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I am Rachel Humphrey with It's Personal Stories, a hospitality podcast, and I am excited today to be joined by Greg Freedman with Peachtree Group.
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Greg, welcome to the program.
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Yeah, thank you, Rachel, for having me.
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I am really excited to jump right in today because I have had the opportunity to moderate you a lot recently on conference panels, but you and I have not spent a lot of time personally getting to know each other.
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And so I'm excited to follow right along with our audience as they get to know a little bit about you at the same time.
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So I wanna jump right into your journey to leadership.
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One of the things I really love about the industry is that two people like you and me can have extremely different paths, yet still end up in industry leadership.
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So tell us a little bit about your background and your story, and if you think there are any pivotal moments that led to the career that you have today.
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Yeah.
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So I grew up, you know, in a family that owned some hotel properties.
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Um, so my grandfather actually owned motel properties.
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My mom actually worked for my grandfather, so she worked in the, in the family business effectively.
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He also owned a small business lending platform that originally was financing medical practices, and then in the'80s he shifted that business into financing small, you know, motels and hotels across the US.
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So he was doing these SBA loans effectively on hotel properties, and that's where my family really, you know, grew into the business.
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I never personally worked in that business, but I...
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You know, as a professional I never worked in that business, but I did work as, you know, as a, I guess you'd call it cheap labor, um, because I, I was paid nothing to spend a lot of summers around that business helping my grandfather and my mom, as well as, you know, other family members that worked in that business.
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And so that was my first entrance to the hotel business, is through, through my grandfather and my mom.
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Um, that was the first introductions.
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And then personally, you know, again, grew up around it, went to college at University of Texas at Austin.
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When I graduated Texas...
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Because originally I was gonna be a doctor.
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Um, I was a pathology major at Texas.
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Um, so it was somewhat, it was somewhat unexpected that, you know, midway through college, and I say midway, it was really my senior year of college, I decided I was gonna take a year off before going to medical school and, uh, and never went back because my first job actually out of college was actually in lending and banking, and that was really on the financing side of hotel properties through GMAC Commercial Mortgage.
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So that was my first professional entree into the hotel space.
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I understand that not only coming from a family of entrepreneurs, but that you actually started, I don't know if it was your first business, but started a business in college that helped support you during that time.
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I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about entrepreneurship, because we certainly know the numbers of businesses that are not successful.
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But What is the entrepreneurship experience?
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How has that contributed to your leadership, and are there any lessons you learned during those early roles that you think you still carry forward in your leadership today?
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Yeah.
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So I started a lot of different businesses, you know, throughout high school.
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You know, even in middle school, elementary, high school, college, I had a lot of different businesses and side...
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I would call them almost side businesses or side hustles, I say that.
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But I was always very entrepreneurial and looking at different ways, um, to do different types of businesses.
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So I did everything from vending machines I had in college to, you know, having a internet comp- had a paging business at one- I used to sell software back in c- or back in high school.
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Uh, so I was, you know, constantly trying to find, you know, ways to be entrepreneurial and find ways to create businesses that were profitable as a younger individual or as a child.
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And so I think that really, your point, I think that did shape how I look at things because not everything I did was successful,'cause, you know, you start businesses and, you know, most businesses don't succeed.
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I mean, d- I don't have the natural stat here, but I- if I had to guess, probably 89 per- 80 to 90% of businesses that are started probably are no longer in business, you know, five, 10 years later, um, because they're unsuccessful.
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So that's not a bad thing.
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So I, I very quickly learned it's okay to have failure, but you can, you know, if you can figure out what went wrong, and in some cases you can actually save those businesses and make them successful or make them profitable, I think that's the power of what I learned through those experiences because it really taught me that it's okay to make pivots along the way.
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'Cause again, you're gonna have failure and you're gonna have success, and to embrace, you know, both those scenarios and just realize that, you know, you're gonna have, have those, you know, have those events, but none of them are gonna be defining
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I think that pivoting is probably gonna be a little bit of a, a recurring theme as we talk today through your leadership.
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But I wanna turn to Peachtree Group because as I understand the trajectory of the company, your most explosive growth was during the pandemic.
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You were doing a lot of transactions when others were not doing any, and that certainly turned out to be a very successful move for you all, but easily could have also gone the other way.
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When you think about whether it be those entrepreneurial adventures or whether you think about where you've taken the company lately with your team, how do you approach risks in general?
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Do you think you would describe yourself as a big risk taker?
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Is there a process you go through in evaluating which ones you're gonna take, or is it the no risk no reward mentality?
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Yes, I'm big on protecting the downside, so I'm a big...
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The reality is this.
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I take, we take on a lot of risk.
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I take on a lot of risk every day, and I continue to take on risk.
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And if you think about how when we started the business back before the great financial crisis, so in 2007, and we went out, bought a couple hotels, and that's really how we started Peachtree.
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It was, you know, myself and Mitul, and then Jatin joined us a little bit later.
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So the three of us were the original partners, and we're still, you know, all three of us are partners at Peachtree.
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Um, but if you think about it, we originally went out, bought hotels, and all of a sudden you had the GFC.
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You know, we quickly pivoted and said,"Okay, we're gonna have to play, um, offense and defense," um, and that means we're gonna have to protect the assets that we currently own.
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That's why we started our operating platform back, you know, in 2008, 2009 ti- time period, where we started op- we took over the operations of the hotels that we owned as well as the hotels that we were developing from the ground up.
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And then we were able to play offense by going out and buying up a lot of distressed debt back during the GFC.
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And so we've, you know, constantly had that mentality where, you know, when you think about the pandemic, did something very similar where we played offense and defense, but we've held that mentality The way I look at risk, to answer your question directly, is it's all about protecting the downside, being very calculated, thoughtful, but also being very decisive when, you know, you, when you have conviction in that trade.
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And so if it's buying debt, if it's buying hotel properties, you know, whatever the case is, it's not being afraid to have that, have that decisiveness once you can sort of protect your downside risk.
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And that's what I think we've done a really good job of, is finding that mispriced risk, but protecting downside, and that may be in how you set up the capital structure.
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You know, like what type of debt you have underneath if you're buying hotel assets, making sure you have debt that sort of matches to the business plan to give you the runway to, you know, be successful.
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It could be how you underwrite and analyze the invest- you know, the actual assets you're buying into.
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The stickiness, if it's hotel properties specifically, you know, the stickiness of demand and, and different things like that.
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And that's, you know, going back to COVID,'cause a lot of people thought we were crazy when we went out and started buying up a lot of debt secured by hotel properties back in, you know, May of 2020,'cause hotels had not recovered, and we started buying hotel properties again as well, too.
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And we had that conviction, just'cause we were starting to see the industry slowly recover, and also I had very strong conviction that travel was going to come back.
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It wasn't a, a question if people just valued, you know, the ability to travel, to have experiences, have those interactions.
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So I knew travel would recover.
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It was just a question of timing, and that's part of the reason why we were comfortable taking that risk back in, you know, May of 2020 when we started aggressively buying more hotel assets
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It's interesting'cause as you're talking about the, the information that you have and the risk that you're taking, I'm thinking about what Peachtree's motto is, and I just recently saw this, guided by intuition.
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And I don't normally do this, but I'm gonna read because I wanted to make sure I had the definition accurate.
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It says intuition is the ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than on facts.
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And I found that most interesting because I think that everyone I talk to talks about how fact-based you are, your knowledge of facts and data and trends and all of these things in the industry, yet the premise of the business is being guided by intuition.
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So I wanted to talk to you about like, a little bit about how does your g- your intuition guide you and do you think that would surprise people about you?
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Yeah.
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I mean, pr- as you say it that way, I'm sure it l- it does surprise a lot of people.
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But- That's why I looked it up, Greg, because I was like, wait, that- Right maybe I don't have the right definition of intuition.
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But it's, I mean, intuition at the end of the day, it's all about your experience.
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You know, your experience is talking faster than what your mind can process, right?
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So you're, you're really looking at what's, you know, like, your, just your historical experiences in certain situations.
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You're able to, your gut's taking over because it's seen this situation before or it's processing the information a lot quicker than you can, your conscious mind can actually process that information, is the way I look at it.
