Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show that teaches you how to overcome burnout, embrace freedom, and drive growth
Your host, Christin Marvin, of Solutions by Christin.
With over two decades of extensive experience in hospitality leadership, Christin Marvin has successfully managed a diverse range of concepts, encompassing fine dining and high-volume brunch.
She has now established her own coaching and consulting firm, collaborating with organizations to accelerate internal leadership development to increase retention and thrive.
Each week, Christin brings you content and conversation to make you a more effective leader.
This includes tips, tricks and REAL stories from REAL people that have inspired her-discussing their successes, challenges and personal transformation.
This podcast is a community of support to inspire YOU on YOUR unique leadership journey.
This podcast will help you answer the following questions:
1. How do I increase my confidence?
2. How do I accelerate my leadership?
3. How do I lower my stress as a leader?
4. How do I prevent burnout?
5. How do I improve my mental health?
So join the conversation and listen in each week on spotify and apple podcasts and follow Christin on LinkedIn.
Voice Over, Mixing and Mastering Credits:
L. Connor Voice - LConnorvoice@gmail.com
Artwork by Solstice Photography, Tucson, AZ.
https://solsticephotography70.pixieset.com/
Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
98: From Burnout to Abundance: How Self-Hospitality Transforms Restaurant Leadership
Send me a Text Message. I'd love to hear from you.
A revolution is brewing in hospitality leadership, and it begins with a radical notion: your most sacred guest is you.
This powerful conversation with transformational coach Mike Messeroff introduces the concept of "self-hospitality" - the practice of extending the same care to yourself that you offer guests and customers. For an industry characterized by burnout and depletion, this perspective shift provides a practical pathway to sustainable leadership.
"You cannot give away what you don't have," Messeroff emphasizes, challenging the common industry belief that selfless service means emptying yourself. Instead, he reveals how hospitality professionals who fill their own cups first serve from abundance rather than scarcity, transforming not just their own experience but elevating everyone around them.
The episode explores the cultivation of "the magic gap" - that crucial space between stimulus and response where thoughtful leadership happens instead of reactive management. Through mindfulness practices, boundary-setting, and reconnection with joy, leaders learn to navigate challenges with equanimity rather than frustration.
Messeroff shares his personal journey from external success that masked inner emptiness to discovering fulfillment through self-hospitality. His practical approach demonstrates how simple shifts - from morning meditation to technology-free days - create profound changes in leadership effectiveness and life satisfaction.
Whether you're experiencing burnout or simply seeking more sustainable ways to lead, this conversation offers both inspiration and actionable strategies. Discover how treating yourself as your most honored guest might be the greatest gift you can give your team, your business, and yourself.
Ready to transform your leadership through self-hospitality? Connect with Mike at mikemesseroff.com to explore coaching or join the upcoming Self-Hospitality Collective community.
Resources
TheSelfHospitalityCollective.com
P.S. Ready to take your restaurant to the next level? Here are 3 ways I can support you:
- One-on-One Coaching - Work directly with me to tackle your biggest leadership challenges and scale your operations with confidence. Learn more at christinmarvin.com
- Multi-Unit Mastery Book - Get the complete Independent Restaurant Framework that's helped countless owners build thriving multi-location brands. Grab your copy at https://www.IRFbook.com
- Group Coaching & Leadership Workshops - Join other passionate restaurant leaders in transformative group sessions designed to elevate your entire team. Details at christinmarvin.com
Podcast Production: https://www.lconnorvoice.com/
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm your host, kristen Marvin, and today we're diving deep into a topic that could revolutionize how you show up as a leader self-hospitality. What if I told you that the greatest gift you could give your team, your guests and your business was taking better care of yourself? Today's conversation with Mike Messeroff will challenge everything you think you know about leadership in our industry. Here's what you can expect from today's episode the self-hospitality revolution. Discover why hospitality professionals are burning out at alarming rates and how treating yourself as your most sacred guest can transform your leadership and your life From Depletion to Abundance. Learn practical strategies for creating the magic gap, that crucial space between stimulus and response, where thoughtful leadership happens instead of reactive management. Reclaiming joy as your birthright. Explore how shifting from working harder to fulfilling your cup first allows you to serve from abundance rather than emptiness. Our guest today is Mike Messeroff, a transformational coach and speaker who helps hospitality leaders cultivate presence, joy and authentic leadership. Mike's journey from having it all externally while feeling empty inside to discovering true fulfillment through inner cultivation is both powerful and practical. His work focuses specifically on helping hospitality professionals, who naturally serve others, learn how to extend that same care to themselves. This is a really special episode, so I'm going to challenge you to be present. Grab your favorite beverage, find a comfy spot and let's explore how self-hospitality can transform not just how you lead, but how you live. You lead, but how you live.