I had been with the company for three months.

I was actually going to have lunch with my former team, so I was a little early.

I drove downtown and was sitting outside of the restaurant waiting to meet them and I got a phone call from my boss and he's a global CEO.

He said, well, you know what, I just wanted to call and say I love what you've done for us in your first three months.

And I just wanted to call you and tell you that it blew me away.

What do you think I told them when I walked into that restaurant, sat down at that table with the executive team of one of the hotels?

The director of sales at that time is now our Vice president of sales and marketing.

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Here's Ben.

Hey there Lady Gym Nation.

Welcome back to another great episode.

Today I have for you Craig Strickler who is president of America's for Valor Hospitality Partners.

He leads all facets of operations for the American business, specifically focusing on team development and operational excellence among their projects in their portfolio.

Having joined valor in 2018 as Director of Operations, Craig is approaching almost 30 years of experience in the industry and has had a wide range of roles throughout.

Hospitality culture is of the utmost importance to him and to the entire Valor organization who's working 95 projects around the world today.

And Craig's committed to grooming and mentoring leaders to better support their personal and professional development.

Craig, welcome to lead the team, sir.

Thanks Ben.

Appreciate you having me.

So why hospitality in the first place?

That's a.

That's a funny story.

When I was probably a early teen, I went to a resort that I ended up working for doing two internships while I was in college and just fell in love with the property.

It was a high Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando, Florida, where I'm from in central Florida.

And just kind of fell in love with the atmosphere, the ambiance and, and, and thought this is something I could do.

And it's interesting that I actually loved, I used to love to cook, now I just love to eat and, and I thought I wanted to be a chef.

And then one thing led to another.

I thought I wanted to run my own restaurant.

One thing led to another.

I, I also played basketball in college.

I got a scholarship to a business school and, and they had a hospitality focused program that I got a major in.

And then I learned that hotels is much more in the direction of Orlando and everything I wanted to go and restaurants are frankly hard to do.

So kind of fell into hotel, the hotel business, which encapsulates all of that food and beverage, hospitality, everything.

So.

Wow.

Well, y'all, if you're in hospitality and I'm not in it, but everybody I talk to says it's a lot of work.

In fact, you're working on like everyone else is on vacation and they're having a good time on the weekends and you got to make hay while the sun's shining, so to speak.

Right.

In the hotel business.

Right.

You like to say we're 24 7, 365.

It can be frustrating.

I'll say.

When I graduated with a bachelor's degree in hospitality management, I was making $6.50 an hour working weekends.

And granted, it was close to 30 years ago, but working weekends and holidays and housekeeping as a supervisor.

And I looked at my, my colleagues, my cohorts from school and from high school, and they're going into financial services and accounting and insurance.

No, they're doing things where they work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday and making a lot more money than I was making.

So yeah, it can be taxing for, for sure.

But yet you continued.

You did.

Yeah, I'm, I'm consistent and I want to be successful in anything I attempt to, to start.

And I saw the, the drive and I saw the opportunities and I, I met general managers in the business and, and I saw the upside to hospitality, which is you meet a lot of great people, you work with a lot of great people, you get to see a lot of new places and go a lot of new places.

And there are definitely some upside if you're a people person, if you want to look at numbers and crunch numbers all day.

There's still an opportunity in hospitality, but you're usually pulled away in an office somewhere looking at your computer Screen.

So it's a people focused business and if you love that it might be the right industry for you.

100 100.

Well, I can't really get away with mentioning basketball in college without telling us a little bit about what you learned from that experience.

Well, it wasn't just the basketball but it was sports in general.

I'm a big believer in the team.

Right.

This is all about leading the team and, and what, what more than basketball or football or a lot of the down home American sports you would say are team sports and you learn to deal with your teammates, you have to rely on your team somet you have to lead your team.

Sports is a great way to learn that the pros and cons of dealing with different personalities, different coaches so ties a lot into business in a lot of ways.

Where did you play?

When I went to school there it was called Weber College, a little NAI school, NAIA school in central Florida.

Now it's called Weber International University.

I like to say I was, I'm six five, you can't tell on this, this podcast but I'm 65, about 250 pounds.

I played at about 230 pounds.

So I was big and strong and I could jump pretty good for my size but couldn't shoot, couldn't dribble.

