The Real Reason Your Restaurant Staff Aren't Bought In and How to Fix it

Working in the restaurant industry for over 20 years and developing leaders and teams for some of the biggest brands, some billion-dollar brands, one thing I got to see is what motivates people. And a lot of times your servers aren't bought in, your bartenders, your staff are not bought in because they're focused on the wrong things, they have the wrong why. And they're hyper focused on money. They make decisions based off money, they bring in the toxic environment, a toxic mindset, a toxic attitude into your culture because of money.

And it doesn't have to be this way, but we allow it. But how do we change that mindset and flick your culture? Well, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna talk to an actual server who's been working in the industry for a while, who has a good mindset, and we're gonna talk through how to fix this problem and how to lead your servers, bartenders, hosts, whoever, get them out of the money first mindset and to focus on something much bigger, something much bigger, not only to your company, but to them.

A mindset that'll make them successful and them successful in your business where everybody wins. This has helped scale and turn around over 350 restaurants worldwide. And you can do it for your restaurant as well. If you're a manager, if you're a leader, if you're a server, if you're a bartender, pay attention because this next hour is gonna be a game changer.

So I'd like to know a little bit about how long you've been in the industry. So on and off again since I was 16 or 17. I grew up as an actor and I went to a performing arts high school, somewhat like FAME, um, where half the day I was in my regular scheduled programming in my hometown high school. Then we were bussed over to a arts high school where I studied theater.

And my junior year, we did a production that was made in-house called Dance of the Tarantella. And it was a dinner theater show. And that was my first experience working within a restaurant type of environment because half of us were serving guests and then participating within the action while the other half of us were on stage. And I fell in love with the opportunity of just being at the table, making those connections, and from there went into teaching and then went back into the restaurant world in 2022 after my sister passed away.

So it's been on again, off again, but for the last four years, um, consistent. So, what is your take? Obviously, I tell people this all the time. This is no uh secret or cutting edge, you know, information, but you know, we're on stage as actors, we're uh as servers, as bartenders in the restaurant industry, everybody's on stage.

And it's like amazing to me how many people don't get that or they lose sight of it, right? Because you're always on stage, not with your guests, with the whole restaurant, because everybody's studying constantly, right? You're just studying. That's human nature, by the way.

You people watch. If you're sitting on a park bench, are you more drawn to your phone or do people watch? You're gonna probably end up people watching more. And naturally you want to people watch more.

And so people are gonna always watch. They're watching what you're doing behind the open kitchen, right? There's what what you're doing behind the bar. They're just they're watching every freaking that door's opening in and out.

They're trying to get a peek, you know, behind there. What are they doing back there when they're not when they think no one's looking? You know, you want that viewpoint so important for us to really understand what that is. So it's all about being on stage, which I appreciate.

And I was just doing a piece on this where I'm like, you know, when I go up to a guest at table, it's like upset, right? I'm I always, you know, I'm very, I look very concerned, right? I make a conscious effort to look concerned, I widen my eyes and I'm listening and I'm like, that's unacceptable. I don't smile at once.

I don't, I, you know, I just sit there and go, I can't believe I'm sorry. I unacceptable. I'm gonna find out what's happening, I'm gonna fix it. Can you give me five minutes?

I'm gonna fix, I'm gonna get your the right food out. First of all, I'm gonna make sure you leave happy, but can you give me five minutes, right? Because I think it's important to look concerned. And there's a saying that, which I totally live by, where if there's an issue, right, either they're taking it more serious or you're taking it more serious.

But if they're taking it more serious, you lose. Correct. Right? So you have to be like, oh my God.

And so I think there's some serious acting that has to go on, right? That's unacceptable. 100% right, that's unacceptable. I'd be furious if I were you.

I appreciate you being as calm as you are right now. Let me, you know, so I always put on that act. So how do you feel about that? Um, I feel multiple things about that.

Um, so first and foremost, I think that uh acting is what we do. It's we're a team, we're on stage, we're a part of a show, and we're part of the show that is the brand, that is the value system of the specific environment that we're in. I've been very fortunate to work in diverse environments in restaurants. So I've been in um dining rooms where we've had glass walls between the actual kitchen and the dining room space.

Um, I've been in dining rooms where you can't see any part of the kitchen because there's a huge wall in between separating what's happening in the kitchen and on the dining room floor. Um, so I think acting on stage is a constant. Um, and it's because we are human beings. Uh, as human beings, we feel different things constantly every day.

We have thousands of thoughts that come into our head every day. Sometimes we'll be in front of a table and talking about the same rig and mortise thing that we have going on again and again and again. Um, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about, oh, I need to call my mom as a guest is talking to me, or oh, I forgot to take out the garbage this morning, maintaining that smile. Um, so there is the acting component.

The secondary component to it is genuine care and concern. Um, I have always followed the last model. So listen, um, apologize, solve, think. Um, and to me, that I might be a very special breed of human being when it comes to being a server because I do care.

I do genuinely show up and uh can I swear? Am I allowed to say I give a shit? I do give a shit because uh my my mentality for every role that I've ever had, whether that was sweeping or it's being the CEO of a company, is that we are all a part of a team and that it is my position within this team to provide the services that I was hired to do. Um, I'm also one of those people that grew up as an actor.

So I was told, you know, being on time is being late. You have to be early. Um, working with clean feet, showing up and leaving your shit at the door, uh, and just being genuinely there for the people. And I think I found success through just being myself, which is just genuinely caring about people.

So there are days that are harder. There are days where your personal life and your personal crap can't enter the facility. And that's working with clean feet every day and making that active choice. So, what's also plausible is also saying, I'm making the active choice to care.

I might never see you again. We've never crossed paths. You might be from Timbuktu, but I have the opportunity for this 90 minutes, this 45 minutes, this hour and a half to put on a show for you that you might not recall what you ate. You might not recall the name of your dish.

You might not even remember my name halfway through the service and say, hey man, hey dude, hey, sir. But that when you leave the doors, you want to come back and that you want to bring people with you because of how you felt while you were in my care. So yeah, there's uh care, right? Always care.

You should care. That's what people always ask me. They go, How do we when you're being like I say be genuine, right? For example, you want to be genuine uh when you're when you're talking your tables, and then like, what's the best way to be genuine is to care.

If you care about them, then you're gonna be genuine, right? If you care about the situation, but what why do you care? It's a choice. But yeah, but why do you care?

What's what what's motivating you to care? Um, I mean, so you start with you have to pay your bills. You start at the baseline of why am I here entirely? I'm here to make money.

Um, I come into the service industry with two master's degrees outside of the service industry. I recognize I could be actively applying to positions within the field of study that I went to school for. Um, but I choose to be in the hospitality industry because of the selfishness of the feelings that I get for being in this hospitality industry. I I have the, as I said before, I have the opportunity to create and curate an experience for people that I've never met, might never meet again, but that they will want to come back, that they will have had this our experience that that changes parts of their lives potentially.

The other day, um, on Mother's Day, I had a table come in. It was an eight-top, and it was a crazy day of service. As we know, Mother's Day is the craziest day. And when I went to the table, I always ask, you know, are there any allergies?

And then I followed it up with, Are there any celebrations? And a woman at the table looked at me and said, Well, Matthew, I'm glad you asked because my grandparents, my parents don't yet know that I'm 13 weeks pregnant. And I got emotional. I got emotional because my family lives 3,000 miles away.

I haven't seen them for five or six months. But in that moment, I got to be a part of something, something bigger than me, something bigger than I could have ever anticipated walking into. I got to be a part of a celebratory moment for this family. And then I have a table five minutes later walk in that says, I don't want to know your name, I don't want to know shit about you.

