Will Guidara on Unreasonable Hospitality, Leadership, and the Power of Journaling

#72. In this episode of The meez Podcast, host Josh Sharkey welcomes Will Guidara, a renowned figure in the culinary world. Will is the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, once ranked as the number one restaurant in the world. He recently co-produced the hit show "The Bear" and writes the fascinating newsletter "Pre-Meal," which draws inspiration from the daily pre-meal rituals at Eleven Madison Park.

Will is also the author of the acclaimed book "Unreasonable Hospitality". The book delves into the concept of unreasonable hospitality and its application in various organizations, making it essential reading for anyone in business or customer-facing roles. Will's journey includes founding the consulting firm, Thank You, and co-founding The Welcome Conference, a platform for hospitality professionals to share insights and experiences.

Josh and Will share a long history, having worked together at the restaurant Tabla under Chef Floyd Cardoz over two decades ago. In this episode, they discuss a wide range of topics, including the power of journaling, leadership, management strategies, and the art of decision-making. They also touch on the challenges and joys of practicing unreasonable hospitality, even in unexpected ways.

This conversation offers a rare glimpse into Will's experiences and insights, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in hospitality, leadership, or personal growth. Tune in to hear more about Will Guidara's remarkable journey and the invaluable lessons he's learned along the way.

Where to find Will Guidara:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

In this episode, we cover:

(02:35): Will Guidara's thoughts on daily journaling
(14:18): How Will recalls important moments from the past
(17:47): How Will's dad went above and beyond in parenting
(27:05): How parenting evolves into leadership
(29:39): The most important "unreasonable" thing that has happened to Will
(34:25): The 95/5 rule
(42:09): How to jumpstart a culture of Unreasonable Hospitality
(43:33): What's next for Will Guidara

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey: 

You're listening to Season Two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate and how they consistently execute at a high level.

[00:00:22] 

Day after day, and I would really love it if you could drop us a five star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support. And as always, I hope you enjoy the show with 

[00:00:44] Josh Sharkey: 

My guest today needs no introduction, but I'm going to do it anyway. He is the former co-owner of the number one restaurant in the world, Eleven Madison Park. He recently produced, with some other folks, a show called The Bear. Have you ever seen that? He has a really incredible newsletter called Pre Meal that's based on prior pre meals every day that they did at Eleven Madison Park.

[00:01:10] 

Really cool newsletter, you should check it out. He is the author of Unreasonable Hospitality, an incredible book that I actually read twice now. He's the founder of Thank You, this really incredible consulting firm that sort of dives into, of course, unreasonable hospitality and how to deploy that into organizations.

[00:01:27] 

He's the founder of the Welcome Conference. The list goes on. It is Mr. Will Guidara. Will and I go back more than two decades ago, I think. Yeah, over two decades ago. We worked together at a restaurant called Tabla under Chef Floyd Cardoz. He was in the front of house. I was in the back of the house. This was a Danny Meyer restaurant and Will went on to work at a number of incredible places but then of course took over Eleven Madison Park under Danny Meyer, then buying out the restaurant, creating the company Made Nice, and the rest is history.

[00:02:02] 

I have to say, I'm, I'm impressed. enamored and excited and also just so proud of what he has done, not just for himself, but for the entire industry. And if you haven't read this book, just go do it. I've asked my entire team to read it a number of times. I think they're probably annoyed at this point, how many times I've asked them to read it.

[00:02:21] 

I think it is required reading for anybody. And by the way, not just if you run restaurants or hospitality businesses, but anybody that has a business or interfaces with people in any way, I think you should read this book. It's really incredible. So many great nuggets, not just about how to deploy this sort of concept of unreasonable hospitality, but there's notes on leadership, on management, on decision making matrices, and sort of ways in which to think about how to make decisions.

[00:02:52] 

And a ton of other things. We of course talk about the book and we generally catch up. We do spend a decent amount of time in the beginning talking about journaling. We both journal and I was just really curious to hear how he journals because he's been doing it for a very long time. I think since he said he was 12 years old he's been journaling and I'm sure there are days that he's missed but for generally speaking he's been consistent about it.

[00:03:14] 

And it comes through, of course, in this book, because I was just so curious, like, how do you remember all of these things over the years? And they do document a lot, but a lot of it was actually from journaling. So, anyways, this was an amazing conversation. I also tried a little bit of unreasonable hospitality and surprising Will myself and So just goes to show you some of the difficulties of doing this in the digital world I sent him something really special and he was in a different place when it arrived and when we had the conversation but eventually he did get it and he loved it and Will i'm really glad that you loved it and excited that you got to enjoy it on your trip back home.

[00:03:53] 

But anyways, I was really grateful to have the time with Will and I think you're going to love this conversation and learn a lot. And as always, I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I do.

