Short excerpt from a YouTube video (Donald Burns) identifying a common self-limiting mindset among restaurant owners: treating systemic problems as temporary "phases" (e.g., blaming slow season, economy, staffing) which prevents addressing root causes. The speaker also calls out language—referring to staff as "help"—as indicative of a deeper mindset issue.
What's the most common lie you think restaurant owners are telling themselves that keep them kind of stuck in that valley of mediocrity? Well, this is something that you can see right away during onboarding, right? Or the first, like, couple weeks. So a lot of owners will. Will think, and it's a mindset of years and years, so they think that everything's a phase. Like, a phase is like an excuse for something like, I can't find good help. I can't find good help. And even the word help is like, you can go down that rabbit hole. So, like, if you're calling your team help, it's like, yeah, that's a whole nother mindset. Yeah, it's a whole like, like, end the podcast and just call us right now. But that's, you know, that everything's in. Everything's in phases. Like, it's a slow season. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the busy season. So that's, you know, that's another phase. Or the economy, you know, or the. The tariffs. That's. Yeah.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
