Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Will Guidara on Mastering the Art of Human Connection to Create Unreasonable Hospitality EP 285

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Little did twelve-year-old Will Guidara know that his life-changing encounter with hospitality at the Four Seasons in New York would lead him on a journey of leadership and connection, inspiring him to create unforgettable experiences for others. Through his unwavering dedication to connecting people and his passion for hospitality, Will has discovered a career that transcends mere service to creating unreasonable hospitality -- but what will be the ultimate outcome of his mission? Will Guidara Joins Me to Discuss How to Master the Art of Human Connection to Create Unreasonable Hospitality In this engaging episode of the Passion Struck podcast, host John R. Miles speaks with Will Guidara, renowned restaurateur and former owner of Eleven Madison Park, recognized as the best restaurant in the world. Guidara shares his insights on the art of hospitality and its transformative potential for businesses and individuals. He believes that focusing on building intentional connections and providing unreasonable hospitality can lead to memorable experiences for customers. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/will-guidara-mastering-unreasonable-hospitality/  Brought to you by Fabric. Go to Apply today in just 10 minutes at https://meetfabric.com/passion. Brought to you by Green Chef. Use code passionstruck60 to get $60 off, plus free shipping!” Brought to you by Indeed. Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/GRrZcABW_HA  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles  Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Catch my interview with Lori Gottlieb on the importance of embracing self-compassion: https://passionstruck.com/lori-gottlieb-on-embracing-self-compassion/  Watch the solo episode I did on the topic of Chronic Loneliness: https://youtu.be/aFDRk0kcM40  Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  Passion Struck is now on the AMFM247 broadcasting network every Monday and Friday from 5–6 PM. Step 1: Go to TuneIn, Apple Music (or any other app, mobile or computer) Step 2: Search for “AMFM247” Network

Coming up next on Passion Struck, the best answer I ever got was service is black and white, hospitality is color. For me, service is the thing that you do. It's the technical act required to get the job done. Hospitality is how you make people feel while you're doing that thing. Service is table stakes. Hospitality is everything. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets,

tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews,

the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 285 of PassionStruck, ranked by Apple as one of the top 20 health podcasts. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn, had a live better, be better, and impact the world.

In case you didn't know it, PassionStruck is now on syndicated radio on the AMFM247 national broadcast. I'll put all the stations in the show notes, but you can also find us on Tune-in or Apple Music or any other player that you listen to. And the show is featured every Monday and Friday, a 5-6pm. And I showcase episodes from the vault as well as episodes I haven't yet played here on the podcast. Please go check it out. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes,

that we organize to give you new topics to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Just go to either Spotify or PassionStruct.com or slash starter packs to get started. And case she missed it, earlier this week, I interviewed Dory Clark, who's the Wall Street Journal, bestselling author of the book, The Long Path. And coincidentally, she's also recognized as the number one communications coach in the world. In episode, you definitely don't want to miss. I also wanted to say thank you so much for your continued support of the show. Your ratings and reviews go such a long way in improving the popularity of the show, but more importantly bringing people into the passion-struck community where we can give them weekly doses of hope,

inspiration, connection, and meaning. And I know our guests love to hear from the listeners too and read your reviews. Now let's talk about today's episode. At the age of 26, my guest today Wilgadera took over a struggling two-star brassier named 11 Madison Park. That was not living up to its grander. However, after 11 years under Hedirus guidance, 11 Madison Park became the top restaurant in the world. A transformation that was then and is still today unprecedented.

He created a partnership between the kitchen and the dining room offering unforgettable bespoke hospitality. The success of the restaurant was not only due to the exquisite food, majestic room, and impeccable service that earned it four stars from the New York Times. Guderin and his team earned this by providing deeply personal and magical hospitality moments, centered around one of his guiding principles that the human desire to be taken care of never fades. Gideras' team went above and beyond for their guests. From organizing a magical sledding trip for a family who had never seen snow,

setting up a private diner room with sand, my ties, and beach chairs to console a couple who had to cancel their vacation. Giderar also extended this hospitality theme to his own staff, teaching them how to give meaningful praise and criticism, and how giving more, not less, is often the solution to business challenges. He showed them how to thank like owners and to take ownership of their roles. Today Gideri believes that every business can become a hospitality business

and is able to transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Through his own experiences in the restaurant industry, working with notable figures like Daniel Bullard and Danny Meyer, Gidara encourages us all to find the magic and what we do for ourselves, our colleagues, and our customers. Will is also a co-founder of the Welcome Conference and the Independent Restaurant Coalition. He launched his first television show, The Big Brunch, on HBO Max recently, with co-judges Dan Levy and Sola Elwale. Thank you for choosing me and choosing Passion Struck on your journey to creating an intentional life now.

Let that journey begin. I am absolutely thrilled today to bring on Will Kaderah to Passion Stark. Welcome, Will. Thank you so much, man. Excited to be here. Well, today we're going to be discussing your incredible book, which launched last year, unreasonable hospitality. and I can't wait to get into this in a few minutes. But I wanted to start us first somewhere else.

