How to Make Any Person Feel Seen with Will Guidara

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Now in your filial. All of you. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast. On a days episode, my guest is Will Gerdera. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book.

Unreasonable, hospitality. If you see a bright yellow book in an airport, or a bookstore, it's most likely Will's. He is fantastic. He is the former co-owner of the restaurant, 11 Madison Park in New York, and under his leadership it was named the number one restaurant in the entire world.

And he is also the co-producer of Ethics Series, Emmy Award Winning Show, the Bear. There are so many gyms from this conversation. We talk all about the art of hospitality in conversation. How do you bring creativity in deliver more than just the minimum expectations and how we interact with one another?

We talk all about how to have the right kind of meetings, how to get attention immediately, how to navigate the right way, and at the end of the day, how to do it with grace and kindness,

and a little bit of something spontaneous that you never expected.

Enjoy. So you go to a restaurant, and then it's easy to kind of pick up on those little moments. I imagine even when you're working, and even if you're just there hanging out, it's almost impossible for your eyes not to be just hyper-vigilant the whole time. Well, so with intention, the other night at dinner, I sat in the chair face in the window.

Yeah. I will always, if there's a chair where I'm looking at a wall, that's where I'll sit. Yeah. Just because I've gotten pretty good at it, but I don't need, and it's like an addict hanging out with heroin on the table.

It's unnecessary. Yeah, yeah, you don't need to be doing that. I don't need the distraction, because I will invariably, like, why are they, and all of a sudden you're in your gone, and then I just miss the most beautiful part of the conversation that I helped to perhaps set in motion.

I get that.

I have one of my best friends was a policeman forever, and still he sits always where

he can see the door, like that's just, he's, he's not going to sit anyway. He can't feel comfortable not looking at a door when he's down like that. I do the opposite. You do the opposite. Yeah, because you don't want to see it, and one thing also, my work doesn't have

the capacity to save someone's life. That's true. You are training the homework, you don't say, you know, like, you know, he might be, and I was going to tell you, this is a little gem, most people don't know, so when I was at my old first law firm, big defense firm, and I was getting the itch of, I'm in my

mid 20s, and everybody in their mid 20s thinks, I know this better in everybody. Like I'm the smartest. I know this, I'm right, everybody else is wrong. And I was really wanting to learn business, of like having known business, because I'm going straight from law school into big law and doing that life, and business has been

starting your own firm.

“Yeah, or just, how do you, how do you have your own employees?”

Like, what's that? How do you do that? Yeah. COVID, my one of my best friends, amazing chef by himself, and he had just got let go of this restaurant, and then there was this, like, I don't know what they call a class, a commercial

building that had a restaurant in it that was looking for a new person to come in. And so I came in with him, and we opened that little restaurant, we actually did it and the coffee shop right next to it, like a American food little place that did really well. And so I learned all about play costs and all of, like, some things in it, you're like, I'm a floor?

Yeah. Yeah. And so it was, and I would help out on Expo and try all the different, yeah, I mean. And so it was, is that restaurant still there? It's still there.

That's at sold mine, part of, like, I got, it was like, I could either try to get an MBA in business, or I could just put the same amount of money into a delivery room. Yeah. Yeah. And doing it, even though many would say, not the best business model for certain things,

but it was fantastic.

“And what I learned a lot, and I think where is I wish I had had, and we're going to”

talk into this field guide that you have, but I'm, I'm genuinely not a jealous guy. All right. All right. All right. This field guide, as soon as I saw, I got out of my hands, I was like, oh, God, this is so

I wish I had had that because I came in and a lot of my creativity, which I think,

“I know, I'm actually very creative person that just went into law and life has led”

me back, yeah, to doing more creativity, is I got focused on brand. I got focused on the right logo, the right tagline, the right, like aesthetic, instead of just serving people to what they were above and beyond and exceeding that expectation. I know a lot of your stuff is it's not just hospitality's not needing expectation. It is exceeding it and giving people more than they think they could ever deserve.

And so that was my, like, I need to make sure I mentioned that to him. Oh, thank you, dude. So I wish I had had, I wish I had had that, but I got in and now I was, I had it for, like, four years and you had fun. I did.

I had a blast. And you learned a bunch. I learned a bunch. I had some of the biggest laughs I've ever had in my life, just I'll set their few things. Their few groups that will ever be as close as a group that has opened a restaurant together.

Right. Do you know what I mean? Because the entire emotional gamut, like you have all the highs and the fun, the laughs and then those moments when you're on expo, and you're like, I was a very successful lawyer how likely does my brain have an inability to figure out out a fair, what played a food goes to a table with what frame of time and like, and then

there's the teamwork to figure it out. I love that. And the thing was at the time, the law firm was like shut down for a year because they were trying to still get with the times of remote work. So you had space.

So yeah, I had space and because it was a commercial building, we were able to do a lot of stuff that others weren't, to take advantage of proximity and six feet or whatever. But man, I laughed some of the hardest I've ever laughed in being back a house and doing stuff like that. We had, it was also some of the worst hurricanes and so we were able to provide a lot of

food for first responders and so we're making food at like 4 a.m.

Let's open a restaurant and we have to figure out how to work with and all of the adversity that is COVID. Yes. You know what? What else would be cool?

Hurricanes. That's right. You've got to everybody. Yes. That's it.

Hurricanes. Let's go. But mine is just a small fraction of just the depth of knowledge that you have in this industry. And I do, I absolutely want to get into the the field guide, which I just thrilled to be

one of the first to get in the hands.

But when you are articulated, like the brand, yeah. It is very, very common for someone to get like, all right, and I want to be really creative about the food. I'm a plant. I want to be really creative about what plates we use, about what the room looks like.

I want to be creative about what the logo is and the tagline and the uniforms and yet, the

“one thing that people will actually remember is where people stop being creative.”

Yeah. And where they stopped, where they stopped, no one very few people rather invest their best efforts into just the big and little things that make people feel a sense of connection to a place. Yeah.

I think that's all right. And it's so counter, like the mummy's say it out loud like that. Yeah. And it's like, oh, well, that makes sense, but yet, but yet, but yet, I, you have the book on reasonable hospitality and I'm going to be able to share with my audience all of your

background.

But I, my mind always turns the communication.

Yeah. And so I, I have been toying with the idea of like, what is the equivalent of unreasonable hospitality and communication? If, if we define hospitality as you do, the creative intentional act of making people feel seen, heard, and cared for above and beyond the service.

What is that feel like look like in communication? So I was curious in your mind, what, whether it's relationships, whether it's team, because I do want to talk to team, what do you find are those moments that have been

“that unreasonableness that you benefited from in conversation with people?”

So some of your best friends. Well, I mean, I think a lot of your work. Like centers around hospitality.

I really like those two words, creativity and intention. I circle back to often, right?

“I think the most beautiful things happen at the intersection of those two things, right?”

