The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Give Hospitality: A Hopeful Story of What Happens When We Live, Work, and Love from a Place of Generosity by Taylor Scott

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Give Hospitality: A Hopeful Story of What Happens When We Live, Work, and Love from a Place of Generosity by Taylor Scott Leadwithhospitality.com Amazon.com Burnout and turnover are at an all-time high. Hospitality pioneer Taylor Scott proves a spirit of generosity is the key to bridging our divides and engaging the best in others regardless of our differences in this all-new business fable. At a fundamental level, the purpose of leadership is to connect with and inspire the hearts and minds of others to become their absolute best so they can ultimately give the best of themselves at work, at home, and in their communities. How do we do that? Taylor Scott draws on his 20 plus years of experience working at hospitality industry leaders like Disney Parks and Resorts, Gaylord Hotels and Resorts, and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, to provide an inviting, accessible fable about adopting a spirit of generosity. Give Hospitality tells the story of Summer Grace, who after leaving a toxic workplace that lacked inclusivity lands a new role at Kauwela Resorts—the home of five core values that empower its people to thrive. Her story charts how leaders in any industry can bring those values to life by purposefully giving compassion, encouragement, kindness, hospitality, and leadership. Be inspired to embrace the game-changing power of giving and receiving hospitality, which in turn makes us happier, improves our health, strengthens our social bonds, evokes feelings of gratitude, and has a positive ripple effect in our communities. Learn actionable principles for cultivating an environment where employees are happier and more engaged, and where they feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work.About the author Taylor Scott graduated with honors from Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, FL, earning a BS in Business Administration. He earned a Masters of Management in Hospitality from Cornell University. Taylor has worked for notable brands such as Disney Parks and Resorts, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Wynn and Encore Las Vegas, Gaylord Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and Disney Vacation Club.

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Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, the only season that makes it official, welcome to 16 years and 2,500 episodes gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen,

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and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen and all those great places on the internet. Today we have an amazing man on the show, Taylor Scott joins us. He's the author of two books that we are going to be talking about today. His latest is called Give Hospitality, a hopeful story of what happens when we live, work and love from the same place of generosity. That's something a nice place to be, especially in today's world that's going on right now. Taylor graduated with honors from Florida Southern College in Florida, earning a BS in business administration. He earned a, I'm gonna blow this up a little bit more here, he earned a master's of management in hospitality from Cornell University. He's worked for notable brands such as Disney Parks Resorts, the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Wynn and Encore Las Vegas, Gaylord Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts

and Disney Vacation Club. Welcome to the show, Taylor. How are you? Great. How are you? I am doing excellent. Give us a.coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs?

Leadwithhospitality.com. Simple as that. And give us a 30,000 over you about inside this new book. Yeah, the new book is a leadership fable this time. And it's about young up and coming leader in our industry who has left a toxic job with a toxic boss. Raise your hand if you've seen that. And she goes to work at a more magical place

that I created in my brain and in my heart called Calvella Resorts. Calvella means summertime in Hawaiian. And our main name is Summer Grace. So there's a little bit of symbolism there, but the story is about her first two weeks on the job when she goes through the Calvella Resorts orientation experiences that they call

hospitality conversations. And so it's just a story about how they have created such a positive and productive and inclusive workplace culture. And I'm doing this one on purpose, with a purpose, for a purpose, because I'm donating proceeds from the book as well as any key notes and leadership development programming or workshops that come from this project.

I'm donating to the Hawaii Community Foundation's Maui Strong Fund to help with the rebuilding efforts of Lahaina Harbor on Maui after the wildfires in August of 2023. There was such a devastating fire, which is just astounding. Just that lives changed in a second. What prompted you to want to write this book? Now, I know you have another book, if you want to plug us on the title on that. Are these two released hand in hand or in tandem? How does that work? Our last book was Lead with Hospitality,. That one came out in April of 2021. It's from that book that we've created all of our leadership development content, as well as our hospitality experiences, our customer service, our guest services training content,