And that is, I grew up in a humble middle class family in Pennsylvania with three siblings. And for us, going out when I was young, usually entailed, going to McDonald's after church, or if we were really lucky, my dad would take one of us out to maybe big bobs or Greek breakfast restaurant. But I remember when I was in middle school, my parents from my birthday took me

to my first fancy restaurant. And I remember dressing up in my best Sunday church outfit. And the first time ever, I had filet mignon. And I just remember the way it was served and how I had never tasted a steak that just melted in your mouth. And to this day, I remember that dinner so fondly. And I understand you had a similar experience when you were young. Yeah, well, so I should say we kind of had two different lives around food.

One was when I was in the city with my dad where he worked in the restaurant business and the other one was in the suburbs where I lived. And listen, our fancy meals and ones I looked forward to and I was a kid was TGI Fridays. I loved TGI Fridays growing up where we had a riff on a Benny Hanna that we used to go to. But the meal you're talking about was at the four seasons where I went when I was 12 years old. And the four seasons for those that don't know it is,

or was, it's not there anymore. It was kind of the first great American fine dining restaurant opened by a guy named Joe Baum, who was one of the great American restauranters. And it was significant because before the four seasons, the greatest restaurants in America were in New York, and they were all la or la something.

They were all French restaurants. It was the first one to make a great restaurant American. And I went there with my dad for my 12th birthday, and it was a pivotal meal for me. There's a quote by Maya Angelou, people will forget what you say, they'll forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And I don't remember many of the details of that meal.

I do remember a few. I remember it was the first time I dropped my napkin on the floor at a restaurant that was so fancy that a server brought me a brand new folded napkin and called me sir. I remember that I was wearing, similar to you, a navy blue Brooks brothers blazer with the little gold buttons that I insisted my dad buy me because I wanted to look appropriately fancy for the night. But really what I remember is how that meal made me feel because for the however many hours we were there, the rest of the world simply faded away and my dad is in addition to being my dad, my best friend, my mentor. I've always been an awe of him.

I'm very blessed to be so close to him. But for that time, everything else in the world ceased to exist. And all that was left were the two of us sitting across the table from one another. I was craved time with him. And that time was unbelievably special. I like to say that a great restaurant that understands the principles in this book is intentional about creating the conditions where people can connect where if you and I go to dinner at a great restaurant we're closer at the end of the meal than we were going into it and that was certainly true of that meal that night. And by the end of it,

I was hooked and I wanted to be in the world to find dining. I often say now and I felt it then, although I most certainly didn't articulate it this way at the time, that any business that focuses on hospitality has an opportunity to create a little magical world in a world that needs more magic. And I felt that first there and then, and after that, it's the only thing I ever wanted to do. That's an incredible story. I also wanted to acknowledge that I learned on a podcast, I listened to that, you actually named your daughter after your father. My daughter is named after my father and my family and it's always been for the men.

Every other generation it goes Francis William, Francis William, Francis William, and my wife and I started having kids late like I think a lot of people do these days when they're both working and we weren't sure whether we're gonna have another kid. And so my daughter, Frankie, whose proper name is Francis, is named after my dad. Well, it's funny, I was named after my father who goes by Jack, and I remember when I was in my 30s, I said, Dad, why don't you go by John, you go by Jack,

and he goes, no one wants to be called John. He goes, everyone's a John. And I go then, why in the world did you name me John? And he goes, it wasn't me, it was your mom. She wanted to name you guys after the Kennedy kids, which she did. So I guess I'm actually named after John F. Kennedy, but funny story.

I guess I'm actually named after John F. Kennedy, but funny story. While studying at Cornell, you took a class called guest chefs, which I love the name of it. I went to the Naval Academy, so we certainly didn't have a class like that. I guess we could have had one called guest admiral or something, but you got to experience

running a real restaurant during this time. And I love this story because you got to experience running a real restaurant during this time. And I love this story because you got to be part of a team who served at that point in time even today, one of the most famous chefs in the world, Daniel Ballad. And I understand you did something unique for this event. You were given the responsibility as the marketing coordinator, but you kind of took that to the next level. What did you do? Well, yeah.

So the Geshhefs Classic Cornell was just one of the great classes in the sense that it gave everyone who was studying to potentially be in the restaurant business, the ability to play restaurant for a night. And the way that the class was structured was, over the course of the semester, three different chefs were brought up. And for two of those chefs, everyone in the class played the role

of either someone working in the dining room or someone working in the kitchen. And then for the third chef, you were on the management team. And so for two times, you worked for the management team and then for the third, you were the management team. I ended up being on the management team for Daniel Ballood who is one of the great chefs in the world still today and I was in charge of marketing now With any one of the semesters one of the chefs was always the famous one

Daniel Ballood needed zero marketing as soon as it it was announced that he was gonna be there, the reservations were fully booked within minutes. And so in my role, I needed to do something. I just felt the need to make something of the experience. And so I chose to focus my role on marketing the school to Danielle and his team, that if I didn't need to market the dinner to potential customers,

I would just entertain them and make sure that they had an amazing experience, so that they would encourage others to come and participate in the program going forward. And it was amazing. It was amazing when his advanced team, his sous chefs, came up a day or two before he did. And I picked him up at the airport. I found the girl in my class who had the wealthiest parents and by definition the nicest car, borrowed her car, picked them up. Took them out to what I thought was the restaurant, which was going to be the greatest

expression of our little town in upstate New York, which served these burgers on French bread, the tines, that's kind of a famous place in Ithaca. And we just had an awesome time to the point that when Danielle got there a couple days later, the sous chefs were like, Danielle, you gotta meet this guy, he's awesome. Like, I think one of the best ways to show love for someone is to show love for the people they care about.

