I spent some time looking up the root word to figure out when this was first talked about in history. The first word was actually "hospes" (H-O-S-P-E-S), and that word meant both guest and host. So it was this idea of you've got someone maybe traveling through your town thousands of years ago.

Hospitality was this set of guidelines—rules on how to take care of somebody that was not part of your group, somebody that was traveling through town. I think that was really interesting for a few reasons. One is this idea of what I would say is a mutual exchange of vulnerability, right? It's somebody that's letting someone into their home, and there's vulnerability on that host person. And then there's vulnerability on the guest too of stepping foot in someone else's home. I thought that was very interesting—that there was no separation between guest and host. Really, these are both other; they're different than you.

Some of the rules that existed were around how to give that person space to practice their own kind of traditions, whether those are religious or otherwise, but to give somebody that's coming to stay with you space and not force anything on them, which I think is just a fascinating concept. I remember hearing Conrad Hilton say in his book he talked about this concept of promoting world peace through travel. I didn't quite understand, right? I was like, "Okay, if you travel, you get to understand other perspectives and you get to experience other things." But now I think about that as two people that are very different meeting and having this exchange of mutual vulnerability. Of course that promotes world peace. Of course that breaks barriers, right? Two people now understanding each other in a very different way than just passing through.

When I think about a mutual exchange of vulnerability, I think that really still applies today. Imagine—I'm sure you've probably been at the front desk of a hotel checking in, and the person there maybe has had a rough day and their guard is up and you can sense that. Maybe you've also had a rough day and you're just hoping somebody gives you a warm smile and looks you in the eye and checks in on you. Any of these moments that we have where there's an authentic exchange—those mean a lot to us as humans, and that still matters.

This exchange of vulnerability still matters today, and it's not something that you can force or mandate as a leader. It's very much about as a team—you've got to find the ability to find that you're confident, comfortable, safe, and then be present with whoever it is that you're interacting with.

Another thing I think about is customer service. Sometimes you'll have somebody come up to you, maybe at a hotel, and they're very frustrated. They've got a specific problem. If you put your guard up, you see that they probably get more frustrated. But if you open up and listen, oftentimes you see that they then relax, right? Once they begin to feel heard and seen and their problem matters to you, the situation can begin to dissolve. You can then creatively come up with something together. I think that, for me, this idea of a mutual exchange of vulnerability—why that matters so much.

So I found this book called "The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism," which is very much like a research-type book. But one of the interesting things he talks about is going back to the original root, which he says the word was from Indo-European root, and he said this word was "ghosty," and that then eventually became the word "guest."

But stranger, guest, and host were all the same word then. You can see where the word "host" comes from "ghost" and "guest" comes from "host." But what it meant then was someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality—stranger, guest, or host. Which I thought was really interesting.

One of the first examples in terms of stories is in Homer's Odyssey. There are a lot of hospitality scenes. It says here, "The first four hospitality scenes in the Odyssey are seen to establish the paradigm of proper hospitality with which all other hospitality scenes are to be compared or contrasted."

One quote here from the Odyssey is: "I would condemn also any host to receiving guests who acted excessively hospitable or excessively hostile. All things are better in due measure. It is as blameworthy to urge a guest to leave who does not want to, as it is to detain a guest who is eager to leave. One must grant hospitality to a guest who is present and grant conveyance to a guest who wants to leave."

If you really think about any of these historical stories, a lot of times it's about caring for a weary traveler. You think about what that means, right? Somebody's probably traveling because something happened to their home or their hometown, or something urgent is pressing enough to leave what they know to go out and find something they're hoping is better. During that time, you're in this time of transition; you're in this space of being vulnerable. To have someone welcome you in and take you in and care for you is tremendously valuable.

I think that's probably why a lot of us are drawn to hospitality in the first place. For me, I remember the just the comfort as a kid of going to my grandma's house and her waking up early and cooking this elaborate breakfast for everybody—just how safe I felt, how cared for I felt smelling the biscuits and gravy and all of that, right? There's something special about feeling safe and feeling cared for. I think that is what many of us in the hospitality space are trying to recreate—those moments for other people.

One bad example is the three little pigs, right? You've got a wolf that's outside saying, "Let me in," and the pigs are saying no, and the wolf blows their house down, right? This is the opposite of a mutual exchange of vulnerability.

You've got—if you think about Goldilocks and the Three Bears—Goldilocks goes into their house and is trying out all their stuff, and she's looking for comfort, but it's not mutual, right? So there's something—I think a reason why these stories get passed on is they stick out to us, and they're part of helping try to explain the social norm and the value of being invited in and being cared for and not trying to just do it yourself.

And then one good example was Snow White and how Snow White is running away and dealing with this person that's trying to harm her, and how she's taken in by people that are very different than her—the dwarfs. They're taking care of her and helping her, and she's also taking care of them. There's this mutual exchange there of a very special dynamic. She's totally different than them, and in them caring for her, they also then find they've found a new level of joy, I would say. I think that one is a great example, though, of this idea that we're talking about.