I just played hard and, and it got me into college and got me a business degree and you know, I learned a lot from it.

So yeah, so cool.

And I, I, I love it.

Sounds like you learned at a young age to leverage your strengths like you have to.

Absolutely, absolutely.

No, that's great.

And so being a people oriented person you mentioned, when did you discover that about yourself and how has that come into play for you as a hotelitarian which I hope you'll tell me about in a second and in this business.

That's funny.

I'm going to give you the answer that you're not going to expect.

But I didn't realize that I was the people person that I feel I am today until probably in the last, I don't know, five to ten years.

Honestly I, I just some things you just take for granted and, and I think back to that, that role and as a housekeeping supervisor where I was managing and supervising a team of I think we had about 75 or 85 employees in the housekeeping department in that hotel is a 750 room resort, so a good sized hotel.

And I learned very quickly that I just had a knack for being there for the team and they were, I was approachable and you know, I could tell lots of funny stories about the housekeepers that would come in early.

We would have two or three housekeepers that always come in early and they get mad at each other because one would bring me breakfast and the other one would be coming five minutes later and bring me breakfast.

And they, you know, and I didn't tell the other one like, hey, I already got breakfast.

I just took them both because like I said, I like to eat.

So.

And it taught me that I'm an approachable guy.

You respect the employees, you respect what they do.

You're there to support them and help them.

You're not there to supervise or manage them.

To an extent.

And then I moved through the hotel business into multiple positions and realized that there's no one management style that fits one person.

You have to adjust your management style to fit who you're managing.

And if you don't realize that and you don't adjust that style, you're not going to be successful.

Because managing, especially in housekeeping, right.

Of managing a 55 year old housekeeper who works her tail off and managing a 22 year old front desk agent who also works their tail off.

If you attempt to manage them the same way, you're not going to get the same result.

They're just not the same personality.

And so you have to adjust your management style to fit that personality.

I love that.

Too many leaders say, hey, this is my leadership style.

And in fact there are leadership assessments out there to determine your own leadership style.

And I look at that and I'm like, they're missing something here because you're right, y'all.

If you try to manage you to look at their job, their personality, their preferences, and a big one, I think a lot of people Mrs.

And this is big in hospitality, Hospitality, like where are they on their career trajectory?

Are they wanting to move up or they have big aspirations or they have a family at home and they just want to just like do their job and do it well and go home and forget about work and just relax.

And you're going to manage those two, those people in very different ways.

Absolutely.

You have to.

Otherwise if you're forcing someone to, to, to continue to grow their career and continue to move on like, and they're not interested in it, they're gonna turn them, they're just basically going to turn their volume off and say, why are you trying to do this?

And if you're not attempting to grow someone who wants to grow, you're going to run into, you're going to run into Some roadblocks because that person is going to lose respect for you very quickly.

So, so good to remember that.

What do you think would surprise people who are not in hospitality from like a.

Just being in it, living it for 30 years.

The social awareness requirement of an employee within hospitality is so valuable in our industry because in the example I'll give you is if you were checking a guest in.

We all go to hotels, we all know we have to check in, although everything's digital now, so maybe you don't even have to talk to a person.

But back in the old days, let's say when you would go to check in and you have the same person behind the front desk that you're talking to, that's, that's greeting you, arriving at your hotel, and that person is checking in the two people that just got married and are beginning their honeymoon and a brand new life together.

And they're excited, they're in love, they're ready to start their new life.

You're checking them in, you put them in their room, you give them their keys, you greet them, everything's great, right?

And they walk away within 30 seconds.

The next two, the next couple that could walk up to you is an elderly couple who, one of them was just diagnosed with a terminal illness and this is their last hurrah and they're visiting for a weekend to celebrate their life together, knowing that it's about to come to a close.

And that same person had to check both of them in and have the social awareness to treat them, customize their treatment and, and the way they greet them, they interact with them, they encounter them.

It's unlike most other businesses out there that you have to have the ability to understand what the person that you're dealing with is going through and adjust your personality to fit them.

Wow, I got a chill in here in that.

And I've been to a lot of.

Pretty amazing, right?

And I've never considered that when you.

So from your standpoint, that's a very special ability.

Is that a.

Is it more nature or is it more nurture?

Yes, sure is nice if it's nature.

Yeah, I think we would hire for the nature.

I think we, we say.