And you can take my drink order and walk away. But choosing to be the same person at each of those tables, choosing, making that active choice constantly to be genuine, be vulnerable, and show up as your authentic self will always get you through the next door. And taking the weight off of what do I get from this interaction, the tip is never on my mind. The tip is is nothing that I have control over.

I have the control to be myself, I have the control to guide an experience. And why do I make that choice? Because I chose this job. I chose to show up, I chose to be here.

So if I'm gonna make that actionable choice every day, then it's my responsibility as a server to choose kindness and to choose to curate a party for every single one of my tables that walks in. Um I recognize that not everybody thinks that way, but that's what's made me feel successful in this industry. Yeah. So I mean, I'm I'm I'm pretty straightforward and kind of harsh about it, but we have a, you know, very entitled um industry that we work in.

It's extremely entitled and not most people, I'd say 90% of people don't have your viewpoint. They have the viewpoint of I'm here for tips, I make money. That's it's tip, me, tip, tip me, right? And it's about that, and that's that's what I'm here for.

Uh, why else would I be here? And you know, if you know they should tip well no matter what. And and that's important to understand because that's I think what's broken truly. When when we have restaurant owners who come in, and and these are sometimes really big groups that come in and say, I just can't get my staff bought in.

I don't get it. I don't understand what it is. Why is it broken? Why don't they get it?

Why don't they why aren't they bought in? It's because they're coming in with the opposite attitude of what you have, right? It's not about the guests' experience, it's about their experience, right? It's about me making my money and it's about me bringing my my shit into the door, right through the door and into everybody's business.

It's all about my drama and my section, my tips. Um, and you know, I see this all I've seen this to all said before. If you can't tip well, then don't go out to eat. That level of entitlement is insane.

It's absolutely insane that that's the your thought process, right? That's how entitled we are. So, what do you think about that that quote? Um, I think that there are a lot of feelings that come from that quote.

Um, I am not a perfect person and I have not always had this mentality. I have been in this industry long enough to know that there have been days that I walked out where my tip out percentage is below 10% before I tip out the rest of the staff. And those days suck. Absolutely.

It's it's the worst feeling in the world to know that you're giving so much of yourself. And in the way that my brain used to work, it was well, how would you feel about going into your place of employment and receiving, you know, an 8% not feedback, but 8% of um gratitude towards the work that you've done for the day, that my income is based on how you feel about me. Um, I've worked in places where uh it was southern themed. I'm an openly gay person.

I've had men walk in, I've been hit, I've had knives thrown out the back of my head, I've had glass rushed lamb out of my hand. Um, so I've I've had my fair share of really shitty experiences where you second guess yourself in the role and you second guess uh am I even valuable enough to be within this industry because of how I'm I'm receiving feedback from these people that I don't know and I don't get to choose who sit at my tables. Um so there's there's certainly a level of frustration and difficulty, especially on bad days where maybe it's two to three tables back to back who haven't tipped you.

Um there and I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I have don't have those same feelings now. But once again, it's larger than me. I'm a part of a team. If I show up and I'm dragging my feet, the rest of the team feels it.

Whether that be the busser, that be my um food runner, that be my CEO, or that be the guy who washes the dishes. I'm a part of something larger than myself. And I have learned over time that if one table stiffs me or if one table leaves me 5%, there's another table that's gonna come in and they're gonna make up for it. And that at the end of my bi-weekly paycheck, it always evens out to the same amount.

So it's it's larger than worrying about the individual parts or the individual tables and truly just giving that definitive service because there are lots of people who are in this industry who say, Well, I am here for fast cash. I'd be lying if I wasn't saying I was one of them myself. I have I have degrees outside of this world that I could be working within. But I choose this for not only the income, um, not only the lack of stress that I have when I get to walk out of the door and say, okay, my hands are done until the next time I'm in here.

But that is a part of my value. That is a part of what I say, okay, I'm not working a corporate nine to five job that expects more from me when I'm off the clock. Part of my income is saying when I'm not here, I'm I'm feeding back myself. I can go and say, okay, I can design my schedule.

I can take two to three day days off and go on a trip. That's a part of what this industry gives me back. So the pieces of income that aren't financial are just as valuable as those tips are. Um Yeah, there's a lot there.

And that's that's uh, you know, my viewpoint as well, because there's a couple of things there. One is yes, you get some freedom, right? You do get some freedom with this job, and so it's not all about the tips. Again, that's what becomes a focus, right?

I was also that person for a very long time. That was my focus, and I thought I was the best server in the world. You couldn't have convinced me otherwise. I was delivering the best hospitality.

I knew what I was doing, I was the best in the room. I knew better than my managers, I knew better than the GM. I knew better than the owners, I knew better than everybody. I knew what I was doing, and I knew what was best for the guests.

And uh ultimately, you know, it took me getting a serious reality check in life, hitting rock bottom to say that I didn't know, and that, you know, that attitude actually really stifled my growth as a human being. Um, and changing my perspective. And I was saying, you know what I care about is just giving the guests the best experience. That's it, that's all I care about.

If they don't tip me, they don't tip me, right? But if I can have an impact on their lives, awesome. And just just to strip away the judgment and say, I'm not gonna judge them. But if they don't tip me, what I I can't what what is me getting upset and frustrated and irritated going to change?

And so that's why I I that changed and I was just focused, and it wasn't like I just that was my mindset, but I just started focusing on I just want to give the guests the best experience, and that's all I care about, and and put them in front of me, right? The business in front of me, my co-workers in front of me, be selfless in this act. And what that did was ended up A, I felt what much more fulfilled, right? My the toxicity and my my mind went out, but also I was working at the slowest restaurant with the lowest chip at check average, making the most money I've ever made before in my life.

Because I just was truly selfless, like truly just didn't care, truly, and truly just giving you everything, right? Like, like you said, we're giving you everything. So that's why I asked that question because there are some there's some things to it. Because when I I got that's why I get frustrated, and I understand, first of all, I understand where servers are coming from when they have that mentality because they're they're they're looking at it like this, right?

With just with their blinders on and they're just so hyper-focused on the money and the tip and the number. And but it always blows my mind because they complain about money, right? They complain about tips. Well, my hourly and this and that, and like, you know, this they don't pay me enough.

I don't make enough. I I or they they complain about the industry. But you have two master's degrees. I came out of high school and I have no degree, right?

So serving was the opportunity, restaurants were an opportunity where I can make a living for myself without having to have an education. It provided me that opportunity. I'm freaking lucky and blessed that it existed. I don't know where I'd be without it.

Yeah. And so, but what we and everyone's kind of in that boat that doesn't have a degree, right? You're like, hey, I found a way I can make freaking a living for myself and I don't have to go to school and I and I can do it now, right? And and and but but what happens is you get the job, you start making the money, and all of a sudden it's why they're not tipping me that much.

How come they don't tip me that much? Why is it like this? Why are my managers like this? Why didn't I get that section?

Why didn't I get that shipped instead of stopping and going, wait, it's pretty freaking awesome that I got this opportunity in the first place, right? So if I do get a 5% tip, like you said, and this is such basic knowledge for servers that have been in the industry long enough. There should be basic knowledge, but it's it sadly isn't. But what what what am I making at the end of the month?

What is what's that number? Is that good? Is that around what I okay, cool, done. Awesome.

Yeah, right? Can survive. Yeah, I'm good. This is what I was looking for.

Awesome. Now, if I all of a sudden that's 25% less or 20% less, I gotta start having some conversations. But it's dude, I've just never had a situation where there's just a huge drop-off. It's almost always on point, right?

Almost always on point. And then if you, you know, Christmas time comes around, all of a sudden that number goes up, but it's always on point. But so it's like, why why why sit there and get frustrated and get irritated and get upset and judge people and get you know angry at people and just let that toxicity fill you instead of just saying, ugh, it's all good. Is this part of the cycle?

