Balancing Vision and Execution: Insights from Sonny Kerstiens

Speaker A: Welcome to Take Care, a podcast exploring the heart of hospitality. In each episode, we'll uncover how authentic care creates meaningful connections that transform service. We'll talk with industry leaders about the interconnected circle of hospitality, how caring for ourselves enables us to care for our teams, who then deliver exceptional experiences for our guests. Take care, because exceptional hospitality starts from within.

Speaker B: The goal here is get into a day in the life of some folks roles and get to know what their work is and how they do how they do what they do. And for us today, that's talking about critical thinking. When I asked Ivo if he had somebody he would recommend, you came up as top of mind for him.

Speaker C: I'm incredibly flattered. I think Ivo, and I think not to speak for him, but I've always lived by the principle that certainty is the point you get to when you're tired of thinking. And uh, I think in, um, my experience in hospitality and almost two and a half decades now, that served me well and allowed me to be consistent in terms of my approach and methodology when it comes to thinking through complex problems. I suspect that might be where you

Speaker B: said, certainty is what we come to when we get tired of thinking. So, meaning it's an illusion. It's a point we finally get to when we quit or when we're ready to make a decision.

Speaker C: I'm a lifelong learner and I think that the more you can be open minded to new ideas, who doesn't want to learn? And I think Ray Dalio said it, if you don't look back at who you were a year ago and say, gosh, I things I thought a year ago were pretty stupid compared to that they are today, then I didn't really learn much. It's not to imply that you can't be decisive and you don't have knowledge in a certain discipline or what have you. But I think none of us has all the answers to complex questions. And I think the more you can open your mind, it's almost. Your mind almost works like a parachute. It works when it's open. And the more you can open your mind to new thoughts, to things that might challenge your own conventional wisdom, the more I think the better decisions you'll ultimately get to. Not on your own, but with other people. And I think there's certainly things that become habit over time, decision making and whatnot. But I just think continuous improvement requires just that level of being open minded and almost like looking around the corner for what have I not thought of yet?

Speaker B: Okay, so could you tell me, is there a complicated problem you've been thinking through recently. And uh, how do you break that down? Give me a view behind what goes on internally for you.

Speaker C: I think over the last year and a half I've tried to overhaul our tech stack in many ways on the sales and revenue management side really. And uh, I shouldn't say revenue management side. The totality of our business intelligence, the analytics analytical tools that we've used and what's worked and what hasn't. And I think a roundabout way of answering that is sometimes the challenge in hospitality is from my opinion is you have to honor institutional knowledge and what was there, but find ways to m, move things forward. And I think strong leaders bring people along with them in that type of journey. And um, so when I think of like the business intelligence tools, the tech stack overall that we've been pulling together, it would be easy for me to say, here's what I know from the last 23 years. I'm just going to, I'm just going to ram through what has worked for me in the past. But I think that misses opportunity. Like the opportunity to bring in as many inputs or data sources as you possibly can from others and understand that experience is life's greatest teacher and none of us have experienced everything. So like being able to, with humility, come to the table and say, hey, this might be a blind spot for me. Where can I bring in either internal or external resources or thoughts or what have you to help me build out the best possible outcome in a way that still has urgency, that still has uh, speed to market in many ways. I think that is, that's something that I've developed over time. I think earlier in my career certainly, I think sometimes hubris can have you in its grasp and you don't recognize that. And ah, I think so that's an example of one that um, I've been through now.

Speaker B: Okay, so let's break it down. So when you got into this role, what uh, when you talk about maybe what your tech stack looked like, what were the pain points? What did you notice that you were like, okay, we do need to do something about this?