[00:04:11] 

So good to have you on, man. And so, like, I'll be honest with you. I'm both grateful and excited. And I took too long to read this book because I knew that you were going to come on at some point. We've been talking for a couple years now to make this happen and you're super busy. And I had the audio book and the Kindle and the hardcover and I was like, you know what, I want to make sure it's fresh and I'm going to read it more closely to when we're going to actually record.

[00:04:36] 

And man, I'm so upset that I did that because holy shit, it's It is way more than what I thought of it being sort of a hospitality book, and it is, I mean, this is sort of going to be a legacy of books on anyone's shelf, I don't care what industry you're in, about how to lead, how to be an entrepreneur, how to think, how to run a business, and of course, like, everything about Unreasonable Hospitality, so, first off, just thank you for writing this, it's really incredible, I mean, I have it on my shelf over here, and it's next to you.

[00:05:04] 

It's next to books that I'm like, yeah, that is the same as crossing the chasm or zero to one and these institutional books that everybody needs to read. So 

[00:05:13] Will Guidara: 

Thank you, man. I appreciate that. That's very kind. 

[00:05:16] Josh Sharkey: 

Absolutely. And thank you for writing it. And I have a million questions. Will, but I think you've talked so much about this book. The first thing I saw everybody is just go read it because we're not going to talk about the things that you've talked about a thousand times on a thousand different, you know, places, you know, there's like all the 95 rule and the corporate smart and all that stuff that we might dig into a little bit, but there's a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about more specifically that, that I took away that I just have more questions about, but that's okay.

[00:05:45] Will Guidara: 

Yeah. A hundred percent, man. I love it. 

[00:05:47] Josh Sharkey: 

The first one is journaling. Because, first of all, I don't know how you remember all the things over the past, you know, 15 plus years. I mean, you're recalling things in this book that happened 10, 12, 15 years ago. You're bringing up notes from pre meal from 12 years ago, and I have to ask, like, how much of that is because you journaled?

[00:06:07] 

Or just documented. How long has this journaling been going on? And then I have a bunch of questions about how you journal as well, because I do as well, but it's been off and on and I think I'm maybe too mechanical about it. But anyways, I'd love to hear like how you journal and more so like, was all of these stories that you're bringing up part of the journaling that you did over the last couple decades?

[00:06:27] Will Guidara: 

So journaling, man, journaling is something that's been very important to me, or for me, perhaps, is a better way to say it, for a very, very, very long time, because my dad made me do it. And like many things that my dad made me do, and probably a lot of people's parents made them do, You hate doing it when they make you do it, and then over time, when it develops into a practice, you're grateful that they did.

[00:06:52] 

He made me do it, specifically around this idea that perspective has an expiration date, and that A, like, too many great things happen in your life, and if you don't pause to write them down, I don't believe that anyone has as good a memory as they think they do, and What a shame it is to just forget about so many of the fun things that happen to you in your life.

[00:07:15]

And if you write them down, you don't forget about them. Okay, that's one small reason to do it. But the bigger one, perspective, has an expiration date. If you want to be like an empathetic, good leader, more fully realized as a human being, the better you are at tapping into the perspectives you've had along your journey, the better you become at.

[00:07:39] 

Well, leading or caring for or engaging with people who are there at that stage in their journey. My kids are young now, but I have journals from when I found them the other day. I have a lot of these like all over the place. It was like a marble composition notebook from when I was like an eighth grade writing about being broken up with the first time.

[00:08:04] 

My girlfriend at the time, like if girlfriend, you know, what does that mean when you're that age, but like we have been dating for three weeks and I was hopelessly in love with her and then she left me for a guy named Ken and like, I was just shattered and I will read that again when one of my kids Has their heart broken for the first time?

[00:08:28] 

Because now, okay, later in life, our tendency is to be like, Hey, it's not a big thing at all. Like this person, you're going to look back on this. You're not going to remember this person's name. Like, just get over it. Right. That is not the best way to serve them in that moment. You need to actually meet them where they are.

[00:08:45] 

And it's really hard to do that if you can't, like, fully put yourself back into that place, which you can do to a certain extent through empathy alone, but being able to fully and truly tap back into your perspective is a much harder Much better way to and so obviously then as I started growing in my career, I had journals from when I was a host and journals from when I was a busboy and from when I was a server and when I was a cook and I think I was just a much better more empathetic leader to all the people that worked for me in those positions because I did, I also find that journaling is just an important thing to do in that in doing it, you create a practice of reflection.

[00:09:31] 

When I did my TED talk, one of the other speakers talked about that, how powerful it is when you can create a practice of reflection. Gosh, when you're working hard, when you're passionate about what you're doing, I mean, your days get pretty filled. You're running through the day, right? As much as you may try to slow down and experience it all as intensely as we want to experience everything.

