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Doug Karle's LHR Hospitality Journey: From Army Leadership to Managing 20 Properties · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders shared their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. Let one idea from today shape
0:18
what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
0:21
and today's guest is Doug Carl. Doug is the Founder, President
0:25
and CEO of LHR Hospitality Management, a Minnesota based
0:30
company that partners with hotel owners to improve operations,
0:34
boost revenue and create memorable guest experiences.
0:38
LHR manages A diverse mix of branded and independent hotels,
0:43
resorts, and entertainment venues across the Midwest.
0:47
Their mission is simple, increase value for owners while
0:50
caring for employees and guests alike.
0:54
Over the past two decades, Doug has developed, managed or
0:57
repositioned more than 30 properties representing over
1:01
$350 million in asset value. He's also overseeing more than
1:06
$100 million in renovations, turning underperforming hotels
1:10
into market leaders. Before launching LHR, he held
1:14
key roles with IHG and Hilton branded properties, sharpening
1:18
his skills in both operations and finance.
1:21
Outside of work, he mentors young hospitality professionals
1:25
and serves on several industry boards.
1:28
But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:22
partner and founder at LHR Hospitality, Doug Carl.
2:25
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:27
Yeah, Yeah. I'm really happy to be here.
2:29
One correction though. So I'm partner in LHR
2:34
Hospitality. And it's funny, we were having
2:36
this conversation myself, Doug and another management company
2:40
because we're in the process of a merger.
2:42
And we were sitting there and we were talking about job titles
2:46
and all three of us have the same opinion, which is I don't
2:50
care. You be the CEO, you be, you
2:53
know, chief development, you be. And so, so yeah, for LHRII serve
2:59
as the well obviously as a partner, but then also as the
3:02
Chief Operating officer. All right.
3:05
I appreciate that correction and I love that it's so fluid like
3:08
that. I've had business partnerships
3:10
like that myself before where we go into a meeting and they're
3:14
like, all right, which title is going to suit us best today and
3:17
just sort of pick. Well, and you know I'll bring
3:20
this up because I worked for a real estate developer in another
3:23
lifetime and great company, very successful.
3:30
And so it was me and four other. So this has been 30 years ago,
3:35
probably three other key individuals and including the
3:43
founder and owner of that company and all of us, we didn't
3:47
have job titles on our on our business cards.
3:52
And has somehow the business still went on?
3:54
Huh. Exactly.
3:55
Yeah. So let's go back to early days.
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How did you first get your start in hospitality, Doug?
4:02
I was the accidental traveler. Accidental traveler.
4:06
I served in the Army. I got out of the Army and I got
4:10
my first job as a night auditor and a van driver at at a hotel.
4:18
And so that was the former Hampton Inn in Richfield, MN.
4:23
It's now 4 points. And so from there, I moved to
4:28
the Embassy Suites in downtown Minneapolis and, you know,
4:34
apparently was doing good, kept getting promoted and, yeah, all
4:39
while going to college at the same time.
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And yeah, I just, it just stuck with me and I loved it.
4:48
What did you love about it so much?
4:51
What I loved is, you know, for the guest experience, you know,
4:55
our we're here to serve other people.
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And you know what? It's it's how we do that.
5:04
And you know what the, our ability to do that.
5:09
And for me it was just, it was easy.
5:11
And you know what, if you were a crabby guest who probably got
5:16
yelled at by their boss, their wife, you know, threaten to
5:20
leave them, the dog is sick. You know what I mean?
5:23
People come in in that environment and they, our job is
5:27
just, we have one job to make their day better than what it
5:30
was. And that is an easy thing to do
5:34
for me. And I love that you take that
5:37
approach because there's probably a lot of folks who are
5:40
like, I just need to get him a room key and, and get him, you
5:44
know, to the elevator. But you take it a whole step
5:48
further, which is how can I make their day better?
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And what's a way that you might do that in a very brief check in
5:54
kind of experience? Trying to use humor if possible,
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and that generally works. Sometimes it is just the process
6:04
of they want to get their key and they want to get through the
6:06
room. They don't want to talk to me
6:07
for that long. So being able to to read the
6:10
guest is an important item as well, where you got to know how
6:15
far you can push them. And I've made bad jokes before
6:18
that have backfired on me. And we got to hear an example.
6:23
Oh boy, this is this is remarkably embarrassing.
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And back when I was AGM, I would have fired myself for it, but I
6:33
this is back when you had pay-per-view movies in the rooms
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and you know, pre, you know, Internet like, you know stuff.
6:41
And so this father comes down and it's just him and he, he
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says to me, he goes like to check out and like, what's the
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total? And as well, I said, I gave him
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the amount and I said another, there's some pay-per-view movies
7:02
on there, which there weren't that that was the joke and that,
7:08
that that joke back. He did not like me.
7:12
But that's the risk you take with jokes.
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I'm going to guess you didn't make that joke again.
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Or did you? Not I.
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Never made that joke again. OK, you learn.
7:23
You learn as we go. And I want to, I want to spend
7:25
most of our time talking about LHR.
7:27
But before we get there, can you pick somebody from your past
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sort of coming up through the ranks and your different
7:35
hospitality experiences, somebody who had a really
7:37
formative impact on your career? Actually, I've been probably one
7:42
of the luckiest people I know in terms of mentors and, and this
7:47
goes back to even high school. You know what, JD Deffaler was
7:52
my social studies and history teacher in high school and he
7:56
was also my cross country ski coach.
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He had an impact on anyone that he was around.
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You know what, when I was in the Army, I had Sergeant Phil
8:06
McCutcheon, who he was harder on me than anyone else in the
8:12
squad. And, and I, I complained about
8:17
it one day and he explained to me why he's that hard on me.
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And it's because you can do it. They can't.
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And so I, you know, my boots were, you know, it spit polished
8:30
and my uniform was pressed and all that good stuff.
8:34
Then moving on from there. Ken Golder.
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Sorry. Before we move on, as you think
8:40
back to that, do you think that gave you some level of
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confidence to push yourself more hearing him say that?
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Yeah, definitely did it. It did.
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And again, mentors are everywhere.
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And they're usually kind of a pain in the butt because what
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they're trying to teach you is something that that you didn't
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know before. And, and so, you know, for, for
9:05
Sergeant McCutcheon, that was about fortitude and don't care
9:11
if you don't like it, you're going to do it.
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But he also had good leadership qualities beyond that that made
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it palatable to be able to, to, to take that level of
9:23
expectation. Ken Golder, he was the guy that
9:28
taught me about people. And he was the guy that would,
9:36
you know, we would get a signed reading 7 Habits of Highly
9:40
Effective People or, you know, whatever, whatever the
9:43
literature was for the next 6 months.
9:46
And so he was all about leadership and he was all about
9:50
organization. And then after that was a real
9:54
estate developer, Jerry Troian. And Jerry taught me about
9:59
business and in a very, very simple, simple way.
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And and you know, he, he was on me all the time.
10:13
And I describe it like the scene from you've seen the movie The
10:17
Princess Bride. Oh love it, one of my favorites.
10:21
Yeah, and so it's the Dread Pirate Roberts story where you
10:26
know it when Wesley's explaining it to.
10:30
I forget the character's name, but Buttercup.
10:34
Thank you. Princess Buttercup.
