"Spin the Planet! Go do something for someone other than yourself."

It was January 2001, a friend of mine from college called me up. Everyone knew his passion was weight lifting. He was fit and strong. He looked like a gym owner, he looked like Atlas, the Greek god that held the world on his shoulders. He was dealing with yet another bout of depression and fatigue. He called to let me know that he had just lost another job. He had been in his apartment bedroom for three days. He was stuck in a "funk."

In a moment of inspiration I challenged my friend to be a strong man, to be Atlas, to get out of his funk and go "spin the planet! Go do something for someone other than yourself."

I find our darkest days are days when we are focused too much inward and not enough on how our worth is grounded in time sacrificed for the good of someone else. Each day we are all given the same amount of time. By setting our hearts on the act of giving of ourselves to make someone else's life better, no matter how small a gesture, we are allowed to get outside of ourselves mentally and be part of the bigger picture.

Spin the Planet currently owns and operates a large number of sandwich shops.

In time, Spin the Planet will reach out into some additional avenues. But for now we are focused on our restaurants and sharing our philosophy of realizing our gifts by using our talents to make the world a better place. Each of our employees brings previous experiences to our business. As the leader of Spin the Planet, I value that experience and the voice of each and every employee.

All employees have access to my cell phone number and they can call me at any time. And I am happy to take their calls.

Knowing that a sub shop would employ many part time and minimum wage earners, setting the tone is important. The name and foundation of the company needed to be focused more on WHY and not on WHAT we did.

Motivating someone to mop the floor, clean the rest room or even make sandwiches while being paid at or near minimum wage is a bit of a challenge. So we focus on the opportunity to be part of a team that keeps the workforce nourished, that gives family time to focus on "family" rather than on the preparation and clean-up of yet another meal, that provides a better meal than most people would prepare for themselves at home… now these are reasons to get up off the couch and do something for someone else.

If we were just in the business of making sandwiches we would probably fail. But because we are in the business of making a better product, of giving better service, of stepping outside ourselves to sacrifice for others, we are in the business of making the world a better place.

That better place goes way beyond our customer experience and delivering our menu items. We require no high school diploma for our employees. The best sandwich makers are given a chance to run shifts and become managers, and more. Those with the will to succeed are trained and they earn the privilege to serve our customers and their fellow co-workers, in a full time position. And they take home a percent of the profit every 4 weeks! These factors show we are focused on the opportunity for those that put the key in the door every morning. We are training new employees how to be business operators.

At Spin the Planet we are each doing our part to push our energy towards a better life experience.