You always say hire for personality and you can train for skill.

And this is a skill that's hard to train.

Right.

Because it is part of their nurturing ability to nurture.

And so we can use that, and we do use that in our orientations, in our new higher processes and onboarding for certain roles and things.

But it's hard to train someone to have the empathy or the wherewithal or frankly, the social awareness to understand that completely.

But it does, to your point, it kind of hits home when you put it in those terms.

Yeah.

Powerful is this, this is something that is important for a word that appears on your website, which is totalitarian.

What is it?

And it's empathy.

Big, big for that.

Yeah, I mean, that, that's part of the, the, let's call it the mantra behind the hotelitarian.

Like, we are about the hotel, but the hotel is made up of its guests, internal and external guests.

We, we know we want to treat our internal guests or fellow employees or hotelitarians just as, as, as well, if not better than we treat our external guests.

And so being able to empathize with them and being able to work with them and customize our ability to manage them is kind of the same thing.

So we, we've deemed that, we've coined that phrase totalitarian.

And we use that in, in replacement of employee because we believe our employees are.

Our totalitarians are our largest asset.

They're our most valuable asset.

And it's, you know, it's not a, it's not just, okay, you're another employee that works for Valor Hospitality, and we need you to do this task here and there.

You.

You made the stay.

Like our hospitality is built around not only just the service, but the experience.

And part of the experience is the service you receive.

So if you have the wrong person in the wrong job, you're not going to get the service, which then creates the experience that you're not going to want and therefore may.

May not come back.

Yeah, such a good point.

And I've heard people talk about this, and I felt this too, where maybe you're in a wonderful.

Like, you walk in and you're blown away by a nice hotel lobby, and then you go in and you have a wonderful, like, you walk in, it's like that, bam, there's that fresh room.

It looks beautiful.

But if you get bad service or there's someone's grumpy or the person checking you in, it's like, that's what people, people tend to remember the interactions they have with the people more than the physical room.

At least from my standpoint, since you've worked in the, in this world so much.

What, what's your take on that?

You're absolutely right.

And it's, it's not just one interaction or two interactions.

Obviously, the larger hotel, the more services that you provide, I mean, the minute you pull up, imagine pulling up to the front drive.

The doorman is standing behind the, the, let's call it the valet stand or the, the doorman stand.

And they don't come open the door for you, or they don't greet you, or you have to call them over or you pull up and the minute you even turn off your car or roll down the window or open the door, there's someone there to greet you, welcome you to the hotel.

I mean, that's just within seconds of arriving at the hotel.

Now imagine all of the experiences of, with the different people as you go through your stay.

Depending on how long your stay is, it could be a night or a week, depending on your, your purpose.

You're going to have encounters with multiple, multiple people.

And if they don't treat you the right way, you're going to remember.

And if they treat you and they blow you away, you're going to remember that too.

Even more so.

So I love that it sounds like it's a, it's like a bank account or like investment.

Like it's a cumulative thing, right?

Oh yes.

It compounds.

And if you can keep it rolling, all those positive interactions one on top of another, you just build, you build.

Equity in the experience.

If you have one bad encounter or your pillow wasn't as fluffed as you thought, or the bed wasn't as comfortable as you hoped it would be, you've built up equity so that they overlook that because it's been such a great experience.

And on the flip side, on the negative side, small little nicks, small little interactions that aren't perfect, they add up and they can begin to deteriorate the experience very quickly.

Whereas if it was just one bad experience or one bad, you know, situation, it can, it, it would be overlooked, right?

You're not gonna have a, a problem with one small instance.

But when those small instances add up to a total experience of negativity, you're not gonna, you're not gonna appreciate stay.

I gotta ask you, because this is such an interesting idea for me, is to consider its price point versus experience.

And in your, in, in your, in the world you live, you know, as a senior executive, like some lower price point hotels don't have a valet, but they still ever, they usually have the check in area unless it's, unless it's digital or something like that.

They have housekeeping.

How do you think about creating like where, how do you think about price point versus customer service?

Is there a place where you're like, look, y'all, at that price point.

You just don't expect that kind of customer service or is there like a minimum threshold that you believe no matter where you are in the industry?

This, this is, this is table stakes.

To be honest, Ben, we don't think about it like that.

There are expectations from a, a service level because there are.

