Meet Paul Knaysi

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paul Knaysi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Paul below.

Paul, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

I have been operating our pizza restaurant for almost 24 years. Throughout these years, I have struggled with burnout and lack of creativity. Our restaurant creates a “pizza of the week ” every week, which can be exhausting. I find that when I am feeling tired, or burnt out, I lack creativity.
One way I overcome this is by engaging with my employees. I find that by listening to their ideas regarding new pizza ideas, and/or ideas about improving the restaurant helps get me out of my funk. Their creativity rekindles my creativity.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

We are focused on keeping our brand interesting and relevant, despite being in business for 24 years. We change our menu yearly and have a new pizza offering every week. We are constantly tweaking how we do things to improve efficiency. The longer we are in business, the more we realize how little we know about anything, as we are always adapting to new challenges and conditions.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

We had a clear vision of what we wanted our business to be, and we were willing to listen to everyone about how to achieve what we wanted. We still always have our ear to the ground, listening for new ideas and information. We also never gave up, despite being exhausted and overwhelmed early on. We did everything we could ourselves, to save money, but we also set up the day to day operations so that our staff could run it well without us. We knew the ultimate goal was to have a restaurant that ran well, without us having to always be there.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

When I am feeling overwhelmed, I try to remember to breathe deeply and think ” this too shall pass”. I also try to think that my issues or challenges are nothing compared to …. (whatever the latest global crisis is) . I also think about everything that is going well for me. I find that getting a bit of perspective helps me calm down and allows me to take the next step of prioritizing tasks and figuring out what needs to be done. When I start breaking down the tasks into smaller pieces, it helps me feel like I am accomplishing things and making progress.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pablospizza.com
• Instagram: @pablos_pizza

Image Credits

Paul Knaysi