Crafting a Legacy: Insights from Outback Co-Founder, Trudy Cooper

Transcript

Ernestine 0:00

Welcome to Bon Vivant Chic-Life Well Lived the podcast for anyone who wants to cut through today's noise and just listen for a few minutes to meaningful conversations on the human experience and the power of connectedness. I'm your host, Ernestine Morgan, an advocate for kindness with a passion for showcasing human interest stories that matter. Today I'm delighted to be sitting down with Trudy Cooper. Trudy is a successful entrepreneur in the restaurant business. She was one of the four founders of Outback Steakhouse and now a partner in two very popular restaurants in Tampa, Florida On Swan and Oak and Ola Trudy and I have been friends and part of a friends travel group And we play Mahjong together. If you haven't played, you wanted to give it a try. It's fun, isn't it? So let's get started. Trudy, thanks for sitting down with me today.

Trudy 0:51

It's my pleasure to be here.

Ernestine 0:52

Can you share a little bit about where you grew up and what life was like?

Trudy 0:58

I had. What I think is really a remarkable childhood, and it was, non-eventful and everyone I knew shared the same one. But now it's a very unusual background because I was raised very rural. My father was a World War II vet, and he had run a produce company out of Mexico, and my mother had gone to school to become, a tele typist. They don't do it anymore, but it was the early communication link. She went to school and then moved to Los Angeles, coming from a small farm, never having been on a plane. And she moved to Los Angeles, to Burbank Airport to be the tele typist and then they transferred that to LAX she said they had to get the big jackrabbits off of the runway so they could land the planes. She was really the first tele typist at LAX. Which I think is so bizarre. But they came home, they both ended up back in Missouri. They married and moved to a farm and started, raising black Angus cattle and they also raised three children. I have a brother and a sister and we just had a fantastic time being feral children on a farm. In addition to raising the Black Angus, they were registered black Angus, which was a really big thing for my father. We also had pigs and chickens and even bees and of course a number of dogs and cats. We loved it. For a child it couldn't have been more incredible. We didn't even have bicycles, which is funny. I was riding with some women the other day and they're like, this is just like grade school. I'm like, not mine. We had no roads that you could do that on. It was all big gravel roads. It was just a wonderful time. We spent a lot of time, roaming the creeks. Mm-hmm. And looking for arrowheads and whatever it might be. We lived so far out that we rode a bus about 30 miles to school, an interesting thing I always thought is on this route to town, the roads were so bad and some of the kids lived down these paths that were not very well graveled. There was a little store called the Alman Brothers store. And they would, at one point in our journey to school, stop and let all the kids off that didn't live down those paths. We were allowed to buy whatever we wanted, if your parents had given you some money. Of course my favorite snack was kitty clover potato chips.

Ernestine 3:18

You still like

Trudy 3:18

potato chips? I still like potato chips. It was just, very rural existence and I loved it very much. I had a pet cow.

Ernestine 3:27

You had a pet cow.

Trudy 3:28

She was this beautiful black. Milk cow. And she had a set of horns that had a divot. I would spend time out in the field with her putting flowers in her divot. And she was just very near and dear to me, and I was so proud of her because she was the lead cow. And when we moved cattle from one farm to another, we'd all get behind the cattle herd. And she was the alpha, the lead cow, because cows won't cross bridges or anything that doesn't have a bottom to the, so she somehow was brave enough to do that. And then the rest of the cows would fall.

Ernestine 4:00

My gosh,

Trudy 4:01

that's my milky. Our grandparents were a big part of our life. One of my grandpas would stop along the roadside. He knew I loved flowers, so he would pick flowers from, these old homesteads,, that had planted irises and peonies and different things. Always a lot of fun and church was a really big part of our rural life because it was also the community center. You did Halloween trick or treating there, you did Christmas parties there in addition to church services and Sunday school and summer camp and all that stuff. It all took place in the church and my parents both taught Sunday school and were really involved with that. My grandmother was one of the first. Female deacons of that church. Actually their family had started the church 150 years before that so it was in the blood. Faith is certainly a big part of my life something that I always thought was unusual about my growing up was that because my father, had run these produce trucks out of Mexico, we went to Mexico as a family, every year or so. We would take whatever station wagon we were driving in the dead of winter, generally to get to warmer weather and head across the country from northeast Missouri to Old Mexico, which is what he called it, and we would cross into the border towns and he knew people that he had known when he was younger, police officers, servers in some of the restaurants. And it was just a real first look at, being involved in a different culture and how we were perceived and how we perceived those around us. It was, unusual,