I won't use the location, but we had a hotel in a very hot destination, leisure, transient destination, and it was a Holiday Inn Express and it was averaging 400 a night in many busy times.

Right.

It's all supply and demand in the business, as we all know.

Right.

So it was averaging 400 a night many weekends when the, the area was so full and sold out and you would never.

Football town, a college football town.

It was a.

And so to say price point.

Well, a Holiday Inn Express is a breakfast, a great clean room and smile at the front desk and that's really about it.

Might get a pool, obviously we had a nice little water park at this one.

But it was a, it was a high dollar cost and, but the expectation is still that same level of service behind the desk.

And frankly that's a smile and a personality and a greeting and, and it ran very high occupancies and very high rates.

So it's really not a price point.

It's really an expectation based on level of service.

But personality is the, is the key, right?

I mean, it doesn't matter if you're at a Ritz Carlton or if you're at Holiday Inn Express, you still expect the person behind the desk or every interaction that you have to greet you with a smile and welcome you to the hotel.

And that doesn't cost anymore, right?

You don't have to pay more to get somebody to smile.

It's just part of their personality.

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Around the world and I know you're US based but you work with these are these organizations parts of the company around the world, different cultures, different backgrounds of people.

How in the world do you get people to smile day in, day out when they have, but they have bad days, right.

They, they like things are bad at home or they have A problem.

The job is to be there and smile and welcome people.

The, the, the underlying theme is to keep them happy as.

As they can.

Right?

We.

If you notice someone that is normally smiling and they come in and they're not, for some reason, you.

You try to figure out why.

There is always.

One of the tricks of the trade for us is, you know, when you, when they're walking out from the back office to the front desk, there's a mirror, and it says, you're always on.

You're always on.

And so you can make sure that when you walk by that mirror, you practice your smile.

You also make sure that there's nothing in your teeth, but you practice that smile.

And, and it's just.

That's in virtually every hotel behind the scenes, because you want them to see what someone else.

What, what the guest is about to see before they go on stage.

And, and it's, It's.

It's hard.

It is.

I mean, you're managing people, right?

So managing people is, in my opinion, the hardest thing to do in business because not a lot of people are great at it.

Some people are good at it, and then there's a lot of people that aren't good at it at all.

And so I think part of what you're doing and, and your podcasts and your trainings, your leadership education, frankly, is just teaching people that there's many different ways to do it, and they're not always right and not always wrong.

And, and you have to learn from every leader.

You have the right and the wrong way to do it.

Let's.

Well, let's dive into that.

You've had a lot of different bosses and mentors in 30 years.

What are some of the big lessons you've learned or more memorable lessons you've learned for the ones that, that do it right and the ones that haven't?

That's the key, right?

I, I tell everyone you learn something from everyone you work for the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it.

I think about how what they did made me feel, and if I like the way I felt, I took it as a positive.

I'm like, okay, that was.

That was great.

If I took it and it didn't really make me feel, didn't motivate me, didn't make me feel the best, didn't put a smile on my face as we were talking about, I took it as something like, okay, remember that the next time because you're going to encounter.

I mean, nothing we do in this business is Rocket science.

It's, you know, you're going to encounter the same things over and over again.

And remembering the interactions as the roles were reversed as you're leading people makes me think about what I'm saying to them and how it's going to impact them.

So thinking back to those long chain of leaders that you've worked for, you don't have to name names, but what's one that you're like?

Man, that person, the way they did that, that was effective for me and the way this other individual did that was something I'm going to take away as as of what not to do.

Well, it's interesting that all of them were effective because if they weren't, I wouldn't remember them right.

If they weren't effective.

And I had one general manager years ago that I a a very nice person, but a tyrant just constantly on me about analyzing numbers and pushing me to do this and pushing me to do that and, and it frustrated me until I no longer work for him and then was grew in my career and understood why he wanted me to dig in as deeply as he did and why he was so analytical about things.

Because if you don't understand the numbers, how do you lead the team that manages and impacts the numbers?

So I took that initially I took it as frustrating but then I realized after the fact that while I didn't like the process of learning it, I understood why it was done that way.

And then I'll, I'll use one of my current boss, Euan McGlashan, our global CEO.

There was a great story.

I I'd been with the company for probably two or three months and I was, I was actually going to have lunch with my past with a hotel group that had invited me to lunch after I'd left the the company that they were working for.

