The Dr. John Delony Show - Off the Record With Will Guidara

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

📋 Get on the same page before the week begins. Download Dr. John Delony’s free weekly marriage check-in.    On today’s episode, John talks with Will Guidara about how to build a strong marriage that lasts.   Next Steps: 📚 Read Unreasonable Hospitality 📷 Follow Will Guidara on Instagram 🌐 Find Out More About Will Guidara 🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage: ⁠https://ter.li/l3b369p1⁠ ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Go to Joi + Blokes and get 65% off labs and 20% off products. Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today. Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to the things you would do in restaurants, they were big and sometimes spectacular. But the things that have always caught my attention with the teeny, tiny little things, they will tell that story for the rest of their life. When I talk to couples and they're thinking about rebuilding their marriage, they're reimagining it. They got two kids all of a sudden, and they're married. They're different people. Their marriage is different. And they think in terms of Super Bowl. Years ago when I was getting married, the best piece of advice I got was, what up? What up? Welcome to Off the Record.

Dude, I'm so glad you showed up on a Saturday morning whenever this show dropped or whatever you happen to be getting it in your feed. This is when I sit down with some of my favorite people in the world. Folks I've never met, but I'm fascinated by or experts on a topic that I am desperate personally to learn more about. And I know y'all are too. Today's guest is literally one of the greatest people on the planet. and I don't say that lightly. He wrote a book called Unreasonable Hospitality that has had a second, a third, and fourth life.

He was one of the creators of the show The Bear. He's also a great friend and one of the greatest human beings ever, just behind closed doors. His name is Will Gadera. You've seen him everywhere. He was originally known as being, I think, the only restaurant

in the United States to win the restaurant of the globe, right? The number one restaurant in the world twice. And he did it through unreasonable hospitality. They had amazing food, amazing service, amazing, whatever. But they took it the next level and said, we're going to give people an experience that they'll never forget. And what's beautiful about Will is that's how he lives his life. That's how he treats just his buddies.

I've been on the road with him. We've done events together. I've shared meals with them. That's how he treats everyone. And it's such an impact to me. So I had him on the show. He's got a new field guide, like a how to implement unreasonable hospitality

in your life and in your home. And we spent a ton of time in this episode. Man, one of my favorite conversations. I left a different man after having this conversation with Will about how we can be people that are spouses, that are kids,

that are neighbors, exhale when they think about us. How do we shift that pendulum and become unreasonably hospitable to those around us so we can share kindness, grace, love, and also get stuff done.

So buckle up or unbuckle. This is an unbuckle conversation. This isn't a buckle up. Enjoy my conversation with one of the greatest men in the world, Will Goddara. Here's the big picture question. and don't want to drill down into some specifics.

Your restaurant is super successful, and it becomes number one in the world once, and then becomes number one twice. And then you've got this reputation of hospitality that's just maddening, right? Not maddening, it's extraordinary. Yeah, it's over the top. You write this book that it goes on and become a phenomenon,

and now you're helping businesses all across the world, literally, like reimagining. and how they love and serve their customers. Ever since I met you just as a person, and then we've hung out, and then I read your book, and I've always thought to myself, this is how my home needs to feel, too. And if I, as a guy who has a bunch of small businesses that I'm a part of,

how dare I think about my customers, the people I'm trying to help? more so than my wife or than my kids or than my parents. Yes. What a weird energy swap. And so how the inertia to push through that and say, why does my wife get my thirds and fourths and fifths and the people I'm trying to help get my first and my seconds, right?

That's been a two or three year slog through literature, through all therapy, through all sort of like, how did we all get here to where the people closest, to us get the least of us, right? Get our short, snappy, I'll be there whenever. What about me? And then we go here to somebody else's mission, right, to make other people feel good.

And that stumped me. It's been a wild thing. And the biggest picture, one of the biggest ahas I've had over the last couple years of this project of, is marriage still worth it? And if it is, how do you do it? is this idea that we have to celebrate each other. And every time I bring that up to a group to individuals, everyone looks down.

And almost to a person, it's like, yeah, I don't remember the last time I told him, I'm proud of him. I don't remember the last time I told her, hey, stop, stop, stop, you are beautiful. Or I saw what happened last night with our daughter, and you did a great job with that. I just want you to know, I saw that. We don't do that. And it's almost, I can't do. People feel like they're losing. Right. And so I was like, dude, I got to talk to Will. I got to figure out how to take this thing that has is turning the business world over on its head globally and say, how do I bring this to my house, right? How do I honor my spouse with this? How do I honor my dad with this? My mom with this, my kids with this, in a way that they leave knowing that guy loves me and cares about me. Yeah. It's so funny. It's actually been something I've been spending a lot of time thinking about recently. I just wrote,

the bonus chapter for the field guide. We hid this wild game inside of that book. And for those that find it and play it and win it, you get the bonus chapter. And then of the people that get there, there's another game. And the one person who wins that gets an all expense paid trip to the welcome conference next year in New York City. So it's been really fun. But a bonus chapter is normally like a throwaway thing. and I wanted to use it as an opportunity

just to challenge my own thinking and just write about something the same but new. And it's about bringing unreasonable hospitality into life. The final quote in the field guide is hospitality is being creative and intentional in pursuit of relationships. I think that is, for me, the best definition of the word hospitality.

And by the way, it requires both creativity and intention. It's one thing to be intentional to choose to pursue a relationship, but that only gets you so far absent thinking about the person as an individual and figuring out what is the most creative way to make them feel seen or loved or appreciated. Yeah. It requires both. Now on the side, or somewhat related, years ago when I was getting married, the best piece of advice I got was from older friends who said,

You need to wake up every day and make the choice to pursue your wife. We were just talking about this before we press record how marriage is a wild thing. You change, they change. And if you're not careful, always changing. It's like persistent change. Both people need to be pursuing one another to not lose each other in the process. Now in work, it's easy to be intentional and creative in pursuing. of something because we come into work. We have however many hours a day. We have people around us.

