I'm the Hospitality Guy

I chose this lane intentionally.

Not because hospitality is trendy. Not because it's a clever positioning strategy. But because I believe hospitality is one of the most virtuous traits anyone can embody—and that virtue has profound implications for how we lead, how we build teams, and how we serve clients.

Hospitality is powerful precisely because it's a virtue, not a tactic.

What Hospitality Actually Is

Here's my definition: hospitality is the outward expression of a spirit of concern for making others feel understood and cared for.

Notice what's not in that definition: "friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests." That's the Oxford version, and it misses something crucial. Hospitality isn't just about what you do—it's about what animates what you do. It originates from genuine care. It flows from a spirit that is actually concerned about the well-being of others, and then does intentional things to make them feel that way.

Without that animating spirit, you're not practicing hospitality. You're just entertaining.

This is why I believe hospitality is uniquely human. Only humans can care in this way. Only humans can deliver the genuine feeling of being thought of, seen, and valued. Entertainment can be automated. Care cannot.

The Design of Hospitality

For Christians, hospitality is an outworking of Jesus' teaching to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The gospels are filled with examples of Jesus seeing people who are overlooked and making them feel cared for. He invites them in. He dines with them. He weeps with them. He knows them more than anyone else and chooses to care for them specifically—a care that is both broadly extended and individually expressed.

Then he tells his followers that other people will be able to identify them by the way they love each other.

This is insight into how we're designed to live.

When you have someone in your corner—someone who knows you deeply, who is concerned about your well-being, who spends their time, energy, creativity, and skills showing you that they care—you operate from a place of security and courage. You take on challenging things because you're not worried about self-preservation.

This is how hospitality works its way out professionally.

Hospitality as Leadership

When you are hospitable as a leader—when you use your position, creativity, and energy to show your team that you genuinely care—it gives the members of your team confidence to act from a place of security instead of scarcity.

They spend less energy on self-preservation because they already feel safe. They spend less time making sure they're seen and recognized because they already feel that way. And people who feel cared for are more likely to care for others.

So they care for their teammates. They go the extra mile—not because they're being pressured, but because it becomes fun to do work that makes other people's jobs easier. They don't have to hoard their energy for looking out for themselves. The entire team can then deliver hospitality to clients.

Hospitality generates an abundance mindset. Not an irresponsible or reckless mindset that sacrifices the needs of the business—but one that says it's cool to care and cool to give.

Spirit and Execution

Notice I'm mostly talking about the animating spirit of hospitality. Of course, there are actions that make the spirit manifest. But if those actions aren't motivated by genuine care, it becomes painfully obvious. That's when "hospitality" devolves into "5 client appreciation ideas" or "company culture improvement tools."

Hospitality has two parts: internal spirit and skillful execution. You need both.

This is what my coaching focuses on. The internal transformation that makes hospitality authentic—and the skillful systems that make it sustainable.

The result is what many leaders hope for when they're trying to improve different parts of their business in isolation. Because when you get hospitality right upstream, everything downstream benefits: leadership clarity, team cohesiveness, workflow efficiency, talent retention, client experience, client satisfaction, organic growth, operational excellence, organizational health, revenue growth, profitability, strategy.

All of it.

Hospitality isn't a department. It's the operating system.