Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Her Goal Was My Birthday: Hotel Executive Turned Coach Lindsy Wnorowski on the Story That Changed Her Life
Transcript
- 0:04Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
- 0:08where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
- 0:11their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
- 0:14adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
- 0:16and today's guest is Lindsay Winorsky.
- 0:19She is the founder and Managing Director of Executive Leadership
- 0:23Consulting, a firm specializing in leadership development,
- 0:26strategic planning, change management and executive
- 0:30coaching. Their mission is to align
- 0:32culture with strategy using the Red Thread leadership model,
- 0:36helping businesses of all sizes achieve sustainable growth.
- 0:40Lindsay brings extensive hospitality experience across
- 0:43global markets where she has built high performing teams and
- 0:47shaped hotel general managers to excel through cultures of
- 0:50innovation and excellence. Before launching the company,
- 0:53Lindsay honed her skills at major hospitality brands,
- 0:57gaining deep insights in the leadership and organizational
- 1:00design. Now before we get into all that
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- 1:43AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
- 1:46today, Founder of Executive Leadership Consultants, Lindsay
- 1:50Winorski. Thanks for making the time to
- 1:51Share your story today. Anthony, thanks for having me.
- 1:55I'm really looking forward to getting to know you and sharing
- 1:57the story with my fellow Buckeye.
- 1:59So, all right, Ohi. Already.
- 2:04Yeah, big victory. And I see that you're donning
- 2:06the scarlet in Gray, and that warms my heart.
- 2:09Much appreciate. Just for you, Anthony.
- 2:13So Lindsay, you we're with Marriott, I think since you
- 2:17graduated college 27 years, which is basically all you had
- 2:21known at the time, what first drew you into the world of
- 2:26hotels and hospitality? Thanks for the question.
- 2:29Actually during college, so I, I, I graduated at 17, headed out
- 2:35to Colorado for my first year, thought about playing softball
- 2:39at Colorado State, ventured back home to Bowling Green State
- 2:42University and during school started working for a Marriott
- 2:45Hotel. I had family in the business and
- 2:49needed a job to, to help pay for college and started a 90 room
- 2:54Courtyard Marriott in Maumee, OH, we, we opened the doors to
- 2:59that place. So which is it's a special
- 3:02opportunity when you open a hotel, you're putting the
- 3:05mattresses and you're putting the garbage cans in.
- 3:07You're, you're sort of putting everything together within the
- 3:09hotel. And that camaraderie that's
- 3:11built is something that I, I fell in love with.
- 3:16I didn't know it. I was going to school for
- 3:17finance, but ended up getting ready to graduate from Bowling
- 3:22Green, was looking to head into a career in financial planning
- 3:26and had been kind of working at the front desk of this small
- 3:29hotel during college. And the regional director at the
- 3:33time came in and visited the hotel, Mike Marcus, and said,
- 3:38would you ever consider staying with Marriott?
- 3:40And I was 20, I believe. And I thought, maybe what's that
- 3:46mean? And he's like, we have
- 3:47opportunities and, you know, different capacities.
- 3:50And I ended up engaging in the conversation with Mike and
- 3:53interviewing for a job in Chicago and interviewing a job
- 3:56for a job in San Francisco from small town Ohio.
- 3:59And I took the the leap and made my way to Chicago.
- 4:03Then 27 years later. And what was that first role
- 4:06then kind of coming out? Of college, it was an assistant
- 4:10general manager and it was so funny, Anthony, they said we
- 4:12can, you know, pay for your relocation.
- 4:14And I thought I'm sort of looking around my apartment
- 4:18thinking I, I don't think we need to pay for any of this
- 4:20stuff to be transported to Chicago.
- 4:22But it was an assistant general manager.
- 4:23So it was a bit of a a leap from a kind of front desk agent at a
- 4:29small hotel and to an assistant general manager in the the
- 4:31northern suburbs of Chicago and Highland Park.
- 4:35So what was it about Marriott that you fell in love with kept
- 4:38you there for nearly three decades?
- 4:42The travel benefits are not terrible.
- 4:45I've got to tell you now. I mean that that is a true
- 4:48thing. I, I did, again, coming from
- 4:51Maumee, OH, became very quickly sort of a, a global citizen with
- 4:56the Marriott benefits. But it was, it was a family.
- 5:00It really was a family. The hotel that I, I first
- 5:03started at, the majority of the housekeepers had sort of
- 5:06emigrated up from Mexico. They taught me Spanish, which
- 5:09was fantastic. I became, you know, a godparent
- 5:14to some of their children. It was just this amazing, just
- 5:18connectivity and family atmosphere that allowed me to be
- 5:23myself and, and grow. I was always looking to, I just,
- 5:28I had a thirst for growth and Marriott, you know, Marriott
- 5:32allowed that and being in the Chicago market, just the
- 5:35diversity of people that I met in the different perspectives
- 5:41from around the world that that's a huge reason on why I
- 5:44stayed with the this great company for almost 30 years.
- 5:47Did you, in the early days second guess the decision not to
- 5:50get into financial planning? Never, never.
- 5:57The schooling that I did was beneficial for me.
- 6:01A lot of you know what I did, I was, I was only in that
- 6:04assistant general manager role for probably 16 months or so and
- 6:10very quickly at the age of 23 became a general manager.
- 6:14I had no idea what I was doing. That was quite an interesting
- 6:16experience by the way. But what I had learned from a
- 6:20financial perspective in college, it it absolutely was
- 6:24applicable. Now running this multi
- 6:27$1,000,000 business at 23 years old, trying to figure out, you
- 6:30know, what I was doing. So I I never second guessed it
- 6:32actually. And you use the phrase, I had no
- 6:35idea what I was doing. Who or where could you kind of
- 6:39go to get support? Who could you lean on?
- 6:43You know, I had a visit from the senior leaders within Marriott
- 6:48when I was at that hotel in Highland Park, and my general
- 6:52manager at the time happened to be in Thailand, and I had just
- 6:56really gotten there and knew what I needed to do.
- 7:01I make the hotel look clean, make sure everybody was smiling,
- 7:04have a good first impression, sort of brush up on the business
- 7:07as quickly as I could. And that day really changed my
- 7:13life. They visited my hotel area vice
- 7:16presidents, regional vice presidents, folks who had been
- 7:18in the business forever, left my hotel, went and visited another
- 7:22hotel where that property visit did not go so well.
- 7:25And they made a phone call and said, I want Lindsay to come
- 7:29over and run this hotel. I was 23 and I learned a lot
- 7:36through trial and error. I walked into the hotel.
- 7:39Every person in the hotel was significantly my senior and I'm
- 7:44supposed to get them to come with me, not behind me to
- 7:47achieve common objectives. And they're looking at me like,
- 7:51who is this child coming in to run the hotel?
