Unreasonable Hospitality: The Secret to Going Big with Will Guidara

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Unreasonable Hospitality: The Secret to Going Big with Will Guidara"

Introduction

In the compelling episode titled "Unreasonable Hospitality: The Secret to Going Big with Will Guidara", host Kevin Gentry engages in an insightful conversation with renowned restaurateur Will Guidara. Released on March 10, 2025, this episode delves deep into Guidara's transformative approach to hospitality, his journey to establishing one of the world’s top restaurants, and the profound lessons he shares in his acclaimed book, Unreasonable Hospitality. This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn from their dialogue.

Background of Will Guidara

Will Guidara opens the conversation by recounting his tenure at the illustrious Eleven Madison Park. Joining the restaurant in 2006 when it was a "middling brasserie," Guidara played a pivotal role in elevating its status. Through relentless pursuit of excellence—enhancing food quality, refining service, and upgrading the dining experience—the restaurant garnered three Michelin stars and four New York Times stars. However, despite these accolades, Guidara shares a moment of disappointment when Eleven Madison Park ranked 50th in the prestigious 50 Best Restaurants awards, which became a turning point in his career.

Key Quote:

"At every crossroads, and there are countless crossroads, big ones and small ones, we encounter them nearly daily. Ask yourself what right looks like and just do that." ([00:00])

The Turning Point and Unreasonable Hospitality

Guidara discusses how the initial disappointment of ranking last spurred introspection and a redefinition of the restaurant's mission. Inspired by chefs renowned for their "unreasonable" pursuit of culinary excellence, Guidara penned the concept of Unreasonable Hospitality. This philosophy emphasizes going beyond exceptional service to make guests feel genuinely seen, welcomed, and cared for.

Notable Example: Guidara recounts an unforgettable experience with a family from Spain visiting Eleven Madison Park. When the children saw snow for the first time, the team sourced sleds and arranged an impromptu sledding adventure in Central Park, culminating in a memorable experience that epitomizes Unreasonable Hospitality ([29:19]).

Defining Unreasonable Hospitality

Guidara distinguishes between service and hospitality, clarifying that while service involves delivering the right food to the right person efficiently, hospitality is about the emotional connection and making guests feel valued. He underscores the importance of investing resources not just in the product but in the feelings of the people you serve, echoing Maya Angelou’s sentiment: "People will forget what you say, they'll forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you made them feel." ([26:15]).

Leadership and Team Building

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the critical role of leadership and team building in achieving excellence. Guidara emphasizes that hospitality is a team sport and that the collective effort of a motivated and inspired team drives success. He advocates for daily huddles to align the team’s vision and foster a sense of ownership and enthusiasm among members.

Quote on Leadership:

"Anyone who isn't spending a majority of their time thinking about how to train and educate and even more importantly, inspire the people on their team isn't a leader, they're just a manager." ([41:01])

Mentorship and Influence

Guidara attributes much of his success to mentors, notably his father and industry giants like Danny Meyer. He highlights the reciprocal nature of mentorship, asserting that one can both mentor and be mentored irrespective of age or status. This dynamic fosters continuous learning and adaptation, essential for sustained excellence.

Relating to "The Bear" TV Show

An engaging segment relates Guidara’s principles to the acclaimed TV show "The Bear". He praises the show's depiction of restaurant life and its focus on relationships, drawing parallels to his own experiences. The episode featuring his wife and other culinary legends underscores the authenticity and emotional depth that Unreasonable Hospitality advocates ([33:12]).

Future Directions

Looking ahead, Guidara expresses excitement about new ventures, including the Unreasonable Hospitality Summit in Nashville—a more intimate, hands-on conference aimed at fostering deeper connections and practical learning. He also mentions his foray into music and continued writing, illustrating his commitment to creative growth and diversified pursuits ([45:50]).

Advice and Conclusion

Wrapping up, Guidara shares invaluable advice rooted in integrity and ethical decision-making. He reiterates the importance of always doing the right thing, even when it’s challenging, as it safeguards one's integrity and paves the way for long-term success.

Final Quote:

"If you make that commitment to always do the right thing, you're never actually going to have to make a big decision again...doing the right thing is not always going to be best for you in the short term. But it will always be the best thing for you in the long term." ([50:04])

Closing Thoughts

Kevin Gentry concludes the episode by celebrating Will Guidara's embodiment of the Going Big! ethos—dreaming big, persevering through challenges, and redefining hospitality. Listeners are left inspired to adopt Unreasonable Hospitality principles in their own endeavors, fostering meaningful connections and striving for excellence.

Key Takeaways:

• Unreasonable Hospitality: A philosophy that prioritizes making guests feel genuinely valued and connected.
• Relentless Pursuit of Excellence: Striving for continuous improvement in both product and emotional service.
• Leadership and Team Building: Inspiring and motivating teams is paramount to achieving collective success.
• Mentorship: Engaging with mentors and being a mentor fosters personal and professional growth.
• Integrity: Consistently making ethical decisions builds lasting success and credibility.

