Fail Big, Fail Fast with Morgan Tucker

Do you do you turn around and take a hard look in the mirror and said, Well, I did that this is how I can grow from it, you know. And I find that the most successful failures that I've had have been when I've taken a really hard look in the mirror versus trying to figure out someone else to blame.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Alright tribe Welcome to awaken greatness with Dr. Cliff Fisher, and special guests, Morgan Tucker, brought to you by Dream leader Institute, where we awaken your greatness and give you the tools to find and create your greatest self and raise the consciousness of the planet. And so I'm super excited to be here, Morgan with you. I know, we've been talking about this for a while. So we have three big topics, or we have a big topic today like and I love the topic, but just as far as like a background of Morgan, she's a Chick fil A operator. And then she also is a mom of five at the same time, which I don't know how you do it, honestly. And then she's been, you know, happily married for the last three years to sky and he's just such a great guy. And then you're down in Jackson, Mississippi, right?

Every bit of it. So all truth.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I know we'll get to it. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around raising five kids and running a business. So it's

a delicate art. But it's, it's been great. It's been great. And I've learned a lot about priorities through it, I've learned a lot about shifting from one flow to the next. And I had Marcus Buckingham, so neatly puts it as you know, we think about life and work as a balancing act. And you know, which chunks that if I breathe or move in any space, something's gonna come crashing down. But he's like, life isn't that way. It's just the ebb and flow. And so just really taking that in and like his movement, and really taking that to heart and figuring out what what our movement like, looks like, from season to season.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I love that. And I know, Skye just started working with you in the business more nationally and stuff. Yes.

So that gives us a very unique opportunity to blend his talents that are in the workplace, and what I know of him from our home life, to really be able to pull in special talents into the business. And so and to teach him a lot of things about the business because he, he is a phenomenal people person. He loves people well, and he reads people well, and he has a lot of care and genuine attributes, but he doesn't know a whole lot about running an organization. So that's kind of where I can come up into play.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: So we've been in that for your whole life essentially. Right? Yeah, pretty

much. You know, I've been officially been an operator for a decade. Wow. So then I guess started that journey at 27 officially became an operator had been I've been with Chick fil A since I was 15. Wow. So that's been it's been a really neat journey. And I'm, I'm a second generation operator. So I got to see my dad go through it and learned a lot from him and great work ethics and and you know, leadership styles and have been able to have the opportunity to kind of create my own. That's cool. Very neat.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: So I know today's topic, I know we're going to talk about like, so if failing big or as big as we do. As I've gotten older, I didn't realize how important failure was. And so I'd love to hear like one of your significant failures you've experienced, and what was the most valuable lesson it taught you?

In all honesty, the biggest lesson that I have learned from failure is that failure isn't real. Okay. And so as we define failure, and most people define failure is lack of success. Or the failure to meet an expectation or the inability to meet an expectation and I have just found that in life. Sometimes we have these thoughts and expectations of how things might go. And when they don't go the way that we want to that we've I found that there's always been something bigger and better around the corner that I just didn't know about. That I didn't. I didn't have the foresight of but there's there's been saying I've had you know, up to six knows from Chick fil A, when I was trying to move from the mall to a freestanding business and when I go through that interview process and You know, you spend 20 weeks of your life trying to go through the process, even though you're already an operator and you're trying to transition to a different type of restaurant. It's, it's been picked and interviewed, and your team's being interviewed and your life literally is just upside down for about 20 weeks and getting a no at the end of that. It's very tough day here. And but I found with each No, I grew my yeses to different things. And it was, you know, growing my yes to being a better version of myself growing my yes to finding different things to focus on in my business, even in my family and making the saying yes to my family more, because I'm not having to focus on those things. And then also, you know, the ebb and flow of going through a divorce. I mean, I see that a lot is a failure. And, you know, even though it's was one of, you know, the best and worst things that happened to you all at the same time, it's constantly labeled, you know, even in your even if it's in your own mind as a failure, even though there's so many great things can come from a divorce. Yeah. So it's, it really depends on what your definition of failure really is. And if the word really rings true for you. And when I when I have found that don't focus on, you know, failure as a word, which means that I'm not going to, you know, continue to, you know, is going to continue to be in that lack of success, or continue in that inability, that would be one thing, but I've tried to learn and grow from absolutely every experience that we have. I've

Dr. Cliff Fisher: heard that thought process, you know, kind of that win, win or learn, and I like it, but how do you stay in it? Because like you have, you know, 100 people or more that, you know, work with you. And you're, you know, like, the leader can't have a bad day. So how do you have that space? And how do you hold that space for yourself, your family and your team?

