The Table Where It All Happens — Jeff Stern on Restaurateur, Coaching, and Finding Your Purpose

What happens when a life built around the restaurant business becomes the foundation for something much greater?

In this episode, Brandon sits down with Jeff Stern — restaurateur, life and business coach, and host of his own podcast The Tables Where We Grew Up — for a conversation that's as nourishing as a great meal shared with family.

Jeff opens up about his entrepreneurial journey, managing multiple restaurant establishments simultaneously in New Jersey, and what it taught him about pressure, independence, and resilience. But the conversation goes much deeper than business. Jeff and Brandon explore the fear of failure that holds so many people back, how loss can become a catalyst for personal growth, and what it truly means to find your purpose on the other side of it all.

They also dig into the power of the dinner table — not just as a place to eat, but as the space where real conversations happen, families connect, and identities are shaped. Jeff's mission to help young adults connect through cooking is a reflection of everything he's lived and learned.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a coach, or simply someone searching for more clarity and purpose, this episode will leave you thinking long after the table has been cleared.

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Transcript

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welcome back to another episode of the Clarity Confidence and Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Sanderson, and today's guest is someone who has built his life around one of the most powerful things we often take for granted: the table. Jeff Stern is a restaurateur, a certified Jay Shetty coach, a father and a husband. He's launching a workshop helping teens and young adults connect with cooking. And he hosts his own podcast called The Tables Where We Grew Up, where he explores the stories and conversations that shaped us around the dinner table. Jeff, welcome to the Clarity Confidence and Growth Podcast. Really happy to have you here. Tell us a bit more about yourself. Well, Brandon, first I just want to say thank you for inviting me onto your podcast. I was looking forward to it this week, not knowing where it was gonna go, but we're here now, so I'll I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I've been in the food service industry since I'm sixteen years of age. worked in multiple places in in the States as well as in Europe. at the age of 30, I opened up my first business and really had that fire, that entrepreneurial spirit. I wanted to be a multi-unit operator. and so over the course of the years, opportunity did arise here in my community in New Jersey, and we were able to reach three units, three establishments at once. and it was difficult because they were all seven days a week. And at the time I did not have a manager. And it was a lot of pressure. It was a lot of stress. but I enjoyed it. I mean I really felt a great sense of accomplishment. I had a great sense of independence. very entrepreneurial I would say. And so I, you know, reached yeah, I reached some some terrific goals that I had. I'm a father of two. married for thirty-five years. and I believe in connection. One of my core values is connection. I love being around people, I love speaking with people. I love creativity, I love innovation. that's amazing that you were able to you know, thirty five years that's a big accomplishment of being married and two kids. That's awesome. And I think looking at that as well, you mentioned that you have you're very good with conversation. you like connection. You love that family connection. I think that really resonates out from you in everything that you do. Whenever you connect with somebody wanting to call them, talk on the phone, any conversation, you always want to have that not text connection. And I think that really streams around your podcast as well, the table where we grew up. It's really about that connection, that dinner table. bringing back that closeness With that being said, what would clarity actually look like or feel like for you? And during that time when you were being an entrepreneur, sounds like a lot of clarity there of I knew I wanted to do this, I was hitting those goals. That would have been a clear mind, clear focus of where you were at. looking at now or any time in your life, what's that clarity actually look like? clarity became apparent at the age of probably twenty-nine. I had gone to school for hotel restaurant management, worked for organizations throughout the country. And I realized that if I ever wanted to achieve financial independence, that I would need to do something on my own, that there was always going to be a salary cap working for the companies. A lot of restrictions, you gotta play by their rules. So the clarity for me was the decision to go out on my own. I felt that I had the skills, I had the knowledge, I had the confidence, and I just needed a little financial support, and we were off to the races. So it was kind of clear to me by the age of thirty that I wanted to be self-employed, uh that I had the skills, I had the knowledge, I had what it would take. to operate a facility, to operate a restaurant. So Clarity hit me at a young age and it stayed with me you know up until probably four or five years ago where that burning desire, that creativity, that innovation, just that fire started to dwindle a little bit. A sense of feeling tired, not so much burnt out, but it's a hard industry. The restaurant business is a very difficult industry, and then these days it's getting harder and harder. But I know what my strengths are, I know what my personality is, the fact of being surrounded and building a team of workers. I love walking through the dining room and talking with the customers, shaking hands. That's just really all a part of me and my personality. So yeah. really comes back to connection and that really connection piece. And I think, you know It's kind of funny that you said twenty nines when you had that kind of I wanna go out on my own because I lost my job this year, obviously at twenty eight and