Speaker C: Yeah. I think what I would say for the role I'm in now is we are a rapidly growing company and that uh, requires putting in scalable tools, resources, solutions that perhaps look much different than some of m the solutions that teams have used in the past. Because I think one of the biggest things with scale is that, and this goes back to where we started the conversation, you have to repeatedly question in my mind your habits and when it comes to solutions, you need to ask yourself, when it comes to scale, is the solution I'm going to put in place a point solve to solve today's problem, or is it a solve that's going to work at scale? And if that answer is a point solved, you don't do it, you do something else and you keep searching for that scalable type of solution. And I think, yeah, so I think that's one thing that like is a challenge because this company, my company's had a ton of success through the years and that's awesome. And we have, there's no doubt that there's areas we're scaling.

Speaker B: Quick hotels opening, what kind of hotels are we talking about and what does the scale look like?

Speaker C: Yeah, so our Aspen hospitality portfolio, we have the Little Nell brand and the Limelight Hotels brand and our Limelight Hotels. When I joined the company, we had Linnell, which is world renowned in Aspen, which is an incredible property. Obviously Aspen's m only five star, five diamond property. And we've had Limelight Aspen, Limelight Ketchum, Limelight Snowmass. And since I started, right when I started, we brought on Limelight Denver. We're opening Limelight Boulder, which is our first conference center. We're opening that in August. We're opening like mammoth. 149 hotel rooms, 15 residences in December. And then we're also working on a second development with the Nell brand and in New York City. And that's the, what we hope to be just the start. And I guess my point in saying that is like we were very Aspen centric, like the properties in that market and there's things that work well there that perhaps don't work in other markets that you've got to figure out how to scale in that way.

Speaker B: So imagine that I, I'm in the hotel, uh, industry, but I'm not in revenue management. Let's say when you're talking about business intelligence and tech stack, you're talking about, I would assume a reservation system, a revenue management system, a property management system, some sort of sales type system to manage contracts and leads and all of this. And then I would guess like you need also to be pulling all of this data together to get insight. And like when you're looking at that it's about okay, how what are competitive shops and competitive data and forecasting, right. You've got all of these layers that you're trying to make sense of for a, from what sounds like a home, a uh, homegrown brand of that obviously was working well, for the properties that you already had. But now you've got to figure out how do we take what's there and also help it make sense with this bigger thing that is growing so that we can, like you said, continue to honor the thing that exists and help it get better. I'm trying to dig in a little bit more of your thought process and how you handle such a thing, because that does sound like a significant lift, right, for you to, uh, come into this role and think about, okay, I've got to revamp the overall performance, tracking and everything for the company.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's. I think about, I think a couple things. Right. What I think from a critical thinking standpoint with it. Yeah, you need to evaluate. I think what I've worked hard on is evaluate the capabilities that need to be built and, uh, while at the same time without, it goes without saying, continually continuing to perform at an exceptional level from an operational standpoint, from a property standpoint. So it's doing two very difficult things at the same time. How do you do that in a way, like where I would ask myself questions is, okay, how do we do this in a way that, that doesn't slow down the momentum, that helps continue to build the momentum in a positive way for the properties that are operating, while at the same time ensuring that when these new properties open and come online, we're ready, like out of the gate to, to have incredible success. And it's a, It's a difficult thing to, to, I think, navigate sometimes, but I think one of my strengths is in vision casting. And I think it's super important as a leader to, to articulate a vision in a way that your whole team can understand and then rally your team to get behind that in a way to accomplish, uh, things that perhaps people didn't think they can accomplish on their own. To me, there's nothing better than team success in that way, where a group of people accomplish incredible things because they're all not only pulling in that same proverbial direction, but they understand that at their core, like one plus one can equal three when you have people working together. So how does that relate back to this tech stack? It's recognizing that different people are at different places in their journey and their willingness to accept new ideas and to embrace new concepts. Some, um, everyone's different, right? Some people will be at the forefront of that, other people will not be. And I think ensuring that you have everyone going with the same velocity as much as possible requires like, developing those deep connections with your team members to Again, instill that trust to where people can buy into the vision of where you're going. That takes time. It doesn't just happen overnight. And I think when you're looking at whether it's a tech stack or rebuilding a team or what have you, the.

