Take a moment to be present. Where are you? What are you doing? What are you eating?

Right this second, I’m sitting in a chair at my computer. I have a cup of mint tea in a warm, clay mug.  I have socks on my feet, a big sweater on over my shoulders, and a stick of Morning Star incense burns down to a long, broken comma of ash. My fingers hit the computer keys with confidence. An itch on my back stops me mid-sentence—

What was it I was thinking? What is my intention?

If I’m not careful, I’ll get ahead of myself and think three paragraphs into the future. I’ll edit and hyperlink text in my mind that I haven’t even written down yet. I’ll gulp down an entire cup of tea without paying attention to the flavors of the herbs.

Instead, I choose to stay present.  I practice mindfulness of the activity of writing because I know that my best work happens when I am open to The Big Ideas that come. It seems that the more I’m aware, the more I’m clued into something else going on; inspiration comes from a source outside of myself.

Tech and spirituality

More and more people are looking for something bigger than themselves to help get them through their work. For many, the thing that most people reach out to is technology.  Reuters recently reported that Americans are willing to go longer without friends and sex than the Internet. But if we continue to reach out for inspiration from electronic sources and don’t take the time to nurture some inner peace and mental awareness, we may very well find ourselves on the other side of an energy crisis of the personal kind. We may miss out on the next great idea because we’re just too busy checking Twitter/Facebook/email/Google reader/pintrest/insert favorite website here.

A story in the Wall Street Journal today suggests that many tech-savvy executives seek spiritually-based practices to give them balance in their fast-paced lives and find inspiration. Spiritual practices stripped of religious ties–acupuncture, yoga and meditation classes, for example–are not only covered by many tech companies’ health benefits, but encouraged in the workplace. The Wisdom 2.0 conference in Silicon Valley has participants and speakers gather together for two days to share ideas on the balance of technology and spirituality in the workplace. Sneaker-clad tech executives from Twitter, Facebook, Paypal and Google are headliners alongside Buddhist teachers, leaders from Giving 2.0 and Project Compassion, and spiritual author Eckhart Tolle of “The Power of Now”. Clearly, some of us want to find the sweet spot between technology and staying human and nurture creativity in a technology-saturated universe.

Mindful Eating

Staying mentally aware and present doesn’t stop at the computer desk.  Dr. Jan Bays, a physician and meditation teacher, brings mindfulness to the dining room table.  Mindful eating is a way of eating that involves bringing your full attention to the process of eating—to all the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal. Bays suggests that by staying present in the moment, we can minimize overeating, stay healthier, and make better food choices. Mindful Eating–and its accompanying CD of guided exercises–offers research and practical experience  of what mindfulness is and how it can help with food issues.

As online food writers and photographers we may be great a creating meals that are camera ready, but are we present for the eating, smelling and tasting of the food itself? How often are we caught up with thinking about the Next Great Meal or the Next Blog Post? Can we stay present as we create, while also staying on point with our Twitter feed, blog posts, and Facebook updates? If we maintain a strong mindfulness practice, will our desire to stay ahead of the technology wave decrease? Or stay strong?

Restaurant people like me need to know who our customers are and what they want and must ensure that our restaurant delivers a high quality product (great tasting food, wonderful atmosphere, and generous service) in a timely fashion. But what makes some restaurants more successful than others is the ability to define and deliver on the unspoken (or hinted at) expectations of customers. A lot of restaurant leaders call this part of our job managing expectations, but really what that means is that we are in the business of reading customers’ minds.

Customers may say they want a salad, but what they really desire is something much more complicated.

When I hear, “Don’t you have a simple salad with chicken?” I quickly run an internal algorythm (based on years of waiting tables and managing) that tells me what customers who typically ask this question want but don’t ask for.  perhaps the customer really wants a simple green salad with the dressing on the side and a large portion of inexpensive, poached chicken put on top. The customer expects this salad to cost less than $12-14.  The customer may like a smile from the waiter but may be opposed to any chit-chat. The customer may also be of the mindset that any white wine will do, so long as it comes in a big glass and costs less than $10. A customer who asks this question tends not to be adventurous and likes to stay in their comfort zone. Avoid selling specials to the guest, especially if there is an item on the dish that the customer has never heard of before (they will most likely hate the dish).