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, kristen Marvin, with Solutions by Kristen. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses through powerful one-on-one coaching, group coaching and leadership workshops. This show is complete with episodes around coaching, leadership development and interviews with powerful industry leaders. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about, leadership lessons you want to learn and any feedback you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I will give you a shout out on a future episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting Mike. I had the pleasure this morning of diving into your self-hospitality masterclass Only the first one I've still. I've got to jump in and take the other ones, but I just I was getting ready for the podcast. I was in the car with the dogs driving them to the loop at this really cool walkway we have in Tucson and your message of self-hospitality punched me in the face. We talk so much about self-care right and mental health and and mental health and mindset, and I don't know why self-hospitality it hit me as hard as it did and I just think it's such a beautiful phrase and I'd love to hear a little bit about just how you came up with that and what that means to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love hearing that, by the way, because I want to shake people awake. So a punch in the face, I think, is a pretty good thing. You know, I've been working with hospitality leaders for years and a lot of what I see with my clients and these are, you know, top leaders like these are people who are running the industry. Are, you know, top leaders like these are people who are running the industry. They, they're. They've huge hearts, they want to serve. That's why they're in the service industry and it's always obvious that they're just not serving their most sacred guests, their, their most honored guests in their life, which is the person that they took their first breath with. They'll. They'll take their last breath with. They see person that they took their first breath with, they'll take their last breath with. They see, every time they look in the mirror. And once I get that across to them and it's not teaching, it's not words I mean they really have to experience it by filling their own cup and doing things to bring them joy, like deep joy, not just pleasure and thrills, but once they start doing that and they fill up from the inside, they fill up with that joy, that peace, that love, that presence. It's so much easier. You know, I don't have to tell them that it's easier. They live it, they experience it. It's easier to share it.
Speaker 2:You cannot give away what you don't have. One of my great, most favorite quotes and a quote that changed my life from Wayne Dyer you cannot give away what you don't have. And when you are squeezed, what comes out? You know, if you are filled with love and joy and peace and you're squeezed, then that's what. That's what comes out of you. You know, you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that's what's inside.
Speaker 2:And once these leaders start really just feeling that sense of overflow which is really where the word abundance comes from the etymology of the word abundance means overflow and once they start feeling that and they just it's the opposite of depletion, it's the opposite of burnout, because burnout is depletion. It's like driving with an empty tank of gas. So if they're driving around with a full tank and they feel good and they're smiling, not because of anything, because they not because someone did something or said something, but because they generated that within themselves, first everything gets easier. Everyone around them changes because of them and how they're showing up.
Speaker 2:And that was the biggest thing for me in my own transformation was realizing that happiness is not out there. It's just, it's just not. I tried finding it, I tried chasing it. It led me to the deepest, darkest hole of my life. So so, yeah, that's where the term came from, and obviously now I've built a master class around it. I'm building a community around it. I speak about it all the time. I think, like you said, it kind of hits you where it's like wait a minute, I'm a leader in the service industry and I don't know how to serve myself. That's an issue, it's a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, it is, and I just, you know I resonate so much with what you said in the class and now of you know I think a lot of operators are so good at offering hospitality they get that it really resonates.
Speaker 1:It's what they're, you know, it's why they opened a restaurant, it's what they're meant to do, but they're not great at just understanding the concept that they need to do the same thing for themselves and for everyone that's in their family and in their community and in their friend zone. And I really loved what you said about coming from a place of abundance and it got me thinking about how many owners and operators I know and work with that are truly coming from a place of abundance, and I thought maybe it's five to 10%. I mean the ones that that I have seen that are happier, have developed teams and they have key leadership people in place so that they're only working 15 to 20 hours a week, which some people listening to this may go. That's ridiculous, that can't happen, right? But what percentage do you think that that is based on the people that you've worked with?
