Lori Vallot Baskin

I would go back to faith and hard work and dedication - that's essentially what has led us to where we are. Being determined has been crucial. My husband and I moved from Lafayette, Louisiana to Plano, Texas in 2007 for growth, and we've definitely been able to achieve that, probably a few times over. Starting with telecommunications at AT&T and moving through to my most recent role at Pollo Campero, it's not been lost on us what it takes to be in service. We are servant leaders, and we are servants at our core, so that part is equally important for us. Service is always something that is continuously going on, at least for me, and I think it should be for everyone else who's in the industry.

Don't take it personally. A former Senior Director would tell me this when I'd present numerous programs and projects to him that he'd take to the executives. Very often, we wouldn't get any traction on those ideas right away, and I would get frustrated. He could sense that frustration and would say, 'I know that it's frustrating, but don't take this personally. It's not right now, but trust me, these ideas will be developed.' And every time he said that to me, he was right. It might have taken a year or two, but we got the ball rolling on those things. He'd come back to me and say, 'See? They just weren't ready for it at the time. You've got great vision - vision we are working to catch up to.' So don't take it personally is the thing that I'll take away as the best advice.

Stay encouraged. The service industry is beautiful, it is wonderful, and it is challenging. You've got to have some thick skin coming into the game, and you have to be able to stay encouraged. People are going to challenge you, processes are going to fail you, systems are going to break down on you. But the main thing is to stay encouraged. And sometimes you've got to encourage yourself, whether that's a quick cry in the restroom and come back to the floor with a smile and grinning with grace, or if it's a yell in the car on lunch and be able to come back in with your team and get right back into it. At least for myself, whether it was the cry, whether it was the yell, or if it was a silent prayer, those are the things that kept me encouraged. And I would say, find someone who can be a partner to you. One thing I've been called in my line of work is the customer whisperer, and I take a little pride in that because being the customer whisperer means that I can anticipate the guests' needs and sense and understand what it is that they're trying to say that they may not be saying. So I think finding a way to also become a customer whisperer is important.

Time. There's just not enough of it. Even though I work on specific days with The Powerful Journey and we're establishing ourselves and working to get clients for our consulting endeavors, there's just not enough time in a day, on any given day, for us to be able to do all of the things that we need to do. So some things we have to be able to prioritize and make sure that we are continuing to be productive. The time frame whenever you're working on these things is not easy. So it's important to stay encouraged. We're people of faith, so we stay grounded by being in the Word and looking for what the next steps are going to be.

Integrity, respect, and treating people with dignity are the values most important to me. One thing that I pride myself in is being empathetic and being able to put myself in a person's shoes. I recently encountered a situation with a family experiencing homelessness at a restaurant, and the team wanted to ban them. I said, 'These are people.' At the end of the day, we have to make sure that this father walks away with his dignity, so we're not going to ban them. We're going to find another way to be able to serve them. That's essentially something that I take a lot of pride in - showing grace, being empathetic, and being able to treat people with dignity.