If you’re a simple salad with chicken person, just know that not everyone insists that every restaurant have chickens poaching in the back kitchen for moments such as this.  I don’t mean this in an offensive way, I just mean to say that what your expectation is of a restaurant is much different than the I want a basket of bread and olive oil and balsamic vinegar customer, or the what’s the most popular thing on your menu person.

Expectations may seem like a clear goal that everyone should know, but the fact is, what we think most people should do is not a universal belief system. Expectations are just an individual’s strong personal belief that something specific will happen in the future. None of us know for sure what other people want, we just know what we expect and make guesses from there. Just ask any guy what women expect on a first and second date and you’ll get a whole range of answers. Because here’s the thing–unless the person holding the expectation speaks what they want aloud, no one will ever know for certain the exactitudes of their desires.

I like to joke that I’m honing my psychic powers while I work in restaurants, but honestly it’s true. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m constantly reading the energy and body language of my guests and gathering clues about what’s really going on below the surface.

What do you (really) want?

Let’s talk about general expectations people have of restaurants. For some people, hand picked heirloom tomatoes and small batch burrata mean more flavor. For other people, just the mention of the word heirloom sets their skin crawling and their BS meter on high alert. One guest may like hearing specials recited at their table while another customer may find that kind of thing obtrusive and verging on deceptive. Depending on the expectations, one restaurant could get a five star Yelp review for the same exact experience that garnered a one star review from another.

Getting clear on expectations

If you know what specifically makes you happy at a restaurant then it’s very easy to identify what rubs you the wrong way. Or what it looks like when something goes terribly wrong at your table.  “Waiter, there is a fly in my soup,” you may say. Or perhaps you are compelled to call over a manager because your waiter seems to have forgotten you and your order. Regardless of what specifically the restaurant did to fail your expectations, how clearly you can express those shortcomings to the person offering to make the situation better will get you so much closer to a resolution.

Sometimes restaurant managers know how to do the right thing and are empowered to go and get it done.  Sometimes they just don’t.  In all my years in restaurants, I have seen plenty of mistakes happen. I do my best to sincerely apologize, offer a solution, and go a little bit farther for the guest to ensure I can turn the guest’s experience around.

Sometimes dessert is enough to turn a bitter experience into something sweet

You wouldn’t believe half the stuff I’ve done trying to win guests back. I apologize, stay away from excuses, take items of the check, and then do whatever I can to connect to the guest. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Along the way of managing expectations, I’ve seen miraculous things happen. In the process of being sincere and generous of spirit, I’ve seen smiles come from the unhappiest of people. I’ve gotten hugs of gratitude. I’ve even minted customers for life. But sometimes, no matter what I do or how much radical hospitality I give, I can not win back a guest. It’s as if that small mistake of a forgotten side dish or a loud song on the sound system were offensive acts perpetrated against these hurt individuals. It is as if I personally attacked them, when in reality all that happened was that someone pressed the wrong button in the computer or failed to get a dish to the table in a timely fashion.

But it doesn’t matter what happened when things go wrong. What matters most to you, the unhappy customer, is what is done to fix the situation. Right?

But what about you? What sort of responsibility does the customer hold? If you have high expectations but can not voice what it is you expect, or you can not accept any resolution that’s offered to you, do you hold any responsibility for your unhappiness?

How open are you to getting good service?

I do not, in any way, mean to lessen the responsibility of the restaurant in the equation of making customers happy. No way. But what I am supposing is that in every hundred customers who have their expectations met, there are a small percentage of people who will never be happy with any business (or personal) exchange, no matter how hard the business tries to make things better.  I mention this because I hope that I might some day one of these posts might help one person realize that if they can never find happiness in any business exchange, maybe it might be time to look at working on the one constant in the equation.

