A recorded conversation between Will Guidara and an interviewer about the role of "positive obsession" in doing meaningful work. Key points: obsession can be constructive when rooted in clear values and pursued without sacrificing core relationships; moderation is important when obsession harms family or personal responsibilities; Guidara links the idea of impact to being named the top restaurant (awards recognize impact on the restaurant world, citing El Bulli and Noma as precedents); he describes his team’s iterative evolution toward a mission he calls "unreasonable hospitality" and recalls the week of the 50 Best Awards as a moment when he internally felt they had become number one. The clip closes with arrangements for a workshop, a speaking engagement, and a recommendation of Guidara's book.
Chapters
I think that a lot of people that feel like obsession is a bad thing are the type. There's a commonality between them is they really don't stand for anything. Because when you really stand for something, I think part of your, your childhood and experiences that you had, you know, if you stand for something and you kind of know who you are, obsession isn't a scary thing because there really isn't anything else. You want to make an impact or you want to make a difference or you want to contribute in some way, and you have to be obsessed to do that. I find that most of the time when people say that to. To us or they have before, they're people that don't stand for anything. They don't really know what.
They stand for at the end of the day. Right. I never made that connection before because it's scary to them. They're almost. They're afraid of it. They're like, oh, you're, you're. It's like you're a heroin addict or something. And it's like, well, there's healthy. You know, there's. There's healthy and there's outcomes, and the outcome is very positive. If somebody really cares about something enough to, you know, really double down and obsess on it and figure it out, and, you know, that's only positive.
I think there's something there. I also think that it's like, yeah, listen, if you were obsessed with one thing at the expense of things that are very important in your life and you're forsaking them in pursuit of an obsession, that is when things become challenging and problematic. When someone is so obsessed with success at work that they stop being a good husband or father or wife or mother. Right.
I think it's. You can indulge in obsession without it coming at the sacrifice of other things.
Even obsession can be treated with moderation.
Was there a moment when.
I knew we were ready?
So, listen, I believe that what earning the top spot on that list actually recognizes is that you are the restaurant having the greatest impact on the world of restaurants at any given time.
It's absurd to say one restaurant's the best in the world. There's too many restaurants. But, like, when you look at the restaurants that have earned that top spot, it's either a restaurant in Spain called El Buli that inspired the world towards molecular gastronomy, or Noma and Copenhagen, the foraging.
And so it's your impacts that the award celebrates. Impact. You can't win the award without a team that's fully aligned in the spirit of the collective endeavor and pursuing that impact.
I think our evolution happened iteratively, not all at once. And so I can't point to a moment where I was like, now we got it. I can point to the moment where I identified what I believed our impact could be, and then some of the various hurdles, or not even. That's not the right word, hurdles. Inflection points where we were able to more fully articulate how we were going to make that impact. And that obviously was unreasonable hospitality.
But I'll tell you, the 50 best awards were in New York the year before.
We won. And I remember when they were in New York, obviously, just a lot of the people that are involved in that community were in the restaurant for, like, a week straight.
You watch teams when they get to the finals. There's some teams that you can tell are, like.
Trying really hard but emotionally struggling because they're so overwhelmed by the anxiety and the intensity of that moment. And other teams that are just having so much fun because this is their chance to show what they've been working so hard to achieve. And that's what it felt like with my team that week.
And I'm a superstitious person, so I never like to. I like to have very audacious goals, but I never like to say, this is the year we're going to win it. You know what I mean? But in my head, even though I never said it out loud, I was pretty certain at the end of that week that. That then, in that moment, we were finally the number one restaurant in the world.
Excellent. That's great. Well, we. We appreciate you taking this time with us, Will. So we have your team coming out and doing a workshop, a customer service workshop. And then you're going to be a speaker at our Top Dog event this year, which we look forward to. And I don't think we can recommend the book enough. It also just creates incredible conversations. Like, the conversations that come from your book are maybe the best part, because you're talking about how to do something great. I mean, and I don't know that there could be much better than that.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon to so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 asksDr and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 ask SDR for special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video sa.