The intention of saying, I want to communicate this, because a lot of people in communication are not very intentional about what is coming out of their mouth, right? As opposed to saying, what am I actually trying to communicate, okay, it's this, then creativity, what's the right way to communicate it, such that the message will actually be received and depending on the context in a way that is supportive and not destructive

or thoughtful and not insulting, right? But when it's that kind of communication or if you're attempting to make someone feel some level of affirmation, they're actually communicating to them in a way that they can receive it well. Yeah.

So like on the, I talk a lot about feedback, I think you cannot create anything extraordinary in a business absent, like creating a culture where feedback is the norm. And when I talk about feedback, yes, I'm talking about praise, obviously, because when you set really high expectations for people and they meet or exceed those expectations, you better be there to celebrate them.

Yeah. A because it's the right thing to do, but, well, B, the more praise I receive, the more praise I want to receive, right? You're telling people what right looks like and you're encouraging them to do more of that. And not to mention the fact that in a group, we're having a daily huddle and I'm celebrating

the heck out of you, everyone else in the group was going to be like, I want a piece of that. Exactly. So obviously praise, but I think we focus so much on praise that we don't spend nearly enough time focusing on criticism, because of praise as affirmation, criticism is investment.

So if we can say an equivalent of unread more hospitality and communication is the value of criticism, done right, thoughtful criticism, thoughtful criticism. Yeah. And in the same way that I've watched your videos, really, like, hey, if you want to do this, like, do this.

Yeah. Right. Right. It's kind of like your idea, like there's a better way to do this. There's a better way to do this.

There's a better way to do this. But with criticism, I mean unreasonable communication and criticism, I mean, is recognizing that there's like, things you need to keep in mind if you want it to be thoughtful. If you want it to be an investment, let's criticize and private, not in public. It's criticized the behavior, not the person.

“Remember that I'm telling you to wear white socks, not telling your idiot.”

You're great. Right. Just do this differently. To criticize consistently, because some people are so uncomfortable with investing in someone else's growth through criticism that they don't do it until they're either in a bad mood

or have the energy and two things happen when you are in consistent criticism. People don't actually know what right looks like, because they could do the same thing

three days in a row, and they're only getting called on it the third, or a negative connotation

is attached to it because you only do it when you're in a foul mood, right? And so you do it in a bad way. Do you think that there's a line between just feedback, general feedback, and also criticism? I think criticism is a type of feedback. I think praise is a type of feedback.

Criticism. That's not all feedback. It's criticism. No. If you do something great, my feedback is, hey, you crushed that.

Right. That's feedback. Or if you do something not so great, hey, but listen, anyone that wants to grow, if they're

not receiving criticism, they're never going to become their most fully realized self.

Yeah, you have to have it. It's like if do you see a trainer for like a physical trainer? No, this is all. That's just coming up. That's just coming up.

Yeah, that's right. Well, I probably would benefit from one. I just started this year and it's a game changer. What it's done is nice. I need some way for nutrition.

I need some way to help go.

“You need to eat these things, because if I'm not careful with school drop off and everything,”

I will miss breakfast and I turn around and it's to a clock and it's like a kid. You're eating the least healthy thing in me. For sure. And then it happens. I'm really not hungry for five, thirty p.m. dinner with my kids and so, you know, I'm not

bad. That's what I need. Okay, so trainer?

Well, first of all, it's great thing to have in my experience because I get as much

But if I'm doing a workout, not the right way, I want him to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Yeah.

“Otherwise, I'm just wasting time and I'd rather invest that time efficiently and actually”

get stronger by a result of the investment. Right. And how much stronger you could get if you just move your phone just like a little bit. And if every time the trainer was like, "Hey, do this for the bro, stop talking to me like yeah, I'm doing it right."

Guess what he's going to stop doing? Yeah. Correcting me. Right. Because it's too exhausting to give me the feedback.

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When I was, on the way, knowing this conversation was coming, I was like, "Wow, just wrestling and kind of chewing on the idea of, to me, what is that unreasonable hospitality?" In a conversation, in the theme that kept coming up for me is grace. A grace can be an unreasonable thing, a unreasonable feeling. And it draws that line between mercy and grace, mercy being, you don't get what you deserve.

Grace is you get what you don't deserve. And so, so much in conversation, you might deserve me to give you that clap back, come back insult, right, in your face. Yes. It would be unreasonable for me to have pause and decide that your worst moment is not going

to determine how I respond. You know, the phrase that I learned from my long-time mentor, his name is Danny Meyer, is Danny Meyer. It was one of the central tenets of the company. Was charitable assumption.

Can you say the company, I wanna unreads, you know, you know, in the square house town. Got it. So, I was like, "Gramorcy Tavern, you know, in the square cafe, it's where I came up." And there's a whole other idea about communication from that company, but he had these isms, like these short, succinct, a lot of Buddhism.

Bordering on cheesy articulation of his non-negotiables. And every time he made an idea into anism, it was like a metasignal to all of us in the company that that thing mattered. Yeah. One of them was charitable assumption.

Charitable assumption is another way of saying, give people the benefit of the doubt or ask the question before you say the thing. Yeah. And so I'll give an example, someone comes into the restaurant and they're just a jerk. They are just a jerk, they're acting like a jerk.

Now it's totally reasonable for me to say he doesn't deserve my best hospitality. The charitable assumption that would have me say instead, gosh, maybe on his way to the restaurant, he found out that someone died or his wife filed for divorce. Maybe the guy acting like a jerk actually needs by hospitality more than anyone else in the room.

And for me to have that conversation and engage accordingly. Yeah. Now, sometimes just so I have it, the person was just a jerk. Turns out, yeah.

But I'd always rather err on the side of assuming the best and so on, and being proven

wrong, than err on the side of assuming the worst and being proven wrong.

“I think that's so true that just if you can keep in your mind those maybes, you know, rather”

than they are exactly what you think they are. And sometimes maybe they are, yeah, but maybe they're not. But it's the same thing when you're managing people, so it comes in. And they've been like five minutes late to work for two weeks straight. And because I'm not criticizing consistently, I wait until I'm really upset.

And I was rip into them. Like, do you not care about this job?

“Like, why do you think it's okay to disrespect us by coming in fight?”

Did it? Did it? Charitable assumption would be like, hey, what's going on? Are you okay? Like, I've noticed your five minutes late every single day, and is there a reason?

By the way, maybe it's because that person speaking New York right now lives in Queens. And there's two different buses that get them to Manhattan on time. One would have them arriving at the restaurant, an hour early. One has them arriving five minutes late, and they have to get their kids to school. Yeah.

Okay, now I have the question. Now I have that information. No, you're saying, you know what? Why don't we just shift your in time back 15 minutes? Yeah.

You know, that's a little bit like that. And now that relationship had I reacted the first way, it would have been damaged. Right. React in the second way. Now it's actually stronger.

Yeah. Because that I feel like I'm actually invested in them, not just as an employee, but as a human being. And you gave them some grace. Yeah. And I learned something along the way.

Right.