- 7:54And and really I'm going to ask, where did I learn?
- 7:56Who was my mentor? It was a lot of trial and error.
- 8:00And I think I learned in my career.
- 8:03That was a way that I learned well.
- 8:05I mean, it was ingrained. It then became I have a
- 8:08philosophy that I teach some of my coaching clients and it's
- 8:11called sort of be no, do you know be who are you know, what
- 8:17do you know and then do what do you know how to do in the
- 8:21significant difference in those three categories.
- 8:23And throughout that first stint as a general manager and a
- 8:28growing up in that hotel, I really learned who I was.
- 8:33It wasn't till much later in my career until I got to this sort
- 8:36of do what do I know how to do? But I I don't think I could pick
- 8:40one particular person that was kind of a mentor at that stage
- 8:43of my career. And tell us about a couple of
- 8:47the other stops that you made along the way before we get to
- 8:50sort of present day on what you're doing now.
- 8:52So I, I want to kind of lay the groundwork for some of the, the
- 8:56foundational experiences that you've had.
- 8:58Sure. I mean, really, the foundational
- 9:01experiences I had I think came from playing sports in high
- 9:04school and learning that just innately I was competitive.
- 9:10I wanted to win by sort of 40 instead of four, always.
- 9:16I had a coach who Jamie Mercurio, who went on to play
- 9:20college basketball at University of Miami.
- 9:24They played in the NCAA tournament.
- 9:25He he has, you know, we watched the video of him shooting many 3
- 9:28pointers as he they played University of North Carolina.
- 9:31They got knocked out in the first round, but he did it to
- 9:34the NCAA Tournament. That was probably, I should have
- 9:36answered that when you said who, who did you learn from?
- 9:38It was in those foundational years that and I knew the only
- 9:43way to win by 40 instead of 4 was with the team.
- 9:49And so even at this first hotel in Lincolnshire, I knew walking
- 9:52in, even though everyone looking at me was like, this is this is
- 9:56a little bit of a stretch. She's so young.
- 9:59The way in which we went about winning at that hotel, for me it
- 10:04was just building relationships. It was building relationships
- 10:07with team and getting them to trust me.
- 10:09I was there for just a couple of years and moved on to a little
- 10:12bit larger market into O'Hare, which I remember interviewing
- 10:16for O'Hare and interviewing of against, you know, a bunch of my
- 10:19colleagues who were significantly more experienced
- 10:22than me. That was a challenge that I
- 10:25overcame. When I did get that job, it was
- 10:29everyone was was sort of confused how how I was able to
- 10:34move into that rule. But again, even at O'Hare it was
- 10:36it was the same process. It was building relationships
- 10:38with the team, earning their trust, challenging them.
- 10:42So I spent some time at O'Hare in a general manager capacity
- 10:46and then in the hospitality industry, at least for some of
- 10:50the coveted rolls are really in the downtown urban market where
- 10:54it's most complex. They generate the most amount of
- 10:58revenue. The challenges are significantly
- 11:01more important. The mistakes are, are much
- 11:05bigger. So I spend a little bit of time
- 11:07in it's, it's the revenue associated with the hotel.
- 11:11They're typically generating higher AD Rs average daily rates
- 11:15based on demand, supply and demand.
- 11:19And so the decisions and the judgement, you know, I always
- 11:22think that, you know, why do I hire you as a leader?
- 11:24It's based on your ability to make decisions, right?
- 11:26And if you make a bad decision in those markets, there's a
- 11:29microscope on it. If I made a bad decision out in
- 11:31Highland Park, nobody really knew.
- 11:34It was a couple $1000 mistake as opposed to something bigger than
- 11:37that. But then I moved to downtown
- 11:39Chicago and one of the best seven years of my life was was
- 11:45downtown Chicago. My hotel was adjacent to Lurie's
- 11:49Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital in Chicago that is
- 11:54world renowned. It was really where I saw the
- 11:57impact of the privilege really of being a leader and the impact
- 12:04that you can have on something so much greater than you and
- 12:07your team. And it was really through a
- 12:08bunch of those relationships with with Lurie's.
- 12:10But I was there for seven years and was ready to do do more,
- 12:16have a, you know, really grow more leaders, have a larger
- 12:21scope of business. And that's when I moved into a
- 12:23regional capacity sort of pre COVID and had the opportunity to
- 12:28oversee some Midwestern markets, Minneapolis, Saint Louis.
- 12:32So what does that mean? Like you sort of have several
- 12:35general managers that report to you.
- 12:38That's right. And and I worked on the manage
- 12:40side. So we, we all worked for
- 12:41Marriott. So we Marriott is largely a
- 12:45management company. We don't own hardly any of our
- 12:48hotels, very, very few hotels. We're not a real estate company,
- 12:51which is very good in times and can be extremely lucrative
- 12:55because you don't own the real estate.
- 12:57So in the regional capacity, I had general managers reporting
- 13:00to me. So my role was, you know, to
- 13:03inspire and motivate them with the end result of driving
- 13:06performance exceeding expectations of the owners.
- 13:11Our hotels are largely owned by different owners.
- 13:14Not a lot of people know that about about Marriott, but is it?
- 13:17Like a franchise system. It's there's a franchise, a
- 13:21large franchise component to the business, but they, these, these
- 13:25owners come to us to manage their hotels.
- 13:28So we are just a management company.
- 13:29I'm not just a very successful management company, but that was
- 13:33that that role pre COVID for me was in a regional capacity
- 13:38partnering with general managers that I used to be to to deliver
- 13:42performance. And so that particular owner,
- 13:45they own the land, they own the actual building, they've paid
- 13:49for the development. And they say, hey, Lindsay
- 13:53Marriott, you guys are the experts.
- 13:54We would like for you to come in here and actually run this for
- 13:58us and we'll pay you a fee for that.
- 14:01That's right, they pay a fee on the top.
- 14:03You know, we charge a management fee, the percentage 5678 percent
- 14:07on the top is what Myriad takes and the rest of it, when you
- 14:11work through the the PNL, you know, so really how the hotel
- 14:14performs is the success for the owner.
- 14:17They're the ones with the net operating at operating income,
- 14:20which is hopefully a positive at the end of the year, at the end
- 14:22of the day, at the end of the month.
- 14:23So performance, we always talk about performance drives
- 14:27preference. The better we perform for this
- 14:30owner, the more likely it is that we're going to be the
- 14:32preferred management company. You know, as we grow, if we have
- 14:36general managers that aren't performing, you know, you can
- 14:40see that through the statement. And so if there's a manager
- 14:44who's not performing, would they still keep the Marriott name and
- 14:49bring a new management company in or would that be like, hey,
- 14:53we're, we're ripping the Marriott name off of this
- 14:55building and we're changing to something else?