Ernestine 5:35

How cool as a kid to be able to explore and discover new cultures that's really neat that your parents did that

Trudy 5:41

And I'm sure it probably strapped them to get the money to do that, but it was something that they felt was really important and it exposed you to so much interesting stuff. No one had ever heard of an avocado in those days, but we were all over Guacamole.

Ernestine 5:56

Yeah. One of my favorite foods, exactly. Who had the biggest influence on you when you were young?

Trudy 6:02

I think being from such a rural environment, I was heavily influenced by my parents I had three living grandparents and they were a huge part of our life and just such a loving way and, my grandfather was the rural male carrier. He started on horseback, went to Indian motorcycle, and then ended up, in a Jeep and a car. So when we were children, we would walk down to our mailbox and jump in the car with grandpa and he would take us back to grandma's house and we'd surprise her. That was very exciting for us. And then my grandmother never drove and she was a real community leader and it was her mission to teach all of her grandchildren how to read before school, which was unusual then, now we're, how early can we get'em going? But that wasn't like that back then. That was fantastic., My other grandfather, my father's father. Was a true character they said he could do a freestanding back flip into his sixties. I never witnessed that, but I'm sure having known him, that's probably possible. He would drive us around in his old red pickup truck and teach us old songs. So the three kids were here of course. No seat belts, and drive through the country singing with him. A. Very colorful person

Ernestine 7:21

and your family held onto the farm

Trudy 7:23

we still own all of it. My husband and I ended up buying another small farm when we were younger we still try to get up there every year at least for the morale mushroom season.

Ernestine 7:33

I bet it brings back such fond memories to run around up there. Yeah. Now

Trudy 7:38

oh, it does. We love it.

Ernestine 7:39

That's so cool. What was your very first job and how did it shape you?

Trudy 7:44

I had a lot of really bizarre and interesting jobs, my parents, when we were getting towards high school, they pursued becoming concessionaires at Thousand Hills State Park, which was a state park outside of the college town where I ended up going later. It was an odd thing to add to your life, but we had. Boats, which we rented, we sold, bait and we also had a beach and a restaurant. So each of those things we became very involved in, and all of us had a job doing those. We learned how to,, count money back by people at the counter, helping us. We stamped hands as people came in to go swimming. Our lifeguards were all professors at the university nearby. A lot of fun. I also had a really remarkable job at, Edna Campbell's Bookstore in Kirksville. We had jobs during the winter and I worked at Edna Campbell's bookstore, which it was owned by two professors. It was a very nice gift store as well as a very hardcore bookstore. Learned so much there about culture and academics and, how you're perceived in the world. A lot of great stuff that they taught me.

Ernestine 8:53

Larry and I drove through Kirksville when we were up there not too long ago, looking for the farm that he was born on, it's beautiful.

Trudy 9:01

Oh, it's just amazing. They call it little Switzerland. People don't really understand that it's so hilly and gorgeous like that, it's very beautiful. Except for those darn chiggers,

Ernestine 9:12

Uhhuh

Trudy 9:12

and ticks.

Ernestine 9:13

Well, we have those here too.

Trudy 9:14

You're right.

Ernestine 9:15

Which, by the way, how did you end up in Florida?