There's brainstorming. There's persistent thinking. Like this show. Yeah. The amount of creativity and intention that you put into making this show great. And it happens outside of the time you're actually having these conversations, I'm sure, right? You're on your team or how do we make the podcast better, and that applies to everything you do. There's a math problem where I have a three-year-old and a five-year-old. I'm at work. I have all of these meetings, these deep thinking. sessions, then I go home and it's chaos until the moment I go to bed. There's no time to think. And what I've learned for me, it boils down to systems. It's one of the paradigm shifts of all of my work is that hospitality is not just surrounding yourself with bubbly people and saying,

go be kind. It's a practice. It's a muscle and it's strengthened through systems. The same is true and how we bring it to our lives. And so I'll tell you about some of the systems I've developed that have helped me pursue the people that I care about more consistently. Okay, before we do that, why do I have, so whenever I tell couples who have two young kids, you're not gonna like this,

but y'all, every week, we're able to get together, look at your calendar for the upcoming week, just be honest about what's coming your way, and put sex on the calendar. And they're like, ah, I mean like, but that's not, It just isn't is right now.

Just plan for it. And that will actually prove that you value this thing and that you're intentional about it. And they always go, I have that innate feeling when you say you need to put systems in your house.

And I know you're right. Why do I have that? Well, because you're... Does that make sense? Is that I have been over Hollywood? No, no, no, no, no. That's totally reasonable. You put a system to something,

it makes it feel less authentic. It demystifies it. Yeah. Yet, I don't believe that to be true. It's not true at all. It ensures that it happens more consistently. If all of your band plays in key or in the same chord structure, now you're all can write a great song, right?

100%. Otherwise, it's just noise. But there's something about, like, structure. But I'll give you an example. So my dad, my dad is so unbelievably important. Yeah, yeah. And my dad and I used to talk all the time. I'm saying, like, once a day, once every two days at least.

and then I had kids we can talk about my wife in a second but my dad that was the first to drop because there's no time right and I didn't like that now I happen to be in a season where I travel a lot

I'm on a lot of planes right now and so my system with my dad is every time I am waiting to board a plan I call my dad it's just become rude now does that less

Thoughtful? Feels less authentic, but it's not. It maybe feels less authentic, but it feels actually more thoughtful because you've been intentional. And by the way, the conversations are still organic, thoughtful,

and spontaneous. But it means that on certain weeks, I'm talking about my dad 12 times a week. Which is way more than waiting for spontaneous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing when I'm, sometimes my wife is away for work.

I'll put the kids down and I'll go downstairs. and all of a glass of wine and doing whatever I do. And if I ever catch myself scrolling through Instagram, I'll close it. And in my notes app, I have a list of like 15 friends

that I'm just looking to catch up. I'll start calling them all. One at a time. So one picks up. And when I get their voice mail, I'll be like, don't call me back. You missed your window,

but I love you. And then I just move on to the next person. Like there's these little systems that we can bake into our lives just to make sure that we are reminded to reach out to the people that we love the most. Now, the other thing I've learned

dude, I love that. We used to say this, in the restaurant, it was built around this culture of collaboration where I wanted everyone's ideas. It was my decision, ultimately, it was my point of view, but it was a collaborative process to get there. And it was not uncommon

for someone on my team to say, I'm just not that creative. And I think that's BS. I think everyone's creative like hospitality. It's a practice. The more creative you are, the more creative you become.

People who misunderstand creativity think of it as like a lightning bolt that strikes you. That's not true. Like if you want to, did you ever see, what was the Beatles documentary? I haven't watched it.

I need to spend a whole, I know. Everyone who knows I love music. It's like, what are you doing, man? They didn't have an album. They sat in a studio for a week. They had an album.

Right. Like they forced creativity. Yeah. And so with certain things, I will just book an hour in the middle of my workday to think about the things that are coming up in life. So what I realized is I had an inability to bring hospitality into my life because I didn't have any margin to think about how to be creative

and how I was bringing it. A birthday or an anniversary or how I wanted to change how Christmas worked with my kids, whatever it was. These things don't just happen. you need to decide that you're going to invest the time to make them happen. And we all have margin. Yeah.

It's just a matter of what we do with it. Yeah, I've heard that there's been some breakdowns of I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to go see a counselor. And then it's like, let's pull up your Netflix log and your scrolling log. That was four hours yesterday. Yeah. Like you got time. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. But it's being intentional by using that time. This morning. I have a trainer that I work with on Zoom because I'm always all over the place that's the system that works for me and I worked out with him for 45 minutes this morning had I not had that on my calendar

I probably would have wasted some time on Instagram of course over coffee the more I can systemize doing the things that I know I want to do the less I'm going to do the things I don't want to do and the more consistently I'm going to be moving towards the person I want to become. So it's the, I think at some point we have to, as a culture, say it's a fallacy that

we're just going to stumble into it. Yeah. Like whether it's relationship, being a good parent, or I remember my being frustrated, I didn't understand. It shocked my wife, and then it shocked me that it shocked her, that when we had our son, I'd never put a diaper on a kid before. I didn't know it worked. There was a new technology for me.

And I kept getting the tape. I put on backwards. I put it wrong. I had duct tape for a while. I was, I used the idea that you're using actual tape. Yeah, I mean, I was, I used duct, it held way better than that stupid stuff on there. But I finally, quickly would see her disappointment,

see my son's discomfort, and I said the words, I don't know how to do this, right? Yes. And she would say, I'll, let me just do it. And years later, when we're deciding if we're going to stay married, those kind of things came up. And she was like, this was the same guy that I saw you, agree to play a song with a band that you did not know you weren't not only do you not know how to play it

you weren't good enough to play it yet and i watched you learn to get good enough to then learn how to play that song and then to perform it in front of a thousand people i know that guy and so when you gave up on this and she was right like i had decided this isn't worth figuring out i'll just let you do that and i think for me there was so much disappointment around it embarrassment shame all that i let all that just be like you know what i don't know how to do it but it's at the end of the day as much as i want to be all woo-woo and mental health as a choice yeah there's a choice to say like you know what i don't know how to do this thing i have to figure out how to do this thing because i want to be this kind of dad-who right and that goes across the board um so if i if you've never spent an hour thinking

how can i overly love my spouse well yeah then you plan that hour and it's going to be awkward and weird, right? Yes. For a while until something, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, it's like anything, nothing happens all at once. Yeah. But I guarantee you, any, we'll just talk husband to wife. If you're a husband and you're just kind of like coasting through life, there's a birthday, five months away, and like, gosh, I got to think about what to get for her and do, no, no, no, no. I guarantee you, if you just sit down for an hour and actually actively think about something, you're going to have a better idea than you would have had you not spent that hour. Then you wait until the day before.

