Lionel Ohayon, Founder and CEO of ICRAVE Design, lives by the philosophy of “when one door closes, another door opens.” He has created groundbreaking designs at places like terminal 5 at JFK, as well designing parts of the Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital. Lionel joins host Dan Ryan to share how his life experiences have influenced the way he views and creates #hospitality.

Takeaways: 

• Lionel designed terminal 5 for JetBlue at JFK, and when designing it he focused on trying to make people feel comfortable and relaxed with flying. 
• Hospitality is an ever-growing part of everyday life for people. The interaction between humans can be hospitality and how we perceive it is important.
• Understanding the essence of hospitality is more important than having the nicest hotel or restaurant.
• Your paradigm in life shouldn’t be “why me?”, but rather “try me,” facing any issues that come into your life head on and accepting new challenges. 
• You must be the hero of your own journey. Life can throw unexpected twists your way but it’s important to handle them the right way and see the silver lining.
• There are great opportunities to profoundly impact our world. With the advancement of technology and virtual reality, these can be used for good to bridge the divide between people.

Quote of the Show:

13:10 “I tell clients so often, like I can guild your place in gold, but if you don't understand the essence of hospitality, what the triggers are to make people feel comfortable to, or to allow people, those opportunities to step through the looking glass and learn something new about themselves, right?

To experience color in a way that they haven't because you are leading, you have an expectation about what the emotional response will be. Or what the inputs are of place, that is more about placemaking than about understanding the way things look and feel. I think that hospitality today is critical. It's an ever-growing important piece of the human interaction that we're all concerned about.”

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lionelohayon?lang=en
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lionelohayon/
• Website: https://www.icrave.com

Shout Outs:

0:09 Memorial Sloan Kettering

0:59 Stacy Shoemaker

2:48 JetBlue

8:42 Tesla

9:51 Disney Cruise Ships

19:23 Tao

21:18 Crowbar

26:17 St. Jude’s

27:33 St. Luke’s

30:40 Compass Group

31:15 “Why Me?” book by 

44:14 Michael J. Fox

44:18 Doc Hollywood

49:33 The Hotel of Tomorrow

49:44 Oculus

50:10 Ready Player One

50:14 Wall-E

52:15 Ken Burns Civil War documentary

Ways to Tune In: 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386
• Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s
• Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419
• Podbean: https://www.defininghospitality.live/
• Youtube : https://youtu.be/Vzic6OgdVpk