and a lot of the work that I do as a keynote speaker and a leadership development partner with organizations in and around the hospitality industry. The differences are lead with hospitality was four years ago and the gear of hospitality is a leadership fable this time around. I wanted to do a fable because I've grown in my leadership career reading books from the great John Gordon, who wrote the Energy Bus

and guys like Patrick Lynch Yoni who write these leadership fables that we can all relate to. That's what we're doing. Sometimes telling stories is the best way to teach lessons, right? We talk about that in the show where stories are the owner's manuals to life. It's how we kind of figure things out and come up with an instruction manual because I didn't get mine in the mail. I don't know if you got yours in the mail, the instruction manual for life. No, I guess I'm still waiting. instruction manual because I didn't get mine in the mail. I don't know if you got yours in the mail, the instruction manual for life, but I'm still waiting on mine. I sit by the mailbox every day going how do I do this? But that's the great thing about stories, fables, novels, even where you can learn in real life stories.

There's so many lessons you can draw from them. Now, it sounds like you have quite the career working with resorts, customer service and things of that nature. It sounds like you had quite the career working with resorts, customer service and things of that nature. Tell us about some of your upbringing and what got you down these roads and influenced you leading up to the books. Yeah. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. So I'm an old basketball guy from Kentucky and growing up on the East Coast and the South,

like most people, when it came time to go on vacation, we'd go down to Walt Disney World and our family became like a Disney family early on. I used to just love it. I used to just love going to the parks. And one of my favorite things though, was like just hanging out at the resorts and the hotels. And I always knew I wanted to go in that direction when I got older.

And so when it came time to go to college, I was looking for places where I could walk on the basketball team, small school, with a good business program. And I found it at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. And yeah, I went down there for my undergrad and I majored in business administration, concentrated in hotel resort management. Every summer in college, I did the Walt Disney World College program. Oh, wow. It's an internship program. And they have three components living, earning, and learning and so you're there. Imagine it. You're there with thousands of

other college students and you have a role in the show somewhere within the 48 square miles of Walt Disney World and you live in an apartment complexes with other college students that are down there on. So it was amazing. We, my buddies and I, we, all of the groomsmen in my wedding were my friends from at some point in the Walt Disney World College. We're still very tight today. So yeah, I just loved all facets of it.

And so that's what I did. I worked in food and beverage, attractions, in the resorts and resort operations. And then when I graduated, I did resort operations and then sales and marketing, and then left and did the graduate program up at Cornell University's hotel school. And from there, I landed here where I still live today in Las Vegas.

When and on-court, as well as the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, I was the director of marketing at both of those places. And I went back to Disney, but on the other coast. I went to Disneyland and I led the sales team at Disney Vacation Club, Disney's version of TimeShare. And then it was all of those experiences really my favorite part about each of those career stops were times when I would be sent to, or I would get to go to a leadership development workshop. And I would just love it. I would go into those things and I would come out so uplifted and encouraged and inspired.

And finally, I was just like, I wonder how I could do that for a living. So I started blogging and writing and playing around with maybe doing some speaking opportunities and found out I loved it. I was pretty decent at it. And then I switched gears and started writing these books and creating these leadership programs myself. And so who is the book targeted to give hospitality? Is this targeted to leaders, CEOs, the C-class is targeted to everybody all the way up the

food chain is per se? Yeah, I would say there's two primary groups. There's one that is the up and coming leader. So the up and coming leader in not only hospitality, but in any industry really, I just leverage and use hospitality as some illustrations and examples of how this stuff has and continues to show up. So it's the up and coming leader,

but it's also these people that may be leaders of up and coming leaders that that they say, Hey, I would love to have as a director or vice president or even in a C suite, I would love to have my culture, my leadership culture be one that is rooted in the spirit of hospitality. So those are the two main audiences there is the target to help employees feel better about, you talk about burnout and turnover in the book, or is it more towards customer service, would you say? What was the book by Tom Peters back in the day?