It might not like come out of you super easily, but it's going to be productive or effective. Like with my kids like Christmas, the first two years, they just ripped through their presents in five minutes and we were frustrated about it and we're like, this isn't what Christmas is supposed to feel like. If you don't actually think about how to make it better, it's not going to change. It's not their fault. They're kids. Right? They're kids. Yeah.

And so I booked an hour on my calendar literally 10 months away on Christmas morning last year. Like two Christmases ago, I put an hour on my calendar in October. I was like, figure out how to figure out Christmas. And then in October, I was like, oh, my gosh, I have to figure out Christmas today. And I just started Googling around and like searching and called a couple people and ended up coming up. most fun idea. My kids were two and four at the time. I literally created a series of scavenger hunts for every single present. And the scavenger hunts were simple. I just took pictures of stuff all around my house in the neighborhood and just printed out just a picture of a gallon of milk,

a picture of a mailbox. Yeah. Christmas was so much more fun. It was magical, yeah. And it took hours and the kids were running around. And they, by the way, the last gift were bicycles for each one of them. They could have cared less about the bicycles. Oh, yeah. They were having so much fun playing the game that got them there. Yeah. The point is like, I didn't know what was going to come out of the hour. The real point is this. Anytime we are facing an issue at work, we look at it as a creative opportunity,

something that we can solve, a problem that we can navigate through. And we dedicate the required time and resources and energy in order to solve that problem. We just need to be as disciplined. and as intentional and as creative in pursuit of those same things in life. We don't do those. Yeah, we don't do that. I don't know.

I've wrestled with it because it's quote unquote I have to and we get fired. And I look at the divorce rates and I'm like, you can get fired from that too, right? And by the way, getting fired from that is infinitely. Yeah.

Sucks more. It's more expensive. You lose a lot of people and things. Destructive, yeah. It's destructive. You can get a new job easily. Yeah, yeah. or I wonder sometimes going back to the celebration,

I remember when my son was really young, and we waited for a long time to have kids, some on purpose and some just didn't happen. And I remember thinking the greatest gift I could give my wife and this new baby is to not be here. I don't want to be that guy, so I'm going to go work more and make sure at least the checking accounts full,

right? And what I found really quickly is work gave me a scorecard and I didn't have one here. It gave me a raise my, you know, my annual review, my promotion. Like there was a series of small wins that I could see, small finish lines I could see. And they became pathologic. I chased them with everything I had to the detriment of the things I cared about. But I wonder if there's a way to, when it comes to these systems, is it the daily micro-hackerel? of celebrating your spouse,

or is it the, my wife and I now, we take an annual retreat and we honestly sit back and we're like, I wanna tell you how I experienced you this year. And this was pretty incredible. And those conversations by us permission to say, this year you felt exhausted. Yeah. Or this year you were gone this much.

But if we start with that, then I'm on defense and so then I'm gonna have to lob the grenades back over the wall, right? But if I start with, hey, here's how I experienced you this year in the positive. it gives us both in a weird way, I don't say a scorecard, but it gives us a, we know we're moving down the path.

Yeah, and it's a safe space. I mean, like, by the way, you talk about like how when I said systemized the, and it does feel like he, until you actually spend time thinking about it. No, it's the exact right thing. I'm just curious as to why I react that way. No, no, no, no.

But it's natural to react that way. And yet, what you're talking about is effectively a check-in, right? And any, no, my whole life is a system now. Any marriage counselor would say, like, do check-ins, right? It's a daily, weekly, monthly, annual thing. And check-ins are one of the most powerful things a couple can do

because you're saying, okay, this matters. Right. By the way, in work, I would say to my team, like, when we schedule something, that is my way of signaling to you that it matters. When I make something mandatory, it's me saying very clearly to everyone in this company, this is important to me, and by definition, it needs to be important to you. Mandatory gets a bad rep. I actually think it's one of the most powerful things you can do.

When you make something mandatory, you're saying, this is real. This is important. The same thing is true. When you schedule, I mean, the type of things that at first blush feel terrible. Scheduling connection with your person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yet, it means that connection happens more consistently. When you have young kids, scheduling sex means that you have sex more consistently. Infinitely more. Yeah.

Which, by the way, like, I would rather have more frequent scheduled sex than none. That's un-scheduled sex. That's always the question. Like, do you want none? Yeah. Or do you want more often on the calendar?

And I also think when you schedule something like a check-in, you're also almost like building a wall around that time to say, this is a safe space. Yeah, yeah. And so the check-in is one that we hear about. And it's like kind of in the culture of marriages. I'm just saying take the idea of scheduling that kind of conversation and stretch it so much further.

Because there's so many more. opportunities. Yeah. Like, if you just think about, there's all these like books and marriage books and self-help books. And by the way, some of them are amazing. Most of them are nonsense. Most of them are nonsense.

And I think a lot of people are constantly trying to learn how to be a better person. When I think everyone has the tools innately inside of them, it's just about saying, today I am going to try. Yeah. There's this quote by Teller of Penn and Teller. sometimes magic is just being willing to invest more energy into an idea than anyone else would deem reasonable. Like, they haven't in us. Just be the one that cares a little bit more and is willing to try a little bit harder.