Speaker 2:Well, well, I won't focus on my clients because they are, you know, they are living that way. Yeah, more. Just what I see in the industry when I'm just talking to people, whether it's at events or on LinkedIn, it's yeah, I mean 5% is like generous, it's really, it's rough, I mean it really is, and I think a lot of people blame it on the industry. That's just the way it is. There's so many, you know, family dynamics and generational kind of businesses here where it's like this is just how it is and I call bullshit on that.
Speaker 2:I say you know you're a leader for a reason not to regurgitate what everyone has done before, but to say where are we at today, what's working, what's not, and make a decision based on the freshness of the present moment, not the way we've done things for the last year, 10 years, three decades. So no, it's really bad. It's really bad and these are the leaders you know these are. I'm not talking about, you know, frontline clocking in cleaning hotel rooms, bussing tables, expoing chopping vegetables in the back of the kitchen, busting tables, expoing chopping vegetables in the back of the kitchen. That's even. You know, if you don't have the leader showing up with a full heart and a willingness to listen, even the time you know how many leaders I don't have time to. Well, you're there to support the operation. That's that's. A leader is not at the top of the triangle, they're at the bottom holding everything up. So so, yeah, it's, it's needed, it's just. I mean, that's why both of us are doing what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah 100% and it's so. It's so great to meet people like you and just know that, like hey, you know there is there is a rising tide and it lifts all ships. That like hey, you know there is a rising tide and it lifts all ships. And I do believe that we're riding a wave of awakening of consciousness of people who don't want to leave the industry, who don't want to leave this, the work that they love. They just want to love it again. They want to love their lives. They don't just want to keep pushing that off. It doesn't work.
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Speaker 1:Yeah, you made a very important distinction. I want to make sure we don't step over, and that is there are two. In my experience and you know, being in restaurants for 20 years and now in the coaching space for a few years there's a very clear distinction, and there are two types of leaders. There are the ones that feel like their teams work for them and there are the ones that feel like they work for the teams teams, and I was having a conversation with a client the other day. He was so frustrated with his team's just lack of inconsistency. He wants five-star service every single day. You know 100% perfectionism.
Speaker 1:And I reminded him of the story in Danny Meyer's book Setting the Table of the Salt Shaker and how his role as a coach was to constantly be moving the salt shaker and coaching his team and that was a really important moment for him. But it was a reminder too that his job is to support the team, just like you said and I think. But again, like you mentioned, you can't. You have to start by recognizing. You know, going through those stages of change, that you know that pre-contemplation that something needs to change with me because something isn't right with the team and instead of pointing the finger at them, it's really being reflective and that's really really hard to do.
Speaker 2:And, ironically enough, it's the most empowering. I mean, if you could be humble enough to say, oh wait, maybe it's me, Then you could say, oh wait, maybe I have the power to change this situation. I don't have to blame it on everything else or try to get everything else around me perfect so I can show up the way that I want, because that sucks. That's a really precarious house of cards and if one thing is off or one person shows up late for their shift, you know it's just, you have a short fuse, you blow up, you become reactive, which is what I see in a lot of leaders is just reactivity. And I think, just to go a little deeper into, I'm a spiritual person, I write, I write a lot of poetry, I teach a lot of spirituality too, and just that's where mindfulness and meditation comes into play, just connecting to something a little bit deeper. The purpose of life is to enjoy your life and then share. You know like to really be able to say how may I serve. But it's really hard to do that when you don't love your life and you don't really love yourself or you don't like yourself. And I think that one little switch of like what's in it for me today. You know, hey, I'm going to work, what's in it for me? Versus I'm going to work, how may I serve? It changes everything.