[00:09:58] 

And in that sprint, we are not always the best versions of ourselves, right? And I found that when I journal at the end of the night, that's when I either, like, capture something that went super well during that day that I want to hold on to and try to put a system behind, that's when I recognize that at some point during the day, gosh, I did something that I am just not proud of, and it happened in an instant, and I moved on with my day, and were it not for taking a moment to reflect on the day, I would have forgotten about entirely, but in identifying it, now I give myself the ability to apologize for that thing.

[00:10:39] 

The next day, when you write about something that inspired you, you give yourself the ability to then turn around and use that thing to inspire those around you. And so I just think there's so much benefit to doing it and Listen, like anything, if I were to sit here and say, I've journaled every single day of my life, right?

[00:11:02] 

Like, A, no one would trust me because that is a ridiculous thing to say. Anyone, no matter how good they are at anything, is imperfect in their pursuit of it. And so, like, just if, if someone's listening to this and they want to really, like, try to take this seriously and then they fall off for a little bit, don't, don't be too hard on yourself, just get back on the horse.

[00:11:23] 

But one of the things that I've done to get better at doing it consistently is this. I don't like working out. A lot of people love working out. I do it because I want to try to live a little bit longer, but I hate it every time I do it. One of my friends who loves working out. He really, he wants me to do pushups.

[00:11:45] 

That's something that he's decided is very important for me to him. And he said, Hey, do me a favor. Just promise me that every day you'll do one pushup. And the whole thing is that you can get to the end of the night. And if you haven't done any pushups, like getting down and doing 30 pushups is overwhelming and you're just not going to do it, but there's never a reason you can't get down and do a single pushup.

[00:12:14] 

And obviously the thing that happens is the moment you're on the ground doing one push up, you always do more than one. 

[00:12:21] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:12:22] Will Guidara: 

During the seasons when I am more disciplined in journaling, the rule I have is all I have to do is open up the journal and write the date. And if I'm just not feeling it, I can close the journal and move on.

[00:12:36] 

The reality is, is you very rarely do that. Don't write more than just the date. 

[00:12:42] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, absolutely. I heard you. I think this is in the book. If not, I definitely heard you talking about it's funny because my wife and I were talking about this morning and I mean, look, I couldn't agree with you more.

[00:12:52] 

Journaling makes you, you sleep better at night when you get it, you're getting something off your chest. The realization became much more clear when I, when I heard you talking about the perspective you get because we have so many cognitive biases and patterns, right? So like over time you can start to pattern match.

[00:13:07] 

If you look back at like, Hey, wait a second, I seem to. Always react to the situation this way. I have a comparison problem. I'm always comparing myself to others and I see it in things I write all the time, you know. And at the very least, you know, I see it. If there's something calming about seeing the things that you've written or and reflect on them and at least it lets you know there's some sort of path forward.

[00:13:28] 

But the question that I have for you that I struggle with because you said I will certainly go back to this feeling and this passage that I wrote from when I had my heart broken. You have so many stories and journal entries over the years, like, how do you index and then recall all these things? You know, you're writing down feelings and ideas, maybe quotes, maybe new notions that you come up with or things that you're grateful for, and I have to imagine that it's somewhat free flowing because you're just writing.

[00:13:57] 

I tried this whole like, quantitative approach to journaling for a while, where I created a whole automation where I'd say, like, on a scale of one to five, how do I feel? And then connect it to my calendar and try to correlate what was making me happy or sad. That didn't work. And I'm just curious, how do you index and then recall these things years later, because you've been journaling for so long?

[00:14:18] Will Guidara: 

I mean, it's an imperfect process. We have in the barn here, just like a bunch of these old, like the trunks that you would get when you went off to summer camp for the first time. And one of them is just filled with journals, basically. And so sometimes I'll just go and open it up and just start reading them.

[00:14:38] 

Other times I'll go in there looking for something. So yeah, when I wrote the book, obviously I spent a bunch of time in there just like, looking for things that would be material or helpful, things that I wanted to, like, a little bit of help jogging my memory around. The significant things that happen to others, more often than not, are significant things that happen to you.

[00:15:01] 

And if you experience something significant during a time that you are actively journaling, it's pretty much guaranteed that you wrote about it. And so it's just finding it. And so I knew that I was in eighth grade when I got dumped for the first time. So let me just go find the journal that matches up with whatever do the math that year is and find the passage, read it, and then go deal with it.

[00:15:22] 

And by the way, if, if that sounds like ridiculous and burdensome, it's also just fun. It's fun to relive these seasons in your life outside of any material benefit it offers and your ability to just be better. 

[00:15:38] Josh Sharkey: 

It really is. It's nostalgic and there's also these, you know, it's akin to when you find that old photo album of, you know, your friends from middle school and there's like the little Tootsie Roll pop or something.