- 14:58Absolutely incredible question. And that's on the mind of many
- 15:02general managers daily. I mean, there's a management
- 15:04agreement in place and there's a variety of ways in which owner
- 15:08could sort of kick us out of managing their their company.
- 15:11Sometimes it's encumbered, meaning you can, you know, kick
- 15:16Marriott out, but you're still going to have to be managed.
- 15:19Other times it's unencumbered where they can say, listen, we
- 15:22want a different management company to run this hotel
- 15:25because we're not happy with the current management company.
- 15:28So it really depends on the management agreement, but that's
- 15:31what we were always fighting for was to, in my opinion, Marriott
- 15:36should be the best manager of Marriott hotels.
- 15:40It's who we are, but there's some really successful franchise
- 15:45management companies out there that there's there's a ton of
- 15:47them. The majority of our business is
- 15:48really franchise. So you were on a great career
- 15:52track, dude, been moving up. Now you're, you know, regional,
- 15:56you've got several GMs that are reporting to you.
- 15:59I'd like to hear about what was behind the decision to leave
- 16:03this kind of safe corporate job and go out on your own.
- 16:07And I think maybe a good place to start.
- 16:09You tell me, But it'd be interesting to hear about the
- 16:13mentor from Whirlpool and how his guidance kind of influenced
- 16:18the decision that you made. Yeah, I, I'm crazy.
- 16:21I think that's one thing for sure.
- 16:23Leaving a, a really, you know, 27 years and three decades, The
- 16:28foundation of my life is the relationships and opportunities
- 16:33that Marriott afforded me. And we, we went through a bit of
- 16:37a reorg in sort of December of this year.
- 16:40And I had always sort of had a reputation of pushing the
- 16:49boundaries a little bit. There was perhaps opinions that
- 16:53maybe I was a little bit too transparent, maybe sharing, you
- 16:57know, behind the scenes with my team, what was really going on.
- 17:01And and it always bumped up against some boundaries.
- 17:05And I like to look at it of sort of a compare and contrast.
- 17:12Making the decision 27 years and through lots of conversations
- 17:16with my mentor and thanks for mentioning him was about I felt
- 17:22ready and prepared based on what I had learned in the three
- 17:25decades. It was about having the
- 17:30opportunity to do what I love, which is be up close and
- 17:34personal with leaders, have the freedom to do it authentically
- 17:39my way without any precedent, any sort of bureaucracy or or
- 17:47layers of approval. And I had a discussion, lots of
- 17:51discussions with a mentor of mine.
- 17:52I met a gentleman who was the chief human resources officer
- 17:57for Whirlpool Corporation. I was on my first day as a
- 18:01general manager at O'Hare and the event manager walked into my
- 18:04office that was green, I remember, and said we've got a
- 18:09client in the media room today. That's a real pain in the ass.
- 18:12And I thought, well, good morning, I'm Lindsay, nice to
- 18:14meet you. And in hearing that, I thought
- 18:17what a great opportunity. I love when they're a pain in
- 18:19the ass. This one's going to be fun for
- 18:21me. You.
- 18:22Enjoy that? I do.
- 18:24I looked at it as as an opportunity.
- 18:27I love building relationships with people that are perceived
- 18:32difficult that when I have the opportunity to really get to
- 18:37know them in whatever capacity I can based on the timeline, it's
- 18:41like, I don't think they're a pain in the ass.
- 18:42They just have high expectations.
- 18:44They're very detail oriented. They don't accept mediocrity.
- 18:49So this gentleman, Ed Dunn, watch into my office.
- 18:54And again, I'm 26, maybe at the time, a little bit wet behind
- 18:59the ears. And I just looked at him.
- 19:00I shook his hand and I said, you must be the pain in the ass that
- 19:02we have in our meeting space today.
- 19:04And he starts laughing. And I felt comfortable saying
- 19:07that it was, you know, some people are like, you're kidding
- 19:10me. That's how you greeted him.
- 19:11And it just felt it felt right. Talk about pushing the
- 19:15boundaries a little bit and being transparent.
- 19:18He and I, we met, you know, we talked.
- 19:21Everything went great with his meeting.
- 19:22He chose to retire from Whirlpool and became a
- 19:27consultant doing head hunting for CE OS.
- 19:32He was extremely intelligent, just and so humble, so not a
- 19:39pain in the ass at all. By the way, he's I look forward
- 19:41to seeing him later this week up in Saint Joe, Michigan.
- 19:44He became a mentor. We actually went out to dinner
- 19:45that night. I remember we went to Nick's
- 19:47Fish Market and at O'Hare and had some Dover soul by the way.
- 19:50But he became a mentor for me. He was my greatest source of
- 19:55inspiration and has changed my life.
- 19:58He's probably in his 80s now, and like I said, I'm getting
- 20:01ready to go see him in Saint Joe, Michigan to do some.
- 20:04Work this coming weekend. But he and I spoke about the
- 20:07transition from leaving Marriott and he did it and he went
- 20:12through it and he had a significant, well, a significant
- 20:17more amount of stress than me thinking about leaving the
- 20:20comforts of corporate America. He had a wife that was battling
- 20:23cancer who has unfortunately passed away.
- 20:26But the insurance benefits and, and that type of stuff that come
- 20:29with that decision. But he, he instilled the
- 20:32confidence in me that what you've learned within Marriott
- 20:35is important and valuable and you can do it in your own way.
- 20:40And I'm going to support you by doing that.
- 20:43And that's, that's kind of what I've been doing over the last 8
- 20:46to 9 months and it's been, it's been really exciting.
- 20:49OK, so let's dive a little bit more into what it is that you're
- 20:52doing at Executive Leadership Consulting.
- 20:55Who, who are your clients? What?
- 20:56What can you do for them? Yeah, I mean it's it's really
- 21:00rooted in talent and performance.
- 21:03So my clients are, it kind of spans from GMs who are looking
- 21:06for coaching, so general managers within merit and and
- 21:10even outside of merit that are just either stuck and looking to
- 21:15go through a process that I kind of call Adm assessment,
- 21:19development, measurement, working through that sort of up
- 21:22close and personal with them in a coaching perspective, doing
- 21:26some workshops that are really transformational.
- 21:30I mean, there's a leadership transition workshop that we go
- 21:34through that I learned through through Ed where anytime there's
- 21:40a change at the top, whether it's a new general manager, a
- 21:42new CEO, change creates anxiety. Everything pauses, especially in
- 21:51a hotel. We have AGM that's been in
- 21:53position for a long time. They're moving on, they're
- 21:55retiring, they're moving to another role.