Speaker A: There's.

Speaker C: Like I said earlier, I think it's easy. The easy button is to take knee jerk reaction or to take knee jerk approaches, rather. Uh, this is what worked for me in the past. So I'm going forward with that same mentality. And I think where I've found the most success is not taking that approach is understanding, hey, what does this particular situation require? And that's going to look different than any previous situation. And then how do we, what steps we need to get to encourage the adoption of new tools or encourage a different direction, a different strategy, whatever the case may be. And I think that, to me is the hardest part, but the most exciting part of leadership is just that at the end of the day, it's getting. It's that vision, casting that, that ability to get everyone not just on the same proverbial page. I think that's cliche. When you do have a full team that buys in. It's incredible what teams can accomplish in that way.

Speaker B: What, what have you seen happen there with your team?

Speaker C: I think everyone's a little bit different in terms of where they want to go and, or I shouldn't say where they want to go in terms of how quickly folks can embrace it or not, or, And I'm not just talking about tech, but that's. Anytime there's change, there's change to a system, and I don't mean a literal tech system, but change to process or change to the team or what have you. It requires hard decisions. It requires, again, honoring where people are at, encouraging them to get to where you are looking for them to go, where you're looking to go, giving appropriate feedback and, and then going and doing that with velocity. I don't know if that's. That took a far left from your question of the critical thinking component. I think those are the challenges, uh, you work through.

Speaker B: No, I think that all of that is part of the process of critical thinking, for sure. And you quoted Ray Dalio earlier, and I think that that's a great example of, okay, someone who thinks in what he would say, principles, and tries to communicate in the form of principles as well to his team when he was running that one. Running. Is it Bridgewater Capital?

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so do you think about things that way? In terms of principles, how do you come up with a vision that you're getting folks behind?

Speaker C: Yeah, I do think that way. In terms of principles, I think to me, anytime I've come into a new role or on board with a team, I try to make very clear what the non negotiables are for me or look for when it comes to how a team is going to operate, how a group of people are going to operate with one another to get the best outcomes. And I believe in relentlessly seeking solutions. I believe in questioning, as I mentioned, questioning our repeated behaviors. I am a firm believer that there's no such thing as failure. You learn from your failures and your mistakes and you apply that wisdom forward. If you do that, there's no failure. Otherwise, what are you doing? Failure is just failure. Right. So there are fundamentals like that that I think are. That I firmly believe in and then that I share with new team members to so people know what they're not just getting with me, but like how to operate with one another. And I think there's a rad. I know radical candor has been overused, but I think to some degree it's important. And that's not just being like, oh, just be direct and straight to the point. No, let's make sure that when we need to give one another feedback, we can do that in a way because we've got a deep level of trust with one another. That it's uh, it's that feedback is a gift mentality of the radical candor is required because hey, this team member really needs to know this to get to the next place. And I think, Josh, I think to

Speaker B: me

Speaker C: all of that is super important in order to create the conditions for a team to all move in the same direction.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, and I think one of the challenges in the pace of business, period is that those things take a little bit of time. They take a lot of intentionality, they take time. But in many respects in business, like you don't have a lot of time, you've gotta, you've got to do both things at the same time. Yeah. Uh, to me, as long as you've got a team that is all in on the best business outcomes and basically making the best. One of my best biggest principles is just if you do the best every day, you make the best decision you can in that moment every day, the end is going to take care of itself. And that takes discipline and discipline and hard work and everything. We talked about pressure testing assumptions and making sure that, yeah, people are doing Just that I'm going to say this phrase and I may regret it, but not intellectually lazy in terms of just taking the quick way out but really not being afraid of hard things.