A lot of times, it's in some quiet tears in a locked closet, if that's transparent, and that's fair, like, Well, that didn't go as planned. No, say, Well, you know, I've had my I've had my tearful moments and say, Okay, well, that doesn't mean but most of the time, in just all honesty, they're in that quiet space. It's like, Okay, God, what do you have for me next. And I have found when I've put myself in that humble place, that courage beyond anything that I can recognize emerges. And the grit that that comes with it, is it just, I'm gonna I want to say it magically appears, but it doesn't. It's, it's, it's a gift from God. And it's just some clear direction alternative of, hey, I have a plan and a purpose for you. You may not be able to see it right this minute, but get up, dust yourself off. And here's what we were what we're going to do you next.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Think, like, I feel like that's forging our being, you know, of who we are, who we want to become and be. And it does take that pressure. I love that, you know, I can definitely get the tears, you know, by myself, the Navy SEALs ever saying and I didn't understand it when I first heard it, but they said you, you know, failure is not an option. I'm like, Oh, they're never going to fail. But what they really meant was an every mission, there's going to be failure. So it's not an option. And whether you ship failure to like, learn like I'm not trying to stay stuck on that word, but

yeah, also comes to looking at failure as if it's a window or a mirror or like are you looking at blaming everybody else for what's going on? Or do you do you turn around and take a hard look in the mirror and said, Well, I did that this is how i i can grow from it. You know, and I find that the most six stressful failures that I've had have been when I've taken a really hard look in the mirror versus trying to figure out someone else to blame. Yeah,

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I think that's an interesting space to like, you're saying like, a lot of times we'll attach our like ourself to that versus just like up in that action, you know, so I think if we can disconnect emotionally, and like you're saying, look in the mirror, and not have this emotional attachment around it, and just look at it as like, oh, what can I learn? How can I do that better next time is totally different than like, Man, I suck. I'm not great at this, like, you know, because then we make it all about us versus like, you know, the problem. And so, absolutely,

and it is really, really healthy. And I think a lot of that comes to with knowing who we are. Initially, at our core, what our, what our core values are, what our, you know, genius is and what aren't being a shining attributes are. Yeah, we can look through those and and gain ground in them even when it feels unsteady. And we can be grounded in who we are, as it were, where we can take a hard look in the mirror.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Yeah, that's so true. All right, second question. So I'll say it and then I'll, I'll share just one thing, and then I'd love to hear so how is the fear of failure influenced the decisions you've made? And how have you worked to overcome it? And I think one of the things that happened to me, probably in the last two or three months, was I don't think I trusted God enough. Like, I was like, Oh, if I don't do this, I'm gonna fail. Or if I don't do this, I'm not going to provide, if I don't do this, you know, whatever. And I'm like, man, and I look back, and I'm like, God has been there every time. Like, I've never not had any of those things. Have there been struggles in that time? But yeah.

Yes, yes. And it's so you know, I think God has just such a, I know, he has an amazing sense of humor, because, you know, he, he walks us through so many things. And he allows us to go through these, these so called failures to show us and to teach us things and say, Gosh, darn it. I'm so hard headed. Sometimes I have to keep learning the same lesson. Yeah, I got how many times? Like, can we just can you just gift it to me? Please just give it to me.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Doctors a lot on like, the first time you learn it, it's tuition every time after that you're paying taxes on that. So slowly?

Absolutely. It's like, you know, what you didn't want to learn the first time, okay? We'll just keep, we'll keep going. He is such a good guy and a merciful God, and He allows us to feel big for his glory. Honestly, I think most of the time, if we look at that way, and as we continue to break down ourselves, it allows us to let him shine and be who he has ordained us to be. And we slowly break down our set, like, who we are, in that that humility piece so much, you know, comes to the surface, the more we break, the more we break, the more moldable we become to his way all and I think it is a beautiful space to be in.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Yeah, and I think the stronger we are to, you know, like, we're more moldable but we're also you know, we really get forged and purified really, at the end of the day.