And so Danielle and I had a good relationship right from the being, because he knew that I took care of his team. And the dinner went amazingly well. Obviously people were super happy. They got to experience his food in an unlikely place. And then afterwards it was my self declared role to be the one that threw the party. And so that resulted in me and Daniela and his two chefs and about 50 or 100 college kids in my house at 130 college Avenue just having a blast. Daniela and I actually left the party, went back to the hotel, broke into the kitchen, got pots and pans and eggs and truffles and caviar and then he started making scramble digs with truffles for literally everyone of the party. Again, it kind of goes back to what I was saying before about those moments that we

have the ability to create these little moments of magic. Everyone that was there that night, even the people that I don't know, I can almost go so far as to guarantee they'll always remember that night. We created something special, not just at the dinner, but at the party that followed. And Danielle and I have been very close ever since. Yeah, what an awesome story that is, when I was in the Navy still, I was stationed in Key West Florida, where they have a lot of decent restaurants, not like Miami, of course. But have a lot of decent restaurants, not like Miami, of course. But while we were there, my ex-wife worked for, you'll love this, a store called The Restaurant Store.

And although there was Cisco, there didn't come as regularly down there, as you might think. And so The Restaurant Store really tailored to all the restaurants and the lower keys. And Richard, who owned owned it prided it himself on customer service, which was great for us because we would get invited to everything all the time.

And anytime we would go out, we would typically sit at the kitchen's table and would get these fresh concoctions that the chefs were making. And most of the time, it would go after that till late hours in the morning, doing something that you experienced very similarly with Danielle.

So I love that story. It showed me, even through Richard's business model, how by giving these restaurant tours exceptional service that they stayed loyal to him, even when the big players started coming into Key West. Well, I understand that after graduating from Cornell, similar to me after graduating from the Naval Academy, we both moved to Spain. I wanted to ask you, I was in southern Spain on the coast down by Sevilla, and I understand

you were more northern Spain, but what were some of your fondest memories from your time there? So I went to Spain as an externship of sorts where I worked in the prep kitchen of a culinary school all the way north in Spain in exchange for room and board. I went really for two reasons one because I just wanted an experience like that before I began my like proper career journey. I had a really

close knit group of friends and I loved my time at Cornell and so I never did a study abroad program but I wanted like a little taste of that before life fully started. And I also went because I just wanted to get better at Spanish. I knew that just immersing myself for a measure of time would help with that. The things I remember were how probably the biggest one was how profoundly how profoundly uncomfortable it was to be in an environment where I didn't speak the language. And I remember the people that kind of resented me for it and those that showed me compassion and tried to help me. And I think in so many businesses, most certainly restaurants,

there's a contingent of people for whom English is their second language. And I've always tried to hold on to that perspective that I had then to make sure that I'm leaning in and making them feel the ways that I felt when I was treated well there as opposed to the other way around. I also just remember how much I grew up during that time because growth does happen outside of your comfort zone and I remember a weekend I was like I made a mistake I should go home and then when it was finally time to go home I didn't want to leave. It was a great experience. It was finally time to go home. I didn't want to leave.

It was a great experience. I agree with you, even though I was in the military and we had the base down there in Rota, I purposely lived off base to experience Spanish culture. And I became really good friends with the daughter of the Osborne Sherry company. And even though she could speak perfect English,

when we were out and about, she forced me as uncomfortable as it was to speak Spanish with her. And she would take me, I remember, to movies and other things to just try to immerse me in doing it. But I remember those who also made you feel uncomfortable when you were stumbling through it as well. But it is very different to put yourself in those uncomfortable positions. And I think in Andalusia, where I was, even less people spoke English.

So you really had to put yourself out there and try to use it. Yeah, to figure it out. Yeah, to figure it out. Well, you went from your months in Spain. How did you start working with Danny Meyer, who you then ended up working with for many years? So Danny is partner, Richard Crane, actually spoke at one of my classes at Cornell.

And I remember just being enchanted, by the way, he articulated the philosophies of their company Union Square Hospitality Group and described its culture. I knew that I was going to work for Danny before I went to Spain. That was already kind of worked out, where I knew that I was going to have that job by the time I got home. There was about a month before graduation that I ultimately figured out that's where I

wanted to work. My good friend, Brian Kamlitz, whose family owns a restaurant called Kamlitz in since Seattle, is the third generation owner now. It's a very, very special place. He and I traveled from Etudeau down to New York City and we started at the very bottom of the island and went to every significant restaurant for a little snack, a glass of wine, sometimes just to walk inside and take a look around all the way up from the financial district to the Upper East Side. And we went to some amazing restaurants, but it was at two of Danny's restaurants, 11 Madison Park, bizarrely, in a very full circle kind of situation in Tabla, that I just

felt the most comfortable. I think there's these environments that just feel right. It's not dissimilar to when you put on a suit that fits you perfectly. You feel better when you're wearing it. I think that's the case with the energy of a room or of a place. And you can feel that it's where you want to be. And so after that trip, I called up Richard Kran, who's information I'd gotten when he came up to speak at our class and said,

please, I want to work for you guys. I'll do whatever it takes. Let me know. And ultimately, he offered me a job, not at a Lev Madison Park, though, at Toble. It would be years later that I'd find myself working at Edelman Madison Park and consequently buying it. And Toble was one of the great experiences in my life. I ran the front door there. I was so lucky to have an amazing first boss, almost accidentally.