Speaker B: Yeah. I remember sitting on the beach reading this book and I remember the eye opening moment of I think he was talking about what he would consider. Uh, I'm uh, probably getting this wrong but I think it was like secondary effect. Like basically a lot of times we may go at something directly and not actually get the result that we want. Right. And so how important it is that we're actually understanding the lower levels of that. Right. Probably a good example of this is we all go after uh, health in terms of weight loss and we very much focus on okay, I'm going to lose X number of pounds but it's not part of this longer term lifestyle or vision and then we gain it back. Plus some um, but a secondary understanding, I really just want to build the habit of walking 10,000 steps a day or I'm going to start evolving how I eat in this way because I care about health. Now the secondary effect is that I'm going to lose weight and it's going to actually last. We go after I think revenue management or sales or some of these things as how do I drive this metric? Yeah. And, but it, but if we go straight up the metric we don't get the intended result.

Speaker C: Yeah. And yeah, yeah, uh, you just hit the nail on the head and it's not to be redundant with what I said a moment ago, but it aligns with the thought of do the best you can every day, make the best business decision that you can every, that in the end will take care of itself. And I, coming up through the sales discipline, I would always tell sales team team members during the annual goal setting process. Right. I would say if you look at that number, let's say it's a 4 million dollar target and all you're focused on is that number, you're probably not going to hit it. Or even if you do hit it, you may hit it by not taking the best piece of business possible, but it's because you're concerned about your 4 million dollar number. Whereas if you think about it through a team construct and not just like an individual contractor, the team goal is 12 million and that requires all of those sales managers working together in harmony with revenue management to ensure that every decision they're making, every booking they're taking is truly the best piece of business possible. That every day gets you to that 4 million. I'm focusing on that 4 million and that 4 million alone does not then lead to the best business outcomes for the team, for the hotel, for the team, for the cluster, whatever it may be. Yeah, uh, it's exactly what you just talked about there. I love that. And it's how I try to wire myself professionally, control what you can control today and that is in every situation make the best business decision you can in that moment.

Speaker B: The example that comes to mind is there's a book that came out last year called Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt is his name. He's a professor by trade and just was looking at okay, I see concerning trends with just okay this new generation now level of depression and suicide, all these things. And so he's looking at the data to understand what the implications are. One of the things he talks about is how kids have been under protected in the digital world and overprotected in the physical world. And the physical world piece he says part of the big thing is as ah humans our brain's not fully developed until we're in our 20s and we and other animals start walking as soon as they come out. But we've got this need to grow uh, slowly as part of a community and that we are in a environment that is safe and that is where you're getting unstructured place play and that you realize the consequences of falling is not that bad. Right. Like even if you get hurt it's not going to kill you. Most of these things that we're afraid of we don't need to be afraid of. And uh, when I think about that with what you're saying is you're pushing your team and you're creating pressure, you're giving them opportunities to fail and make mistakes. You're asking them to push and try and question and this because the stakes he like the author says you need a low stakes environment. Right. You're saying the stakes aren't that high here. Right. If I push the stakes, if I make the pressure too high it's, it discourages the, the willingness to try. But if I'm in the daily habit like you're saying of asking people to do their best, that gives people this opportunity to realize okay, I can have these small learnings and losses and that's encouraged and rewarded and that's part of this bigger picture of we actually end up with better long term results because of the short term learnings that we