And I was sitting outside of the restaurant because I was a little early.

I drove downtown and was sitting outside of the restaurant waiting to meet them and I was just sitting in my car checking emails and, and doing some work while I was waiting for the time to go in.

And again, I've been with a company maybe three months and I got a phone call from Ewan, my boss and out of the blue didn't expect it wasn't and it and he's a global CEO, jet sets around the world to all our different regions.

So out of the blue I got a call from him and I answered the phone and he said what are you doing?

And I told him what I was doing waiting to Go meet my former team.

And he said, well, I just wanted to call and say I, I love what you've done for us in your first three months.

I'm so happy that you decided to join us.

And I just wanted to call you and tell you that it blew me away.

And I'll tell that story to anybody that asked because it blew me away.

And it.

And again, I go back to what I said earlier.

How does it make me feel?

And so I try to make a point to call people or address people out of the blue when they do something that I appreciate, whether it's a birthday or whether they did a really good job on a presentation or whether they're just doing something that they do is their job and they haven't heard from me in a while.

And it.

Because it hits home when your leader calls you and tells you, hey, great job.

Out of the blue.

It, I mean, it still moves me this day.

No, I hear that.

And I'm feeling some of the goosebumps from that.

Yeah.

I just think about probably, I don't know what your.

All the previous roles were before that role, but usually when you get a call out of the blue from a boss.

From your boss, it's one of two things.

One, they want something like now.

Yes.

Or you did something bad.

Usually HR is on the phone.

Yeah, well, hope.

Luckily I haven't had to receive too many of those.

But.

But you're right.

I mean, that's.

That's what everybody thinks.

Right?

That's.

Yeah.

And so.

And that's why it blows people away when you call to just say he.

Thank you for doing this.

Great job at this.

Or.

Or just to say hi.

It really, it really means a lot to people.

Yeah, it's so good.

It's like the first time I could imagine if I was receiving that call when I worked in corporate, I would be like, okay, waiting.

I'd be waiting, listening.

I'm waiting.

Like, okay, they're.

They're giving me the classic feedback sandwich.

They're going to give me a compliment, tell me something I'm doing wrong, and give me another compliment.

But no, he's like, no, just call and say, hey, you're doing great.

Glad you're here.

What.

And what do you think?

And what.

So, so continuing that.

And you're going to meet your former team.

Exactly.

What do you think?

I told them when I walked into that.

To that restaurant, sat down at that table with the executive team at one of the hotels, which, by the way, one of those.

One of the the director of sales at that time is now our vice president of sales and marketing because of that story and probably will be listening to this and probably will remember that story very, very, you know, intimately because he was right there.

And even now it works for us.

And when I make a call a year later to that, now vice president of sales marketing and say, hey, remember the company and the guy that I told you about?

He's like, yeah, what do you think about coming to work for us?

He's here.

So well done.

Well done.

Yeah, I think that's a great.

Sometimes a story is better than the numbers in terms of how real business and recruitment and loyalty, whether it's a hotel or whether it's a, a company relationship, how it really works.

And also want to go back to your previous one about how I've had similar experiences where I worked for what I thought was a tyrant and even an evil person dumping work on me, only to go back years later and be like, wow, glad I learned all that.

Yeah, A lot of times it's I, I being willing to do the work or being able to do the work, analytical being one.

I tend to be more people oriented and a lot of the analytical stuff that I learned and I would just complain all the time now, I mean, I, even now I, I'm thankful.

Right.

And I learned it.

Yeah.

For sure.

That, and that, that experience was probably about 15 years ago and I still remember it.

Yeah.

So.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

Well, we, we don't forget the most powerful learning usually.

No, absolutely not.

So looking back over your life, what's the advice you would give your younger self or something that you would tell them to try that might accelerate their results?

I wouldn't, I don't know that it would accelerate the results because I, I actually did it, but I was hesitant to do it.

And in our business, we always, you know, and I, and maybe it's with a lot of new, fresh out of school driven future leaders, let's call them.

I believe that there was a path that I was supposed to take and if something was put in front of me as an opportunity that didn't fit the path that I had envisioned for myself, was very hesitant to consider it.

And first, probably 10, the first probably 10 or 12 years of my career, I had that path in my head and I thought to myself, all right, well if it doesn't fit this path, I, I can't take it.