Is this part of the process? Yeah, right. I am supposed to get L's. There's I'm not supposed to bat a thousand, no one's gonna tip because we're setting expectations.

That's the problem. And that was my problem. I set expectations for the guest. You act a certain way and you tip a certain way, right?

I set expectations for my coworkers. You guys need to abide by my rules and act a certain way, my managers and everyone else. And man, that was a not happy time in my life. Yeah, right.

Because I was constantly getting let down because people wouldn't live up to my invisible expectations I set for them. And so that's why I always try and tell people, I'm like, stop focusing so much on the tip. Like, let that toxicity out of your system. I promise you, things will change dramatically.

And still, I when I post something online about it, they'll be like, like I'll say, culture is so much more important. Like, you know, when you're hiring someone, culture is so much more important than the top salesman, you know, because you've worked with someone, I'm sure. Top salesman or best server, but worst coworker, right? Managers hate working with him, you hate working with him.

You're like, guys, the worst, but he's like, I'm the best salesperson, they'll never fire me, right? Yeah, and you're like, oh man, this guy's the worst. It's so hard to work with him, he makes it so frustrating. It's like a cancer in the culture is not gonna like the top sales doesn't even that out, right?

Correct. So that's what we really want to focus on. And so let me ask you something because we're talking about, you know, the guest experience, you have a really good grasp on it. What's the difference between hospitality and service, in your opinion?

I love that question. Can I tell you something funny too? Sure. Driving here today from work, uh, there was a white uh bus that passed me that was for some local cafe.

And on the back of it, it said, service is our motto. Hospitality is our um hospitality is our brand. So I have read a lot of things about the difference between service and hospitality. Um, I have heard that service is black and white and hospitality is color.

Um, I've heard that service is what we do and hospitality is who we are. Um, to me, baseline service is um is transactional. Hospitality is relational. So you can go anywhere and get service.

I can get service at the bodega down the street from my apartment in New York City. I can get service from the counter at McDonald's. I can get service from my car dealership. I can get service anywhere.

I can get service with a smile. That's the next step up, or somebody's smiling and grateful that I'm there. Hospitality to me is the gift of why we do what we do. Hospitality to me is setting a party for every single table that enters your section.

Even on the days where you're getting three or four tops, or not tops, three or four tables immediately. You're getting flat sat right away. And even if you only have 10 seconds in your greet to go over with that welcoming aura, with that energy that says, I'm really grateful that you came today. I'm here to throw this for the next however long we're together.

You might be in and out, you might not even look at me, but it's still my responsibility in this role to put on that show for you, to make you feel something, even if it's please go away, you're too much. Um, so yeah, I think the the opportunity that we have to truly turn someone's day around, we don't know what people are going through when they're walking through the door. Some people come in because they're hungry, some people come in because they're hangry, some people come in just to get shit off their back and put it on their server or their bartender.

I've certainly had nights where people come in and they just want to sit down and tell you their life story because you're you're not a part of their lives. It doesn't matter, but it feels like free therapy. So I get that. Um, I think that the work that we get to do and the work that we have to remind ourselves that we're responsible for is that when they're in our care, and this comes from a classroom motto of mine I never get to choose my students, but I'm with you for nine months in hospitality or in the industry.

I don't get to pick my guests, but I'm with you for about 90 minutes. Going from a nine month period of working with families that, you know, had biases or didn't like me from the get go. It's well, I'm gonna see you every day for quite some time. With my guests, I have a much shorter period of time.

So if you don't like me, you're gonna get up and leave in an hour and a half and you can choose never to come back, even if I give you my all, even if I continue with that service with a smile. And and it's just it's my job. That's my job. That's my role.

That's my why. I mean, Simon Sinek is huge for me. Um, his a theory about our whys getting us out of bed every day and uh why we do and who we are. Um, it's just it's it's a part of it's a part of us, it's a part of our buildup.

So hospitality is is the reason. It's it's what we get the gift of giving. And I think that's important too, to understand the why. You know, that's what we talk about a lot is understanding and identifying your employees' why, or at least getting them to understand it and how it connects to their job and ultimately giving a hospitality experience, right?

Why does it connect? Because your why is gonna be different than my whys, be different than his whys, be different than her why. So what are those whys and and how do we make a connection for them? Because not everyone's gonna say, well, hospitality is my why, changing lives isn't my why, making people in a better mood isn't my why.

They're just not gonna, they're just not gonna see it that way, right? They it might be, right? They're just not connecting the dots in their head where they're going, oh wait, that does actually get me excited, right? Or that motivates me or that benefits me.

Or they the other flip side is they just don't see that it's possible. Right. They're like, dude, we're serving burgers and beer. Yeah.

What am I what are you talking about? Like, we're not changing anybody's lives. Sorry. Yeah, they that's how that's how they feel.

But to your point, look, are we changing every person's lives that walk walks in the door? No, of course not. We can't have an I tell we can't have an impact, right? Because when people walk in the door, like you said, you don't know what they're going through.

Um, I don't feel like anybody's ever gonna not come back because someone was too giving too much, right? They might say, like, man, that was a lot, right? It's a lot of energy, but I'm not like I'm not coming back because of that. I will definitely not come back if someone's just terrible or irritating or under, you know, or just lack, just totally lacks care.

Um, but I won't, I always come back even if someone gives too much. And I always a caution leadership of that where I'm like, because I go, Preston, you gotta make sure that you read the table. Yes, but you know, reading the table is a dangerous game, you know, because sometimes people are just different, right? So for example, if you come up, right, and and you a server walks up to you and has a lot of energy, you're gonna probably give him a lot of energy back, right?

And then he's this guy's awesome. I love him. Like this is they're they're great, right? We're having that that server's gonna read you right away and say he's gonna want this attention, awesome.

And then he might come up to me. I might be tired, long day, traveling, just flew in to that tired. I want to eat, he comes up and I'm kind of quiet, but that doesn't mean I don't want hospitality or that attention. It just means I just don't have the energy you have, right?

So to say we can read people, yes, you can, but there's that is a high level of emotional intelligence that very few people hold to truly read everyone. So I always say, you know, caution with error and and and just go for it. Yeah, give them the freaking energy, right? Like, like why not?

Like just do it because it's always gonna be more of more wins and losses in that situation. Absolutely. And I I would go back to the idea of throwing a party. You know, not every party looks the same.

Uh if you're hosting, you know, two or three friends over for a game night that's gonna look very different than a wedding. Um, so the amount of detail, the amount of energy, the amount of ourselves that we put into each different party is similar to how we approach tables or how I think we should approach tables. If I walk up to a table and the parents are, it's a two, it's a four-top, and there's two parents and two little kids, and the kids are both screaming and the parents look like they're gonna rip their hair out.

I'm gonna approach that table very differently than a table that is an eight-top that has quince and yeta balloons, and the kids are all dressed up nice and happy. It's a part of our job to read tables. It's a part of our job to read body language, it's a part of our job to understand who we're greeting. Um, I'm certain this has happened to every server at some point in time.

You've walked up to a table, started your greet, and they don't speak English. And you go, okay, how much skill set do I have in my toolbox to truly be able to engage with this person when we don't speak the same language? Um, I've been very privileged. I've gotten to travel a bit outside of this country, and I've had my own times where I've walked into restaurants.

My favorite story is um I was in Paris and my family and I went to a fondue place that a friend of mine had suggested. And the uh waiter was not very happy about the fact that we were not French in his restaurant and no greet, no nothing came over, and it was like, I don't speak English, you don't speak French, what do you want? And every time we pointed at a visual on their menu because their menu were pictorial, he went, No. Okay, how about this one?

No, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And after the eighth or ninth note, he turned around and walked away. And we sat there for a minute saying, Are we gonna leave? He just basically stormed off.