Speaker C: have uh, very much taking the long view with that. And I think that uh, I think with what you just, just said A couple things came to mind. One, the underlying point there is, I think when you create the conditions for psychological safety within your team, then it's incredible the results you can get. It really is because the inverse of that is that people are not willing to take risks and if you do what you've always done, you're going to get what you've always got. So I think, like, you need to create the conditions to allow people to take risks, to innovate, to try to not be afraid of failing. Now, that doesn't mean there's not pressure, that doesn't mean there's not pressure to reform, it doesn't mean there's not accountability, it doesn't mean that's all part of what, what goes with the job. Like, we've got to financially perform in hospitality, we've got to ensure that we've. Where I will never forget when I first started in this business up in, in Vail Proper back in 2001, I'll never forget forget my GM saying in sales, your job for off season business, May, October, is to ensure that we're giving people hours, ensure that those housekeepers or there's those bellmen or those banquet captains, like, look, we're not going to make our fortune in May and October in the ski resort community, but we need to give people jobs because that's how we're going to retain our staff year round. That always stuck with me in a way that, yeah, there is pressure to financially perform and there's everything that goes along with it and ensuring that you're taking care of your staff. I say all that because you really hit the nail on the head in terms of it's creating the conditions of psychological safety for your team and creating conditions to where you can say two things. One, this is really hard and this is really fun when you can do, uh, both things. They don't have, they're not. Those two things don't need to be in conflict with one another. And I, ah, think over time when you have those systems in place and those principles in place, you learn which team members are capable is too strong of a word, but which team members are on board and the ones that are going to help get you to the next place and which ones maybe are your dissenters or who are not going to get there and who probably should explore another opportunity. And, um, I think that's where I'd say the pressure is there. The pressure is there to perform, but I'm just a believer that those results will take care of themselves. Tenfold when you create the right conditions for your team to, to innovate, explore, learn, not be afraid of failure. Now, you can't repeat the same fails, failures.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Right. Like you've. The whole point is you learn from those failures and then apply those learnings to where it doesn't happen again or you make a better decision next time. And that's an important point.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: It's not just saying, ah, mistakes will happen. Carry on. It's like having your processes around. Let's talk about this. Walk me through the steps as to why you made that decision. I might disagree with it. Here's how I would have done that differently. Here's what I think you should have considered or what have you. And let's talk through it. And that's where coaching and leadership really comes in.

Speaker B: Yeah. That was so good. You've got to hold those things in tension. Right. The psychological state, safety and the pushing to perform, it's both exist. Both have to exist. And creating that tension between the two is, I think, where a lot of people miss. They think that the safety thing means, oh, an easy, comfortable life and job. And it's. No, we've got. We're going to push together and see what we're made of theirs. Uh, and we're going to take care of each other, but we are going to push to, to be at our best.

Speaker C: Yeah. And in many ways saying, I have very high expectations and high expectations of your level to perform and I believe in your ability to perform. No one's going to say I didn't enjoy that job because they believed in me too much. They're the inverse.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: I think some of the. I think one of the most powerful statements you can say in business is I believe in you. Now, it's gonna be earnest and sincere. But when that's the case, I think that helps develop that healthy tension to where you hit it. Spot on, Josh. People hear the word safety and they think, oh, thank goodness, like, I'm not gonna get in trouble. No. Psychological safety just seems like you're expected to push yourself past your comfort and that's how we're going to get the best outcomes. And that's not. Look, that's not for everybody. It really isn't. And that's okay.

Speaker B: Yeah. Problem with that, uh, it's also when we feel most alive too. Right. It's. If we're. If it's. If we're just trying to not be stressed or that's. I guess that's for me personally, I realize, uh, when I'M pushing myself is when I'm also feel most alive and at my best.

Speaker C: It goes back to what I said a moment ago. Right. Those two different statements of one, this is really hard. Two this is fun.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Oftentimes those two things can be in conflict because people think something's really hard. I'm not really having fun.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: No, that's. I think I'm right with you. That's when you feel the most alive of pushing yourself past your comfort zone. And look, I think I've done that over the last couple years with revenue management. Like really tried to push myself into. In an area that, that I had experience with, that I led in the past, but did not. I'm not a 25 year revenue management expert. Right. And I think leaning in there has allowed me to. I look back at like my two years here so far and my gosh, the learnings have just been exponential and they should be like I. If I was sitting here today and saying I haven't learned anything the last two years, then I've failed in that regard.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: But I feel like my, I'm so much better for my team today than I was two years ago because of where I've pushed myself past comfort levels and um, leaned in and learned areas that like yeah. Are we're really hard and really fun.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Uh, are there any frameworks that come to mind for you in critical thinking that you encourage people to use or.