- 21:58The performance takes a dip. And the point of this meeting,
- 22:03this leadership transition meeting is to really mitigate
- 22:06the depth and the duration of that dip in the way that we do
- 22:10it with the third party consultant.
- 22:12And I've had the opportunity to do 5 or 6 of these in the last
- 22:14couple months, which have been so rewarding.
- 22:16Is it's a structured process that really brings all of the
- 22:21fears, all of the unknowns about the new leader.
- 22:24For instance, you know, am I in or am I out?
- 22:28I was so and so's number one guy.
- 22:31How am I going to be with this individual?
- 22:34Am I in top or am I on bottom from a control perspective, from
- 22:38an open and trust perspective? Am I going to kind of wait and
- 22:41see and kind of hold off on bringing my full self to the
- 22:44business or am I going to go all in and trust this individual?
- 22:47So this process is brilliant. It originated actually in in
- 22:54organizational effectiveness program in the Army.
- 22:59Ed Dunn and his his colleague have put me through the be no do
- 23:04so they put me through a couple of these with them and then have
- 23:07unleashed me to to do these on my own.
- 23:09And it's amazing to see the team that walks in on the day of the
- 23:14meeting is so different than the team that walks out of that
- 23:18meeting. And the way that they hit the
- 23:20ground running the next day that they show up to work based on
- 23:22what they've talked about, the trust that has started to build.
- 23:28I, I, I had a couple of folks, directors of human resources say
- 23:31to me, I've learned more about my team that I've worked with in
- 23:3514 years in the last four hours in this leadership transition
- 23:39meeting. And wow, we get to work together
- 23:42differently now. And it's, so that's, that's one
- 23:45of the workshops. Anthony, another thing that I'm
- 23:48passionate about, I'm sorry to get you off is, is culture.
- 23:54It all comes down to culture. It, it really does.
- 23:57I mean, we're in the performance industry and we want to deliver
- 23:59results. Whether I was the point guard or
- 24:04the 23 year old GM, the culture dictated the performance and the
- 24:12results. And so there's a a lot of work
- 24:15that I've been doing around associate relations make me feel
- 24:21that I am somebody at every single individual.
- 24:25During COVID, the essential workers, right?
- 24:29We all heard about the essential workers.
- 24:31And if it was not clear in advance of COVID who the
- 24:36essential workers in the hotel, it was 1000% crystal clear after
- 24:41COVID, the essential workers in the are the housekeepers period.
- 24:47And instilling that in general managers, I do a lot of work
- 24:52with sort of servant leadership. I know it's a bit of a cliche,
- 24:56but it's really what I believe. If you as a general manager
- 24:59don't feel like it's an absolute privilege to lead A-Team, you're
- 25:04probably not in the right job. So that's a little bit of the
- 25:07work that we're doing. And then there's an owner
- 25:09ownership component, which is really exciting.
- 25:13On the ownership side, like we talked about, a lot of the
- 25:16owners are owner operators. So they don't have Marriott
- 25:19there to manage their their hotel.
- 25:21They have their own team. So some of the work that has
- 25:24been interesting and I'm getting ready to do tomorrow.
- 25:26Meeting with an ownership company here in Kansas City is
- 25:29more of a total organizational assessment, taking the
- 25:32opportunity to assess the business, kind of analyze the
- 25:38opportunities and whether that's through selection or
- 25:43deselection, that may be part of that part of it, or just
- 25:48tweaking the Rubik's Cube a little bit to, to help drive
- 25:51performance. But that's, that's the bulk of
- 25:53it is talent and performance owners, individual GM's,
- 25:57workshops on leadership. I've been a leadership junkie
- 26:02and have craved that knowledge probably since I started
- 26:06following Bobby Knight back in the day.
- 26:09So. Is Bobby Knight an inspiration
- 26:12for you? Because you don't come.
- 26:16Across as a Bobby Knight. I don't endorse the chair
- 26:20throwing across the but what I do love about Bobby Knight,
- 26:24besides the fact that he was a Buckeye, I think like a 6th man
- 26:27on the on the Ohio State team. In case you don't know that, but
- 26:32the way in which his team performed was rooted in
- 26:35practice. Practice, practice, practice,
- 26:38practice, plan, perform. That's how I built my teams.
- 26:43We were so good that I had a phrase, we built A-Team so
- 26:49strong that you don't know who the leader is.
- 26:52It was incredible. So Bobby Knight, you know, as as
- 26:57harsh as he comes off, his team was so loyal to him and his his
- 27:03players graduate, which which I can, you know, kind of draw a
- 27:06line to the team that worked around me and with me.
- 27:11They weren't jumping at the next opportunity that paid more,
- 27:14right? I mean, imagine now in NIL,
- 27:16right? Who knows what it would be like
- 27:18with Bobby Knight coaching now, what the team would look like.
- 27:20But our team was so close, built on loyalty.
- 27:23And my expectations were really high and I pushed people, you
- 27:27know, to get there. And so he is an inspiration to
- 27:30me, oddly enough. Minus the chair throwing.
- 27:34And minus, minus the chair that that was not good.
- 27:37I do not condone that of. Course.
- 27:40But I want to go back to one of the first things you were
- 27:42talking about that you provide this 4 hour workshop where I
- 27:46think, you know, one of your clients said, yeah, I've been
- 27:48working with my team for 14 years.
- 27:50I know more about them now from the last four hours than I do
- 27:54the previous 14 years. What's taking place in that room
- 27:56during that time? If I'm doing a good job and what
- 28:00I think I've really spent my career on and where it came a
- 28:03little bit of a rub for Marriott was creating an open
- 28:09environment. So I am very clear on, you know,
- 28:12a lot of GM say I want to bring the entire leadership team and
- 28:15my first question to them is, is it safe?
- 28:18Is it safe? Is it going to be safe for a
- 28:21direct report in a subordinate once removed to really share
- 28:25what's going on? And so the design, the I was I,
- 28:30I think about 80% process, 20% content.
- 28:33The design of the meeting is such that it's a safe
- 28:37environment. I do some one-on-one interviews
- 28:40with everybody in advance of these meetings and gather the
- 28:43what from the interview, not The Who.
- 28:46So there's a confidentiality that's really important to me
- 28:50and critical to the meeting being successful.
- 28:53And the way it's it's it's the way that either the questions
- 28:58are asked, the environment that is set.
- 29:00We don't do it at the hotel. We're always off site.
- 29:04I like teams of three as opposed to teams of 2A.
- 29:07Triad is significantly different than a dyad.
- 29:12So there's a lot of thought put into the process that allows for
- 29:18the open dialogue. I was doing one last week and at
- 29:21the the very end, 4:30, this typically ends at 5:00.
