Test of Thyme #24: Traveling

hello everybody hi everybody Jamie and Marcus here welcome to test of time la love passion and hustle in the restaurant business yeah our love passion and hustle 20 years we're in 20 years in our restaurant we are and we've seen a lot done a lot experienced a lot and want to share a lot so um we just got back from our first like real family vacation

even though we travel an insane amount because we have lots of travel obligations especially vacation in a while so you can't really say it's our first no you're right because that doesn't really we take family vacations we've gone away two or three days here and there yeah but this was a vacation that we went sat on a beach relaxed enjoyed our grandson enjoyed our daughter and

um and her son-in-law uh boyfriend and just relaxed I mean we did do work in the morning um there were some mornings that we did work um and we were always connected right so we were always connected um but it was just nice to just sit there and relax and just breathe in the Ocean Air and listen to the the sound of the Waves I mean

that to me is one of the most relaxing things um is just to sit by the beach um I won't say that I actually like rested like what I would have probably like to have done I had our grandson a lot and I love love love helping with that um but it was it was relaxing yeah it was it was nice and relaxing but I think

and lots of brainstorming and lots of clear thoughts and it was amazing but let's share our experience about how we have forced ourselves to travel because a lot of restaurant tours say I can't go I can't go I can't do that other restaurant tours look at us and we're like you guys are so lucky you guys are like living the dream you're traveling all the time

and and it's amazing and I wish I could do that in my restaurant and I'm like you have to set up systems and you have to set up uh good staff you know good staff good systems um how to handle things you know every day um you know I think trust is a big thing for us can we talk about the very first step in doing

travel if you own a restaurant the very first thing well that's what you think is the first thing what's the very first thing committing to travel right of course you have to commit to travel so but you have to commit let's talk about time off whether it's traveling time off with your family staying home you know doing things around your house spending time away from your

business let's talk how we first committed back in 2008 Yes to traveling because we thought we couldn't do it we thought we couldn't do it yes the dogs are wrestling in the background if you hear any growling like a bear it's just it's just the two dogs there's no bear in here that's what it sounds like so we let's talk about how we forced ourselves to

travel in 2008 Yes we went to a meeting in Boston the car because we couldn't get a hotel room yeah and there's the things we couldn't afford one at all right the hotel rooms were really really expensive that weekend it was really busy there was something going on medical something yeah and um so we showed up at the hotel we brushed our teeth in the lobby

bathroom um and we fixed ourselves up and we walked into this room and we were like we've got to do something to get our business back up and going back and and get it to the next level and we walked in with all these restaurant tours that were talking like so positively about their business and we were just like oh oh you know like but they

felt our pain they felt our pain because they had been in that position when they joined this Mastermind group so you know we sat there we listened we ended up joining um we couldn't afford it um just to pay it um we had to travel three times a year to get the benefits of the the Platinum Group right um where we'd lock ourselves in a um

in a hotel room conference room for two days and just talk and Mastermind and grow and grow and learn and we were all there for the same reason to help each other um and to help each other grow and and become a better restaurant operator so we thought we couldn't we had traveled before we traveled the year before to take our kids to Puerto Rico on

a semi vacation one of those last minute deals you know all those one of those things we've done that a couple of times with nothing major and we're like now we're now we have to travel three times a year we have to go to Chicago St Louis La uh Vegas Cindy we have all these destinations that are on this map with this group and we're like

we're going to be traveling like once in the summer in peak season um in the fall and in the spring and we're like well how are we going to do this but what we did first is we committed and we paid we did if you commit through something you will do it and you're going to figure out a way to get there and I gotta tell

you there were many times that we planned I mean we joined this group how many years were we part of the group 11 years 11 years and there were times where we left the restaurant and we didn't have staff yeah and somebody called out or somebody got sick or somebody quit and it happened a few times where we were like the night before well you go

and I'll meet you or or let's just go and and close the restaurant or they're gonna figure it out and we we had to tell ourselves that we were just going to figure it out and there were times where our our dishwasher was like you guys go and I'll help and we'll figure it out we'll figure it out we'll turn tables away if we have to

we'll you know at least we're gonna be open and at least uh you know we're gonna do the best job that we can and we always gave our staff the ability to figure it out yes we trusted them and we trusted them trust them that was the second step to this is you have to yeah so first you have to make the plan to do it

you have to commit commit and you have to have you have to have some skin in the game so we were paying a thousand bucks a month to be a member and if we weren't going to travel to the meaning we weren't going to get what we needed together the meeting now we we always scheduled Leisure days so if the conference was two days we've always

went for four days right were we right if we call it if we could sometimes we had catering things we had to be back you know we always wanted to enjoy Chicago for an extra day or St Louis for an extra day or wherever we were going Orlando for an extra day Miami for an extra day we always wanted to enjoy the extra days there Nashville

we went to a couple times and so we literally in an 11-year span went to 33 different cities we didn't miss one meeting not one meeting one meeting did we missed yeah so we went to that we went to 33 meetings yeah went to 33 different cities and the experience of just traveling to those cities will last a lifetime absolutely right some cities made us want

to travel and travel and travel and experience more and more people say to us oh you ever been to you know Seattle you ever been to Portland you ever been to San Francisco ever been to L.A or like yeah we've been there like oh you guys are like very well traveled yeah so so now we just made another commitment to travel now so let's for this

let's put this a little bit of History again that we've learned to travel from that group so then we started traveling to Wineries and and that's when our real travel bug began we started going to Italy a lot to Spain um we started traveling to California to Napa we started doing these wine to our own wine tours with ourselves to visit wineries that we buy from

which then led into a whole other business building relationships right we were building relationships building relationships and we learned a lot of that from our Mastermind groups right so everything kind of built upon each other and it kind of was a tiered level which brought us to where we are today um so we started a travel business so now we do Winery tours all over Italy

Spain all the people with us but that's that we travel I mean you see us traveling we're on the road bringing people so it's kind of it's work it's work it's work or we travel a lot because we enjoy it and I speak at a lot of conferences so I we travel for conference to speak and we always schedule Leisure and this and that so most

of our travel that we do has some kind of business wrapped up into it the trip we just took was all pleasure all pleasure all pleasure and we we actually ended up um I think you were going to talk about um forcing ourselves once again to travel with our family more often yes and we joined a travel Club um and it is going to force us

to go away at least once a year with our family with our children with our with their families right our grandson with their families with friends and you know we've told so many people about like when are we going when are we going so we eventually bought a bought into a hundred weeks of travel throughout the world through this package and you you guys have had

to pay dearly for it but that's the skin in the game so now we're going to force ourselves to go every single year once twice three times a year somewhere even if it's just for a few days just to get away for a few days yeah exactly and we're really excited about that but when you you're right when you put the skin in the game when

you put money on the line you're going to force yourself to do things and you're going to figure it out and I think that's really important for other businesses other restaurant tours who don't think that they can get out of their own way and get out of their business and go and do these things but you know life you know we say life is short right

you hear that all the time but life is what you make it and life is about doing things that you enjoy and that you want to do because you have to you have to do it yeah it sounds good yeah so first force yourself to travel absolutely now there's a lot of things you have to do once you start traveling or begin to start traveling if

you're not ready to leave your restaurant because your restaurant is your baby and you hopefully go over to restaurant growth secretsuniversity.com there's a lot of cool stuff a lot of tips over there a lot of videos and the main thing is training your staff that cover go to that website check out the demo that we've created on on training your staff yes and it's a really

really really good program yeah so the boys are wrestling they're very excited so excellent have a great day everybody and enjoy thanks for watching test the time