And I, I, I had an opportunity to leave that company after almost 13 years and, and I took a path that wasn't the norm.

And frankly, because we're on this podcast, I'll say because of the leader that called and asked me.

He used to, he used to be one of my bosses in my former company at that former company and went out on his own, started his own company and called me.

I was the third corporate employee that they had and he made me an offer to come help him do some basically and lead projects and transitions to take over new product.

And that was definitely not in my wheelhouse, that was definitely not on my path, career growth.

But because of the person on the other end of the phone calling me, I knew that it was a good move.

And I, he said, why don't you go home and talk about it with your wife?

And I said, I don't have to.

I've, I'm ready, let's do it.

And, and, and that just led me into a, a path of just learning so much more than I had initially focused on as a young, career minded, growth oriented person.

This is the direction I need to go.

And now it's, I've expanded that in so many different ways and it would have never fit down that path.

So what's the, what's the main learning from that?

I can think of several lessons that could be helpful.

But for you, don't be so rigid.

In what you believe the future looks like.

Make the future based on the opportunities that are presented.

Don't make your future based on what you believe the opportunity should be.

Because if it wasn't on that path, I wouldn't have explored a lot of those opportunities.

I wouldn't be where I am today.

Yeah, I mean, look at your background.

You have had a lot of marquee brands and things like that on your, your resume.

And getting off that track into something new probably felt risky.

But I think it's interesting that you're going back.

You talked about the opportunity a little bit, but really you're like, I believe in this leader that I worked with.

Yeah.

Well, it's funny because the leader I work with now was, I had never met, but I had heard from mutual, we had mutual vendors that we had worked with at previous, at a couple of my previous companies and they were the ones that introduced us and they had been telling me for years, you need to meet this guy.

You just, you seem very aligned.

And this was probably five or six years before I actually had the opportunity to meet him and interview for a position.

And it just never, one thing never worked out until it did.

I got another call from that Same vendor.

And that vendor told me, you got an opportunity, I think it could work out.

I think it's worth a phone call.

And I said, sure.

We got on the phone and one thing led to another and that was April will be seven years ago.

And here we are.

So happy.

I got on that phone call and I'm so happy he took it when he was, he was driving through the uk showing off a bunch of hotels in a rainstorm, getting lost on a Sunday afternoon.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, man, how.

Wow, has that worked out for you guys?

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite failure or you've already shared a couple of twists in your career, but is there a favorite failure of yours that led to your success on down the road or accelerate?

It's.

It's kind of a personal failure.

It's.

It's a failure where I let that driven personality and that driven career minded personality that I have impact my personal life with my family.

And I was always on the road, I was always traveling and, you know, going, going.

And it wore on my family and I had to make a change abruptly because otherwise I would have lost my family.

And I did.

And that's what actually brought me to Charleston.

That's what actually brought me to where I am today.

And if I hadn't moved to Charleston, I might not have met, met Ewan and joined Valor, and I wouldn't be on this podcast with you.

So that's a personal failure, almost a personal failure that I had to adjust and make a decision.

And I did.

I'm glad I did because I here I am.

Yeah.

And powerful for people to remember too.

How.

I'm guessing that was a big change because your business, like, how can you go evaluate a hotel, how things are going if you're not there in person?

And that's kind of the nature of the job.

Right.

And using your weekends.

And so how do you think about work, life balance and being a leader in the hospitality industry?

It is probably, if you ask most leaders, I'd say 99 out of 100 would say, well, maybe 100 out of 100 would say that's their biggest challenge.

Because like I said, We're 24 7, 365 before COVID we never closed the doors.

The hotel never shuts down.

And that is the biggest challenge for a professional that has a family.

And I can't give any real insight to how to make it successful other than to attempt to make it as successful as possible.

Right.

When, when you are, when you are focused on, on your family.

And it is top of mind and I need to make sure that I take care of my family and I'm there for them and I, I'm focused on them.

You will be focused on them and when.

Because there will be times where you can't and you're gonna have to be at the hotel or you're gonna have to go check on it on a Saturday night because you got a huge event in the ballroom or in a small hotel, you've got to call in and you've got to be there for night audit because you don't have anybody there to man the overnight.

Like there are things that are, that just happen and it's a strain.