High Expectations of Service

But here’s the thing about expectations–we all have them. How we deal with our expectations and how willing we are to be flexible with what is given to us is an important piece in our long term happiness. If we don’t get exactly what we want, do we experience profound disappointment?  If we find people are consistently letting us down do we get angry, sad, resentful, or spring into action to make a change in our priorities? Just how far are we willing to go to be happy? Are we willing to be open to new experiences? Or do we only want things our way?

Have I told you I have a new job? I’m super excited about joining the team of Milo + Olive, a wonderful little pizzeria and bakery that’s just opened up in Santa Monica, as a General Manager. Getting to be part of a family of restaurants like Huckleberry, Rustic Canyon, and Sweet Rose Creamery is a dream come true. So I’ve put the freelance service coaching business on hold so I can help run a growing business that’s dedicated to beautiful, handmade food that’s served by people who really care.

Let me just tell you, I’m more than a little bit busy. Working at a brand new restaurant is like caring for an infant. It requires constant vigilance. The hours are long but the work is incredibly fulfilling. The challenges keep my heart, body, and mind constantly engaged and stretched to the limit. I survive on very little sleep and even less time for food. I power myself through the day with huge dose of excitement, a thick piece of toast slathered with almond butter and jelly, and tall cups of coffee.

Since I only have had one day off a week, the one thing I crave more than anything else is rest and a warm meal with my husband. We keep things simple. For breakfast we like to sauté kale in olive oil with a generous splash of fish sauce and top them with a couple of fried eggs. Or I’ll make soft-curd scrambled eggs with feta while he puts together a citrusy-yogurt vinaigrette for a butter lettuce salad. We brew a big pot of coffee, sit at our tucked-in-the-corner dining room table, and fortify ourselves with food and stories of our week.

Exhaustion dictates the menu at dinner time. Sometimes we go out for a comforting bowl of soup and noodles at our favorite Thai restaurant (Pa Ord) or other nights I muster up the power to roast a chicken and some vegetables. Those meals together refuel so much more than my belly. Since I’ve written here before about my favorite method of roasting a chicken (a la Zuni Café), I thought I would share with you my favorite new comfort food that doesn’t take much time or effort to make.

My friend Michael Procopio–a San Francisco based gentleman blogger who fights for the honor of words and glorifies the well-timed delivery of a witty retort–wrote a moving essay on the topic of writer’s block this past week. Michael’s post described how his writing had come to a halt once a desire to create something perfect had settled in. Writer’s block–the kind that demands nothing less than greatness– can not be relieved without the delivery of an impossible ransom. The desire for praise or success only elevates the price. Michael’s essay bared the hard truth; a desire to create something perfect can kill the ability to create.

Oh, man. Who hasn’t felt that way? Who hasn’t longed for a pat on the back? Who hasn’t worked hard on a creative project, only to feel a heightened sense of obligation for the next deed to be even greater than the last? Who hasn’t heard those dark whispers that say the work you’re done is no good. Or worse, that nobody out there really cares?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frozen by the idea that the last thing I was proud of may be the last good thing I write. And then, just when I’ve talked my self out of the corner, the voice of self-doubt returns to trump the whole thing with the hateful notion that the last thing I put down on paper wasn’t all that great after all.  Why bother, it tells me.

Boy, we creative types really can be rotten to ourselves.

Luckily, I’m in something of a good place today, so I can muster something close to a snicker to the dark thoughts that come in and tell me I might as well stop writing. Where do these thoughts come from? Who allows such mean talk to go on in this head of mine? Thanks to Michael’s essay, I’m happy to know I’m not the only writer who has suffered through a block.

It’s odd, what we do here in the blogosphere. We begin our work in obscurity, work hard to define what it is we do, and then–once we get a sense for who we are online–we work hard to lift our blogs out of the void. We write more often, we search engine optimize, we go to classes, and attend conferences. And then–if we’re lucky enough to make a blip on the radar and get noticed (Yay! A spike in traffic! Yipee a mention on a site we love!), we’re suddenly faced with a whole new set of challenges.