I think a lot of people go and pick a job based on the company as a whole. The advice I give people is to pick a job not entirely based on the company as a whole. The advice I give people is to pick a job not entirely based on the company as a whole but based on the exact person you're going to work for because that person is going to be the one investing in your growth not the president of the company. And if you don't have a lot of respect for the person you are directly reporting to, if you don't believe that person can be a strong mentor and guide in your career and in your life, you're selling yourself short from really having an opportunity to grow as

quickly and effectively as possible. Randy Garudy was the name of my general manager at TABLA. He's sent to become one of my close friends and one of the most successful restaurateurs I know he's the CEO of Shake Shack and has done extraordinarily well. But the time I spent at Tableau was life-changing for me. Well, what were some of the biggest lessons that you learned from him? From Randy, I learned about the power of enthusiasm as a leader. I learned from him that a good leader always remembers that their energy is meant to impact the people they lead not the other way around. I think a lot of the time when you're managing a group of people who perhaps at first are not as motivated as you or not as passionate as you are that you can let their energy dim your enthusiasm. Unless you remember that people crave leadership and they want to be inspired by passion, they're

just looking for someone who's passionate enough to inspire them. Randy would walk into that restaurant every single day and light up the room with his enthusiasm and his unbridled belief in the spirit of our collective endeavor. And no matter what, energy was in the room, he would change our channel as opposed to the other way around. And I've always tried to hold on to that. I think there's a lot of times, especially when you're leading a team meeting where you look at the facial expressions of the people you're commuting canning to and if you don't feel like they're as excited about the message

you're delivering as you are, you start to lower your passion. When actually just sticking with your enthusiasm is the best way to convince them to come along with you for the ride. Yeah, I love that story. It reminds me of one of my favorite bosses I worked for, Jay Skabinsky, and Jay made you feel when you were around him like you were the only thing that mattered in the whole universe, and he would always just be coaching you on how you could be a better person overall, a better father, a better partner, a better leader, and it was just that nurturing is what I remember from him that carried forward for me and how, from that point forward, I would try to treat the employees around me.

So I love that story about enthusiasm. Well, I was hoping you could tell the audience what led you to being given the opportunity to run 11 Madison Park and what the restaurant was like when you took it over. and what the restaurant was like when you took it over. So I was at Tabla for a while then I left Annie Myers company to go work for a much bigger company called Restaurant Associates. I left kind of a fancy romantic role of working the front door of one of New York City's hottest restaurants to work in the back offices of a couple of restaurants that are part of one of the New York City's biggest restaurant companies, right?

That purchasing and accounting that was motivated by my dad and wanted me to learn the business side of the operation just as much as I was learning the more creative and artistic side of the operation. That was an amazing experience, restaurant associates as a remarkable company, but ultimately I went back to Dan's company to open the museum of modern art and I loved my time there as well. And then ultimately Danny came to me and asked me if I would consider joining the team at a Leven Madison Park. Well, Leven Madison was an in's to this day, a beautiful restaurant. It's on the ground floor of the Metropolitan Life Building on 24th in Madison, this building that was built in the 20s that was meant to be one of the tallest buildings in the world. But the depression hit and I ran out of money and so they actually stopped building it. Floor 30 something. But the lobby spaces have the grandeur of what

they needed to have for what the building was ultimately meant to be. And Danny started to feel that the restaurant wasn't living up to its bones. So we hired a new chef from San Francisco, a really talented young chef with the intention of making that restaurant one of the greatest in New York. And asked me to go join to run the restaurant alongside that chef and really try to grow it into what we all wanted it to become. It's funny though, at the time I didn't want to be in fine dining anymore. The world had kind of changed since that dinner I had at the Four Seasons where restaurants then were places where you went to be cared for, to see and be seen. The food was just what you ate while you're experiencing the hospitality and the scene. But with was just what you ate while you're experiencing the hospitality and the scene.

But with the advent of the celebrity chef and the food network, suddenly you went to restaurants to eat and the hospitality was almost secondary. I had learned over the course of my career that being in the dining room, providing hospitality, that was always my passion. And I was having to convince the person in the kitchen that what I cared about mattered as much as what they cared about. And so I had kind of started to move away from fine dining and when Danny offered me the job at a live medicine park,

I wanted to be at Shake Shack. I wanted to start slinging burgers. But my dad always said to me that if you want to grow with the company and they ask you to be there for them, you should always say yes, because if you want them to be there for you and you need them, you should be willing to be there for them when they need you. And so I accepted that job with the caveat that I would do it for one year. And then I'd get to go work at Shake Shack.