Speaker 2:And we're in the service industry, so it's not just serving the guests. I mean, as the leader, you're not serving the guests, you're you're serving your team. That is serving the guests. And if you just change that around, you're like I'm here to serve and I need to fill up my own cup for them. It's not a selfish thing. You're doing it to support them, you're doing it to be there for your kids and your spouse, your partner, everyone in your life. Then you could really say, well, if I am here to serve, then I have to go for that walk, I have to go to the gym, I have to spend some time with my dog or my kids or my partner, or in solitude, or meditating, or eating a real meal and enjoying it, or drinking a cup of coffee, and not just chugging it down, these little things everywhere throughout your day. You could say, no, I have to do that because I want to serve, because I'm here to serve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you were. You know you tell this beautiful story in your class, but you were in the industry. You lived in the beautiful town of Breckenridge. You were skiing a hundred days a year, but something was missing for you. You were in a really dark place. What was missing?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's the question, isn't it? It's what I was searching for, it's what I was seeking, and you can call it happiness. I don't love that word. You can call it joy. I love that word a lot more Inner peace, fulfillment, contentment. There's so many words for it, but I was looking for it everywhere else. I was looking for it all over the world. I was looking for it in beaches and ski towns and and, um, even even in work, you know, and that's not where it comes from.
Speaker 2:Like a lot of what I teach people is that you don't get success from work. You bring success to your work, which means you have to cultivate that in yourself first. It's all about this inner cultivation of the thing that we're looking for everywhere else. So that was the visceral wake-up call for me, because I had every reason to be happy, and most of my clients do too. They're not worried about money. They usually live in a nice house and maybe they have a vacation house and they're. They have the reasons, but they're miserable. They're actually sometimes suicidal, and that I know what that's like, where it's like OK, there's something missing and it's not. I don't want to just answer it by like it's not just one thing, it's not just one thing. I mean you could use those words that I use peace, joy, self-love, self-hospital their staff to be better staffs. I'm focusing on them and how they could show up better and really cultivate that, that light, that fire within themselves that's been muted or burnt out and we get that fire going again.
Speaker 2:And then they realized like, oh, it was, it was me. It was me. Wherever you go, there you are, and whether I was on a beach in Australia or a mountain in Colorado, it was me. It I was still bringing my lack of confidence, my lack of clarity, my lack of purpose in life, repression. You know I was a writer who wasn't writing. I was a healer who wasn't healing.
Speaker 2:You know it's whatever it is like. There's something in you, your soul, your spirit, that is healing. It's moved, moved on, not to a new career or anything, but like the new levels of joy and expansion, and and you're still stuck where you are. That separation between you and your soul is the cause of all depression and anxiety and panic attacks and burnout. And I always say it's a good thing because if you're realizing it, then you're getting the message and you could actually start to say, OK, well, something's not working. So let me figure out what I could do. Whether it's picking up one of your books or, you know, reaching out to me or attending a workshop, or downloading the masterclass, whatever it is like, do something and start realizing that, Well, maybe it's me. And then if you could just say maybe it's me, then you take back all that power.
Speaker 1:I love, you know, I'd love to kind of hear your perspective here and talk a little bit about our different styles. But when people come to me and they're really, really struggling, they're, like you know, severe. Like you said, I want to jump off a tall building or whatever. Right, we're not, we're not therapists, we got to be clear about that. But when they come to me and they're lost and they just say you know, and, and usually they've got successful businesses running around them, but again, like you said, they can't see it, they can't feel it, I love to lean into the language, how they're talking to themselves, really dive into their negative thoughts and helping you know, helping them identify those empowering words versus disempowering words, and doing work around positive intelligence and just helping them be kinder to themselves so that they can start to focus on the wins instead of just the problems all the time.
Speaker 1:Because we know that if you go into your restaurant every single day and you're just pointing out and I used to be like this as a leader it's very easy to go in and solve the problems. It's challenging to slow down and celebrate the wins, but when you start blending the two, it really eliminates a lot of stress and anxiety and you start to see things different. Right, you start to show up differently and I'm curious when someone comes to you and they're completely lost and they don't even know how to start looking inside or what they're looking for or how to identify their soul, like, how do you help them? Just get started?