Recognition and kudos feel good. But self doubt can come in and erase all that. Fear can step in and tell us that somehow we’re gonna mess things up.

Savor obscurity while it lasts

When I started this blog four years ago, I felt the spaciousness of obscurity. I craved attention, yes, but I knew there was a wide margin of error and discovery in the early essays I posted. In blogging limbo, no one cared what I had to say. Later, as the years went by and the curve of my stats arced upwards, I began to feel a sense of obligation for what I wrote. Minutes of editing became hours. I got lost in things that weren’t as important as the act of writing. The quality of my lenses and camera suddenly became very important. How my blog looked took a lot of time. Luckily, I never came close to getting a smidgen of readers close to someone as prolific as Pioneer Woman, but yet, the more readers I got, the more I began to labor over my “hobby”.

My writing became constricted and forced. What once took an hour or two now took an entire day to write. I fostered a growing sense of insecurity as I wondered if other writers took as long to write a post. I questioned my talent, my love, my desire to create. My creative playing field became a dungeon. I became shackled to certain ideas and desires.

Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

I recently read a book that offered up some entertaining and sobering advice on the creative process. “Ignore Everybody And 39 Other Keys to Creativity,” written by Hugh MacLeod (author of GapingVoid.com), illustrates through business-card sized cartoons and short essays how creative types like Michael and I need to face the realities of creating and remember to do the hard work for the love and passion of it.

“You are responsible for your own experience,” says MacLeod. “Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.”

MacLeod reminds his readers through entertaining illustrations he pens on the back of business cards, that nobody really cares what kind of art we create. What’s important is that we create it. Readers may have an opinion or a set of guidelines that they measure you with–but the nobody honestly CARES about what you’re doing. Everyone is too busy worrying about their own lives to sincerely care about the work that we do. In the world of what’s important, it really doesn’t matter if our posts contain the word chocolate, bacon, or low calorie a certain number of times.

Thoughts of What if I mess up, What if I disappoint? Will I lose readers if I try something different? aren’t thoughts we should waste our time worrying about. Expectations weigh down the creative process and bring it to a screeching halt. What we need to do is CREATE. Creatives have a drive to put ideas down on paper, snap a photo, bake a cake, or sing a song. The problems start when we create something in hopes of making someone other than ourselves happy.

Only you–the creative–should be concerned with the subtleties, quality and results of what you do. The desire to create something perfect can make ideas thicken with self-doubt. Self-criticism evaporates the desire to be fearless and take chances.  So when I start to find my creative process weakened by thoughts of pride, ego, and self-doubt, I just remember the words of Hugh MacLeod:

“If you are successful, it’ll never come from the direction you predicted…Dreams have a life of their own and they’re not very good at following instructions. Love them, revere them, nurture them, respect them, but don’t ever become a slave to them. Otherwise you’ll kill them off prematurely before they get the chance to come true.”

Opening a restaurant is grueling.  You think you know the depths of hard work and then–just when you think you’ve got everything planned out–the undertow of the process takes hold of you and pulls you under. You never think a restaurant opening can be any harder than the last one you did, and yet…here you are struggling to keep afloat.

There’s no time to think about how many hours you’ve been working when you’re in the process of getting a restaurant ready for the public. Things go wrong. People drop away. Plans change. Equipment doesn’t show up. Things get hard. Then, everything starts to go great. And just when you think you’re about to catch your breath, something unexpected occurs. The doo-doo hits the fan and you’re challenged to push yourself even harder than before.

But when restaurants are your life, you can’t help but enjoy the dare. Can you go another hour without a meal? Is it possible to get one hour less sleep so you can do that one more task? In the big test of opening, the days end with meals that are barely chewed (inhaled, really), clothes are left in a hump at the end of the bed, and your face–covered in a thin veil of construction zone dust–gets a pillow case compress rather than a good washing because you can barely keep your eyes open. Your mind spins through through dreams in order to work out the last unconscious detail.