Trudy 9:18

After college I taught art for a few years in that same community that I lived in. That was truly, to this day, the most difficult job I've ever had. I loved it, but you can't make everyone happy. The school board, the parents, the students. It was really an interesting dynamic and, I'd loved it, but it was very difficult. I taught first through 12th, so that's a lot of different, mind games to play. But I, did enjoy it and learned a great deal. It's so exciting to come into your first real job and, you're like, here's my classroom. What do I do with this? How do I build this into something that I'm proud of? Really, I loved it. But I had been to Colorado for a summer trip, and I convinced a friend to move with me to Durango. In part to get away from that job and also just to explore the world. Durango was fantastic for two young women having a great time and we really wanted to learn how to ski I got a job at the ski area as a binding technician, which,, adjusts your bindings when you go to ski. And I'd never. Skied. So that was a stretch, but really interesting. I learned real quickly. And that was in a resort called Tamron. The sister resort to Tamon is called Innisbrook in Tarpon Springs. Some of us were like, oh, this has been so fantastic. Let's go to Florida to this little town called Tarpon Springs, which is a Greek fishing village. We envisioned Greek gods on the beach and we set out, we showed up, in the middle of the night at the gates of Innisbrook early one morning. And Innisbrook at that point was out in the middle of nowhere. There were no buildings around it. So we pull up and. Checked in, and then we drove down into the little town of Tarpon and we went to a donut store and realized that we had made a terrible mistake that there was no beach and certainly no Greek gods of our age. We made the best of it and, decided we would still stay and learn how to scuba dive, which was the mission. I had an apartment on Gulf to Bay, and it was right next to a store that was opening called Bennigan's, we didn't know what that was I thought, I'll just get a job there. How hard can it be? So I went in and applied as a hostess. When I was applying for the job, there was this really good looking guy in the hiring trailer and it was like, oh man, I hope he does my interview. He did. I went home from that interview and told my crazy roommate that I had met my husband. I said, that's him. Yeah. So that was John.

Ernestine 11:46

I haven't heard that story. That's great.

Trudy 11:48

It took a few years to make that come to fruition, but that. Became the path. Which was a turning point in my life. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Ernestine 11:58

He's terrific.

Trudy 11:59

A hundred percent involved. He's been a wonderful partner in every aspect of our life, that was fantastic. Being at Bennigan's, I met Chris Sullivan and Bob Basham They were supervisors with the restaurant, we talked a lot, got to know them really well. And they asked if I would come and direct training for a concept. They had decided they left Bennigan's to do called Chili's. We were a franchise of the four Chili's that were in existence. And it was very different, it was a taco chili store back then, and we were a franchise, but yet we did add baby back ribs and fas and a lot of the things that went on to make chilies really popular. We opened 18 Florida, Georgia chilies. In that timeframe. Chris was like, I'm gonna go find something else. They sold that back to Chili's Incorporated, and Bob and I stayed for a little bit and then he came to us and said, okay, I've got it. We're going to expand the Hooters concept, It had been such a great journey with these two guys that I agreed to do that. The attorneys didn't come to terms with that project, so the three of us were like, oh, guess we don't have a job right now. We sat down at this glass tabletop of Chris's and came up with the concept of Outback Steakhouse. People always ask, why Australia? It was really simply because we wanted to do a steakhouse, but the only thing out there was a Texas Roadhouse everything was Roadhouse.

Ernestine 13:27

Mm-hmm.

Trudy 13:27

We decided that it had been the bicentennial of Australia. And people loved that because Australians were still like the Wild West and, it was, a very different feel than we thought, that would play well in the United States. None of us had been to Australia. So when we sat down and. Planned it out. I went to the library because there was no internet and I was the creative in the group. So they're like, go figure out what this means. They're finding sites and hiring. It was so rich with ideas. The Ned Kelly story, the kangaroo, the country itself is just so fascinating and such a different dynamic. Once we had the original plan, we. Contacted Tim Gannon. He was still in New Orleans. He came on board to be our restaurant connection. It really is. No rules, just right. Which later became our famous tagline that expressed so well what Outback was. At that point we were only going to do a couple of restaurants and, we opened the first couple and the line formed around the building.

Ernestine 14:31

Oh, wow.

Trudy 14:32

And we'd never actually sat down again and said, let's just blow it out and keep going. We just opened one restaurant after the other. It wasn't really a franchise organization, but we came up with ways to share with our partners in really wonderful ways. And it was joint ventures. My husband became a joint venture of ours, and we then moved to Orlando. I worked from there so that he could be involved in our organization. It was. Wonderful to work side by side in completely different capacities, all those years being able to bounce off of each other was really good. We did 12 years in Orlando, then came back to, tampa, Clearwater area.