And then about five minutes later, nine plates hit the table. His no was essentially a what else. What else are you getting? So the three of us that were in this restaurant got enough food to feed a family of 36.

And that to me is an example of the opposite of what we have the intentionality of doing here in our states. And yeah, I just I I think I think it's it's a part of the job. It's a part of the job to understand who your people are and what they want from you. Because there are definitely situations where people want more energy.

They want to, you they want you to put on the show. And there are the people that are sitting down to tell their kids that they're getting a divorce and they don't want you there. And it's not to take it personal. My job isn't to be your best friend.

My job isn't to get engaged to you after this. My job is to provide an experience for you to feel warm, to feel welcome, and to know that I'm here to take care of you. And taking care of you looks very different depending on your needs. Yeah, I mean, that's part of it for sure.

And then there's also the piece where, you know, and you you brought this up earlier where we're gonna just have the fact that some people are just probably not gonna be super friendly. Yeah. And that's okay. And sometimes, you know, if you can flip that person, it becomes really powerful, right?

Someone might just be having a freaking crazy bad day, bad month, bad, you know, six things happened to them that changed their life dramatically, and they're short with you, but you overcoming that instead of reacting like probably every other human being has reacted to them by going, okay, like screw you too, right? Screw you, okay, cool. All right, uh, I see it, whatever, right? I'm just gonna lean in with a little bit more kindness, right?

Lean in with a little bit more care and empathy. I can see your hurting. Yeah, I can see something is a little bit deeper, and I'm gonna lean in with a little bit more care, and then they just go, holy crap, like that alone made me feel so much better. That there's someone that just cares enough to like not just shun me when I'm like hurting and I'm reacting, but like, hey, like putting their hand out saying, Hey, I got you, like you're you're not alone, right?

Yeah, and that that that has a huge impact, but you know, it's it's the ego comes into play so fast. Very cool, right? How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you disrespect me like that?

I had a story of uh a guy we was to work with and he was a server who just you just he was someone that has a superpower where he could just never get offended, right? He just didn't he just had that ability about it. I'm like, just just never got offended, right? Just someone was was even with employees, other employees, right?

They give him a hard time and he couldn't get under his skin. He just just didn't it just happen didn't happen. And so he had this uh table by one guy by himself, and it was lunchtime, and I'm on the computer, I was the manager, and and I saw him walk up and he's like, Hey, my name's Brett, you know, how's it how are and the guys just stops him and goes iced tea? He's like looking at the menu, like this, iced tea.

And then Brett goes, absolutely, did you want a lemon with your iced tea? And then he goes, It's an iced tea, so yeah, I want a lemon with it. Did I say no lemon? And then Brett's like, honestly, that was that is a kind of a dumb question.

Then I think about it. Yeah, I got you. Iced tea, lemon coming right up. And so he walks away, and I go in the kitchen and I'm like, hey, are you okay, man?

Because that was a little harsh. And you know, he's like, Yeah, Brett's like, I'm fine, dude. He's having a bad day, clearly. Like, don't worry about it.

I'm like, okay. And so I went back like half hour later. I'm on the computer and I'm seeing them. This is you know, another computer, I'm seeing them far away, and they're like laughing together.

And I'm like, fuck Brett, man, so impressive. And so afterwards, the guy came up to me and he was just like, and I figured he'd be like, Oh, Brett's awesome, you know. And he came up and he goes, Hey, you know, is are you the manager? I go, Yeah, and he goes, Brett over there, he's not just a uh a good server or good employee that you said employee, a good employee that you have.

Um, he's a freaking good person. And I was like, Thanks, man, I appreciate that. Yeah, Brett's awesome. He's really good.

He goes, No, he's like, I uh I had a really serious family death 30 days ago, and I haven't smiled uh till today, so you know, appreciate him. And I was like, awesome, and you can hear like the heaviness in his voice, right? How serious he was. But I just tell people, I'm like, I always tell that story because I'm like, dude, you don't know, you just don't know, right?

And our gen and it's like it's such a fast and easy way just to judge and get upset and shortchange that person. But like you said, this is the opportunity that we have. That's why the entitlement thing worries me so much and it's so detrimental because you're just totally watering down what the ability that we have as an industry to connect with people, change people, help people, improve people's lives, and change people because you just make it all about money. Yeah, right.

And yes, we're all here to make money, but this is like you're you're you're you're looking at the wrong thing, you're looking at the smallest piece of the picture. There's something so much bigger, right? Like one day we're gonna be gone, right? What's the biggest freaking impact?

What's the most important thing? It's people, it's not gonna be money, it's gonna be people, and like no one's gonna be like, oh man, remember uh Preston, he always he always got the most tips, man. If he didn't, he would set he would set those people straight. He was it's like the impact we're trying to have is the wrong.

And that's and so that's why it's a big deal to me because I don't not only do I care about like the industry and the and the people, but I also care about like the person, the the server who's thinking this way. Because it's just a it's just a trap. And you've been in the industry long enough to know it's like, man, you end up in the wrong place and it's not fun when the party's over and you're the last one in the room. It's uh it's it's not fun, right?

And and it's sad, and it's and and and not only are you the only one in the room, but you just have a decade or two decades of just pent up anger, toxicity in your head of with this industry, right? That you've just like let consume you, and all of a sudden you're the angry older server, yep, right? That's just always freaking angry. And and it's like, and I and I hate that.

And I'm like, especially with this younger generation, I'm like, I want to see them be more successful and have more a chance of being successful and being happy. And that's why I'm like, but there that it seems like as time, and tell me what you think about this, as time goes on, it seems like the industry just gets more toxic, right? And gets more narrow-minded and more about uh uh money, right? And then and myself, me versus like what you just talked about.

Seems like it should be pretty obvious, right? Like what you're saying, you're like, am I saying anything new here? Is this like, is this rocket science? Am I but but but when you hear it, it's so rare, right?

Because we've had interviews not just here with servers, but we've I go in and I train servers and I talk to them and I have conversations with them all the time, and very rarely is this conversation when I talk to them, can they just articulate like, man, this is about the freaking experience, right? We can change people's lives and stuff like that. So, what are you seeing from your side when because you're working side by side with servers every day? Yeah.

Over the past, you know, you know, uh decade, even working side by side with servers. What's the temperament out there? Uh well, it's it's diverse. I mean, for sure.

You have people that have been in their positions for decades in some restaurants. You have people that the retention, they get maybe six months to a year and then they jump to the next place. And I have this quote tattooed on my ankle, which is wherever you go, there you are. My aunt, it's in my aunt's handwriting.

And the reason that I had her write it for me was because we she and I are very close. Um, but also she said it's me my entire life. And it's her mantra. It's wherever you go, there you are.

And that is so simplistic, but so meaningful because you showing up as who you are isn't going to change, um, no matter which restaurant you're working with or which GM you're trying to impress or which guests you're trying to get the most money from. How much can I sell? Can I sell? Can I sell?

Can I upcharge? Can I add on a chicken breast onto the sandwich to add 10 bucks? Can I change it from the well vodka to the Tito's vodka? All of these little pieces inside of your head about selling, which is primarily our job.

We're here to make money for an organization or a restaurant, the company that is the ownership of this company. But further than that, outside of just making those sales, um, isn't about the result of the tip. It's the result of their happiness in the moment. It's the result of I am, yes, I'm here to make money, but I could also go do that um with or without a degree in another location.

I can, I can make money wherever I want to work. But I chose here. Why did I choose here? Okay, it's fast cash.

I know that if I sell enough and if people like me just enough, they'll leave me that 20%, maybe even 18%. But by chasing after those numbers, we're immediately eliminating the purpose of why we dine out. We're eliminating the reason why people are joining together at a restaurant. Um, one of my favorite mentors that I've had in my life, um, whenever we would have a staff meeting, did two things.