I think we all have it. And the more systems you can build, the more set up for success you are and actually winning. where where does the it's in the ethos and i've tried to pin it down but i'd love to get your opinion on it where does the notion let me say this way with every new system and every new theory and every new oh this is the right diet or this is the right modality or this is the right whatever what i feel like we've done to people is we've created this huge culture of disempowerment. The meta messages, you can't unless you. And it can be jarring to folks. I get a lot of pushback when someone's like, hey, I keep yelling at my kids. And so I'm going to go to therapy.

I'm going to figure out, I'm like, you should do that. And you should, it's going to be a valuable exercise to go back through time and figure out why your body responds to feeling powerless by yelling. That's a good, that's a worthy endeavor. And stop yelling at your kids today. Yeah. Because you don't yell at your grandmother. You don't yell at the old lady at church. You don't yell at your boss. You can.

You've proven to yourself for a pill you can not yell. So don't yell again. And there's an instant like, oh yeah, I can. Does that make sense? But there's this culture of you can't. And I don't know how to, I don't have the skills. I don't have the, I don't know how to push back anymore against that. because I feel like most of my job now has become you can.

I believe that you can. When I was a kid, you know, like when you turn a certain age and you start saying, I can't. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like right now my kids are three and five. They believe that they could jump in a single leap across a highway. Correct. They think they can do everything.

Yeah, yeah. My daughter thinks that she is stronger than I am. She's like, Daddy, I'm stronger than you. Let's be honest. And you're like, dude, I train on Zoom. You can't touch this. I have a Zoom trainer. And then you get to a certain age, and suddenly, crisis of confidence, you can't.

I remember when I, my dad was so intentional in how he raised me. And confidence was his biggest thing, because my mom got sick. He just didn't want me to, like, lose confidence. So when I started saying I can't, he literally printed up these little fortune cookie-sized pieces of paper that said success comes in cans, failure comes in can'ts. And literally they hid like a thousand of them over my entire life. I'd be like putting in my underwear and I'm like seven. That was intense. It was a little much.

And yet I believe that to be true. Yeah. Here's the thing though. The people who push back on it, it's easy for me to believe that because I grew up with a dad who constantly reassured me. that I could. Yeah. And I think the... Most people don't have that.

Yeah, and so I don't think it's about pushing back on it. I think it's just about being the first person to say, hey, I don't think that you think you can. Because not enough people have told you that you can. Yeah. I don't even know you. You're a voice on the other end of a phone. And I know that you can.

Yeah. And maybe the first thing that you can and should do is start to surround yourself with other people who believe in you as much as a stranger does. That's right. Because I think we're all capable of so much more than we think, but it's hard to know that if you don't have other people reminding you of it. I think that may be the most important, the most important walk away I've had the last five, ten years is none of this matters without people. Yeah. And to a large extent, you can get lucky. You can white-knuckle your way through a lot,

but none of it works long-term without other people. But you put in the time to learn that song and get up on that stage and play with that band because you are tenacious and persistent and you believe in yourself, but really because they believed in you enough to ask you to play with them and you did not want to prove them wrong.

Right. You wanted to prove them right. And I had a delusional confidence about that thing. Yeah. I can do that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, I'll hit that guy.

But I'm saying they're confidence. Their confidence in you made you more confident in yourself. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they picked me. Hmm. But the point I was making before, which I think you've also made is people need to stop waiting for some, like, magic recipe to figure these things out. And rather just believe enough in yourself that if you decide to do something, you will be able to do it.

By the way, when you say just stop yelling at your kids now, that doesn't mean you're never going to yell at your kids. Of course not. You're going to mess up in the same way that you're going to have that first blush reaction. Wait, what about me? Yeah. But it's what happens when you think that or what happens when you yell the next time. And whether you're able to say, I'm not a bad person, I did it, I'm working on it. I've gotten so much better.

And also kids, I was wrong. I'm sorry that I yelled to you. Yeah. I'm actually not sorry about the message I was delivering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't do that. But I am sorry about the way in which I delivered it. Yeah.

Which, by the way, only somewhat related. I think that is such an important caveat to how you apologize when you yell. I am not apologizing for the message. I meant that. I'm really sorry how I delivered it. That was not okay. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah.

That's, at least for me, by the way, in parenting and in leadership. Yeah. Because suddenly you apologize for yelling and now people think it's okay to do the thing that they were yelled at for. To be late for five years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Huh. How do you, how have you worked? So I think a failure of, I would call my people,

which is the mental health community over the last, especially 100 years, but especially the last 50 years, this idea of mental wellness, mental health is, if I can get all of the right thoughts in the right order, then I'm going to be okay. And I think what's been divorced in a pretty powerful way from that is you got to go do something different. You've got to go act.

How did you take these fun, exciting? I just have this imagination. I'm sure it's not real, but New York, it's awesome. You've got a bunch of 5,000 star chefs in there making delicious food. You'll have wine going. And these creativity sessions. Yeah. So fun.

But at some point, everybody had to put their apron on and go fill their pitcher up and start like serving customers and start cooking. right and like how do you make that shift from the exhausted that's the word i hear more than anything the exhausted dad the exhausted mom the exhausted wife the exhausted husband who all right i put an hour on the calendar to think of a cool thing i can do for my husband i'm pretty sure he's going to be like what are you doing he's not going to receive it in the with with the way i'm telling myself he's going to receive it or I want him to. But it's still the right thing to do.

How do you take that hour and then set it into motion? So I think there's a couple things of play here. One. It's from creativity to action. How do you get there? But you talked about like the exhausted part and I think there's something worth noting, at least in my perspective of the world.

There's certain exertions of energy that are depleting and there are those that are re-energizing. I'll use the restaurant as the metaphor. God, that's so true. Like our pursuit of excellence. And by the way, I love, I'm a perfectionist. I crave nailing every single detail. It brings me joy.

And yet that is depleting. Yeah, it's exhausting. The investments I made to do crazy things for other people that was never depleting. It was always energizing. In fact, it was that energy, it was that exertion of energy that gave me the energy to invest in the excellence. Gotcha. And so I think it's, you can spend energy doing different things. Some will leave you exhausted.