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Princess Buttercup. And so anyway, it was working
10:38
for Jerry every day was like working for the dread Pirate
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Robert, you know, good job, Doug.
10:44
Great. You know, great thing.
10:46
Almost like they kill you in the morning, almost like they fire
10:49
you in the morning. And so, but, but here's here's
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the funniest part about that is, you know, for the time that I
10:58
that I was with him, I learned more.
11:00
In fact, at one point I had gone and asked him for a raise.
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He was indignant and he goes, he said raise, He goes, you know
11:09
what, all you guys around here should be paying me to work
11:12
here. And he was, he was probably
11:16
right. And so the learn more about
11:19
business from him. In fact, we're still, he went
11:22
from an employer to an employer mentor to a mentor to a mentor
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and a friend. And I still, you know, would
11:30
grab coffee with him and, and talk about talk about life and
11:34
everything else. And that was a valuable,
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valuable relationship. And then the final one is, you
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know, with my current business partner, he is kind of the blend
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of the people side and the business side where, you know,
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he's been able to to bring it all together.
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And you know what? There's a yeah, it's just a,
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it's been, I've been remarkably lucky. 1 To identify even after
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the fact, but to identify or at least gravitate towards people
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that are willing to show me something different and not be
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just. Yeah, the same kid I was when I
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was 18. So your current partner that you
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just mentioned, what is his or her name?
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Doug Rhodey. Doug Rhodey So Doug has this
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unusual blend of both the people and the business side, which can
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be tricky, right? Sometimes it feels like those
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can be in in conflict. Business side, very numbers
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driven. You know, we've got to make a
12:47
return for our investors here. And then, you know, at the same
12:52
time, we've got to find a way to take care of our employees and
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they don't have good programs for them.
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What was something specific, something interesting, different
13:01
he taught you on how to connect those 2 worlds?
13:07
Hell, he's taught me a lot and you know, it's that that's a
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tough thing to answer because it's, it's a constant
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observational process of, of identifying things.
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I, I, I can answer. What's the best advice he ever
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gave me? And this is true in, in larger
13:38
organizations or, you know, organizations where you have,
13:41
you know, 100 or 500 or more people working for you or 1000.
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And you know what, I had a part of me that was a I'll fix your
13:54
problem or I'll be here, you know, to walk you through the
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problem. And when we talk about
14:02
leadership development, the best piece of advice, and this
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actually applies to the business side as well, which is 20 years
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ago. He goes, Doug, you got to
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realize one thing. You're not as important as you
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think you are. And, and the intent on it is
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simple, which is, you know what, there's a reason that we have
14:25
regional managers or GMs or, you know, sales managers or things
14:30
like that. We can provide the tools, but
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ultimately they've got to get their, their piece of the job
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done. And so, you know, and I really
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bought into that where, you know what, I should be working on my
14:47
business, not in my business. And So what did that shift look
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like for you? It's it the shift look like me
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spending less time trying to deal with someone else's fire
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that they can fix themselves. And it also less time being
15:06
inside, you know, at the four walls of an office or a property
15:11
or things like that. There's numerous things that are
15:14
more important in developing your business than just the
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operation of the business. I mean, you've got to be a good
15:21
operator, but in order to have those connections and to grow
15:26
your network and to, again, develop additional revenue
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opportunities, you can't do it sitting at a desk.
15:36
Yeah, Amen to that. OK, so let's get into LHR.
15:40
What was the motivation behind starting this?
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Well, LHR, you could almost consider an accidental traveler
15:48
as well. So Doug Rody, he worked at the
15:52
Palmer House. That was his first hotel job out
15:57
of college. And then from there he moved
16:02
with Sunstone to Rochester, ran a portfolio of hotels there, and
16:06
he just decided he wanted to buy a place in northwestern
16:09
Wisconsin, the logic Crooked Lake.
16:12
And so when he when he did that, his intent was to stay with
16:17
Sunstone and then after about 8 months he decided that he was
16:23
just going to go all in and build LHR.
16:29
The LHR by the way is used. We used to be Lodge hotels and
16:32
resorts up until about 15 years ago, then we rebranded.
16:36
And so it started with the one small hotel in northwestern
16:41
Wisconsin and I think that's 60 rooms there.
16:44
And from there developed the lodge at Brainerd Lakes.
16:47
That was a a project from the ground up.
16:50
And I think for Doug and I think for a lot of business owners it
16:57
there's this weird balance between not ego, but confidence
17:04
that we can do it better and the ability then to actually execute
17:09
on that. And so I went to two hotels,
17:14
then we started doing third party management contracts.
17:17
So that's where some other owner comes to us and says, will you
17:20
run your hotel for me? And and so it's just kind of
17:25
grown from there. We typically flex between 6 to
17:30
16 hotels, restaurants, convention space.
17:35
We love full service, we love complicated hotels.
17:39
And but yeah, it was, it was a natural organic growth that I
17:44
think was just ingrained. And I tell my, I tell my kids
17:49
this. I've got a 17 year old soon to
17:51
be 17 year old son and a 19 year old daughter is, you know, if I
17:55
had to do it over again and I had to change something, you
18:01
know what? I would have been an electrician
18:03
because I know someday I would have owned my own company and
18:08
had electricians and, and doing the whole thing.
18:11
And it, you know, sometimes there's the vision of what
18:19
somebody wants to do. And sometimes you wake up and
18:24
you're already living the vision that you didn't expect.
18:29
So were you involved from the very first hotel?
18:33
No, I was. I was four years behind.
18:38
OK. So how did the opportunity for
18:40
you to join? Sorry, let me let me go back.
18:43
Yeah. So Doug bought the logic Crooked
18:45
Lake on his own. Then they had just he had just
18:50
finished building it and getting it open and then I came on right
18:55
after that. And so I think your next
18:57
question would be, well, how did you become partner?
19:00
How did you get involved? Yeah.
19:03
For me, I, I went there to get my first GM job and you know, he
19:09
hired me and then from there, and this is the important part,
19:15
you got to take care of your people.
19:17
You've got to do the right things within a credible, you
19:24
know, what framework to run your business.
19:30
But in order to go from, you know, a guy that's just running
19:35
1 hotel to, you know, multiple. In my case, it was I had the
19:42
opportunity to invest in another hotel that we were buying and so
19:48
I invested and became a partner in that.
19:51
And then from there I ended up landing a 10 year, a 10 year
19:59
contract on a group of hotels. So the value of the contract at
20:03
that time was, you know, I think $7,000,000.
20:07
And so that's $7,000,000 of cash flow that I brought to the
20:10
company. And and so that's kind of the,
20:14
the evolution of, of all that. So OK, present day, what do you
20:20
guys do? Everything as a as a.
20:25
Company. We're talking hotels, we're
20:27
talking restaurants, we're talking service resorts.
20:30
Restaurants is our primary thing individually I've got I've had
20:35
rental properties for 20 years that that you know, my wife and
20:43
I own and and operate my business partner also has some
20:49
rental properties. Well, actually it's one rental
20:52
property with 12 units or something like that and in a
20:56
town in Wisconsin. But the funny story or The funny
21:00
thing about that, and that goes back to a little bit of, of the
21:05
fear that we experience each time we do something new.
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I mean, you know, being, being fearful is a good thing.
21:12
So when we sold our first house, or pardon me, when we bought our
21:17
second house, we, we didn't sell the 1st house.