- 29:25We start at noon or so. At 12:30, this team was a little
- 29:28hesitant to really open up. And I talked through with them.
- 29:32I named it. I said, if I'm doing a good job
- 29:34today, we're going to go from control, the inclusion to
- 29:38control to openness. And at 4:30, one of the leaders
- 29:42in the room looked at their new GM and said, you know what?
- 29:46I do not appreciate this and I've been dealing with this and
- 29:50this is really challenging for me.
- 29:52And that leader looked back at the the leader on their team and
- 29:56they simply said thank you. And I said, we made it.
- 30:00We made it to openness and trust in that it wouldn't have
- 30:03happened without probably someone facilitating, you know,
- 30:09that wasn't within the organization.
- 30:10So I get that, you know, there's a lot of thought put into who's
- 30:15in that room, right in the combination of people, the
- 30:18number of people that are going in there.
- 30:21And you've got through these pre interviews that you do to kind
- 30:24of as much as you can understand some of the dynamics that are
- 30:27going on. But what's the actual content
- 30:30that's taking place? Is it, you know, you're not
- 30:32doing, I'm going to guess you're not doing like trust falls and
- 30:35that kind of a thing. It's more like, I don't know
- 30:38what, tell me. It's a great analogy, by the
- 30:41way, though I love the trust falls, right?
- 30:43And ideally we don't do trust falls, by the way, my favorite
- 30:45is when the person falls forward, but it's it's at the
- 30:50beginning. It's kind of what don't you know
- 30:53about this leader that you'd like to know?
- 30:56And then them kind of sharing that feedback.
- 30:58It is what are some things that have been going on at this
- 31:02property forever that don't make sense and that you'd really like
- 31:07to stop? The the first thing that I, that
- 31:11I share with the leader, the new GM having been one, especially a
- 31:17young one, I felt like we always had to be the change agent.
- 31:21You're bringing me in here to be the change agent.
- 31:24One of the things that we talk about very openly in this
- 31:26meeting is what are the things that we have to protect?
- 31:30You know what, John, you can have the freedom to change
- 31:34anything, but don't touch these 10 things.
- 31:36These are critical to the core of the hotel.
- 31:38These are critical to who we are.
- 31:40So having the leader learn from the team what they can't change
- 31:46before they even start to think about all the things that they
- 31:49want to change is a mindset that isn't typically talked about.
- 31:54So those are some of the things that we talked about in this
- 31:56meeting. And we end with, you know what,
- 31:58with a dinner that night and I ask everybody to just kind of go
- 32:01around the room and say one or two words about how they felt
- 32:03about the day. And it's typically, well, it's,
- 32:07it's been always good. It's, I don't know if I'd like
- 32:10the word vulnerable because I think people, you're vulnerable
- 32:13and they look at a picture in the dictionary and they see,
- 32:16maybe they see weakness. I don't know.
- 32:17I, I'm hoping that changes, but it's a vulnerable meeting.
- 32:20It's a meeting where it's safe to share what's really going on.
- 32:25I might ask you to be vulnerable here for a moment, and it would
- 32:28be good to explore a serious challenge that you've overcome
- 32:33in your life. How did you get through that and
- 32:35what did you learn? I would say that the most,
- 32:40there's a few, but one that comes to mind that ties back to
- 32:42something that I briefly touched on earlier was the proximity to
- 32:45Laurie's children's. And I don't know what you can
- 32:48see behind me, but there's a little bit of a picture right
- 32:51there and you can kind of see it of a young lady who lived at a
- 32:58hotel with me. She was born in Iraq, lived in
- 33:00Dubai at age 6, was diagnosed with with with cancer.
- 33:06And oddly enough, as rich as the country is of Dubai, their
- 33:09healthcare from a children's perspective is really lacking.
- 33:14We would all want to go there if we had something going on with
- 33:16us. But from a child, they brought
- 33:18this child to Chicago to Lurie's to be to be treated.
- 33:24There was a change in administration in the US where
- 33:27the fact that their passports were from Iraq became difficult
- 33:33for them to stay in the country. Even though they're 6789 and 10
- 33:37year old, which is the ages that this young lady, Haya Arkhan
- 33:41Abdul Azim lived, ended up living with me, They had to go
- 33:45back to Iraq. This this couple, it's a bit of
- 33:49a long story, but I was the general manager at the hotel and
- 33:52they spoke basically just Arabic.
- 33:55I got introduced to them because they were going to be moving in
- 33:57for who knows how long. It ended up being four years.
- 34:01They ended up leaving and their six year old, 7 or 8 at the
- 34:05time, was still there. I became the medical power of
- 34:10attorney and essentially A surrogate mother for this young
- 34:13lady. I The hospital is literally 2
- 34:17blocks right down Meese Vander Way from the hotel.
- 34:21God bless my team at the hotel who allowed me to basically take
- 34:23my laptop to the hospital and work most days.
- 34:26Haya ended up learning English, becoming a little bit of a mini
- 34:31me. We had a name tag for her that
- 34:33was, you know, resident manager. She walked around with a notepad
- 34:36and I would take a little bit of time off on vacation and my
- 34:39phone would ring and she'd say, Lindsay, nobody's doing anything
- 34:43calling me. But she hated it when this is
- 34:45during when the Cubs won the World Series, by the way, which
- 34:48they were all at the parade and she she definitely called me and
- 34:50told me. Long story short, which it
- 34:53deserves probably a book to be written.
- 34:57Haya in the middle of the night one night they called, she
- 34:59needed a new liver and they called and there was a liver.
- 35:03Unfortunately there was a car accident on the Kennedy and
- 35:06there was a liver and so we went rushing over to Laurie's.
- 35:09I pulled up in my Jeep. I left it running in valet.
- 35:12I knew them so well. We were there pretty much every
- 35:14day. Went into the ER of the
- 35:17Children's Hospital and she started to have liver surgery.
- 35:21And as they removed her liver, the, the surgeon came in and he
- 35:27said, and they've done, we had so many PET scans, so many CT
- 35:31scans. I mean, I thought we knew where
- 35:33the cancer was. I thought that we, we certainly
- 35:36felt that if there was a new liver, there was hope that she
- 35:38would live. And when they took out her
- 35:40liver, it had just spread everywhere.
- 35:42And he said to me, I really shouldn't be doing this
- 35:46transplant because we're supposed to be giving this liver
- 35:50to someone that, you know, has a good chance of living.
- 35:53He did the transplant. She woke up and was so excited
- 36:00and having to tell her that what had transpired.
- 36:04It's difficult right now even, but this kid just changed my
- 36:10life and taught me more than any, any lesson about fighting
- 36:22and about perseverance and love, unconditional love.