But a year later, I was having the time of my life when they asked me if I was ready to move to Shake Shack, I said no. I'm gonna fast forward a few years later, you have taken the restaurant from the Sparassiae to now receiving four stars from the New York Times, a couple of James Beard Awards, which are like the Oscars for restaurants.

But then you received this unexpected letter inviting you to 2010's world's 50 best restaurants. And you had now entered a new level where you were on par with some of the most famous chefs and restaurateurs in the entire world. But you write in the book that when you got to this event that you felt like a freshman for the first time in high school trying to figure out your place at the table. What was that experience like?

Yeah, so we got this letter saying we've been added to the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world, which was a big deal. We'd been wanting that. We just weren't sure when it was going to happen for us. we weren't sure when it was going to happen for us. I was so excited when I got that letter and we packed our bags included London for the ceremony. And so this is that works. When you go to that ceremony, it's a lot like the Oscars. You get dressed up in a tuxedo, you go to this beautiful cathedral-like place for the awards ceremony.

But it's different from the Oscars in the sense that, if you're nominated for an Oscar when they get to your category, you just want them to call your name. At the 50 best, if you're there in the room, you know you're one of the 50 best restaurants in the world. You just don't know where in the list you fall until they count down, they start at 50, they're good

under one. And so there, you don't want them to call your name for as long as humanly possible. And when we got there, we had a science seating and I like to gamify everything in life. And so I looked at where we were sitting with our science, see its relative to where the other restaurants that had been famously in the top 10 for the last few years were sitting. And tried to guess based on our proximity to them where we're going to follow the list. And I think I guess number 35 and I partner guests, like number 25 or something like that. And I'm sure there was some amount of

like, brovado and welcomes on all of that before they started counting down, but all I don't know whether the member was the big debonair British MC saying to kick it off at number 50, a new restaurant from New York City, 11 Madison Park. And I was like gosh darn it. What I didn't realize, because we were the first restaurant called, it was the first year we were there, was that when they call your name, they train a camera on, project your image in front of this entire room,

filled with your heroes. It's when everyone else knew to fake a smile in a way of regardless whether they're happy or not about their position. But I just looked like I've gotten kicked in the groin on this giant screen in front of all my heroes. It was just the worst. We had come in last place.

A lot of people say, hey, you need to have a little bit of perspective. You're one of the 50 best restaurants in the world. But I always answer that question in two ways. One, have you seen the last dance with Michael Jordan? Yes. You know, that scene or that part of the documentary where it talks about how if someone accidentally bumped into Jordan in a game,

he would, like, convince himself that they'd done it on purpose, that he'd have something to get fired up about. I believe in that. I think that you need to have things to fuel you to push harder and do better and sometimes you just need to fabricate those things. And that actually wasn't the case then. I genuinely was upset because whether or not we were one of the 50 best in the world in that room, we had come in dead last. And we did what anyone would do in a moment of disappointment, what any mature person would, we left the party early, went back to the hotel and started drinking, went through the stages and agreed if we were angry for a bit,

but ultimately got to acceptance because here's the thing, we were a great restaurant. We had a unbelievably delicious food or service was as close to technically perfect as possible or dining room was one of the most beautiful out there. But we hadn't really done anything that significant. Here's the thing with that list. It's patently absurd to say that one restaurant is the best restaurant in the entire world. It's too subjective to do that.

But what the list does celebrate is the restaurant that's having the greatest impact on the world of restaurants in any given time. And as good as we were as excellent as we had become, we had not yet made an impact. And I started thinking about the other restaurants that had topped that list before us, whether it was a restaurant in Spain called El Boulier whose chef, Ron Audrey, had pioneered molecular gastronomy and really moved the craft of cooking forward in doing so. Or a restaurant in Copenhagen called Nama, who's chef René Redzepi,

had really moved the conversation forward as well by pioneering local ingredients and foraging for those ingredients and creating a meal that almost wouldn't make sense to experience anywhere in the world but there. These chefs had been unreasonable in pursuit of product and relentless in pursuit of what needed to change. They were willing to do whatever it took in pursuit of the plating, the technique, the ingredients, the presentation.

We hadn't done anything unraisingable. My dad gave me this paper way. It says, what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fill? He would always tell me to answer that question honestly and whatever the answer was to try to do that. Reminding me that far too many people will not. For fear, they say their most audacious goal out loud and filled to achieve it. They let themselves on those around them down, but he'd always go on to say that if you don't have the confidence and conviction to say your biggest goal out loud, it's very unlikely you'll ever achieve it.

And so that night wrote in the cocktail that I've been, we will be number one in the world. But a goal without a strategy is nothing more than a pipe dream. I needed to identify what our impact was going to be. If those chefs made their restaurants number one by focusing on product and what needed to change, I decided that our impact would be made by focusing on people and the one thing that would never change, which is the human desire to feel seen, to feel cared for, to feel sensible longing, and to feel welcome. On that napkin underneath, we will be number one

of the world erodes two words unreasonable and hospitality. Well, I love that you went there because most people think of hospitality as something that they do. However, as you just laid out, you think about it as an act of service. And I wanted to ask, what is the difference between service and hospitality? So the best answer I ever got to that question came from an interview. I did when I was at Tabla as a manager. That was a question that asked everyone I was interviewing. The best answer I ever got was services black and white, hospitality is color. For me, service is the thing that you do. It's the technical act required to get the job done.