21:20
We kept it as a rental. I remember distinctly not
21:26
sleeping a wink that night. And yeah, I didn't know crap
21:31
about rental housing. I mean, I kind of thought I did,
21:33
but I but I really didn't. And I remember laying there not
21:37
sleeping that night going what did I just do?
21:41
And what did I convince Shanna to do?
21:43
Because, you know, she was like, all right, well, if you want to
21:45
do it, do it. And but yeah, it's that was,
21:51
that was I think another leap towards that entrepreneurial
21:54
spirit. So you made a comment that was
21:58
interesting. Being fearful is a good thing.
22:01
And that's a little counterintuitive to me because
22:04
for me and most of the people that I've come across, fear is
22:08
the biggest limiter for them. They're afraid of what bad thing
22:13
could happen and it holds them back from trying something.
22:16
So tell me what you meant by. That no, yeah, no, that's a good
22:19
distinction that you point out because it it is.
22:21
It is ignoring the fear. People would say overcoming the
22:24
fear. It's ignoring the fear.
22:25
It's it's making the fear a thing that could happen, but
22:31
it's not something that's going to consume you.
22:34
And so, yeah, it's not overcoming fear.
22:37
For me at least, it was ignoring fear.
22:40
Ignoring fear, having the fear exist, but moving forward
22:43
anyways. Yeah.
22:46
And do you have a strategy for ignoring it, like how you put it
22:49
in a bottle so it's not tearing you up inside?
22:53
Well, you know, have you ever been sued before?
22:58
Thankfully, no. Well, I'll, I'll put it this
23:02
way. You know, lawsuits are design to
23:06
put fear into the person that's being sued.
23:09
And lawyers are really good at like you, you read the demand
23:13
letter and you're like, I didn't realize I was this big of a
23:15
piece of crap and or, or such a poor operator or such a poor
23:21
owner, whatever it may be. And so you know what the the
23:25
idea is, we know who we are. We know, we think, we know what
23:32
we're capable of. And so when those doubting
23:35
thoughts come up, you have to recognize it.
23:38
This is a doubting thought. Is this reality?
23:41
And if if it is reality, well then you better pump the brakes.
23:45
If it's not reality, or at least you're pretty confident it's not
23:49
reality, then you proceed forward and you don't let the
23:53
fear consume you. I mean, do you have some kind of
23:58
a magic switch that you flip that allows you to move from one
24:02
state to the other? It's the, it's the awareness at
24:05
this point, the awareness of you've just.
24:08
Done it so many times. Yeah, but you know what?
24:12
Let me ask you this. You're married.
24:16
I am. And you probably asked the
24:18
question on Will you marry me? I did.
24:22
And so at some point with butterflies in our stomach and
24:27
things like that, you just have to say screw it, I got to do it.
24:38
Does that I kind of knew what I I knew what the answer was going
24:41
to because she'd been pressuring me for a while.
24:43
So maybe that maybe I was a bad example in that case, but.
24:47
Yeah, no. And and so, you know, it's just
24:51
again, well. Let let me.
24:52
Sorry. Sorry to interrupt, Doug.
24:54
Maybe it helps if I ask it from a little bit of a different
24:56
perspective. You're a father.
24:58
I'm also a father. My kids are a little bit
24:59
younger. They're 11, and they're 92 boys.
25:03
And fear is the thing that holds them back from trying something
25:07
new. My oldest son loves playing
25:09
sports, but he doesn't like playing with kids he doesn't
25:11
know. So if his friends aren't on the
25:12
team, he's not going to do it. Yeah.
25:14
My youngest son has a fear of the dark.
25:17
He doesn't want to go into a room by himself.
25:20
That's a reasonable fear. Principle fears.
25:23
But I say you can. I try to tell them you can have
25:27
a fear and do the thing anyways. It is perfectly normal to be
25:32
afraid, but you can still move forward with the thing.
25:36
And I'm having a hard time putting that into language that
25:39
they understand. And so I guess part of why I'm
25:42
sort of drilling on this point here, selfishly, is I want a
25:45
better way to explain that to my kids.
25:49
So here would be the best example.
25:51
And I, I, I like to read a lot and I like to learn about
25:56
different things. And so if you know about a thing
26:02
called exposure therapy, and it's almost like for all of us,
26:10
whether we need exposure therapy or not, it's a useful technique
26:16
in being able to get to the next thing.
26:18
So it's the bless you. It's it's the being exposed to
26:26
it is going to is going to give you a different viewpoint on it.
26:30
And you know, let's take your son is afraid of the dark.
26:34
You know what I mean? This might be child abuse.
26:36
Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't take me at my work.
26:40
But you know, it's, it's all right.
26:42
We're going to go into the room. I'm going to go in with you for
26:43
2 minutes and I'm going to turn the lights off.
26:46
And then it's 4 minutes. And then it's 10 minutes.
26:49
And maybe this is over the course of a week or two weeks.
26:53
And you know, at 4:00, it's funny.
26:56
My son, he's, he's never intimated it as well as your son
27:01
has, but he really just wants to be on teams with his buddies.
27:05
And, and part of that I don't think is a necessarily a fear.
27:10
It's just a desire. I mean, he's got a great group
27:13
of friends. I don't want to meet somebody
27:15
else. Who needs more friends?
27:18
But but in business, you know, there there is that exposure
27:21
therapy where again, if you're worried about it and you've
27:27
weighed all the options and you got, you've got, you know, a,
27:31
you know, a gut on it, so to speak, you just do it and see
27:35
what happens. I I think you're spot on there
27:38
and I, you know, I can personally attest to that.
27:40
So many things in my personal life, my business career, you
27:45
know, I'm on. This is probably close to my
27:47
400th interview, the 1st 1520, fifty of these.
27:53
Man, I got really nervous about what am I going to, you know,
27:55
how's this going to go? What questions, You know, what
27:57
if I, you know, what if I mess up in the intro?
27:59
You know, all these things, you just do it over and over and
28:03
over again. That repetition, it builds A
28:05
thicker skin and you realize that what's the worst that can
28:08
happen? Like, I, I, I'm still here, I'm
28:12
still alive. I still have food to eat.
28:13
There's a roof over my head, you know?
28:15
And so, yeah, I, I agree. I think that exposure therapy is
28:18
kind of a good way to sum it up. Yeah, well, they can't eat you
28:21
and they can't kill you. I love that.
28:25
OK, so let's talk more about LHR.
28:28
So how many properties do you guys own?
28:31
How many do other people own that you manage?
28:35
Right now we're we're lopsided on we are, we own more of the
28:41
properties than we manage and you know through the merger with
28:48
this friendly competitor that we've had for a long time, you
28:52
know we'll be at 2020 properties and then possibly 21 by mid
29:00
February. Sorry, 20 that you manage or own
29:06
a total. Total of 20 and then you know of
29:11
that it's going to be 7 that are owned, the rest are third party
29:17
managed. OK.
29:20
Do you have a preference? Do you like 1 model versus the
29:23
other? Yeah.
29:27
I mean, it's easier to operate something that you've got an
29:30
equity stake in and you know, the best way to to describe that
29:36
is we can make $100,000 decision in 5 minutes on a property that
29:41
we own. And because we've been living
29:44
and breathing that we, we all kind of are on the same page.
29:47
And for a third party management property that could be months.