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And that's why, you know, honestly, a lot of decisions we've made has been just gut calls based on what's happening, and it's, it is,'cause we've been in so many different situations and have so many different experiences, and the same for a lot of the other team members that are part of Peachtree.
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But it is a lot of times a gut call that you're, you're making'cause there's a lotta, there's a lotta just jump balls on what the right decision is, and you gotta go with your gut.
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So I'm a big believer that you do need to, um, lean into your intuition.
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In most cases, it works out very well for us.
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What would you tell people on your team or, or that are listening about the hesitancy to trust their intuition or to be guided by that as a decision-maker?
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So a lot of times people just like they...
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It's like, you know, you're like,"Ah, I shouldn't make that turn," or,"I shouldn't, I shouldn't go out tonight for some reason." And a lot of times it's just, you can't put your finger on it.
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And it's not to say that you should always just follow, you know, your gut instinct or your intuition.
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Um, but I, I do believe a lot of times that you find that your intuition, even though you don't have a set of facts to support it, in a lot of cases just, it just ends up being the better, the better call.
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Now, when it comes to business, you know, we do try to back it up with facts.
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We don't just...
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It's not like we're just gonna go show up and say,"We're gonna buy this hotel property across the street because it looks great, you know, and my gut tells me w- we'll do well on it." I mean, we're still going to...
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We, we drive these markets and we look at assets from a qualitative, you know, perspective.
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And I think a lot of times your intuition is probably, you know, is probably driven a lot of times by the qualitative side of a situation, but we're also quantitatively looking at the data and the, the actual numbers and backing it up to make sure it actually makes sense.
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So I don't know if I fully answered your question, but- Yeah I mean, that's the way I would look at it.
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No, I think that's really an interesting way of saying like that maybe that intuition is actually created based on the knowledge that you have and whether you're actively thinking about it or not, that that's what's pushing you in one direction or another and not just on business.
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I wanna talk a little bit about some of the early days of leadership for you.
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Again, um, you mentioned earlier you were a biology major in college.
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I don't know, I'm not gonna judge whether that is relevant to what you're doing today or not, but certainly you would've come across a lot of skills that you were gonna need in, um, your GMAC role or your role today that you did not learn in a traditional educational environment.
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How do you set out developing new skills?
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Was there anything right off the bat, maybe in one of your first roles out of school that you're like,"If I'm gonna be successful, I need to learn this"?
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And how did you set out to go and, and build that skill?
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Yeah.
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So, I mean, a couple of different skills I really didn't have coming out of college'cause, you know, being a biology major with the idea of going to medical school, you know, wasn't l- it wasn't like we did a lot of financial modeling, as an example.
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So we weren't, you know, using Excel in a lot of cases.
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Now, math was always a big part of...
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You know, I was always really good at, like, math and, you know, all the courses as it relates to math and so forth, so I always excelled in that area.
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So although I wasn't necessarily, you know, great at Excel or modeling deals early on, I had to learn how to do those pieces of the job, which, um, which was somewhat...
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It did come somewhat easy just given probably some of the interest levels and so forth.
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But probably the bigger skill set wasn't early into the career or, you know, the biggest skill sets I had to learn, I think as I just progressed in business, was little things like public speaking.
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'Cause if you think about it, when you're gonna be a doctor, you're a biology major, you're not doing a lot of presentations.
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I mean, you're spending all day in labs.
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Um, you're dealing with...
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You're deal- you know, you're spending a lot of time studying, reading books.
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You're spending a lot of time in l- labs, like I just said, but you're doing things that don't require a lot of interactions with, you know, other people.
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It doesn't require, you know, a lot of presentations.
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So things like that were a bigger probably skill set that became, or at least a skill set that became bigger over time that I needed to really lean into and learn as I, you know, continued to, you know, build Peachtree.
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And even before building Peachtree, I think some of the other components is just, you know, just from the standpoint of skills is, and it has nothing necessarily to do with being a business student or being a biology major, is probably just in relation to how to, uh, how to manage, you know, and really manage relationships.
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You know, managing people, if it's, you know, managing team members, if it's figuring out how to get people to work together.
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Um, so in a lot of cases, sometimes I always joke I should've been a psychologist'cause I spend a lot of time I feel like trying to figure out how to bring people together and get them to actually work together,'cause a lot of times that creates a better outcom-
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If you were to talk a little bit more about the public speaking,'cause certainly you do a lot of it today, and whether that's to your team or on the biggest stages in the industry, did you do anything specific to develop that?
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Are you comfortable doing it today?
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Do you have a preparation strategy that you use?
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I know from having moderated you that, um, you are an easy panelist because you're very thoughtful in what you say.
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But what, what happens behind the scenes before you, you take that stage?
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Yeah, I mean, it's, it's probably today, it's probably less stress.
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I mean, I think it's, it was probably more stressful back, you know, early on, especially when you didn't have that, didn't have that knowledge or experience.
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Um, so I think it's just more g- getting more experience in those types of situations and, you know, getting some training and development around that area as well.
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When you think about leadership, we have a lot of people who say,"I was born to be a leader," or,"I realized as I was playing football or tennis that it was something I enjoyed." And then you have people today who say,"I don't even consider myself a leader today except by maybe role or title." Was that something that struck you at some point, either that I want, I know I want to be in a position of leadership, or I recognize that now I am in a position of leadership?
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Yeah, it was never, you know, it was never like becoming a leader was like something critical to me.
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It was more about being an entrepreneur.
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So I never really thought about leadership, especially early on.
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It was never about leadership, you know, it was more about being entrepreneurial, creating a, a business or creating something that was sustainable, you know, and being sustainable, you know, creating something that was profitable.
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Um, that was a big part of the...
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From my perspective, that was a big part of the journey.
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I think as, you know, as I progress and as Peachtree has become a bigger organization, you know, leadership has become a, a more critical piece.
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It's something that, you know, we talk a lot more about as a company.
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Um, it's something that, you know, I'm focused more on as well.
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But I do think leadership, I think it's...
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A lot of times it's just inherent.
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I think it's within individuals and maybe it's, you know, maybe it's inherent in a lot of entrepreneurs, maybe it's not,'cause in certain cases you have entrepreneurs that create incredible businesses and then they end up having someone else, you know, lead that business.
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But in the case of our business, I think, I think leadership is super critical or has been super critical, and that's part of the reason we've been able to grow our business.
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Greg, you were talking earlier about how your leadership has really evolved because of the growth of the company and the needs that you have within the company.
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When you are looking to expand your company or elevate rising leaders, is there something you can put your finger on that when you meet with someone you're like,"This is the one.
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This is the person that I've been looking for, or they will contribute to the culture that I'm trying to create here, or that we're trying to create"?
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Yeah.
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So I think it's really about finding team members or new team members that really fit in with the existing culture that's in place.
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And when you think about the existing culture, Peachtree, you know, we've built a team that's very entrepreneurial.
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You know, they're very much about, you know, speed.
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Um, so we move at a very fast pace, and that's not for everyone.
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So we tend to...
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And when we tend to make decisions, we're very decisive as an organization.
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Um, so I like to find people that- Have that entrepreneurial spirit, that are willing to get gritty, that are very much, very much passionate about what they're doing, um, because that's, that's what I think you find within our existing team.
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And it's hard to bring team members in that are that don't really share the same, you know, passions per se because I, I've found that, you know, as we've had team members in the past, and we've had some really great team members that have been part of PeaceTree that are no longer part of PeaceTree.
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But, you know, one of the challenges we've had with certain team members is that they're truly It wasn't You know, although maybe they were passionate early on, but as, as the organization grew they weren't as passionate about what they were doing on a daily basis.
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And when they're not, it just creates its own challenges, and we wanna see that people can have their own personal success as well as the team itself.
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So I'm a big believer that someone's gotta be very passionate about what they're doing on a daily basis along with having that entrepreneurial spirit.
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Yeah.
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I think that passion is so important because we spend so much of our time and our lives and our commitment and our efforts in what we're doing, uh, for that company or for our role in that company that to not be passionate about it is a tough fit.
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I mentioned earlier that I thought that pivoting was going to be kind of a red thread through your story.
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Um, certainly some of the adaptability has been required of you has been from external sources, whether they're economic things, the, the pandemic as you mentioned.