[00:15:49] Will Guidara: 

I mean, I, and by the way, I keep a lot of stuff like that. So like I have all, I have so many photos from back in the day and lots of letters that I've written or actually more likely the ones that I've received, like a letter from a girlfriend or from a best friend or like I have so many things that my dad wrote to me over the years.

[00:16:08] 

I think to answer your question, how did I remember all this stuff for the book? Okay, well, pre meals I have saved in files, right? So I can tap back into those. A lot of stuff I do remember my, I have a weird memory. It is comically bad sometimes and remarkably good in other ways, right? And it just, it's kind of, it's random how it works, but I also, I'm a loyal person.

[00:16:32] 

And a lot of the people that I've worked with for the past 20 years, I'm very close with today. And so when I was writing the book, like I put together a handful of people and I would just call them and say, Hey, can we just spend a few hours on the phone talking about, like, sharing stories from back in the day?

[00:16:49] 

And if I think back on, whatever, a year at a restaurant, I might be able to, like, remember a few things. Well, when I start talking to someone else about it, not only will I learn everything that they remember, but it starts to jog my memory and bring up a bunch of other stuff. And so there were a bunch of people that really helped me either remind me of things or helped resurface things that I'd forgotten.

[00:17:12] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I was thinking about this actually last night. I was making some more notes and when your dad has All these incredible quotes, by the way, he, he seems like a very like stoic person or a practice of those things like adversity is a terrible thing to waste. 

[00:17:25] Will Guidara: 

You know what's so funny is I just did a, I interviewed Ryan Holiday around the release of his new book.

[00:17:30] 

I interviewed him at Barnes and Noble and I hadn't read any of his stuff until I was getting ready to do that interview and I've read, I read a few of his books. I immediately sent them all to my dad for father's day. He got every Ryan holiday book delivered to his house. 

[00:17:47] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I wrote it down in my notes. I actually have a, obviously everyone Will, you know, has already read this book or will that's listening. Um, you know, you can't control things that life throws out to you, but you know, this adversity is this terrible thing to waste, which I totally believe. And I have a picture right behind me that says you suffer more in imagination than reality, which is a Seneca quote.

[00:18:05] 

I'm a big believer in, you know, you have to embrace these things that are suffering. And every time I, you hear one of these quotes from your dad, I'm like, does he practice stoicism? 

[00:18:13] Will Guidara: 

He is not a stoic. He is not, although he's really loving the one he started reading because he was up here for the last week with us and he was reading the newest Ryan holiday book, which is gosh, I can't remember the name, but it's all about the one about the virtue of integrity effectively.

[00:18:32] 

And he was like, man, Everything this guy's saying, I'm totally on board with. 

[00:18:38] Josh Sharkey: 

The other thing about your dad that I thought was, um, just incredible, and my father passed away when I was 16, so I'm acutely aware of the impact that parents can have on their children. And, you know, there's a story in your book about, well, the premise of success.

[00:18:55] 

Comes in cans not cants. Yeah, and but what your dad did was write these little notes all over the house. Yeah, right We're both parents, right? We're tired all the time. We have a lot of work It takes a lot of energy and thought to on top of everything else going on and just to be a you know a generally good parent to decide to go that extra step and Put these little notes all around the house Let's say success comes in, in cans, not cants.

[00:19:22]

And I guess, you know, my question for you is, you talk a lot about, and you're helping a lot of people when it comes to leadership and entrepreneurship and obviously hospitality and, and, and business, but how has all of this affected how you parent and vice versa? How has parenting changed? Your perspective on all the things that you now do?

[00:19:45] Will Guidara: 

Well, I think how I was parented completely informed the way in which I started to lead. It's funny, we would do these leadership classes for all of our managers. When I say classes, it was like, if you join the company and you became a manager within the first three months of being a manager, you had to spend, I think it was like six hours with me in a leadership seminar, I guess that's the better word to use.

[00:20:12] 

And we would do them, I think, four times a year or twice, three times, some, some number of times a year that made sense for onboarding managers. You know, we're a fine dining company, which that meeting included sous chefs and a lot of sous chefs looked at that thing as a waste of their time when they got there and I would always say like, Hey, you're going to learn so much in your time with us as a company, but the greatest skill you can learn here is leadership because we're going to teach you the relationship between salt and acid or how to cook a piece of fish, whatever things we teach you, if you go on and work for a different chef, those things are going to be different, similar in the dining room.

[00:20:53] 

Yeah. Learning how to lead is the one thing that's like, really consistent and evergreen, once you're good at it, that's a skill you'll have with you for the rest of your life. I believe that to be true, and yet, so many people, it's not dissimilar to what I talk about in Unreasonable Hospitality, about just pursuing people and business generally, but reserve their greatest creativity, energy, effort for the things that they create, not investing enough of it and how they lead the people that help them create that thing.