29:52
You know, you're going through different levels of approval
29:54
explaining the story. Sometimes we've got 1H owner
29:59
that he is an MD, but he actually grew up in hotels.
30:06
He knows the hotel industry as well as anyone and he's an
30:10
expert in it. And so, you know, in that unique
30:14
scenario, we can have a very quick discussion on $100,000
30:19
question and it's answered. And but if you take someone that
30:24
was a commercial real estate non hotel related, it took me a year
30:30
to get this person to understand that the difference between
30:36
accrual accounting and cash basis accounting because you
30:41
know, if you, if you own a bunch of office buildings, you don't
30:43
think like you don't think about accrual accounting at all.
30:47
Right. So.
30:50
And you got to give them a basic tax lesson.
30:52
That's not even, you know, a lesson in hotel management.
30:55
That's just. It's a good point, but you know
30:57
what that I guess that's the other part that that I like, or
31:01
one of the things I do like about it is I do like being able
31:05
to being being able to communicate in a way and
31:12
effectively enough to be able to explain these things.
31:14
And you know, another example would be we built a a
31:19
DoubleTree. It was a new build hotel near
31:23
the University of Minnesota. It's a Hilton Garden Inn now.
31:26
But the principle on that, like he wanted to know, he he wanted
31:30
to find out like how do hotels operate?
31:31
How do we do this? How do we do that?
31:33
And which that was a great honor to deal with because his
31:38
curiosity is just infectious. So when you guys are looking for
31:46
a property that you want to own, you want to be the investors in,
31:51
what are the characteristics that you're looking for?
31:54
It you see, that's the problem. It, it's, there's no, there's
31:58
nothing that is, you know, we're not going to say we're looking
32:01
in a city with a hotel within, you know, 5 miles of a Big 10
32:07
college or anything like that. Every deal is different.
32:10
There's a court ordered receivership that we're doing
32:16
for a bank on a property and it's a 20 room property in the
32:20
middle of nowhere, but there's some demand drivers around there
32:24
that make it work. And you know, I'm looking at
32:27
that going. That would be an interesting
32:29
property that would be like a great property to have and it'll
32:34
cash flow, it'll do everything. It's going to, you know, deliver
32:38
the returns. You could then look at, you
32:42
know, you know, we get the broker listings and emails like
32:48
all the time from all the major groups, but there's properties
32:52
that we've looked at, you know, you know, near Disney, things
32:56
like that. And so it's this economic cycle
32:59
thing as well that plays into what it is that you're looking
33:03
for. I can tell you if I was just
33:08
having this conversation this morning about the liquor
33:13
consumption of young adults and even adults has decreased
33:21
significantly. And so you know what, when
33:24
you're talking about your margins on food and beverage,
33:27
the liquors where you make the margins, the food, not so much.
33:31
And so you could have a, you know, a 3540% cost of goods
33:36
depending on what your mix is in terms of the menu.
33:42
But on the liquor side, yeah, 17%.
33:46
And, and so, yeah, there's just, there's a lot of factors, but
33:50
we, we don't hone in on too much except for, and this is
33:54
something that him and I joke about a lot.
33:57
It's like if you bring us like the most complicated, screwed up
34:01
thing to deal with, we're just like a track to do it and we
34:05
want to dig into it and, and, and figure it out.
34:10
Give me an example of a really complicated, screwed up thing
34:14
that you guys took over and how you turned it around.
34:19
That well, this, yeah, it's a, it was a, it was during the
34:21
Bakken oil boom. It was the first hotel that we
34:24
managed out in the Bakken. So this is North Dakota and you
34:29
know, it was a it was 140 room Ramada charging 78 bucks a
34:39
night, 79 maybe and was running 93% occupancy.
34:45
And so that way I take that back, it was a days hotel, which
34:51
if you didn't know this Days Inn, it was the limited service
34:54
or service version of days. Pardon me, Days Hotel was the
35:00
full service version of Days Inn.
35:03
And so anyway, so you know, we got there and so you got, you've
35:09
got no labor because everyone who can is working in the oil
35:14
fields. You've got rates that were way,
35:18
way too low. You've got no contracts with the
35:21
oil companies on a long term basis of, you know, we'll, we'll
35:28
lease out half the hotel to you guys for the next year.
35:31
And by the way, it's the radon. It's going to be 149 because all
35:36
these oil companies wanted at the time was they had people
35:39
coming 3 hours away to get to an oil field to do their work to
35:45
drive 3 hours back. So 6 hours a day was being eaten
35:48
up. So it was nothing for them to
35:50
identify that. We didn't know it at the time.
35:53
That's something I learned very quickly on how we can capitalize
35:57
revenue. We had a restaurant and bar in
35:59
there that you know, kind of did good.
36:03
And then we had meeting space that that did subpar.
36:08
And so as we're as we're going through all these different
36:12
machinations, it was a quick rough game plan of, OK, we need
36:18
to raise rates. So how do we do that?
36:22
Because every desk clerk judges the rates by their own
36:27
pocketbook. So you know what they're they're
36:31
not going to be on board with raising rates by $50.
36:36
And so there was a leadership component of this of being able
36:40
to convince the GM and convince the deaf staff that, OK, we're
36:47
going to raise rates by 10 bucks, $10.
36:49
That's it. You know, we're not going to go
36:50
any further, but let's see what the pushback is.
36:53
And so then that $10, turns out there was no pushback.
36:57
Then it's like, all right, let's try another 10.
36:59
And this is like week after week after week and so.
37:02
You do $10 increase one week, $10 increase the next week, like
37:07
these are very quick incremental changes.
37:09
OK, go ahead. Yeah.
37:10
And so again, there's no pushback.
37:12
And by the time, by the time we got to 1:09, we weren't, we
37:19
weren't the ones managing the rate increases.
37:21
They were the ones saying, I think we can raise it 20 bucks.
37:25
And so that that was an exercise in leadership for certain
37:29
because we could have gone and said raise rates 149 and we
37:33
would have had a revolt in a labor scarce market.
37:38
And so that complexity was, was taken care of in terms of, you
37:44
know, labor force. Again, I, I, we were extremely
37:49
lucky by the fact that we inherited AGM, who was well
37:56
respected by our team and who could retain employees.
38:01
It was just this gap that we had to fill.
38:04
And so at that time, 2009 and you know, nowadays it doesn't
38:09
sound like a lot. 2009 essentially rural North North
38:13
Dakota, McDonald's was starting at 15 to 16 an hour.
38:17
OK, wow. And so, you know, we weren't
38:21
going to go that high. And so the next complexity dealt
38:25
with how do we get the people, how do we pay them
38:29
appropriately? And then how do we retain them?
38:32
And retaining people is through culture.
38:35
That's the only thing that will keep an employee there.
38:40
And so, you know, when you're going through these these
38:44
variations and you're trying to build an extended team because
38:49
we were short staffed, when you're trying to build this
38:52
extended team, the best place you can be is when you have your
39:01
employees coming to you and not complaining, not gossiping, not
39:06
drama, but hey, you know what, I saw this, this happened, this
39:11
isn't getting done. And, and so when the employees
39:15
start determining who, who should stay working there, and
39:20
that's a, that's a great place to be.
39:22
And you know, again, there's a lot of trust that goes into it,
39:28
but the employees are going to know who needs to get weeded out
39:31
in the first two weeks better than the manager.
