Hey Beloved,
A quick update before we dive in—
This past week I kicked off the very first Hospitality OS Workshop. It’s been life-giving to see leaders from different industries begin to reimagine hospitality as a system, not just a sentiment. In the weeks ahead I’ll share more ways you can engage with this platform—practical tools and spaces to make hospitality a foundation for your business or your work.
Alongside that, I’ve been pursuing a few other worthy endeavors in hospitality: moving toward the purchase of a historic riverside lodge, and preparing to host more leadership retreats where rest and belonging take center stage.
All of it circles back to a question I’ve been carrying:
What makes work worthy?
We spend most of our days in motion — email chains, to-do lists, performance targets. They matter, but they don’t always feel like worthy work.
Worthy work is the kind that endures.
The kind you can tell your kids about without shame.
The kind that, even when it exhausts you, still fills you with life.
It’s the work that doesn’t just produce things — it produces meaning.
What Worthy Work Feels Like
You know you’re in worthy work when…
The effort stretches you, but you’re glad to have been stretched.
The results ripple beyond the task itself — people, places, and even you are better for it.
At the end of the day you feel spent, but not wasted.
Worthy work is not always glamorous. Sometimes it looks like tending what others overlook. Showing up when no one is watching. Bearing weight that doesn’t make the headlines but does make healing possible.
Worthy Work is Always Redemptive
The longer I sit with this, the more I see it: worthy work is always redemptive work.
Redemptive work refuses to leave things as they were found. It takes what is overlooked, broken, or ordinary — and breathes new life into it.
A leader who protects their team’s dignity instead of exploiting it is doing redemptive work.
A parent who chooses presence over distraction is doing redemptive work.
A craftsman who restores an old lodge into a place of rest is doing redemptive work.
This is the kind of work that redeems people and places.
And in a culture addicted to speed and productivity, it feels downright radical.
Where Hospitality Comes In
For me, the clearest expression of redemptive work is hospitality.
Hospitality is not a side project or a “nice to have.” It’s the worthy work of seeing and dignifying people. It’s how we redeem the ordinary moments of life:
A check-in call becomes a chance to actually know someone.
A meal becomes a memory.
A transaction becomes a relationship.
Hospitality redeems because it insists that people are not just customers, employees, or strangers — they are beloved.
A Practice for This Week
Here’s my invitation:
Choose one piece of your week that feels like “busy work.” Then ask:
How can I make this worthy?
How can I make it redemptive?
Maybe it’s adding one human question before you dive into the agenda.
Maybe it’s turning a handoff email into a moment of encouragement.
Maybe it’s leaving someone better than you found them.
It doesn’t need to be dramatic. Worthy work often hides in the overlooked.
Why I’m Writing This
I want my life’s work — whether in coaching leaders through The Hospitality OS, stewarding a riverside lodge 🙏, or hosting retreats of rest and belonging — to be redemptive at its core.
Because when all is said and done, the profits, the deadlines, the noise will fade.
But the worthy work — the redemptive work — will remain.
And it is worthy of the pursuit.
With gratitude,
Nathan
P.S. If any of this is resonating with you, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Just hit reply and share a thought, a story, or even a question.
And of course—if someone comes to mind who might need this, I’d be grateful if you shared it with them. Send them this link