Speaker C: I think there's a great book called Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath. I don't know if you've read that one. I've really taken that one to heart because they talk about creating a framework to be decisive. Many people think obviously decisive just means make a decision like that. It's you're going to make the wrong decision. A lot of times if you're just doing it based on instinct, it's about creating framework. And one of those frameworks is to widen your options. Right. Oftentimes we think in business this as a question having a binary if or and how often can we say and this or that and this. And I think that's one I really try to challenge myself on cognitive biases. I think confirmation bias is something that we all fall victim to a lot. And I think especially in this age with and especially in data science to some degree I shouldn't say data science, but yeah, I guess data science. Right. Revenue management uses as an example oftentimes like you've got all this data and you've got to interpret the True signal within the noise. And oftentimes confirmation bias tells us we seek out those signals that align with our pre existing belief or that support what it is we're trying to say. And I think from a critical thinking standpoint you have to, sometimes that can be unconscious and you have to really pressure tests that goes back to that. Pressure testing your assumptions, making sure that you're not. Yeah, cooking the books because you're trying to find data to back up your preconceived beliefs and yeah, cooking the books in your mind, I should say. But M. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think I really love the idea of doing a pre mortem on big projects. M. Like once you're right almost at the end, right, have everyone take a step back and say, okay, let's take a breath and let's fast forward a year and say, um, we're writing a memo on how this project spectacularly failed. Why would it fail in a year? And I think that allows you to see some of your blind spots. There's frameworks that I try to apply in terms of critical thinking in that way that again don't have to slow down the process. I think that they, if anything, just allows you to make the best decision you possibly can. And more often than not you have 80% of the information you need to make a decision, but you're never going to get that, uh, last 20%. And I think leadership is about being decisive and making those decisions. But you can only do that. You can't do it recklessly. You've got to, you've got to have that type of framework or that, that pressure testing that allows you to make the best decision you can and then

Speaker B: go, yeah, I love that. Uh, you had a lot of great points in there on the confirmation bias. I think, I think that's asking the question of what if the opposite were true.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: And I think that's similar to what you're saying about you're trying to also come at the confirmation bias with a pre mortem of what if this thing completely falls apart apart. And so that way you're imagining it falling apart and you think about what led up to the fact that it fell apart instead of confirming in your mind like, oh, this is going to be a smashing success and assuming that everything will be fine. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great point.

Speaker C: I think it was, I can't remember the CEO, but there was a CEO. I'm going to say with gm, but I might have that wrong. Who Anytime before they made a big decision, like a big time move, when if everyone was in alignment and agreement, they would say, okay, we're going to take a step away, we're going to come back in a week or however long it takes to ensure someone comes back with why we shouldn't do this. And then what that does is just allow you again, to make sure that you are not. Whether it's confirmation bias or you want to think your decision's the right decision. But again, um, I think having said all this, the one of the challenges, one of the tension points is you have to be able to do that while still doing it with velocity and not, not becoming indecisive or not, uh, having paralysis analysis because you're overthinking something. And I think that's something that you've always got to be mindful of too. Okay, there's 37 ways we can see slice this. Have we sliced it enough? But I think again, the framework is what's most important. And if you adhere to that framework, then you're gonna, you're gonna produce ultimately, over time, the best business outcomes versus. And by the way, I think that's true in life too. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: The whole idea of like house hunting, right. There's that, that cliche that you should fall in love twice, don't buy and make an offer on that first house you bought, fall in love with, fall in love with.2, and then make a decision and take a step back and see which one's the right one to get.

Speaker B: For so many things I could go into with you on all of this. As a leader, how do I help build critical thinking in others or build an environment where critical thinking is happening? And part of that I think for you, what I hear is vision is important. Right. You're saying, one, we've got to think critically, we've got to challenge our assumptions, we've got to make sure we're not doing what we've always done. But you could just say all of that stuff and without vision, people don't know what to do with it.

