Publications & Sites 
Maybe Congress needs a ‘Bar Rescue’
Randy Blaser
Updated: November 12, 2012 10:57AM
If someone told you that to be successful you had to change, could you do it?
If you had to start working your tail off to make it, if you had to spend money to make money, or if you had to make hard choices like firing your best friend to make it, would you do it?
The answer is obvious, isn’t it?
Some people wouldn’t. Working hard is hard work. Taking a risk to make money could backfire, and you could lose everything. Messing with the status quo of a relationship can be more stressful than going bankrupt.
Some people just can’t change. It is beyond the comfort zone, even when change could lead to dreams fulfilled.
That’s the backdrop for one of my new favorite reality TV shows. It’s called “Bar Rescue,” where nightlife expert John Taffer analyzes a failing nightclub and remakes it into what he claims will be a successful business venture.
The show is entertaining; it has a story line, characters, drama and conflict.
But it also reveals some hard truths about what some people have come to expect in life. Despite their business failings, many of the bar owners and staff featured in the show seem to expect that success will just come to them. They want to be successful, but either don’t know how to be, or don’t see how success is related to their behavior.
They go blithely along — some working hard and others hardly working — it doesn’t seem to matter much when they don’t understand how to market for the crowd that spends money or how their performance delivering the goods affects the bottom line.
In nearly every show, a bar owner or staffers are revealed to be looking more for a handout than a hand.
That sets the stage for our star, Taffer, who is part motivational speaker and part drill sergeant.
John is tough love personified, telling folks in no uncertain terms why they are failing. They’re lazy, don’t care, uninformed and ill-trained. When they protest, John lets them know in very high decibels that if they weren’t those things, they’d be successful and you know you can’t argue with success.
He then tells them what they have to do to make it, how they have to change old habits, learn new ones and fix what is broken. He makes over their menu and makes over the bar, essentially giving them the tools to be successful.
The rest, as they say, is up to them.
In this day and age, when debates rage about the 1 percent or who built what, “Bar Rescue” provides some vivid answers about being successful.
Can someone come up with a show called “Congress Rescue?”