Some will actually start to fill your tank back up. Yeah. And understanding which fall into which category for every individual is important. Now, I believe that the creativity, the hospitality, the fun, the magic in a marriage is actually what makes it worth living. Correct. And absent that, if you are married and you have kids and you have a job, the whole thing is exhausting. Yeah. So you need to spend time investing in things that actually energize you.

Like anyone who's ever gone to the gym when they're hungover understands this. You have nothing left to give and you go and you leave feeling better than when you walked in the door. Absolutely. And so this is where I think this comes into play. Now, the other thing you said is, I'm going to give it to him, and he's not even going to appreciate it. Do you know the guy Ryan Holiday? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Extraordinary, yeah. I was on his podcast. That's a bigger deal than being on my show. By the way, like, you know. He's a big deal. It's good to come back to him. He hasn't had me on, so it's cool. No, but one of the things I say is there are a few things more energizing than the feeling I have when I see the look on someone.

else's face when they receive a gift, I am responsible for giving them. So I go into his podcast. I'm like, hey, how does that line up with stoicism? Am I wrong? Because his whole thing, like, being a stoic means... You should do it regardless of the outcome. And by the way, so we had this whole conversation. He's like, no, no, no, it is totally okay for you to be filled up by the reaction. And yet, if that's the reason you're doing it, that...

That's not okay. Yeah. Because then you're using your spouse. Exactly. They become a Xanax for you. The giving needs to be the thing that fills you up regardless of the reaction you get. And yeah, if you never do anything cool for your person, the first time you do something for them, they're going to be like, what is happening? Yeah, what do you want?

Yeah. But if you do it often enough, like anything, they're going to be like, wait, there's no catch here. Yeah. This is awesome. Yeah. Well, and for me, it's been an identity shift, which is not. How can I make her in a better mood? How can I make her not mad to I'm a guy who?

And by telling myself the story, I'm a guy who shows up no matter what. Yeah. That has given more energy because now I am working towards this identity. I'm not chasing this whack-a-mo game of. Yeah, that makes sense. 100%. You said something important. Some things give us energy.

some take from us. One of the most common things I hear from couples is my spouse says they just need some time to on their phone. I can't think of a more depleting use of time. It's not a recovery tool. A walk is, exercises. I'll tell you what, like I don't watch a ton of TV and I'm 10 years late to it, but my son and I started on episode one of Stranger Things. And we would get done with an episode. And I was led up like a Christmas tree. It was magic for me all the way through it. And I know people like, I like this, the whole thing.

And I'm sharing it with him. So there is some time and there's energy there. But almost every time. I guess what I would say is a lot of the... A TV screen and a phone screen are very different things. Especially if you're watching, right? Because you're with your people. You're with your people.

And you're having this moment. Yeah. It's beautiful. But that just unplugging is often not benign. It's cancerous. It takes from you. It's malignant. By the way, like, and I've had situations like this in my life in the past.

So I'm like, I need some time. I'd look at my phone and I judge them. Right? And yet, like, especially if it's your wife, that's not the case with mine. But like, the next step is not telling them why that is not the best way to. The best way is to say. say, awesome, I need some time to do this. Like, we can inspire people through our actions.

Like, my wife, there was a season where I was on my phone, and Christina would be like, I'm going to go for a walk. And then she'd leave to go for a walk, and I'm on my phone. I'm like, how did I end up being a loser? And then she never judged me for it. But then I'd be like, hey, can I go on a walk with you? Yeah. Awesome.

I'm going to go on a walk myself as well. Yeah. I think like the one Coda I want to put on the conversation from before do you have a to do list for work? Right? Everyone does I think anyone who's doing anything of significance

in the world has a to do list. These are the things and like when we have a moment of pause in our day at least this is how I manage my work. There's these moments right? Like we're not, some days I'm scheduled back to back to back to back to back to back.

There's other days where I have 30 minutes. Yeah. And I'll sit down and I'll open up the do-do list and say, is there anything here I want to think about? Not action on. Like maybe I'm sitting down to have lunch. What do I want to think about? Obviously, I also have a to-do list for life. And the to-do list for life isn't, I mean, gutters might be on it.

Sure. But that's not the only thing that's on it. Like anniversary or my dad's 80th birthday is next year. I don't know what we're going to do. But I've now spent three or four hours thinking, about it. And I have like a whole list. I'm thinking about all sorts of different stuff. If you don't have a to-do list for life, and I'm not talking about the chores, but like the things about life that makes life great. What are things that you want to be thinking about now so that three, six, nine, 12 months from now when those things happen, they are spectacular.

Anyone whoever gets to the weekend and has nothing to do because they never planned what they wanted to do in the weekend can relate to this. Yeah. Your weekends are better if you spend 20 minutes during the week deciding how you want to spend them. This is how you bring hospitality into your life. Just be a bit more creative and a bit more intentional. We obviously have tons of to-do list. The thing that was a game changer for me was a to-do-four. And what's the thing?

And this was inspired by it. I was listening to Esther Perel counsel somebody and they're going back in four. and this woman was incredibly critical of her husband. He doesn't do this, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do this. And Estelle, in her very New York, thick, French, beautiful accent, she just said, when's the last time you made him a cup of tea? And that woman just got silent. It was like all this criticism, all this criticism,

and much of it's probably warned. Yeah. When's the last time you just headed in with something kind? And I thought, what a powerful thing. And so just making a to do four list. Like, what's a thing I can go do? And part of it was inspired. I had a 14-year-old son, and I was like, hey, I'm going to not tell you very much how to treat a girlfriend as you're getting into dating and treat a future spouse someday.

Like, you're going to have a very lived experience. So Sunday night, getting the car, dude, what are we doing that? We're going to go fill out mom's car, so she has gas all week. And that's a thing, because I know she hates going to the gas station. And, like, what's a thing and what it's. done over time for me is I just walk in the house with my eyes open a little bit wider. It takes, because I've counted those simple things. That's it. It's 28 seconds. I've counted 28 seconds to walk by and see the dryer in the washer not moving and to move one to the other.

