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On January 13, 2009, we opened our restaurant, Shogun, in Delmar, NY and my father held our first pre-meal inside the kitchen. As the first of the soft-opening customers trickled through the front door, he shared this nugget of instruction:

“This is how you pour miso soup.”

We were about to open a Japanese restaurant — and we didn’t know how to serve the soup.

This is like asking for garlic bread at The Olive Garden and your server saying, “Garlic what?”

Case Studies: The Difference Pre-Meal Makes

I always thought pre-meal was the best part of a shift. Our pre-meals improved steadily: my father eventually moved past the soup, and instead, he’d remind us what was ’86ed, what the specials were, and what we should push that evening.

But it wasn’t my favorite part because I learned anything new, or made me feel more prepared.

I’ll get to what made pre-meal special in a moment. First, it’s worth noting how seriously other restaurants take their pre-meal. 

At Eleven Madison Park, for example, the maitre d will Google the name of every guest that evening. If he finds out a guest is from say, Detroit, and he knows a server is from there, he’ll put them together. If it’s a couple’s anniversary, he’ll figure out which anniversary

Before guests even step foot into Eleven Madison Park, they’re looking for ways to blow their minds.

This is part of the reason why Eleven Madison Park dominates — even though they only offer a $195 pre-fixe meal.

In a paper titled Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance, published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, researchers applied principles similar to the pre-meal to the fundraising process.

At the University of Michigan, researchers arranged for one group of call center works to interact with scholarship students who benefited from the school’s fundraising — a five-minute, informal chat where they discussed the students’ studies.

How much of a difference did it make?

There’s one type of email that I loathe above all others.

Can you guess what it is?

I bet it’s not what you’re thinking.

I hate ’em. Seriously, I’d rather read hate mail. I’d rather read Tea Party literature hand-curated by Ted Cruz, or ad-copy from AT&T explaining how bundling my cable, phone and Internet could save me $300.

The interesting part?

About 75% of the time, what’s inside these emails…

Is glowing. Overwhelming positive. Even raving

Yet the anxiety still seizes me like talons around testicles the moment I see the number (1) in the sub-category I keep for these emails, like a raised middle-finger, reminding me it isn’t going anywhere until I click.

Do you experience this kind of anxiety around your e-mail inbox?