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Talk about the skill of adaptability in identifying whatever type of, um Things somebody may be throwing in your way or whatever challenge or obstacle comes your way, how do you look at them and then regroup and tackle what's going to come next or decide how you're gonna pursue next?
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Yeah.
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So I think, you know, adaptability is sort of...
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It's sort of interesting'cause I, I think that's been a big part of just, you know, my personal, professional career, you know,'cause I, I moved around a lot as a child.
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My, my mom worked for my grandfather.
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They had, you know, they had different locations for his business, so I did move around, you know, a good bit, so constantly being able to adapt.
00:21:26.746 --> 00:21:37.226
And I think, you know, a big part of adaptability, you know, even in business,'cause we've pivoted so many times along the way too, is being able to sort of accept reality.
00:21:37.286 --> 00:21:42.066
And so a lot of times you find that people are not willing to accept the reality of what's happening.
00:21:42.165 --> 00:21:47.125
So, like you take, you know, the current environment for instance, you know, go back three, four years ago, you know, it took...
00:21:47.506 --> 00:21:51.266
You know, a lot of people weren't accepting the fact that we're in this higher for longer interest rate.
00:21:52.006 --> 00:21:55.165
Talked a lot about that over the last three or four years from a business perspective.
00:21:55.605 --> 00:22:03.326
But once you're willing to sort of accept the reality a lot faster, then you can start to, you know, really make decisions.
00:22:03.405 --> 00:22:08.766
You can, you know, build around what's happening, and you can, you know, adapt to that situation.
00:22:08.806 --> 00:22:09.885
And so it's...
00:22:09.925 --> 00:22:17.066
You know, I do think adaptability is huge if it's in personal life, if it's in professional life,'cause it's, it is...
00:22:17.486 --> 00:22:26.846
There's no question that is a big part of just being able to success, is adapting, you know, pivoting when things aren't working and reali- you know, accepting that it's not working.
00:22:26.945 --> 00:22:30.086
That if it's you investing into a certain type of...
00:22:30.486 --> 00:22:34.965
If you're investing into a company, if you're investing into an asset, um, and if you're not able to...
00:22:34.986 --> 00:22:39.605
You know, if it's not working the way you expected, being able to pivot, try to fix those situations.
00:22:40.006 --> 00:22:44.945
Or even sometimes, you know, you have to dispose those assets and move on to the next trade.
00:22:45.365 --> 00:22:51.705
But it's also realizing, and this is probably going back to the leadership side of everything, is that, you know, you don't...
00:22:51.925 --> 00:22:54.685
The one thing I've learned is I don't have to predict every turn.
00:22:55.066 --> 00:22:58.306
We've built an organization that's capable.
00:22:58.486 --> 00:23:06.486
You know, we have a lot of capable team members, a lot of capable leaders that are part of Peachtree, and that's, that's what allows us to keep turning and, you know, adapt
00:23:07.862 --> 00:23:12.132
I love the strategy of accepting reality, though.
00:23:12.132 --> 00:23:15.602
I don't know that I have thought about it in that particular way, but you're right.
00:23:15.602 --> 00:23:26.112
As soon as you can zone in on what the reality of the situation is, it lets you make that pivot or that analysis or that next step that much quicker.
00:23:26.112 --> 00:23:26.942
I love that.
00:23:27.402 --> 00:23:31.412
Well, I wanna ask you one more thing about your leadership evolution.
00:23:31.461 --> 00:23:39.031
Certainly be sometimes intentional as we grow our own leadership styles, sometimes because of what is thrown our way.
00:23:39.352 --> 00:23:47.092
There are some things that get better over time, and some ways maybe we miss a step or lose a step over time.
00:23:47.112 --> 00:23:55.112
So in your leadership evolution, what is something that has gotten better over time, and what is something that has become more difficult for you?
00:23:56.556 --> 00:23:56.685
Yeah.
00:23:56.965 --> 00:23:59.096
So it's, uh, that's a great question.
00:23:59.296 --> 00:24:07.746
So probably from a standpoint of just getting, you know, better over time is, is, uh, just being able to be able to pivot.
00:24:07.965 --> 00:24:23.016
I mean, that's probably one thing that's gotten a lot better is just being able to pivot'cause I think when you're early, you try to make situations work that are not working, and sometimes y- you know, you just gotta pivot a lot quicker in some cases'cause you're, you know, spending unnecessary times.
00:24:23.046 --> 00:24:29.195
So it's probably understanding the moments where you should pivot, um, versus, you know, where you're...
00:24:29.266 --> 00:24:36.346
other times where you should give it, give it a little bit more grace, give it a lit- little bit more time, that situation or that challenge you're facing.
00:24:36.566 --> 00:24:41.976
So just understanding, understanding that component I probably have gotten a lot better at with, with age.
00:24:41.976 --> 00:24:44.155
I think the other part too is, you know, early...
00:24:44.486 --> 00:24:49.905
'cause, uh, you know, as we talked about ear- earlier at the beginning of this, you know, I've done a lot of different businesses.
00:24:49.945 --> 00:24:53.726
Uh, you know, I was very entrepreneurial back in high school, college.
00:24:53.736 --> 00:25:01.546
Um, you know, even coming out of college and working professionally, I probably had an expectation, um, that was unrealistic.
00:25:01.546 --> 00:25:17.645
Like I, I mean, I used to work, and I still work extremely hard, so I don't wanna make it sound like, you know, I d- I don't work, but I, I mean, I worked pretty long hours always in trying to, you know, focusing on business or focusing on, on, you know, having professional success.
00:25:17.986 --> 00:25:25.625
And my expectations as I was growing my business early on was having people that could sort of keep pace, and that's not sustainable.
00:25:25.726 --> 00:25:28.546
I mean, that's something I've learned along the way.
00:25:28.905 --> 00:25:35.655
Um, and I think I've gotten better at accepting that and making sure I put people in the right position to be successful and not trying to...
00:25:36.145 --> 00:25:48.506
just because we're hiring for a position or we hire someone for a specific position, if they're not the right person for that position, I think I've gotten really good at putting them in the right position so that they can be successful.
00:25:48.976 --> 00:25:51.576
But, you know, that's, those are some areas that I think I've improved in.
00:25:51.586 --> 00:26:02.175
I think from an area where I've probably have gotten a little bit, um, or probably gotten worse is hard to, it's hard to admit that where you've gotten worse in certain areas.
00:26:02.506 --> 00:26:05.685
So I'm trying to think of something that, you know, I truly have taken a step back.
00:26:06.105 --> 00:26:09.925
It's, uh, be candid, it's probably, I'm probably a lot softer today.
00:26:09.925 --> 00:26:22.286
Maybe that's, maybe it's not worse, maybe it's- softer, but, uh, I'm probably softer as it comes to just allowing, like really not taking part in certain situations.
00:26:22.286 --> 00:26:28.685
I've fully in my career took very hard lines and probably fully into pre I started business here.
00:26:30.016 --> 00:26:37.705
I took a very hard line positions and now probably a little better and maybe that's not a bad, it's probably'cause I'm
00:26:39.788 --> 00:26:46.347
Well, it's some of it may be how you perceive yours- it for yourself versus how others perceive it as a change for you.
00:26:46.758 --> 00:26:54.577
I mentioned earlier that I was surprised by the motto relying on intuition and in getting to know you a little bit.
00:26:55.117 --> 00:27:04.167
What would you say is one thing that either people don't know about you or that you hear about yourself and you're like,"Wait, I'm surprised to hear that.
00:27:04.218 --> 00:27:06.857
That's not accurate about me at all"?
00:27:07.698 --> 00:27:08.038
Yeah.
00:27:08.038 --> 00:27:10.488
So the intuition comment probably.
00:27:10.518 --> 00:27:19.738
Like, anyone that, anyone that knows me very well knows I do go off my gut a lot, but I'm very good about, you know, backing it up on my gut and getting the data to help support it.
00:27:20.048 --> 00:27:21.137
I do go on my gut a lot.
00:27:21.417 --> 00:27:22.528
But the, uh...
00:27:22.698 --> 00:27:31.837
Probably something that is, uh, that is surprising, you know, I feel like I've told my story so many different times.
