Pillar Mindset

F&P Media

Real restaurant industry insights from operators with over 40 years of experience. We help franchise owners and restaurant managers build better businesses through proven strategies and honest conversations. Welcome to Pillar Mindset!

  1. 1d ago

    What Makes a Brand Worthy?

    Before you get into anything, know how you're gonna get out. In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob and John break down how to pick a franchise brand the right way, starting with Dairy Queen's viral AI drive-thru video (12.9M views) and why Bob won't roll customer-facing AI out across F&P's restaurants. From there, they walk through how to predict where a brand is headed in 5 to 10 years: who's behind the leadership team, who the other franchisees are, why you should look at 50 brands before picking one, and why you should eat at the restaurant several times before you ever look at a P&L. Plus: the Crumbl cautionary tale about rapid growth, why the "top quartile" numbers in an FDD can mislead you, franchise vs. independent (and why we should stop bashing each other), what P. Terry's can teach us about building loyalty, how franchisors actually make their money, supply chain risk, cannibalization, and why you should always leave room to scale. #PillarMindset #Franchising #FranchiseBusiness #RestaurantIndustry #DairyQueen #AIinRestaurants #Crumbl #PTerrys #RestaurantFranchise #QSR #HospitalityLeadership #FoodAndPeople #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #FMPGroup #BuildingABusiness CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:32 - Welcome Back to Pillar Mindset 1:08 - The Viral DQ AI Drive-Thru Video (12.9M Views) 2:27 - Is 90% Accuracy Good Enough? 3:04 - Why We Won't Put AI in the Drive-Thru 5:19 - AI's Real Power Is on the Back End 5:42 - Staffing & Culture: Chick-fil-A vs. Wendy's 6:19 - Picking a Brand: Where Will Corporate Be in 5 Years? 7:06 - Who's Behind the Brand? Public, Private & PE-Backed 8:54 - Look at 50 Brands Before You Pick One 9:33 - Leadership Turnover & Brand History 10:16 - Know Your Fellow Franchisees 11:25 - Can You Feel a Brand's Culture Before the P&L? 11:50 - Go Eat There: When to Visit and What to Watch For 13:23 - Only 14 of 100 Brands Grew This Year 14:00 - Why Growth Isn't the #1 KPI 14:42 - The Crumbl Cautionary Tale 16:49 - Crumbl's Numbers: Volume Drops & Franchise Churn 17:26 - The FDD "Top Quartile" Trap 19:07 - Spotting Hype Cycles: Buying Low, Selling at Peak Hype 20:10 - Building for Decades, Not a 5-Year Run 20:28 - Know Your Volatile Product (The Chicken Wing Test) 21:38 - Franchise vs. Independent: Which Route? 22:06 - "What Will Make You Happy?" 23:20 - Stop Bashing Each Other: Franchises & Independents 24:38 - "Profit Maxing" and Why Profit Isn't Everything 26:11 - Shoutout: First Bites & Learning From Local Restaurants 26:36 - Why Franchise at All? Systems vs. Creative Freedom 28:11 - Know How You'll Get Out 29:11 - "There Will Always Be More Money, Never More Time" 30:10 - UT Longhorns Comeback & Loyalty Lessons 31:43 - P. Terry's: Built for Stability, Not Speed 33:10 - Burger Prices: P. Terry's vs. Five Guys vs. In-N-Out 34:00 - P. Terry's Story: Family-Owned, 38 Units & Employee Ownership 36:59 - Why Private Equity Would Love P. Terry's 39:16 - How Does the Franchisor Make Money? 42:10 - Franchise Landscape & Supply Chain Risk 44:18 - Room to Scale: Mom's Corner Lot Lesson 45:34 - Cannibalization & Closures Are Real 46:39 - Final Advice: People, Product & Taking Your Time 47:20 - Outro Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group: 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