I'd been there since I was sixteen and that was really I I knew I didn't want to work for an organization anymore where there was a cap, there's a a limit on what you can do. Your autonomy's only so much. you learn all the skills, but you're bound to this organization and you know, I think I had that almost that same shift you had of I can do this myself. Myself. I've gotten all these skills from this 12 years I've worked in industry. Let's try to go out and I liked the people. I liked having a team that I could coach and watch grow and get to number three in the company, get to be like the top restaurant, you know, like those are the types of things that I think. Anyone who comes into this coaching industry is I think a lot of what connects us is that we all love people. We all love connecting with people. We want to be that change of the clarity to having that confidence to then growing. And you know Being that you said that you were in that from a long time, from twenty nine until about five years ago, can you walk us through a moment where maybe things were getting clearer that you needed to have a change from being that restaurant tour that you were for so long? You know, there really isn't a period or a time where I had that feeling. I was blessed with following a passion. And the passion was cooking and the passion was people. And I just kept following that passion. I would get an idea and I'd follow up with it. And I just ran with it. And it made my wife crazy because I never really asked her about well how would you feel about doing this, I would just go to her and say, I've got this idea for a seafood restaurant and we're gonna be doing the following. And it started to have an impact on our marriage. You know, the fact that I never really respected what she wanted to do. It was always about what Jeff wanted to do. and so it came to a session with a therapist and we were talking about my marriage and she had asked me a question and it just dawned on me that for all of these years I was so inconsiderate and not asking my wife What are her thoughts? What do you want to do? Now my wife her resume was she wanted to raise a family and be a housewife and take care of the household. So I never put pressure on her to go to school and get a degree and find a career. Um she was lucky enough to raise the boys and then when they were old enough to come home from school and be on their own, she came to work at the restaurants. So there was never I mean I'm I'm blessed because it was my mother's suggestion. I want to say blessed and not blessed. It was her suggestion to get into the hospitality industry. If I knew how hard it was going to be when I was at that age in life, I may have thought differently. every weekend, every holiday, six, seven days a week. But If you're passionate about people, if you're passionate about connection, if you can train your staff and you have the right support, you take the time off, you delegate, you empower others. And that's I mean, that's what I really enjoy doing. I enjoy empowering the staff. so that they're motivated and that they feel good about themselves, not necessarily doing it for Jeff, but doing it to take pride in their own work. And to me, when I see that, it makes me feel good about what I've established, what I've built. For sure. And having an empowered leader that does empower you makes that staff go, okay, yeah, I'm doing it for me, but I'm also empowered by Jeff, so I want to make Jeff successful. And I think that's a big thing that I think is almost being lost not just around the dinner table with the family, but also with businesses. Like they don't want to empower it's we just want output, output, output. And I think having that leadership style of empowering a team really does make things go farther. I really haven't wanted to develop any other type of career because it's so nice to be able to use your strength to see people develop to bring somebody on as a teenager and they work for you for a number of years and they mature and to witness their growth. and they share their gratitude with you. Thank you for, you know, bringing me along and mentoring me. it's very, very rewarding. It's difficult, but it lives in your heart, you know, it really does. It's a very rewarding situation. And you become such a big part of that person's life. So much more than you know. I think of all the leaders I've had actually today. I was with my friend's mom a lot of today. We went out shopping. That friend's mom I went out with was my first leader at Best Buy, and she helped me so much at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen grow my career for as long as I was there. We're very close now. And her mom wanted to go out of town to a store and she doesn't like driving out that way and has got rid of her vehicle and I was like, let's go. Like, you know, it's you guys do so much for me. Let's go and do this. And I think you can create such relationships from being that person in somebody's life. And I also wanted to add Jeff when you said there about how you let your wife just kind of be the woman to hold the family, have the kids, stay at home with them. That's so familiar to me because my dad let my mom do the same thing. My mom was a stay at home mom. She got to stay home with us. She volunteered at the school. She did all the like mom activities that a stay at home mom would do. She was just always there. And I think it is seeing that from a kid's perspective, it's a lot of like relationship time with your mom and I think that's awesome that you gave your wife that ability and it's not something that a lot of people have and have the ability to do now. So I think that's amazing. Yeah. So where do you see confidence break down most for people you work with? So when I think about confidence, I think confidence it starts being instilled in you at an early age. So for instance, the time that you spend with family, the time that you spend engrossed in conversation with your parents, with your parents challenging you with questions of morality, values, These are things that help build your identity and your sense of belonging. Um, and it helps you feel good about yourself. And confidence, I believe, comes from