Speaker C: Yeah. Why can't we do what we've always done?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And part of what I think about with vision is, okay, we've got 17 people looking in 17 directions. How do I get them all pointed where they've all narrowed their focus to the same place. Right. So now they're all looking in the same, same direction and that way. Right. If you've painted that picture that now folks are thinking, okay, here's how I Think critically how I can be decisive, how I can make progress toward what we've all said is most important. Yeah. I don't know. I'm curious what you think about that.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think one of the challenges there is, I think with any vision, especially when you have a bigger team, you have to be able to articulate it truly in a way that everyone can understand. So if you come at it, let's just use as an example, you come out with circumstance of, hey, we need to grow by X percent, let's call it 20%.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: Three years. And. And you don't explain the why. What you just come at it with, here's a bunch of data points that is we got to do X percent by year one, X percent by year two, X percent by year three. Go. You're not really painting vision. You're just telling people, here's a data point you got to go hit. And I think what it misses is, I think. And this is where I think relationships are so important on teams too. Like, it misses the understanding of where everyone's at in their understanding of where they need to go. Trying to think of the best way to say this, but I think what I'm trying to get at is sometimes, like, we just. We like to throw data around all over the place. Data is critical, obviously, but, like, data doesn't speak for itself. We need to put words to it. And if you just throw data points out at where we need to get grow by 20%, it's like throwing a fire extinguisher to someone who's drowning. The solution's not matching the problem. So you've got to. You've got to be able to. Whether it's by way of metaphor or whether it's by way of. I, uh, I don't know. I'm being long winded on this one, Josh. But I. I think to me, that part of it and ensuring and then pressure testing on everyone that they understand the where.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Why is the only way you're gonna get a team to go and. Or a team to accomplish it? I should say I think a lot about it in terms of when I have tripped up in the past. I've questioned myself first. I'm like, how could I have articulated something different? How could I have painted, uh, a different picture here?

Speaker B: I think sometimes I can have a vision in my head. It's just hard to get out. Everybody bought into. One of the things I have realized that's helpful is if, as I'm trying to communicate it, that I'm Helping everyone see that I understand their pain points. Right. And that we've got an inventory of. Here's all the points of friction. Right. And it's. Here's the. Here are the tensions or the friction in what we're doing right now that is hard for all of us. And trying to come up with some common language around that stuff of the pain where we are right now and, like, the. The joy of what's in front of us and, like, the possibility of, uh, what's there, like, in front of us.

Speaker C: Yeah, no doubt. And everyone is going to receive the information a little differently too. Yeah. I think part of the problem, it really comes down to, in many ways, storytelling.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Crafting it in a way, again, that is inspiring. That is. I m. Don't want to say the word simple, but is. Yeah. That can be absorbed relatively easily. And that storytelling, I think, is a critical part of it. I think we're always a work in progress, all of us. And for me, mindfulness is a very powerful thing that you never by any means perfect over time, but I think allows you to be grounded and help to make those best decisions in the moment. And I think even with. We're talking about vision casting and how we talked earlier, even about people honoring the past, but looking forward to the future. And I think mindfulness and being present teaches you it's good to check in with yourself from time to time with your mind is in the future. You're anxious about something in the future. Okay. You note it. I'm anxious about this in the future, or I'm ruminating about something that was in the past.

Speaker B: You can't.

Speaker C: It's like time traveling. You can't be in two places at the same time. You got to be. If you're in the past or the future, you're not present. And I think the more you can, especially in today's environment. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: To say there's economic uncertainty right now is a bit of an understatement.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, and I think it's easy for anyone in this business to be very nervous about, um, what is coming or excited or whatever. You name it. There's just a lot of emotions attached to it. And I think for me, what I've continued to try to work on is it's not to just, like, strip all the emotions away, but recognize when. Like when you're not being present and either angst or something else has you in its grasp and it's leading you to make decisions that perhaps err on the side of the emotional reaction that you're having versus the true objective type of decision making that you should have. And I think for me, that's not a new thought by any stretch, but I think the more I've grown in my career, the more important that's become. You're responsible for more people, for more hotels or more top line revenue or whatever the case may be. And those types of. It becomes more and more important to make sure that you are. Yeah. Controlling your emotions as much as you can. Controlling what you can control if decision you can based on those circumstances and not get lost in, I think the either irrational exuberance or the inverse of that. And ultimately I think that leads to the best decisions that you can make too.