Ernestine 15:11

The founders had roles and mixed together really nicely.

Trudy 15:14

Yeah, which part do you wanna take? And I wanted to stick with building the culture and training the teams that went out to open all of these restaurants that we now had on our plate. We opened 95 restaurants in one year.

Ernestine 15:27

Wow.

Trudy 15:28

I go back and kind of like, was that real? And it was, oh. And most of them were at the end of the year,

Ernestine 15:33

that's amazing.

Trudy 15:34

And the way we could do that, people at the time were like, oh, you're gonna water it down, but how can you do that? But we had such phenomenal teams, if you were a joint venture partner, you owned your area. John in Orlando was responsible for getting his poll signed, for hiring, firing, and really, continuing that path. I wrote the training materials, I directed the trainers. We eventually had VPs of training for all of the concepts that we took on. But it was still very, regionalized. You had ownership in what you were doing.

Ernestine 16:08

Mm-hmm.

Trudy 16:08

I was able to pull all of those trainers into central locations over the years and we would do two meetings a year offsite, amazing locations, for unit level people. And I would bring in guest speakers. We did personality traits. Discovery. Just all kinds of incredible things because these people, even though they were unit level, they went on through our system to become our managing partners and it was such a grassroots learning, and there's no better way to learn the restaurant industry than in a restaurant opening because everyone's on board the best and the brightest. We're doing our best possible job. And so being a trainer and getting to witness, that really built some strength in our people.

Ernestine 16:54

hugely successful in Outback and you retired after Outback and you had some time in between, were you bored?

Trudy 17:04

No, and I think we all work our entire lives for that moment when we can retire. And I think what you're really looking for is just being able to make your own decisions. It's not that you don't want to go be a part of something, it's insulting to have to be there at six in the morning to give another meeting type stuff. We had been in such incredibly. High impact role. restaurant industry is always young, it's always moving. It's always crazy. So for us, the thought of just walking into the sunset was scary. Mm-hmm. It's like, we're just gonna walk away from all of this. Even before we actually, knew we were headed out, even before we put in our last day there, we were thinking in terms of let's do another restaurant because our kids were living in at the time, LA and Boulder, Colorado. So we traveled with them to those locations as well as everywhere, looking at just awesome stuff. We're restaurant people, so we always migrate to the latest and greatest restaurants, no matter where we are. We had a lot of ideas, I saw a lot of things that I wanted to try. So we started putting that on paper. John and I just kind of coming up with our first concept, which was On Swan and, at that point, I had worked with the designer out of New Orleans a phenomenal man, Patrick Dunn. He agreed to consult with us, so that was super fun in and of itself. And, then we found a chef and partnered with that chef and also partnered with, a training person that had always been with us. We wanted to make sure we had partners after we did this restaurant because we did want the flexibility. We wanted a lot of, ability to travel and do what we wanted.

Ernestine 18:47

So you don't have to be there every day.

Trudy 18:49

Yes. Yeah. And having other people who have their money and their heart on the line was really important to us. So we did that. And, when we opened on Swan, it was a phenomenal success and when we first started thinking about it, it's like, oh man, what if it doesn't go well? What if we embarrass ourselves? But as soon as you get down the path to putting it on paper and really getting in the mode and the role, I never thought about it. We never looked back and it was just start hiring people and everyone's excited.

Ernestine 19:19

And you have partners in this concept.

Trudy 19:21

We partnered with Chris and Michelle Pont. And Chris Areola. And John and myself. That was our partnership. And it's so much fun to do things with partners because you,, feed off of each other and

Ernestine 19:34

what a fabulous location too. Old Hyde Park. You really came in at the right time.'cause it has blossomed.

Trudy 19:40

We did, and after we opened, we were so blessed because it was like a block party every night in the restaurant and we were so embraced. And I remember during the opening night. It was heavily raining, and a little portion of our ceiling fell.

Ernestine 19:56

Oh no.

