Alex Brennan-Martin

Co-owner of restaurants: Brennan’s of Houston and Commander’s Palace, New Orleans and Las Vegas

Alex Brennan-Martin, co-owner of restaurants including Brennan’s of Houston and Commander’s Palace in New Orleans and Las Vegas, realized he needed to shift the focus of his entire business:

If you allow…I’ve got to [be all work] to survive to become the driving mentality for you, you’re going to find yourself going it alone. That’s what happened to me. What I realized was that my philosophy was completely off-kilter. If I didn’t find a way to become more in line with many of my employees and our customers, I would burn out, and that wouldn’t do anybody any good, including myself.

One day, I went into a staff meeting, and all of our folks internally were arguing with one another. I slammed my hand down on the table, turned to the person sitting next to me and said, “What’s your job?” As everyone was going around the table describing what their job was, I had this moment of what I call “blinding flashes of the obvious.” [I] realized that the customer had not been mentioned. But I realized that the common denominator was [the person who] had hired all these people. Who had given them their job descriptions? Who had told them what success looked like for them? And it was me.

[We] came up with the simple truth of our business. Our customers [are] coming to us for great memories. Once we realized that, [we] reorganized the business to…focus only on those things the customer really cared about…. We’re just not wasting valuable energy on all the other stuff. [I]t has changed my career, it’s changed my life. When I’m not [at work], I’m confident the decisions are going to be made exactly like I would make them. [In the past], by always being here, I was saying to my management that I don’t trust you guys.

Our reputation in the marketplace has never been better [than it is now]. For me personally, it’s taken a tremendous amount of pressure off. I don’t feel the need to make every decision. That stress and strain has been released from me. It’s clarified for me what my job description is. I’m keeper of the flame. That’s what I do. [Previously, I would have said] I was in charge of everything. I was chief cook and bottle-washer.

Alicia Rockmore

CEO of Buttoned Up

Alicia Rockmore, Queen Bee and CEO of Buttoned Up, left nutrition and personal care company Unilever in 2004 to start her current company, which develops personal organizer systems.

The work ethic [at Unilever] was…work life had to come first. [When I started Buttoned Up], the default was definitely [to] get into the same mode with where [I was] with Unilever. It was another child. I had my daughter, and I had Buttoned Up. There was no blurring of the lines. It was work first. I work out of the house, which made the blurring that much more difficult. I was working all of the time.

I had a nanny, and my daughter was in preschool. I worked during the regular hours, and then I still worked afterwards. Maybe my husband and Lucy were making breakfast [on a Saturday morning], but because the office was there, I went in and did work. Work can always fill the space and time.

Six or nine months into doing it, I got sick. I got a very bad case of bronchitis and realized I just had worn out mentally, as well as physically. I was in bed…[for] four or five days. I couldn’t move. It was that period of time where you have that “a-ha” moment, where you think, This is not good. It [also] gave me the chance to think, What am I missing?

That was the first time I can honestly remember consciously making a choice about work versus personal [life] in the context of Buttoned Up. There were a couple things that I tried to do. I got rid of my BlackBerry. There were so many things coming in that were not urgent, but…every time that thing vibrated, I had to look at it, versus just consciously checking email when I wanted to check email. [It] eventually was replaced by a broadband card. I want to know what’s going on when I’m traveling.
The second big thing was the hours between 6 and 8 at night [became] sacred family time. The nanny leaves at 6. It’s made me feel like a better mother. It made me take a step back and decompress, and it’s made me have a little bit of fun…sometimes [that’s] hard to do when you feel like you’re always on.

As organized as [my] work life was, my personal life was falling apart. I took some time over three or four months to [organize our] life together. That, coupled with asking my husband to help more, made boundaries between personal and professional life clearer.

William “Marty” Kotis III

President and CEO of Kotis Properties

William “Marty” Kotis III, president and CEO of Kotis Properties, says two of his company’s competitive
advantages are speed and responsiveness. So, in order to take the long adventure trips he loves and still keep pace with his business, he loads up on technology.

Sometimes, there will be a property that will present itself that I’m trying to purchase, and I need to keep the deal moving. One week of not moving a project forward may cost me the project. [When I went on a 16-day trip to Mt.Kilimanjaro], I had looked at a couple different options: One was a GSM cell phone…but you can’t always get good coverage with that, so I went with a [satellite] phone, too.

Then I had my Treo that I carry as well. So, I had a GSM Treo and my Verizon-carrier Treo with me. And I had my Motorola with me as well, along with a sat phone. And then, because we were in an area where you can’t quite plug in, I had to bring a solar panel charger for the technology. I drew the line at the laptop and satellite uplink for Internet service. I gave it a lot of consideration, and it was real close, but I wound up not bringing it with me. It’s pretty heavy, a lot of weight. I already had to pay for one extra sherpa [to carry] electronics.

I don’t have to worry about what’s going on. I don’t have to worry about losing a week on a deal because my input was needed. I can sit there [on vacation], and move deals forward, which makes me money, and allows me to take trips like that. Because of the time change, we were seven or eight hours ahead, and so really the main time we talked on the phone from 3 or 4 [p.m.] on to 8 or 9—if I wanted to. Our hikes were over by about 3. When I would get into camp, I would pull out my phone, check in and spend no more than an hour on the phone, and then check back in later right before I went to bed. I had a lot of people wanting to borrow my sat phone. They say they want to be unplugged, but after a little while, you don’t necessarily want to be.