Yeah. It does take three or four minutes to fold whatever's in the dryer. That's a long time. By the way, I mean, if you're 20 seconds. By the way, if you commit to helping with the laundry and you're the one that gets there when the dryer is dry, it's a hard moment. It's the worst. It's the worst. I don't want a shir you go on it. It's those moments. You're like, just last night,

I opened the trash to put something in the trash, and that sack was so overful. And my wife was right here, and we both just looked at it, just to see, are you gonna, you know when you're of an infant the first time, and you hear that baby crying or whatever,

and you're both kind of half asleep, but not. And then both of you stopped breathing just to see. Like, I'm being more quiet than you like, You enough that. But that leads to the, like, to me, the power of just go first. This quote, I was doing a signing books after a talk months ago.

And one of the guys that came up, he said, gosh, your talk reminded me of this saying we have in our family, like from his parents. And I think it went back always. Never let a gracious impulse pass. And by the way, I get chills really. repeating it. Because if you can actually commit to living life that way, which I don't think it's possible for anyone to do it 100% of the time, but at least to aspire towards that.

I'm writing that down. Like the number of times I'd see something and have an idea of something I wanted to do with that thing for someone in my life and be like, man, that would be so cool. I'm just too busy right now. I think that excuse is gone now because you can pretty much do anything with her phone now. Yeah. You know what I mean? But even some of the, like, I'll give me an example. I was, like I can sit in, like, I think I can buy some flowers. I can do that in two seconds.

Yes. But like, for example, this one requires like marginally more work. Okay. My kids call the thrift stores, treasure stores. That's how we branded them. Yeah. And like, we have this whole tradition when they get a bunch of new toys. They have to bring some to the treasure store and then get one additional new toy after that and this whole thing. We were at the treasure store, me and my kids. Christina was out of town, so he was going to burn in daylight. Yeah. Yeah. On a weekend day. And one of my buddy is a kid that I've known since preschool is a huge sublime fan. Yeah. He loved, loved sublime. Like he used to bust in the streets in Europe playing sublime.

And he's a medium. I know he has a medium shirt and I see an old sublime shirt in medium. And I'm like, man, I should just buy this and send it to Andy. And I took it off and I put it back in the thing. I was like, I don't want to, I'm going to have to go home and find a box. And then it was literally two weeks after I heard never let a gracious impulse pass. And I turned around, picked it up, found the time that weekend, brought the kids to the, whatever. I'm going to know from him two weeks later. He's like, dude, it just feels so nice that you thought of me. Yeah.

The silliest, simplest thing and how close I was to not doing it, what it cost me eight bucks between like the $2 shirt and whatever the shipping was. Yeah. in our marriages with our kids, with our friends, I'd say, like, over the last 10 years, I've probably let 50% of my gracious impulses pass. Now, I have a lot of them, so it works. Yeah, yeah. But in marriage, above all else,

if we can be more determined to never let a single one pass, that one thing, we all have the ideas. It's just a matter of actioning them. I'm going to take that on as a challenge. If you try to, even like for a week I'm gonna go 30 days Now I'm gonna put it in I'm gonna go 30 days and I'll keep track

But I would like to not No matter what the impulse is I'm gonna see it through I like that That's fun That could be really fun I actually love it as a challenge Like there's all these challenges

It reorients like Generosity It reoriented generosity But it reorients the most important Relationship in my life Back to top of mind Yeah Not behind

work numbers and schedules and doctor appointments for kids and all that it holds it's kind of like it when you're working with with your business it's like what makes you so so successful which which makes my boss dave so successful is what i'll call it pathological obsession with the end user right like i've been doing a lot of stand-up here over zanis and like there's comics who come through and you can feel it i've worked really hard on an hour, y'all owe me these laughs. Versus, I've met with some, I mean, we've just been in the green room with some big time comics

who are like, the crowd's tough. And they see it as, I owe them a break from their life. I'm going to go out there and work extra hard to give them, right? Like, I want to, it's hospitality, right? It's just a way to see it. But the most important person I should be thinking about that is not a room full of strangers or a customer. It's, how do I?

I bring that to my wife and I like that. That's a good challenge for me. Don't let a gracious impulse pass. Do you know what you're talking about with comedians? It exists across every business. Every business. After I sold my company and before COVID in that two months, I like had a complete identity crisis.

I was like, who am I without restaurants? And sort of frantically raising money and putting together a team to open more restaurants. And when COVID hit, I was one week away from signing three restaurant leases in New York. COVID gave me the gift. Yeah. of choosing what I wanted to do next as opposed to doing what I'd always done. But the name of my hospitality company

that I'd set up for those restaurants was called Thank You. And it was because I looked at so many of the successful restaurants in New York. And when you walked in the doors of those restaurants, it was almost like, the energy you were receiving was, you're welcome.

Yes. Do you know what I mean? And I was like, hold on. Yes. I don't care if I have the best, restaurant in the world or a random restaurant in... Y'all don't exist without them? Like, I am grateful that you are here.

Because we don't exist without. Yeah, and also, like, even if you're the busiest place ever, and you could be mean to a bunch of people and you're still going to do great. Like, they're choosing to invest their time with you like that for, not in a business level, but simply, like, ask yourself what right looks like.

A human level, yeah. Right means, feeling grateful for that. Yeah. But it's wild to me. And by the way, the thing that frustrates me, I'm like, where is karma? Yeah. Like, how are these people still so busy when this is the way they're leading?

Or some of those comics, I'm sure, are very, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it comes. It'll come. It comes. And I've, I've, yeah, it comes. Yeah. It comes when, and you see it when there's a spectacular fall publicly.

And there's a groundswell of, no, no, no, no, no. I know her. I don't talk bad about her. You might have this perception, or I know that guy. Behind closed doors, I know that guy. This conversation's over, right? And you see people survive those versus the other, which is a thing comes up and everyone's like, yeah, yeah. Doesn't surprise me.

