All Posts

I've created a quick precis, learning module here with Doodly, that will give you a top line insight into Emotional Intelligence. If you want more let me know or look up Daniel Goleman and Emotional Intelligence via a search engine. I recorded this awhile ago before I'd decided what I was going to do with Buaidh2025, so excuse the comments. Emotional Intelligence is the key attribute or competency that I look for when recruiting anyone into Hospitality. The more you know abo

Thin slicing is the art (and science) of making judgments from very small amounts of information . A glance. A tone of voice. The way someone opens a door or pauses before answering. In seconds—often fractions of a second—our brains decide who  someone is, what  they’re about, and how  we should respond. This isn’t laziness. It’s wiring. Our minds evolved to survive, not to deliberate endlessly. We’re pattern-recognition machines, constantly filtering noise to spot signals. T

Book I: “The Rest … and Be Thankful” Some stories are invented. Others feel unearthed . The Tinderdale Legend  belongs firmly in the second camp — a sweeping, myth-laden quadrology that fuses ancient history, modern tension, high fantasy, and moral reckoning into a single, escalating saga. At its heart lies Book I, The Rest .... and Be Thankful , a deceptively quiet opening that masks something vast, dangerous, and world-shifting beneath its surface. This is not a “once upon

At the heart of The 4 Horsemen  is a single, uncomfortable truth: Power is never symmetrical. And morality collapses fastest where imbalance is greatest. This story doesn’t work without asymmetry. It runs  on it. Asymmetry Is Why The Four Exist at All Benjy, Aaron, Jake, and Josh do not begin as villains. They begin as beneficiaries. They possess advantages most people never will: Elite access Financial insulation Social credibility Intellectual authority Crucially, they also

The title is deliberate. These are not literal Horsemen. They are symbolic ones—agents of change whose presence signals that something irreversible is coming. Not war, but intervention Not famine, but control of resources Not death, but the removal of obstacles Not conquest, but inevitability They don’t destroy the world. They reshape it. Quietly. Why This Story Matters Because we like to believe evil looks obvious. Because we like to believe power is loud. Because we like to

Hospitality often talks about experience as if it were a series of moments. A welcome. A service interaction. A meal. A departure. But guests do not experience hospitality in moments. They experience it through their senses , continuously, whether we are paying attention or not. Guest Experience (GXP) is not primari ly cognitive. It is sensory first, emotional second, rational last . And by the time the rational mind catches up, the body has already decided how it feels. We D

People often ask what sits behind my work. Whether it’s Buaidh, Pavement to Profit , The 4 Horsemen , or The Tinderdale Legend , the assumption is usually that these are separate projects — fiction here, hospitality there, philosophy somewhere in the background. They aren’t. They are different expressions of the same way of seeing the world. I Start With Observation, Not Theory I’m not a system-builder in the academic sense, and I’m not interested in ideology. I don’t begin w

Hospitality tells itself a comforting yet big fib. It says the guest journey begins at the door. It says it begins with a smile, a greeting, a warm welcome, a handshake, a “Hi guys, how are you today?” delivered by someone wearing a name badge and a slightly rehearsed enthusiasm. It says that if the service is good, the food is decent, the room is clean and the staff are polite, then the experience will take care of itself. This big fib is neat. This big fib is convenient. Th

"Jack/Jill/They of all trades, master/mistress/they of many"   A good Leader needs to be dexterous being able to adapt and change to varying situations, tasks and people.  This ability to change and adapt, I call being "a Jack/Jill of all trades, master/mistress of many."   Quite simply as a Leader it's not sufficient enough to your followers, for you to be able to put your mind, or your hands, to one specific 'thang'; your specialism or your predominant style or behaviour.  

“Leaders should be like great waiters and waitresses”.   You are at your table at a restaurant, and have finished your first course, and are chatting. Time goes by and your plates have not been cleared so you try to get the waiter’s eye. No can do. He is busy focusing on another table, and as he passes you, he has got his eyes down and seemingly ignores you.   Sounds familiar?   The great restaurants, delivering great service, employ waiters and waitresses whose peripheral vi