Hospitality is how you make people feel while you're doing that thing. In a restaurant, services taking the order, getting the right food to the right person and the right amount of time, making sure the food tastes good. Hospitality is how you make the people feel, how connected they feel to you and whether or not you've created the conditions where they can feel more connected to one another as well. Service is table stakes. Hospitality is everything. I'd love how you just describe that. I have a friend who learned how to make top shelf cocktails

from the person who pretty much invented them. And it was interesting because we would go to different bars and she would always order the most simple of drinks for them to make to see how they would make it. And she said, being great at doing these fine cocktails is really about the whole way that you not only prepare them, but the art that goes into it and then how you serve them. And she took me through a couple of these different examples and then I had her make a drink. And she had worked in a couple of Michelin threes

and a Michelin two when she was in New York. And the way she did it was truly an art form versus the way that you see most bartenders to produce drinks like that. The craft of cocktails is a beautiful craft, especially when people have the discipline to do it appropriately. And there is such an art to craft cocktails. And she would always point out just how they were messing up

the simplest of drinks by putting in maybe too much simple syrup or too much of this or that. And it really gets down to being intentional about how you're making it, which can get monotonous because of how many you're making, but it's being consistent in that service. In the forward of the book, Simon Sinek, your book was Optimism Press, so shout out to him to seeing the brilliant Senate, writes that although the book is about you, it's really about the art of how you treat people, how to listen, how to be curious, and we all have defining moments in our life. But you had one involving a hot dog that led you to discover the importance of turning

ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Can you talk about that? Yes. So the morning after those awards on the flight home to New York, it was clear to me that I didn't actually understand what unresolable hospitality meant, which I think is okay. I think far too often people spend so much time trying to articulate their goals that they never start pursuing them. I believe that if you feel enough of a connection to an idea, trust your gut enough to just start down the path and know that you'll understand

it more, it will reveal itself to you along the way. And so over the course of the next year, my team and I just started to try to figure out what was unreasonable hospitality. What did that actually look like? How were we going to make our impact? And we did a bunch of stuff to start to get there, but it was about a year later that I found myself in the dining room and a busier than normal lunch service, helping the servers and the busier than normal like day. And I was clearing appetizers from a table of four foodies, people that were just in New York on vacation

to go to restaurants. And we were there last meal. They were headed to the airport to go back home after lunch. And I overheard them talking. And they were going on and on about all the great restaurants they'd been to Michelin Star places, like Liburned End, Danielle, Momofuku, Perse, and now they're at a Lev Madison Park, but then one person jumped in and said, yeah, you know what we

never had was in the York City hot dog. And it was like one of those light bulb moments in a cartoon. I went back into the kitchen, dropped off the plate, then literally ran outside of the hot dog cart in front of the restaurant, bought a hot dog, ran back inside. Somehow convinced the chef to serve it in her fancy restaurant. And he cut it up into four perfect pieces and we added a little swish of ketchup and mustard and a canel of sauerkraut and relished to each plate. Then, before their final savory course, which was a honey lavender glaze muskowy duck that have been dry aged for two weeks. I brought out what we in the York Hall, a dirty water dog, and I explained it. To make sure you don't go home with any culinary regrets, here's your New York City hot dog.

And they freak down. At that point in my career, I'd served thousands of plates of food and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food, things like butter, poached lobster, and a setcher caviar, and wagyu beef, and you name it. And I'd never seen anyone react with they did that hotdog. Athletes always go to the tapes and they've had a bad game to see what they could have done better. They don't often enough go to the tapes and they've had a good game to see what they did well to make sure they keep on doing that thing. That's how you put systems behind moments or ideas

that you stumbled into organically. And so I went back to the tapes and that hot dog, what happens that could happen, what needed happens that it would start happening all the time. in that hot dog. What happens that could happen? What needed happens that it would start happening all the time. And it was three things. The first was being present. Being present is so overused these days, but for me, it just means caring so much about the person you're with that you stop caring about everything else you need to do. And it was essential in developing unreasonable hospitality. If I hadn't been present to that table, I never would have heard the throwaway line about the hot dog. Second, it was that I was taking what I did seriously,

but not taking myself too seriously. I think so often in any customer service, business, people run the risk of letting their self-imposed brand standards get in the way of them, giving the people around them, the things that will actually bring them the most joy. A hot dog in a four-star restaurant does not make sense until you look at the way it made them feel.

And third, it required the acknowledgement that if hospitality is about making people feel seen, the best way to do that is not to treat them like a commodity, but as a unique individual, in unreasonable hospitality, one size fits one. And I've said this so many times, I believe I could have given that table a really expensive bottle of champagne and a big thing a caviar. And it would not have had the same impact as the $2 hot dog. That whole experience, it changed my approach because up until that I've been so focused on excellence and all the little details that went into making a meal great.