“And that in itself can be unreasonable, which is, um, I think that the state of things”

sometimes, it, doing the kind thing can be and feel unreasonable to the given moment. Now you have managed, I mean, just the number of teams and the number of pressure. And I have heard your story of how, love medicine part, it just went under your help to the number one restaurant in the world, which is just bonkers. All right, but the level of the termination, not for just the food being perfect or this

being perfect, is that you care just as much about your team as you did about the people that you're serving. And so there are people that will be listening to this who have their own business, who are small business owners or big business owners that they, their people managers. And so what I was really curious about, what are some of the questions and things that

we need to think about as people managers. So what, what are some of the, or big like tenants that you're going, hey, if I have everybody on hand, I know you have, what do you call it, premium, premium? Yeah. So those kind of like meetings, how do you, how can we better manage people?

Well, okay, let's start with premium because that's one of my favorite places to start. Yep. And I'll frame what that is. So, premium is the 30 minute meeting we have every day with our entire team right before we unlock the doors and go into service.

And it's a meeting that most restaurants have.

And yet it is one that is almost always wasted.

And a wasted premium that happens when, well, you spend the entire time talking about ideas that could easily be communicated via an email like operational concerns. Because that meeting, it's called a daily huddle, right, in other worlds. Yeah, in my view, the greatest opportunity a leader has to actually step up and lead the people around them.

So it's taken our daily huddle seriously, taking it very seriously. For the regular mom pop business, the small business out there, when you have one, it's understanding daily huddles or necessity. Yeah. Do you require that it be every day or is it, I mean, listen, I never, when I'm talking

about people in other industries, I never want perfect to be the enemy of the good. Occadence that works. Occadence that works and the cadence should be more frequently than you're comfortable with. Oh, that's a good basis. Well, because most people, when they start doing this, they kind of start at somewhat

the bare minimum. Yeah.

And there is always time to do something.

If we decide it's an important enough thing to do. Got it. 30 minutes a day before lunch and before dinner, so an hour a day, seven days a week. That is obviously not necessary. Right.

But some number of minutes, and when you have your team circled, it's not just focusing on the what, but on the how and more importantly, the why. When as a leader, we're walking through the world looking for things that inspire us, so we can bring them home and share them with our teams.

“Like, I've benefited from the popularity of TED Talks, and yet I think those are so”

successful because as human beings, we crave inspiration in very few people in our lives have answered the call to actually step up and inspire us. So many companies spend so much time focusing on training, which is important, obviously. And yet training absent inspiration is wholly insufficient because I don't care how much how well you know how to do a job.

If you're not inspired to want to do it really well, you're never going to bring your

I think a lot of leaders, even the ones that have that meaning, there's something about

people that holds them back from bringing their most passionate self to it. Because we've all been in the receiving end of this at some point, like passion is contagious. There's someone steps up in front of you and speaks with every ounce of there being why the work you are doing matters, how you can impact other people. Why taking it seriously is a virtuous approach to take.

Why there's fun to be had or connections to made whatever it is. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people can like fully understand that.

“I think communication with your team, people need to stop trying to be so cool and just”

be really, really, really excited because that bleeds into those around them. That's hard for some people. I mean, I'm thinking of like you have the history of what you've created empowered and gave autonomy to your team to say, hey, when you see those magical moments that we can create and raise more hospitality, when you overhear that table, talk about going sledding or wishing

they had a, you call it dirty dog, dirty water dog, dirty water dog, you know, how can we create these, you cultivate these experiences with them. That is exciting because it's like you don't know every day is a new adventure of what could come up and so that unexpected surprise. And I hear in my mind those people who, I don't know, they're a plumbing industry or they're

a fabrication shop or they're a small accounting business, you know, of ways that they go, that sounds great, but I'm not in a restaurant. How can I possibly get excited about the fact that we do this and that and this?

“When what I hear you saying is you're focusing on the wrong objective, what you need to be”

focusing on is what are ways that you can inspire yourself to be excited about what you're doing and if you're excited, the other people are going to be excited.

People around you will be too, but here's the thing, it's not just a restaurant thing.

I think there's no ability in service and I'd say 9.9 out of 10 of the people that are listening to this are in the service industry, they're in the business of serving other people. Like, I think about the world that you came from. I would love to run a daily huddle in a law firm. You can do it for me, my man.

But do you know what I mean, like so many people focus so much on the objective that they forget about the people they are there to serve and the anxiety and trepidation with which they're walking into that room, you are there to defend them. They were also there to walk with them through an unbelievably scary experience and remembering that it is much more than pleading a case.

It's actually like defending a human being during some of their darkest moments and if that is not noble, I don't know what is. But I'm saying, I could do that about any industry because I genuinely believe everything matters. It's just about how you look at your world and how you celebrate the impact you can make. Before we continue, I want to take a moment to talk to you about our place.

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take seriously the repeatable cadence of communication with your team.

“Does it need to be in person or can it be virtual, you think?”

I think it can be virtual. Okay, it just needs whatever it is it has to be consistent. And it needs to be prepared for it. Is there a certain way that you run the meeting in terms of we're going to talk about this this and this or is it just kind of top of mind?

Well, so the way I always did it, I had notes that every single person on the team would be

given a piece of paper. Oh, you give them a note. Yeah, and the paper was kind of everything. All the stuff I needed to make sure they knew depending on the company and the industry it's different, right? Like health insurance enrollment begins on this day, this policy changed.

This is a new system we're implementing, do do do do do do do do do do do now. Now they have all the information I needed to communicate literally in their hands. Mm-hmm. No one can ever say, I didn't give it to him. I didn't get the email, but I didn't check the portal, or whatever, they can't. It's literally in their hands.

Uh-huh. If I have a few housekeeping notes, I'll say that at the top. And then I will come in to that meeting prepared in the same way that I am now when I step up on a stage. Right. I'll say, all right, I want to tell you as a story of something that happened to me last week.

And did it, did it, did it? I'll tell the story. Anyone doing anyone who's ever done public speaking knows stories make ideas stick. And then I'll talk about the lesson that I learned from it. And then we'll talk about it as a group.

“How do you end it? I would always end, but the way the meeting started would be it, what's today?”

It's a full Wednesday. Yeah.

So I would always say happy Wednesday.

The entire group would say back in use in the happy Wednesday. Yeah. Just to start it. Yeah. And then at the very end, I would say, have a good service.

And they'd all say back, have a good service. Okay. Just because I believe in rhythms and rituals. Well, I mean, there's, there's a reason why people will say, turn the person next to you and say, you know, I believe in this.

You know, whatever it is, when people say it together, there is a feeling that that unison. And also like when you watch one of those locker room speeches at half time, about movie and the team comes back and wins the day. Let's go.

It's so fired up because of the end. They put their hands in. All right. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

I would always say, every day is the Super Bowl.

“Like every day you walk into service, you need to take it seriously.”

And as the biggest came your life. Otherwise, there's people you're serving. That might be the only time they ever come into the restaurant. Yeah. So you'd better take it seriously for them.

Yeah. And there's something beautiful about team sports. And I think it's remarkable to me. How many leaders played team sports in high school and college. And yet don't take some of the lessons they learned from team sports

and to how they lead a team. I can see that. I think I, I more and more believed that managing people is a very particular skill. It is a skill that can be learned, but it does not easily talk. Like it's not something that without kind of being plugged into a system.