[00:21:32] 

And so, like, you look at a chef. I mean, the amount of time and energy we would invest to creating the perfect custom service piece with wood from this farm to match with this picnic basket to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet printing out a bunch of little pieces of paper and hiding them around seems like it takes so long.

[00:21:59] 

I'm mixing metaphors between parenting and leadership, but hopefully the point is clear.

[00:22:03] Josh Sharkey: 

It's true. And we don't. I mean, as chefs. We don't get taught leadership coming up in, you know, in the kitchen. It's not a thing that we do and there are not, it's not even part of the zeitgeist or we're not, you know, swapping books about high output management from Andy Grove and things like that where, you know, we're looking at cookbooks.

[00:22:20] 

That's what we do. And the funny thing is to be a truly successful chef means creating a legacy of successful people, you know, that work with you and then go and do amazing things. That is the one thing that we actually don't learn a lot about is how do we actually, you know, help others perform better and make that our metric of success.

[00:22:41] 

And it really just becomes a trial by fire at, you know, eventually once you do, you know, have your own kitchen. And I think you're right. Every part of the restaurant and business needs to embrace this. I don't think you were mixing analogies because I think it's, it's so true. We think about you know, energy is so relative, right?

[00:22:59] 

To what we, how important we think things are. And, you know, spending that time to put those notes around the house, you know, to your dad was probably, it wasn't even a question. You know, this is what my job is. 

[00:23:10] Will Guidara: 

And it doesn't take that long. It's just a matter of deciding what's important to you. And once you decide that something's important to you, you always make the time to do it.

[00:23:17] 

The other question you said is how has everything I write about and talk about and all the things that I did informed the way that I parent? I mean, man, I'm trying to figure it out. Like I think it's actually going to be as powerful in the other direction, invariably no matter how much you believe in servant leadership or all whatever ism that exists out there on a different or quote “right way to lead”.

[00:23:48] 

The thing that is undeniable is there is a power dynamic at play. If the person does not do the thing you insist that they do, they lose their job. Brad and Mike. That's not a thing in parenting.

[00:24:04] 

And so like, listen, the approach to discipline is just as important, more important, which is hard for me. Like my daughter, we had a bunch of people up in the country with us, like all of my wife's family and my dad and she was off her rhythm, her schedule, everything. It was a very, very challenging week for her.

[00:24:24] 

She had an amazing time. By last night, which was the last night that everyone was here, she was just wired and exhausted, and it got to the point where details were irrelevant, but it was like, hey, babe, I either need you to do this or it's time to go to bed, like, these are your choices, and it was time for her to go to bed, and it was like about an hour earlier than she would normally go to bed, and that's a very hard discipline moment to embrace because I just love hanging out with her.

[00:24:54] 

I don't want her to go to bed, but my dad's like this. I'm sure this is a stoic thing is like, if you're going to say something, you need to do it like every single time without exception. And that's an important part of leadership, consistency, say what you do, do what you say, all the time, otherwise people can't trust you, they can't rely on you, they can't lean on you, and it's, it's the same thing with parenting, if too many parents I've seen, let their kids wear them down too often, for a multitude of reasons that make sense, emotionally.

[00:25:33] 

Yet, the big difference for me, and I know I'm rambling a little bit, but there does need to be more of a nourishing and encouraging perspective as a parent to two young children is a nice to have in leadership and a need to have in parenting. And I'd like my perspective to shift that it becomes a need. To have in leadership as well. 

[00:25:58] Josh Sharkey: 

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[00:27:05] 

Yeah, the biggest thing that hit me after a few years of parenting, how old are your kids? Three and five. And I struggle with this, even though it is somewhat cliche. And if you've ever worked for Danny Meyer, it is almost table stakes. But to do it in practice is so much harder is. You know, kids do a lot of things that piss you off, that are just wrong, or, or, or, you know, they scream, they have temper tantrums, they break things, and at the end of the day, you, for some reason, at least the majority of people, you look at that, and you say, okay, hmm, I wonder what's wrong, I wonder what they're feeling right now, I wonder why they're doing that, you know, I wonder why they're screaming, I wonder why they threw the thing across the room, I wonder why they hit their sister, and you ask that question.

[00:27:48] 

Right. You're curious and you know that there's something behind it. I mean, the best do that. The obvious analogy is someone comes in late for work. And instead of saying, why are you late? It's, Hey, are you okay? What's wrong? But there's so many more times in, as a, as a leader that pops up and it is. A lot more difficult, but I've found, you know, one of the things I'm grateful for, you know, becoming a parent is that perspective has crystallized a lot more for me of just looking at when things go wrong.

[00:28:17] Will Guidara: 

Well, yeah. And also the reason why they're doing it is because it's their job. Like, that is a part of their job is to act out and to lash out and to have meltdowns and like, they need to do all of that stuff in order to grow up and learn what right looks like. Gosh, I don't want a kid that never gets fired up.