Yes, restaurant openings are demanding.  But they’re also damn sexy.

The work builds camaraderie and professional growth. The work is so consuming, you can survive on almost no sleep or food–making restaurant openings a whole new kind of diet that helps you lose a few pounds while allowing you to eat whatever little tiny bit of decadent food you can wrap your mitts around.

Do enough restaurant openings, and you begin to realize you can do and learn more than you ever thought you could. You stumble upon little discoveries, like the way you short-cut a problem with a novel approach or great idea, or uncover a way to save the business a bunch of money by thinking outside of the box. Or find a deep well of kindness, rather than frustration.

When the dust is wiped down, the ovens are fired up, and the doors open, time spins in a whole new way. The pain of the work subsides and the glory of doing what you love takes over.  The restaurant comes alive as more of you is absorbed. You and the restaurant become one.

Weeks later, when the paint is finally dried and customers get to know you by name, the sting of those opening weeks start to fade. The kitchen hums. Service gets dialed in. The place that was once a construction zone has a personality and smells and tastes like a whole new thing.

Then, almost suddenly, that restaurant opening you struggled through starts to seem a whole lot more agreeable. Given enough time (and a sufficient number of showers and warm meals eaten while sitting) the restaurant opening starts to look downright sexy.

I have to admit, even though I’m knee deep in another restaurant opening, this video of the making of Ra Pour Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga made me nostalgic for the entire process.  This video shows me doing what I love, with people I respect, in a place that couldn’t be more sexy and contemporary. Yes, opening a restaurant is arduous work. But the truth of the matter is–no matter how hard the demands are–every moment is worth the effort. It’s beautiful, stimulating work that makes me feel plugged in and alive.

Now if you wouldn’t mind pardoning me. I need to catch up on my sleep.

Be careful what you wish for. Because if you really, really want something, you may actually get it.

For me, the big it I was wishing for had a lot to do with work. Back when I started this blog, my work in service excited me, but I could only see myself going so far as a server/bartender. So, after a couple of years of thinking about how I could expand my world in service, I dreamed big and started my own business as a service consultant. That choice to take a chance on the work I loved had me heading in the right direction of my aspirations.

The more I worked as a teacher of service, the more I discovered I needed to learn. I became a student of the masters of great service. I read lots of books. I took courses. I honed my craft and longed for alliances with like minded individuals. I began heaping finer points onto my wish: I want to be part of something bigger than myself.

My dream for living a life of service had me wishing for a job within a restaurant group–a collective of restaurants that felt approachable, served really great food (the kind of food I could get super excited about), offered incredible service, and employed big-hearted people who understood what it takes to create a comfortable environment for its customers and employees.

For a while there, I thought the only way I could have the kind of life I was dreaming of would require a drastic change in scenery, a move across country, and a complete overhaul of my life.  Either that, or a lot of consulting gigs that could keep me busy enough to pay my bills and give me a little bits of what I was looking for in different locations.

Turns out, the life I’ve always wanted to live doesn’t require a moving truck or a major remodeling.

Wishes are coming true for me right here in Los Angeles.

The day I finished a great consulting job in Rancho Cucamonga, I started thinking to myself about my dreams of living a life of service. I started day dreaming about what would come next. For a moment, I worried how long it would take for me to find my next client.

And then, I checked my e-mailbox.

Within 48 hours, a whole new chapter in my professional life began. After almost a year of dreaming of becoming part of a small restaurant family, I have been given the opportunity to help run a small, 20+ seat bakery and pizzeria in Santa Monica. Though this is something of a departure from my consulting work, it is a pleasure to know I now have a full time home within a small, four-restaurant family known for their great baked goods, incredible market-fresh menus, heart-felt service, and a dedication to serving the community.

I couldn’t be happier.

But, for the record, making a dream reality, requires a whole lot of care and maintenance (maybe more than you could have ever imagined) to keep them alive and well.

If you dare to dream big enough, be ready for a lot of work.