Speaker 2:Ah, such a good question and it's so, it's so simple, like it really is. Um, like the way that I take my clients through my program, the very first thing is, oh, I call it, presence. You know, and I use this analogy of like you're trying to start a fire in the woods but it's really, really windy out, and if you've ever tried to start a fire in a windstorm, it's almost impossible. So the first thing that we're doing is just calming the storm, we're calming the winds, we're settling down the hectic pace of life, like really just slowing things down. And that all starts with learning about mindfulness, and practicing mindfulness, which really is about meditation, is the practice of mindfulness. It's like taking your, your overactive mind to the gym and say, hey, you're just going to sit here and focus on something Usually it's your breath for a few minutes, and it's like doing reps. And you're like, no, I don't want to get up, I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm busy, I'm stressed, I don't want to do this. And you're like, wait, there's a thought, I'm going to bring it back to my breathing. You do that a few minutes a day for a couple of days. I'm not talking hours a day for weeks or months, I mean a couple of minutes, for a couple of days, things will start changing in your life. The pace of life will slow down. You're not going to be so reactive. I mean, something will happen.
Speaker 2:This happened to me right when I started meditating. I was taking dishes out of the dishwasher and this beautiful glass Tupperware slipped. It was wet and broke on the floor and I just remembered being like, oh, I guess I'll clean that up. Like a week ago I would have lost my mind, it would have ruined my day, I would have been cursing it. Who put this in here the wrong way? Or it's always someone else's fault, or if I wasn't in such a rush, I'm so stupid and just keep talking about and I'm just like it was none of that. It was just something broke. I'm going to clean it up and get on with my day. And it felt so. I feel it now Like it feels so good. It feels amazing to have that little magic gap of you know someone saying hey, we, you know there's this emergency, and it's like let's take a breath. Like is it really an emergency? Is someone dying? It's like the printer ran out of paper, you know.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah this isn't this is an emergency, like take a breath and let's, let's solve the problem. Because leaders I mean we are problem solvers and when we kind of look at our jobs and say everything pisses me off, it's like, well, what are you there for? Like, you're there to solve problems, so go in there with that attitude of like I'm going to keep a calm head, I'm going to be cool, I'm going to be balanced, equanimous and just flow through my day. But you can't just say it, you have to practice it. You literally have to take your mind, your overactive, burnt out, stressed out mind, to the gym. You got to whip it into shape a little bit and say, you know, it's a I'm the master here. This, like I'm literally pointing to me, I am the master, not this, this is my servant.
Speaker 2:And for 35 years of my life I was a slave to what was happening in here. I thought I was my thoughts, I thought my thoughts were real. And all of that unwinding happens right away with my clients. The very first thing, before figuring out what's your North Star, what do you want with your life? What's important? What's your purpose? What's your North star? What do you want with your life? What's important, what's your purpose? None of that matters, because it's. If you don't spend time calming down all that noise and the storm, you're going to be making decisions from a place of stress, or comparisons or competition or programming.
Speaker 2:A lot of what we do is deprogramming everything that we learned. I was actually just working on a poem. I'd love to share it with you. It's a short poem, but it's not on the nose like this is for hospitality leaders. But this is everything that I coach.
Speaker 2:I call this right now I'm calling it Superboy, and I just want to introduce this by saying we're so programmed. We're programmed to be negative. We're programmed to defer happiness for tomorrow, for the weekend, for the vacation, for retirement. Don't get me started on that, but it all comes from our childhood. And if you could just say hey, like I got some faulty programming, it's no one's fault. My parents did the best they could, my caretakers did the best they could, my teachers did the best they could, but they were just doing whatever they knew how to do and I got some faulty programming. So that's what this is about, super boy. What would it be like? How would it feel if they told me as a child hey, kid, here's the deal.
Speaker 2:You have nothing to prove, no lessons to learn. You're here for the joy. You have nothing to earn. You can try anything. There's nothing to fear, and when you feel something deeply, what you desire will appear. There's no competition. You're not in a race Since you've already won. It's a life of first place. You're here to be present and not a moment to miss. Just heed these three words. Follow your bliss, ask in the silence while you free your mind. Follow your intuition, leaving worry far behind. And as you continue to grow, so too will your light. You're here to guide others through the darkness of the night. Your purpose here is simple Enjoy life and share that joy. You want to be a superman First. Have fun as a superboy.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. It's so fun having conversations with coaches because it's it's a different. There's a different language that we speak and I think we're always internalizing things differently. And you know, I don't know about you, but I'm constantly listening to what other coaches are saying and try to internalize it and then think about, like, how I can incorporate that in my coaching or how I can incorporate that in my own life and I'll say you know again with your class this morning, oftentimes I'll give my clients advice and then I'll. It's the advice that I need to give myself right so last week I challenged a client to meditate outside.
