The restaurant business is something we live and breathe. We're in the restaurant for countless hours every week. We talk about it all the time to customers, staff and friends. We think about it constantly. And yet... the success we'd really like to have often eludes us.

The challenge isn't that we're not bright enough or don't have the proper education. It's not that we don't work hard enough. And it's not that we don't have enough experience. No. The problem is one that virtually every one of us experiences. The problem is that we all have "blind spots". We can't see what we're missing.

No one is immune to this. Regardless of age, experience, education, or intelligence, there are problems and solutions we just can't see. The impact of never seeing your blind spots is that they will continue to limit your success. They limit your growth as a person and as a business. And until they are revealed to you, the issues holding you back remain a mystery.

Many people go about growing their business by putting their head down, plowing ahead, and doing the same thing over and over again. The result, of course, is that they basically continue to get the same results they've always gotten. So (because they're determined to succeed) they resolve to work even harder. They put in longer hours, read more, and analyze more. And all that effort does help, but only incrementally. They only see marginally better results.

And then there are others who decide to push beyond what the rest are willing to do. They work harder than everyone else, put in more hours, and invest more emotion that anyone else they know. Unfortunately, the truth is that working harder and harder actually produces worse results! It becomes counter-productive.

Other people take a different approach. They'll hear about a sales or marketing strategy that someone else had success with and decide to implement it. But what they often fail to realize is that the strategy they're implementing was a good fit for the personality of the owner or it was a great fit for the concept of the restaurant it was used with. The result? They don't get very good results. It can be very frustrating and very discouraging.

But there are a handful of restaurateurs who are able to break through to new levels of success. They are able to grow beyond the typical 5%-10% that most others get, and generate 50%+ growth, even leading to expansion into other locations.

They do this by getting past their blind spots. We have blind spots in what we believe, we have blind spots in how we think, and we have blind spots relative to the actions we take. I see this issue time after time with my restaurant clients. They can't see the mistakes in their menu, in their concept, in their floor layout, in their marketing,... You get the idea. They simply can't see what's wrong.

Blind Spots in our Beliefs: We all have blind spots in our beliefs. These beliefs are self-limiting and are often at odds with the goals we say we want. Many people know that somehow they're undermining or limiting their own success. The challenge is that they've held onto their beliefs for so long that they're blind to them. In fact, these beliefs come to "define" us. They can feel like the "truth", but in fact are only "your" truth, not "the" truth. By allowing these conflicting and limiting beliefs to continue, they act to minimize your results.

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