and I just love reading your style of writing, so descriptive and powerful in many of the ways you describe things. You wrote in your book that your search for happiness has been like a 50 year treasure hunt, and that you were successful in every way but the way that counted. I wondered, and I’ll ask you, what does the success that eluded you for so long look like? Do you feel today like you’ve arrived at the place you would describe as happy or successful or content? I wonder how you describe that.

Kevin  

I have three pillars in life. One is, do I wake up with a purpose every morning and is the reason behind that purpose a noble one? It’s not for revenge and it’s not for ego or capitalism. It’s because I love it. Two, do I run into the people that I like, love, and respect while I’m doing that purpose? And then three, if I’m the protagonist in my own movie and I’m watching that movie, am I rooting for myself, and am I okay showing the full edit to other people? Am I okay showing all the footage? Am I proud of everything that I’m doing in life? If those three things are intact, then I’m intact, and that’s kind of how I measure myself these days. I was always pretty lucky with number two, that I had people around me that I liked and loved, but I never woke up with peace and I never went to bed with peace, and now I have both.

Brian  

What was the shift that you needed to make to get to that point? I mean, I know you mentioned being in LA, and that was certainly the turning point, but you had to do a lot of work after that to get to the place that you just described.

Kevin  

I think that I subscribe to Simon Sinek’s Infinite Game these days. Finite games are baseball. Life, love, marriage, work are infinite games, and you just try to get a little bit better every single day. And so I slowed down my thinking process. I don’t sprint towards anything anymore. I try to get a little bit better every single day. My relationship with myself is probably paramount before everything else, because if I can love myself then I’m very good at loving other people. So on the notes section of my phone I have the list of all the people that I love, that I know love me, and when I need centered, that’s the list I look at. I don’t look at how many restaurants I have or what my bank account looks like. I think it was just a shift in thinking about who I was and what was important about me, and it wasn’t telling somebody my resume within five minutes of meeting them; it was who I was as a person.

Brian  

Boy, that list is a powerful takeaway for me. What a great thing to have to refer back to. Because what happens—I think I’ll have to think about this a little, ponder this a little bit—but I think when you go back to that list, it’s pretty hard to continue the despair that you were in that caused you to look at the list, if that makes sense. You can’t hold gratitude and anything else at the same time. And so I think ultimately, for me, as I’m thinking through who that list is, for me, that would take me back to a place of extreme gratitude and again, I think everything else pales by comparison. (Kevin: That’s right, that’s right.) You’ve experienced a lot, both personally and professionally, as you look back, what are you most grateful for?

Kevin  

Oh, man, I’m… you know what? I’m grateful for it all. I’m the sum of everything and everyone that I’ve ever encountered. And I’m so happy with me at 55, I’m happy that all that stuff happened. It’s a great story. I can look back on it now, all the versions of myself, the ones I liked and the ones I didn’t and know they all had to happen to get to here. There are some highlights along the way, most of them are people that I encountered, from an English teacher who told me that I was a good writer for the first time, to the people I worked with at the first restaurant I worked at, to having a loving sister who made a tough childhood better, to my three beautiful children. I’m grateful for all these people along the way that kept me upright, kept me alive.

Brian  

I love your description of being the sum total of your collective experiences. And if you didn’t say it like that, those are words that I’ve used before. We could probably sit and compare stories – not to compare stories – we all have stuff. I’ve always maintained that I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if I hadn’t gone through all the stuff, like the great stuff and the crappy stuff too, and you wouldn’t be either, none of us would be. So I love that concept, and I think that’s a great way to bring things to a close; we’re are the sum of our collective experiences. Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and I’m very grateful for our time together.

Kevin  

I’m grateful for you having me and letting me talk about these important issues and all the important things that are inside the book and talking about life excellence.

Brian  

Thanks again for being here, it’s great. Let’s do it again sometime.

Kevin  

Let’s do it. Thank you.

Brian  

Thanks for tuning into LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with Kevin Boehm on social media and leaving a rating and review. You can also learn more about me at BrianBartes.com Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.