Trudy 19:56

And that's disaster. But everyone in the restaurant was cheering and got mops and bruises and cleaning up because they had such ownership in it. This is our place. Wow. And I thought that was fantastic. Yeah. And we have, been recognized in ways and so that makes it fun. That was so much fun that we thought, well, let's do it one more time. So we partnered with Chef Ann Kearney. Andy Ganger and Chris Areola. and Did our second restaurant, which is Oak and Ola. Which is another fa

Ernestine 20:26

fabulous location too.

Trudy 20:28

Yeah, right on the river walk. It's been a great location out there and a lot of fun for us. There's just nothing like being involved in something, and being. Around all of that energy that everyone gives off. It's been super rewarding for sure.

Ernestine 20:43

That's great. You've helped to build three amazing businesses. What are some of the most rewarding moments while helping to build these businesses?

Trudy 20:51

I've really learned that the creative process, the creative phase is my thing. Even with Outback, when we were in that phase of deciding what it meant be outback, and also with these two restaurants and getting to be involved with that end of it just lights me up. Seeing your ideas that you've spent so many hours putting on paper and thinking through come to life is just, nothing like that. I think after that it's just the relationships being in the restaurant industry is sort of like being in a club because it's kind of like, who else is crazy enough to do it? Who else will work those hours and give up every weekend and every holiday and do that? So you do kind of form a fraternity that's really important. We have relationships that are lifelong.

Ernestine 21:39

Mm-hmm.

Trudy 21:40

Chris, Bob, Tim are still great friends as well as all the people we've met along the way. And then, because it became such a vast enterprise. The Outback did, you realize that you're touching lives, but you don't realize it until later. I think you never know when you influence people or what it is you do that does that, or what they take and hold onto. And so it's been really surprising and fun and rewarding when people come up to me and tell me those stories. 10 years ago it was my first job at Outback. Now the stockbrokers. It's really interesting.

Ernestine 22:15

We Went to Outback not too long ago. The manager was there and he had this little book that he said, was what, 25 years old?

Trudy 22:24

Yeah.

Ernestine 22:24

He'd had it for a long time. It was all worn. And something that you had created long ago.

Trudy 22:30

That was our set of principles and beliefs we felt that it was really important we sat down with a professor, a good friend of ours, and he said, once you get a little past, being able to actually touch every person in your restaurant, you are going to lose something. So you need to write down what's happened, what's been so successful, why you're succeeding, and then it will touch people forever. So we kicked and screamed. It's not really our style to do that but we spent months with this man really picking our brain and writing down how we wanted to do business and how we wanted to treat all of our people, our out backers, our vendors, our guests, everyone involved in the enterprise. That book became, our Principles and Beliefs. And honestly, at the very first, we just put it in the drawer and, we talked about it, but it had a life of its own and it came out of that drawer and people were so impacted by it. So touched. We then as a corporation started training it. Every quarter at least we'd bring people from outside across the country in, and we would really go through that and teach our principles and beliefs, our values, our,, belief system., Then at one point we made those little books and I was just at the home office a month or two ago, and everyone there had it in their back pocket. That's super amazing. How cool is that? And very rewarding for sure. And I've had people say,, not only do I use this in my restaurant, but I've raised my family with it.

Ernestine 24:00

Oh, wow.

Trudy 24:01

So it's far reaching.

Ernestine 24:02

Definitely impactful, i'm sure there's been many pivotal moments or decisions that change the course of your life. Are there a couple that stand out to you?

Trudy 24:12

I think my marriage, which is a huge thing in anyone's life. We've had a really wonderful marriage, making that commitment to someone and then living your life with them is very impactful. And the decision to have children, even when your crazy. life is full and you have no time to do that, but you make that decision. And that was really one of the best decisions I ever made. The best thing that ever happened to me. For sure. I have a son and a daughter and they're both just awesome. I think also,, when you ask about pivotal moments, there are so many small ones, and we talk about, we pivot when we play Mahjong too.

Ernestine 24:49

Yeah. We do.