00:27:31.837 --> 00:27:36.698
Like, a lot of times people are surprised that I grew up in a small town outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
00:27:36.698 --> 00:27:40.468
That, you know, probably one component that surprises a lot of people'cause they...
00:27:40.567 --> 00:27:52.718
I lived in this small town until I was 10 years old, um, which is, which sounds crazy because I ended up living in Dallas right after, you know, I was 10, we moved to Dallas, Texas, where my grandfather's business was based out of.
00:27:53.127 --> 00:27:55.847
The, that's probably one part of the story people don't know.
00:27:56.958 --> 00:27:59.167
I am, uh, I can relate to that a lot.
00:27:59.167 --> 00:28:02.498
I grew up in a really small town in New Hampshire as well.
00:28:03.198 --> 00:28:27.488
As you sit here today reflecting on your career journey, your personal life, how things have played out for you, what is something you would tell Greg graduating biology degree in hand, getting ready to head off to med school or take a break before med school, that either might have changed the trajectory for you, made it easier for you, or just something you wish you knew back then that you know today?
00:28:28.925 --> 00:28:36.066
Yeah, so probably the, the biggest thing is, uh, is time is your biggest asset on your balance sheet.
00:28:36.115 --> 00:28:52.205
Like, I think it's, it's one of those, uh, we all get caught up in the, the need sometimes'cause you gotta, to a certain degree, you gotta actually make money to be able to, you know, buy food and, you know, have housing and shelter and all these other necessities of life or even other luxuries of life.
00:28:52.296 --> 00:28:55.516
But the reality is, is time is your biggest asset on your balance sheet.
00:28:55.605 --> 00:29:02.046
So it is very much a depreciating asset, so be very thoughtful and strategic on how you spend your time.
00:29:02.046 --> 00:29:09.746
So I'm a big believer if you're not-- if you don't-- if you're not passionate about what you're doing, you know, realize those hours you're spending doing it is just...
00:29:10.096 --> 00:29:12.576
unfortunately, it's wasted time when you think about it.
00:29:12.605 --> 00:29:17.096
Because you only have 24 hours in a day and, you know, and everyone's got a...
00:29:17.405 --> 00:29:20.205
fortunately, we all have a expiration date.
00:29:20.286 --> 00:29:23.165
So we've gotta, you gotta manage your time very wisely.
00:29:23.165 --> 00:29:27.846
So that's something that I wish I would've probably been more thoughtful towards at a younger age.
00:29:28.296 --> 00:29:35.026
Um, I think it's, you know, I think that's something that really didn't think a lot about, but it's, you know, an area that I think is big.
00:29:36.086 --> 00:29:46.445
Time being your most valuable asset is such an important thing to be reminded of it because it is so finite in so many ways, and choosing how you spend it becomes more and more important.
00:29:46.885 --> 00:29:50.846
You've shared so many great things about leadership, thoughts on leadership today.
00:29:50.846 --> 00:29:57.705
As you think of our motto, empowering personal success, is there a final sho- thought you wanna share with our audience?
00:29:59.405 --> 00:29:59.726
Yeah.
00:29:59.726 --> 00:30:08.336
So I think, um, I think as it relates to personal success, I mean, I- it's one of those that sort of goes back to what we sort of talked about a few minutes ago.
00:30:09.086 --> 00:30:10.476
I think you've gotta be...
00:30:10.655 --> 00:30:14.516
You gotta find what you're passionate about and, you know, lean into it.
00:30:14.516 --> 00:30:17.246
I know a lot of people have different opinions about passion.
00:30:17.615 --> 00:30:22.596
Um, some people say you should really lean into what you're good at doing versus what you're passionate about.
00:30:22.596 --> 00:30:35.246
But I am a big you lean into what you're passionate about, and if you're passionate about something, you can be a biology major, and you can all of a sudden be running a private equity firm like Beach Street.
00:30:35.346 --> 00:30:42.895
You know, because we view ourselves as a private equity firm, so we invest across private credit, you know, across real estate, and across, you know, some other asset classes.
00:30:43.026 --> 00:30:44.675
Obviously, we do a lot in the hotel space.
00:30:45.135 --> 00:30:49.806
Um, so it's, it's one of those things that you gotta find what you're passionate about and what you actually...
00:30:50.266 --> 00:30:53.246
You know, what you can wake up, I would say, 100% of the days.
00:30:53.246 --> 00:31:03.435
But the reality is, is there's days that all of us wake up where we're like,"I really don't wanna go to the office." But where you can wake up 85% of the day and really love what you're doing, then you probably got the right...
00:31:04.036 --> 00:31:06.796
You have the right career probably set in place.
00:31:07.516 --> 00:31:08.336
I love it.
00:31:08.336 --> 00:31:09.445
Could not agree more.
00:31:09.445 --> 00:31:17.506
Well, Greg, I'm so excited that you joined us today and shared a little bit more about your journey, your leadership insights to our audience.
00:31:17.546 --> 00:31:19.365
Thanks for spending some time with us today.
00:31:19.365 --> 00:31:31.355
We know you have a lot of ways to choose to spend your time, and we encourage you to head over to itspersonalstories.com to hear from other hospitality industry leaders who have likewise shared their journey and their leadership thoughts.
00:31:31.365 --> 00:31:33.506
So Greg, thank you so much for joining us.
00:31:33.836 --> 00:31:33.986
Yeah.
00:31:33.986 --> 00:31:34.746
Thank you, Rachel
00:00:03.254 --> 00:00:11.273
I am Rachel Humphrey with It's Personal Stories, a hospitality podcast, and I am excited today to be joined by Greg Freedman with Peachtree Group.
00:00:11.284 --> 00:00:13.253
Greg, welcome to the program.
00:00:13.603 --> 00:00:15.044
Yeah, thank you, Rachel, for having me.
00:00:16.085 --> 00:00:27.185
I am really excited to jump right in today because I have had the opportunity to moderate you a lot recently on conference panels, but you and I have not spent a lot of time personally getting to know each other.
00:00:27.185 --> 00:00:33.606
And so I'm excited to follow right along with our audience as they get to know a little bit about you at the same time.
00:00:33.975 --> 00:00:36.835
So I wanna jump right into your journey to leadership.
00:00:36.835 --> 00:00:45.865
One of the things I really love about the industry is that two people like you and me can have extremely different paths, yet still end up in industry leadership.
00:00:45.905 --> 00:00:54.795
So tell us a little bit about your background and your story, and if you think there are any pivotal moments that led to the career that you have today.
00:00:55.545 --> 00:00:55.975
Yeah.
00:00:55.985 --> 00:01:00.536
So I grew up, you know, in a family that owned some hotel properties.
00:01:00.585 --> 00:01:03.956
Um, so my grandfather actually owned motel properties.
00:01:04.075 --> 00:01:10.325
My mom actually worked for my grandfather, so she worked in the, in the family business effectively.
00:01:10.346 --> 00:01:24.555
He also owned a small business lending platform that originally was financing medical practices, and then in the'80s he shifted that business into financing small, you know, motels and hotels across the US.
00:01:24.566 --> 00:01:32.786
So he was doing these SBA loans effectively on hotel properties, and that's where my family really, you know, grew into the business.
00:01:33.275 --> 00:01:35.945
I never personally worked in that business, but I...
00:01:35.975 --> 00:01:53.695
You know, as a professional I never worked in that business, but I did work as, you know, as a, I guess you'd call it cheap labor, um, because I, I was paid nothing to spend a lot of summers around that business helping my grandfather and my mom, as well as, you know, other family members that worked in that business.
00:01:54.085 --> 00:02:00.846
And so that was my first entrance to the hotel business, is through, through my grandfather and my mom.
00:02:01.296 --> 00:02:02.885
Um, that was the first introductions.
00:02:02.936 --> 00:02:08.665
And then personally, you know, again, grew up around it, went to college at University of Texas at Austin.
00:02:09.006 --> 00:02:10.846
When I graduated Texas...
00:02:11.116 --> 00:02:12.786
Because originally I was gonna be a doctor.
00:02:12.915 --> 00:02:14.876
Um, I was a pathology major at Texas.
00:02:15.276 --> 00:02:39.786
Um, so it was somewhat, it was somewhat unexpected that, you know, midway through college, and I say midway, it was really my senior year of college, I decided I was gonna take a year off before going to medical school and, uh, and never went back because my first job actually out of college was actually in lending and banking, and that was really on the financing side of hotel properties through GMAC Commercial Mortgage.