Listen to the Episode

To gain deeper insights and hear Will Guidara’s transformative approach to hospitality, tune in to Going Big! with Kevin Gentry on your preferred podcast platform, including Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Pandora, and YouTube.

Transcript

[Will Guidera]

I think any virtuous pursuit can bring with it plenty of opportunities to not show up as your best self. And sometimes when people are relentless in their pursuit of audacious goals, they can do some messed up stuff along the way to help them achieve them. One of my best pieces of advice from my dad is at every crossroads, and there are countless crossroads, big ones and small ones, we encounter them nearly daily. Ask yourself what right looks like and just do that. And if you make that commitment to always do the right thing, you're never actually going to have to make a big decision again. Because, well, yeah, there's a lot of decisions that fall into the gray. The majority of what goes into them is pretty black and white. What is right and what is wrong. And doing the right thing is not always going to be best for you in the short term. But if you look at the journey towards success, however you define that as a marathon and not a sprint, it will always be the best thing for you in the long term.

[Kevin Gentry]

Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to light. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube, or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big. Well, ladies and gentlemen, as you're about to see, our guest today really epitomizes the whole theme and objectives of the Going Big Podcast. My friend Will Guerra, one of the great restaurateurs of the world, has truly transformed the idea of service and hospitality by dreaming big and going big. And we've got a lot to talk about in that regard. In fact, Simon Sinek describes Joel Guderra as someone who's not only transformed the restaurant industry, but the whole idea of service and how any person or any organization could benefit from his thinking. And I agree. So, Will Guidera, welcome to this episode. Really great to have you with us.

[Will Guidera]

Thanks, Kevin. It's really good to see you again.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, I'm going to lead off with the backstory of how we met and how what you shared in a conference that my wife and I attended really transformed a lot of things for me and the Whole way. I've even thought about the going big podcast in my business 10x strategy. So, as you may recall, in 2022, you and your wife, Christina Tosi, and some other friends of yours were at BlackBerry Farm for a special conference on hospitality. And it just so happened that my wife and I were celebrating a momentous anniversary there. We splurged to go to BlackBerry Farm. BlackBerry Farm, one of the pinnacles of hospitality and service for special occasions in eastern Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains. And my wife said, you know, this Will Guidera, you remember we watched the Netflix show seven days out about his restaurant, eleven Madison park, when it was number one they were reopening. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah. So that caught my attention, but I didn't really remember. And then you and your wig spoke and you led off by telling a story, which I'd love if you would, to kick off this conversation when 11 Madison Park. So we're going to fast forward to a bit in your life. 11 Madison park is nominated for one of the great top restaurants in the world. If you would, can you share that story?

[Will Guidera]

Yeah. So I got to 11 medicine in 2006, and at the time, the restaurant was a middling brasserie. The food was good, but it wasn't great. The service was friendly, but not all that precise. But our dining room, anyone who's not seen a picture of that dining room should look it up. It's one of the most beautiful in the world. And I was brought in as a part of the team that was charged with elevating the experience so that it lived up to that room. See, I worked there for a few years before buying the restaurant and then building an entire company around that restaurant. And then while selling that company about two months before COVID which was just great timing in the beginning. You know, We. We did what anyone would obviously do when focusing on excellence. We. We doubled down in our pursuit of elevating the product, right? So better food, better ingredients, better service, better training, fancier plates, fancier glassware. And. And it started to pay off. And within a few years, we earned three Michelin stars and four New York Times stars. But eventually we got the invitation to the 50 best awards. And this was like our Moby Dick. This was the one thing we had yet to achieve. And we went to the awards and we had assigned seating. And I love to gamify everything in life. I think it's actually one of my superpowers as a leader, because, listen, I don't care how much you like your job, it's always going to be more fun to play than it is to work. But I do like to gamify everything. And so when I saw we had assigned seating, I was looking at where we were seated relative to where the restaurants who had come in number one through five the prior year were seated to turn it into a guessing game, figuring there must have been a correlation. And I think we were gonna. I guess we were gonna come in, like, number 35. And listen, I'm sure there was some amount of preamble before they started the awards, but I don't remember any of it. All I remember was them saying, at number 50, 11 Madison park, oh, my gosh, we'd come in last place. And I don't know, I. I believe that when you're served up a dose of disappointment. And by the way, I did look at that as a disappointment.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, to be fair, I mean, being 50 out of the tough restaurants in the world, you already have three Michelin stars. I mean, you're already at the greatest heights.

