Principles, stories, and insights on interrupting a rude world.
Have you ever asked yourself what hospitality really is? Is it simply being friendly and smiling at people? Is it saying hello, asking someone how their day is going, or waving at a neighbor as you drive by? Those are all wonderful gestures that can make someone feel welcome and valued. But I believe hospitality goes a little further. Sometimes, it requires us to do something more than just be friendly. Sometimes, it requires us to take action.
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Are you the kind of person who gives more than people expect? Someone who doesn't just go the extra mile but is willing to go two miles to make a difference in another person's life? Imagine checking into a hotel to celebrate a milestone wedding anniversary. The person behind the counter discovers it's your special occasion and surprises you with an upgrade to the beautiful penthouse suite on the top floor. No additional charge. Just a gift to make your celebration unforgettable. Or imagine renting a car for your first vacation as newlyweds, only to discover that the rental company has upgraded your basic economy car to a sporty convertible. Top down, sunshine, wind blowing through your hair, and the beginning of a great adventure together. Now that's what I call hospitality!
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Have you ever made a change in your life that you really didn’t want to make? Nothing about it interested you. You knew you probably should do it, but you kept putting it off. Then finally, reluctantly, you gave in. And afterward you thought, Well...that wasn’t so bad.
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I should probably just leave this page blank because hospitality always works! Or does it? The only time hospitality doesn’t work is when we don’t do it. Now, that may sound a little too simple, but think about it. What if you and I actually believed that people didn’t matter? What if we decided that people didn’t need to be noticed, welcomed, appreciated, or valued? What if we decided that showing kindness was a waste of time and that loving others was somebody else’s responsibility? Imagine a world where nobody smiled, nobody said hello, nobody opened a door for someone else, and nobody went out of their way to make another person feel welcome.
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Have you ever experienced a “WOW” moment as a customer? Maybe it happened at a restaurant, a church, an event, or even a retail store. Everything just seemed to go right. Someone noticed the details, anticipated what you needed, and made you feel like you mattered. You walked away thinking, WOW, that was a great experience.
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Have you ever been unexpectedly visited by someone important? The CIA? The Secret Service? The President? What would you do if a mysterious van suddenly pulled up, the door slid open, and several serious-looking men stepped out? Something like that happened to me. At least, that’s the way I remember it.
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Have you ever done something on a regular schedule for so long that, without even realizing it, it became a habit? That’s how habits work. We repeat something long enough and eventually we don’t have to think much about it anymore. We just do it. Unfortunately, habits can be good or bad. Doing the right thing over and over can become a habit just as easily as doing the wrong thing over and over.
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Have you ever met someone you thought was just a little… weird? They don’t look like you. They don’t act like you. Maybe they talk differently,dress differently, or do things that make you raise an eyebrow. You’re polite, of course. You say hello. You shake their hand. But that’s about as far as you’re willing to go. It’s not like you’re going to invite them over for dinner or anything.
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Let's be honest—at some point, we've all experienced rudeness. It seems to be everywhere. At the grocery store. In traffic. At work. In restaurants. Online. I've experienced it, and chances are, you have too. Imagine walking into a restaurant. No one greets you. You stand there awkwardly, wondering if anyone even noticed you. Finally, someone walks over, hands you a menu, says, "Follow me," seats you, tells you someone will be with you shortly, and disappears.
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Have you ever found yourself in a season of life where there seemed to be no good answer? The kind of season where you desperately need help but have no idea where it will come from. One day life feels steady and predictable, and the next everything changes. The future becomes uncertain. The questions become overwhelming. Hope begins to fade. I know that feeling because I lived it.
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How One Act of Hospitality Changed Everything Have you ever wondered where your next meal would come from? Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? Faced unemployment? Wondered how long you could hold things together before something had to give? It can be a frightening season when life doesn't line up the way you planned. The bills keep coming, the responsibilities don't stop, and the future feels uncertain. It happened to me.
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Have you ever noticed how one person can completely change the atmosphere of a room? The good news is that person can be you. Hospitality isn't complicated, expensive, or reserved for extroverts. It's simply choosing to make the people around you feel seen, valued, and welcomed.
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How Hospitality Turns Customers into Family. My wife and I love eating out and trying local restaurants. Have you ever walked into a place and immediately felt lost? No hostess. No greeting. No sign telling you whether to wait or seat yourself. You wander around looking for a menu, trying to figure out where to order, and by the time someone finally notices you, you're wondering if you should have gone somewhere else.
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Christopher is the CEO of a large business, preparing to lead a major employee meeting. The company was known for long, serious meetings, and as he entered the conference room, he could feel the tension and negativity in the air.
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George owned a small mom-and-pop auto parts store back in the days before giant chain stores popped up on every corner promising “aisle 14” and absolutely no human interaction. In George’s place, there was no computerized voice asking you to “press 1 for spark plugs.” There was just George, a smile on his face and coffee that had been reheated three times.
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Have you ever been in a life situation where you didn’t have a good solution? You’re in need, but you don’t know where the help will come from. Life has a way of throwing moments like that at you without warning. One minute everything feels steady, and the next, the ground underneath you shifts. I found myself in that exact situation after a traumatic experience during my career.
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Whatever happened to good old-fashioned hospitality? You know the drill these days. Walk into a giant box store, wander around aimlessly looking for what you need, avoid eye contact with everyone, scan your own items at checkout, and head home without speaking to a single human being. Mission accomplished… I guess.
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In today’s fast-paced culture, “going the extra mile” almost feels like a lost art. Most people are just trying to survive the day, do the minimum required, and move on to the next thing. Efficiency rules. Convenience wins. And hospitality? Sometimes it feels like it got left behind somewhere around 2019. But this week on vacation, we were reminded that there are still people who choose to do more.