Trudy 24:49

You back yourself into a corner and it's like, this isn't gonna happen, so I need to pivot. And I think it's the same in life, you really have to be flexible and you have take those moments and try to embrace them and, no one has a unscathed life for sure. Another really big pivotal moment was meeting Chris Sullivan and Bob Basham they started when I was an employee at Bennigan's and said, come on, let's go do this. They believed in me. I had no background in restaurants. I was in, education and arts and so just having that partnership with them. They think completely out of the box, and they're just so amazing. They're just amazing creatures. So I will always be thankful for them. They did change my life and it was a very good pivot,

Ernestine 25:36

They obviously recognized something in you that elevated what the, business turned out to be.

Trudy 25:42

We all seem to have. What we found interesting. I did think it was interesting over those years that no one really messed with the other. It's not like we didn't talk. It's not like we didn't, get direction from each other, but it was always like, that's your deal. How are we gonna do it?

Ernestine 25:58

And

Trudy 25:59

I think that happened to be a really good scenario for

Ernestine 26:02

me. That's cool. I love that. What advice would you give someone interested in the restaurant business? Opening up a restaurant?

Trudy 26:09

Yeah. Run, no, restaurant, it's been very good to me and I've enjoyed every moment of it, but I think realistically you have to understand the challenges because even more so now certainly more so than when we started out back, It's very challenging, the commodities, labor, prices, all those things make it very difficult to have a successful, enterprise at this point. But I would suggest you do it with partners because I just think being the lone ranger, there's always decision making, so many decisions, and I think it's more fun, and it's positive for everyone to have someone else involved. And then just understanding that it's a really tough lifestyle that, do you love it enough to close a restaurant every night? Because no matter where you come in, unless you're just the money guy, you are going to work that restaurant. Chris trained our hostesses at the first few Outbacks. Bob was in the kitchen trying to decide how to lay out the line. You can't get in without being at the bottom rung. You have to work really hard and the weekends and holidays a lot of people don't wanna give that up. So it is challenging, but super rewarding We have many out backers who have left us and also from our last two restaurants who are now doing just phenomenal little restaurants or bars or whatever it might be you can still do it.

Ernestine 27:27

Yeah. Good advice. What are some life lessons you've learned that you wish you knew earlier?

Trudy 27:33

Something. That was always interesting to me is how people want to pigeonhole you. They want to say, oh, you're this kind of a person and you should do this, or You are afraid of this, or You're not the athlete, and I think that you have to understand that you can't listen to that it's somebody's concept of you. And sometimes it's a good thing, but generally it's a bad thing because you believe it and I don't know why we want to believe what we hear, but we do. I know everyone has a story about something that you were told when you were six years old that you went on to believe for the rest of your life. I think that's a really good life lesson. And understanding that everyone is on a different mission and life is hard and you don't understand what. They're going through and roll with it. And be kind to people because they're going through tough stuff.

Ernestine 28:25

You never know

Trudy 28:25

what someone else is. You never know

Ernestine 28:27

is going through.

Trudy 28:28

There was this little book that we used to give out to the trainers that I thought it was very effective because, it's not a big book and you can get the concept pretty quickly and carry it with you. It's called the Four Agreements. And I know lots of people have heard of it, but the four agreements are be impeccable with your words, impeccable means without sin. It means don't say stuff against yourself. Because sin is to do something against yourself. And, don't take anything personal, which is kind of what I'm getting at. Because people say things, they're not thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves. And that has always been hard for me, to grasp. But it's so very true. Don't make assumptions. We know we've all gone down that path. and it has not turned out right. And then always to just do your best it's difficult to do your best. You have to get up every day and go, I'm gonna do this. It may not be what I wanna do, but it's the best. And then I would add one to that. It's do it now. There was something I saw online and it's this crazy guy going, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. And I'm not a procrastinator. I recognize that and embrace that, but I think the do it now is important for everyone's life. It's just quit thinking about it.

Ernestine 29:40

Absolutely. What lessons about family and relationships would you pass along to younger generations?

Trudy 29:47

It's hard to pass on lessons because everyone seems to have to learn themselves. Our son and daughter are just our biggest blessings and they continue to enrich our lives in so many ways. I think really just keeping close to your family and trying to understand them and your extended family too. Everyone has such a different. Path through this life. And so trying to, keep people close and be involved with their lives has been something that's been important to me.

