Stephen Shaul is the first to admit it's no surprise he grew up expecting to enter the world of restaurants. "I was inoculated from childhood, as my dad [Oliver Shaul, who died in 2010] was somewhat of a luminary in the restaurant industry," he says.

When the younger Shaul entered the field, Australian universities didn't offer courses in hospitality management, so he headed to the US to begin his career.

"While I did my degree I started cooking in restaurants. Food was a passion of mine," he says.

With a degree under his belt, Shaul headed to Hawaii to take up a management traineeship with the Sheraton hotel chain. When that proved a success, he soon found himself back in Australasia.

"Sheraton posted me to Auckland to run a 24-hour restaurant for them. If you were awake and hungry between 2am and 6am, we were pretty much the only place you could eat," he says.

Life as a restaurant manager gelled with Shaul and he went on to work his way around the industry, including operating several successful hospitality businesses.

He says making it to the top of the world of restaurants requires a certain skill set."If you're not obsessive about detail, you're going to miss the mark. Attention to detail about the uniforms, the way the place is maintained and the way it looks [is all important]."

The other key ingredient to a career in restaurant management is passion. While owners and managers often have it in spades, Shaul says there's a challenge running restaurants when the staff you are supervising are simply looking for a casual gig.

"In restaurants, lots of people at the base wage are just doing it [on the side]. As a manager, you have to engage people so they look forward to coming to work," he says.

A few years ago, Shaul decided he was ready for a change from being on the front line of food. "I took a year off to teach the long-term unemployed about hospitality and to do that I had to become a qualified trainer/assessor," he says.

Shaul found teaching so rewarding, he took up a casual role as an associate lecturer at The Hotel School Sydney. Part of Southern Cross University, the school is run in partnership with several hotels.

"Teaching is a great challenge. A colleague and I co-teach. We stand in the round and we bounce around the subject with the students ... for three hours. It's very stimulating," he says.

Success in lecturing requires focus but Shaul says students aren't the only ones who need to do their homework. "It's vital to have done your research; reading the newspaper is one of the most important things I do. I also have a blog and that keeps me [on top of] the industry."

Shaul says his lecturing schedule is far more flexible than his first career. He teaches from 9am to noon or noon to 3pm but "there's a lot of preparation for each lecture. It takes at least as long as the length of class itself."

While the settings of his two careers are quite different, Shaul says that in some ways lecturing is not so different to running a food business. "I'm still motivating people towards a goal."

Then:
Salary: $80,000-plus. "As a general manager of a restaurant or catering facility, you can earn up to $250,000. The salary is different too, if you're working for yourself."
Work-life balance: "Owning your own establishment is the best way to get work-life balance but it's not easy to do, so most don't do it. My skill was driving a team so they wouldn't miss me if I wasn't there."
Hours: 5½ days of 10-hour shifts. "That's minimum. If you're good at your job, you should be able to get one day off a week."

Now:
Salary: Full-time lecturers earn about $90,000. "With a PhD, you might earn more."
Work-life balance: "Fabulous. I have two teenage kids, so one reason I embraced this change is because I wanted to do something that was mentally stimulating but left me time for my kids."
Hours: About 25 hours a week (40 weeks a year). "I'm currently a casual but I'm about to move full time, so those hours will change."
Miss: "The energy of a busy place ... The Hotel School Sydney energy is stimulating but it's not a madhouse [like restaurants can be]."
Challenges: "Staying current with what's happening in the industry, as well as with teaching itself."