  2. Sep 24

    Chili's is Winning While Others Struggle

    Texas has seen over a thousand restaurant closures in just the first half of the year. What's really driving that? In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano and John Zertuche trace it all back to COVID-era overdevelopment, cheap capital, and stimulus-fueled spending, and why the bill is coming due now through margin compression, harder lending, and a staffing crisis pulling workers toward Amazon, H-E-B, and Uber. Plus: why staffing jumped back to the #1 challenge for operators, the career-path problem restaurants need to solve, and how F&P is experimenting with paying employees to create content. Then, the other side of the story: why chains like Texas Roadhouse and Chili's are actually growing sales and margins right now. Bob breaks down the value equation, brand identity, conservative pricing, and consistency that's keeping them ahead, including a hilarious international review of Texas Roadhouse steak prices that says it all. #PillarMindset #RestaurantIndustry #TexasRestaurants #RestaurantClosures #StaffingCrisis #TexasRoadhouse #Chilis #Hospitality #Mentorship #RestaurantBusiness #FMPGroup #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #FoodAndPeople CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:38 - Welcome Back & Mentorship Theme 1:42 - Texas Restaurant Closures: Over 1,000 in Half a Year 2:08 - Going Back to COVID: Excess Capital & Overdevelopment 4:19 - Consumer Stimulus Checks & Spending Behavior 6:11 - Margin Compression: Food, Gas & Property Costs 7:16 - Getting a Loan Is Harder Now 8:24 - What Banks Actually Look At (Long-Term Business Viability) 9:41 - Why Texas Specifically? Social Media & the Reward Economy 11:06 - More Entertainment Options, Less Restaurant Loyalty 13:16 - Why Texas: Business-Friendly Growth & Overdevelopment 14:52 - More Capital = More (Undertrained) Business Owners 15:04 - What Should a Struggling Restaurant Focus On? Hospitality & Humility 16:36 - Staffing Is the #1 Challenge Again (33% of Operators) 17:13 - The "K Economy": Amazon, H-E-B & Uber Pulling Labor Away 19:29 - The Stigma of Restaurant Jobs & Social Media Culture 21:04 - Rising Pay Expectations vs. What Restaurants Can Afford 21:53 - The Price-Hike Mistake: Losing Customers After COVID 24:41 - Career Paths: The Sommelier Success Story 25:52 - F&P's Content Program: Paying Staff to Create Content 28:36 - Why Texas Roadhouse & Chili's Are Growing 29:41 - Consistency & Value: The Real Winning Formula 30:39 - A Japanese Tourist's Texas Roadhouse Review 32:35 - The US Supply Chain Advantage 32:41 - The Fatburger/FAT Brands Bankruptcy Lesson 34:51 - Brand Identity: Chili's Cheese Pulls & Applebee's Nostalgia 36:01 - Conservative Pricing: How Chili's & Texas Roadhouse Held the Line 37:36 - Volume, Consistency & Winning Long-Term 38:31 - Outro Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group, with 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

  3. Sep 10

    Concessions Are Not Restaurants! Here's What We've Learned

    Concessions is a whole different beast. It's not a restaurant, it's a very raw form of hospitality where you've got 30 to 40 seconds to make an impact on a customer you'll probably never see again. In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob and John break down what it's really like running concessions at UTRGV football games, combining two national franchise brands (Dairy Queen and Schlotzsky's) under one stand, serving 13,000 fans in 4 hours, and why thin margins don't matter when the real goal is building core memories with the community. Plus: the surprising Starbucks-in-Japan story about investing a decade into a community before it ever pays off, the problems that come with serving alcohol outside your core business, why queue lines are a love-hate relationship, building a positioning chart from scratch, and the moment that made all the hard work worth it: 2 Tootsie Rolls traded for a tray of Dilly Bars. #PillarMindset #Concessions #DairyQueen #Schlotzskys #UTRGV #CommunityInvestment #RestaurantIndustry #Hospitality #FoodAndPeople #FMPGroup #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #RestaurantBusiness #TeamCulture CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:22 - Welcome Back & Today's Topic: Concessions 0:56 - Football Season Kickoff & UTRGV Vibes 1:10 - What Surprised You Most About Running Concessions? 2:21 - Vaqueros Win 44-0 & Suite Hospitality Shoutout 3:41 - Concessions vs. Restaurants: A Different Beast 4:19 - 13,000 People in 4 Hours 4:30 - Running 2 Franchise Brands in One Concession Stand 5:41 - DQ Ice Cream + Schlotzsky's Food: How It Works 6:05 - Thin Margins & Why They Still Do It 7:00 - The Dilly Bar & Tootsie Roll Story 8:04 - F&P Brands Under One Roof 8:18 - Investing in Community Over Profit 9:10 - Building Core Memories with Fans 10:26 - Bob's Own DQ Core Memory 11:01 - The Long-Term ROI of Community Investment 12:05 - Effort as a Superpower 12:39 - What the Team Gets Back 13:02 - The Starbucks Japan Story 14:17 - Not Showing Up Empty-Handed & F&P's Long-Term Mission 15:26 - Problems They Ran Into: Serving Alcohol 17:34 - Draft Beer, Queue Lines & Operational Fixes 19:11 - Building a Positioning Chart from Scratch 20:08 - The Rush: Why They Keep Doing It 20:39 - Team Shoutouts & Leadership Recognition 21:20 - Team Camaraderie vs. Team Breakdown 22:07 - Final Thoughts: Ego, Community & Feedback 24:43 - What's Next: UTSA Game 25:20 - Outro Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group: 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. About John Zertuche: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