[Will Guidera]

Yeah, but I already knew we were on the list right then when we get there, for me, it's, we came in last place. And I think when you decide that you want to excel at a certain level, you are invariably putting yourself in the headspace where you're frustrated if you don't win. But, you know, my dad, who I quote often, one of my favorites of his quotes is, adversity is a terrible thing to waste. And I look back on that first year's placement at number 50 with gratitude now, because I don't believe we would have gone on to do what we did had. Had we not come in last. So I was. I was. I was disappointed, I was embarrassed, I was frustrated. And. And it compelled a bit of introspection around what we had done and what we wanted to go on to do. Because, I mean, here's the reality. It's kind of absurd to say one restaurant is the best in the world, right? When you. When you earn the top spot on that list, what it's really saying is you're the restaurant with the greatest impact on the world of restaurants. And while at that point our food was magnificent and our service was technically incredible, and the dining room was still amazing, the product was excellent. It became pretty clear that we hadn't done anything impactful. Every time I've set out to achieve an audacious goal, I always like to study those who've accomplished it before me, learn what I can from them, take those lessons, make them my own, and then Have a go at it myself. And that night of those first awards, I started thinking about the restaurants that had been number one. And they were run by chefs, chefs who were unreasonable in pursuit of the food they were serving their product and relentless in pursuit of innovation. What ingredients could they start cooking with? What techniques could they develop? And each of them, in their own way, has influenced how restaurants around the world approach cooking. That night, when we set the goal of becoming number one, I also articulated the impact we were going to make, which was if they were unreasonable in pursuit of product and relentless in pursuit of change, we were going to be unreasonable in pursuit of people and relentless in pursuit of the one thing that will never change, which is our human desire to feel seen, to feel a sense of belonging, to feel cared for, to feel welcome. And so, on a cocktail napkin, literally from that night, it says, we will be number one of the world. And then underneath that it says those two words, Unreasonable, hospitality.

[Kevin Gentry]

All right, so that is extraordinary. And ladies and gentlemen, I think you can understand now why I think that Will Guidera perfectly epitomizes the whole objective of going big. And you use terms like relentless and unreasonable in pursuit of excellence, which can be extremely daunting. I want to dig into that, but let me continue the story. So, so you, you gave that presentation at, at BlackBerry Farm. And my wife and I went back to the room and she said, you know, what Will's talking about is just like right up your alley. Did you know he has this welcome conference in New York? You ought to go. And I, so I looked, I looked into it and I, and I went and you have thousands of people. You, you attracted this event. I was there with a lot of, in the crowd, a lot of other restaurateurs in New York. I met some wonderful people, some outstanding people, great conference, very inspiring. And when I left, your team gave us all a goodie bag. And in it was this brand new book of yours, Unreasonable Hospitality, which I had the good fortune to read on my flight Back to Washington D.C. thanks in part to a flight delay, I got through most of the book and it was life changing. And I literally had bought hundreds of these books and given them to friends and co workers and we could talk about that. But. And the book itself is exceptional because it doesn't just talk about 11 Madison Park. It talks about leadership. It talks about really thinking and going big in a much broader way. But if you could tell us a little bit about. One of my favorite stories in here is when you, one of the many times you Dream big, wanted to go big, and you wanted to take 11 medicine part. When you were working for Danny Meyer, you wanted to go big, and you suggested, hey, let's pursue the Relay and Chateau membership and tell a little bit about that and about how you ultimately convinced Relay and Chateau to recognize your efforts.

[Will Guidera]

Yeah. So Relay and Chateau, for anyone listening to this, who doesn't know, is it's a collection of the greatest hotels and restaurants in the world. It's something you apply to be a part of. And it's very hard to. To be let in. You really have to be operating at a very, very high level for them to add you to their organization. They publish a guide every year. And I loved Relay and Chateau growing up. My dad. We didn't. We didn't have a ton of money. We didn't get to go to very many of these things, but we went to one. And I remember we brought home the guide and I had it. I still have it, the one we had when I was growing up. And so it was always something that was very important to me. It was also very important to Danny Meyer, who was my boss at the time. And this was before I bought the restaurant, because his dad had been a part of Relaian Chateau, and Danny had applied with one of his restaurants, a different restaurant, a few years earlier and had been rejected. And so there was some emotion there on. On his part. Anyway, we'd been growing and evolving and improving. And finally I went to him, I said, I think we're ready. We'd like to apply. And understandably, so there's scar tissue that comes from any sense of rejection. He said, no, I don't think you're ready yet. And a month or so passed, and I just couldn't. I couldn't get over it. I mind you, I was young, right? So patience was not my strong suit. And I didn't want to wait another year. I felt we were ready. And so finally I went back to him and I said, hey, I think we are ready. And if you say we can't, obviously I won't. I'm not going to disobey you. Danny is one of the most important people in the world to me. I trust him and I look up to him, but unless you're telling me we can't, I'm going to. And he said, all right, if you feel strongly, go for it. And so we did. Unfortunately, by that point, we sent in the application. We got word back that we'd missed the deadline for that year. We'd have to Wait another year. And I was just crushed. But one of my. One of the quotes my dad's instilled in me when I was a kid was by Calvin Coolidge, persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. And there's so much about that quote that is inspiring to me. But one way, one of the ways I've internalized it is, well, you don't take no for an answer until you've done whatever it takes to try to turn that no into a yes. And so I just couldn't accept that it was too late. I mean, it was a couple days. It felt like an administrative decision, not a decision based on the governing ideals of the organization. And so I reached out to Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller and Patrick O'Connell, all of whom had been Relay and Chateau chefs for years. And they said, hey, is there any way you'd write them a letter saying that they should make an exception a few days past the deadline and really give us a look this year, because I think we're ready and I think this is our year? And they said, well, we'd love to, but we can't advocate on your behalf until we've been back to the restaurant recently. And this is a testament not just to the idea of never giving up, but it's a testament to what they all did next, which was three very, very successful, institutional, famous, accomplished people who dropped everything and went out of their way to invest in a younger generation. And within a week, the three of them had dinner at our restaurant. And anyone who's not in the restaurant business can't quite understand this, but it would be as if you were an up and coming musician and Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger all came to watch you perform. Right? It was that level of significance.