when you feel good about yourself, when you know yourself, when you understand who you are and who you're not. And there's so much peer pressure these days. There's always been peer pressure, you know, that teenage age is a very, very difficult, awkward age. but the confidence the confidence begins when you understand your capabilities. trying not to be something that you know you're not. and loving yourself. So confidence really is to me Loving yourself, knowing yourself, and respecting yourself. So growing up for me, I had very low self-esteem, very, very low self-esteem, very low self-confidence. of all of my friends, of all of my peers, I was the shortest. And there wasn't a lot of bullying. I didn't get bullied, but I didn't make the athletic teams that all of my friends made. And it really I mean, I could hit the ball and throw the ball and make the basket and I could do everything that they were doing, but I just wasn't big enough to make the team, so to say. And it really affected my my self esteem and it affected my confidence. And I took that with me through my third year of college. when it came time to start interviewing with companies. and I did a weekend seminar, I went to school in Miami. I did a weekend seminar on I'm not gonna say self-confidence, but it was it was just about identifying you, your strengths. it was like two days of a condensed four month Jay Shetty program. It was really, really intense. and I walked away with that and I was like on cloud nine. There was just no reason for me not to be confident about myself. in fact I went through the interview process at college and there were two companies that offered me a position and I was the only student in the entire graduating class That was offered positions with these two outstanding companies. And the dean of the program came up to me one day and he said, you know, I don't know what you did, I don't know what you said, but you're the only one that that these two companies have made an offer to. And it really was just it was just letting go of my size. It was letting go of you don't need to be six foot one and big broad shoulders to be a president of a company. It has nothing to do with it. and so my confidence from that point on, I never I never looked back, I never thought about my size. I've always had a very, very outgoing personality. not an introvert, a complete extrovert. And so confidence begins to me like I said, it begins when you have tremendous family support, support from your peers, and knowing and loving yourself. Yeah, and I think that end one is a really big component. It does take loving yourself and it takes those times and those moments at those younger ages. You were so right. You have something happen at that young high school, college level that just all of a sudden makes you have that confidence that maybe you were lacking, or starts the wheels turning of that confidence. And it may mean that throughout those years you also have things that shift you back from that confidence and bring you back to it, back and forth, but In those years, there is usually something that clicks that makes yeah, I am confident, or I I'm not an introvert, I am more extroverted. I think of myself when I came out of the closet. That's the almost the exact same flip I had was I was introverted in the shell and then I came out and I was just This gleaming light, I was so extroverted and so outgoing and you know, confidence can make you just go into yourself and be so introverted and be so not who you are. And I think that is exactly right. You do need that family system, you need support, you need to find your people. And it's amazing when you have those people right at home. I remember my sister asking me, what are you waiting for to start a business? And I said, and it's a very common answer. I said, I'm I'm afraid to fail. Okay. And she said, Well, if you're afraid to fail, then you're afraid to succeed. And it took a while for that to resonate and for me to understand that. That In every one of my businesses, there has been failure and it's tweaking, it's adjusting. It doesn't mean that we shut down the business. It means that one of the original ideas or one of the concepts isn't working right now, and how are you going to adjust it? And so Once I started to get a feel of this, you know, some people are scared to death. Corporate people, they hate their corporate job, they want to start a business. The people who are in business struggle and they want that two-week vacation, they want all the benefits, and they dream of working for corporate America. So the grass is always greener on the other side. But once I had the second business under my belt. I had nothing but confidence. There was no the thought of of any of these things not working out, it did not exist. It was just a hundred percent, this is gonna work. And that's what it takes. It takes positive energy. A hundred percent positive energy. if you start with negative thoughts, they're gonna spiral, they're gonna bring you down, and negative energy brings negative effects. so To the listeners, positive thoughts bring positive action. Yeah. I a hundred percent resonate with that, Jeff. anytime I have a positive mindset, that's when positive things start coming. And any time that negativity flows, that's when things start going down. I seen that when the ending of my corporate career was coming, things started happening, things weren't going right. And, you know, as similar to you, I was afraid of failure. my dad's business failed. He didn't pivot enough. He didn't make those changes when he needed to, like you said. And I looked at myself one day finally, and I was like, you know, I've been pivoting in this corporate world for 12 years. I can pivot. That's where dad failed. And I'm like, I just gotta make this move. And yeah, there's gonna be areas I fail at, but I can pivot, I can make things happen, I can do this. So, you know, I think it's just all about that belief. And again, that comes back to you having to learn to be confident in yourself, and that was you being confident in yourself. going into that business and doing entrepreneurship over corporate and that's powerful. With that being said, tell me about a