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I am a man of habit. I eat at the same places on the same days each week with the kind of dedication most people reserve for their fantasy football lineups. For nine years while serving as a church business administrator in Burleson, Texas, my Wednesday place was Stone Soup — a small sandwich shop tucked into the kind of cozy, friendly, home-style environment that makes you forget the rest of the world is in a hurry. A place you get to know. A place where you go to meet people, one at a time, whether you planned to or not.
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He is just a regular, ordinary guy — just like you and me. Well, not exactly. Stacy was homeless at one point in his life. Like many of us, his story is written with chapters of triumph and chapters of struggle. Life has a way of throwing curve balls when you least expect them, dealing hardball circumstances that leave most people simply trying to survive — white-knuckling their way through each day just to maintain.
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Did you know I am a highly skilled, professional, and seasoned MINI Cooper driver? Fourteen years of sport rallies and now on my third MINI Cooper — each one with more horsepower and performance than the last. The proof is in the driving.
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Have you ever played bingo with three hundred people at once? The caller never stops. Letters and numbers fly like confetti. Three hundred separate conversations roar at full volume. Multiple winners shout all at the same time — and somehow you're still not one of them. The prizes are fantastic. I never win any of them.
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A mountain cabin, a secret small group study, a son with mad web skills, and a launch date circled in red. This is how it all came together. Retirement was supposed to mean more fishing and fewer deadlines. But God, it turns out, had a completely different agenda. After I retired, I kept asking Him what was next. No thunderclap answer — just this quiet, persistent sense that a plan was already in motion and I just needed to keep walking. So, I did.
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Keystone, Colorado. Sunshine. Mountains. A crystal-clear little lake sitting right in front of us like a postcard that hadn't been mailed yet. We had scored a small table for four outside a charming little restaurant — the last available table, inside or out — and life was good. We were doing what we do best: eating, talking, and people-watching.
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We were the new kids. After accepting a position on a church staff in Burleson, Texas, my wife and I arrived in town knowing virtually no one. A handful of faces from the interview process — that was it. New city. New job. New everything. The blank-slate feeling of starting over somewhere unfamiliar is equal parts exciting and quietly terrifying. So naturally, we did what any reasonable person does in a new town.
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Have you ever walked into a crowded restaurant and realized every single seat is taken? Not just mostly taken — completely taken, like everyone in the county decided today was the day to eat out. No hostess. No waiting list. Just you, standing there with a look on your face that says somebody please leave.
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As a kid growing up in the '60s, my parents taught me not to interrupt adults when they were busy or talking. It's like my parents had a sign that says "POSTED — NO TRESPASSING." It was hard not to interrupt when I was excited about something and had to share, or if there was an emergency that needed immediate attention. So, not interrupting adults was just something I grew up learning.
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Have you ever come close to ending a friendship simply because someone sees the world differently than you do? If you haven't yet, chances are that moment is coming. There's something uniquely painful about looking at someone you've known and respected and suddenly feeling like a stranger standing across from them.
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Let’s be honest—we’re living in a world that often feels rushed, harsh, and disconnected. But that’s exactly why kindness matters more than ever. The good news? Each of us has the power to change the culture in the space we occupy.Hospitality—real, intentional, kindness-filled hospitality—can transform everyday spaces.
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Some people are born with a gift for hospitality. I'm not sure I was born with it — but I was raised in it. Growing up in the 1970s, my family owned a small business, and from an early age I absorbed the culture of that store like a sponge. The customer is always right. Treat everyone with respect. Value every person who walks through the door. Those weren't just business principles — they became the way I saw people. That foundation followed me everywhere.
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Practicing hospitality toward others isn't always easy. Life gets busy, frustrations build, and we find ourselves laser-focused on our own agenda — often missing the people right in front of us. Recently, I was standing in line at Sam's Club making a return when I noticed the woman ahead of me was struggling. The employee helping her was growing frustrated too. The issue? A receipt locked inside an app that kept throwing an error message every time she tried to log in.
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It was a last-minute decision. I turned to my wife and said, "Let's go to the Christmas parade." Simple enough. The annual Burleson Christmas Parade in Old Town — what we locals call our downtown area — was the perfect spontaneous plan for a cold winter evening. We parked and made our way toward Old Town central, and that's when it hit us. Miles of people. Kids bundled up in lawn chairs lining the curbs, faces lit with anticipation. Everyone wrapped so thick in coats and scarves they looked like they were headed to the ski slopes, not a Texas street parade.
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Hospitality is about making people feel seen, valued, and welcomed — without expecting anything in return. In one sentence: Hospitality is the intentional act of creating space where others feel they belong.
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Have you ever watched someone scream at a store employee over something simple? Finger in their face, veins in their neck — all over something that could've been fixed in thirty seconds with a little grace. We were in my son's college town for a big parents' weekend. Found a hotel, got in line to check in. Long line. One clerk. My patience was running on fumes.
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My wife and I had escaped to the beach for a week of sun, rest, and the kind of fun that’s supposed to slow life down. But somewhere between the sand and the souvenir shops, we began to notice something that didn’t belong there. At first, it was subtle—easy to dismiss as a coincidence. Then it kept happening. Again and again. Almost everywhere we went.
Read PostWhile the news cameras were focused on the chaos, the crowds, and the heartbreak unfolding on the beaches of South Padre Island this spring break, something quietly extraordinary was happening in the middle of it all. Beach Reach was there.
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Rudeness didn’t appear overnight, and it won’t disappear on its own. It has been learned, tolerated, and eventually normalized. But what has been learned can be unlearned—and what has been normalized can be interrupted. Hospitality is that interruption. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t demand agreement. It simply changes the atmosphere the moment it enters the room.
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