- 36:28And unfortunately, the liver did extend her life.
- 36:33Haya made it to July 28th of 2017 at 2:16 PM.
- 36:40My birthday is July 29th and her her goal was to make it to my
- 36:45birthday. That's something overcoming that
- 36:51trying to go through that and run a hotel, having her parents
- 36:56on a screen with an Arabic translator.
- 36:59They made it back. Her parents were back before she
- 37:02died. This is actually her mom's
- 37:06wedding ring, which I will never take off.
- 37:08But is that the the gift that they could give me that that
- 37:12thank them for, you know, providing love to to their
- 37:17daughter, which if I could only cheer with them how much she,
- 37:19you know, she provided to me. But that's overcoming that in
- 37:25learning from her. I mean, we were in a country
- 37:27that struggled with folks that looked like the folks looked in
- 37:31Middle East. And there were just so many
- 37:33things that I learned from that family and what they went
- 37:36through and going back to the hotel the next day and you know,
- 37:41that's I LED like this, you know, I couldn't keep it in.
- 37:44And and the team knew her, everyone knew her.
- 37:46We basically raised her within the hotel, the most special
- 37:52individual I've ever met in my life, and I think about her
- 37:54every single day, every day. Thank you for sharing.
- 37:57That letting me share that. Thanks for letting me share
- 38:00that. It's been a while.
- 38:01It's been a while. You talked about there being so
- 38:04many lessons that you've learned from her.
- 38:06What's the one that sticks with you the most?
- 38:10Just, you know, I would always regret what I didn't do versus
- 38:16what I did. And she that child, 23 rounds of
- 38:21chemo like and every single one thought that she was going to
- 38:25make it. And her, her ability to fight.
- 38:28I mean, during COVID, you know, when I was in a regional
- 38:31capacity, I went from 27 hotels to 80.
- 38:35And it was, you know, seven days a week, 16 hours a day.
- 38:39And I, and I had I not gone through and learned from her
- 38:43about perseverance, Nothing else in this world was a challenge.
- 38:47When I saw what she went through, I thought it's hard.
- 38:50I don't leave my seat. I put on some weight.
- 38:52I'm a little stressed. This is impacting my
- 38:54relationships and my health. But there there's nothing that
- 39:00I've come up against that. As I reflect back on what she
- 39:04went through, I don't think I can make it through it.
- 39:09I can do it. This team can do it right?
- 39:11I mean, that's right. You know, I have leaders that
- 39:14that are struggling and I know people can make it through.
- 39:17If we, you know, if we just put the right emphasis on it and but
- 39:22she she's just taught me to live optimistically.
- 39:24Every single day that I wake up is a blessing for me.
- 39:27It's a blessing. I just.
- 39:29Did and I'm guessing you, you find strength in that as you're,
- 39:34you know, working to build this new consulting business.
- 39:36You left the security of, you know, corporate America.
- 39:39And it sounds like you, you know, you've got a bunch of
- 39:42clients, like a lot of good things going on, but this is
- 39:45still, you know, uncharted territory for you.
- 39:48How are you approaching kind of the day-to-day?
- 39:51It is. And I mean one of the things I
- 39:53take from high is just is I think the word courage, you
- 39:56know, going from the comfort, you know, the comfort of
- 39:59Marriott. I knew Marriott, you know, I
- 40:01mean, I could sort of do it really well.
- 40:04Based on what I knew and I think of the courage that it takes to,
- 40:08to launch a new business and find clients that, you know, I,
- 40:12I hate selling, I hate sales. I just, I'm uncomfortable with
- 40:17it. I, I would rather just sort of
- 40:18perform. And this is, I'm on a new
- 40:21trajectory right now. It's it's a trajectory filled
- 40:26with hope, new relationships, new learnings.
- 40:33It's humbling to me how many people I call and sort of
- 40:36prospect that don't have the money or aren't ready to work
- 40:39with me. I'm driven by accomplishment.
- 40:43I like to win. And so I've had a lot of
- 40:46failures, you know, as this business has started.
- 40:50But I think it's like a golfer. And I'm not a golfer, but I
- 40:55think people golf like really poorly.
- 40:57And then they hit like an incredible shot.
- 40:59It takes them back to golf again.
- 41:02You know, I'll have 5 rejections and then an ownership group that
- 41:06is like, we need you and what you bring and then I'm all in.
- 41:11I think lastly, Anthony, on that, I mean the relationship
- 41:14that I had with Haya, I don't think my team would have ever
- 41:17described me as patient. I do like a little bit of
- 41:20patience. She taught me patience.
- 41:24And in this new world, in the consulting business, I have the
- 41:29ability to give all of me to every client.
- 41:32I'm not battling 27 different things and kind of going through
- 41:38the sort of law of diminishing returns they get all of me.
- 41:41And it reflects back to when I would walk into my office, no
- 41:44matter what was going on in the hotel, I just stopped and my
- 41:48blood pressure went down and I had this little human being in
- 41:51front of me, right? And, and I, I feel that way with
- 41:54clients where it's just us one-on-one, there's nothing else
- 41:59going on. And it's, it's been incredible.
- 42:05It's been incredible. It's it's a gift to to have
- 42:08especially today where I feel like it's harder and harder for
- 42:11us to focus on a single thing. You know, I'm sitting here in
- 42:14front of my computer all day long.
- 42:15My phone is lighting up with calls and text messages.
- 42:19I've got all kinds of stuff beeping on my computer.
- 42:21I've got different channels of communication I need to check.
- 42:25And so I could see like the experience with being like
- 42:30nothing else is that important right now, Like I'm here with
- 42:33you. And when you have an opportunity
- 42:36like that to focus all of your attention, your, your brain,
- 42:40your, your, your heart, everything is on this one
- 42:44person, this one moment. What a gift to be able to then
- 42:47take that into less serious situations, but give your
- 42:51clients sort of the same gift of your complete and total
- 42:54presence. It, it's, it's really the
- 42:58differentiator. I mean, it is I was walking into
- 43:04having sort of 57 hotels or 57 direct reports and I just
- 43:09thought that's not the best use of my, my skill set real, real
- 43:13quick. I've, I had a couple of clients
- 43:15who were previous general managers that used to work for
- 43:17me and they're like, my gosh, we've never had a conversation
- 43:21like that. Why?
- 43:21I wish you would have led me that way.
- 43:23I said, well, you were, I was trying to get your issue solved
- 43:26like really quickly so I can go on to the next thing.
- 43:30And how different different the depth of the interaction is now
- 43:34and how they're learning so much about themselves through my
- 43:36ability to just be all in. I mean, we are in a world that
- 43:40is racing towards in personalization, whether it's
- 43:43through AI or and I want to stay in this lane as long as as, as
- 43:48long as people will have me. How do you work on culture?