00:02:40.156 --> 00:02:44.566
So that was my first professional entree into the hotel space.
00:02:45.955 --> 00:02:57.256
I understand that not only coming from a family of entrepreneurs, but that you actually started, I don't know if it was your first business, but started a business in college that helped support you during that time.
00:02:57.686 --> 00:03:04.225
I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about entrepreneurship, because we certainly know the numbers of businesses that are not successful.
00:03:04.235 --> 00:03:07.584
But What is the entrepreneurship experience?
00:03:07.623 --> 00:03:16.574
How has that contributed to your leadership, and are there any lessons you learned during those early roles that you think you still carry forward in your leadership today?
00:03:17.354 --> 00:03:17.723
Yeah.
00:03:17.753 --> 00:03:22.394
So I started a lot of different businesses, you know, throughout high school.
00:03:22.413 --> 00:03:29.894
You know, even in middle school, elementary, high school, college, I had a lot of different businesses and side...
00:03:29.924 --> 00:03:33.653
I would call them almost side businesses or side hustles, I say that.
00:03:34.104 --> 00:03:39.334
But I was always very entrepreneurial and looking at different ways, um, to do different types of businesses.
00:03:39.343 --> 00:03:52.024
So I did everything from vending machines I had in college to, you know, having a internet comp- had a paging business at one- I used to sell software back in c- or back in high school.
00:03:52.503 --> 00:04:06.463
Uh, so I was, you know, constantly trying to find, you know, ways to be entrepreneurial and find ways to create businesses that were profitable as a younger individual or as a child.
00:04:06.924 --> 00:04:19.744
And so I think that really, your point, I think that did shape how I look at things because not everything I did was successful,'cause, you know, you start businesses and, you know, most businesses don't succeed.
00:04:19.884 --> 00:04:32.463
I mean, d- I don't have the natural stat here, but I- if I had to guess, probably 89 per- 80 to 90% of businesses that are started probably are no longer in business, you know, five, 10 years later, um, because they're unsuccessful.
00:04:32.473 --> 00:04:34.593
So that's not a bad thing.
00:04:34.593 --> 00:04:56.233
So I, I very quickly learned it's okay to have failure, but you can, you know, if you can figure out what went wrong, and in some cases you can actually save those businesses and make them successful or make them profitable, I think that's the power of what I learned through those experiences because it really taught me that it's okay to make pivots along the way.
00:04:56.624 --> 00:05:08.644
'Cause again, you're gonna have failure and you're gonna have success, and to embrace, you know, both those scenarios and just realize that, you know, you're gonna have, have those, you know, have those events, but none of them are gonna be defining
00:05:09.971 --> 00:05:17.281
I think that pivoting is probably gonna be a little bit of a, a recurring theme as we talk today through your leadership.
00:05:17.322 --> 00:05:26.721
But I wanna turn to Peachtree Group because as I understand the trajectory of the company, your most explosive growth was during the pandemic.
00:05:26.721 --> 00:05:36.271
You were doing a lot of transactions when others were not doing any, and that certainly turned out to be a very successful move for you all, but easily could have also gone the other way.
00:05:36.711 --> 00:05:47.831
When you think about whether it be those entrepreneurial adventures or whether you think about where you've taken the company lately with your team, how do you approach risks in general?
00:05:47.851 --> 00:05:50.791
Do you think you would describe yourself as a big risk taker?
00:05:50.791 --> 00:05:57.262
Is there a process you go through in evaluating which ones you're gonna take, or is it the no risk no reward mentality?
00:05:57.911 --> 00:06:01.791
Yes, I'm big on protecting the downside, so I'm a big...
00:06:01.891 --> 00:06:02.851
The reality is this.
00:06:02.882 --> 00:06:04.411
I take, we take on a lot of risk.
00:06:04.411 --> 00:06:07.942
I take on a lot of risk every day, and I continue to take on risk.
00:06:08.072 --> 00:06:18.682
And if you think about how when we started the business back before the great financial crisis, so in 2007, and we went out, bought a couple hotels, and that's really how we started Peachtree.
00:06:19.091 --> 00:06:23.572
It was, you know, myself and Mitul, and then Jatin joined us a little bit later.
00:06:23.572 --> 00:06:29.002
So the three of us were the original partners, and we're still, you know, all three of us are partners at Peachtree.
00:06:29.461 --> 00:06:35.201
Um, but if you think about it, we originally went out, bought hotels, and all of a sudden you had the GFC.
00:06:35.742 --> 00:06:45.192
You know, we quickly pivoted and said,"Okay, we're gonna have to play, um, offense and defense," um, and that means we're gonna have to protect the assets that we currently own.
00:06:45.482 --> 00:06:56.781
That's why we started our operating platform back, you know, in 2008, 2009 ti- time period, where we started op- we took over the operations of the hotels that we owned as well as the hotels that we were developing from the ground up.
00:06:57.302 --> 00:07:03.711
And then we were able to play offense by going out and buying up a lot of distressed debt back during the GFC.
00:07:04.182 --> 00:07:28.692
And so we've, you know, constantly had that mentality where, you know, when you think about the pandemic, did something very similar where we played offense and defense, but we've held that mentality The way I look at risk, to answer your question directly, is it's all about protecting the downside, being very calculated, thoughtful, but also being very decisive when, you know, you, when you have conviction in that trade.
00:07:28.812 --> 00:07:41.141
And so if it's buying debt, if it's buying hotel properties, you know, whatever the case is, it's not being afraid to have that, have that decisiveness once you can sort of protect your downside risk.
00:07:41.141 --> 00:07:49.312
And that's what I think we've done a really good job of, is finding that mispriced risk, but protecting downside, and that may be in how you set up the capital structure.
00:07:49.322 --> 00:07:59.451
You know, like what type of debt you have underneath if you're buying hotel assets, making sure you have debt that sort of matches to the business plan to give you the runway to, you know, be successful.
00:07:59.982 --> 00:08:06.262
It could be how you underwrite and analyze the invest- you know, the actual assets you're buying into.
00:08:07.151 --> 00:08:12.682
The stickiness, if it's hotel properties specifically, you know, the stickiness of demand and, and different things like that.
00:08:12.682 --> 00:08:27.932
And that's, you know, going back to COVID,'cause a lot of people thought we were crazy when we went out and started buying up a lot of debt secured by hotel properties back in, you know, May of 2020,'cause hotels had not recovered, and we started buying hotel properties again as well, too.
00:08:28.471 --> 00:08:38.611
And we had that conviction, just'cause we were starting to see the industry slowly recover, and also I had very strong conviction that travel was going to come back.
00:08:38.662 --> 00:08:46.251
It wasn't a, a question if people just valued, you know, the ability to travel, to have experiences, have those interactions.
00:08:46.251 --> 00:08:47.932
So I knew travel would recover.
00:08:48.241 --> 00:08:58.022
It was just a question of timing, and that's part of the reason why we were comfortable taking that risk back in, you know, May of 2020 when we started aggressively buying more hotel assets
00:08:59.488 --> 00:09:12.197
It's interesting'cause as you're talking about the, the information that you have and the risk that you're taking, I'm thinking about what Peachtree's motto is, and I just recently saw this, guided by intuition.
00:09:12.498 --> 00:09:17.807
And I don't normally do this, but I'm gonna read because I wanted to make sure I had the definition accurate.
00:09:18.258 --> 00:09:25.677
It says intuition is the ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than on facts.
00:09:26.638 --> 00:09:45.477
And I found that most interesting because I think that everyone I talk to talks about how fact-based you are, your knowledge of facts and data and trends and all of these things in the industry, yet the premise of the business is being guided by intuition.
00:09:45.827 --> 00:09:54.988
So I wanted to talk to you about like, a little bit about how does your g- your intuition guide you and do you think that would surprise people about you?
00:09:56.087 --> 00:09:56.398
Yeah.
00:09:56.628 --> 00:10:01.077
I mean, pr- as you say it that way, I'm sure it l- it does surprise a lot of people.
00:10:01.638 --> 00:10:07.878
But- That's why I looked it up, Greg, because I was like, wait, that- Right maybe I don't have the right definition of intuition.