Speaker B: I think like on, on the mindfulness thing, I mean you, you said that so well. Like you, you're saying, okay, we've talked about like how you think about the past and think about the future, but there's so much value in okay, how can we be right here in the present? And that presence is, I think, so important for us to be paying attention to. And then the part of just non judgment also. Right. Uh, I think that I've heard you talking about a lot of these concepts through the whole conversation, but not judging whether something's good or bad, but just understanding that it is and that it's here right now. Right. That that's all of those things. I think as you lead a team or you're trying to think critically, it's so important. You're creating this space between the stimulus and the response. You're trying to push pause on automatic behaviors that are just happening unconsciously. And the space that's then created is helping give depth to the decisions that need to be made and then the ones that I'm just actually like being worried about stuff I can't control right now.

Speaker C: That is a whole other podcast and one I'd love to do because that's

Speaker B: a passion of mine.

Speaker C: It really is.

Speaker B: Okay. Everything.

Speaker C: Yeah, you just said there just. It all ties together with what I was saying earlier, which is, yeah, just make the best decision you can in that moment every day. And the end takes care of itself. And yeah, you can only do that by being present. You can only really make the best decision. I just heard something this morning that I thought was very powerful and it was talking about when that stimulus happens, whatever it is, feel your chair. That gives you. Yeah, creating that habit gives you that automatic space between the automatic response and a more rational. It's elephant in the Rider or all of that.

Speaker B: I'm Mhm.

Speaker C: A big believer that line of thinking. And that's great. Lao Tzu. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Ah. You asked me what I'm learning right now.

Speaker C: Yeah. What are you. Yeah, I'm curious. Like what are you. Where are you developing? I think the question was like sure, sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean I just follow where my curiosity is at the moment and probably where my biggest pains are. I've been reading more on similar to how mindfulness. This helps. I've been digging into cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah, definitely. And I think there's a lot of power there. And uh, you were talking just there about analyzing emotions and for us to question the thoughts that we have and understand when we have cognitive distortions and how those distortions then lead to the emotions that we uh, feel and with all of that, what we can do about it and how we can act differently. And so I've been reading a book by. I think it's David Burns. I'm trying to look over at my bookshelf over here, but yeah, reading on that and with a couple. In a couple of other contexts. And then what else I'm digging into. Yeah, I don't. The other one's kind of weird, but it's existentialism as the uh, philosophy. But applied to business actually. And uh, there's a philosophical consultant named Peter Kostenbaum that I've been reading a few of his books and like digging into, I just uh. I've found it's very interesting digging into that. Just the. He's very big on what he would say about freedom and responsibility. Right. Like we all have freedom of choice in every moment and, and how important it is that we're taking responsibility for that freedom. And so how does that work in an organizational context? And how do we each take more responsibility for what's ours and blame other people less? Because that's often. Right. Uh, what we end up doing is deflecting responsibility and blaming other people or judging them. And that's what I've been digging into a lot and kind of making a lot of notes about. Most recently. Those are the kind of the two topics that have been piquing my interest.

Speaker C: I love it. Yeah. Cognitive behavioral therapy is incredibly powerful. Incredibly powerful. And I think it's what you just said too. It's like it's recognizing those automatic responses that you have.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And how those automatic responses were created because oftentimes they're created based off of something that isn't true or that you haven't. You yourself questioned internally.

Speaker B: We got to hang out sometime.

Speaker C: Yeah. Would love it.

Speaker B: I. I feel we found a kindred spirit here. I really appreciate you doing this, Sunny, and making the time. And I can see why Evo recommended that we talk. That we, you and I, are. We're on the same wave.