Restaurants are like movies. The restaurant business is a collaborative art form that requires talented people to transform an ethereal concept into something substantial and real. A script will only ever be a script until the vision and passion of a director, cinematographer, producers, cast, and crew transform the words on the page into a movie.  The same is true for restaurants. No matter how many dishes you’ve cooked or recipes you’ve sketched out on a notepad, a restaurant isn’t a restaurant until there are cooks in the kitchen, a staff on the floor, dishes on a table and a paying customer at the door.

Restaurants–like movies–become something different once life is breathed into them. How the whole thing turns out is really up to something bigger than just one person. It takes a village to make a restaurant.

I may have moved across the country to learn how to make movies, but over the years I’ve come to understand that what’s kept me in Los Angeles is my desire and passion to make restaurants. Sure, I still have plenty of filmic stories percolating in my mind—the magical coming of age story, the comedy about bloggers, and the redemptive love story–but it’s the bustle of dining room service that captures my attentions and creativity.

I love the thrill of making restaurants come to life and sustaining them through the long haul. I relish in the potential of restaurants, the personality of a dining room, and the feel of a kitchen as it pushes out plate after plate on a busy night.

Dining rooms are full of passion, drama, characters, and unexpected plot twists and turns. In the best of times– when I’m working in restaurants peopled by an army of talented people–I relish in the camaraderie. I love how a team of professionals can band together, problem solve better than MacGuyver ever did, and keep the whole process from going off track. Even in the worst of times, struggling restaurants have a kind of beauty to them. Success that can be found after a long bout of breakage, waste, inconsistent food, employee shortages, and financial woes are some of the most gratifying.

Like movies, when things get sticky, there are lightning fast decisions, company moves, and courageous leadership required. We restaurant folk rely on prop masters (designers), set designers (architects and designers), wardrobe assistants (managers), producers (investors), divas (chefs and front of house talent), deadlines, and casting issues (people don’t show up for work or don’t play nicely with each other).  Just like movies, some restaurants are easier to understand once you see them up an running. Or—in the worst of cases–appear better on the page than fully realized.

It’s been quite a year over for the business I’m in. I’ve opened two restaurants in less than twelve months, and may be opening another in just a few days. It’s been so busy, in fact, I haven’t had much time to write, let alone post a brief sentence or two here on the blog. I even missed my four year anniversary of the start of this blog. But anniversaries are something you can celebrate all month, right?

I enjoy restaurant openings, but I approach them with reverence and certain amount of caution. An opening isn’t something for the weak of spirit. The hours are long, there’s lots of heavy lifting, and the work requires patience and strategy. But when the construction crews go, the tarps are removed, the heavy blankets of dust are wiped away, and the staff stands ready to greet the first customers, it’s nearly impossible to remember any ache or pain.  By the time the restaurant doors open for the first night of service, the people who put it together are bonded by blood, sweat, tears, a lack of sleep, a near starvation diet, and aching feet.

And then the real work starts. Here’s to filling up my well of energy before the next job starts.

I am grateful for my friends, visitors, and supporters in my life. Thank you for coming to this website, reading the words, and engaging in the conversation about food, restaurants and life. Here’s to full plates, abundant hearts, and more blog posts!

Mushroom, Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Quinoa

I’m not used to leaving town for my job. Unless you own numerous restaurants or work in a cross-country chain, most people in my business tend to stay in one locale for a long time. Restaurants may be a high turnover business, but most professionals tend to stay at one address for as long as they possibly can. So, it’s not every day in the life of this restaurant consultant where I pack my bags and head out of town for several weeks for a restaurant gig. And yet, here I am, packing my bags and organizing my life before I join the talented team of restaurant professionals who will soon open their vibe-dining establishment in Rancho Cucamonga.

I may not have as many posts between now and the end of this month. But I promise to cook up a bunch of great stories while I’m gone and be back in time for Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I leave you with this simple and homey side dish inspired by a photo in this month’s Food and Wine. This simple version of a Fall quinoa features butternut squash, sweet potatoes and trumpet mushrooms.