Speaker 1:She was terrified. She'd never met it, meditated before. But she lives right on the ocean and I thought oh, what a beautiful place and I've been meditating for years. I started meditating when I stopped drinking because I realized I had anxiety and I just really couldn't figure out how to calm myself down. And so meditation was really powerful and I try to do it. I don't do it every day, but I still suck at it.
Speaker 1:You know, I'll try for 10 minutes and maybe I'll get in for a minute or two, but this morning I was listening to your class and I was walking the dogs and I said you know what? I'm going to take my own advice. I'm going to sit down in nature and I'm going to meditate. And it was. It was so powerful because it was in a completely different space. You know, I meditate in my house and my gym and it's little, in a tiny room. And now I was outside in nature with just all of this amazing space, and when I opened my eyes, all the cacti look different, these beautiful purple flowers, bushes that had been in bloom, that I hadn't seen I walk this thing every day that I hadn't seen in the last two weeks were there. You know it. Just weeks were there. I very much needed it. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1:But I think it's really easy for us to be preachy sometimes. Well, for me, I don't want to speak for everybody, but I think it's really easy for me sometimes to be a little preachy or find an idea and then talk about it like I created it because I'm so excited about it, or say things like be present, be present, be present, how can you be present, how can you be more present? And that's really difficult to do. What is what? And I know we've talked, you've mentioned it a couple times on the during the conversation today but what does it mean to, from your perspective, to be fully present in one's life?
Speaker 2:I think that's a great question. I think a lot of people really make this stuff harder than it is. Being present is being aware of your thoughts and your emotions, not getting caught up in them and not letting them affect you. You know, it's almost like you're the. You become the witness, you become the observer of your thoughts and your emotions, and when you do that, you get to actually be the sifter of your thoughts. You know you could say like is this thought serving me? And most of the time it's really not, and it's almost always repetitive. It's something that we keep thinking over and over again. So once you kind of have that separation of yourself, your true self, from your thoughts, it just gets easier to be present. And another way of looking at presence is just, um, not being distracted.
Speaker 2:Our lifetime, we're always literally trained to be distracted. We have full schedules, we're scrolling on social media, everything on the news is all you know, quick clips and training us to have this tiny, tiny short attention span. So people say like, well, I can't focus, or I think I have. Add. Almost everyone thinks that, and I'm not. I'm not a doctor, I don't know if you do or not, but you're just always trained in distraction if you're not actively practicing training yourself in focus. And when you do that, it's just easier to be present.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying saying, believe me, I actually meditated on the beach this morning. It was awesome. But I also, you know, I walked the whole beach, sat down on this beautiful bluff overlooking two different beaches, and I look out. I'm like man, like I didn't really see those clouds until just now. I just spent a half hour 45 minutes walking the beach. Now, I just spent a half hour 45 minutes walking the beach. But it took it took me like sitting and not looking at my phone or not worrying about my dog, to to just take everything in. And I think when you start doing that, you realize, wow, how much am I missing. If I missed that thing, if you miss those flowers in bloom, if I miss a beautiful, you know that thing. If you miss those flowers in bloom, if I miss a beautiful, you know cloud formation or mountains in the distance, or you know, even just like appreciating my dog's smile.
Speaker 2:It's so easy to just be like, all right, let's get on with our walk. It's like, no, like, let's appreciate these little things, because the little simple things are everything and life just gets so much richer, like it really does. It's funny, my two past clients have been named rich and I keep using that as a pun. I'm like, I'm like there are riches in rich time and your life is getting richer, you know, and it's just true, like the little things of enjoying, you know, the coffee, like enjoying the coffee, you enjoying the coffee.