39:34
So I want to explore this particular labor situation a bit
39:37
more because I understand some elements of what you're talking
39:41
about. When there's a big oil boom,
39:43
everybody wants to work for the oil companies because that's
39:46
where the big money is. So you've got that problem to
39:49
deal with, right? Anybody who's local, like, how
39:52
do you get them to work for much less for you?
39:55
But now you're also talking about the McDonald's in the area
39:59
was offering more than you guys. So somebody who maybe doesn't
40:02
want to go and do whatever the oil work is because it's harder,
40:06
it's dirtier, it's more dangerous.
40:09
Maybe they want to go to McDonald's instead of, you know,
40:11
your place because they're paying more per hour.
40:13
So how are you pulling people not only from the oil fields but
40:17
also from McDonald's into your place where you guys are paying
40:20
less? We were not pulling them.
40:23
We weren't pulling them from the oil fields.
40:25
We had some that would burn out on the oil fields and you know,
40:28
they'd be a great maintenance worker, things like that, for
40:33
whatever reason. But really what you're trying to
40:35
do is the people that don't want to work in the fields.
40:39
The the thing was, you know, I can get a dollar more or $2.00
40:44
more hour working, you know, at the sporting goods store than
40:48
working here. And So what you're trying to do
40:52
is, you know, create that environment.
40:55
You're creating that environment where people enjoy coming to
40:58
work, they enjoy what they do, they're service oriented, they
41:02
want to serve people. You know, your comment earlier
41:05
about, you know, the person that just like, you know, here's your
41:08
key room's that way. Those aren't the people that we
41:11
want. And we've operated in towns as
41:15
small as 300 and we have long since drawn the conclusion there
41:23
are good people that want to work in hotels, restaurants,
41:28
resorts, in every single market. It just sometimes takes a little
41:32
bit longer. What do you mean takes a little
41:36
bit? It takes a little bit longer for
41:37
them to realize that that's the place that they want to work.
41:40
No, it just it takes us a little bit longer to identify the
41:43
talent, the identify the person, get them on board and things
41:46
like that. And you know, when you go
41:48
through, you know, a, a bad hire cycle, every leader does it.
41:54
I saw Jack Welch speak, I don't know, at a hotel conference 10
41:59
years ago, 15 years ago and he was talking about the difficulty
42:03
in hiring and he goes, he says at the beginning of my career,
42:07
he goes, I was successful 25% of the time.
42:10
I screwed it up 75% of the time. He goes.
42:13
By the time I was mid career, I was successful 50% of the time.
42:18
He goes by the end of my career, I got it up to 75% and you know,
42:25
but it's, you know, everyone gets on bad runs and they need
42:29
some support on the hiring. I've done it before where it's
42:32
like, hey, you know, can you sit in with me on these interviews
42:35
because I, I don't know what I'm projecting, but it ain't
42:38
working. And so.
42:41
What what tips have you picked up along the way that you can
42:44
share with the audience? About hiring or yeah, just
42:50
authenticity. People can sniff out BS really
42:54
easy. And so if you know, if you're
42:57
living to the core values of the company and you're reflecting it
43:03
in that interaction, you know, it's, it comes out, it just
43:10
comes out and you know, there's, I don't know if you've read
43:15
anything about micro expressions.
43:18
I have but please go on. So with the micro expressions, I
43:22
mean, it's fascinating. And the gentleman Paul Ecker, he
43:27
was kind of the father of micro expressions and and then his
43:31
protege is now writing on it as well.
43:34
And so you know I've read about this stuff since the mid 90s and
43:39
it is amazing what we accidentally tell people in our
43:43
response in a micro expression and with the micro expressions
43:47
lastly, what 132nd of a second or what we are one whatever,
43:51
it's something where our conscious.
43:53
Imperceptible. Yeah.
43:54
Yeah, our conscious mind doesn't pick it up, but it's it is,
43:59
it's, it's available in their subconscious and in vice versa.
44:04
And my subconscious on, on on what they're doing.
44:07
And so you know what, where the disconnect comes in and how we
44:11
communicate very much is a micro expression.
44:16
So let's say I was, I was having, you know, trouble with
44:19
Shanna and I just was in a bad mood that day or whenever it
44:22
was, you know what, that would have come out in micro
44:25
expressions. And it's like when when I'm, you
44:32
know, sitting and talking to somebody, I need to be in that
44:35
moment and I need to be authentic.
44:38
And anything short of that it there.
44:41
There's a big tell there. Wow, I like that your true self
44:46
is going to show up. So, you know, talking a lot
44:50
about culture here, and I know that one of your guiding
44:53
principles really highlights entering every day with
44:57
gratitude and humility and celebrating successes together.
45:02
I wonder if you can think of a specific story of how those
45:05
principles showed up in your company.
45:09
It starts with the individual. And you know, for me and it, it,
45:16
it is remarkably funny because I've been really focusing on the
45:21
starting each day with gratic gratitude because there was a
45:25
short period of time where I was starting to feel a little bit
45:28
resentful about things. And but if, if everyone can
45:35
actually have gratitude, we've all got something to be grateful
45:41
for even in the crappiest of times.
45:45
And so when we're talking about that in the hotel environment,
45:52
and I can tell you, I mean, there's been times where, you
45:55
know, it's a 20 hour day and there's, you know, all this
45:59
stuff going on, there's chaos, everything, everything's going
46:02
wrong. When I talk to people that I've
46:07
went through that with before with me, it is we don't ever
46:13
talk about the good times. We don't talk about like, hey,
46:15
remember when everything worked, everything was great.
46:17
And this, no, we always talk about, we talk about those times
46:20
that were so challenging. And so the ability as an
46:24
organization to be able to get into those weeds together and
46:29
know that everything's going to be all right, then that again,
46:34
it comes out, it yields a positive outcome.
46:37
And so you're looking for a specific example.
46:42
And I'll go back to when I was a front office manager and, and
46:48
this goes back to hiring as well.
46:50
And so this is, I was front office manager, I had my
46:52
assistant front office manager, I had two front desk supervisors
46:55
and I was on a bad hiring run. And so I went to them and you
47:01
know, like we got to figure out how to do group interviews
47:04
because I'm screwing something up here.
47:07
And it, it took us three months to get a team hired to fulfill
47:12
it. So it was just down to us and we
47:15
were cover, covering a front desk on a 200 room hotel for 24
47:18
hours a day. And so there was, there wasn't,
47:22
and you know, it's location, there was a, an Event Center
47:25
nearby, right across the street, actually.
47:29
And so, you know, we'd go, you know, from normal 60% occupancy
47:33
to sold out Friday, sold out Saturday, you know, 50%.
47:37
So it was a very busy hotel and you know, for them, in
47:43
hindsight, looking back, and I'm still friends with them today,
47:48
they are just grateful people and so you know what I mean?
47:55
We made it through that, and we made it through with a smile on
48:00
her face and some good humor. You know, it's so interesting
48:03
because you said this a couple of Times Now you, you talk about
48:06
bad hiring is like a streak, almost like, I don't know, like
48:11
a, a hitter in baseball. They get the yips and you know,
48:14
they, they go through a slump. Say more about that 'cause I
48:19
mean, I, I've certainly done my fair share of hiring, but not on
48:22
a regular basis like you have. What is the what does the slump
48:27
feel like like and what and what gets you out of it it.
