When you create a hospitality-first culture, everything about your business improves—whether that means finding and retaining great talent, turning customers into raving fans, or increasing your profitability.

The cornerstone of the company’s culture was a philosophy Danny called Enlightened Hospitality, which upended traditional hierarchies by prioritizing the people who worked there over everything else, including the guests and the investors. This didn’t mean the customer suffered; in fact, the opposite. Danny’s big idea was to hire great people, treat them well, and invest deeply into their personal and professional growth, and they would take great care of the customers—which is exactly what they did.

It was from him I learned: Let your energy impact the people you’re talking to, as opposed to the other way around.

It’s a cliché that culture can’t be taught; it has to be caught. And what better way to appreciate the exquisite nature of Daniel’s food than to spend six months ferrying plates from the kitchen to the table? More important, while we were teaching people the technical points a little bit at a time, it would give them the opportunity to fully absorb the culture we were building, long before they became point person with a guest. And how we chose which people to invite onto the team became central to our success.

Still, a hundred and fifty people worked for us at EMP, and every one of them had to be aligned with the mission. We needed language. Language is how you give intention to your intuition and how you share your vision with others. Language is how you create a culture.