Our staff is our greatest joy
Ask almost any restaurateur to describe his or her single biggest headache, and without hesitation the most common answer will be staffing. We have a friend in the business who struggles so much that he runs frequent newspaper ads offering $500 hiring bonuses in an effort to recruit new employees. The truth is that other than management, restaurant employees are typically just passing through on their way to another job.
But at our restaurants, the good food and romance you’ll find are created not by people who trudge to work wishing they were somewhere else. Quite the opposite. The men and women who work at Blanchards and Zurra have made those restaurants their own in a very special way. They take pleasure in doing whatever it takes to make their guests happy. They seem to know, almost instinctively, one vital ingredient of living what you love: You can talk about following your dream or pursuing a passion until you’re blue in the face, but if you’re not somehow meaningfully connecting with the people in your life, it will all be for naught.
If you want to get a clearer picture of how to live what you love, start by analyzing your relationships with others. No matter what you do, creating the life you want is about relationships. It’s about people.
Ask yourself:
- Which relationships in my life are worth repairing and which ones can I let go?
- What kinds of relationships are missing in my life?
- How much time do I spend with people who complain a lot?
- How much have I allowed other people to control my life?