season in your life where you grew the most and what made that possible for you? When you say a season, You mean period in time. Yeah, period of time. You know, I think that period of time for me came when I lost my mother to cancer. I was young, I was twenty-six years old, and my mother I was the baby of two older sisters. And my mother spoiled me. My sisters were off at college and I was still around the house. So I was the little one who got spoiled and taken care of and dressed me nicely and Mom took care of me. when I lost my mother I realized that You gotta grow up. She's not here for you anymore. And you've gotta be a man now. I mean, you've got to face life and um stop being this spoiled little brat and move on. And so it was my mother who had suggested going into the hospitality industry. And it's interesting because going through the coaching school, and looking back on my path, I realized that my mother knew something about me at an early age, about my personality, about my interests, and that's what I believe. set her to recommend me getting involved in this. So at that early age, I was 26 years old, I had this sense that I wanted to prove to myself and prove to her that I could do this and that I was going to be good at this and that I was worthy of it. And that it was who I am. I mean, it was really a matter of she saw a twinkle in my eye and it had to do with again personality, connection, family. we had a very tight family aunts and uncles and cousins and all of that. so I think that that season, that early late mid to late twenties, there was tremendous personal growth, career growth, growth in my relationship with my girlfriend who you know became my wife. And I think it just had to do with with her and and feeling good about myself, confident in myself. that's beautiful. Mothers mothers always know. They always know. They have it just in that heart. I think that was, you know, my mom's been always my biggest supporter even now in the one time We were as out of line as when I Mom, I'm going in tomorrow and I'm gonna lose my job and she's like, No, you're not and I was like, No, I know I'm going in tomorrow and I'm losing my job And then when I lost it, she was the only one shocked and I out of my twenty-eight years, that was the only time and now since I've been doing this and I have my headphones on and I'll work there on Mondays and she's heard some of my calls and heard me speaking and she's like, you know, this was meant for you. you love growing people, you love inspiring people and coaching. people and you know I think moms always know. They always have that. internal instinct and I love that. And with that question in the way you let it, I want to ask now why coaching? What drew you to this work after being in the restaurant business for so long, loving, supporting the people? What drew you to coaching? You know, ever since I was in school, eighth grade, high school, college, I was always the person that I was a great listener. Like friends and girls would come and tell me their problems and I always listened and it wasn't I don't know, I I tried to offer advice. But there was always this people felt comfortable coming and talking to me. And Probably 10 years ago. It could have been more. I had heard about life coaching. And back then it was kind of like, I don't know, I don't want to say taboo, but it no one knew too much about what a life coach was. And it's still kind of, I don't like to use the word shunned upon, but you know, some people call it cult-like. but ten years ago I went to the library and I took out a book on becoming a life coach. And I got a few chapters into it and I said, No, this isn't gonna work at this time in my life. Just doesn't sound right. And last summer, almost a year to date, I'm sitting on my front porch, beautiful summer night, and I'm looking at some Facebook reels, and Mel Robbins and Jay Shetty are doing a reel. And it was so inspirational. What I mean, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. This is a great, great reel. Very motivational. And when the reel finished, Jay came up next on his own and are you ready to be a life coach? Does this sound like you? and I just kept on saying, Yes, yes, this sounds like me, yes, this is what I want to do, I wanna help others achieve you know, making themselves better. Do you want a phone interview? Yeah, I just kept clicking. Yes, yes, yes. and I guess it just came down to it. That chapter in my life, I was ready to make that step to become a coach. I had motivated people in the business. I've had motivated people outside of work, being a sensitive individual with great listening skills. Uh I think one of my strength is being compassionate and empathizing with people. So it was a combination of all of that that I registered to become a life coach. And um it was an absolutely amazing experience. I'm grateful that I've done it. And from it I really wanted to get more involved in being a motivational speaker, leadership and things of that nature, then one-on-one coaching. And that's what got me started on the workshop of transformational cooking. And I'm a little frustrated because we're not making much traction with it, but we're in this for the long haul. This is a marathon, this isn't a race. we all know that any new business and becoming a life coach is you're you're making an entrepreneurial step. You are starting your own business. And for many of us, this is the first time that we're getting into that arena. Fortunately for myself. Having started businesses, I know it takes a long time. You plant the seed, you've got to water the seed, the seed has to take roots, the stem of the tree has to grow to be strong, to take the storms and the good days and the bad days. And there'll come a point where that tree is gonna give off fruit. And um, you know, your coaching business, I'm so proud, I'm so happy for you that you've got five paying clients right now. And you've planted that seed, you've watered it, and now your tree is growing and you know, in a few years, like I said, that tree it's gonna give off fruit and you are going to be one happy young Thank you. that's the thing though. It's when you do a marathon you have to start sprinting. And