  4. Aug 26

    They Give You Free Tech. They Take Your Data

    We didn't set out to build 13 companies. We were just selling burgers and ice cream. In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano and John Zertuche break down the full origin story of F&P Group — from being "the DQ team" for decades to building one of the most interesting hospitality-led enterprise structures in the restaurant industry. Bob walks through every pivot: why F&P Brands started as a P&L separation strategy (not a marketing play), how real estate became a margin engine through FMP Development, why they brought media in-house when the fragmented digital marketing world couldn't keep up, and why the whole ecosystem now rolls up under one simple belief — hospitality has a space in every industry. Plus: the "sweat the assets" philosophy, the base/ball/curl DQ analogy that explains the whole business in 30 seconds, why you should build the capability before you start the LLC, why tech companies giving you "free" equipment aren't a charity, and the bedroom-to-kitchen analogy that ties it all together. If you're a franchisor, realtor, or banker — Bob wants to hear from you. This episode is why. #PillarMindset #RestaurantBusiness #FoodAndPeople #FranchiseBusiness #RestaurantEntrepreneur #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #QSR #HospitalityLeadership #DataOwnership #FMPGroup #RestaurantFranchise #BuildingABusiness CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:39 - Welcome & Sponsor: First Bites / Profine Coffee 1:14 - Why We're Building This Way 1:22 - From the DQ Team to F&P Group 2:49 - "What Are We Good At?" — Food and People 3:54 - FMP Brands: Strategy, Not Marketing 6:21 - Becoming a Management Company 7:53 - Capability First, Companies Second 12:30 - Sweat All the Assets 14:00 - Real Estate as a Margin Engine 17:51 - "Don't Chase the LLC. Build the Capability." 22:00 - How F&P Media Started 24:42 - Companies Are Breathing Entities 30:59 - Base, Ball, and Curl 33:25 - Hospitality Has a Space in Every Industry 37:40 - Managing Beyond Restaurants 40:15 - Focus on Value, Not Revenue 46:00 - Capabilities Create Advantage — Ecosystem Creates Longevity 50:18 - "They're Taking Your Data. And It's Not Free." 52:41 - The Flywheel — One Continuous Loop 53:51 - The Bedroom-to-Kitchen Analogy 55:15 - Outro Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group — 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

  5. Jul 29

    Build a Team That Actually Grows

    Most evaluations are built wrong. Here's what to do instead. In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano and John Zertuche tear apart everything you thought you knew about team evaluations — and rebuild it from scratch. It starts with hiring. If evaluations hurt, it's probably a hiring problem. Bob walks through Patrick Lencioni's Hungry, Humble, Smart framework for identifying the ideal team player, the mutual hiring philosophy ("you hire us, we hire you"), and why great evaluations only work when the foundation is solid. Then: 360 Evaluations, painting the career path, creative pay structures (including Phantom Equity and profit share), performance-based vs. time-based reviews, rank and yank, confidence vs. control, the capability model and what Bob calls "the slide," and what it actually means when he says "the harder you work, the richer I get." Plus: Leaders Create Other Leaders (John C. Maxwell), a tribute to their German mentor Kai (RIP), and why growth is purposeful — but not the most important thing. #PillarMindset #RestaurantLeadership #TeamEvaluations #PerformanceReview #HiringRestaurant #FoodAndPeople #BobLozano #JohnZertuche #QSR #RestaurantManagement #LeadershipDevelopment #HungryHumbleSmart #360Evaluation CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:26 - Welcome: Evaluations & Career Paths 1:05 - Evaluations ≠ Report Card 3:27 - It Starts with Hiring 5:14 - Hungry, Humble, Smart (Patrick Lencioni) 9:03 - "You Hire Us, We Hire You" 11:51 - "The Harder You Work, the Richer I Get" 15:34 - 360 Evaluations 20:39 - Paint the Career Path 23:01 - "Don't Ask for a Raise — Ask How to Provide More Value" 28:32 - Creative Pay Structures 31:08 - Phantom Equity 33:16 - Performance-Based vs. Time-Based Evaluations 35:51 - Rank and Yank / Vitality Curve 37:36 - Feedback Is Not Punishment 38:32 - Confidence vs. Control 40:51 - The Capability Model & The Slide 44:10 - Leaders Create Other Leaders 45:37 - Lessons from Kai 47:17 - Look Beyond Performance 52:46 - Closing: Hire Right, Show the Path, Measure Growth 55:14 - Outro Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group — 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

