Beverage Director & Co-Owner of King, Jupiter, & Dean's; Owner of Lei

My dad's first job when he moved to the US was in a restaurant, a takeout Chinese spot, so the idea of me working in restaurants was really frowned upon. I wasn't allowed to work in a restaurant like so many of my peers were, I was always in summer school, I was always told I had to get internships and white collar jobs. I got a job after college in finance, but my heart was always in restaurants. I took a hospitality certificate course at NYU on the weekends while I was working at JP Morgan, and that was my way of just trying to figure out if this passion that I had for for hosting and for cooking and for restaurants was legitimate and if that was something that I wanted to turn into my profession.

My primary takeaway from talking to so many people is that there is no silver bullet solution. Every type of business expansion looks different depending on what your group and what your general managers and executive chefs look like.

Be fulfilled by your job but also make sure to have a life, whether that includes starting a family or having time to go on dates and meet your person. It looks different for everybody, but it's really important.

Be patient. Let things roll off your back. Don't take home the stress of service with you. It's serious, but it's not that serious.

If you find yourself struggling, take some space from your job and the business, and try to remember why you fell in love with restaurants in the first place. Sometimes we're in it too deep, and we just need to take a step back and recognize that the distance will help you realize why you loved it in the first place.

The people who got you from point A to point B, and maybe point B to point C, are not necessarily the same people who will get you from C to D and D to E, and that's okay. It's a really refreshing perspective that you're allowed to change, you're allowed to grow. People can change with you and grow with you, but not everyone will, and that's okay.