Where you get shown how to do it. Yeah. It can feel kind of like you're in a lost place. Like I hear you saying, okay, I have a, I have a way that I start.

I have a way that I end. Whatever industry you create at how you want to create it. Say what you want to say. Yes. Be as goofy and as you and genuine as you want to be.

Yeah. But there's some things that you're going to have to hit. And I love that you go. I'm giving you the information that I already know in black and white. You got to have to have to have to. I get to talk of what's on my heart and put it in a story.

Yeah. Because everybody's got stories because we all live. Hmm. You can just say what you did yesterday. But relate that to the point that you're wanting to hit home.

Whether it's something that is specific to a special moment. Or a way that they have created impact. Yes. And so I think even if a company were to pull up their latest Google review and read it to their team.

Like, you know, I mean, just to go, just as a reminder, that person you touched is, this is how it is. But like, and also like, finding and seizing and talking about inspiration is a practice. It's a muscle that you strengthen. You don't need it right away.

Like in the beginning, hey, I was listening to Jefferson's podcast yesterday. And he said this and it's stuck with me. And I want to share with all of you, tell me how you react to it. Right. Okay, that's a great premium.

Because they're actually flexing your brain. And when you think together and dream together and create together, brings people closer. Yeah. The other thing I would always do, I worked Monday through Friday.

Okay. Very, very long days. We're still up in the weekends. Yeah, what's a long day? 9 a.m. to midnight?

Okay. Yeah, that's a long day. That would count. It had a long long time. Right, sure.

On Saturday, when you got the schedule, mm-hmm. There would be a star next to one person every Saturday, which meant you're running premium. Oh.

Because I do believe public speaking is a leadership skill.

Yeah. And also, once you've delivered that speech, and you know how hard it is to do it well, you're going to be one of the most attentive people next time here on the receiving end. Right, right.

And so the more you can push people outside of their comfort zone and have them actually lead. The more ready they are to become leaders when their days are running. I love that. So actually changing who gets to lead it. Like whoever's doing it and you get to change every single time.

“Man, I think that's a great idea for people to have for every team needing that they have.”

Somebody else run it. Yeah. Because then you all share in both the privilege and the whore and the anxiety leading and then it doesn't go, oh great. Okay, we got Greg again, reading, you know, leading, needing here.

It's okay, it's Lisa's turn. Oh, it's a different breath of air.

Yeah, that's always true.

It's always that quiet person on the team. Yeah. And sometimes they will stand up in front of the team and just stun people. Knocked their socks off. And then the confidence, like anyone you've ever seen that steps up on stage for the first time.

And celebrated for the work they did, it changes their confidence level. Yeah. And that confidence spills over and over everything they do. Right. I think that's sometimes the beauty of like inside jokes.

Yeah. You know, because it's something that we share. Yes. And because we can kind of riff off each other and have that level of bond. Like if it's two people, whether it's, you know, they're looking, working on it.

Was the cold line or would it, and they're like, you know, you know what I mean? And they're, are they're prepping for the day, like, just to have that sense of,

“you have to find ways to make them mundane fun.”

Yes. And sometimes that, to me, is the same thing we do in conversation. Like, well, it might make you feel like an insider. Yeah. And that's what we all want.

We all want to feel like part of something. And the fewer people that are part of it, the more special it feels to be a part of it. Right. Like, that's why I love creating words within an organization. Like, or ism's, like, charitable assumption, or we used to have all these little, like,

if you, let's say, if I saw a restaurant now, we've become friends. Yeah. You come into the restaurant. I'm not there. I'm just going to send a text.

And Jefferson Fisher dash, table 42, dash, crush him. Yeah. And with that mean, everyone on my team would know what that means. Yes. Yes.

There's 17 different things we can do to elevate someone's experience. Do as many of them as feels natural to what, what he's doing there tonight. For us, crush him. I love that. If I were to say that to someone else, they wouldn't even know what I was talking about.

But to my team, it's clear that they said that right there is going to have to be a special experience for whoever is there that night at the table. Or another one, this is actually feels like it fits into your work. DBC was another one of our isms, which doesn't listen. No matter what you do, restaurants earn extreme version of this high-paste.

Yeah. You know, chaotic environments. It was mad. Yeah. People can get into the weeds.

Then when you get into the weeds, and you start to get overwhelmed, that's when you start making mistakes. Yeah. And that's when you need someone on your team to tell you to chill out or calm down. Right.

“And yet, have you ever told someone who is overwhelmed to chill out or calm down?”

And had it achieve a desired effect, never, never.

So DBC, one of my best friends, his name is Andrew Tepper, he and I went to preschool together. He's still one of my best friends. He, he got a graduate degree in social work, and he does a lot of amazing work with kids. And he was working at a psychiatric hospital, where's a lot of kids there, and he felt like the therapists were just over prescribing sedatives.

When kids were having difficult times. So he went to his parents' basement, where they still had silk screening equipment from when he was a kid. And he designed these really cool t-shirts that just said in block letters DBC, which meant the deep breathing club.

And he wore one of them to the hospital, and all the kids were like, dude, that's such a cool t-shirt. He goes, "Do you want one?" And they're like, "Yeah, I guess. Here's how you get one."

And all they had to do was overcome a potential meltdown three times in a row through deep breathing and deep breathing alone. Okay. Six months later, half of the kids in the hospital were over in DBC shirts, and the amount of sedatives being prescribed had dropped dramatically.

So, I brought him to the restaurant. I had him lead premium a bunch of times over the course of a month. And I said to the team, I was like, "Guys, sometimes people here lose their cool. They need to be told to calm down. They need to be told to chill out."

So we're just replacing the words.

Now it's a DBC.

“And so literally, every night, so I'll just walk over to someone else and just whisper”

to the other ear, it's like, "Hey, DBC, I got you. What can I do?" I love that. And the simple change. Yeah.

Yeah. But like, but also having somebody come alongside you. I got you. I got you back. I've been there.

And when you're back a house and you have that chef or the person in there, it's just like the bear. It's like you have people yelling and you realize in that moment, they're just stressed out. They're not in there.

Their energy is impacting you negatively, as opposed to your energy, impact to them. Exactly. You know, you worry about this. I'll worry about, and it gets into that.

I want to know a little bit, so you, co-produce affects the bear. Which is just the wildest thing. Again, I'm not a very often jealous guy, but the creativity projects that you're in. Oh, they're like, that's so cool.

“So first I want to know, you know, how do you get involved in this project?”

And then, how did you make sure that what is on film, I know there's other writers

and a whole cast of amazing people that are helping bring this to life.

Make sure that it reflects exactly kind of what was going on and what you've seen in your whole experience and live in that action park and everything else. Well, so I guess how I got, I was not involved with the bear from day one. Right. I got to know Chris Thor, who's the creator of the bear.