00:10:08.418 --> 00:10:12.567
But it's, I mean, intuition at the end of the day, it's all about your experience.
00:10:12.648 --> 00:10:16.847
You know, your experience is talking faster than what your mind can process, right?
00:10:17.298 --> 00:10:24.868
So you're, you're really looking at what's, you know, like, your, just your historical experiences in certain situations.
00:10:25.227 --> 00:10:36.648
You're able to, your gut's taking over because it's seen this situation before or it's processing the information a lot quicker than you can, your conscious mind can actually process that information, is the way I look at it.
00:10:37.317 --> 00:10:53.118
And that's why, you know, honestly, a lot of decisions we've made has been just gut calls based on what's happening, and it's, it is,'cause we've been in so many different situations and have so many different experiences, and the same for a lot of the other team members that are part of Peachtree.
00:10:53.488 --> 00:11:04.258
But it is a lot of times a gut call that you're, you're making'cause there's a lotta, there's a lotta just jump balls on what the right decision is, and you gotta go with your gut.
00:11:04.288 --> 00:11:09.197
So I'm a big believer that you do need to, um, lean into your intuition.
00:11:09.557 --> 00:11:12.158
In most cases, it works out very well for us.
00:11:13.168 --> 00:11:24.868
What would you tell people on your team or, or that are listening about the hesitancy to trust their intuition or to be guided by that as a decision-maker?
00:11:26.457 --> 00:11:30.577
So a lot of times people just like they...
00:11:30.908 --> 00:11:42.067
It's like, you know, you're like,"Ah, I shouldn't make that turn," or,"I shouldn't, I shouldn't go out tonight for some reason." And a lot of times it's just, you can't put your finger on it.
00:11:42.138 --> 00:11:47.048
And it's not to say that you should always just follow, you know, your gut instinct or your intuition.
00:11:47.518 --> 00:12:00.388
Um, but I, I do believe a lot of times that you find that your intuition, even though you don't have a set of facts to support it, in a lot of cases just, it just ends up being the better, the better call.
00:12:00.388 --> 00:12:04.597
Now, when it comes to business, you know, we do try to back it up with facts.
00:12:04.628 --> 00:12:05.878
We don't just...
00:12:05.888 --> 00:12:16.768
It's not like we're just gonna go show up and say,"We're gonna buy this hotel property across the street because it looks great, you know, and my gut tells me w- we'll do well on it." I mean, we're still going to...
00:12:17.048 --> 00:12:21.307
We, we drive these markets and we look at assets from a qualitative, you know, perspective.
00:12:21.687 --> 00:12:37.077
And I think a lot of times your intuition is probably, you know, is probably driven a lot of times by the qualitative side of a situation, but we're also quantitatively looking at the data and the, the actual numbers and backing it up to make sure it actually makes sense.
00:12:37.258 --> 00:12:40.977
So I don't know if I fully answered your question, but- Yeah I mean, that's the way I would look at it.
00:12:41.087 --> 00:12:56.158
No, I think that's really an interesting way of saying like that maybe that intuition is actually created based on the knowledge that you have and whether you're actively thinking about it or not, that that's what's pushing you in one direction or another and not just on business.
00:12:56.788 --> 00:13:01.327
I wanna talk a little bit about some of the early days of leadership for you.
00:13:01.398 --> 00:13:05.538
Again, um, you mentioned earlier you were a biology major in college.
00:13:05.847 --> 00:13:22.258
I don't know, I'm not gonna judge whether that is relevant to what you're doing today or not, but certainly you would've come across a lot of skills that you were gonna need in, um, your GMAC role or your role today that you did not learn in a traditional educational environment.
00:13:22.937 --> 00:13:26.097
How do you set out developing new skills?
00:13:26.097 --> 00:13:32.837
Was there anything right off the bat, maybe in one of your first roles out of school that you're like,"If I'm gonna be successful, I need to learn this"?
00:13:32.837 --> 00:13:35.788
And how did you set out to go and, and build that skill?
00:13:36.717 --> 00:13:37.337
Yeah.
00:13:37.337 --> 00:13:50.207
So, I mean, a couple of different skills I really didn't have coming out of college'cause, you know, being a biology major with the idea of going to medical school, you know, wasn't l- it wasn't like we did a lot of financial modeling, as an example.
00:13:50.707 --> 00:13:53.998
So we weren't, you know, using Excel in a lot of cases.
00:13:54.038 --> 00:13:56.097
Now, math was always a big part of...
00:13:56.337 --> 00:14:03.548
You know, I was always really good at, like, math and, you know, all the courses as it relates to math and so forth, so I always excelled in that area.
00:14:03.957 --> 00:14:15.677
So although I wasn't necessarily, you know, great at Excel or modeling deals early on, I had to learn how to do those pieces of the job, which, um, which was somewhat...
00:14:15.738 --> 00:14:20.248
It did come somewhat easy just given probably some of the interest levels and so forth.
00:14:20.248 --> 00:14:31.307
But probably the bigger skill set wasn't early into the career or, you know, the biggest skill sets I had to learn, I think as I just progressed in business, was little things like public speaking.
00:14:31.357 --> 00:14:37.317
'Cause if you think about it, when you're gonna be a doctor, you're a biology major, you're not doing a lot of presentations.
00:14:37.508 --> 00:14:39.258
I mean, you're spending all day in labs.
00:14:39.687 --> 00:14:41.107
Um, you're dealing with...
00:14:41.288 --> 00:14:44.227
You're deal- you know, you're spending a lot of time studying, reading books.
00:14:44.238 --> 00:14:52.357
You're spending a lot of time in l- labs, like I just said, but you're doing things that don't require a lot of interactions with, you know, other people.
00:14:52.357 --> 00:14:54.837
It doesn't require, you know, a lot of presentations.
00:14:54.947 --> 00:15:08.087
So things like that were a bigger probably skill set that became, or at least a skill set that became bigger over time that I needed to really lean into and learn as I, you know, continued to, you know, build Peachtree.
00:15:08.087 --> 00:15:28.217
And even before building Peachtree, I think some of the other components is just, you know, just from the standpoint of skills is, and it has nothing necessarily to do with being a business student or being a biology major, is probably just in relation to how to, uh, how to manage, you know, and really manage relationships.
00:15:28.258 --> 00:15:34.758
You know, managing people, if it's, you know, managing team members, if it's figuring out how to get people to work together.
00:15:35.107 --> 00:15:47.937
Um, so in a lot of cases, sometimes I always joke I should've been a psychologist'cause I spend a lot of time I feel like trying to figure out how to bring people together and get them to actually work together,'cause a lot of times that creates a better outcom-
00:15:50.317 --> 00:16:02.857
If you were to talk a little bit more about the public speaking,'cause certainly you do a lot of it today, and whether that's to your team or on the biggest stages in the industry, did you do anything specific to develop that?
00:16:02.868 --> 00:16:05.067
Are you comfortable doing it today?
00:16:05.097 --> 00:16:08.427
Do you have a preparation strategy that you use?
00:16:08.447 --> 00:16:15.217
I know from having moderated you that, um, you are an easy panelist because you're very thoughtful in what you say.
00:16:15.217 --> 00:16:19.498
But what, what happens behind the scenes before you, you take that stage?
00:16:20.357 --> 00:16:24.727
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's probably today, it's probably less stress.
00:16:24.778 --> 00:16:33.048
I mean, I think it's, it was probably more stressful back, you know, early on, especially when you didn't have that, didn't have that knowledge or experience.
00:16:33.388 --> 00:16:41.967
Um, so I think it's just more g- getting more experience in those types of situations and, you know, getting some training and development around that area as well.
00:16:43.488 --> 00:17:12.617
When you think about leadership, we have a lot of people who say,"I was born to be a leader," or,"I realized as I was playing football or tennis that it was something I enjoyed." And then you have people today who say,"I don't even consider myself a leader today except by maybe role or title." Was that something that struck you at some point, either that I want, I know I want to be in a position of leadership, or I recognize that now I am in a position of leadership?
00:17:14.253 --> 00:17:20.413
Yeah, it was never, you know, it was never like becoming a leader was like something critical to me.
00:17:20.453 --> 00:17:22.723
It was more about being an entrepreneur.
