I remember when we opened a high end restaurant with a very talented chef, that we thought that he understood the value of a dollar and that we were not only creating an amazing restaurant, but that it was also a business. (It really doesn’t matter what the name of the restaurant or chef was.)

About 2 weeks into the restaurant's life, I walked into the walk-in refrigerator and was almost knocked over by the aroma of fresh with truffles.

I opened up one of the lock boxes in the fridge, to see that it was packed with $80,000 of white truffles. Back then they were around $500 per pound and now run around $1200 per pound.

I ran to the chef and said, #WTF did you do?

He looked at me and said that he got a tremendous discount on the truffles and it was a bargain. #OMG I walked away and quickly gathered my partners to tell them about the truffles and the conversation I had with the chef.

I said to my partners that we made a huge mistake in hiring this talented chef, who had zero concern and understanding for our business, money and profitability.

The moral of the story- people show you their true colors very, very quickly.

Make sure you are aware of those colors and act on them quickly. Otherwise, you are going to be sitting with $80,000 of white truffles and 50-60% of them will go bad, before you even use them.