[Kevin Gentry]

Those three chefs are, I mean, world class, known for some of the most extraordinary restaurants in the world themselves. They're each institutions, I'm sure they're each James Beard Ward. They're just extraordinary.

[Will Guidera]

And they all came that night. And we just did what we did at the best at the highest level we could do it. And. And each of them, within a couple days, wrote a letter to Relay and Chateau. And a couple days later, we got a letter back saying, hey, we, we're. We're going to accept your application. At some point in the next two months, an anonymous inspector's coming in to make sure that you're. You're up to the standard we require. And, man, that was a fun couple months, because we have no idea who that person Was I still, to this day, don't know. But they came and we were accepted.

[Kevin Gentry]

Amazing. Well, I wanted to start off this conversation to grab everybody's attention. I mean, number one restaurant in the world, be nominated for it. And then getting to that point, having the great chefs of the United States come to your restaurant in New York, and then, of course, to advocate on your behalf, it's extraordinary. So this clearly epitomizes dreaming big, thinking big, going big. I want to come back in a moment to the premise of unreasonable hospitality and dig into that a little bit more, but help us understand a little bit. You referenced your dad, but how is it in your life you really thought big? I mean, that. That really is a big bit of it. I'm sure. I don't want to speculate, but when you were a child, you were not thinking about creating the number one restaurant in the world. Tell us a little bit about your journey and about how thinking big really drives you. Well.

[Will Guidera]

I mean, my dad, it's all because of my dad. And he instilled in me at a very early age this idea. I mean, I literally have this paperweight on my desk right now that I've had since I was a kid. And on it, it says, what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? I've literally had this for, I don't know, 20 some odd years, 30 years.

[Kevin Gentry]

And that's a great quote.

[Will Guidera]

I think it's the best quote. And it's filled with audacity. Right. I think it's such a big question. What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? It's a question that he's challenged me to answer at varying intervals over the course of my work and honestly, my life, and whatever the truly honest response is to just try to do that, saying that far too many people are scared to say their biggest goals out loud for fear that if they do and don't achieve them of themselves and those around them down, but that if you don't have the confidence, that conviction required to dream your biggest dreams out loud, it is very, very unlikely that they'll ever come true. Not to mention the fact that if you reach for the stars and you come up just a little bit short, you're going to get a whole lot further just for having tried. But so he. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, I read about this in the book. I don't have no idea how old I was. But you get to that phase and you're growing up and you Learn the word can't, right? I have a two year old and a four year old. They don't know that word yet. They believe they're capable of anything. My daughter thinks she's stronger than I am right now. She can look at her little foot next to my foot and say that her foot is bigger than my foot. Like she's not there yet. They haven't embraced that sense of self doubt that is just an inevitable part of growing up and becoming more aware of all the circumstances that surround you. And when I started saying I can't, my dad treated it as if I was dropping an F bomb. It was a curse word in our home to the point where he printed up all these little fortune cookie sized pieces of paper that said, I mean, so cheesy in hindsight, but made a considerable impact. Then success comes in cans, failure comes in cans. And he must have printed like 150 of these things. And literally Kevin, everywhere I'd open up a drawer to get my underwear and there would be that thing in, or it'd be underneath the toothpaste or I couldn't go anywhere in my home without seeing that little message reminder for months. And I think he just, he just wanted so badly for me to believe in myself and in my capacity and, and because of his belief in me, I came to believe in myself. And by the way, just to be abundantly clear, there are many times I answered that question and tried to do something big and failed. You know, like there are things that I really wanted to accomplish that I tried to do and failed. And yet the more comfortable you become with falling short, the more comfortable you get at trying to go big.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, that's awesome. And it's clear in the book, and you dedicate the book to your dad as well, that your dad was a big influence. You also reference a lot of very important mentors in your life. If you would tell us maybe a little bit about that. But how you think finding a mentor either being fortunate enough to, to, to, to work with a mentor, but finding a mentor can be so important as we all try to go big.