Yeah, yeah. And it's a haunting, right? I've heard you speak several times, and you know I've had conversations about this. When it comes to the things you would do in restaurants, they were. big and sometimes spectacular. But the things that have always caught my attention were the teeny tiny little things. And when I talked to married couples,

the teeny tiny things that people will tell forever. They will tell that story for the rest of their life. When I talk to couples and they're thinking about rebuilding their marriage, they're reimagining it. They got two kids all of a sudden, and they're different people, their marriage is different. And they think in terms of Super Bowl. And I'm like, no, no, no, no.

make each other a cup of coffee like just start washing the towels man and then you won't get crazy put the liner back in the trash after you take it out like it's these little things am i crazy it feels like hospitality feels like this generous this generous generosity impulses man they happen at the micro level way more than the spectacular the fireworks show sometimes like when i go to speak to a group of financial advisors or or any business who works with the same customer over the course of years or months or years, it's a question I get. Like, hey, it was easy for you to do unreasonable hospitality because you had people for one night. I see them all the time. Yeah.

I'm like, yeah. By the way, I'm envious of that. Yeah, you get to know them. You get to walk through life with these people. Now, to the point of, like, the big gestures, anyone listening who has no idea who I am, Like at the restaurant, we do crazy stuff. We'd send people sledding or beach scenes.

We do wild, wild things. When I think about my relationship with my wife, that's what it looked like in the beginning. Right? Like crazy, over-the-top day, it's this, that, the other thing. If I did the big over-the-top things for her all the time now, she would just be annoyed. right like we live life together like and and by the way it's like any song a song is not good if it's all crescendos a tasting menu is no good if it's all beef dishes right like you need in a song you need the bridge and the verse and the solo like it's all about how these things balance together but when you're in relationship with someone you now know them so unbelievably well that it's those micro gestures that matter more than anything because anyone can do something over the top, only someone that knows them so intimately well understands the little things that will make them tick.

Yeah. In my marriage, when Christina sets up the coffee machine at night so that when I walk downstairs, all I need to do is press a button, I mean, that's better than buying me a new car. Right? Like, that means so much to me because she knows that in the morning before coffee, I'm barely functional. Right. And so that one thing takes for probably 28 seconds,

and there's other things in the other direction. How important is it? So let me set this up. I have my big moment over at the comedy club. Yes. Right? So I do my first big headlining night, and I set up some surprise guests

who are infinitely better and more famous than me, and they were fun just to show up. Wait, congratulations. No, it was a blast. It was fun. That's incredible. The room sells out here in Nashville. It's a whole thing.

That's how me and my dad connected when I was a kid. Like, all of this stuff happens at once. And my wife doesn't think I'm funny at all. At all. I'm hilarious, but she doesn't. Very similar to Kelly. Doesn't think I'm funny at all. Yeah.

Great. And the. the secret thing is is anytime she comes and watches me do a thing whether I'm speaking somewhere or whatever half the time people are looking over her what's her reaction what do you think do you think this is funny are you crying too

like right and so she hates the spotlight she likes working behind closed doors and so coming out for her is a thing she came to the show and at one point the lights are real real bright in those rooms I saw her with her head back laughing.

Oh. And dude, it was just like every other laugh went away. He's like, boom, there it is. Like Dave Chappelle and Nate Bargotsy could have been laughing. That didn't matter. Didn't matter. Yeah. That didn't matter.

It didn't matter. Fum, right there. One of my favorite things about hanging out of the comedy clubs, hanging out with me. It was just kind of no filter. for me. I was racing home to get that second standing ovation. Yeah. Couldn't wait. Could not wait. So I left early. I drive up. I'm like excited and nervous for where this is going to go. It's like I'm gonna walk in. She's gonna be like, oh my gosh, how is so I there's one single light on in our kitchen, which is kind of a signal

kids are in bed. She's still awake. When that light goes off, I know she's already gone to bed. I caught home early, walk up the stairs, get into the house, and she goes, hey. And I was like, kind of wait. I was kind of waiting for it, man. You're like, you're like a go. And she goes, hey, is there any way you could take our son to school in the morning? Because I forgot our daughter has a doctor appointment. Is there when you could get him there?

I was like, yeah? And she goes, oh, God, thank you. And she came over and kissed me good night and said, good night. I love you. And she went to bed. And homie, what I, the event I had made up in my mind. Yeah. colliding with reality.

Yeah. And so there was the instant part of me, if that had happened five or ten years ago, it would have been, I would have supernovaed, right? You don't love me, you don't care about me. Full crash, yeah, yeah. Like, why everyone else thinks I'm so great?

Like, you're the only one, yeah, yeah. And instead I laughed, and I was like, who, that didn't collect I thought I was going to. And a couple of days later, I was like, hey, this is embarrassing for me as a loud six foot two Texan, but can I just say this?

if I ever go do she calls them hanging out with my friends go to that thing with your friends if I ever go do that and I come home it means a big deal

to me if you would just ask me what's one joke that went great yeah what's just one or if you come and I did a good job that you just like

throw a ticker tape parade yeah when I went in the door will you be obnoxious for me and here's what was wild in her hearing that of course she heard it great

and she's like yes of course but the way she read it back to me was John the whole month was a celebration of you because you were on you were running jokes three nights a week you were gone and

I was creating space here I was creating space here I took the kids care I took all the stuff like you thought the kids weren't doing anything I was doing all of it driving everybody everywhere because I wanted you to have this and so for her that it had been a month long celebration the fact that I got so so uncomfortable

and I went for you I thought that was the parade, right? But there was this, and I tell you the whole story to distill it down and say, again, almost like coming up with a structure or system, I can't expect her to be a mind reader, right? And so there's something about asking, will you love me like this?

And I'm embarrassed that I have these, like, hey, when I'm stressed, will you just put your hand on my arm? It just makes it all go away. I know that's weird. Would you just do that? It feels un-sexy and unromantic and un-holywood, but I think it might be an act of super graciousness

giving you a path. Here's how you can love me really well. Does that make sense? A hundred percent. Instead of... Like, it just... Like, I feel like the conversation about hospital like, I can just be like, I got to, I'm just going to like,

I'm going to be like, 007. I'm going to be like, you know, Sherlock Holmes and try to figure it out. It really helps if I can just give you a path. It's not a test. Like, just give the other person the answers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's very important to my wife that we just walk slowly with no purpose sometimes.