First, there was always some food on the table. There was always food. It could just be a loaf of bread, but it was the practice of breaking bread together and being in community. Second was that there was an open chair because it was who's not here that we're not that we're not including in this conversation that we want to think about joining into our group or joining into the team.

And I think both of those are actionable steps within our service as well and within our industry. I have two books that I carry around with me a lot. Um, one I read in anticipation, like for the 50th time for this interview today, uh, was Will's Will Gridaro's um Unreasonable Hospitality. That book to me, that I hold on to as my reminder for every negative possibility that can happen when I walk into work that somebody doesn't like me or I don't get the 20% tip.

Um, it's the conscious effort and reminder of saying, but I'm still here and I'm still doing the job. The second book is um Mel Robbins' Let Them Theory because I can't control where you're coming from. I can't control how you're feeling today. But what I can control is allowing you to feel that way while also deciding for myself that my purpose within this interaction, my service to you, my hospitality to you today is me choosing that even though you're hot or you're cold, I'm still gonna show up with the same level of energy so that hopefully I can turn that day around.

I can turn this moment around. Right now, I've transitioned from working from nighttime into breakfast only. I've been doing breakfast for about two years. So my opportunity is to wake people up.

And I'm pretty loud. I um I start, I get a lot of questions in the morning usually about like, what are you on? And it's always um, espresso in a dream, baby. Espresso in a dream, because that's how I start my day.

Um, it's it's my opportunity to say to the people that sit at my tables when they are quiet or when they're not showing as much engagement with me of saying, it's okay in 90 minutes, we'll be best friends after I fed you, after you get you that cup of coffee. And it happens every table, every day. Once again, I might never see you again. And I become that long-distant relative that you call every time you want to show up for a bite to eat.

But it's it's I will continue to repeat this again and again. And I'm sorry if it gets repetitive, but it's simply just it is my responsibility. It's my job. And if I want to continue having my job, then I better do a pretty good job at making people feel like they're welcome.

And there's two things to that. One is that it is your job, and that's one thing that always just blows my mind because I know for a fact that every manager talks about hospitality and guest experience in the interviews, right? Um, they might not articulate it perfectly, but that's important to them. And they talk about it.

And so, and I don't and I don't think anybody understands thinks this confused of why they're in this industry, right? We're here to be of service and to serve service, right? Hospitality, guest experience, gratitude, gratuity. And so I always tell people, you know, you signed up for this, right?

You got this job saying, Yes, I will. And there's no boss. I was like, hey, are you good at hospitality? And I'm like, no, and like, okay, we're gonna hire you anyway.

Like, we thanks for being up front. No, they're you're saying, Oh, yeah, no, no, no, I'll be great. Hire me. No, no, no, I'm great.

I love the guests, I love guest experience. I'm gonna take care of them. That's my number one thing. That's all I care about.

Okay, awesome. But then you don't want to live up to it, right? For whatever reason, all these excuses start pouring in, the management, this, those coworkers that, the guests, this, right? My, you know, my personal stuff that.

And all of a sudden, these reasons of why you're not doing it or you're being a subpar version of it. When you did sign up for it, that's your word that you gave someone where they said, you know what, we'll trust you. We'll trust you with our business to take care of our guests, and we're trusting you. And you went back on it.

You said, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna live up to my word. And that's important. That's all you have, right?

But number two is also one thing that I don't get with about people is they're okay with spending a majority of their life practicing being mediocre, practicing being an 80%, 70%, 60% version of themselves. Most people spend most of their lives working, right? Your waking hours, you're spending a majority of it working, minimum half of it, but more than that usually. And you're okay with saying, I'm gonna show up as a 60, 70% version of myself.

I'm not gonna give it everything. And I have a reason why, right? Again, manager this, just coworkers that, guess this, personal life that. So I'm just gonna show up at 60 or 70%.

A lot of it, too, is this happens in our industry a lot. We deserve better. I should be somewhere else. I do, I'm better than this serving job, I'm better than this hosting job, I'm better than this busing job, I'm better than this running job.

And so I'm just gonna give 60 or 70%. When I get over here, then I'm gonna really give 100% of myself, right? I'm gonna show the world what I made of because I want this and I'm passionate about it. But over here, I'm only gonna give 60 or 70% because, you know, I deserve better and I'm better than this.

I'm better than this serving gig, right? And that's where like people like Tyler Florence do this really well, where it's like I tell people like the superpower is detaching your ego from your title and detaching your performance from your pay, right? So I perform at a high level, it doesn't matter how much I'm being paid. That doesn't dictate my standards, that doesn't dictate my my, I'm 120%.

That's how I operate. I want to be the best in the room no matter what I'm doing. Do you know who Tyler Florence is? I don't.

So he's a celebrity chef. Okay. Freaking crazy all over food network, right? Has been on Net Food Network for like a long time.

And also wrote a bunch of books and also has a lot of successful restaurants. And he doesn't do the whole like, I put my name on it. He just opens really good restaurants, you know, and you're like, oh, this is owned by Tyler Florence. He's just great at running restaurants.

And he's about as successful as you can be as a chef, right? Like you can't, like he took, he took a career and became as successful as humanly possible in that career, which is a rarity in any career, right? I would say maybe Gordon Ramsey has more success than then, maybe Jamie Oliver. But outside of that, it's like Tyler Florence.

And so I asked Tyler Florence, I was like, hey, what was your first job, you know, in the in the restaurant industry? And he's like, my first job was I was a dishwasher. And I was like, oh, nice. And I was like, I can't picture Tyler, you know, big bad Tyler Florence being a dishwasher.

You know? And I go, What were you like as a dishwasher? And I remember he he were there for that interview too. Remember, he got so serious and he leaned in and he goes, Preston, I was the best goddamn dishwasher to grace the face this earth.

And I laughed. You know, I kind of just chuckled because it was he was so freaking serious about it. And I kind of just had didn't do, I couldn't I all I did was laugh, and he kind of just didn't move a muscle. And I go, Oh, you're serious?

Uh like tell me about that. You could tell he went and he's like, O'Brien, I had a freaking my my system, I was the fastest freaking dishwasher. The soap, I had it down to a T to where I never wasted soap. I would never waste a company's money on taking out too early.

But when Tyler Florence is in the kitchen, it's never gonna be out of soap. You're not gonna catch me dad with that soap empty. If I saw a surfer walking in the kitchen, I don't care if it was I couldn't even see them because there's so many plates stacked. I run out from behind the kitchen, I grab those plates all night long, pressing be pouring sweat.

He was like, I was the best freaking dishwasher to grace the face of this earth. When you hear him talk about it and the freaking pride he had, right? Like, just not saying like, oh, dishwasher. Yeah, I mean, I was fine, I was good, but like, yeah, I was, you know, he wasn't like, oh man, one day they're gonna see what I'm made of, you know.

But till then, I'm just gonna, you know, this is just a dishwashing gig. I'm so much better than this, right? He didn't care. He removed he removed his ego from his title and his performance from his pay.

It wasn't about how much he got paid, it wasn't about the title. It was about I well, I'm doing something, I'm gonna be the best at it. Yeah, that's it. That's my freaking mindset.

That's all. That's it. I attack, right? If life's too short to put titles on things and and and attach your ego to stupid things, right?

And let my ego dictate my standards and my performance and the way I can change people's lives when I have that opportunity instead of wasting that, I'm just gonna freaking be the best in the room. That's what I freaking do. And so seeing that, I was like, dude, it just was like a light bulb. I was like, I understand, right?

I get it. I get why you became Tyler Florence because that's the mentality it takes. And that's what I think, you know, people in our industry especially just lack so much. It's like, man, take some freaking pride in what you do.

