Hey restaurant owners, have you ever been curious what the path to success looks like in the restaurant business? Today we’re going to talk about the restaurant owners path to success. Let me tell you what image people think, what you may have originally thought, or still think the restaurant owners path to success looks like: A straight diagonal line from where you are now going upward to the moon. “We’re going to open up one restaurant, we’re going to figure it out, now we’re going to open up about a thousand of them, and we’re just going to rocket ship to the moon!” I hear that over and over and over again. “Hey Ryan I want your help. I want to develop a concept and once we get it figured out we’re just going to stamp out more.” Well that’s the plan right? But if it was that easy don’t you think everyone would be doing it?!

Let me tell you what the real restaurant owners path to success looks like. It’s not exactly a straight line, it’s kind of zigzag, wiggly, twisted and curvy. It’s the same thing in anything that you want to do well. If you want to be a professional golfer, baseball player, actor, actress, attorney, doctor or whatever you want to be. 

Whatever you want to succeed at, the path to success is not always a straight line. The path to success is excitement, fear, concern, depression and setbacks. Lost leases in economic slowdowns, late tax bills, employees who call out sick, concepts that fail, concepts that succeeded, amazing successful nights, huge wedding business and giant catering is followed by all that other stuff. Again it’s just this twisty curvy path. That’s just the reality.

Wherever you are on this journey, know that you’re in the right place right now and you’re going to have to go through some of this to get to where you want to go. So don’t allow yourself to be so depressed by your path not being in a straight shot or not being where you want to be right now. Ask yourself honest questions: “Why aren’t you where you want to be right now?” If it’s because of something that you can control, go fix it. But the path to success is not always a straight shot to the moon. 

Have a wonderful day! I hope this video wasn’t too depressing for you. I just wanted a little dose of reality here because sometimes, I think what’s more depressing is when we think we should be somewhere we are not. In reality we are exactly where we’re supposed to be. So I hope you enjoy today’s video I look forward to bringing you more like this next week.