[00:28:40] 

I want to be fired up one day and figure it out. And so, like, I think the thing that too many people do is like, what's wrong with you? Or no, this is everything that's right about you. And it's how I manage through this with you alongside you that will ultimately result and you become the person that I know you can be.

[00:29:05] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:29:06] Will Guidara: 

Yeah. 

[00:29:07] Josh Sharkey: 

Okay. Okay. Well, so. You know, when I was thinking about this, this conversation, there's so many directions that I wanted to go because you have, you have Made Nice, you have the Welcome Conference, you have, thank you, you obviously just produced The Bear, you have premailed this incredible, like, newsletter that you're doing, but after I finished the book, there's just too many questions I have that I want to ask about the implementation of Unreasonable Hospitality, but maybe just to start, you know, over the last year, like, can you recall, like, what's the most important Unreasonable thing that's happened to you through hospitality.

[00:29:39] 

I know it probably happens to you more than there is because people go after it. But, 

[00:29:44] Will Guidara: 

Man, yeah, this is a really good one in the book. I say more is not more. More thoughtful is more. I just think that is the thing that's still too many people don't get right where. It's look at how expensive this thing is that I am giving you or doing for you.

[00:30:02] 

And, and those are very rarely the, the things that make people feel the most seen I did. I spoke at this conference called ASOTU, it was the automotive state of the union. These two guys, they're pretty amazing. Actually, they both used to be general managers of car dealerships, one in upstate New York, one in Nashville.

[00:30:26] 

During COVID, they just recognized that there was a lack of, they basically created the welcome conference for car dealers. That's awesome. And they have this amazing shirt, “Love people more than cars”. So that like, philosophically weren't aligned. They understand that it's. How to approach things anyway, the conference was, I don't know, two months ago or something, but three months before that they came to New York and I was on their podcast and at the end, I learned what they did or where they lived and I said, you know, I have a buddy who's very important to me.

[00:30:58] 

He runs a car dealership in Virginia. He might actually be moving to Nashville. If he does, I'd love to be able to put you in touch and maybe you can help him find a new home. And then we started talking about it and this guy is one of my closest friends and I like to work hard to make sure that I never fully grow up.

[00:31:13] 

And one of the ways in which I do that is he and I have A long running tradition of icing each other. You know what icing is with Smirnoff ice? No. So this is something that happened when I was in college. Smirnoff ice came out, terrible. Drink, and if you basically hide Smirnoff ice, a bottle of Smirnoff ice, and someone randomly finds it, They have to chug it like right away and it's just a really fun game.

[00:31:40] 

It was kind of ridiculous in college. It's become really fun since then because we approach it with resources and creativity that are pretty extreme. The bar where I've like hired a street magician in Nashville when I knew he was going to be there to ice him on Broadway or. When I picked up my new car, he had a bottle of Smirnoff ice in the center console and had the car dealer do it.

[00:32:02] 

So it's this kind of crazy thing, which by the way, I believe there's a lesson there. I think we're so good at this billion dollar industries around how to be a better boss, how to be a better spouse, how to be a better parent. And there's virtually nothing around how to be a better friend. And I think of all those relationships.

[00:32:21] 

Being a better friend makes you better at all those other things in a way that is not necessarily reciprocal. 

[00:32:27] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:32:28] Will Guidara: 

And one of the best ways to pursue friendship is to create rhythms and traditions, things that keep people close even when they are far away. Anyway, I shared this story with them. I went and did their conference three months later.

[00:32:40] 

I never even put those two guys in touch. And at the end of the, my talk, they came up on stage and there was audience Q&A. And it got to the last question and they said, what's in the box? And I turned around into the back corner of the stage was this giant wrapped present. And I was like, what? I don't know when it had put out.

[00:33:00] Will Guidara: 

Like it wasn't there the entire time. They snuck it out. As I'm walking over to it, my buddy kicks open the box and he's holding a bottle of Smirnoff.

[00:33:12] 

They wanted to do something unreasonable for me. Figured out who he was on LinkedIn based on the information I'd given them. Flew him in. With a bottle of Smirnoff ice and did this whole thing just so that that could be their gesture for me. In doing so gave me the best gift of all which was actually time with someone I love and another remarkable story to add to our list of ones we've collected over the years doing this with one another that's one of the best ones and I share it because I felt seen.

[00:33:51] 

I mean, you talked about how long it's taken us to get this on the calendar. Like, I'm, I've been really, really busy in the last few years. And then you add parenting and you lose time with the people you love. And in the book, I talk about how my oxygen mask used to be time alone on the couch, binge watching terrible TV and eating Chinese food.