It's very important to me that when the kids and I are watching a movie at the end of the night, she doesn't need to watch the whole thing. Yeah. But just come up and sit with us for 10 minutes. Yep. And by the way, if her body is touching my body a little bit, oh. My nervous system goes, do, do, do, do, do. I will fall asleep.

I literally will just fall asleep. moment that happens. And I told her that. I was like, hey, I know that at the end of the night, when the kids and I want to watch a movie, that is the last thing you want to do. If you could ever find like five minutes just to come and sit with us, like, that would just mean a lot to me. And just like, hey, it's not the last thing I want to do. She's like, that actually sounds lovely. I don't want to watch a whole movie.

I have others. Like, that's when she goes through her. She likes to cross things off her list. I think giving the answers is a beautiful thing. I also think to the point of like, because I've been there before, I went and did a big talk and Christina and the kids were with me. And the organizer said to Christina,

hey, like, do you want to see it? And she goes, no, I'm good. And in the beginning, I'm like, oh, she doesn't even want to come see me do my thing. Yeah. Sometimes I think we expect our person to play too many different roles. They're meant to be our best friend

and our partner and our lover and our co-parent and our biggest fan. And our co-earner. And our co-manager, yeah. What are we doing here? There are plenty of people out in the world that are going to be impressed with me. I don't need my wife to be like

giving me a standing ovation. If I'm not careful, I really want it because I seek validation from her. But I already got the most validating thing I could ever have gotten from her, which was the commitment to spend her entire life with me. I won. She gave it to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so, like, I've had to work on that as well because sometimes, like, even just in a house party in our house, I'll, like, tell a couple jokes. And everyone's laughing. I look over and she's just not laughing. I'm like, ah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I'll be, yes.

And vice versa, I had to explain to her, I don't know why. But when we are all on the couch, all four of us, and even one of these idiot dogs I have, I instantly go to sleep. And she thought it was because I was bored. And, like, I wasn't engaged. And they said, I don't know how to describe this other than that's one of the only times in my world when my body goes, we're all okay. Yeah. And like all my chickens are here.

I want for absolutely nothing. I can. I'm out. Yeah. I can turn off. And it's my, it's not good for my sleep. It's my favorite thing is in a dark room with some mindless show on. You feel the people that you love the most.

All the kids are there. And my body goes, and now we're good. Yeah. And she was like, oh, I thought you were super bored. I wanted to be doing something else. And so you just nod it off. And I was like, no, no, no. This is when I'm like, ah.

Yeah. I invited a friend of mine and his. kid this a year ago. It was like a Friday and I had a light day and we were on it. We were working on a project together. So we were on a zoom in the morning me and him and a bunch of people from our teams. I was like, hey, before we go, do you want to just go see a movie? Let's take our kids and let's go see a movie today's. You know, well, we don't do screen time with our kids. I was like, okay, bro. I get it. Principally, I get it. I was like, do me a favor. Get your entire family, sit in the couch, watch any movie with a bowl of popcorn and circle back to me. It is one of the one of

of life's absolute great pleasure. Yes. I'm neurotic about screens, and me and my daughter saw three movies last week, and we had, it got progressively more fun and progressively more silly and progressively more ridiculous. Movie night is different than every other relationship of the screen. And I think it's... And even going back to the theater is so fun. Back to, I mean...

It's magic. The movie theater experience, it's a shame that it's like kind of losing as much as it is, because one of my dad's quotes... that I love is the secret to happiness is always having something to look forward to. And I love taking my kids to the movies in the morning on a weekend. Like literally popcorn for breakfast.

And we do it once every couple months. But we will talk about it for the entire week. Yeah. I'll be like, guys, Saturday morning, popcorn for breakfast. That's what we call it on the movies in the weekend. And I think like we need these things not just for our kids, but just for ourselves,

these little moments to look forward to. Yeah. And again, that's so small. It's not Disneyland. It's not a camping trip, but it's not, let's go eat popcorn for breakfast. Yeah. It's going to be ridiculous.

Popcorn for breakfast. Yeah, it's going to be silly. And I've written it down. I'm beginning today. Never let a gracious impulse pass. What's the thing, the whole 30? The whole 30. Yeah.

Like, it's gonna be the gracious 30. That's what I'm saying. Like, actually things, I've never thought about it as like a month long challenge. And so I'm inspired back by that. Like these ideas of,

all the challenges revolve around working out, um, drinking and what we eat. They revolve around me. Yeah. This challenge revolves around my wife. And by the way, this is one of the greatest investments in you.

Have you read any stuff by Bob Waldinger for the Harvard study of longevity and happiness? Oh, the long-jevary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the... I've started spending a much time with that. He is amazing. He is amazing. And the number one thing, basically, how strong are your thigh muscles? So that you don't stop walking later in life and you can stay social. But the depth and quality of your relationships leads to you living longer than any element of your diet. or your workout routine or how much you drink or any of it. Because relationships are what make life worth living. And so, yeah, if that is the case, it's irresponsible to not imbue them with a little bit of magic. And that is, well, everything that we've been talking about.

And magic, I love, you've distilled it down. It's intentionality. Yeah. Just being creative and intentional in pursuit of the people you care for. Which is really frustrating because that means at the end of the day, I look in the mirror and I get to choose. Hmm. Am I going to be for her or for me? Huh. And by the way, when I'm for her, it's way for me too. Yeah. It's the most selfish pleasure. Yeah, dude, it's the best. It really is. Like, there are very, very few people that I've ever met who like giving, who like receiving gifts at Christmas more than they like giving them.

Yeah, dude, it's the best. It's so much more fun. Yeah. The look on someone's face and they unwrap it, they see that gift. a thoughtful one yeah and you're and like when you get that look you're like oh i nailed it yeah yeah yeah yeah that i mean and that same idea can be transposed across everything damn thanks for being my friend thanks for having me enjoy all your time man you're traveling the world here soon so be safe i'll see on the other side i'll still be here