- 43:53I know that's one of the things that's really important to you,
- 43:55but as you come in as a consultant or, you know, for
- 43:57listeners who are like, I've got a company, I've got a group,
- 44:00I've got a team of employees, and I want to work on our
- 44:02culture, I don't even know where to begin what.
- 44:05Do you say, yeah, I mean, absolutely.
- 44:08It's there's a there's sort of a there's a model.
- 44:11I'm not a big model person, but there there is a model that, you
- 44:14know, you can kind of go through.
- 44:16But at the end of the day, the culture is, you know, I think of
- 44:19it in a couple ways. I mean, there's got to be
- 44:22there's got to be fair pay, to be honest.
- 44:24That's part of the culture, right?
- 44:25There has to be fair pay. And I talked to some teams about
- 44:29sort of felt fair pay where they feel like, you know, I would say
- 44:33to folks, we're not going to be paying you David Merritt salary.
- 44:37None of us are getting that. However for the job that you're
- 44:40doing, are we taking care of you here in sharing even with with
- 44:44regards to pay, being very transparent, here's what the
- 44:48hotel's paying across the street.
- 44:49Here's what our total compensation includes.
- 44:51You were talking earlier about benefits, you know, in
- 44:55healthcare and providing healthcare to to individuals.
- 44:58So that's a component of it is, is really fair pay.
- 45:01A huge part of it is, and I, I hate to, you know, really curse,
- 45:05but I, I talk to these guys about sort of no asshole bosses.
- 45:09If you have bosses that don't believe in servant leadership,
- 45:14you're going to have a significant problem with the
- 45:16culture. So, so much time we focus on
- 45:19selection. I let people know deselection,
- 45:23deselecting somebody is as important as selection.
- 45:27You know, there's another layer that we talked about it just
- 45:30making me feel like I'm somebody.
- 45:32When's the last time, you know, your wife or, or you have gone
- 45:35home from work and it's been like, you know, how was the day,
- 45:38honey, same old, same old. What about if they came home and
- 45:42said it was absolutely unbelievable today and you'll
- 45:45never believe what my leader did for me.
- 45:47They they took me to lunch. We wouldn't even talk about
- 45:49work. We just chatted about the kids,
- 45:52right. So those sort of unexpected, not
- 45:55all the time, but genuine interactions that are.
- 46:00Like a real human connection moment.
- 46:02Like I'm I'm focusing on you. We're not here to complain or
- 46:06talk about work necessarily. We're just I want to hear about
- 46:10you. I.
- 46:12Agree. And I and in my kind of world,
- 46:15leadership, leadership and communication are the same
- 46:18thing. If you don't effectively
- 46:20communicate, you can't lead. And part of the culture thing
- 46:24is, you know, I'll go in and ask leaders.
- 46:26I mean, who are some of the greatest communicators you've
- 46:27ever heard of? Martin Luther King, you know,
- 46:31whatever they, they go through a list of people and it's like,
- 46:33who are some of the greatest leaders that you've ever?
- 46:35And, and there isn't a great leader that isn't a great
- 46:37communicator and that permeates down through the culture, right?
- 46:41I mean, there's a huge component on effective communication.
- 46:44But the most important piece, truly, Anthony, is, and I always
- 46:48have people write this down, make me feel like I am somebody.
- 46:52That's what we all want. Make me feel like I'm somebody.
- 46:55And then and then how? OK, great.
- 46:57How do you do that? How do you do that?
- 47:01Communication, communication, communication.
- 47:05It's it's, it's not complicated, but it's challenging because
- 47:10somebody has to do it. That that that's the culture
- 47:14piece. It really is.
- 47:16How do you get around resistance to change?
- 47:19Right? Because that can really derail
- 47:22even the best strategies. It's, it goes back to these
- 47:27leadership transition meetings, right?
- 47:28I mean, talking about the fears of the unknown, bringing it up.
- 47:32What, what and resistance to change is, you know, I, I love
- 47:37starting with everything that we're not going to change.
- 47:40Change is so scary for people. It's amazing, the pause that
- 47:45happens in an organization. One of the, the last clients
- 47:49that I had an opportunity to work with, the pause started
- 47:53when this leader announced 3 months in advance that they'd be
- 47:57retiring. That's when the pause started
- 48:00and all the work kind of stopped.
- 48:02And I mean, just to think about how much was lost during that
- 48:07time and had we come in and really talked about what their
- 48:12fears were, what the unknowns were, how they're still going to
- 48:16have control, you know, over the environment, what that looks
- 48:19like. But change management is, it's
- 48:23psychological. One of the things that I've had
- 48:25the freedom to do after leaving Marriott is take some graduate
- 48:30level courses in psychology. I took a couple in interpersonal
- 48:35dynamics and wow, just learning how the brain functions and what
- 48:41we attach to. I mean, that's all about change
- 48:44and what happens when change is occurring within our psyche and
- 48:48bringing it to the forefront and naming it and talking about it.
- 48:51It sounds so basic. When I start these leadership
- 48:54transition meetings and say to people, you're all sitting here
- 48:58right now and likely, if you're being honest, this is what
- 49:00you're thinking, boom, boom, boom.
- 49:02And they're all like, yeah, that is what we're thinking.
- 49:03I can't believe we're calling that out.
- 49:06We don't do that typically. When a transition in leadership
- 49:12is anticipated, what's the right timing to engage with you?
- 49:19This particular meeting best works around the second week.
- 49:24It gives the team an opportunity to have some time with with the
- 49:28individual We're doing some that are 5 weeks out in the meeting
- 49:31is still just as good. But you know, I enjoy starting
- 49:39that process maybe two or three weeks in advance of the
- 49:43transition actually occurring with someone on ones and then
- 49:46the meeting taking place around the 2nd to 3rd week of them
- 49:50actually being in in place. Is is is really good timing?
- 49:55It's it's ideal. Can you recommend a favorite
- 49:59podcast or book for the audience, Something that's been
- 50:02really helpful for you? It's funny kind of sitting on my
- 50:05desk and it's so old school. It is like so old school that
- 50:09probably if you went on to Amazon, maybe there's 2 copies
- 50:11less left. But it's my Bible and it, it was
- 50:16written in the 70s and it's actually called the lessons of
- 50:20experience. And it's, it's how successful
- 50:23executives develop on the job. This is, this is the book.
- 50:26And what what this talks about, and I've used this throughout my
- 50:30career, is the way that we learn and grow as leaders is through
- 50:36is there's three ways primarily who's your boss is critical,
- 50:44good or bad? It's critical.