Absolutely. You know, like you're doing something, we're doing hard work, and if you're doing it right, you're gonna be changing people's lives. And it's and it's and it's a uh uh a gift to have it. And we're lucky we're in a society where they say, We'll tip you, right?

We'll give you 20%. We will do it as a society. We all agree that we'll do it. And and we get the opportunity to make a living off it and be able to be a part of it.

So I think it's huge. So I love that you have that mentality, right? Yeah, it's Important. I think language is everything too.

Language is one of the most powerful, whatever you want to call it, gift tool that we have and how we talk to others and how we talk to ourselves, either about others or about ourselves. And I just think that the way that we talk about what we do, the way that we engage with other people, I think it's really important that if you're working in the industry, that you're a people person because we are people facing and we're going to be constantly surrounded by a different number of people every day.

Slow day, maybe you have a guest come in. I know that there were days when I was working at my restaurant in Boston that on Monday nights after we opened Mondays and the theater district's dead, we'd have a single person walk in and I sat down playing checkboard uh checkboard with my bartender for three hours until we could close up shop. And then I know that there are days where the theater is bustling and there's going to be four rushes throughout a three-hour period. Doesn't change how you show up, though.

It doesn't change how you talk about your income because in Boston, I was making $3 and a quarter an hour. So on those Monday nights where I was there for four hours, I was making $15 to go home with. And after taxes, it was zero. So I got nothing effectively to go in and sit down for four hours, but I got to play a game of great chess.

And I got to have that opportunity to get to know my bartender more, which then led to me on days where it was crazy, I could look at him and know he had my back and knew that if I would, if the the drinks were dying at the well, he could pick them up and run them for me without any conversation. Um, I think I think that language is is really, really important, especially with how we talk about ourselves and our own mind. Um, going back to unreasonable hospitality for just a moment, there's that line of that changed my life truly of whenever somebody asks you, you know, how's your day going?

You say, Well, I'm trying to make today the best day of my entire life. And even saying that out loud right now, the endorphins that are released in my brain, the chills that I get on my arms, do I believe it? Did I have the best service day today? Am I going home to my family tonight?

No. But does it actually shift my brain space? Does it make me feel something? It does.

Because we're people and people have power and people use language to have further power. So I I just think it's really, really critical. And we have to look through a critical lens of when we're at work or outside of work, that the language that we're using with ourselves, with our friends, most importantly in this conversation with our guests and with the rest of our team is pointed in a direction that we want to go towards. So if you're gonna stay in the mentality of, well, I'm only giving 60% of myself, well, where's that other 40%?

Why do you not value this? If you don't value it, what other opportunities do you have to get yourself to a place where you feel valued, where you feel 100%? And maybe that space in between those two places is a decade. Maybe you're looking to be a doctor, and I can't be a doctor tomorrow because I need to go to med school.

Okay, well, what do you have the opportunity to do right now? What do you have the opportunity to do today? And if you don't have an answer to that, that's okay too. Right.

But let's figure it out. Let's figure out where you're supposed to be. Um and maybe this location isn't the right one. That doesn't mean you get X'd out.

It doesn't mean that you leave you have no job or opportunity to have employment here. But maybe this isn't the best place for you. And without any ego, without any emotion towards that line, just saying, what is the best version that you can be today? And if it's not here, let's find the right place.

Yeah, I I agree with that. And I you you're saying language, I say framing. I mean it's the same thing, but it's like that's that's what it is. It's in my opinion, is it's how you frame things is everything.

And and what you what you just said, you do have the power to control what things are, right? And so it's easy to sit there and go, just another Monday or whatever, another Tuesday, right? I'm gonna walk in. There's gonna be no one that walks in all day long, right?

All of a sudden you said, like you said, the way you're talking to yourself, it's just like you're just you're just creating this bad night, right? Versus, hey, I'm gonna go in, play some chess, have some fun, you know, connect with a friend, connect with the bartender, and then I'll be on my way. Like life could be worse, right? I could be freaking uh born, you know, a hundred years before this and living until I was 32, right?

And getting getting uh killed by a cold. Exactly, right? Um I could be living in a time where there's no running water and there's no cell phones and no electricity and no, like we live in the one of the best times to be alive, and we have so much that we can do, right? And so many things that that that are uh accessible to us.

Like I was at an airport and I'm like, I was like kind of I I don't know why this kind of clicked, but I was I was I think it was like there's like a something playing or an ad and it was saying like when this airport was built, you know, it's like way back in the day. And I was like thinking about it. And I'm like, you know what's crazy is that there was a time before there was commercial flights, and so there was this idea, right? Imagine being in that time where there's this idea where they're like, we're gonna come out with these commercial flights where you can fly to another country before you had to take a freaking boat, right?

You can fly to another country or to or to across the across the country to then you know another state or or into the middle, you can travel so much easily, it's so much easier. And there's people that were like, Oh my god, I can't wait. When's that airport gonna open? I can't.

I've just there's excitement they must have had to be able to do that and they had to wait, you know, in anticipation for these airports and airplanes and systems to be built for them to do it, and they just had to sit there and wait. We just live in a society where we literally can like, if we want to tonight, we can go freaking fly to another country. Yeah. We can make we can buy the tickets and we can get out, we can go to the airport, we can go fly to another country.

So we live in a really good time. So it's like stopping for a minute and just saying, like, that's you know, like, hey, like I'm going into work today, life is good. Like I can make this the best freaking day. I can make this a good day.

I can decide that this can be a good day, right? And I can really like power power through that. And it takes a little bit, right? It's not gonna always be like, oh, on, but that that appreciation, and then just like you said, having a job and saying we're there.

And and listen, if this isn't for you, that's awesome. You will get there, but like you have to you have to earn it, right? We have to get there, right? I want to be this.

Okay, cool. Let's practice at this job now, show up as a best version of yourself, make a little bit of money, put some money in the bank, walk, work towards that, maybe go to school again. The the luxury of being able to go to school during the day and work at night, or go to work during the day and go to school at night, whatever it is. I can earn that while I'm doing this.

I have a way to make a living and support myself while doing that, and then I can go onto that next role. But if I sit here and sulk and say how much it sucks and tips and this and that, and I hate this and blah, blah, blah. It's just a it's gonna be a long road, right? Uh, my collegiate mentor, his name is Michael Posnik.

I'm dropping him a line here. Uh, his words that I or probably the next ones will get tattooed, but we have it hanging in my apartment right now. It's what you put your attention to grows. And I heard that every day for four years.

And I believe that to be the truest statement of everything. What you put your attention to grows. If you foster a space in your mirror, in your brain, how you speak, everything is negative. There's a there's a problem with everything.

I'm not good enough. My tips aren't high enough. Um, table 26 is asking me for hot water and lemon. Great.

Another no sales on drinks day. Um, I can't sell a single dessert. My manager is mad at me because I was 15 minutes late. You let that all pile on.

You are anticipating the rest of your day to be that way because that is what you are putting your attention to. So, how can you reverse it? In the middle of a rush, in the middle of the craziest day of the year being Mother's Day, let's put it just because it was recent. Um, I'm in the weeds.

I can't take a breath of air. I don't have a moment to get a sip of water, my throat is dry. I'm running around, I've taken 10 miles around this restaurant in the last three hours. Okay, well, what opportunities do I have here?

I might not have a moment to take a break, but can I pass a colleague and give that wink of an eye and just know, okay, my people are still here? Can I go up to that one table that has a kid who's been nagging and nagging and nagging and offer an opportunity to say, hey, what's going on here? How are you? What's who who are you and where are you coming from?