Because Committed to Excellence? Something to excellence. They launched this huge customer service sort of focus, which somehow we've lost complete track of, but is it a return to that or what's the target there? Yeah, somewhat, somewhat. When I started this endeavor several years ago with lead with hospitality, I wanted to pick up where guys like Tom Peters and guys like Danny Meyer, who

wrote the book, setting the table, the Transformative Power of Hospitality and Business. I wanted to pick up where they left off. So I believe this, I believe when leaders lead with hospitality, they have teams and they have cultures of people that are out there on the front lines that are delivering memorable hospitality. And it is rooted in how we make people feel.

So that's really what started me off on this path with, I was really curious with how could I connect these two things, leadership and hospitality. And in all my research last time around, and pretty much every day since, what I found was is that you and I as human beings and all these people on our teams and all these people that we're serving,

you're serving an audience of people. You have customers and guests and clients yourself with your show and your different products that we're serving. You're serving an audience of people. You have customers and guests and clients yourself with your show and your different products that you have. Everybody watching, everybody listening, whatever business you're in, you have guests, customers, and clients. And so here's what I found, is that we love our favorite leaders

for some of the same reasons. We love our favorite hospitality destinations or the favorite places we like to continue to go back to. And it's nine times out of 10, it's rooted in how to feel. So it's really rooted in this foundational science back research backed concept that when we make people feel welcome, comfortable and important as a leader, and that's going to enable teams of people, and it's going to draw them in and really have them open up

so that they will accept and receive our coaching and inspiration more so than they would have if we did not make them feel welcome, comfortable, and important first. And the same goes, as we all know, from our favorite hospitality destinations. Like, I would be willing to guess, I live in Las Vegas, so I'd be willing to bet that you have some favorite hotels or hotel resort brands or restaurants, you have a favorite bar, you have a favorite airline. You probably go back

to that because of how they make you feel. It's the same concept. Is it the Bellagio? So I've lived in Vegas for 20 years like you. I don't know if you lived there for 20 years, but I know you lived there. The Bellagio is a place, people always come when they visit, they're like, hey, can you take us to the best place in the hotels? So, yeah, I always take them to Bellagio. There's kind of romanticism there, but the Bellagio is just a beautiful property. And of course, people have the chocolate fountain and the gardens and then the Italian sort of styling and artwork that's in it.

It's just great. Yeah, you're right. You talk a lot about how things make us feel or how the experience of customer service feel. And it sounds like feelings are a lot of a part of this because people was that old line people remember how they make you feel Yeah, my angelic quote. They won't remember what you said. They won't remember what you did, but they will always Remember how you made them feel something my first ten divorces the I still hear about it to this day Bob Iger, I think I've always respected him as a CEO from everything I've seen and done.

I read his books. I think he's a great leader. I know there was some stuff at Disney. There was some powerful things that they had that empowered the frontline employees that, you know, something about doing whatever it takes to make guests happy or, but they would have the power to do that. And that was a great thing that kind of Disney, I think touted as you know, the thing I'm talking about. Yeah, for me, and that's what a lot of my stuff, my stuff is basically picture the cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Disney. That's pretty much me. That's all I that's all I write about and speak about. I've just drawn and compiled the things that I found work and that don't work as it relates to leading and inspiring people and or delivering or not delivering these memorable moments. But yeah,

Disney for me, it's less about, and I had an old, not old, I had a former leader of mine that would say, there's no silver bullets. There's not one thing. But instead, it's about doing a bunch of little things consistently. And that, for me, has always been what I believe makes Disney. It's a bunch of little things that they do. But probably one of the most important was, for me, and remember, I was an hourly cast member at multiple different locations with different roles in the show

I was like like a frontline leader like I what they call guest service manager I was that first level of leadership at multiple different locations multiple different lines of business Then had the opportunity to be a leader of leaders role working my way up through but one thing I always share with people about Disney is You didn't have a job. You had a role in the show. The whole thing at Parks and Resort, anyway, is a show. And so you really would go to work every day, not to flip burgers, not to make beds and clean toilets as a housekeeping person or housekeeping man. No, you would go to work every day like believing like you were going to make magic for people.

