3 Things Your Mom Told You That Don’t Apply in Hospitality

Picture this.

You’re 17 years old and you’re about to go out with your friends. Right when you’re coming down the stairs you hear your mom say “Don’t forget your jacket! It’s gonna be cold!”. You whisper a short “uuuuuugh” but you turn back to grab one.

Well, we all know that she was right.

There are 3 things though, that I’m pretty sure our moms have said to us before and that don’t necessarily apply in the world of hospitality.

Here we go.

“Don’t talk to strangers.”

When we’re kids, it makes sense that we’re told not to talk to strangers right? Strangers represented danger.

But as we grow up, we learn that strangers represent new friends, partners, bosses, investors, etc.

In hospitality (as in pretty much any other industry) we all begin as strangers. It’s a clean slate for you and for everyone you’ll meet.

You see, meeting strangers has amazing power. The power of connecting and finding out how much we’re all alike. How we all go through struggles, ups, and downs, and how we somehow always end up meeting the right people.

The truth is, when it comes to working in hospitality, talk to as many strangers as you can!

Ask more questions and dig a little deeper.

Find out why your guest looks upset, why your coworker got in late, or why your boss seems to be having a bad day.

We’re always one conversation away from being strangers to becoming friends.

“Don’t go too far, okay?”

This one is a classic.

Your mom probably said this one to you while you were riding your bicycle for the first time and you wanted to feel independent and free. Or maybe it was when you just got your license and were driving the car with your friends exploring the city for the first time.

I know that moms say this with the purest love because they want to protect us. “Going too far” when we were little represented, again, danger. The unknown.

But when you work in hospitality, make sure you go as far as you can. Go for that scholarship, go for that dream job, go for that new adventure in a different country.

And once you’re there, go the extra mile. For yourself and the people around you. Maybe it’s you learning more about a dish so you can present it better to the guest. Maybe it’s you learning a few words in a different language so you can speak to your new coworker. Maybe it’s simply smiling more often.

Working in hospitality gives you the chance to go as far as you can every single day.

It’s up to you how far you wanna go.

“What part of no don’t you understand?”

I get it. When we’re kids, we always wanna have it our way. We want the newest toy, we want to play all day and eat cake instead of veggies.

Not getting what we want teaches us that things don’t always go our way. And that’s okay. That’s simply the way life works. But when we grow up, we learn that rejection is a re-direction.

You didn’t get the job you wanted because it turned out you needed to move to meet your spouse. Or maybe you had to go through some “nos” to get the one “yes” of somebody who believed in you.

When we hear the word “no” as an answer, it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road. It simply means we’re on the wrong one.

That’s why I learned that every time I experienced a rejection for a project, a job, or an opportunity, it simply meant I had to make a left instead of making a right.

And guess what? The right things have always found me.

So remember, if you work in hospitality:

Talk to as many strangers as you can, go as far as you want to go, and know that a “no” for an answer is always a re-direction.