[Will Guidera]

My, one of my, one of my dad's other quotes which he. I did this, this video thing with Simon Sinek and I asked my dad to come on and he was we part of the video, seriously with Simon was me in conversation with my dad. And in conversation my dad just casually says, you're never too young to be a mentor and you're never too old to have a mentor. And I was like, yeah, where was that when I was writing the book, I would have loved to have put that in the book. That's brilliant. Yeah. And it is a really good one. And mentorship, I just think is so important and I have so many thoughts about it. I think sometimes, like many things in life, we over complicate the idea of mentorship. I don't believe that in order to have a mentor, they need to sign on to be your mentor. Just to be super clear, I think a mentor is someone that you intentionally choose to actively learn from. I have people that I consider to be my mentors that have never even met me, but they are people that I follow and I study and I want to emulate. And when faced with challenging decisions, I try to think about what they would do, and then I try to use that to inspire what I will do. I think there are people that can become mentors in your life for a measure of time. Not every mentor relationship needs to be a lifelong commitment. As we change, we need new people to learn from and to be inspired by. And. And so I've had so many different mentors. I've had mentors who've taught me about being more disciplined in my pursuit of mental health or physical health. I've had mentors that have taught me about business, specific sides of the business. And the first part of that quote from my dad, you are never too young to be a mentor. Right. There's not like a. A degree we get in life where you've accomplished a certain amount and now you are eligible for mentorship. Right. Like, there are always plenty of people that can learn from you. And one of the best ways to learn is to teach. And so I think putting yourself in the role of mentoring others is as important as putting yourself in the role where you are open to being mentored by others. But to your point, there are a few, obviously that have been the most influential people in my life. And my dad is obviously the one that sits on the top of that list. Danny Meyer, right below him. I'm Danny Meyer, for those of you who don't know. Author of Set of the Table, my longtime boss, owner of a bunch of great New York restaurants, although perhaps best known at this point for Shake Shack, who taught me about the power of language, who taught me that if you take care of the people on your team, that's the most scalable way to invest in taking care of the customers in your business. My boss, who worked for Danny Meyer. I worked for Randy. Randy worked for Danny. Randy Garuti, who was my first General manager out of college, who was the most enthusiastic person I've ever worked for and still one of the most enthusiastic people I know, and reinforced this idea that all it takes is one person with enthusiasm for unbelievable things to happen. Who taught me that great leadership is in part just being a great cheerleader, who taught me that high energy begets high energy. Yeah. And many more.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, you've all. Each of these, these are all great, inspiring words that you've learned from others. And I appreciate that you're saying that, you know, mentors could be younger than you, not just necessari older, which is the vision we have in our mind. And also, we don't have to actually be with them in person and interact. We can learn from different people in different ways. That's terrific. Well, I want to dig in a little bit more on the leadership piece and the team building piece in just a moment. And again, I love this whole pursuit of excellence, the relentless pursuit. But again, it can be daunting to folks. So let's go back to the unreasonable hospitality piece. As you said, you know, many of the great restaurants ultimately were defined by something they introduced. Maybe it was farm to table, maybe it was, you know, some particular approach. What exactly is unreasonable hospitality?

[Will Guidera]

Unreasonable hospitality is just being as relentless and intentional and creative in pursuit of how you make people feel as everyone who has succeeded at any level in their respective crafts invariably already is in pursuit of the product or service that they sell. Way too often, hospitality and service, those two words are conflated as being one of the same. They are different things. The service is a part of the product in my world, that's given the right plate of food to the right person within the right amount of time. Hospitality is the extent to which you make the people around you feel seen, the extent to which you give them a sense of safety, a sense of belonging, that beautiful connection that comes from time with someone who made the choice to be fully present with you, who. Who finds all the little and big things that they can do to make you feel like the most important person in the room at that moment in time. And it's amazing to me, I've spent time with so many different companies, all of whom would say they want to have better hospitality. And yet, while all of them are more than willing to invest in whatever they need to in order to make the product better, so many people are reticent to do the same with hospitality. But nothing takes root in the absence of resource. Unreasonable hospitality is just not reserving all of your resources and all of your best efforts into making the product better, but investing as many of them as possible into the way you make people feel. The quote that I think is so beautiful and sums this up so well is one that most people likely have heard. It's by Maya Angelou. She says, people will forget what you say, they'll forget what you do, but they'll never forget forget how you made them feel. And I believe that to be true. And I know it is based on my experience. I have so many people who dined with us over the years that in spite of the fact we were serving some of the best food in the world, they don't remember a single thing they ate. But they remember how we made them feel. And if that is the case, then to me it's so counterintuitive that people invest so much money into stuff and so little into to feelings or so much time into the stuff and so little time into the feelings. And that's what unreasonable hospitality is.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, in your book Unreasonable Hospitality, you share a couple of stories. One my favorite was the family from Spain. They were about to fly back. And what happened at the restaurant that night that you took to kind of move into your dreamweaver space?

[Will Guidera]

Well, so it was a family of four from Spain, parents and their children. And we had these big, big, big windows and it started snowing. And we learned that it was the kids first time seeing real snow. And we somehow found a store still open at 8 o'clock on a Friday night selling sleds. And when they left, they agreed to buy an Uber SUV with the sleds in the back and a big thermos of hot chocolate in the front for the coolest nightcap of all time. Sledding with your kids for the first time in Central Park. I mean, you think about that.

[Kevin Gentry]

Yeah, you're not going to forget that.

