Why Be Reasonable?
On Recommending Unreasonable Hospitality
I caught myself recommending a book yesterday to at least the tenth person since I first read it two years ago: Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara.[1] That fact alone is not so unusual. I’ve recommended several other books, philosophy and fiction alike, even more often than this one.
What caused me to pause and wonder about this recommendation is twofold: (1) this book is not my usual fare of philosophy or fiction and (2) each person to whom I recommended it works in an entirely different domain. With regard to the first reason, while some non-philosophical nonfiction is interesting, useful, or thought-provoking, the vast majority of it does not rise to the level of “You’ve got to read this one!” With regard to the second reason, it just dawned on me that among those I urged to read this book are a writer, a digital communications expert, a musician, an academic philosopher, a data analyst, a physical trainer, a teacher, a tech industry executive, a retired nurse, and a copyeditor.
What exactly is so special about this domain-crossing must-read? I’ll limit myself to three points and let you experience the pleasure of discovering more when you read it.
Gripping Storytelling
From why Guidara was drawn to the food and hospitality industry at age twelve by spellbinding service at the Four Seasons to how a $2 street-vendor hotdog got transformed into an unforgettable experience at his world-class, four-star restaurant Eleven Madison Park,[2] this book is packed with riveting stories. The stories themselves are poignant and entertaining, but each one has a larger point. All those points add up to one overarching message: when you pay attention with intention, you transform the experience of those you are serving, caring for, or working with “from black and white to color.”[3]
Personalized Excellence
A big part of what makes this book compelling is that Guidara sets a high bar—even an “unreasonably” high one—for human achievement. But anyone can grab hold of the key: personalize every experience. That means not taking yourself or those around you for granted or imposing some cookie-cutter formula on everything. You are a unique person with all sorts of untapped abilities that can be used at just the right moment to make someone feel special, as though you spent your life designing an experience just for them. You can’t plan this stuff, though. The best you can do to prepare is become the kind of person who can personalize on a dime. The skill of “improvisational hospitality” is demanding because “creativity is an active process, not a passive one.”[4] There are no short cuts to excellence, but Guidara makes the long journey look so doggone enticing and rewarding that you can hardly wait to try your hand at being unreasonably hospitable in your own way.
Ubiquitous Relevance
Guidara emphasizes that you can take the lessons he’s learned and incorporate them into any line of work: “I believe that whatever you do for a living, you can choose to be in the hospitality business,” where you “have an opportunity . . . to make magic in a world that desperately needs more of it.”[5] I take him to mean by this that, unless you are a hermit who lives totally off the grid in the wilderness, you provide some sort of good or service through your work and have some kind of interaction with other humans. Each day, you can choose to be present to your work and to those people, looking for chances to elevate your performance, words, and actions with touches of ingenuity, authenticity, and delightful quirkiness. Doing so makes you visible to others, who in turn can appreciate and feel seen by you.
Lest you think that it takes loads of money and time to do what Guidara has done, he shows through dozens of examples that he means it when he quips: “Luxury means just giving more; hospitality means being more thoughtful.”[6] Intention, visibility, and passionate individuality are all part of the low-cost but priceless secret sauce of what it takes to provide “unreasonable hospitality.”
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[1] Thanks to Daniel Richards and the team at Return on Ideas, some of the most unreasonably hospitable people I know, for selecting this book for one of our work retreats!
[2] See Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect (New York: Optimism Press, 2022), 9-10, for how Guidara got hooked on the restaurant business through a memorable dinner, and 199-200, for an account of how in the right hands a street-vendor hotdog became the stuff of legend.
[3] Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality, 8.
[4] Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality, 208 and 224.
[5] Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality, 20.
[6] Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality, 214.
Great column!
I'll definitely check out the book. The pursuit of excellence is almost always interesting and inspiring. It's why I like The Great British Baking Show. Nobody cuts any corners.
Thanks for posting.