I'm excited to share with you an interview I did with horse shults the founder chairman and CEO of the Capella Hotel Group and the co founder and former COO of the Ritz Carlton.

If you're passionate about customer service excellence and making a difference in people's lives I promise you you'll enjoy this interview.

We're talking about excellence wins. It's his new book a no nonsense guide to becoming the best in the world of compromise.

This is the Craig Groschel leadership podcast.

Well, horse is an awesome honor to have you on the Craig Groschel leadership podcast. I'm a massive fan of your work. I've enjoyed listing to you for years on podcasts hearing you at the global leadership summit.

And I just got a advanced copy of your book excellence wins no nonsense guide to becoming the best in a world of compromise. I read it all the way through last night and is absolutely fantastic. It's a gift.

I'm going to have our whole team read it. I want to ask you some questions about it and tell you thank you for writing the book. If someone doesn't know you're actually the co founder of Ritz Carlton.

Crazy famous for world class customer service. Most people don't grow up hoping to be in the hotel business. Can you give us the story behind what led you into that industry?

Well, that's a that's a funny thing. For some reason I don't know. I made a decision when I was 11 years old and backed my parents to work in the hotel business, which was contrary to any bright parents would have had.

Any kind of a job and work in a trade would have been an honor. Of course, becoming an architect would have been it in a small town in Germany.

And so they were literally embarrassed, but after begging them for several years with 14 when I was 14, they found a job in the in a hotel.

Well, it was the best hotel in the region, but unfortunately about a hundred kilometers away from home, which was very far at the time.

And so I started on the hotel business. I don't know. What was the trick point, but but enough said when I tell you I never regretted a day.

Well, you may not know the trigger point, but what we do know about you is that your work ethic and your drive and desire for excellence has always set you apart.

Where do you think those values came from in your life?

Well, I was greatly impacted by the first manager, restaurant manager, the major D we have worked. He truly impacted me. And early when I was 14, 15, he told us when I started working there as a bus boy, mind you.

Another time that meant washing dishes, cleaning tables and so on, he told us never go to work to just to work. Never go to your job to just to work.

Go all there, come here to be excellent. And he represented that. He represented that excellence. He would have never ended the restaurant without looking perfect.

And doing everything absolutely right. Now it went over my head at the time, come to work to be excellent. After all, I have to wash dishes.

But it impacted and it stayed with me. And finally, within the time that I worked there for three years, I started recognized the value of it.

Well, it shows in what you do. And in fact, you know, the driving message behind your book is really how to serve people, how to put people first, how to have excellence in customer service.

As a pastor, it's easy for me to make the application of why this is important. But I imagine there's some people that are listing right now that they might say in my business or my profession.

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