It's it's a genuine investment in the process of what we do, of taking the time in between you taking the order and the food arriving to the table, that you have that leeway, especially if it's quiet and there's an awkward level or people don't know how to make conversation happen at a table, that you can walk over and be that guide, that you can be that person. So what whatever you're doing in whatever industry you're a part of, but specifically in the restaurant culture, if you put your attention to a place of money, if you put your attention to the place of I, I, I can't stand half of my guests or I can't um stand my management or whatever that might be, that's only going to foster further.

If you can allow yourself to think positively, and all of this is privilege, right? I mean, all of this is in a space of like, okay, you're watching this on this uh wherever this is going, and you say, okay, here's another guy who's had it good. It's not always been good. Not every day is great.

Today was not a great day for me, if I'm being very honest. And it still is making a choice of saying, okay, well, when you leave that door, when you leave your front door in the morning, when you leave the restaurant after you're done with work, when you take that breath, when you have the moment to finally breathe and say, This may all be true. My day may have sucked so far. I now have the opportunity to do something different with it.

And for every person on earth it's gonna look very different. Maybe you can call a friend, you can call a mom, you can call a dad, you can go on a walk if you need some private time to yourself. Maybe it's I'm gonna go to Starbucks and get my favorite latte just so that I can sit and for that first zip, know exactly how I'm gonna feel once my endorphins are re-released, or that I can finally just say I don't have to talk to anyone else for the rest of the night and I can go home and binge watch Bravo.

It can be literally anything you fill in the blank, but it's it's it's putting yourself in your own shoes to be able to take the walk in life of saying, This is my time, I can't get today back. I can't get back the last five hours that sucked. But you know what I can do? I can make the next five hours the best ones of my day in whatever that looks like to me.

That's legal, of course. Legal, yeah. Yeah, and I I I I agree. And I uh and I, you know, my my viewpoint is, and I we have the same viewpoint, it's just a different lens.

But my viewpoint is yes, like building yourself up as well. Like when you talk about getting time back, right? It's like, or or your time, it's like, okay, if I'm gonna spend five hours at a shift, that's gonna be tough. And how do I build myself up?

Because I talk about leveraging your time, and that's why I say, like, your tips just don't matter. You're gonna make 200 bucks that night, awesome. It I you know, I tell people all the time, I you know, there's it, it's it's like I always say, like, when you look back at high school, there's probably so many, there's probably a couple of moments in high school that were so heavy. Mine was I got, you know, we broke uh me and my girlfriend had broken up in high school, and I remember thinking, like, this is it.

Life sucks, it's over. I, I, you know, I I I just I just screwed up worldly and my life will never be the same again. All this stuff. It was so heavy, right?

And I look back now and I'm like, dude, like it wasn't. It made it, it had literally no impact on my the best wife in the world. I have uh I make a great living uh doing something that I love. Like it just didn't stop anything from happening.

It was just, but back then I was like, this is so heavy, so important. This is so important, right? It's more important than anything. And it wasn't.

It was one of the least important things. And and the same thing, it's like when you're going through like work and stuff like this, this moment, it's like these things are important. That $200 just isn't, I'm sorry, it's just not gonna be important. It's yes, it's gonna help you pay bills in the media, but right, it's just not.

You're gonna look back right on your deathbed, you're like, oh so god, I made that 200. Like it doesn't work that way, right? It's you, you it's it's it's like think way bigger, go big picture here. Like, and so when I why I say that is because you go into work, don't worry about the 200, you're not there for the 200.

Don't devalue yourself at the 200 because I always go in a room and I ask people, I go, who here values their time? And everyone does this, right? Of course, right? But the truth is, most people don't value their time.

They like the to the concept of valuing their time, they think they value their time, but they don't truly value their time. And the reason why I say that is because you're gonna go into work and say you're gonna make $300. Let's just say you make $50 an hour. You're gonna go into work and say, okay, I'm gonna sign off my time for $50 an hour.

Sold. I now value myself at $50 an hour in this moment. Or I'm gonna go into work and I'm gonna guess get $50 an hour for my time. And I, but what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna take this opportunity I have right now, this Mother's Day rush, right?

Or this Monday when it's slow, whatever it is, right? Create, you know, good shift, bad shift, doesn't matter. I'm gonna go in at eight hours, it's not about the freaking money. That's the least thing, that's the least value I'm getting from my money.

What I'm gonna do is leverage this day and these eight hours into the next, and I'm gonna have a compounding interest and I'm gonna keep letting it snowball until I can build myself up. And when that opportunity comes at me, I'm freaking ready and I'm gonna capitalize it, I'm gonna seize it. And so Will Gadera, Unreasonable Hospitality, right? Great story, great example where he says, I'm just gonna freaking put everything, pour everything into this restaurant that I work for to make them the best restaurants.

I don't know what it looks like. I don't know the blueprint, I don't know what this is taking me, but I'm gonna keep doing that and keep doing that, right? And now Will Gadera, when he's sleeping, right, his bank account's just growing. Yeah, you know what I mean?

He's just selling, it's like books old, books old, books old, right? He's just seeing their like appearance, all this stuff. And there's a saying by Napoleon Hill the man who does more than what he's paid for will soon be paid for more than what he does. And Will Gadera freaking is just proof of that, right?

Will Godera wasn't like one day I'm gonna be selling all these books. He was just like, I'm gonna give it everything, always. That's it. I don't care if I'm working in that little rinky dink restaurant or if I'm working for Danny Myers' little QSR where he's like, Oh, we're go just go handle the QSR, Will, right?

And but I'll I yes, sir. I'm gonna make it the freaking best QSR there is, right? And then he gets a lead in Madison, boom, and it's just like, and now he that's what I'm saying. He leveraged his time, right?

It's like, how do we leverage our time from going 50 bucks an hour to 500 bucks an hour to 5,000 an hour, right? But we leverage our time to get better, or we leverage our time for fulfillment, spiritual fulfillment, right? I'm gonna come in here and yes, the 50 bucks is nice, but I'm also going to fulfill myself by by filling other people, right? And giving people an amazing experience, being cognizant of that.

But the worst way that you can spend your time is actually just trading it straight up for money. Correct. That's the absolute worst way you can view it. And that's what most people do.

And that's why I try and tell people like, dude, like it's not about the money, it's not about the tip. I prom, oh, I'm gonna pay, I'm gonna pay my my my bills with with with hospitality. It's like, dude, it's I I get it, but it's not, you're just I'm just telling you, like, think about it. Just go big picture for a second, right?

And that unlocks a lot of things for you because it's just like it's just like this, there's a little light. I might just like it's just just expand it a little bit because there's so much more that life offers, that you can offer life that you can do, that you can accomplish, but everybody just tip, right? Um, everything is momentary, is my biggest first reaction to that. Uh, bad days, good days, all of it.

It's all momentary. It's day to day, it's moment to moment. Um, and also once again, just recognizing my gratitude for having this conversation right now, but recognizing the privilege that I have to sit in this chair. I've worked in many locations with people who are from all different diverse aspects of the human experience.

I've worked with people that are in the restaurant work and their parents are filthy rich. And it's just we need you to understand how life works a little bit. But don't worry, your bills are still covered. So they don't care about how much money they're making when they walk in the door.

In fact, I've worked with those people who give out their tips to their fellow staff members at the end of the night because they don't need it. And then I've worked with people that have no one to call home to, that don't have a family, that didn't receive an education, that dropped out of high school and ended up in in wherever they are, in whatever restaurant, in whatever field. And I I just think it's really important to highlight the privilege here with that in and saying that, of course, and I'm so with you in that mentality, but also recognizing that for some people, jumping into a gambling kind of position, because restaurant work, depending on where you are, can be a gamble.

It can be, okay, I'm here because I'm only after the money, which I just think is the wrong way to walk into it in general. But for the people that do, I think there's a gamble aspect because you are gambling. Will people come in? Will they drop me the 20%?

