WGM Weekly: Hillstone Bal Harbour Closes, Aviv is Amazing, & Griffin Buying Wynwood?
+ Miami is Having a Pizza Slice Renaissance & Why you must assume positive intent.
For less than the cost of your matcha, subscribe to get full access. Cement your status as an insider and support your community. We love you Miami.
WHAT’S GOOD MIAMI: 8.11.26
Today’s newsletter includes, why assuming positive intent is the one skill that actually compounds trust in a city built on assuming the worst, Hillstone ghosts Bal Harbour with a voicemail after a decade of packed tables and leaves its landlord holding an empty container of spinach artichoke dip, Ken Griffin and Moshe Mana deny a $700 million, 30-acre Wynwood mega-deal that absolutely nobody believes, Miami officially becomes a real pizza city as La Leggenda and Miami Slice both expand at the exact same moment, and we head to 1 Hotel where Michael Solomonov’s Aviv proves the most cursed address on Miami Beach wrong, one hummus plate at a time.
On My Mind: Assume Positive Intent
Someone canceled on you last week. Someone didn’t text back fast enough. Someone made a decision that inconvenienced you and you decided, somewhere in the two seconds it takes to read a message, exactly what kind of person they are.
That’s the fastest way to ruin a relationship, a deal, or a Tuesday.
Here’s the skill nobody teaches you and everybody needs: start every relationship, every interaction, every ambiguous text, by assuming positive intent. Not because people are always good. Because closing your heart first closes you off from decades of connection and opportunity that never get the chance to reach you.
If someone lets you down after you gave them the benefit of the doubt, that’s on them. You lost nothing. You extended trust, they broke it, you adjust and move forward with clear eyes. But if you assume negative intent first, you’ve already sabotaged the relationship before the other person did anything wrong.
You built the wall. They didn’t.
Miami runs on the opposite of this more than any city I know. Everyone’s connected to everyone, three degrees max, which means everyone also has an opinion about everyone’s intentions before they’ve had a real conversation about them. Someone didn’t invite you to the thing. Someone took a meeting you thought was yours. The assumption is always the worst version of the story, because the worst version is more interesting at dinner.
Here’s what running three businesses with a lot of moving parts has taught me: the person who assumes positive intent isn’t the one who gets walked on. They’re the one who gets the benefit of the doubt back. Trust compounds both directions.
The people who assume the worst first are protecting themselves from being disappointed once. The cost is being disappointed for decades instead, because a closed heart doesn’t selectively numb. It blocks the good connections along with the bad. It’s one nerve.
Give people the read you’d want given to you on your worst day. Not because they’ve earned it yet. Because the alternative isn’t safety. It’s a slow, quiet closing off from endless opportunities because one might not work out.
BEACH BUSINESS
THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH: Hillstone Says F*ck Off Unexpectedly to Bal Harbour
Hillstone at Bal Harbour is gone. No warning. No farewell tour. Just a voicemail.