Ernestine 30:17

What do you think is the secret to a fulfilling and happy life?

Trudy 30:21

I think being engaged with something is, at least for me, and like I said, you're rushing towards retirement, but then you realize once you retire it's like, okay, well, now wait, there's still stuff, I still have energy. As you having supportive people around you, your personal faith, staying connected, and this is sounds, tree hugger, but staying connected to nature being outdoors. And anytime I have. Someone that crosses my path that's really struggling emotionally. It's like, have you been outside?

Ernestine 30:51

Mm-hmm.

Trudy 30:52

Have you taken a walk? Great

Ernestine 30:53

advice in the woods advice.

Trudy 30:53

And I think that sounds so trivial, but it's really important. You are, trying the best you can to live a healthy life, because when you're young, you don't ever think any of that's gonna catch up with you. But we all know it does. You just don't wanna really think about it. Faith, personal faith I think is really important. And then trying every day to have gratitude for what you have in your life. We're so blessed here in America regardless of all of our issues, we're blessed and we need to have gratitude for whatever those beautiful things in our day are. Whether it's, birds flying over or just that incredible sunset or whatever it might be, you can find it out there. And again, learning to pivot.

Ernestine 31:35

Wonderful thoughts. What would you say keeps you. Inspired and motivated today?

Trudy 31:41

Traveling and exposing yourself to things that get you excited. I think, being around people who are out there doing like you, you're an inspiration that you did this. You told me I'm gonna do this, and you did it. And there's so much of that around you that I think it's really, a great thing to stay out and among people and, I think a lot of people, you get home, you get comfy. It's like, I don't wanna go out and, you know do I have to attend

Ernestine 32:07

Uhhuh?

Trudy 32:07

But attending is important. Yeah. And we know it for many reasons. There are so many phenomenally interesting people, which your podcast is proving that you meet when you're out and about, I really do thrive on that and just, copying what other people have done, that's the best form of flattery. There's a lot of things like that. I've always been, as you can probably tell a little. Too hyper. I have a lot of energy and I've always seemed to wanna explore what's around the corner., That gets me excited. I definitely, that's

Ernestine 32:38

great.

Trudy 32:39

Wanna see it?

Ernestine 32:39

You're such a beautiful artist too. Oh, thank you. You are so talented.

Trudy 32:43

Thank you. I started in art, but then that went by the wayside. But I've always kept it on the side and it's, a lot of fun for me. I thought I wanted to play music too, so I tried to play the mandolin. I thought after retirement I'd become this raging artist and musician, and I still touch them, but. Not enough. I want to do more of that.

Ernestine 33:02

As you know, I've been in the philanthropic space for quite some time, and philanthropy means different things to different people. I saw a video clip where you went to, Afghanistan?

Trudy 33:17

Yeah.

Ernestine 33:17

And did a program where you cooked for all the soldiers. And that was amazing.

Trudy 33:23

When we started Outback, we spent some very dedicated time making that set of principles and beliefs. And one of those principles and beliefs was, we give for the sake of giving, and that was written into our principles and beliefs. It wasn't for the taking, it was for the giving for the sake of doing it. It was interesting because that Afghanistan thing, which was phenomenal, I volunteered to go on the 11th year, it was called Feeding Freedom. It started because we are close to McDill Air Force Base, so we know some of the generals and they're just kind of in our path. So we were talking once and saying, wow, you have a lot of people to feed, we feed people. Wouldn't it be cool if we could come up with some way to help? And he said, oh yeah, we can do that. So they sent a transport plane and we put one of our trucks on the back of it. And the first year was truly about like that. We sent people to Afghanistan, some grill cooks, and a few people that was a life altering experience in and of itself. So rewarding. We cooked for 40,000 troops the year I went. Wow. And of course our volunteers don't do that. We go into their kitchens and they help us. But our grill cooks, we would set up grill that were as far as the, I could see and just put the steaks on there. So it was, quite an experience. Very frightening.

Ernestine 34:40

I'm sure very meaningful to all,

34:42

very

Trudy 34:42

meaningful all the

Ernestine 34:42

troops there. Thank you for doing that.