48:31
Feels horrible because it's like it, it's it because it's not
48:36
only I failed, but I failed and now I got to cover the shifts
48:41
and it, it, it's you get worn down to a point that and, and I
48:48
think this is for anything in any leadership position, you're
48:51
either going to figure it out or you're going to get out.
48:54
And, you know, for me, you know, thankfully I've been able to
49:00
figure it out and I've had good people around me that, and I'm
49:05
not talking about leaders above me.
49:06
I'm talking about the scenario where it took us three months to
49:08
get a good team. It wouldn't have happened
49:10
without that, guaranteed. And so, yeah, it feels horrible.
49:16
And I'm going to introduce an, well, it's not an abstract
49:19
concept, but it goes to one of my mentors and Jerry.
49:26
And so he'd be, he'd be like just all over me.
49:30
And he'd always end with those conversations with, you know, be
49:35
worried, be worried when the coach stops yelling at you.
49:37
And but he also had a, a phrase that's relevant to this part of
49:43
the discussion, which is you got to get beyond fear and desire.
49:47
So you got it. You got to get beyond the fear
49:50
of hiring the wrong person and the desire to hire the wrong
49:56
person. And so it's, it's a little bit
50:00
Zen like to a certain extent where you just can't be afraid
50:06
and you can't be covetous when you're in that situation.
50:13
So when you find yourself in a slump like that, is there
50:16
something that helps snap you out of it?
50:19
Is it just sort of that realization of unplugging from
50:24
the fear? I I think that the fear and the
50:27
desire is the biggest part of it because, and that probably LED,
50:31
you know, the previous, you know, that's what led to the
50:34
slump was I hired the wrong person because I wanted the
50:37
shift filled and I didn't want to work, you know, 70 hours this
50:41
week. And and so that fear of the 70
50:45
hour week was leading to more 70 hour weeks.
50:49
Got it. OK.
50:50
That makes a lot more sense now. Talk present day to near future.
50:56
What are some new initiatives that you guys are working on
51:00
that you're excited about, whether it's innovations and
51:04
processes, technology, guest experiences, What are some
51:08
things you're excited about? Yes to all of them.
51:11
And so, but but here's here's how it comes together is we have
51:15
independent properties, we have branded properties, Marriott,
51:18
Hilton, you know IHG and so the technology portion to a certain
51:26
extent we are beholden to the brand and what they are going to
51:30
invest in on their systems. And the brands have gotten a lot
51:35
better at it. And I'm not going to rank who I
51:37
think's best or worst, but you know, you take the Hilton app.
51:42
Well, starting in starting in 2016 is when you could use your
51:46
phone as your room key, bypass the front desk.
51:49
And so Hilton was really a leader on that.
51:53
And and so technology I think goes hand in hand with guest
52:02
service. And the reason is, is that I
52:06
don't need somebody to be standing there typing on a
52:09
computer to check somebody in. I want them to be talking about
52:12
all the great things there are to do.
52:15
And there's the show over here, you know, that you guys can see
52:18
and, you know, we can get you tickets.
52:20
That is true service. You know, you look at like The
52:22
Four Seasons. The Four Seasons is by far the
52:28
leader in guest, guest satisfaction on so many levels.
52:32
I mean, they were keeping notes on guests back in the 60s and
52:37
70s of, you know, here's their favorite beer, here's their
52:41
favorite liquor. They like these restaurants,
52:44
this and that. And so they were doing it all
52:46
manually back then and really customize each guest experience.
52:52
I think the opportunity to increase the level of service
52:55
and hospitality increases with all the advancements in
52:59
technology that that come. And you know what, we should
53:04
know our guests. And you know what, even though I
53:07
might be the desk clerk that checked them in, I should be
53:10
using the notes function to just say, you know, his wife's Mary,
53:14
this is his birthday, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever
53:16
it is. And I think that that's the
53:19
greatest opportunity is that service.
53:21
The technology supports it. And we've got a, an, an
53:27
automated hallway vacuum where it's just a robot.
53:32
It goes up and down. Like a Roomba kind of a thing.
53:34
OK. Yeah, a commercial Roomba.
53:37
OK. I love the thing.
53:39
I think it's the greatest thing ever.
53:41
And my business partner hates it, thinks it's the worst thing
53:46
ever. And so we we have this constant
53:50
friction on whether it's a good thing or bad thing.
53:52
I'm convinced he's going to push it down some stairs someday.
53:54
And but you know, there are differing views on technology,
54:00
but we can all agree that wrote tasks that we have to do should
54:06
not be a part of our daily functions.
54:09
And I was just going through and I was pulling up P and LS as
54:15
proper income statements this morning.
54:17
And so, you know, pulling up 20 income statements is a process
54:22
by itself. And so you know, I'm sitting
54:24
there thinking, I'm like, why do I have to click, click, click,
54:27
wait 3 seconds, click, and then repeat the entire process?
54:32
That could be my impatience, but road stuff does nothing to serve
54:37
anybody. So that's a great example of a
54:40
road service. It's a What are you going to do
54:43
about that? So that's a great question.
54:46
I already reached out to the company that creates the
54:50
software because I want that process automated.
54:53
I want to be able to say, run the sequence of events and just
54:56
let it go, which realistically, you know, when bots were
55:00
starting to become a thing, that automation process and you could
55:04
build a bot to do it. And you know, frankly, I don't
55:08
have the time to build a bot. I just need the bot.
55:13
And and so there there is an automation in the process.
55:18
You know, we were talking about internally, we were talking
55:23
about, we use SharePoint as our kind of file server, back of the
55:27
house thing. And it was set up a number of
55:31
years ago and it was set up wrong.
55:34
And it's like, so you know what? We need to, you know, figure out
55:38
how we're going to do that. So someone's not going, you
55:41
know, 7 folders deep to find something for an individual
55:45
property and then having to do the same process on another
55:47
property. And so it's, it's, it is that
55:51
process automation which is used.
55:52
And, you know, thankfully we have, you know, all of our
55:56
property management systems feed all the revenue numbers into the
55:59
accounting system. And so there's been, you know,
56:02
numerous things that have been taken care of and but there's
56:06
always going to be more. Yeah.
56:09
You know, behind most success stories, Doug, there's usually a
56:13
chapter that almost broke somebody.
56:16
Can you share a serious challenge that you've gone
56:18
through, personal or professional, how you got
56:21
through it and what you learned? Yeah, and you know what, the
56:27
'cause I, I think it, it's a personal story, but I think it's
56:30
so important and it does apply to business as well.
56:39
And so July 2014, I had eight strokes.
56:46
And so you know what I'm. Yeah.
56:50
And thankfully there was no latent deficiencies from it
56:55
except for, you know, some tingling in my leg.
56:58
And although some people might argue my brain too, but the, but
57:03
the, So I had these 8 strokes and I ended up, you know, going
57:09
to the ER. I didn't know they were strokes
57:10
at the time. I was actually putting my
57:12
clothes back on to leave when the doctor came in and said,
57:15
where are you going? And I said, I'm going home.
57:17
I feel fine. He goes, no, you had eight
57:19
strokes, you're not going anywhere.
57:21
And so that was a shock. And so, you know, I spend the
57:28
next three months, you know, you know, I'm still working.
57:31
I'm still, you know, you know, doing all my stuff.
57:33
But I'm going from different appointments from my oncology,
57:37
you know, to neurology to endocrinology.