00:17:23.124 --> 00:17:27.044
So I never really thought about leadership, especially early on.
00:17:27.044 --> 00:17:38.874
It was never about leadership, you know, it was more about being entrepreneurial, creating a, a business or creating something that was sustainable, you know, and being sustainable, you know, creating something that was profitable.
00:17:39.324 --> 00:17:41.513
Um, that was a big part of the...
00:17:41.733 --> 00:17:43.844
From my perspective, that was a big part of the journey.
00:17:44.193 --> 00:17:52.384
I think as, you know, as I progress and as Peachtree has become a bigger organization, you know, leadership has become a, a more critical piece.
00:17:52.384 --> 00:17:56.554
It's something that, you know, we talk a lot more about as a company.
00:17:56.983 --> 00:17:59.903
Um, it's something that, you know, I'm focused more on as well.
00:18:00.324 --> 00:18:02.134
But I do think leadership, I think it's...
00:18:02.153 --> 00:18:03.443
A lot of times it's just inherent.
00:18:03.594 --> 00:18:15.874
I think it's within individuals and maybe it's, you know, maybe it's inherent in a lot of entrepreneurs, maybe it's not,'cause in certain cases you have entrepreneurs that create incredible businesses and then they end up having someone else, you know, lead that business.
00:18:16.273 --> 00:18:23.844
But in the case of our business, I think, I think leadership is super critical or has been super critical, and that's part of the reason we've been able to grow our business.
00:18:23.884 --> 00:18:32.903
Greg, you were talking earlier about how your leadership has really evolved because of the growth of the company and the needs that you have within the company.
00:18:33.153 --> 00:18:43.403
When you are looking to expand your company or elevate rising leaders, is there something you can put your finger on that when you meet with someone you're like,"This is the one.
00:18:43.413 --> 00:18:50.064
This is the person that I've been looking for, or they will contribute to the culture that I'm trying to create here, or that we're trying to create"?
00:18:50.584 --> 00:18:50.874
Yeah.
00:18:50.874 --> 00:18:58.574
So I think it's really about finding team members or new team members that really fit in with the existing culture that's in place.
00:18:58.804 --> 00:19:05.203
And when you think about the existing culture, Peachtree, you know, we've built a team that's very entrepreneurial.
00:19:05.394 --> 00:19:08.193
You know, they're very much about, you know, speed.
00:19:08.394 --> 00:19:12.423
Um, so we move at a very fast pace, and that's not for everyone.
00:19:12.423 --> 00:19:13.284
So we tend to...
00:19:13.584 --> 00:19:16.963
And when we tend to make decisions, we're very decisive as an organization.
00:19:17.364 --> 00:19:31.432
Um, so I like to find people that- Have that entrepreneurial spirit, that are willing to get gritty, that are very much, very much passionate about what they're doing, um, because that's, that's what I think you find within our existing team.
00:19:31.832 --> 00:19:46.491
And it's hard to bring team members in that are that don't really share the same, you know, passions per se because I, I've found that, you know, as we've had team members in the past, and we've had some really great team members that have been part of PeaceTree that are no longer part of PeaceTree.
00:19:47.021 --> 00:19:59.402
But, you know, one of the challenges we've had with certain team members is that they're truly It wasn't You know, although maybe they were passionate early on, but as, as the organization grew they weren't as passionate about what they were doing on a daily basis.
00:19:59.842 --> 00:20:07.061
And when they're not, it just creates its own challenges, and we wanna see that people can have their own personal success as well as the team itself.
00:20:07.061 --> 00:20:14.541
So I'm a big believer that someone's gotta be very passionate about what they're doing on a daily basis along with having that entrepreneurial spirit.
00:20:15.471 --> 00:20:15.721
Yeah.
00:20:15.721 --> 00:20:30.122
I think that passion is so important because we spend so much of our time and our lives and our commitment and our efforts in what we're doing, uh, for that company or for our role in that company that to not be passionate about it is a tough fit.
00:20:30.541 --> 00:20:36.491
I mentioned earlier that I thought that pivoting was going to be kind of a red thread through your story.
00:20:36.531 --> 00:20:45.721
Um, certainly some of the adaptability has been required of you has been from external sources, whether they're economic things, the, the pandemic as you mentioned.
00:20:46.211 --> 00:21:05.046
Talk about the skill of adaptability in identifying whatever type of, um Things somebody may be throwing in your way or whatever challenge or obstacle comes your way, how do you look at them and then regroup and tackle what's going to come next or decide how you're gonna pursue next?
00:21:05.786 --> 00:21:05.986
Yeah.
00:21:06.086 --> 00:21:08.645
So I think, you know, adaptability is sort of...
00:21:08.925 --> 00:21:17.306
It's sort of interesting'cause I, I think that's been a big part of just, you know, my personal, professional career, you know,'cause I, I moved around a lot as a child.
00:21:17.365 --> 00:21:19.145
My, my mom worked for my grandfather.
00:21:19.205 --> 00:21:26.405
They had, you know, they had different locations for his business, so I did move around, you know, a good bit, so constantly being able to adapt.
00:21:26.746 --> 00:21:37.226
And I think, you know, a big part of adaptability, you know, even in business,'cause we've pivoted so many times along the way too, is being able to sort of accept reality.
00:21:37.286 --> 00:21:42.066
And so a lot of times you find that people are not willing to accept the reality of what's happening.
00:21:42.165 --> 00:21:47.125
So, like you take, you know, the current environment for instance, you know, go back three, four years ago, you know, it took...
00:21:47.506 --> 00:21:51.266
You know, a lot of people weren't accepting the fact that we're in this higher for longer interest rate.
00:21:52.006 --> 00:21:55.165
Talked a lot about that over the last three or four years from a business perspective.
00:21:55.605 --> 00:22:03.326
But once you're willing to sort of accept the reality a lot faster, then you can start to, you know, really make decisions.
00:22:03.405 --> 00:22:08.766
You can, you know, build around what's happening, and you can, you know, adapt to that situation.
00:22:08.806 --> 00:22:09.885
And so it's...
00:22:09.925 --> 00:22:17.066
You know, I do think adaptability is huge if it's in personal life, if it's in professional life,'cause it's, it is...
00:22:17.486 --> 00:22:26.846
There's no question that is a big part of just being able to success, is adapting, you know, pivoting when things aren't working and reali- you know, accepting that it's not working.
00:22:26.945 --> 00:22:30.086
That if it's you investing into a certain type of...
00:22:30.486 --> 00:22:34.965
If you're investing into a company, if you're investing into an asset, um, and if you're not able to...
00:22:34.986 --> 00:22:39.605
You know, if it's not working the way you expected, being able to pivot, try to fix those situations.
00:22:40.006 --> 00:22:44.945
Or even sometimes, you know, you have to dispose those assets and move on to the next trade.
00:22:45.365 --> 00:22:51.705
But it's also realizing, and this is probably going back to the leadership side of everything, is that, you know, you don't...
00:22:51.925 --> 00:22:54.685
The one thing I've learned is I don't have to predict every turn.
00:22:55.066 --> 00:22:58.306
We've built an organization that's capable.
00:22:58.486 --> 00:23:06.486
You know, we have a lot of capable team members, a lot of capable leaders that are part of Peachtree, and that's, that's what allows us to keep turning and, you know, adapt
00:23:07.862 --> 00:23:12.132
I love the strategy of accepting reality, though.
00:23:12.132 --> 00:23:15.602
I don't know that I have thought about it in that particular way, but you're right.
00:23:15.602 --> 00:23:26.112
As soon as you can zone in on what the reality of the situation is, it lets you make that pivot or that analysis or that next step that much quicker.
00:23:26.112 --> 00:23:26.942
I love that.
00:23:27.402 --> 00:23:31.412
Well, I wanna ask you one more thing about your leadership evolution.
00:23:31.461 --> 00:23:39.031
Certainly be sometimes intentional as we grow our own leadership styles, sometimes because of what is thrown our way.
00:23:39.352 --> 00:23:47.092
There are some things that get better over time, and some ways maybe we miss a step or lose a step over time.
00:23:47.112 --> 00:23:55.112
So in your leadership evolution, what is something that has gotten better over time, and what is something that has become more difficult for you?
