Why Love | Listen | Learn?

“Stan Bromley wants to meet with you tomorrow in Atlanta.”

“Me? Why?”

I was puzzled. Why would the Executive Vice President of Hyatt ask an Assistant Food & Beverage Director in Nashville to fly to Atlanta to meet with him?

Young and still awestruck by the vast atrium lobby and glass elevators of the iconic Hyatt Regency Atlanta, I found my way to the executive offices. After a cordial welcome, Mr. Bromley offered a bewildering statement:

“I need you more than you need me.”

I didn't spend much time in my office. I learned the hospitality business by “walking around”—serving alongside, observing, talking with, listening to, and learning from cooks, housekeepers, restaurant servers, front desk clerks, dishwashers, all those who did the ordinary, essential work of hospitality in extraordinary ways.

Apparently, through Hyatt's annual employee survey, those employees had written about being listened to, feeling valued and appreciated—by me.

Those ordinary, everyday, essential and humble employees influenced a corporation and, quite unexpectedly, ignited my career.

They taught me something I would carry throughout my life: the people closest to the everyday work understand it best. They experience our guests' genuine needs and feelings every day. Serving is their joy, their pleasure.

Years later, as a corporate executive officer helping redevelop the Ritz-Carlton hospitality brand, “My pleasure” became the earnest response of our employees to every guest's—or fellow employee's expression of —“thank you.” Their humble, uncompromising, selfless service inspired trust and helped create extraordinary hospitality. We believed: “If you’re not serving our guests, you had better be serving someone who is.”

They were the ordinary, authentic “experts” who practiced authentic, heartfelt hospitality every day.

Perhaps that is one reason I have come to see the Bible as a beautiful and bold book of hospitality:

“Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” — Romans 12:13

And every one of us is in need.

We desire to be known and loved, to be heard and affirmed, to belong, and to become part of something greater than ourselves.

Looking back over my life, I've discovered that God often reveals His deepest truths through the most ordinary moments of everyday life—a conversation, an act of kindness, a season of suffering, even in moments of agitation or confrontation. And especially through a passage of Scripture that speaks truth directly to my soul.

Throughout my vocation in hospitality and my journey into ministry, I have increasingly come to trust the Bible as the one true source of knowledge, wisdom and understanding (Proverbs 2:6).

And I am still learning the same lesson our hotel employees taught me many years ago:

Love people.

Listen to them.

Learn from them.

Then return to God's Word and discover what He has been teaching us all along. “I need them, more than they need me.”

Love | Listen | Learn is an invitation to pause, reflect, and discover the healing heart of Christ through the truth and wisdom of Scripture.

My prayer is that each Journal entry offers practical encouragement for today, while drawing us into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

If something shared here helps accomplish that, it would truly be “my pleasure.”

And pure joy.

Welcome. I'm grateful you stopped by. I hope you'll linger awhile—and return.