You have a role in the show. And so that I think is what you're getting at and what you're talking that when you can make people feel once again, that feeling on the inside, you're going to get a whole different version of that person as a cast member, as a leader somewhere out there on stage in your business. I imagine, yeah, if you had a mindset where you woke up every day, maybe we should do that around the house here, around the office and studio where you're where I'm like, we're

going to create magic today, folks. And then I'm going to have to learn some car tricks. But yeah, having that mentality, we're going to have to learn some car tricks. But yeah, having that mentality, we're going to create some magic maybe for employees. If you're a CEO or a leader, how do we make people appreciate the job? If you took it from that aspect, yeah, that's a whole different sort of thing. It's interesting the ecosystem you talk about of, you know, magic kind of does surround the lore of, or the lore of Disney. It's fairy tales, it's storytelling and everything that goes into it. When you went to Cosmo, Cosmopolitan, I've met so many people hanging out

at the chandelier bar, they did a lot of great outreach to influencers when they first came online. I think they still do pretty much. Lots of customer service. And I just always hear people talking great about the Cosmo. Yeah, that, that, that experience for me, I was there for four years. I was there for the pre-opening in November of 2010, believe it or not, I can't believe it's been that long, which was really special. And if you remember back to that time, like what we've all just been

living through, those of us in the hospitality industry,. There are rough road here, COVID and back then it was, we were coming out of the crash. Yeah. 2008, 2009, brutal. I lost my job a couple of times. There were many of us. And yeah, I had moved away from Las Vegas, went down to South Florida. And then 18 months to the day I came running back when the Cosmopolitan opportunity presented itself. But yeah, so it was a really interesting time. And what I love many things about it, but one of the things I love most was from the get-go,

like our leaders there, like John Unwin and all of the leadership team, they made it very clear to all of us. They said, look, we don't wanna be bigger or better than the Bellagio or Aria or Will, we want to be different. It was never about being better. It was about we wanted to show up in a way and we wanted to create a place that

was not just different but different that matters to people. And so it was this whole new realm of what I believe like hospice. We would say, man, we're out here to change the game. And if you look back 15 years, look what's happened since, like we were the first property there. We were, John was courageous enough to say, we don't want to just reward people in terms of loyalty marketing. That was my gig. I was the director of the loyalty marketing program.

We don't want to just give you points for gambling, playing table games or slots. So we're going to change the game. We're going to reward people for their spend on the resort side as well and food and beverage and going to shows. And that became this new thing. Now everybody out here does that. So it was not only that sort of thing, structurally and infrastructure, how we

set up, set up the business part of it. But it really was for those of us, we were called co-stars, for example. Oh, really? Those are your titles? Yeah. Not employees, not cast members, co-stars. Why? Because the building itself, like the gym that was and still is the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and all of her beauty. Again, different. Not this vast, like widespread property, but no, we sat on eight acres and it went vertically, as we all know. Second floor, third floor, pool on the fourth floor. So the building was the star, the guests were the star and we were the co-stars, co-creating this experience.

So it was a whole, to your point, it was a whole mindset. When we were just, we were encouraged to be ourselves and to bring our authenticity. And that was another way, I just, I saw firsthand and I saw the power of giving that kind of empowerment to the people. Little things too, like we didn't have name tags when we opened.

Oh really? Because we wanted to just have an excuse to say, hi, my name is Taylor and you are, just to open up that interaction. So it was less about doing transactions and it was all about encouraging all of us to lean into having interactions, conversations we would say. Conversations make good company. I used to love it. We had all these mantras and taglines and to this day even though MGM has taken over running the hotel there and having it's run by MGM resorts, but there's still an element that it's different than the other MGM properties. It's something else. Now, generosity is a big word that you use, especially in the title of the book.