Speaker 2:I took an extra 10 seconds to froth up my milk and put cinnamon on it, these things that it's so easy to be like I don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. It's like, but if you did and you felt the joy that it gave you and then you had a better meeting after that or you had a more enjoyable conversation, you're going to, you're going to start putting those things together and that all it all comes from presence. So I love that question because I do think it's easy to throw around these things and they get a little old or played out cliche.
Speaker 2:And it's like, I mean, I, I'm a wordsmith and I mean I'm a wordsmith. I'm always, you know, trying to come up with ways to get people to, to just say like, hey, do you want to get to the end of your life and look back and say I spent my entire life in a rush? I didn't, I didn't slow down, like what was I rushing towards boards? There is no destination, there's not. It's a real disease of our culture and our society is that we're all kind of marching to something and we're not. It steals our lives away. And we're supposed to enjoy our work, we're supposed to enjoy our lives. We're supposed to enjoy each and every day. And if you're not, let that be a wake-up call to say, well, what could I do differently? Yeah, mike, what's a typical day look like for you? Well, it depends on the day. I do think that having a schedule that is sacred is really important, especially for leaders, not to say it's non-negotiable, because things come up, they do. I have certain things in my life that are non-negotiable. I do meditate every single morning, but most days for me, I wake up pretty early, five or six, and I don't start work until about noon. Now, this is extreme, you know, but this is practicing what I coach. I typically go to the beach with my dog for an hour or two, maybe more. I'll do some stretching, I'll do meditation, I'll do my affirmations. I will literally daydream about like how life could be better, like what's the next thing, speaking on bigger stages, writing best-selling novels and poetry books and working with more interesting people, and how could it get better? And then it's like, okay, well, I daydream about, like the life that I'm moving towards. And then I say like, well, look, how could today be amazing. Like I'm going to be on this podcast. I mean, I thought about that this morning, like it's going to be an amazing podcast. So I do some visualizations and affirmations.
Speaker 2:Um, I like to send out good vibes to the people in my life my, my family, my clients, my friends. Um, a lot of gratitude, a lot of gratitude, a lot of gratitude, a lot of gratitude, just um. I mean I, I almost always, I almost every day, cry tears of joy. I don't think I did this morning, even though it was great meditation, just full, full, full transparency. But most mornings I get myself into a state of gratitude where I am literally crying tears of joy. Um, and what a better way to start the day Like. And then, and then you know, I uh, I usually either get into some writing or I go to the gym.
Speaker 2:I meet with my trainer three times a week. So today I was at the gym this morning and that then I'm like I come home, eat a great lunch and then it's like game on, like I'm full of life. I'm full of life, I'm full of energy. You know, let's, let's get this podcast going, let's get to my. I have to get back to a client after this and it's not like I have to. You know. That's another thing.
Speaker 2:This, this client messaged me on friday, on saturday and on sunday and I'm getting back to him today because those are the ground rules that I set with him. You know the expectations that I set. So, even though I saw his message come in on Friday and Saturday, it's like that's not, that's not the right time for me. I'm going to be in the right headspace on Monday and give him a beautiful reflection. Maybe I'll spend an hour giving him reflections and messages, but it's that unwinding of like I need to be so responsive. If an email comes in, I got to respond to it right away.
Speaker 2:I think people expect what you train them to expect. So if you're always on, if you have no boundaries, if you're always available at any hour of the night or early morning, then that's just what people expect. And if you say, hey, this is when I work, this is when I don't, and during those off hours, this is how you can reach me, which is what I tell my clients. Except for Sundays, my phone is off. I go completely tech free on Sunday, which is such a gift it's amazing to realize. Just do it for a few hours, you'll lose your mind. You'll feel so uncomfortable that you don't have chat, tpt to ask a question to, or you can't take a photo, or you can't write something down in your phone. You start to realize, like, how dependent we are. And then you know I'll work for several hours and right around sunset I'll probably go back to the beach. Typically, I'm at the beach twice a day on a normal day and uh, and then I might come home and do a little more work or just read and go to bed.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm not, you know, I'm not a, a hermit. Um, I have a pretty simple like kind of. I have a lot of solitude in my life, but I have friends, I have relationships, I go out, um, but it's a balance. It's a balance. Most of my days are very simple and just filled with simple joys, and my work is a joy too. I mean, I'm thankful every day because I really know what it's like to dread going to work and to just feel like work is something that I look forward to, is such a gift, and I want I want to share that with people. I want to show them that it's possible for them too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I'm a huge proponent of disconnecting for three days or 10 days or 30 minutes. This this weekend, I took my Apple watch off for a few hours because I had a lot of stuff I needed to get done around the house and I forget. You know that it was like time stood still and I forget. When I put the watch back on, all the notifications from social media, LinkedIn, and the emails and the text message. It's just all this noise that I create and every time I just take a minute, I usually come back and go okay, there are a couple of things here I can delete, or notifications I can turn off, because I just don't need. I don't need every Instagram post coming to my watch. I don't need every LinkedIn post coming to my watch. So, yeah, a huge proponent of that. If people want to work with you, Mike, how do they get ahold of you?