[Will Guidera]

You're definitely not going to forget that. There are very few dishes that are so amazing that you'll write about them years and years later. But that kind of memory, that connective memory with the people that matter most to you in life, that is something that will never fade. And by the way, just back to the financial principle behind it. I talk about how people are so reticent to invest in it. Many of those companies are very, very willing to invest in their marketing budgets. And yet this is the greatest form of marketing of all. Because you give a family like that a story like that to tell, what do you think they're going to do? They're going to tell that Story over and over and over again, doing your marketing on your behalf far better than you could ever do it yourself. Because the people that hear how great you are are being told that by someone they already trust. Yep. Not to mention the fact that it just feels really good to do it.

[Kevin Gentry]

Exactly. But you talk about where you can, like, put 95% of your emphasis on really being attentive to every cost, but then you just have this, the space that you reserve to splurge in the moment for that unforgettable memory.

[Will Guidera]

Well, yeah, I mean, that. That's my guiding financial principle. It's the rule of 95. 5, meaning that if you. If you obsess over every penny 95 of the time, that no expense is too small to be poured over, then you earn the right to spend the last 5% foolishly. And I put foolish in air quotes, because it's not foolish spending at all. In fact, it is in that spending that you. That you really create the kind of memories that we should all be trying to create. Not just because it's the right thing to do for other human beings, but because in that spending, you find the greatest competitive advantage of all. And by the way, when I talk about spending, I'm talking about money, but it's really any resource, right? It's money. It's time. And when I'm talking about where you spend it, it's not just on your customers. It's on the people that work with you as well.

[Kevin Gentry]

And that's something I want to come back to. And by the way, any one of us can think about hospitality and our own lives in this same manner as well. All right, let me bring this a little bit more to the current day. So I told you, I've literally given away hundreds of copies of Unreasonable Hospitality. I really love.

[Will Guidera]

Thank you.

[Kevin Gentry]

A lot of great feedback. Love it. And so a while back, a few people, friends, reached out and said, hey, are you watching the bear? And I said, yes, I'm watching the bear. It's great. It's a great show. Goes, did you see the Forks episode? I'm like, no, I haven't gotten that far. What are you talking about? Goes, it's all about unreasonable hospitality. It's like, what? And of course, the character Richie is sent to work at a great restaurant. Kind of almost intern or apprentice at it. And it's all about. He's literally reading unreasonable hospitality. Tell us a little bit about the Forks episode. And how did that come about?

[Will Guidera]

The Forks episode is so. Gosh, I love that episode. So Much.

[Kevin Gentry]

It's one of the best episodes of the whole series. And of course it's a great award winning series.

[Will Guidera]

Yeah, I mean, listen, one of the things I try to convey in the pages of my book is this idea that you can inspire hospitality in anyone. When I was coming up, a lot of people would say hire for hospitality, train for excellence, as if to say that some people are hospitable, some people aren't. Find the ones that are and then teach them how to do the job. Well, I do not believe that some people are hospitable and others aren't. I believe everyone has embers of it burning inside of them. They perhaps just have yet to work for a leader who's willing to invest the time and energy and passion to inspire it out of them. And as much as I try to convey that sentiment in the book television, when you can use and appeal to every sense, it just has a greater capacity to do it well. And I think how the tame at the Bear did this in that episode was just. Was gorgeous where Richie was this jaded guy who was a bit listless and lost and feeling a lack of purpose and his life having, you know, gone through a separation and a pending divorce and not exactly sure what he wanted to do with his career and goes to this fine dining restaurant and is just polishing forks and polishing forks and polishing forks and just hating his life. And then there's this big dream weaving moment where they ever heard the table. I mean, it's a riff on the hot dog story. They overhear the table, talk about how they've been everywhere in Chicago but they haven't had deep dish pizza. And then it all starts happening. And he runs the Pequods, the deep dish pizza place brings it back. They replayed it, bring it over. And then he bears witness to the look of profound appreciation on those people's faces. And you watch the moment where he becomes addicted to that feeling and races home in the car blaring Love story by Taylor Swift and pacing around his apartment reading my book. And there's two meta lessons. One, excellence does matter. It's a prerequisite to everything I talk about. You can't do that thing for the people at the table unless the forks are perfectly polished. No matter how wild and over the top a gesture is, if you don't have the fundamentals right, like you need to earn the right to do this stuff. It's the 95.5rule again, through a different lens, like 95% excellence, 5% unreasonable hospitality and the proportions are hilarious because they only remember the 5%. But you still need to do the 95% in order to earn the right to do the 5%. That's 1 and 2. Yeah. You can inspire people to be hospitable through talking about it. Because passion is contagious. You can inspire people to be hospitable by just being hospitable to them. Because it's impossible to know how good it feels to give something until you know how good it feels to receive it. But you can also get people hooked on good things just by getting them to do them once. Because I don't believe there is a feeling more energizing than the one I get when I see the look on someone else's face after they receive a gift I'm responsible for giving them. And the moment you give someone that feeling once, they are going to want it again. And that episode, I think, tells all of those stories and expresses all those lessons in a pretty beautiful and compelling way.