When we live, work and love from a place of generosity, how important is that? What does generosity mean to you? Yeah, it's about just doing things for other people without expectation for anything in return. And we talked a little bit about mindset. And that's really what this becomes. And it's just this opportunity that is available to all of us, no matter what stage of life we're in, no matter how old we are, no matter how long we've been out here doing what we've been doing. And no matter if you're

in a season right now where things are rocking and rolling, and you're sitting high on the hog, or if you're a person that has had a setback, having a mindset and almost a heart set and an approach to life and work from a place of generosity can change everything. Oh, yeah. It can change these interactions. It can open up different conversations and allow for more connection with your boss,

with the people that work on your team if you're a leader, with your customer base, with your guests that come in, your partners across the aisle, so to speak, changes everything. And especially in light of, and so I started writing this particular book not long after our last book came out. So it was in the middle of the pandemic and all the stuff was going on. George Floyd, all this division and the political mess and the socio-economic and it's still out there today. And I saw this as an opportunity to this maybe, just maybe a chance. And it might not work. It might not work. But I said, you know what? I want to try to do this as a way that whether you're a Republican or a Democrat

Whether you're a white person or a black person Latina Latino Asian American Pacific Islander Hawaiian person Indian person gay straight trans If we can challenge ourselves To just focus on other people and to give first and it's that's one of the things I love about leadership is leaders, they like there's a Simon Sinek quote that I'm sure many people that are listening or watching have probably seen him or heard him say is they call them leaders because they go first. I believe great leaders give first. Give your time, give your talent, give your heart to other people. And so what I've done is just in light of all this work that I've been doing with, so

I go back to Cornell like every three or four months and I give back to the school, to the hotel that is at Cornell University called the Statler Hotel. I gave them, like I gifted to them in 2021, all of the leadership development content that I've created from our platform, Lead with Austin. I just gave it to them in 2021 all of the leadership development content that I've created from our platform, Lead with Austin. I just gave it to them. I call them and I'm like, I don't have millions of dollars like a lot of these other Cornell people, but I have good content and I got a passion for this stuff. So I gifted it to the Stadler Hotel. They implement it and they've been using it ever since. So I've been working with students. I've been working with leaders, not only at Cornell, but at major airlines and hotel brands,

like Montage Resorts, Choice Hotels, Highgate Hotels, restaurant companies. And what I've noticed and what I've seen, and probably people watching listening and you might have seen this as well, is there's a lot of these up and comers that they missed a lot of this development. They missed this season during COVID where some of the simple things about how to engage

and how to really connect on a human level, they had to do it through a screen if they did it at all. So what I've done is I've tried to have a story here with Give Hospitality, this leadership fable that tells the story of Summer Grace goes to work at Calvillo Resorts. this leadership fable that tells the story of summer grace, goes to work at Calvillo Resorts, and I chose a G word, an I word, a V word, and an E word that I believe can help all of us bring to life these, what I point out in the book, are the five core values, for example, that Calvillo Resorts has that they have, that they've used to make themselves successful and to become like a famous workplace culture.

And it's give compassion, give encouragement, give kindness, give hospitality, and give leadership. And there's a G word, I word, V word, and an E word with each of those that I believe can help all of us bring each of those values and virtues to life. I love it. So as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up the book, any dot coms where they can find out more. Do you do consulting and coaching, things like that? Absolutely. Come to leadwithhospitality.com. When you get there, you'll have all of our stuff there. I've got,

the books are on there. And then we also do, and it's available by the way, pre-order Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books aillion, wherever books are sold. The release date is July 8th, but you can pre-order it now. And then, yeah, we do, I do keynote speeches, keynote experiences. I do, we do, I have a small team of like 10 to 12 of us, and we do leadership development, what we call live learning experiences. For leaders on every level of organizations. We can customize it and cater it to specific brands, messages, and values of the company.

We also do frontline guest service and customer experience training. So all of that stuff is on our website as well. Lots of fun, lots of fun and energy to bring into the work environment there. Make magic every day. Man, that's what my model should be on the Chris Foss show. Make some magic! Magic! I'm gonna go home. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Taylor.

We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you. And thank you so much for tuning in. Order the book where our fine books are sold. Give hospitality a hopeful story of what happens when we live, work, and love from a place of generosity. What a great paradigm to take your paradigm shift from. On July 8th, 2025, for my audience go to Goodreads.com,

Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Juan the Tiktokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should have us