Awesome. Awesome guy. That's cool. Unbelievably creative. And by the way, one of the most remarkable leaders, like the way that every single person

regard this a position on that show is treated and how they all feel such a genuine sense of ownership and the product as a whole. And I want to share one thing they did in a moment to reinforce that, but they did the first season, also in it to have, at this point, I've gotten to know him a little bit. And he came to the release party for unreasonable hospitality, like the dinner that

I had when the book first came out. Then season two is about like three months from coming out and he emails me and they were doing all the editing in Brooklyn. And he's like, hey, can you come out to our offices? Some point in the next couple of weeks.

I want to show you something else. I was like, yeah. So I go out and they show me episode seven of season two. It's called Forks. And the entire episode is effectively right out of my book.

Okay. And it's this beautiful episode, literally lines of text. There's things in the script that are verbatim, what was in the book in this whole story. And my book has a famous story about a hot dog, and it's reimagined as a deep dish pizza in the episode.

Yeah, I want you to tell them real quick that the hot dogs, yes, they need to hear it. It's too good. So the hot dog story, it's one of the stickiest out of the book. And by the way, it's an example of why stories make ideas stick. Yeah.

What happened with me in the restaurant as we were really trying to figure out what unreasonable hospitality meant. I'd written it down because I knew there was something in that approach, but didn't yet understand how it would be brought to life. I mean, you wrote the words down.

I wrote the words down. I want to be unreasonable in pursuit of hospitality. Great. And you have, and you're managing a lot of, I'm out of some part at the time. Yeah, yeah, okay, which for anybody who doesn't know is just the most amazing restaurant.

And it was already, like at that point we had three Michelin stars. We had all the stars, but we wanted to be this fun boy. That was, thank you. That's mind blowing. And what?

You were like, top 20, something like that. Oh, and I wrote those words down when we came in 50th. That's right. Of the 50th. Yeah, okay.

We just still, but that's just not how many were like in that room. I was last place. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, one day I'm in the dining room on a busier than normal lunch service.

The team is in the weeds.

And so I was doing what I would always do when I was helping out the team.

I was just clearing dirty plates. I must be because my dad, one of the lessons he taught me when I was coming up, he was, hey, the further up in the hierarchy you find yourself, when you choose to help, just do the most menial thing as often as you can because it's a great way to communicate to your team.

Yeah. That you're never going to ask them to do something you are either unwilling or incapable of doing yourself. You're going to show your fire as a leader. I love that.

So, meaning the higher up you go in the hierarchy, if it is as simple as gathering up a trash can and rolling up and tying up the bag, just do it.

“Like you need to show the signal that you're not above any.”

Yeah. And you can also do it. Exactly. You're not going to ask them to do anything like, hey, I'm not above it.

Yeah. And so I was clearing appetizers and it was this table of four. They were foodies, like Europeans on vacation to New York, but just to eat at restaurants. Okay. And this was their last meal.

They were headed straight to the airport from the restaurant to go back home. Okay. And while I was there, I ever heard them talking and they were just raving about their trip. They'd been to all the fancy French, four star restaurants and now 11 Madison. But then one woman at the table jumped in and said, yeah.

But we never got to have a New York City hot dog.

And it was just one of those light bulb moments from a cartoon. Okay. Went to the kitchen, dropped off the plate to ran outside of the hot dog cart, bought a hot dog, ran back inside, then came the hard part, convincing my fancy chef to actually serve it in our fancy restaurant.

Yeah. But I asked him to trust me.

“Even more so I told him it was important to me.”

Yeah. That, that is another articulation we do is a lot. This is important to me. I want to make sure I sit that aside. That's, that is a big deal.

Like even in relationships. Yeah. This is important to me. Saying those words is a different higher caliber of communication. Yeah.

And so we can come back to that in a little bit. And I'm actually, he cut the hot dog up into four perfect pieces, put one on each of the plates out of the switch of catch up, one of mustard, a little scoop of sour crowd, one of relish, topped it off of the micro herb to make it look fancy enough. And then before their final savory course, which at the time was our honey lavender glazed

muskowy duck that had been dry aged for two weeks. That's one, that's one. It's funny. It's for lunch. For sure.

I wanted yesterday. I brought out a we in New York holiday dirty water dog. Okay. And I explained. I said, hey, I heard you talking, I didn't want to get to go home with any regrets.

Here's that New York City hot dog and dude, they freaked. Did they just lose it? I mean, at that point, I'd served really fancy food tens of millions of dollars worth of it at some of the best restaurants in the country. Yeah.

I had never seen anyone react to anything I'd served.

You served like the highest quality of beef food, the top of the top of the top. And here you go. Yes. I knew York just off the street hot dog and he just loses his money. Yeah.

And you know, and it's in those moments. In so many businesses, every single day, someone does something spontaneously that is brilliant. That's not what defines the company though. What defines them is if they identify that something great just happened.

And they slow down for a long enough to figure out why it just happened, so they can put intention to the intuition. Yeah. And it was a few simple things, it required being present. I was listening.

Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't looking at what I needed to do next. I was just so fully focused on that table that I stopped caring about everything else.

“And that's why I was able to pick up on the line.”

Second required. Yeah. Obviously, we took what we did seriously. Yeah.

I've never taken myself that seriously.

And I think far too many people in life or companies in business, we're so focused on perfecting brands that we're not focused enough on just pursuing people. We end up with these self-imposed standards that effectively disrupt our ability to give other people joy. Yeah.

Hot dog is not on brand in a four star restaurant, but who cares when you look at how many of them feel, and then and then third, like this idea that hospitality is just making other people feel seen. And the best way to do it is not to treat people like a commodity. One size fits all will only ever take you so far.

It's the same reason why at Christmas, I know by everyone in my family, the same present. I've had people individual presence based on who they are, buying your wife's the same present you did last year. Yeah. Honestly, I looked at your facial expression before and it really seemed like it worked.

I thought I'd get it for you. Yeah. And then reasonable hospitality, one size fits one. One size fits one. And so those three things be presence, stop taking yourself so seriously, one size fits

one of that hot dog. Yeah. I think for us. And what you do so well in the book and the book is full of these examples where you go, you could have just heard the conversation and go, ah, I kind of blows for that guy, didn't

it hot dog. Okay. Next, next table. Instead, you said, what if, right, and build off that, and then you hired somebody, specifically for creating these magical moments.

“Someone there is a resource to help everyone, yes, create them, because I think what's”

important is everyone on the team needs to be empowered to come up with these ideas. You just need to make it easy for them to deploy those ideas. They have them. Yeah. And by the way, I mean, it happens to us all the time in life.

cool to do for this person, gosh, I'm too busy. Yeah.

“And we hired a person under the team just so all you had to do is say, hey, Emily, can you do”

this? I'll do it later. I'll say, my habit is I'll say, once this is done, then I will. Like, yeah. It's easy.

This is just a really crazy week, but after this, I'll be able to get to that.

And just funny how there's always another, you know, I was in a, I did a talk.

And then the meet and create afterwards, a guy came up, he's like, you know, we have the expression of my family and your speech really made me think of it. I got to let a gracious impulse pass and gosh, I love that. That's, that's some good stuff. Because how many times do you have them?