[Kevin Gentry]

Yeah. Here, here, Forks. Episode seven of season two. The whole series, though, has that belief in people that is all about you as well. You're a good match for them and I think it makes it all the more inspiring. So in season three, you became a co producer. And the last episode, the forever episode, I don't want to spoil any scene. You're actually in it. Your wife Christina Tosi is in it. And Thomas Keller and Daniel, all these great chefs. Tell us a little bit about that, if you would.

[Will Guidera]

I mean, yeah, I won't get into the plot because I know a lot of people aren't there yet, but I think there's this. The thing I love about the bear is the thing that infuriates some people about the bear, which is the episodic variation. I think people, like got hooked. People got hooked on the bear because of like the intense kitchen drama scenes and the, the fast moving pace. And every episode of that show, when you turn it on, it could be a very, very different type of episode than anyone you've seen before. And by the way, Will, I have.

[Kevin Gentry]

To tell you, a friend of mine was. Watches the show, watches TV while he's exercising on a treadmill. And he's really attentive to his heart and his, his blood pressure was trying to. And he, he was watching one one night and he. And everything started going off. He thought maybe he was really going through a medical incident and he realized it was the watching show.

[Will Guidera]

It was the show. No, but that show will slow down sometimes and really like, like Just take a detour every once in a while to give you the capacity to more fully understand that, yeah, it's about restaurants, but let's name it, the show's about relationships. And in the same way that you can't really be in relationship with another human being until you slow down for long enough and take the time to truly get to know them, the show does that for its characters, where sometimes you really just need to slow down and understand where someone has come from in order to be able to walk alongside them and join them in the journey around where they're going. And that last one was really about Carmi, to understand all the levels of complexity around what happened in his life, that he is who and how he is. And I also think there's an inherent TV vacation when any. Anytime a show is made. If, you know a lawyer watches a TV show about lawyers, they're always like, that's not actually how it is. Like, things need to be amped up a little bit to make it good television. And I think what that show, what that episode really did a good job of, was telling the story of Carmi and actually bringing real restaurant people. Totally unscripted, by the way. That episode was unscripted.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, wow.

[Will Guidera]

To just talk and just to capture unscripted passion in an effort to inspire more of it than others.

[Kevin Gentry]

All right, well, I'm going to jump in on that because in the book, you talk a lot about team building and you're obviously a great leader and that's another key to your success. And you talked about when you had Thomas Keller and Patrick O'Connell and Andrew Ballute at the restaurant. It was really great for the team. I mean, like, wow, look where we are. Who came to dine with us. And I think that speaks through this a lot. So how important in all of these efforts, thinking big, going big, the pursuit, relentless pursuit of excellence, do you think about the relationships and the team building aspect?

[Will Guidera]

I think it's by far the most important. I think everything else is a distant second. The reality is, I mean, hospitality is a team sport. It doesn't matter how hospitable I am. It doesn't matter how hospitable the best people on my team are. The weakest link can be the one that defines the way the hospitality of the whole is perceived by someone, Any. Any leader who isn't spending a majority of their time thinking about how to train and educate and even more importantly, inspire the people on their team isn't a leader, they're just a manager. Because at the end of the day, we cannot succeed in any sort of critical way unless we get every single person on the team fully bought in and excited and inspired to believe in the spirit of our collective endeavor and want to give all of themselves to help it succeed. Yeah, I don't care who you are if you're not a good leader, unless you're, I don't know, a writer or a painter and you don't require a great team around you. But even in those cases, I mean, I could write a great book if I didn't have a great team around me to make it the best version of itself and then help get it out into the world. It would. Wouldn't be what it is. No one is anything in the absence of a good team. And anyone who tries to tell you differently is either confused or misguided or lying honestly.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, thanks for sharing that because I think it's easy to slip into the notion of the relentless pursuit of excellence. Excellence is a singular thing that one person does. But thanks for emphasizing the importance. Importance or the absolute fundamental nature of the team building aspect.

[Will Guidera]

Well, well, all of the pursuits, Kevin, they're all collective pursuits. Right, Right. Full stop. And so it's a pursuit of excellence, it's a pursuit of hospitality, but it's not my pursuit. It's me trying to lead a team so we can collectively pursue those things. And, and what that means is two things. It's telling them where we're going because people do crave leadership. They crave conviction in the leadership. And it's inviting as many of them as possible to sit with me so we can figure out how we're going to get there. People crave a sense of ownership.

[Kevin Gentry]

Daily check ins or something. Is that something that you recommend, I recall correctly?

[Will Guidera]

Yeah, Daily huddle.

[Kevin Gentry]

Daily huddle.

[Will Guidera]

I think, I think, I think it's the most powerful thing anyone can do in any business is just take some number of minutes on a daily basis to get aligned and not just say, all right, today, Kevin, remember we're doing this podcast. Get on there at this time and make sure to put the URL into Chrome for Riverside. Like, not that, like don't, don't talk about the stuff. You could just communicate via an email. It's when you actually inspire people. TED Talks are so famous and popular because very few people have anyone in their lives who actually has answered the call to inspire them. And so we farm out our inspiration to strangers over the Internet. If you, if people work for you, you have a responsibility to inspire them. Because we all need to be inspired. And if it's not coming from you, then I'm not sure where they're going to find it.

