Sometimes leaving is the best thing.

There are a lot of good parts to life. I think most happy people really enjoy the majority of the things that they do.

One thing I particularly do not enjoy though is having to work for someone else.

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If you have read my blogs then you know that I work at a restaurant 7 days a week. I have several different jobs, but I always make sure to show up on my restaurant first thing in the morning and take care of that first shift before I do anything else.

Sometimes I stay all day but that doesn't always happen.

The weekends at my restaurant are very busy. In fact, I probably make most of my restaurant money during those weekends. That's not to say I never make a lot during the week, but I can usually count on the weekends to be clinchers if you know what I mean.

Today was extremely busy. There were so many different people running around that it was hard to stay focused on each and every individual table.

That can be a good thing because it means a lot of money is coming into the restaurant, but it can be a bad thing because it affects your ability to interact with your guests in the way that could result in a higher tip.

It might also make them not as interested in coming back to see you if they know that you're too busy to spend a lot of time talking to them.

When it's busy at the restaurant, people tend to want to stay a long time.

I'm talking about the servers.

The more money comes in, the more money you make. We have days when we really don't make any money.... but then we have days when we make a lot of money.

When you are making a lot of money you need to make sure that you are there to make more of it.

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I've tried explaining this to a few different people, and they have a tendency to say something like it's too bad that you are so focused on money.

It's too bad that I have to pay rent and that I have to pay for food, right?

Nobody at the restaurant likes the concept of money. We just need money in order to buy the things that are necessities like food, shelter, and comfort sometimes.

Now I explained earlier that's a good idea to stay at the restaurant as long as you can, as long as the money is flowing in. However, there's also another side to that argument.

The longer you stay at the restaurant, the more tired you're going to get. The restaurant industry is one of the few industries that require you to run around all day.

We run around lifting things and put a lot of mileage on our poor bodies.

Arms, legs, shoulders, back.... all of it is hurting all the time.

That means to longer you stay, the more difficult time you're going to have interacting with your guests in a positive way.

If you can't be positive, you aren't going to make the money.

This is why I prefer to work shorter shifts. If you work three to four hours at a restaurant you might run five miles or so.

If you work 10 hours straight though you could be looking at 12 to 15 miles.

That's a long time. Your body will be hurting.

Trust me when I say your body will absolutely be aching and your mind will not be better for it.

This is the reason that once I make a good amount of money and I see that things are working well, I will usually just leave.

I know that by leaving I will be able to recharge my body and I'll not be looking at diminishing returns.

You've got to make that money, but you've also got to know when to get out of there.

Sometimes leaving is the best thing.