And when you have them, the only idea is just do it. Yeah. And I was literally at the, the goodwill that weekend with my, with my kids, we call it the treasure store. A treasure store.

It's pretty apt too. And basically, every so often, we call it treasure store day. Yeah. We have to go up into the room and we take 10 things and we go, give them to the goodwill. And then they can buy one thing from the goodwill.

Yeah. And Andrew, the guy, the DBC guy, when we are growing up, he loved the band's sublime. And he would literally like bust on the streets. Yes. Yes.

And we're in the treasure store. And I see a sublime t-shirt in his size as we're like an old school sublime t-shirt.

And I just heard this guy say never let a gracious impulse pass.

If I'm being honest, like a version of me would have seen that and been like man, Andy would like that. And I got to buy it and then I got to put it in a box and go to the thing. And I would have just walked right past it. But this sounds like, no, I had a gracious impulse.

I can't let a pass. I took off the thing and sent it to him and he was like, dude, that was the coolest gift. And that awesome. It took all of 15 minutes and probably $2. Just to have that.

But just do it. And if a gracious impulse, do it. So recognizing those gracious impulses, not just in relationship, but also in your own business of the way that you can live.

“I think, when you, again, in the book, to me, it's like, if you ever wonder which ones”

it wills in the store, just look for the brightest yellow one. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one to get. You need to go get it.

This is, like, an absolutely bright yellow one.

I would assume you would love this. I would assume you know him. I don't know him. Maybe one day of the guy who started this event of an inn. Oh, yeah.

Jessica. Yes. Okay. Also yellow. He's amazing.

But I'm like, that's like right up, you're kind of, he spoke in my conference. Did he go last year? Okay. Well, then there you go. I see a lot of, like, parallels with just, in their work is very, very similar to ours.

Just three Michelin star restaurant and a minor league baseball team and how they kind of came closer to one another. Yeah.

“And I think that's, that's just one of the many examples in which any business I think”

can do this. I don't know, y'all trained a lot of these businesses where you go out, a lot of service industry, folks of how can you, because they need a little bit of help, they need a little bit of push. Yeah.

It'd be like, I, we just need to get some of that unreasonable. This is good. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Reminds me of my dad and I love a brother route though, because it's just so codable. Yeah. And he goes, we need to get some of that reform. And so he's like, because he's done the guy's a reform candidate and they're like, maybe we need to get us a little reform.

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That's upwork.com to connect with top talent, ready to help your business grow. That's UPWORK.com, upwork.com. Let's keep going. But so we get back to the bear. Yeah.

They ask me to go out there and they show me this episode. And literally at one point, the guy is walking, holding my book and reading it.

“Like voraciously in the episode and feeling like, is this cool?”

Effectively, they ask me to go out there to say, is this cool that we used a lot of stuff from your book? I was like, well, yeah, obviously it's cool. It's beyond cool. It's so flattering.

It's amazing. Like my book is now in one of the hottest television shows in America. And that's when they were going from the little beef stand and they were about to open a proper restaurant. And in the same meeting they're like, also, can you join the team and be a writer and a producer

as we move into this next season? I was like, well, heck yeah, you know those moments where I'm like, I don't know. How much are you paying me? I don't care. I'm not lying.

The answer is yes. Yeah. I'm going to wake. And man, it is so fun.

“Your question was, how did I ensure that things were actually real?”

Yeah. And as television. So it's all dramatized. Yeah, but it's, I mean, but it's a very close as it can get to what it really is. And I think it circles back to the culture on that show.

Like, I mean, some of the actors on that show are now not only phenomenal, but also really famous. Yeah. That took. Right.

And when people get really famous, oftentimes they stop being as good at listening or they don't necessarily feel the need to learn as much no one on that cast is like that. I mean, there is one episode one of season three, Carmy, the chef, picks up a tray to bust a table in the morning. And I was like, are you cool if I'd show you the right way to do that?

And he's like, yes, please, something that simple, you just wanted to know what right looked like because if you've been in the restaurant business, like he, like his character had been, you would know the right way to do it, or how to expo, like an expo classes. Sorry.

I mean, the most fun thing is I basically got to design a restaurant and never have

to run it. You know, like the play, it's in the florals and there's all these stories with the story

“that most people would never be the best, but I mean, how cool is it?”

You just get to kind of live in that creativity. So I want to make sure that I don't, you don't leave without me asking some of these. Because I'm not a taxi, but this is too good. Of when you're thinking, you know, the hot dog moment, and all the other stuff in your book, I love the one with the sled of like all these others is what made the difference

is you led and empowered your team by example to listen. Yes. None of that happens without having the specific and right ear for it, because you're not, you're not listening to the conversation, you're listening to the need that is almost unspoken.

Yeah. And so it's not like the guy said, man, you know what would be great if somebody brought me a hot dog and say that and he just, and so you heard the need that wasn't even exactly spoken and I feel like in conversation and in teams and especially customers, clients, you're having to have the right, the train your ear for the right kind of needs.

And so I don't, how did you do that? What did you teach and to listen for anything? Well, yeah, by the way, I mean, you know this better than anyone, you're listening, not just with your ears. Right?

I think I've found that you can teach people how to do something and you can be like, hey, if someone says this, like, just go back in in the conversation before you even arrived there, like, where did that thing come from? You might not have heard it, but, and where could it go next?

The sledding someone says our kids have never seen snow before.

Yeah. Okay, so where does that go next? What could it be? What could it be? Like, I think the best experiences are when you dream of the world, you wish existed and

That's a good one.

So like, all right, they've never seen snow.

These are kids. What do kids love doing in the snow? Sledding. Oh my gosh. Let's go buy them sleds right now.

Yeah. These spontaneous moments. But then even the things that you don't hear, I mean, the stories that get celebrated the most of the book are the more over the top lines. Of course.

But like, you can tell when someone's on a first date, right, the moment you go over and greet them at the table, like it's pretty clear when you've done it, long enough. And you can tell without having to be at the table whether the first date is going really well or whether they're just struggling to find their groove. You can tell when people are talking to one another at a time or when they're just a bit

of awkward silence. Okay, so unreasonable hospitality doesn't mean having to buy a hot dog. It could mean gosh, this guy is having a hard time getting a conversation going, I'm going to go hang out with him at the table for a little bit. Okay.

And I'm just going to start talking to him and I'm going to try to get them laughing. And I'm going to try to get them each to put their yards down. And then I'm going to leave. And hopefully I've gotten them up to enough of them. Okay, I love this.

Okay, I love this.

“So that's what this is, my brain's going is it's not just listening with your ears.”

It's also listening with your eyes, whereas every time with a customer or a coworker or somebody coming into your restaurant or somebody in a relationship with it's listening with your eyes, how are they reacting? And so you have the privilege and a restaurant when you see some of the most intimate moments you go, this date's not going well or somebody is fighting.

You can tell it's tense and they're having a hard time in their marriage. Maybe or two guys who are talking about a business deal or something. Just for that brief moment, the staff is able to kind of the waiter, the waitress are able to kind of be able to curate something to say, "Let me listen with my eyes here." What else is?