  6. Jul 20

    71,000 Jobs Gone to AI Since 2023. The Regret Is Setting In.

    Forget what you've been told about AI. Since 2023, over 71,000 jobs have been publicly attributed to companies firing people to replace them with AI. Amazon. Microsoft. Salesforce. IBM. Duolingo. HP. Accenture. Most of those same companies are now rehiring the people they let go. In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano and John Zertuche break down why — and what it actually means for every restaurant operator and business owner watching. Bob shares two foundational frameworks he's used for decades to grow F&P: Finders, Minders & Grinders (from David Meister's "Managing the Professional Service Firm") and Working IN vs. ON the Business. Then he walks through exactly how AI is supercharging both frameworks at F&P right now — including AI agents running 24/7 and a daily "brain health" text Bob gets every morning from their systems. He also gets personal. Before any of the business strategy, Bob shares why Miracle Treat Day on July 30th hits differently this year — and how his newborn son Leonardo's stay in the NICU at Driscoll Children's Hospital brought everything full circle. Plus: Elon Musk's surprising #1 leadership mistake, the Mark Cuban question every company needs to answer right now, and the night Bob ran out of breath trying to show his family ChatGPT. #PillarMindset #AIRestaurant #ArtificialIntelligence #RestaurantBusiness #BusinessGrowth #FinderMindersGrinders #FoodAndPeople #LeadershipLessons #ElonMusk #MarkCuban #ChatGPT #QSR #RestaurantOps CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 0:40 - Giving Back: F&P's Non-Negotiable 1:12 - Miracle Treat Day — July 30th at Dairy Queen 2:24 - Life Currency Podcast Announcement (July 23rd) 4:57 - Leonardo & the NICU: A Full Circle Moment 8:13 - Today's Topic: AI + Two Powerful Frameworks 9:35 - Framework #1: Finders, Minders & Grinders 13:01 - How AI Maps to Finding, Minding & Grinding 17:14 - The Night ChatGPT Launched — Bob's Origin Story 21:03 - Framework #2: Working IN vs. ON the Business 26:16 - AI Agents Running 24/7 — What "Brain Health" Looks Like 32:18 - The 3 Questions to Ask When Working ON Your Business 35:34 - What F&P Is Actually Building at foodandpeople.ai 37:11 - AI Grinding for You: Audits, Deposits & Reconciliations 40:52 - Replace vs. Empower — The Two Sides of AI 41:18 - The Data: 71,000 Jobs Lost Since 2023 41:46 - Ford, Amazon, Microsoft & the Rehiring Wave 46:24 - Elon Musk's Biggest Leadership Mistake 51:03 - Mark Cuban: Rebuild Now or Get Left Behind 52:32 - Closing & foodandpeople.ai Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we share real strategies, real data, and honest conversations that help restaurant operators and business owners build better companies. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group — 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. About John: VP of AI at F&P Group. Background in game design and software. Now leads AI implementation across the company.

  7. Jul 9

    Drake Made Dave's Hot Chicken Famous. Here's the Business Lesson Behind It.

