On this week’s Five Rules for the Good Life, I’m posted up in Houston with Aaron Bludorn and Cherif Mbodji, friends and partners in the growing Bludorn Hospitality Group. They share their Five Rules for Juggling a Family and a Restaurant Group, including embracing therapy, building trust within their teams, and even attending Phish shows. They discuss scheduling family time like a meeting, getting comfortable with taking weekends off, and why joy has to be part of the plan. This conversation is about doing the work and still making room for happiness. These five rules serve as a blueprint for anyone seeking to achieve balance without burning out, especially when they have people relying on them at work and at home.

This conversation really stayed with me. I deeply believe in finding balance between the intensity of creative work and being a present dad & partner. Hearing how Aaron and Cherif navigate that same space, especially in the high-pressure world of restaurants, was both inspiring and affirming. It’s not just about running a business, but about building a life that feels full, fun, and aligned with their core values. Their honesty made me reflect on how I’m doing my best by showing up for my own family, and also gave me a little more permission to protect that space as well.

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Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I'm in the deep heart of Texas, hanging out with Aaron and Cherif of the Blue Dorn Hospitality Group. It started as a friendship in the New York restaurant scene and has transformed into one of Houston's fastest growing and most exciting restaurant empires.

Today, they share their five rules to juggling a family and a restaurant group. We chat about the importance of getting exercise and therapy, that the key to success is communication above all else, and we go back and forth on the rivalry between the Astros and the Dodgers. So let's get into the rules.

Aaron and Cherif, so good to meet you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy restaurant empire to chat with me today on Five Rules for the Good Life. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. Excited to be on the call.

What I found as I've gotten older is that so many of my work habits have been directly inspired by my parents. And I find that people usually take a path as they get into their own adult working life—either embracing their parents' work ethic or running away in the opposite direction. What do you remember of your own parents' work-family balance and were you drawn to it or did you run away from it?

My dad was an airline pilot, so he had a very set schedule. He worked 12 days out of every month and then he was off 100% of the time after that. I would say I ran away from it. He had a ton of time off. I gravitated toward a career in kitchens that was 16 hours a day, six days a week. And I still feel like I learned my work ethic from my father, but yeah, I definitely went the other way.

Same here. I grew up in a family very stable where we spent a lot of time around each other. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and my dad—very typical government 9-to-5 job. He was around the household a lot. We all had breakfast, lunch, dinner daily together.

I love that. I mean, those are beautiful memories and that's what I grew up with. And I think if anything, it really gives you this sense of family presence and having parents who are around all the time. They were able to raise their kids, and you always kind of want some of that, no matter how busy life is.

Wanting those things I think comes later in life. What were those early days like when you were all-in, getting your jump on your career in the restaurant industry?

Well, the greatest thing about those days was that it was just me that I had to worry about. Throughout my 20s, full-in on learning how to cook, learning how to run a kitchen. I knew that the more I put into it, the more I'd get out of it. I remember just knowing that if I worked hard now, I'd be able to have what I wanted later.

That's good foresight. The harder you work, the easier it is to write your own ticket. And knowing that that's where you want to go, you can create your own path through that.

That was my goal—to always give myself as much flexibility as possible.

As you started your own restaurant and as you guys came together as partners in the Blue Dorn Group, when did you start to think about having balance, getting to write your own ticket? Was it an active thought that you worked toward or was it, “Oh, we're having a kid and this is what it's leading to”?

My wife had a big part in pushing me towards finding balance very quickly after our first child came. We were in the throes of opening up our first restaurant. But I had also watched Cherif go through all of that. Cherif had kids when we worked together in New York and watching him balance those two... and I always thought that he did a really great job.

I don't know whether your wife thinks so or not.

I don't know.

And that inspired me. The hardest pill I had to swallow was my wife being pretty adamant that I took Saturdays off along with Sundays. I felt this immense sense of guilt, like I wasn't contributing to my team. But then I realized that my whole team all got two days off themselves.

Of course.

Well, and I'd always been pretty adamant about that. I would push for that. And so I'm like, well, why am I cutting my nose off to spite my face just to work the sixth day and not create balance?

And one of the things that really helped me out is going to therapy to work less.

Yeah, to let go.

Well, when you have this mindset and you're just thinking about yourself and working for yourself, and then other people come to rely on you—both at work and at home—you've got to shift that mindset. And sometimes, having therapy really helps.

And for those who haven't crossed into that world of therapy, I'm really excited for you guys to share your five rules for juggling a family and a restaurant group. Or for those who just have one restaurant—it applies, I think, just as well.

Your very first rule was the first step I took into finding a balance. What is your rule number one?

Keeping healthy is extremely important to us. And it became something really apparent. Aaron's been really someone who actually has inspired me to start working out again because he's very active.

He runs.

Love it.

And I remember one time I wasn't driving when I first moved here and I would catch a ride with him all the time. As we're pulling up here in front of our office, he says to me, “Our health is the biggest factor in our ability to be happy and successful.” And it is true. 100%.

I think that also speaks to staying healthy mentally. The ability to find ways to calm yourself, to collect yourself. For a long time, running has always been a way for me to sort of filter out the day or set myself up for the day. Having yourself in a healthy mind space where you're not just burning the candle at both ends—having a healthy mind, a healthy body—it all comes from us, especially the drive and the push and the leadership. And if everyone sees that we're taking care of ourselves, they will as well. And that's so important in keeping the machine going.

Being very public about shifting the way you eat and going to therapy is pretty vulnerable, especially in a very competitive place like a kitchen or a restaurant group. Which ties directly into rule number two and surrounding yourself with a certain type of people. What's your second rule?

Building a team you trust and building that trust with your team. For us, it's been all about team building since day one. We've been so lucky to have such amazing people come on board and work for us. And it's picking the right people that mesh well, setting up a culture with those people where everyone buys into it. Where if you have someone that comes in that doesn't fit that mold or potentially is a bad influence, they find themselves out pretty quickly.

One other thing I want to point out in here that's so important is paying them appropriately and paying them well. You can't try to nickel and dime your team. You have to pay them what they're worth.

It's an investment. It's an investment in your own company and how your company grows. If you don't take care of your team, you get what you pay for. We are very open with our team. They're all very invested and aware of how we're performing as a group. They understand the financial operation side of things. And we sit with our team members every six months—not just annually—where we are constantly making sure that they feel valued. Whatever their worth is, it's acknowledged and taken care of to that extent.

You talked about supporting the team you've built at work, but there's the other team at home where the balance is really important—because the team at home gets you for two days and the team at work gets you for five. What is your rule number three?

It's protecting family time. Family time is something that, just as we think about important meetings or the things that we have on our calendar and protect and make sure that there is no excuse—we're there for it—family time is treated the same way.

It starts with creating the culture where we are understanding and respectful of each person's family time. We do our best to give you the space to spend it with your family. If they have wants and needs with their family, we respect that just like we ask them to respect ours. That’s from day one