Trudy 34:44

It was our pleasure it was a wonderful thing. It was very important to us to teach people philanthropy too, and to give for the sake of giving. So we built that into our fiber, to be part of our communities and at all levels. And doing that with grassroots marketing. We actually gave every restaurant a budget so they could use that as they saw fit. If they had a little league team they wanted to support or their local church, that was their call. Trying to get it to the local level. With the help of vendors, we created some amazing golf tournaments and road races. The Orlando Magic partnered with us for several things Each department planned a day of volunteer once a year like the construction department, there are a lot of people in the construction department, everyone wanted them. Because they could actually build something. They built bridges in parks and, we did a lot of work with Metropolitan ministries and feeding people. We also started something that was a poignant thing. As you get so huge and you're across the United States and the world actually there are, tragedies when you know that many people, there's someone who's child is ill, there's someone who can't. Do a service for a loved one. They just don't have the money. And we had a lot of people trying to take care of those people, so there'd be a lot of communication about, Hey, anybody wanna send money to do this. It wasn't organized. We as a corporation decided, let's help out here. We formed something called the Outback Trust. And I created a pretty lapel pin and we sold the lapel pins for a donation so that every outback at every station could give whatever they chose to give. Get the pin be a part of that program. And then people, would send letters. They would apply for the money. So people didn't have to share the worst moment of their life, it went through a committee and then they would decide how much they could give to that person I ran across one of the pins the other day and it was like, wow. That was a great thing. we did Charity nights at every opening that we'd pick a charity. And the first night of sales went to them. I was in the restaurant a year or so ago, and there were these. Lunch, ladies with hats. And they looked really adorable and it was a birthday. They had a cake with them and they got me aside and asked what their server's name was. I told them, and they were writing a card out. And I said, what's up? What do y'all doing? And they said, we all have everything we want. We don't want presents from our friends. It's just a waste of money and time. So what we do at everybody's birthday is we pick a new restaurant and the money that we would've spent for a gift towards that person's birthday, we gather that together, put the cash in a card. And when we get there, we write a card to the person that's waiting on us. So it's a substantial amount of money.

Ernestine 37:35

What a great idea.

Trudy 37:36

Oh my gosh, I love it. And we were like, that's. Outrageously. Cool. So they left and I circled back to the server that had that table and he was in tears. He had actually needed money at that point in time. And so it was just, manna from heaven, and to be able to see how your little things like that can change someone's life

Ernestine 37:59

what a great idea. Yeah, we should do that.

Trudy 38:01

I think so too. Let's everybody

Ernestine 38:02

out there, we should do this.

Trudy 38:04

We don't need those gifts.

Ernestine 38:05

Awesome. That is terrific.

Trudy 38:07

And because I'm in the restaurant industry, I try to always over tip because having been on that end of it to get an extra five bucks that you don't think that table is going to leave you changes your day, and so that's just my personal little thing I do. Just because Why not?

Ernestine 38:23

I love that. Philanthropy really continues to be part of your culture in all the businesses that you have?

Trudy 38:29

Very much so.

Ernestine 38:30

And personally too.

Trudy 38:31

Yep. We try to do the same in our restaurants now and, like you say, when you're involved in philanthropy, both sides win because it's such a high to be able to make a difference in someone's life.

Ernestine 38:43

Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks so much for sharing. This has been great. Thanks so much for sitting down with me today.

Trudy 38:49

Oh, thanks for having me. I've been pretty blessed and I'm super grateful for my life and, the outback. Experience has been a big part of that. My friends now, my husband, my children, my grandchild. Life is so good and there's so much that we can pull from it and enjoy.

Ernestine 39:08

That's terrific.

Ernestine 39:09

Thanks for listening to Bon Vivant Chic Life Well Lived. I hope you'll tune in for more meaningful stories on the human experience and share with family and friends. A special shout out to Will Cooper, out of Nashville, Tennessee for providing this season's music. All the episodes are available wherever you listen to podcasts, including my website. Bonvivantchic.com Till next time. Remember, every day is a gift. Live it with kindness.