- 50:46The second one that we just spent a lot of time talking
- 50:48about hardships and failures, hardships and failures that you
- 50:52go through. How quickly and how do you adapt
- 50:56to those? How do you come back from them
- 50:59And the lessons learned? And the third thing in which we
- 51:03grow and develop from is assignments, Babs opportunities.
- 51:06What, what would people are so comfortable and want to stay in
- 51:10the same hotel, the same brand, the same discipline?
- 51:16They're avoiding those assignments and the lessons
- 51:19learned from them. So those three things, hardships
- 51:23and failures, bosses and assignments, and in this book
- 51:28goes into a lot of other things, but they've been critical for
- 51:31me. I've learned more from bad
- 51:32bosses and I've learned from good bosses.
- 51:35My own boss right now, it's a little crazy.
- 51:38My partner would probably say they're my boss, but that's a
- 51:41book that is near and dear to me.
- 51:46It made an interesting comment about learning more from your
- 51:49bad bosses than your good ones. Why is that?
- 51:51How is that? You know, feeling it, being in
- 51:54it, living it, knowing what it does to your mental health on a
- 51:59daily basis and then how that impacts the rest of your life.
- 52:04I sort of vowed not, not that I even needed to vow.
- 52:06I think I learned this early on in sports, but to never sort of
- 52:10be that way. You know, I think we can learn
- 52:13things through the reverse. You know, here's absolutely who
- 52:15I don't want to be and how do I, how do I go about that?
- 52:18But I do I, I really firmly believe that aside from, I don't
- 52:23know, maybe your priest, your pastor, your immediate family,
- 52:27your boss has the biggest impact on your entire life.
- 52:33And so the privilege to be someone's boss is it's, it's a
- 52:38privilege. And, and I've worked for people
- 52:41who did not feel that way. They're sort of autocratic and
- 52:44top down command and control approach which just it it
- 52:49doesn't work. They end up being good examples
- 52:52of what you don't want to do, what you behaviors you don't
- 52:55want to repeat. Yeah, I never want someone to
- 52:58feel that poorly about themselves based on, you know,
- 53:02an environment that is is not a culture.
- 53:05I mean, getting back to culture, right?
- 53:07The culture, the culture, how should we behave, right?
- 53:11What's the behavior of people in in this environment?
- 53:14I mean, that's the culture, right?
- 53:15What what's the expected norms? I've learned a lot from bosses
- 53:20that that were promoted beyond their capacity.
- 53:24For sure, for sure. What daily practices do you
- 53:29engage in that either help your day get started or keep you on
- 53:33track? Yeah, I have.
- 53:36That is so evolved through the years is so evolved.
- 53:39It used to be Orangetheory. I remember, I think when I was,
- 53:41you know, the most stressed, the best way to start my day was
- 53:46either in a boot camp running over the Lakeshore drive on the,
- 53:50the, the bridge that went over to Oak Street Beach there.
- 53:54Now being in sort of suburban Kansas City, it is.
- 53:59I've been in an urban environment my entire life.
- 54:01I'm now, you know, sitting in Kansas City and every morning
- 54:06reading LinkedIn, I do read. I do start the morning reading
- 54:09the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, typically
- 54:12LinkedIn to catch up on a couple of things with a cup of coffee
- 54:16on the back deck listening to the birds.
- 54:18I've downloaded an app thanks to my mom called the Merlin app.
- 54:22And if you would have told somebody five years ago, I would
- 54:25start my day saying I think that's a Carolina Wren.
- 54:28They would have told you. They would have told you that
- 54:32I've been taken out of my body and in an alien his.
- 54:35This is a bird watching app. It's a bird watching app, but I
- 54:39definitely start the morning. I'm early riser.
- 54:42I think the best in the morning. I tend to hit a lull at like
- 54:46between 2:00 and 3:00 and then I feel sharp again around 5 and
- 54:51and feel like I do my best work early in the morning and even
- 54:54from like 5:00 to 9:00 at night. But the routine for me, I was, I
- 54:58want to keep up to date on what's going on in the world,
- 55:01although it's not always good right now.
- 55:02So I'm always starting the day reading New York Times, Wall
- 55:05Street Journal. There's always something in
- 55:07there that is applicable to leadership, good or bad
- 55:13examples. But that that's a routine that
- 55:15I've I've been in for quite some time.
- 55:18What's your superpower, Lindsay? I would say establishing and not
- 55:26only establishing but maintaining relationships.
- 55:30I I give all of me in relationships that are
- 55:37important. I don't have a ton, but the ones
- 55:40that are important feed me. Most of my best relationships
- 55:46right now are people that I met through through Marriott, and to
- 55:51be able to work with them not as their leader or boss now, but as
- 55:56a coach or consultant or just friend is really a very cool
- 56:01evolution. Lindsay, I've just got one more
- 56:04question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do a few
- 56:06things. First of all, everyone
- 56:08listening, if you want to get in touch with Lindsay, recommend
- 56:12her LinkedIn page, Lindsay Winarski, and we'll put a link
- 56:16to that in the show notes. Also visit her website, which is
- 56:20Executive leadershipco.com, executiveleadershipco.com.
- 56:25If you want to get in touch with Lindsay, our website is
- 56:28Executive leadershipco.com. Also, as a reminder, if you want
- 56:32to get more employees access to benefits that won't hurt them
- 56:35financially and carries a financial upside for the
- 56:38company, reach out to us at Add Back benefits.com.
- 56:41Finally, if you will take just a moment to leave us a comment or
- 56:44review on your favorite podcast app, we will be forever
- 56:47grateful. So last question for you,
- 56:50Lindsay, you and I reconnect a year from now and you're
- 56:53celebrating something big. What's that big thing you hope
- 56:57to be celebrating one year from today?
- 57:00Is it crazy that my mind would initially to the fact that I
- 57:03will be married one year from today?
- 57:05So I'm looking forward to, to that will happen in April.
- 57:09And I think secondarily and truly, secondarily, having
- 57:15impacted and helped multiple leaders find, you know, their
- 57:23true passion and their true authentic self.
- 57:26I, I cannot wait. I'm looking forward to doing it
- 57:28tomorrow. I'm looking forward to doing it
- 57:30this weekend. I hope that, you know, it
- 57:33becomes I'm teaching people how to fish so they can then fish
- 57:38for themselves, and it just trickles down from there.
- 57:42That'd be an amazing, amazing year ahead.
- 57:45Lindsay Winorski from Executive Leadership Consulting.
- 57:48I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
- 57:51and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.
- 57:54Anthony, thank you so much. What an absolute pleasure.
- 57:56Go Bucks. Go Bucks, folks, That's a wrap
- 57:59on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
- 58:02Thanks for learning with us today.