57:41
And they're trying to figure out why did these strokes take
57:44
place. So at the at at the end of the
57:49
three months, we get a call from the oncologist.
57:55
He said, yeah, I had three biopsies done during that time
57:57
as well. He goes, good news.
57:59
You know what? You don't have cancer.
58:02
And so, you know, come back and see us in six months.
58:06
And so I asked him like, well, what about the strokes?
58:09
Are we going to talk about that? Something caused those.
58:12
And I had these masses in my adrenal glands.
58:15
And if no one's ever been through a medical scare, and
58:21
this is true in every facet of life, you have to be your own
58:25
advocate. If you don't, you're going to
58:27
get caught up in the system. So I go to my primary care and
58:32
he's on. He's on his daughter, was on a
58:35
team with my daughter at the time.
58:36
And I know Jeff very well. And so I'm asking Jeff, I'm
58:39
like, yo, someone's got to look at this and figure this out.
58:42
And he goes, he goes, Doug, I'm not qualified, like all right,
58:47
and, and what, what should I do? He goes, well, go ask for a
58:51
referral for mail. So I go, I get the referral and,
58:56
and then it's about another month before I get down to mail.
59:01
That's their next open appointment.
59:03
And so during this, this this month, and actually I'd started
59:09
it probably two months or a month and a half before that, I
59:14
would do my nightly, what I called my walks of God, where
59:17
it's like, you know, I in, you know, God's to you, whoever it
59:22
is to me. And you know, and so you know,
59:24
everyone's God is different. And so anyway, I during one of
59:30
the walks with God when I'm thinking of if I want if I
59:33
should go to mail, the biggest mistake I made was the amount of
59:37
time to ask for the referral because I who might have
59:41
questioned a doctor. So they're way smarter than me.
59:45
So anyway, get the referral, get down to mail a month later and
59:50
then I find out I've got bilateral field chromocytoma,
59:56
which is essentially 2 tumors in my adrenal bonds.
59:59
So they scheduled the surgery for December 23rd, which in my
1:00:05
brain like, OK, this is going to be perfect.
1:00:07
I'm going to die over Christmas and that'll be a good memory for
1:00:10
my kids. And so the entire time I'm just
1:00:14
having to like get up, you know, do as much as I can, you know
1:00:19
what be. Be on point.
1:00:22
And it wasn't pressure. It was more like I wanted I
1:00:25
wanted to do it because it was a relief from everything else that
1:00:27
was that was going on. So anyway, Long story short, I
1:00:31
lived through the surgery. Shannon and I actually were
1:00:33
arguing on the way down to the surgery and I'm like, I'm going
1:00:36
to die. I left a letter on the night
1:00:38
stand for you. And, and so, so we're arguing
1:00:42
about if I'm going to die or not.
1:00:43
And so it turns out I was wrong. And so as most husbands are in
1:00:47
most circumstances, so anyway, come out your find out what I've
1:00:53
got is a genetic cancer syndrome called Von Hippelinda.
1:00:57
So now I got a whole new whole new other set of things to do.
1:01:02
And so this genetic cancer syndrome, it is basically benign
1:01:08
or cancerous tumors can pop up in every major organ in my body
1:01:12
at any given time. Oh my goodness, which I had
1:01:15
given to my son as well. My daughter tested negative.
1:01:19
So this is where when you talk about failure, this wasn't a
1:01:26
failure necessarily caused by me, but it felt the same,
1:01:31
especially with my son. And so, you know, able to get
1:01:40
refocused and, and go at it in a positive direction.
1:01:47
So just give me a second here. So anyway, I started getting
1:01:53
involved in the VHL community, became, you know, state chapter
1:01:57
chair, became, you know, president of the National VHL
1:02:01
Alliance, started doing lobbying work and in Washington, DC.
1:02:09
And so through all of this shit, last March, my son and I were
1:02:16
able to go together and do advocacy together.
1:02:22
And so, you know, he's been to DC before school trip, things
1:02:26
like that. You know, we got to go sit in
1:02:30
senator's office offices, sit in representatives offices, you
1:02:34
know, make our case and and do do something that most people
1:02:41
never have the opportunity to do.
1:02:44
So I could have done that route or I could have done the route
1:02:49
of woe is me, this sucks and I don't want to do anything.
1:02:55
And you know, that's never the right choice.
1:02:59
And so we always have to confront what's going, what's
1:03:08
going on, and we can't hide from it.
1:03:13
And so where does your health stand today?
1:03:17
Well, so fine thing you should ask.
1:03:19
So VHL my, you know, my static, you know what I've, I've got a
1:03:27
couple of spinal hemangioblastomas, pancreas,
1:03:32
kidneys have some stuff going on there, but it really has been
1:03:37
static since 2014. With the exception of the
1:03:40
hemangioblastomas. I've only had to have two
1:03:42
surgeries, which I've got a good friend of mine.
1:03:46
He was the director of quantitative researches or
1:03:50
research for a major, major bank and he finally retired after 35
1:04:00
brain surgeries. And so, so, you know, it's, you
1:04:07
know, the, I think the fundamental lesson is it's, it's
1:04:13
not what happens whether we 'cause it or not, it's not what
1:04:17
happens. It definitely is how we deal
1:04:19
with it. And we don't have to be, we
1:04:23
don't have to be happy all the time.
1:04:26
We don't have to be thrilled all the time.
1:04:29
And you know, it's, it's OK to not be OK.
1:04:35
Wow. And so with that, that's that's
1:04:40
where you know, the importance of relationships are and the
1:04:43
importance of those long term relationships.
1:04:46
You know what my dad used to talk about?
1:04:51
You know, you never you never should have any more than three
1:04:54
to five friends, good friends is what he was talking about.
1:04:57
And and to a certain extent, I agree with that.
1:04:59
I think you need to keep your circle small, but considering
1:05:03
the circumstances of everything, I've got so many 2:00 AM
1:05:07
friends, I I can't even believe it.
1:05:09
And but that wouldn't have happened had I not, had I not
1:05:14
addressed things head on, had I not both professionally and
1:05:18
personally, and cultivated those relationships over time.
1:05:22
And I'm grateful for that. Wow.
1:05:27
And So what does it look like for you going forward?
1:05:31
Is Oh sorry I missed most. Every six months.
1:05:34
No, no, no, I'm glad that you did that sidebar because there's
1:05:37
so many powerful lessons in there.
1:05:39
You know you started out the story with you know you got to
1:05:43
take control of your own health, right, that you're going to get
1:05:46
lost in the system. You're going to have to be the
1:05:48
one who pushes for this. And if you hadn't, you never
1:05:51
would have discovered that you and then your, your son have
1:05:54
this rare condition. But but you didn't stop there,
1:05:58
right? You got involved with the, the
1:06:01
different chapters, the local and the national 1.
1:06:03
You went and you lobbied for support in DC like you, you went
1:06:08
to the place that most people wouldn't go.
1:06:12
And, and there's something inside of you that drives you to
1:06:15
do that. It showed up in that way.
1:06:18
It shows up in your work too. Do you think it's something you
1:06:22
were born with, or do you think it's something that you acquired
1:06:26
or developed along the way? That's a that that is a great
1:06:30
question because if you would have asked me when I was 16 or
1:06:34
18, I said not a chance in the world.