Absolutely. The race that Scott was at today, we did this just popped into my my head, we they had glassblowing there and it was amazing to watch the beauty that was created as they stuck this glove, just round into that fire. And then they would they would pull it and you could just see it was just melting and it's just like we know that that fire that we go through the trials, the things that we even begin to melt and God has the ability to pull that out and just shape and mold and it becomes this beautiful piece of art that is strong. And he uses the iron in the fires to create create that space and and that that piece of beautiful art. And it was it's just it's a gorgeous place to be. So I totally get that. So Uh,

Dr. Cliff Fisher: yeah, I know for me, like, I look back at some of my biggest challenges and I'm like, man, if God had told me, this is what you have, I'd be like, have to do to get to where you want to go. I'm like, Nope, I'm good, where I'm at, like, I would have bailed then. So it's nice that he just kind of shows you enough to keep you going.

Absolutely. It's like, He wants us to rely on him every single day. And I'll never forget, our pastor just did a sermon not too long ago that had a piece in it that was talking about, Hey, God, if you can just give me enough salary to last through the can you just give me a whole year separated by us? You know, and it's like it would. But no, he truly wants us to rely on him every single day for what we need every single day. And I think there's there's so much truth to it. And I think honestly, we would be a little probably overwhelmed if we knew what God really had planned for. Not only our little minute, human brains can only take take so much. And he gives us exactly what we need. Yeah, no, I

Dr. Cliff Fisher: love that. And so last question. So, you know, can you talk about a time where failure learning led to an unexpected opportunity or success? Yes.

After being no told no, six times by Chick fil A, I finally got to Yes. And I had been applying in in other states other than Mississippi, where we were and it was going to be a huge epic move. And so just in each time, I got so close to the end, and it was just like, hey, no, we've got somebody else in mind. And it was just heart wrenching. But the very end, when I got my Yes, it was for a store that's 15 minutes from where I lived. And if I had not gotten that store, I would have not met my husband. Yeah, we would not have our beautifully blended family of five. And so there's, there's so much that happened that were each one of those knows where it was so painful. It ultimately led to an amazing, yes. And the future than the path that we're on now. And I can only I can't even imagine what life would have been like if I had picked somewhere else. Or if God have allowed us to go somewhere else what that what that would have been like. So he ultimately always knows best.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Awesome, especially I think when we listen. So I think for me, like the the biggest takeaway on this. This episode is really like, lean in. And I think ever since I've trusted more in God with this, like, I'm less afraid. I don't know if I'm fearless yet, but I'm definitely less afraid of failure or learning or in that space. And so as I when I turned 50 Last year, I was like, what would I do different? And I said, I would have leaned in more. And I think sometimes as we're going through life, we're like, oh, well wait for the right moment. And I love it. Like, I still cracks me up when parents say I don't know, if we're ready for kids. I'm like, You're never ready for kids. And even if you think you're ready for kids, wait till you have the kids, you're never ready.

There's no such thing because they will they will break you. I think probably one of the biggest my biggest takeaways from this season. And one that I really learned with through DLR. And through dream leader Institute was the concept of neutral thinking. That also really helps me a lot. Be in the moment and think about the moment. You know, the proper the Chinese farmer, you know, every situation there's really neither good nor bad. It just is. Yeah. And we just take every scenario that God gives us and we just show up in the moment and be the best that we can be in the moment. Because we only all we have is this moment, right? Absolutely. And so how do I show up as my best self in this moment? Whether it is meeting my expectation or not? How do I show up? And how do I be the best me for the people around me, my team and how do I be the best version for my family? Yeah,

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I think that'll be a great lead in and we'll just kind of lead into the next episode with that like just really talking about like really being your best in the moment because like, I don't know how many times I've spent time energy trying to solve a problem that's not even a pro problem yet, because I, you know, trying to plan ahead. And so but I think the takeaway is, you know, go big and fail big. I mean, honestly, you'll get the biggest lessons you'll Fast Forward things. I think I'm similar. One of my biggest spaces from failure was was truly my divorce. Like, you know, my mom was married four times. I'm like, I'm just doing this one time. And then I stayed in a marriage a lot longer than I probably should have, just because I thought you just stayed together. And now I couldn't imagine my life without my wife now and the life we have and the kids we have, because we're blended as well. We have four and you know, I just couldn't imagine that space. So any final thoughts for this episode? Morgan?

No. Fail big fail fast. Keep pushing for.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Yeah, the best decisions the right decision. The worst decisions, no decision. No decision. Yeah. And that's where people flounder so that's right. That's right. Just even the wrong decisions. Even a wrong decision. So all right, Dr. We will see you on the next episode, where we're going to be talking a bit about business and going from there. So thanks so much, Morgan. I really appreciate you.

My pleasure, Cliff. It's always a great time.