Speaker 2:So my website's mikemeseroffcom. That's a great place to just learn more about me and my coaching and I'm on most social media channels. It's just at Mike Meseroff. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I would just encourage anyone to just send a message. That's the best way. I actually took my booking link down because I'd prefer to start a conversation on LinkedIn or text message or email, to start a conversation on LinkedIn or text message or email, and then we can move to a Zoom call if it makes sense, but that's kind of the best way to just reach out. You know whether it's LinkedIn or shoot me an email. It's Mike at MikeMezeroffcom.
Speaker 2:As you know, I'm launching this community which I'm really, really excited about the Self-Hospitality Collective because I only work with one or two clients at a time and, as you know, there's a lot of people suffering in this industry. So I'm developing just something that you know I kind of wish I had, which is just a place to feel seen and heard and to exhale, to not always need to be on or performing, and it's going to be a free community with opportunity to get support from the community. But also I'm going to be sharing my own words and practical tips and meditations and visualizations and things like that. So once that launches, it will be the self hospitality collectivecom and then that's free to join. That's where the self hospitality masterclass is going to live. I'm just, you know, going back to that like how may I serve? It's just like, that's just it, like I, just when you're in a really dark place and you get to a lighter place, you just want to share it.
Speaker 2:I know you know that, um, my clients do too. You know, one of them actually became a coach, but most just stay in their work. But they, they're, they're more giving, they, they, they mentor more, they volunteer more. They just want to share, um, their, their joy. So so it's just, uh, it's something that I just, I can't not do, and it's always. It's the same, whether it's coaching or writing, poetry speaking, it's all the same. It's enjoy your life and share from that joy.
Speaker 2:And if you're, if it feels like you're grinding, if it feels like you're burning out, then you are. And that's a good thing that you're noticing. Because if you, if you, if you ignore it, then those warnings turn into full blown alarms, the nudges and the taps on the shoulder become shakes, and and then you have to. You have to at some point. You know, take, take notice. So you might as well, might as well, start now if you're feeling like, hey, I could feel a little more peace, I could feel a little more joy.
Speaker 2:And also, a lot of people don't want to do it for them, and I always say don't do it for yourself, do it for your kids, do it for your dog that misses you know, you looking in its eyes, do it for your partner, do it for all the people that you work with or that work for you, and and put your take yourself out of it, just say like, hey, it's my responsibility to to show up in this world and share joy and share love and share light. And if I don't feel that, then it's also my responsibility to figure out how to start cultivating that. And it it's. It's not hard, it really it really isn't. It just takes a little. It takes getting to a point where it's dark enough, yeah, yeah, and low enough to be like all right, like it doesn't have to go any lower than this. I'm ready.
Speaker 1:I'm ready to do something different yeah, yeah, I mean it does you know? I think it's. For me, it was having a really difficult time getting out of bed in the morning and losing sight of what I loved and knowing that deep down that it wasn't me. That wasn't me who was showing up, and so something had to change. So, mike, thank you so much for all your insight today. Thank you for your time working in the industry and everything that you're doing for the hospitality industry. We're so lucky to have you, and we'll put all the links in the show notes so that anybody that's listening that's taken something away from this today. One little moment of insight or one perspective shift can connect with Mike and start doing some of this deep work.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much. Really appreciate your time Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:You bet. Thanks everybody that's going to do it for us. We will see you so much. Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody that's going to do it for us. We will see you next week.
