#255 - Hospitality Meets Gareth Rees - Mindset, Misfit & Misunderstood

This week, I sat down with Gareth Rees, and this is one of those conversations that feels properly important.

Not just for hospitality… but for how we think about people, performance, and what “doing a good job” actually means

Gareth now runs ADHospitalityD, with a mission to educate the industry on neurodiversity, breaking down misconceptions, supporting individuals, and helping businesses create environments where people can genuinely thrive.

But his story starts where many of ours do…

On the floor

In this episode, Gareth and I get into…

• Growing up in hospitality with both parents in the industry
• Falling in love with the buzz (and chaos) of a busy service at a young age
• Originally planning a career in sports… before hospitality pulled him back in
• Working his way through the industry via the Exclusive Collection grad scheme
• Why understanding the full guest journey matters in leadership
• Stepping into a Head of Department role, and suddenly hitting a wall
• The shift from doing the job to enabling others to do it
• Struggling with admin, pressure, and expectations, despite loving the industry
• Discovering ADHD later in life and what that explained
• The concept of interest-based vs importance-based nervous systems (game-changer 👀)
• Why traditional productivity advice doesn’t work for everyone
• Adjusting ways of working to suit how your brain actually functions
• And ultimately… turning that experience into a mission to support others

Some cracking quote-ables from Gareth

“We need to value the strengths, but appreciate the struggles”

“I wasn’t failing… I just hadn’t been set up in a way that worked for me”

“At Head of Department level, your output changes, and that’s where it hit me”

“I could do the job… but I couldn’t do it the way everyone else expected”

“You don’t ‘fix’ this, you learn how to work with it”

Why this episode is worth your ears

If you lead people… this one matters

Because it challenges a lot of assumptions we make about:

• Productivity
• Performance
• Communication
• And what “good” looks like at work

Gareth’s story is a powerful reminder that not everyone operates the same way, and that’s not a weakness.

In fact, when you understand it properly?

It can be a huge strength

And for an industry built on people…

That’s something we can’t afford to ignore.

Contact Gareth through his website at https://adhospitalityd.com/ or Instagram

Show Partners

A big shout out to the first of today’s show partner, RotaCloud, the people management platform for shift-based teams.

RotaCloud lets managers create and share rotas, record attendance, and manage annual leave in minutes — all from a single, web-based app.

It makes work simple for your team, too, allowing them to check their rotas, request holiday, and even pick up extra shifts straight from their phones.

Try RotaCloud’s time-saving tools today by heading to https://rotacloud.com/phil

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