But I hadn't realized something that I now consider to be so important, which is that the food, service, the design, there's simply ingredients in the recipe of human connection. And that became my entire focus going forward from there. I love that story. And last year I interviewed this gentleman named Dr. Nate Zinser, and he's been teaching at West Point for 25 years, and he teaches the psychology of performance, but also confidence. And he came out with a book last year called The Confident Mind, and it turns out that

he also coaches professional athletes, and he's coached Kirby Puckett in Eli Manning. And one of the things that he teaches them. A couple random athletes. And the story with Eli Manning is Eli lacked confidence and he came to Nate because he was at a certain point in his career and he won't take it to the next level. And one of the first things, he went through with Eli was how he was examining the tapes after the games. And so he instructed Eli to throw away all the mistakes he made and only keep and watch the replays of when he was executing the throws and the plays in the way

that he wanted them to occur. And so he said by focusing on, as you were saying, not the mistakes we're making, but the ideal plays and where we want the goal line to be going forward, you can shift your mind to be that place on a more regular basis. And within, I think it was 12 to 18 months of working with him, he won the Super Bowl. So what's his name and what's the name of the book? I want to write this book. Nate Zenser, and it's called The Confident Mind. Thank you. I also asked you to answer

anyone listening now I can write it down to. Well, I'm going to go to another thing that you talk about in the book and this has to deal with the bottle of cognac. But I know when you go to a restaurant like 11 Madison Park, sometimes after this experience which can go on for two, three hours, it becomes into a pretty expensive outing. And oftentimes, when the checker arrives, it can be a shock to the person who's receiving it. And other times, you probably feel like you're getting rushed out the door of restaurants like that. But how did you turn this potential problem or situation into one where you gave more, not less? and to one where you gave more, not less.

So the check is a really hard moment, honestly, in any restaurant, even at Bob's. Big boy, right? That's the name of the restaurant you went to in your kid's box, big boy. And it's challenging because anyone, whether they realize it or not, becomes supremely impatient the moment they ask for the check. I do as well.

The moment someone's ready to leave, they are ready to leave. And the reality is most people are all asking for the check at the same time when the restaurant is really busy just trying to serve the tables that are still eating. It's hard to get the check to a table quickly enough that people don't get impatient. And yet at the same time, you can't drop a check on a table before they've asked for it, otherwise they'll feel like you're trying to rush them out. And this is just a nagging problem that restaurants face. And we thought about that for a long time as we were pursuing what did unreasonable hospitality mean. And then ultimately came up with a solution rooted in giving more, not less. Which was this, when we knew the table was completely done, but had not yet asked for the check, we would walk over with a bottle of cognac and a glass for each person that was sitting

there. We'd put the glasses in front of each guest. We'd pour a little bit of cognac into each of their glasses and then put the bottle down on the table. We'd say, this is with our compliments, I'm gonna leave the bottle here, help yourself to as much as you'd like. And when you're ready, the check is right over here.

And what we've done is a few things, we've given them the check. So now is there, they didn't have to ask for it anymore. But there was no way they could ever feel rushed out. They'd just been given an entire bottle of free booze. And if anyone looked at the check and wasn't necessarily thrilled about how much money the meal cost, at least that could be balanced by the fact that we had ended it with that one final grace note of extreme generosity. It was a beautiful solution that required looking at an element in the experience that no one had ever really shown intention or creativity towards. And a beautiful solution that came from

looking at a nagging problem and solving it not through cutting back, but through being generous. Yeah, I love that story because that is a moment I face many times when you're at this dinner and all of a sudden you get this huge check and most of the time you're feeling like you're being rushed out on top of it. So that was a great solution. Well, one of the areas in the book that I love that you covers, you say that we're on a seismic shift that has taken place where we've migrated from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, but you go as far to say that we're on the precipice of becoming a hospitality economy.

And there are many younger listeners of the show, and I know a number of them are thinking of how they should approach their careers with all this change that's going on around them and you say that in order to take advantage of this new economy you must make the choice to put your customer at the center of every decision and I wanted to ask because I think this is an important lesson to learn is how does intentionality creativity play a role in the pursuit of unreasonable hospitality. Well, so I do believe we're on the verge of becoming a hospitality economy. First of all, we are definitively this is not an opinion. This is a the service economy, more than three quarters of our GDP is driven by service industries now. The reason I say we're on the precipice of becoming a hospitality economy is when you look at the digital transformation that has occurred, when you look at everything that's

going on with AI right now, a lot of jobs are about to be replaced by AI, whether that's in two years, five years, fifteen years, it's just a matter of time. And I believe that the best way to differentiate a company or your own individual skill set, the best way to make sure that you are irreplaceable for as long as humanly possible, is to bring that uniquely human touch. Because I also believe it's gonna be a very long time

before any artificial intelligence Can make you feel a genuine sense of connection to it And so the jobs that remain will be the ones that bring that pure genuine humanness How does intentionality plan to it? Well? If I were to describe the entire book in one line, unreasonable hospitality is about being intentional and pursuit of relationships,

what the people you work with as well as those that you serve. It's about bringing just as much creativity and intention to the way that you pursue people as most companies already do in the way they pursue products It's about Showing a willingness to do whatever it takes to be relentless to be unreasonable In pursuit of taking those ordinary transactions and turning them into extraordinary experiences, about giving people the kind of memories that will last a lifetime. Because the reality is, as the generations continue to shift, people don't really collect things anymore, they collect experiences.