[00:34:13] 

Now that was when I was running restaurants every day. Now I spend a lot of time in front of a computer writing. Now my oxygen comes from time with friends. Yeah, 

[00:34:25] Josh Sharkey: 

I couldn't agree more, man. I love that story, by the way. Okay, I have a very, very basic tactical question about the 95 rule, 95/5 rule that you've probably been asked before, but I just gotta know.

[00:34:41] 

Do you actually have a GL code in the accounting for the 5%? 

[00:34:47] Will Guidara: 

No, no, no, no. Listen, 95/5 is, is not prescriptive, right? It's, it's, it's meant to be more like focus your energy generally in this way, and the results will be significant. No, there was, I mean, yeah, there was a GL code for dreamweaver stuff. 

[00:35:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, there you go.

[00:35:04] Will Guidara: 

But 5% was more than just the Dreamweaver stuff, right? Like, yeah, 5 percent would be split between employee relations and guest relations and Dreamweaver accounts. 

[00:35:15] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:35:15] Will Guidara: 

So I guess, yeah, the answer is kind of yes. 

[00:35:18] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I mean, not a, not exactly, but enough and the Dreamweaver was in there. So, you know, there's one thing that you talk about a lot that, that I love and resonates a lot with me, which is, you know, excellence is table stakes.

[00:35:29] Josh Sharkey: 

And you know, I spent a lot of time with Gray Kunz after Floyd and the one word I always thought of every day, you know, with Gray was excellence and it was, you know, just something that was embodied. And, and when I think about the approach that you've, that you've taken with Unreasonable Hospitality, it does feel.

[00:35:45] 

Like in many ways, it's a prerequisite to have that approach. But I am curious, how do you approach, because now you're sort of, now not just promulgating the, you know, the ideas of Unreasonable Hospitality, but you are helping businesses with this and people. But how do you approach organizations that don't actually first embody this commitment to excellence?

[00:36:05] Will Guidara: 

Listen, I think it's pretty easy to be hospitable if you're, not excellent. I think it's pretty easy to be excellent if you're not hospitable. I don't think it's possible to have Unreasonable Hospitality with that excellence. So like it's kind of a non starter a little bit. The way I think about it is this.

[00:36:22] 

If you're talking to a server, unreasonable hospitality when you're delivering a course to a table is being mindful of everything that's happening at the table and every individual at it such that as you're describing that dish you can pick up on uncertainty or excitement or and then react accordingly.

[00:36:47] 

If when you're at the table, you're focused so much on trying to remember every ingredient on the plate so that you don't make a mistake when you're describing it, you have an inability to notice all of those things. Hospitality is about being present, right? And we have an inability to be present if we don't have excellence so much on lock that we don't have to think about it.

[00:37:08] 

And so if the question is like, how do I encourage Unreasonable Hospitality and a company that has not also prioritized excellence. I don't try because I don't believe it's possible. 

[00:37:19] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I think that's what I picked up from that. And I think that's what I was looking to hear because I also don't think it is. I mean, Unreasonable Hospitality is as much, you know, commitment, this dedication to this thing that, that is excellence because, you know, when you think about, I mean, we can just associate this with a restaurant, right?

[00:37:37] 

You know, right angles are important and, you know, your knife pans are, you know, in a tight line and your mise en place is pristine and your cutting board is clean and your apron is clean. Not because you want a clean cutting board because everything matters. Every little detail matters. And the way that you do one thing is the way that you do everything and that's cliche I know and everybody says that but it's so true.

[00:37:58] 

And I have to believe that this, you know, if you read this book and you aren't first before you're considering Unreasonable Hospitality, considering, am I looking at every piece of my, you know, of my business, of my service, of my product that way? I love your sort of premise of you have to have conflicting goals, right?

[00:38:16] 

So excellence and hospitality are somewhat conflicting, but they're also very similar in that regard, that you have to have that commitment, that dedication to excellence. 

[00:38:24] Will Guidara: 

Well, yeah, I mean, they're similar, but they're not friends. It's easy to foster a culture of hospitality if all you do is celebrate everyone on your team, right?

[00:38:35] 

It's easy to have, like, kids that are happy all the time if all you do is give them everything they want. It's easier to have well behaved kids that don't have much of a personality if you are so rigid in your rules that you give no latitude for them to be their most fully realized selves. Like, celebrating people, lifting them up, and also holding them accountable.

[00:38:59] 

Those are in tension with one another, but I believe the greatest success comes not in spite of that tension, but because of that tension.

[00:39:06] Josh Sharkey: 

I couldn't agree more with that. And I think that's where it's, they have conflicts, but they're also, they're almost dependent on each other because yes, you can have a pristine service and every, you know, fork is the exact 

[00:39:19] 

perfect angle and every, you know, but are you, did you get sleep happy? And kind of, that's all that matters, right? Because it doesn't, you know, otherwise who cares about everything else? And so you have to have both things. And that's why so often we, we remember, you know, the first time I ate it Per Se, I remember I was at working at Bouley and, and we had, uh, actually Christina was working at the time and we had a week off because they were putting in a new Multani stove.