So making it a priority to focus on work, life balance and focus on your family when you can is, is extremely important to be successful with it.

Yeah, I was thinking about that.

We were talking, we were, we were in Hawaii for a couple of weeks and it happened to overlap with Christmas and the resort.

We were in world, I mean they were rolling out the red carpet on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, people working.

And I was like, that was thankful.

But I was thinking about their families.

I'm like, man, yeah.

And they're like, well, don't worry.

You know, we offset it because I engaged them.

Like we, we do it a different time and we work.

But I'm still, I'm like, man, my.

First experience with something like that was when I was the front office manager in Grand Cayman.

And it's very similar, like a Caribbean, right in the holidays.

That's where everybody from the Northeast goes for the holidays.

And I wanted to tell you the costs and the things that we had to do down there.

And I remember working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I did everything I could.

I was a single guy at the time and did everything I could to get the people that had families or the people that had close friends that had been there longer than me, the, the night off the morning or whatever I could do.

But at the end of the day we were overflowing in every room.

And I remember, it's funny, I, I was my first Christmas there.

I think I moved down there in September or October.

And so Christmas was just a few months after I'd been on the island.

And that night, Christmas night, we were basically max capacity.

And I can Remember on a 10:30, 11:00 at night when the last final check ins, because the last flights come in around 9, 9:30, the last check ins get there, they get to their room, they don't have what they Want they, they, they call to complain.

I left there probably around midnight or 1:00 in the morning and I was driving home, I bought a Jeep, top down, looking up at the be.

I mean, it was the Caribbean, right?

It's Christmas.

I was probably 80 degrees, 78 degrees.

It was a beautiful night.

My mom called me the next day and she said, how's it going?

I said, oh, well, you know, I worked all night last night.

And I think she.

Because I told her about how much I worked and I was adult and this person complained about, this person complained about that.

And she was more brokenhearted than I was because I was just like, well, that's just my job.

That's just what I do.

But it is what you do.

That's just our industry.

You're there to try to please people and sometimes you can't always do it and you just feel lost.

And to do it on a Christmas night, it's kind of like, okay, well, this is what I signed up for.

Well, I've taken a lot of things away.

I love, but really deep on the empathy side for your career and how you lead your culture and how you think about this.

And I encourage the listeners, especially business travelers out there, to show a little empathy for the people working in the hotels that you're visiting.

And I know a lot of you listening to this are probably on their way to a hotel right now.

How do you.

What can we do to be better guest for, for the hospitality industry?

I do this myself because of the role that I've played in the 30 years in the industry.

Right.

I always remember that the person you're in front of is probably not the person who calls.

Whatever the opportunity is, whatever you run into, so to take it out on them, that's not fair to them.

So there are going to be times where you have to express yourself in any capacity, whether it's a hotel or whether it's a phone call, telephone agent, because something went wrong or whatever.

I always start it with, I am not upset at you, I am upset at the situation.

And I will apologize in advance if I offend you with what I'm about to say.

And that allows me to get my frustrations out a little bit without them taking it personally, because I am not attacking them.

And it'll put it into a hotel context.

If you get to a hotel and the, the room wasn't clean to your satisfaction or it's not ready on time and it's after check in, a front desk agent didn't clean that room so don't take it out on the front desk agent.

Right.

That's, that's the, the part that people need to remember.

There's a lot of things that go into to performing and creating the experience that you want and we understand that you didn't, we didn't meet that expectation.

But taking it out on the person who you're talking to in front of is just not going to solve it.

Such a good episode today.

So many good insights on leadership and hospitality and I guess what, what it takes to be great in, in this industry.

What's your parting thought for our, our listeners today?

Craig it's more about leadership.

It's just, you know, being, being the leader.

There's not one way to do it.

There's, there's not a right way.

There's a lot of times there's a wrong way, many different ways.

But customizing that, the, the way you lead a team and the way you, you manage your team is, and the way you treat them again, internal and external.

Right.

We just talked about the external.

That's the most important piece because getting them again, going back to what managing a team is, you want to get them to achieve your goal and how you get them to do that is the most important piece.

And so you have to customize what motivates Ben to do what I want him to do versus, you know, John.

And if you can master that, then you can succeed at anything in managing a team.

Thanks for coming on the show, Craig.

Absolutely, Ben.

Appreciate you having me.

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