    Bob's back — and the industry just proved him right. Pizza Hut sold for $2.7 billion. We saw it coming. #PillarMindset #RestaurantBusiness #QSR #RestaurantIndustry #Franchising #FoodAndPeople #RestaurantOperator #TexasRestaurant In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano sits down with John Zertuche for a no-filter industry rant. The QSR world is splitting into winners and losers — and the line between them isn't product quality or location. It's whether operators understand what's actually driving traffic right now. Bob breaks down why third-party delivery is eating your margins (15–30% on every order), why value wars don't work the way they used to, what "interest marketing" is and why Raising Cane's and Dave's Hot Chicken are crushing it because of Drake and Post Malone, and why doing nothing is the riskiest move in the room. He also pulls back the curtain on foodandpeople.ai — F&P's new tool for rebuilding restaurant operations systems using AI. This is the comeback episode. And it hits different when the predictions start coming true. CHAPTERS 0:00 - Welcome Back to Pillar Mindset 2:00 - Top QSR Headlines: Flat Traffic, Disciplined Operators Winning 4:30 - The Pizza Hut $2.7 Billion Sale — We Called This 8:00 - Why Legacy Brands Are in Trouble 11:00 - The Digital Sales Shift Nobody Is Talking About Honestly 16:00 - The 15–30% Delivery Tax Killing Your Margins 20:00 - Is Convenience Actually Sustainable? 23:00 - Value Wars Are Back (But Price Doesn't Hit Like It Used To) 28:00 - Influence Marketing vs. Interest Marketing — The Difference 32:00 - Drake, Post Malone & the New Rules of QSR Marketing 36:00 - Who's Winning: Raising Cane's, Dave's Hot Chicken, Taco Bell 40:00 - The K-Economy: Big Winners, Big Losers, Nobody in the Middle 43:00 - Money, Operators, Leadership — The Three-Way Squeeze 46:00 - Introducing foodandpeople.ai 49:00 - Why Workplace Culture Is the Last Bulletproof Move 52:00 - The Dutch Bros Story That Stopped Bob Cold 54:00 - Independent Restaurants: The Exit Problem Nobody Discusses 58:00 - Think Big, Operate Small 61:00 - Closing: Double Down. Take Action. Don't Do Nothing. Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we challenge mainstream narratives, help franchise owners and restaurant managers build better businesses through proven strategies and honest conversations. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group — 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry. 🔗 Learn more about what we're building with AI: foodandpeople.ai 🔗 Visit us: www.foodandpeople.com

  8. May 27

    The Hidden Costs Killing Franchise Owners Right Now

    Most people think buying a franchise guarantees success. They're wrong — and two operators who've lived both sides of the coin are here to prove it. #PillarMindset #FranchisingTruth #RestaurantBusiness #Franchising #SmallBusiness #TexasBusiness #RioGrandeValley In this episode of Pillar Mindset, Bob Lozano sits down at the Playbook Conference in Edinburg, TX alongside Milliy Chirino — founder of Mili's Boutique and the first Latina-owned franchise to come out of the Rio Grande Valley. Together they break down both sides of franchising: what it means to buy into a proven system versus bootstrapping your own brand from the ground up. They get into the hidden costs most operators never see coming, why revenue is vanity but profit is sanity, what "scaling with intention" actually looks like in practice, and why real operators will always outlast finance guys who think a franchise is a passive investment. This is the real conversation from the stage — no filters, no fluff. CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 1:09 - Mili's Story: From Her House to a Franchise 3:19 - Bob's Story: 2nd Generation and the DQ Legacy 6:09 - What F&P Stands For (Food and People) 7:10 - When Did You Know Your Brand Was Scalable? 9:26 - The First Franchise Out of the Rio Grande Valley 11:20 - Bob's Chapter: Learning the Hard Way 13:54 - The #1 Mistake: Scaling Without Intention 15:24 - Revenue Is Vanity. Profit Is Sanity. 15:53 - Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About 18:52 - This Is a Penny Business 19:02 - You Have to Be Present: The Real Time Commitment 20:32 - Smell Like Your Flock 21:36 - What It Actually Takes to Be a Good Franchisee 24:29 - There's No Perfect Recipe for Success 25:36 - Franchising Is NOT Passive Income 25:45 - Closing: Real Operators vs. Finance Guys Welcome to Pillar Mindset, where we challenge mainstream narratives, help franchise owners and restaurant managers build better businesses through proven strategies and honest conversations. About Bob Lozano: Bob runs F&P Group — 40+ restaurant locations, digital marketing, and real estate across Texas. He's built teams, scaled brands, and helped operators go from chaos to systems. Pillar Mindset breaks down what actually works in multi-unit operations, franchise growth, and building sustainable businesses in the restaurant industry.

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Real restaurant industry insights from operators with over 40 years of experience. We help franchise owners and restaurant managers build better businesses through proven strategies and honest conversations. Welcome to Pillar Mindset!