Taking the time to project what success or joy looks like can bring your life and business to a whole new level! Adam Nugent and Kate Strong welcome Michael McHenry to the podcast. He is the founder and CEO of The McHenry Group.Michael talks about how the culinary experience is life at the table, and how a restaurant really creates community together. It allows the opportunity to gain harvest and create new relationships.Learn more about how this “industry disruptor” has shown the way locally to coming together as a community.
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Michael McHenry sold his first business at age 19. Now, he is a restaurateur and the founder and CEO of The McHenry Group. In this podcast excerpt, he talks about his Healthy and Full initiative to help frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
AN: We’re still in a pandemic. One of the key things that you use, I think not only to help people, but it also helped your businesses, is the Healthy and Full initiative. Where did that concept come up from? What was going through your head during that time?
MM: All of the sudden, our dining rooms are closed. We’re immediately affecting livelihoods. The Healthy and Full initiative was really birthed out of opportunity. There was a lot of chaos, and frontline heroes, health professionals, and care workers were working 15- to 24 hour-long shifts with two to three hour breaks, and they’re being quarantined from their families.
What I didn’t want is for these professionals, after a 15- or 16-hour shift to be eating a cheese stick and an apple. Or a croissant sandwich that had been sitting there for two days. I saw an opportunity to create some chef-made meals—something that’s delicious. You know, if they got a break for the first time in 15 hours, let’s get them a real meal. It was also an opportunity to protect livelihoods, restaurants, and businesses.
For the first few weeks, we had limited staff, so I would get masked up and deliver the majority of orders on my own. Then we were able to get sponsors, and it took off like wildfire. Within a matter of four to six weeks, we were able to give out thousands of meals. It provided hundreds of hours of work for our team members, and we were able to keep the lights on in our restaurants.
KS: So, Michael, when so many people in this moment of crisis were paralyzed, how were you able to not only not be paralyzed but to have this abundant mentality to go out and do what you did?
MM: I’m an ambitious entrepreneur, but I’ve always believed through and through that the best investment is the one that we make in others. I’ve just always believed in it. I just had this level of calmness the whole time. I felt a responsibility of stewardship to share that.
Learn More About The McHenry Group: https://www.themchenrygroup.com/