Read this. Sometimes based on what's happening over there, maybe it's just stay away. Yeah, that too. Like they're having a really good time. How many times do you have halfway through a story at a restaurant and someone comes

over and says, "How's it going?" Can you just leave me alone? You just win the pubs line, right? Yeah.

The worst is like when you're in serious conversation and some cheery young guy can finally

fight with your wife.

“If you're like a man, can you not see that we're hanging on by a thread, right?”

We're barely holding on. No, don't need a refoe, you can. There's those moments too, but it's like when you, when you can also listen, like listen with your eyes and see the reactions of other people, and how does that translate to?

When you see that person who is running five minutes late and they look frantic or they look hurt, or there's things going on, you can tell beneath that surface. It's not just go, "Well, you didn't say anything, but you saw it." I mean, it's the same thing in life though, like how many times you invite people over to your place.

And if you actually just take a moment, intention, and just look at everyone in the room, you can pretty quickly tell the person that just feels awkward. Yeah. Maybe they just don't know anyone, and they're not good at starting a conversation or something.

They feel out of place.

It is so easy to just be the person, never let a gracious impulse pass.

That walks around and says, "Hey, Joe, come here. I want to introduce you to Jefferson." Yeah. Both play the drums. Right.

That's unreasonable hospitality, but you just, you cared enough to identify what needed to be done and then to do something with what you saw. Yeah. And like, I'm just saying it exists everywhere. It's just, I mean, it's so cool when you get to do that for other people, so why not

just do it all the time? Yeah. Well, why not? Why don't you just do it every day? I'm doing it.

Yeah. Why not? I think it's all the time. I truly think the world will be just so much more fun. I think when you can find ways to be more spontaneous, more creative, you know, what I would

often try and do is just have conversations in the most random places. Just to like, just switch it up, even if it's like an ice cream shop.

“Like, just, you know, like, when I first was starting my, the new law firm, that's what”

I did. And have a conversation with the client of like, you don't want to go sit in my office. Let's go. Yeah. Let's go sit somewhere at this.

I know a lot of people do a coffee shop or like, I would do a park or it's just because let me show you that if I can at least bring a little bit of a hundred percent. You know why I like this park? This park reminds me of this time I was with my dad and I did this. And like, just to be able to share a little bit of that context in the story is enough

Well, and also, you just said something that makes me think of two things.

One, I don't mean to talk about Andrew this much, but he's a therapist now and he doesn't do therapists in an office. He lives in the Hudson Valley and there's two ways to see him. You can either go on a hike with him or you can go skiing with him. Skying?

Yeah. On the lift? Oh, on the lift. That's awesome. I'm terrified of ski lifts.

So then go, you do the hike. You do the hike. Pretty du cross country. But also what you're doing, you're bringing the new park, you're changing the environment.

“I think a lot of communication is, I mean, for me communication is about connection.”

And connection happens when people let their guards down and part of that is earning

in formality and just changing an environment into less formal environment is a way to

fast track the idea of earning in formality. But the other thing you do in offering the thing about you and your dad and why you love that park is you're offering up a piece of your self which is an invitation to them to do the same in return. We did this thing I went to a restaurant in New York and on the menu, it said, don't tell

us if you're allergic to anything, we don't make substitutions in the food. I was like, again, this is unreasonable, but not unreasonable. Yes, that's not that kind, it's almost sounds illegal. Yeah, it's just rude, it's like, yeah. And so I went back to the restaurant.

I was like, I want to go, I want to run hard in the opposite direction of that. Obviously we asked about allergies. Yeah. But this is a tasting menu, certain people don't like certain things. So I was like, I want to spend the next month coming over with endless permutations of

everything we serve so that at the beginning of the meal, we can say, are you allergic to anything? Also, is there just anything you don't like or anything you're not going to eat tonight? Let us know and we'll make sure you don't see it. That's a great one.

But here's the thing. We started it. And by the way, it took a long time and it was expensive because it took a long time for work to redesign an entire menu. Oh, because if you have chicken, let's serve with mushrooms and so on, doesn't like mushrooms.

It's not a good experience just to remove the mushrooms.

“So now you have to have an entirely different chicken dish to serve them.”

Yeah, yeah. But it was important to me. And so we did all this work and then we started it day one. No one told us a single thing they didn't like, day two, no one told us a single thing they didn't like.

So now we're just throwing away food that we could prepare. And I was like, what is going on? And so I took a station, meaning I was a waiter on day three or four. And sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to actually get in there yourself.

And again, first table, second table, third table, no one's telling me anything.

And I was like, I wonder if it's this, which is this was like Anthony Bourdain had his show and they're all these shows about people traveling around the world eating weird stuff. I was like, maybe people just don't think it's cool to not like stuff. Because they're embarrassed.

My son's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's just straight butter noodles, man. I got really good at eating.

By the way, that's a real experience for most of us right now. Very sure. But that's what you go. Maybe they don't feel comfortable doing that.

“So the next table, I went to a restaurant, is there anything in all you don't like?”

And they're like, no, and I was like, can I tell you something? I really don't like oysters and I really don't like sea urchin. I was like, you didn't ask, that's felt the need to share. Yeah. You know what, I actually don't like beats, and I don't like whatever they said.

And all I needed to do was tell them something, I didn't like. Right. And then they were like, oh, wait. This is a safe space to talk about, not liking stuff. I'm not saying that not liking oysters is a display of profound vulnerability.

Right. Right. But just opening up about something, yeah. Give them permission to do the same in return. And it's vulnerability.

It's vulnerability. Yeah. So, when you're saying, I like this part because this, I can say, oh, we can actually connect on more of a human level. Right.

All of a sudden, it's that it has nothing to do about degree or experience. And it ends up that, I mean, that's just one element of many that they care about. You see, a lot of people could have experience. I mean, it's all the different stuff that they could. You can have of what's your, your personality.

And I think, I think that's awesome. I mean, and then, by the way, that person shares something with you about their dad. And then you go and you win the case. And a week later, they get a little note from you acknowledging that about their dad. And maybe he said his dad was a big Dallas Cowboys fan.

And so you put on a little Dallas Cowboys baseball talk and you say what a pleasure it was to work with you. Exactly. Just as a little bit, he like touch points. And they're going to remember that Dallas Cowboys hat more than they're going to remember

This unreasonable hospitality field guide, I'm so jealous of it.

I'm going to keep telling you that one. It is. Thank you. By the way. Yeah, absolutely.

Let me tell you why I love this thing. I like your book, Unisable Hospitality. It's great. The, it really is.

“It's also having written as self-help, non-fiction book.”

And this is, we're kind of in the same category. What makes this so different is one. It's kind of like, soon as you get it, it feels like it's a, I was in Cups count. Yeah. And so it's very much a field guide like this.

And it's like, it kind of looks like I should be learning how to like, build a fire or like something like that. Like certain types of, you know, overhand knots. But I can see, I wish I had had this when I had the rushunk as one, it's super colorful. So you did a really good job of making it to where you want to read through it.