And we all have this beautiful opportunity to give people through pursuing them with intention. The kind of memories that help them relive those experiences over and over again, such that they become experiences worth collecting. I absolutely love that answer. I'm going to have to turn that into a short video from this episode. Well, well, I can't end this episode without talking about host leadership, but I wanted to go into it like this.

And if you're a regular listener, you've heard me told this story before, but I got hired by Lowe's to be the VP of operations. And I took the job. And I remember after about a week and a half, the head of HR comes to me, and she has the employee engagement survey results. And she says, you have just inherited the second worst performing organization in the entire company. This is a company that has 350,000 people, 1800 stores. And I'm just like, what in the hell if I just walked into? But what I

realized, I would go out and talk to the customers of the group and they said, your group is the worst performing. They don't care about us. They don't give a crap about what they're doing. And then I started to interview every single employee. I remember we had a 24 by seven hour call center and watch operation. And so I'd go in at two o'clock in the morning, just to talk to people. And what I realized is that they had no idea how their job connected to the customer,

but more importantly, no one was obsessing over them to make them feel important. And if you're a leader which most of the listeners of this podcast are, it's important for people to realize that if you want those whom we work with to obsess over our customers or the end recipients of the product that we're making, we have to obsess over the people who are making those customers feel that way. And that's a long story into why is hospitality a leadership skill?

Well, a hospitality is a team sport that's my favorite daily minor quote. It doesn't matter how hospitable you are if you don't have the capacity to inspire your team to be just as hospitable, it's almost irrelevant. I also think hospitality is a leadership skill because, well, now more than ever, listen, with the hybrid workplaces or the fully remote workplaces, like people are not organically connecting with one another nearly as much as they once did. It was for a long time that the people that worked for you would connect with one another organically around the water cooler or at the bar after work

at happy hour. And by the way, there's data to show that people are much less likely to leave a job if they have close friends at that job. A leader now needs to create the conditions to create space to show intention where they're hosting their team such that the team ceases to be a collection of individuals and actually comes together as a trusting team. Because only then can you unlock the collective creativity and capacity of that team. A leader needs to create the same conditions for connection that a great restaurant does. I believe there is a sacredness to the table that the table is one of the last remaining places where people are inclined to put their cell phones away and lean in and engage.

A great leader now needs to recreate the magic of a table that you find in a restaurant in their conference rooms, whether those are in-person conference rooms are virtual. Well, and then the last question, I love that answer that I wanted to ask, was I understand you may be launching a new HBO Max show called The Big Brunch. Can you just tell the audience about it? Because I'm imagining after hearing this episode, they're gonna wanna tune in.

Yeah, The Big Brunch, it's actually out now. And it's a cooking competition show that I did with Dan Levy from Shits Creek and my friend, Sola, who's an amazing chef in New York City. It was our effort to show that you could have engaging dramatic television that didn't need to be dramatic as counterintuitive as that seems,

like that you could create compelling TV, not through yelling at people, but through encouraging them, through investing in them, through being hospitable to them. I'm really proud of how it turned out and how people can check it out. I'm definitely going to tune in and it's a huge turn over most of the cooking shows that you see these days. Well, if the audience would like to get in touch with you, what is the best place for them to do so? People can keep up with me on Instagram and link them W.

Gidera. Okay well thank you so much. It was such an honor to have you on the show and what an incredible episode that was. Thank you so much for having me. What a fantastic interview that was with Wulgidera and I wanted to thank Will and Optimism Press for the honor and privilege of having him here on the show. Links to all things Will will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use the website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show.

Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles and PassionStruck Clips. As I mentioned earlier, you can also now find us on syndicated radio on the AMFM247 National Broadcast where the show appears every Monday and Friday from five to six PM. Avertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn where you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter,

and you can also find me at John Armiles on Twitter and Instagram where I provide daily doses of inspiration. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Start podcast interview I did with Terry Cole, a licensed psychotherapist, global relationship, and empowerment expert, and the best-selling author of the book, Boundary Boss, the essential guide to talk true, be seen, and finally live free.

Human beings, we have a natural fear of change. And I always say that fear of success and fear of failure are two sides of the same coin, but the coin is fear of change. And I always say that fear of success and fear of failure are two sides of the same coin, but the coin is fear of change. So you have to really be uncomfortable to want to make a change and to be willing to do all the things that are required to change your life. But on the other side of it, of course, is the life you're meant to live, right? Is the life of satisfaction, the life of service, the life of your great is good. But it's really hard when you're anticipating or contemplating that change. To see the other side, all we see is all the stuff we're sort of giving up or what we

might lose in making this change. And it's like you have to use your imagination to think about what could be on the other side of that power of heaven. The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who is very interested

in unreasonable hospitality, then definitely share it today's show with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and hear about. Do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen, and until next time, live life, Ash and Strut. you