This salad is great as a side dish, a main course, and–if you’re looking to turn things up a notch–even breakfast if you fry up an egg and put it on top!

“Awareness is the birthplace of possibility. Everything you want to achieve begins here.”–Deepak Chopra

As a Service Coach, I observe restaurant teams in action and coach them how to win the game of earning customers for life. I take groups of service professionals from being average–and sometimes minor–players to being highly coveted members of an award-winning team. I help shape natural talent into something special.

Most owners understand the basic business proposition of giving their customers a consistent product.  But what many people in business fail to identify and grow in their staff is the importance of making customers feel as if their needs were exceeded. Again and again and again. Businesses that take the time to help their staff be aware, listen, and foster an intuitive sense about what customers want, tend to be the winners in the game of making customers for life.

I am lucky to be a restaurant consultant who has the great fortune of working with smart and insightful people who understand the value of hospitality. These visionary business owners see the long road ahead of them, recognize the need to invest in customer service programs, and bring me on to help improve their game. Like most great leaders, my clients understand the value of getting assistance to sure up their weaknesses–way before a weaknesses become a failure.

The first step in successful coaching starts with observing. I can tell a lot about a restaurant within the first few minutes of watching them in action. Give me a corner seat, a handful of minutes during a busy service, and I can give you an accurate assessment of a restaurant team’s potential, problems, and requirements.

Following my initial observations, I show clients what I’ve learned from watching their dining room. I offer them information on how keeping a constant eye on specific areas of their dining room can result in obtaining key information about their diners and how to better deliver what they need. Even in some of the best restaurants, leaders may fail to identify key areas for improvement. I notice dropped napkins while staff members walk over them. I identify neglected customers and lost sales opportunities where staff members walk past in a rush to get another task done. In some especially hurting businesses when owners can only see business losses, I may find unlocked beer coolers and liquor storage areas, menus with confusing descriptions, managers with lacking leadership skills, and dining rooms with a personality disorder.

Awareness may be something we’re born with. Our modern lives drain us of the impulse to stay aware. Lately, it seems, most Americans don’t seem all that comfortable with awareness.

We are a nation of multi-taskers. We watch TV while we eat dinner. We check email while we wait in line. We scan Facebook updates while we work. We listen to our favorite music so we don’t have to pay too close attention the turmoil of a traffic jam or the pains of a difficult workout. Have you noticed a recent uptick in the number of people who walk into you because they’re too busy texting or focusing something else other than walking? How many times have you seen people text their way through a green light? When was the last time you went to a restaurant, a retail shop, or a place of business and was impressed with the staff’s high level of attentiveness?

Look, awareness may not be the sexiest of solutions–it doesn’t come in a sleek package and isn’t a quick fix–but being conscious of our surroundings does seem to be needed in dining room and retail spaces across our country. Awareness is something that must be taught and reinforced. It requires hard work from restaurant owners and leaders to cultivate. Supporting restaurant employees to practice mindfulness while doing their complicated job of serving guests will result in appreciative customers and even a happier staff.

So if you’re interested in better serving your customers or improving your life, I suggest you start working on being more aware of your daily actions and routines. Take the blinders off. Unplug from your social media. Keep your eyes up. Turn off your phone. Take some time to do nothing but be aware of your surroundings. Go for a walk. Go to the beach and watch the waves. Meditate. Practicing mindfulness and active awareness will help you see opportunities you’ve been missing in your workplace and in your life.

3 Levels of Awareness

Take some time to apply these three kinds of consciousness to your working and personal life.

Internal: With a sense of calm and patience, you are able to see hidden opportunities where others may only see uncertainty, potential harm, or problems.

Intuitive: You are able to observe a situation and because you understand people and what they need you are able to make spontaneous decisions that come without much thought. Insight comes quickly. You are able to give people the help that they need before they are even aware that they need it.

Creative: Awareness is the meeting point between what you know and what is uncertain. When you are aware, you feel comfortable with uncertainty. You thrive on it because you see the unpredictability of it as a good challenge.