The illustrations are really cool. Things change. It doesn't look like it's just ho-hom. And so the design of it is really cool. And that's probably just like my brand.

Like self. I, I wanted so badly for a workbook about hospitality to itself, be hospitable enough to feel like work. And so the designer is this guy named Don Clark, who has literally worked with Pixar and NASA and Lego. And I convinced him to do this with me.

All right. If, if I, I'm telling you, if there's anybody that I could just. Freaky Friday, you know, I'm saying I'm just straight straight here like.

“And that's, that's what I would probably do.”

Like, this one that I really, really like, okay. That I had bookmarked. So you have wise Joe struggling, and this is like a decision tree. And so I thought, oh my gosh, how many Joe's doing now of like somebody on my team is struggling with something.

And then you have this tree of Joe struggling because he doesn't care and he's not trying. Like, that's rarely the case. Yeah. But it's so easy to think they just don't care.

Yeah. In relationship, it's easy to first thing and say is we just don't care. Yes, don't care.

And that's never the, that's never the truth.

Well, rarely. But Joe is trying to still not succeed in you have all these like different ways of, if it is true, that he's struggling because he doesn't care. Far Joe's passes you possibly. Yeah.

Right. If that's really, yeah. If that's actually the reason. Exactly. But as Joe is trying, but not succeeding.

Yes. Then it's all these like, is it training? Is it too much too fast? Is something else going on? It's like listening with your eyes kind of thing.

And when I first looked at this, I was like, this is so cool. Like, oh, if, if you know if they're in the right role, it talks to all about on specifically what you had mentioned a minute ago of your rules for criticism and how do you have these teams together? A lot of the things that you and I covered.

And so when I, um, I look at this one, I'm super jealous of it. Number two is you're going to help so many people with this thing. Oh, man. I'm really, really, are edited and it's not at all for just restaurants. No.

And here I am sitting with somebody who was part of the number one restaurant in the entire world.

I've never been one damn.

I'm going to go. I've never been. One day. I mean, that's different now. But I, you got to go.

Just to a little bit. But I also, I mean, I love, I am a foodie. I just have kids. You know what I'm saying? And so it's like, there's only so many places like we can go when we have kids.

Because it's usually okay, where's a, you go, a Italian place because I know they have noodles. And I took my kids. I took my kids to in and out burger here. And I was like, all right, this is great. I love in and out burger.

My kids are going to love in and out burger. Like, this can be the connective tissue and our culinary relationship.

“And we got there in my three-year-olds, like, can we get a McDonald's?”

Oh, my gosh. Yes. I was like, yeah. It's like guys, why? Right.

Why are you doing this? Right. So my, uh, back in our small town, hometown, right in front of the Walmart is a chillies. And so, you know, how you grew up thinking certain places, my was all of garden. I thought it was like the fancy of the faincie.

And so, my, we were in the car in the Uber and, um, we're trying to find a place in my son was like, I got an idea. Y'all want to go a chillie? I've, like, he is like, that's like the top of the line. And we're like, well, if we see one and so now, if my daughter just raises, she sees a

chillies, she's like, so that's just kind of become like all of the McDonald's. But that's it. It really is. We love it. We love it.

I want to, this is why I also am really cool about these. And it's really cool when you come across some of his work. And it makes you go, like, ah, I really want to just, like, redo everything I've ever

You, you just kind of get that inspiration.

Yeah. So it's like this. This is just, I'm reading in the middle of something. It just goes, go back to your mission statement.

“What three strategies could you focus on right now?”

And then it just, like, has all the spaces for it. And then it goes right into what? My, just strategic planning, meaning look like for you in just, like, you, it's banger after banger of who's going to be in charge of it, how you're going to do there, where you gather, like, the way that you have, you talk about prey circles, what, how do you celebrate

the top performers? I'm going to use this myself. It's just super, super cool. And I can, this is the kind of stuff that I'm nerd out about, secretly, I just, like, this is so cool.

So I think I think we're the same.

When I, I recorded my audio book for the first book.

Yeah. And then you remember doing this, right? You record it all. And then you go away. Yeah.

“Like a month later, you have to go back to do pickups.”

Yes. And the credits. And in the month between recording it and doing pickups in the credits, I listened to green lights. McConaughey's book?

Nice. On audio. I haven't listened on audio. Dude, it's just a masterful audio book performance. And I listened to that.

I was like, gosh, I wish I listened to this before I did it. Before I did it. I audio book. And so I went and did the pickups. And he just does so many creative things and how he delivers the material.

And I was like, I got to do something. I mean, while I had already started the practice of collecting observations, when I was right in the book, and I didn't want to just stop and saw my phone, there were just a bunch of new things that I had observations, ideas, insights, and the book was done. So we get to the end of doing all the pickups and the credits.

And I said to the producer, I was like, hey, keep rolling. I want to add something after the credits. And he's like, well, you're not allowed to do that. And I was like, just keep rolling. And so I said, hey, to whoever makes the decision about whether or not there's allowed to be bonus material after the credits, this is important

to me. And if you've read the book, you know what that means.

“My cell phone number is this, call me if you want to have a conversation about it.”

And I just did this whole Easter egg and basically I was like, hey, are you still there? Yeah. Me too. And did this whole like Easter egg at the end of the audio book. And it was just inspired by listening to someone else's work, being jealous, wishing

I could do it all the way again, but I can't, but I can at least do this. But that that comes to from like, what's to take away is expose yourself to creativity, like expose yourself to, there's some people who go, you know, there's the downside of reading too many self-help and whatever. And I agree, you can have too much, if you're not acting on it, but you have to expose

yourself to different mediums, different like, there's a reason why the color world has a spectrum, like that you have to have spectrum in diversity in your life, like there would

even in investments, like you don't want to just go with one, like it's, you always have

exactly. And so it's the same thing of how do you, you hear that from Matthew McConaughey and you go, you know what, I'm going to add a little bit of spectrum. And so, and that tends to into something else, and then you have, because you've written this book, here you are, doing stuff with the bear, you're like designing a stadium.

You're doing like, we're doing lots of fun stuff. I'm telling you, and you're wife-sumazing, like, so you're just getting too old. But I mean, like, I think, I mean, you too, like, we, the two of us were in a room yesterday with a really successful author is learning from other people, and gosh, I, I'm pretty intent on never getting to a place where I don't pinch myself and I find myself in these

rooms, because I'm just filled with gratitude for the experiences that I get to have, and for the people I get to meet. That's amazing. The fact of just how we even kind of came to plays is crazy, but that's, that acid do a lot with opening yourself to a lot of different colors in the spectrum.

So, man, thank you so much for sitting with me. The thing, the field guide and residual hospitality field guide, you got to get it. When is it coming out? It's April 28th. It's going to be a killer, man.

I, as soon as I got it, I was like, "Oh, God, this is so good." For anybody wanting to ask for teaching, planning to their teams and how to do it differently, it's just a step-by-step roadmap, to elevating the magic and what you do with your business, can't recommend it enough. Thanks for sitting with me. Thanks brother.