[00:39:41] 

And I had dinner with, uh, friend of mine, and his girlfriend and my girlfriend. And the thing I remember most about that meal was I was talking to my friend about Chateaubriand and how much I love it, and they don't really make it anymore, or they weren't, it was hard to get. And two courses later, the turbo comes out and a bottle of Chateaubriand.

[00:39:59] 

And I have a similar memory about EMP when I took my team there. This was during the sort of Waldorf salad era of EMP. And what, what was excellent about the meal wasn't how technically perfect the food was, even though it was, it was a combination of the two, you know, and it didn't work either way. Well, I didn't work with it without the other one.

[00:40:20] Will Guidara: 

Yeah, and listen, the one thing I'll say to not contradict what I've said, but to unpack it a bit more. Excellence is table stakes. You need it to fully get to the level of Unreasonable Hospitality that I'm talking about. That said, when you're trying to like shift the culture of a team, It is much easier to get people engaged in a pursuit of hospitality than it is to get them engaged in a pursuit of excellence.

[00:40:46] 

But once you are engaged in one, that level of engagement spills over into the other. And so one thing I do talk about is like in times of turnaround, like just because something is table stakes, it doesn't. It's not like you have to eat all of your broccoli before you get the dessert. In fact, sometimes like feeding people a little dessert at the front makes them that much more excited to eat the broccoli.

[00:41:11] Josh Sharkey:

Yeah, yeah. You know, you mentioned the turnaround or changing a culture and another thing that I pick up from the book, which is again, so many things are can be obvious until they get explained and also told through the lens of the right stories. And I think that, you know, your book does that. But I do think that there's a big difference between having your team do something that has an intrinsic reward versus an extrinsic reward.

[00:41:36] 

You know, like extrinsic being whatever we get four stars or we, someone says good job versus this thing makes us feel really great as a team. And you, when you opened the Nomad, you talk about jump starting. the culture of Unreasonable Hospitality. And you brought some team over, obviously, to help with that, right?

[00:41:55] 

To sort of ensure, but what do you do when you don't have that? So let's just say you go into a company that's good, an organization that is excellent for all intents and purposes, but doesn't have that culture of unreasonable hospitality. How do you jumpstart it then? 

[00:42:09] Will Guidara: 

I mean, I would never try to jumpstart a culture without bringing a few of my people like, cause it's just so much more difficult.

[00:42:17] 

Culture is like a sourdough. You need a starter and. Yeah, you can be the entire starter, but that is just a ton of work, emotional, physical, mental, and sometimes you need a few more people to really build a bonfire. That said, like, no one is getting to the point where they're leading a company without having worked in an industry for long enough that they should have a few people.

[00:42:42] 

If you are doing that, and you have no one, That you've ever worked with that wants to work with you. You're probably not going to be successful off the bat. Like we have people that we can get around us to help usher change. Now, if there's some sort of exception to that, and just for whatever reason you don't listen, what gets talked about is what gets thought about.

[00:43:02] 

You just need to be so unbelievably passionate about the things you believe in, that that passion starts to infect other people. It's just, it's going to take a lot of yourself. 

[00:43:11] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, yeah, definitely a lot harder, but I agree. I do have one parting question for you, because you mentioned a new goal that you have, a new big goal, and you said that you can't really talk about it yet, but if there are little clues that you could share here, I would love to hear a little taste of what's next in store for, for Mr. Will. 

[00:43:33] Will Guidara: 

I went from a season of life that was a very, very extended season where I was fully convicted on one goal, one goal, forget about number one in the world, I'm talking about like, I want to open my own restaurant in New York City and I want to make that restaurant amazing when I wanted to do that since I was a little kid and every decision I made for like 20 years.

[00:43:57] 

was with that and only that in mind. I'm giving myself the grace in this new season to approach things differently, which is to do things with great people who I can learn from, things that, yeah, will make money, but are mostly fun and inspiring. And to try a bunch of different things and if I like the thing I'm doing to do more of it.

[00:44:23] 

That's the hint. 

[00:44:25] Josh Sharkey: 

All right. Well, that was a little nuanced, but we'll try to decipher what we can from it. Will, this was awesome. And I appreciate the time. And I know you're busy and I'm grateful that you just took some time away to talk to us. 

[00:44:37] Will Guidara: 

No, man, it's good to spend time with you and, and I'll tell you, it's been a long time, but I feel like with people who you have a shared history alongside, it feels as though it wasn't even that long the moment you started talking again.

[00:44:52] 

And so I appreciate you carving out some time for me.

[00:44:54] Josh Sharkey: 

Absolutely. Thanks for tuning into The meez podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist Fresh Daily. Check For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast.

[00:45:13] Josh Sharkey: 

If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.