Will somebody be kind enough to drop me the $100? Will will I give enough of myself? Will that be enough? And that's why for so much of what you've said already, I think it's super important um to highlight on the fact that as people, we we have the value structure to walk into a space for work and just give 110% of ourselves because that's what we have the ability to do.

It's the choice that we make. Um, and also is saying that when you're at your your weakest link or you're on your worst day, or that, okay, it's it's the second of the month and my entire bank account has just been depleted because I paid my rent, because I paid my all the bills that come piled up and now I'm back at square one and I have nothing and I have no one to call and I don't know what I'm gonna eat for dinner tonight, and I hope to God there's a family meal. That's when I look at some people and I just say, you know, like what can we do together?

That's where team, that's where kinity comes in. Um, so I just highlight privilege and opportunity there as well, because depending on who's watching, it's it's just important for all angles, I think. So sorry, because clear that a little bit, clarify that a little bit more. Yeah.

Um, so I from just walking in life and I've lived in many locations. I'm a Sagittarius, so I can't sit still for longer than like three years of time. Um, but I've worked with people who who have lots of privilege, and I've worked with people where privilege is seen as like I'm the underdog here and I I can't take the next step forward. I'm hesitant to because of my experience, because of the baggage that I bring with me or my life experience thus far, in saying, okay, I I um grew up in the foster care system and I got kicked out when I was 18, and I ended up in hospitality because that was the easiest job for me to get without having, you know, uh degrees or not, like we were saying before about, you know, not having a degree, but having education within the working environment.

Um I still think that there's opportunity to show up as the best version of yourself, even on the hardest days. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm sober. So I that came with its own challenges.

Yeah. And that's a daily commitment. Yeah. So good for you.

Thank you. Um, and and you know, part of that though was there was, yeah. So there was, you know, we have the same, I think, viewpoint because we probably had around the same struggles, right? I had points where I didn't know what I was what I was gonna eat for dinner.

I had for points where I didn't have a car and I was trying to drive and get to work and get back, and I would try and sleep on people's floors and couches because they're close to my work and I can walk there. I remember one time I drove to work and I had no gas money and I was trying to make I was trying to make money and I had no gas money, no gas. And so I drove to work and I was like, I'm gonna pick up a shift. Right?

The way I'm gonna pick up that shift is I'm gonna show up in my uniform. I'm gonna ask every single person if they want to go home so I can work, put some gas in my car, have a little bit of money, and and and get something to eat, and no one would give me their freaking shift. And I wasted all my I had no gas to get to there. Well, like to get there, I wasted all my gas.

So I luckily, because I was it was like a thirty my job was like 30 minutes away, and luckily I had tips in the bank or in the in the um in the safe that I forgot about and that like filled up my tank. So I definitely get that it's not all you know, rainbows and unicorns for for uh for everybody. And obviously going through you know uh trials and tribulations with sobriety, you get to hear a lot of stories too of like, damn, right? Like wow, like it gets dark.

Um, and and that's I think where this messaging almost resonates to me personally, my experience, the most, where it's like, look, like you can um always persevere, you can always overcome. And again, kind of to your point of where you're saying, I want to make this the best day ever. Like we can, it's not necessarily that exact uh framing, but it is that, hey, I can do anything at this point still, right? There's just no matter because I've heard some stories where you're like, you would think someone can never get out of those depths of hell, right?

Of of you know, things that they've done, things that happened to them, stories that they've been told, family members, all this stuff. Like you're like, there's there most people would just say, I give up. I'm just gonna be, I'm just gonna, you know, feel sorry for myself, right? Versus the people that got back up on their feet and they said, No, I'm not gonna let this hold me down.

I'm not gonna let the let there's more to life and I want to experience it. And at the very least, I want to give back, right? That's my biggest thing. So I totally agree with you on that.

I think we're aligned, right? That's what you're saying. No, a hundred percent. Okay, yeah, yeah.

I think um a lot of the communities that I've worked within, outside of the industry, but within education settings, um, have primarily been inner city. I've worked in in in very what I think a lot of people would say would be tough locations um for whatever reason you want to identify there as tough. Um, I know for me, I was very privileged growing up. I grew up in downtown Chicago.

So I was in inner city myself. And then we got moved to a very schwanky, flanky uh Milford, Connecticut, which um thankfully I got accepted to that art school because that was much more diverse. It was a space where I got to see people that didn't look like me, that didn't have my background, uh, people that taught me so much and and and shaped the person that I am in front of you. Um, and that's why I I always enter every space in thinking about the privileges that I've had, the privilege that I have in this body as a as a male in this skin, um, as decorated as it become.

But it's it's just important to me as I'm analyzing my own experience to be open to the fact that other people haven't been as privileged. Um, and so I'm totally aligned with you while also recognizing that um people could be watching this and saying, okay, well, here's another dude who's got it lucky and he's happy and everything's great and yay. And the reality is that my life is not one big yay day, is that there is a conscious choice every day to wake up and say, it's not, it's not my job to walk in and tell all of my guests about the crap that I'm going through.

It's my job to show up and give them a warm, inviting space to so that they can enjoy their experience. Um, and that's also a superpower. Yeah. To be able to do that.

Yeah. Because that on that that be able to do that at work spills into your personal life and you being able to stop and persevere and get through it, right? And just kind of because there's that that like that layer that sometimes you wake up with, at least I do, right? Where I'm just like, it's just like everything sucks, right?

And you're just like, uh, and then you have to stop and go, hold on, let's just assess here for a minute. Is everything as bad as I think it is? And you realize it's not, and you move forward. So totally agree, man.

It but that's yeah, that's that's a framework I want to help try and put together where it's like, what does that look like when you wake up? And it's gonna be different for everybody, but how do you kind of a couple of steps you can take in the morning to go, wait a minute, things aren't that bad, right? I think somewhere in I saw this online where this guy walks up, you know, he's talking to someone, he goes, If he, if you know, if I give you a food suitcase full of $10 million, would you be excited?

Uh yeah, of course I'd be excited. Okay, but what if I told you you couldn't wake up tomorrow? Well, no, I wouldn't be excited. Okay, what if I made it $50 million, but you couldn't wake up tomorrow?

No, I wouldn't want it. So waking up tomorrow morning is worth more than $50 million. Yeah. Okay, so you should probably be smiling when you wake up tomorrow morning, right?

And I'm like, damn. It's like that puts perspective on it. Yeah. You're like, hmm, okay, yeah.

Because you just you forget. Yeah. You're like, oh, it's just another day. It's like, it's just another fucking day.

Yeah. Congratulations, right? You're here. You're here.

Like it's it is what it is. Let's fucking do this. Let's set, let's have some fun and just make it what it is instead of like, you know, looking at all the negative, which is what our minds always uh go towards, right? Yeah, yeah.

I have a set of regulars that come in almost every day in the morning just to have a beer at the bar. And it's my first beer of the day, is what they say every day they come in. And um, they every time that I ask them, you know, like, how's your day going? How's how's how's life?

It's well, I woke up today. So it's a great day. And I think it takes aging, it takes getting to a point of recognizing wow, life has really like crumbled my body a little bit, and I don't have as close of a relationship with this person that I used to, and all of these other factors that make it so difficult and challenging. But truly being able to acknowledge that, okay, yeah, no, but I did wake up today and I rolled out of bed and I got dressed and I'm here.

Yep, in one healthy community. Yep, exactly. All right, man. Well, hey, I really appreciate you being here.

It was an honor. Yeah, it really you inspired me a lot. So thank you so much. You inspire a lot of people with the work that you do, so thank you for what you do too.

I'm getting out the good messaging. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you, my friends.

Absolutely. Yeah.