you know, it was tough. Like looking at that it's now June and how slow things were going, it was new to me. Obviously coming from a corporation that you don't have that. So I think seeing now that the work I've done, some of the messages I've got about like how my presence is showing up, I'm like I've put in the work, it's starting to come back. Like the the fruit's starting to come back in those connections and that's the first step before you start seeing dollars. And I think that was a real big mindset shift I had to have Jeff. And I think, you know, you're you're a big part of the mindset shift that I had with that is it's not about the financial. It's about the first step of growing those Seeds, planting those roots, getting good with the community, getting a name out there and representation, and then you start going down the financial. And yeah, five paying clients is my goal. But yeah, I think you know it's a sprint, and yeah, it's it starts off slow, and you know, yeah, the transformational cooking is taking its time, but like you said you've built other businesses you know these things can take time and it takes time to build up that rapport get that name out there and I think you know you're doing all those steps and it's gonna happen it's the same thing we just gotta keep putting in that work and it will come. With that I know you are working on transformational cooking What's something you're currently working on and excited about? You know, because so much takes place at the dinner table, in the kitchen, when you stand side by side with a a child or a parent, your mother, a grandmother, when you stand side by side in the kitchen, something happens. There's a connection, okay? Mixing and stirring and talking. Something takes place and it's way more powerful than sitting on your phone and scrolling through all the bullshit algorithms, ha ha! oh you know, transformational cooking, I'm not teaching cooking, I'm teaching connection. I'm teaching parents how to connect at the dinner table because our lives have gotten very busy and between our schedules and glowing screens. The dinner table has gotten to be a very quiet place. There's a lot of takeout, a lot of door dash, a lot of you know just there is at the couch eating while the parents are working, you know, yeah. exactly. So it's about connection and the podcast called The Table Where We Grew Up, it's about sharing stories of that dinner table because holidays and rituals and customs and all of that takes place whether it's Thanksgiving, whether it's Easter, whether it's Passover. Um there's the kitchen is a place for storytelling. The kitchen is a place for the aromas, the smell, it's always bringing back memories. So when we sit at the dinner table and we converse, we are building things that We're building stories, we're building culture, we're building things, recipes that we want to pass down to the generations of people. Okay, to our siblings. So I think one ties in with the other. I'm finding that the podcast has just been so much fun hearing some amazing stories. Last night, uh, I met with a fellow coach and man, we were laughing And her stories were so heartfelt. I mean, she grew up with five other brothers and sisters. They were a family of six. So if you could imagine the chaos at the dinner table every night. The grandparents lived upstairs. so there's so much about what happens in our kitchens that I just think it's a wonderful place to lead a workshop as well as listen to other people's stories and their memories. Yeah, you know I've been editing some of the podcasts for Jeff and listening to you and how passionate you are in speaking to others about the tables that they grew up, it is very inspiring. And to that point, I think it helps us learn and grow so much when we're doing things that we're passionate about. And I think back to where you said you wanted to be not so much in coaching for one on one life coaching, you wanted to be in it for the leadership, for that kind of more like to do those workshops to have those conversations and that. Connection and doing that podcast is you really doing that is having that leadership of how is your upbringing, and I think it's beautiful what you're creating and how you're getting all those stories and how it's gonna resonate with people to see that you know my childhood wasn't so unique. Other people experience that too. I can resonate, and I think having that space is beautiful because it's gonna connect with people and it's gonna help people connect those dots with that clarity, get that confidence and. grow right because they're gonna know others have gone through it. Is there anything you'd like to say to our guests today, Jeff, or anything you'd like to recommend? Where can people connect with you? Anything you'd like to share with the fellow audience out there so that they can get to know more about you, Jeff. No, not necessarily. I mean, this has been a nice genuine conversation with you. I can't say that there's any particular book. I've read so many books on self identity, but uh Stay true to the course, stay true to who you are. don't try to be somebody who you are not because that's never going to get you anywhere. And I believe if you follow your passion, you find wealth in so many different ways. So um it's not about necessarily building It is about building financial wealth, but that comes once clarity and identity. are in the forefront of your mind. we talked about that last week and persistence and perseverance, We all go through that as coaches. but just rock on, man. Just rock on. you know, authenticity is so important. So yeah, stay authentic and the financial is not good if you're not authentic. it it only means so much when it is authentic. So thank you so much Jeff for joining us today. It was so lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you for having me. I was able to reciprocate. You were a guest for me and I'm a guest for you. And keep up the good work, Brandon. I'm so proud of you. I'm so glad that I've met you through the program. You are a very, very nice young man and I wish you much success on your journey. Thank you so much. I wish you so much success too. Alrighty, we'll see you soon.