[Kevin Gentry]

All right, what's next for Will Guidera?

[Will Guidera]

What's next for me?

[Kevin Gentry]

By the way, loving your emails. Give a. Let's do a little shout out for your emails.

[Will Guidera]

Thanks, man. Yeah, that's one of my favorite things. I created a practice of writing when I did the book, and anytime you can effectively and successfully create a practice doing something that is good for you, as writing is for me, it's almost reckless and irresponsible to stop doing it. And so I continue that through a bi weekly newsletter I do called Premium, which is what we call our daily huddle, which you can sign up for at unreasonablehospitality. It has a little window. Drop your email in there and it's a great email. Thank you very much. That. That's basically what I would be talking about with my team were I doing Premium right now in a restaurant. You know, what's next for me? Had you met me between the ages of 12 and 40, I would have always had a very, very specific answer and with intention. I'm choosing to not have one now.

[Kevin Gentry]

But you moved to Nashville. What's that? How can you not go big in your. Can you go big in Nashville, not New York?

[Will Guidera]

Oh, I can go big any. I mean, it's not about that. What I'm Whatever I do. I mean, I didn't pursue producing and writing on television, but now that I'm doing it, I want to win an Emmy. I didn't set out to write a book until Covid started and I was bored and I needed to do something. And I realized that the best way to decide what I wanted to do next was to rewalk the journey. I'd just been down and that's why I chose to write Unreasonable Hospitality. But once I started writing it, I wanted it to be a New York Times bestseller and it became one. And it did become one. And just because you don't have a long horizon plan does not mean that you're not going to choose to go big in whatever you decide to do along the way. What I'm saying is that I'm enjoying a season of reacting to what's put in front of me. And the things that do the following. The check. The following three boxes are ones that I pursue more things that I can learn from having fun, doing them alongside great people and where I can make some money. If those three things are all true, then I get Excited about doing it more. I'm learning, I'm having fun doing it with people that I really admire or love and there's money to be made, then I'll. Then I'll do it. And so I'm making television, I'm writing more books. We're still doing the welcome Conference. Well, that one doesn't check the third.

[Kevin Gentry]

Box, but you know how the other two conference. The hospitality conference. Right.

[Will Guidera]

We're doing the Unreasonable Hospitality Summit which is kind of training workshop slash conference slash hospitality experience. It's a two day thing here in.

[Kevin Gentry]

Nashville, which I noticed is already sold out because I was slow to sign up. I looked this weekend. I'm out of luck.

[Will Guidera]

That one sold out much more quickly than I expected. But that's fine. We'll do more of those. This is the first one I'm really excited about that. I love welcome. I'll always love welcome, but I'm excited to have a more intimate space where I can roll up my sleeves and spend a bit more time with people in the room. I'm in Nashville now, so I've started writing music and I teamed up with a Grammy award winning songwriter, wrote one song, already got it cut. But. And that's so cathartic. I think if you are, if you do anything creative, sometimes it's good to be creative in other disciplines. It's not dissimilar to crop rotation in farming where if you only plant the same ingredients in the soil, it depletes the soil of the nutrients required for that crop. But if you rotate outcrops, they kind of start to become. And you're basically replenishing the soil to be good for the first crop again. And so that's what I found creatively. If I go write music for an afternoon, I'm a better business book writer when I get home. And so I'm just trying to stay open to doing more things that bring me joy. All of it obviously centered around the thing that I'm most passionate about, which is hospitality and connection and relationships and people and, and the idea that during a season where there's so much to bring us further from one another, this is the one thing that never fails in bringing us closer again.

[Kevin Gentry]

Very nice. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you can see why I said at the outset that Will Gadera perfectly epitomizes the theme and objectives of going big. Will close us out with some advice. You're. You're kind of like the, you know, the advice that your dad gave you so many times. What advice would you give to anyone listening or watching this podcast anywhere in the world about how they might think about the rest of their life.

[Will Guidera]

I think. I mean I could like give 12 different pieces for my dad, but okay, the Going Big. I think any virtuous pursuit can bring with it plenty of opportunities to not show up as your best self. And sometimes when people are relentless in their pursuit of audacious goals, they can do some messed up stuff along the way to help them achieve them. One of my best piece of advice from my dad is at every crossroads, and there are countless crossroads, big ones and small ones, we encounter them nearly daily. Ask yourself what right looks like and just do that. And if you make that commitment to always do the right thing, you're never actually going to have to make a big decision again. Because, well, yeah, there's a lot of decisions that fall into the gray. The majority of what goes into them is pretty black and white. What is right and what is wrong and doing the right thing is not always going to be best for you in the short term. But if you look at the journey towards success, however you define that as a marathon and not a sprint, it will always be the best thing for you in the long term. And no one can ever take your integrity away if you never let go of it willingly.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, thank you Olga Dara for thinking big, dreaming big, going big. And thank you. We're looking forward to the next chapters of your life, which clearly are unwritten because you don't even know where you're going. But we know they're going to go big. It's great to have you.

[Will Guidera]

Thanks Kevin.

[Kevin Gentry]

Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.