1:06:37
No way. I mean, I was a lazy, stupid
1:06:41
teenager. I think most teenage boys were
1:06:44
were wired like so, you know, screwy, but no.
1:06:49
And you know what, I I never felt that way.
1:06:52
And you know, frankly, you know, when you were, we were talking
1:06:57
about fear earlier, you know, the confidence.
1:07:02
I didn't probably have a lot of confidence either.
1:07:05
And but again, other people did and saw something that I didn't
1:07:10
see. And so I think without the right
1:07:13
mentors, without the right leaders that you work with, and
1:07:17
frankly, even somebody who I think is a crappy leader,
1:07:21
there's probably still something I can pull from them that is
1:07:25
positive. And and so it, and I'm really
1:07:29
sincere about that. But but yeah, I, I think it's
1:07:34
learned mostly. And but you got to be, you got
1:07:39
to be either someone's got to be taking you to the water to
1:07:42
drink, or you got to like, you know, find the water yourself.
1:07:47
And in this scenario, I was lucky early on where I had
1:07:50
enough people that would lead me to the water.
1:07:53
And now in, in, you know, relation to this VHL thing,
1:07:59
yeah, I was, you know, hot and ready to go.
1:08:03
And so and I, I think I've really felt that way since 2000,
1:08:09
I'd say probably, probably end of the late 90s.
1:08:14
And it's it's growing from there over time.
1:08:18
Where, yeah, why shouldn't I be the chair of the national
1:08:21
organization for the BHL lines? Why not me?
1:08:24
Yeah, Why not? Yeah, and.
1:08:26
And again. Sorry, go ahead.
1:08:28
No, no, no. I want to hear your thought.
1:08:30
Oh, I was going to say I it's. And this is where the humility
1:08:33
comes in. Peace is you got to keep
1:08:35
yourself humble. And so the irony is at what?
1:08:39
Yeah. On one side it's like, well,
1:08:40
who's going to do a better job than me?
1:08:42
And, you know, on the other side is, well, you're going to suck
1:08:45
at it. You shouldn't even try.
1:08:48
And then somewhere between those two is appropriate humility
1:08:51
where where you can operate at a genuine level.
1:08:57
And so do you now have to go for like full body MRI scans twice a
1:09:01
year? Yep.
1:09:02
So, and thank you for asking about that because I, I totally
1:09:06
dropped that part of the question.
1:09:08
But the, so it's, there's different protocols depending on
1:09:12
the different age. And so the, for me, I'll end up
1:09:18
having a brain scan, spinal scan and abdomen scan this year.
1:09:23
My son, he'll have a brain and I believe abdominal.
1:09:29
And so we'll go through those in February.
1:09:32
You know, one of the one of the things that has been another
1:09:35
blessing is because you know, when he was diagnosed at 5:00
1:09:41
and 4:00 or five. And so, you know, the, the
1:09:45
strategy was OK, you know, we're going to piece meal it out in
1:09:49
small doses, getting closer to, you know, the full picture as he
1:09:54
gets into junior high and high school, which it's worked out
1:09:57
well. And and so, you know, the the
1:10:03
idea is to get him ready for when he turns 18, that he's
1:10:06
going to do the scans on his own.
1:10:08
I can force him now. I can't force him in another
1:10:11
year and one month. And so so you know what?
1:10:17
And also teaching him to be his own advocate as well through
1:10:21
this process. And so to answer the question,
1:10:24
it's essentially, this is the way life goes.
1:10:27
We have to do it every year, including some blood tests, eye
1:10:30
tests, things like that. And, you know, it's not going to
1:10:35
be the thing that kills us, but it's the thing that we're going
1:10:39
to have to live with. And I could talk more about some
1:10:45
other stuff on it, but yeah, I, I don't, I don't want to take up
1:10:47
too much time, but it is such a fascinating, so many fascinating
1:10:53
people that I've met through this entire process and for my
1:10:56
son as well. So other patients, other
1:11:00
patients, families, people like that.
1:11:02
What's your superpower? Doug, I didn't know I had one.
1:11:12
I, I would say currently, because I think superpowers do
1:11:15
change over time and I would say currently my superpower is
1:11:24
calmness, if that can be a superpower, calmness and very
1:11:28
complex situations. And, you know, it's been the
1:11:35
past two months for me have been remarkably stressful, both from
1:11:40
a professional standpoint, trying to bring together two
1:11:44
companies from a personal standpoint with, you know, some
1:11:51
of the rental properties. And, you know, I was talking to
1:11:55
Shannon about it two or three weeks ago and I'm like, I don't
1:11:59
know what's going on, I said, but I, I don't think I've ever
1:12:02
been this calm in the midst of such a storm.
1:12:06
And so I, I, I would say just calmness.
1:12:12
I think that is a genuine superpower.
1:12:15
And you know, Doug, I've just got one more question for you
1:12:17
today. But before I ask it, I want to
1:12:19
do 3 quick things. Yeah.
1:12:23
First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Doug Carl,
1:12:26
you can e-mail him directly at Doug K at lhrhospitality.com.
1:12:34
Obviously, their website is LHR hospitality.com and to get in
1:12:38
touch with dougdirectlydougk@lhrhospitality.com,
1:12:42
that'll be in the show notes. Also, if you're enjoying the
1:12:45
show, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app
1:12:48
goes a long way towards helping others discover our show.
1:12:51
So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
1:12:55
Finally, as a reminder, if you want to get more hospitality
1:12:58
employees, access to therapists, doctors and prescription meds
1:13:02
that, as paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your
1:13:06
company's net profits, reach out to us at Add Back benefits.com.
1:13:10
So last question for you, Doug. A year from now, what is 1 very
1:13:14
specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
1:13:21
Yeah. Well, does it have to be exactly
1:13:25
a year? Does not.
1:13:27
There's flexibility here. No, the the biggest thing
1:13:31
personally is going to be the graduation of my son from high
1:13:35
school and seeing him off onto his next stage.
1:13:42
And you know, you mentioned your kids earlier and you know, we
1:13:47
both heard this. We've heard it from so many
1:13:49
people. Don't blink.
1:13:50
It goes by too fast, which I think is a really negative way
1:13:54
to look at it because I've, the way I've looked at it, like
1:13:58
every next stage has been 10 times cooler than the last one.
1:14:02
And so, you know, my daughter, she's off to college.
1:14:06
She was home on Christmas break and I just love the growth in
1:14:09
her and you know, just from, you know, the first semester being
1:14:14
down there and her opinions on different things and she's not
1:14:18
soft spoken. She's the kindest person you
1:14:20
ever going to meet, but she's not soft spoken.
1:14:22
And so for my son, same thing. Just that is like the number one
1:14:28
thing. And from a, I'll call it a
1:14:33
revenue generating standpoint because you know, we've got our
1:14:37
primary businesses, we've got our ancillary, you know, things
1:14:42
that we do. And so the rentals is one of
1:14:44
those things. I want to have those 3, they're
1:14:47
all contiguous to each other. I want those three soul, you
1:14:50
know, in about a year as my son is heading off to college,
1:14:54
hopefully. Doug Carl from LHR Hospitality,
1:14:58
I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
1:15:02
and your story with us today. Appreciate you being here.
1:15:05
Yeah. Thank you, Anthony.
1:15:06
I really appreciate it. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:15:09
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:15:11
Thanks for learning with us today.