00:23:56.556 --> 00:23:56.685
Yeah.
00:23:56.965 --> 00:23:59.096
So it's, uh, that's a great question.
00:23:59.296 --> 00:24:07.746
So probably from a standpoint of just getting, you know, better over time is, is, uh, just being able to be able to pivot.
00:24:07.965 --> 00:24:23.016
I mean, that's probably one thing that's gotten a lot better is just being able to pivot'cause I think when you're early, you try to make situations work that are not working, and sometimes y- you know, you just gotta pivot a lot quicker in some cases'cause you're, you know, spending unnecessary times.
00:24:23.046 --> 00:24:29.195
So it's probably understanding the moments where you should pivot, um, versus, you know, where you're...
00:24:29.266 --> 00:24:36.346
other times where you should give it, give it a little bit more grace, give it a lit- little bit more time, that situation or that challenge you're facing.
00:24:36.566 --> 00:24:41.976
So just understanding, understanding that component I probably have gotten a lot better at with, with age.
00:24:41.976 --> 00:24:44.155
I think the other part too is, you know, early...
00:24:44.486 --> 00:24:49.905
'cause, uh, you know, as we talked about ear- earlier at the beginning of this, you know, I've done a lot of different businesses.
00:24:49.945 --> 00:24:53.726
Uh, you know, I was very entrepreneurial back in high school, college.
00:24:53.736 --> 00:25:01.546
Um, you know, even coming out of college and working professionally, I probably had an expectation, um, that was unrealistic.
00:25:01.546 --> 00:25:17.645
Like I, I mean, I used to work, and I still work extremely hard, so I don't wanna make it sound like, you know, I d- I don't work, but I, I mean, I worked pretty long hours always in trying to, you know, focusing on business or focusing on, on, you know, having professional success.
00:25:17.986 --> 00:25:25.625
And my expectations as I was growing my business early on was having people that could sort of keep pace, and that's not sustainable.
00:25:25.726 --> 00:25:28.546
I mean, that's something I've learned along the way.
00:25:28.905 --> 00:25:35.655
Um, and I think I've gotten better at accepting that and making sure I put people in the right position to be successful and not trying to...
00:25:36.145 --> 00:25:48.506
just because we're hiring for a position or we hire someone for a specific position, if they're not the right person for that position, I think I've gotten really good at putting them in the right position so that they can be successful.
00:25:48.976 --> 00:25:51.576
But, you know, that's, those are some areas that I think I've improved in.
00:25:51.586 --> 00:26:02.175
I think from an area where I've probably have gotten a little bit, um, or probably gotten worse is hard to, it's hard to admit that where you've gotten worse in certain areas.
00:26:02.506 --> 00:26:05.685
So I'm trying to think of something that, you know, I truly have taken a step back.
00:26:06.105 --> 00:26:09.925
It's, uh, be candid, it's probably, I'm probably a lot softer today.
00:26:09.925 --> 00:26:22.286
Maybe that's, maybe it's not worse, maybe it's- softer, but, uh, I'm probably softer as it comes to just allowing, like really not taking part in certain situations.
00:26:22.286 --> 00:26:28.685
I've fully in my career took very hard lines and probably fully into pre I started business here.
00:26:30.016 --> 00:26:37.705
I took a very hard line positions and now probably a little better and maybe that's not a bad, it's probably'cause I'm
00:26:39.788 --> 00:26:46.347
Well, it's some of it may be how you perceive yours- it for yourself versus how others perceive it as a change for you.
00:26:46.758 --> 00:26:54.577
I mentioned earlier that I was surprised by the motto relying on intuition and in getting to know you a little bit.
00:26:55.117 --> 00:27:04.167
What would you say is one thing that either people don't know about you or that you hear about yourself and you're like,"Wait, I'm surprised to hear that.
00:27:04.218 --> 00:27:06.857
That's not accurate about me at all"?
00:27:07.698 --> 00:27:08.038
Yeah.
00:27:08.038 --> 00:27:10.488
So the intuition comment probably.
00:27:10.518 --> 00:27:19.738
Like, anyone that, anyone that knows me very well knows I do go off my gut a lot, but I'm very good about, you know, backing it up on my gut and getting the data to help support it.
00:27:20.048 --> 00:27:21.137
I do go on my gut a lot.
00:27:21.417 --> 00:27:22.528
But the, uh...
00:27:22.698 --> 00:27:31.837
Probably something that is, uh, that is surprising, you know, I feel like I've told my story so many different times.
00:27:31.837 --> 00:27:36.698
Like, a lot of times people are surprised that I grew up in a small town outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
00:27:36.698 --> 00:27:40.468
That, you know, probably one component that surprises a lot of people'cause they...
00:27:40.567 --> 00:27:52.718
I lived in this small town until I was 10 years old, um, which is, which sounds crazy because I ended up living in Dallas right after, you know, I was 10, we moved to Dallas, Texas, where my grandfather's business was based out of.
00:27:53.127 --> 00:27:55.847
The, that's probably one part of the story people don't know.
00:27:56.958 --> 00:27:59.167
I am, uh, I can relate to that a lot.
00:27:59.167 --> 00:28:02.498
I grew up in a really small town in New Hampshire as well.
00:28:03.198 --> 00:28:27.488
As you sit here today reflecting on your career journey, your personal life, how things have played out for you, what is something you would tell Greg graduating biology degree in hand, getting ready to head off to med school or take a break before med school, that either might have changed the trajectory for you, made it easier for you, or just something you wish you knew back then that you know today?
00:28:28.925 --> 00:28:36.066
Yeah, so probably the, the biggest thing is, uh, is time is your biggest asset on your balance sheet.
00:28:36.115 --> 00:28:52.205
Like, I think it's, it's one of those, uh, we all get caught up in the, the need sometimes'cause you gotta, to a certain degree, you gotta actually make money to be able to, you know, buy food and, you know, have housing and shelter and all these other necessities of life or even other luxuries of life.
00:28:52.296 --> 00:28:55.516
But the reality is, is time is your biggest asset on your balance sheet.
00:28:55.605 --> 00:29:02.046
So it is very much a depreciating asset, so be very thoughtful and strategic on how you spend your time.
00:29:02.046 --> 00:29:09.746
So I'm a big believer if you're not-- if you don't-- if you're not passionate about what you're doing, you know, realize those hours you're spending doing it is just...
00:29:10.096 --> 00:29:12.576
unfortunately, it's wasted time when you think about it.
00:29:12.605 --> 00:29:17.096
Because you only have 24 hours in a day and, you know, and everyone's got a...
00:29:17.405 --> 00:29:20.205
fortunately, we all have a expiration date.
00:29:20.286 --> 00:29:23.165
So we've gotta, you gotta manage your time very wisely.
00:29:23.165 --> 00:29:27.846
So that's something that I wish I would've probably been more thoughtful towards at a younger age.
00:29:28.296 --> 00:29:35.026
Um, I think it's, you know, I think that's something that really didn't think a lot about, but it's, you know, an area that I think is big.
00:29:36.086 --> 00:29:46.445
Time being your most valuable asset is such an important thing to be reminded of it because it is so finite in so many ways, and choosing how you spend it becomes more and more important.
00:29:46.885 --> 00:29:50.846
You've shared so many great things about leadership, thoughts on leadership today.
00:29:50.846 --> 00:29:57.705
As you think of our motto, empowering personal success, is there a final sho- thought you wanna share with our audience?
00:29:59.405 --> 00:29:59.726
Yeah.
00:29:59.726 --> 00:30:08.336
So I think, um, I think as it relates to personal success, I mean, I- it's one of those that sort of goes back to what we sort of talked about a few minutes ago.
00:30:09.086 --> 00:30:10.476
I think you've gotta be...
00:30:10.655 --> 00:30:14.516
You gotta find what you're passionate about and, you know, lean into it.
00:30:14.516 --> 00:30:17.246
I know a lot of people have different opinions about passion.
00:30:17.615 --> 00:30:22.596
Um, some people say you should really lean into what you're good at doing versus what you're passionate about.
00:30:22.596 --> 00:30:35.246
But I am a big you lean into what you're passionate about, and if you're passionate about something, you can be a biology major, and you can all of a sudden be running a private equity firm like Beach Street.
00:30:35.346 --> 00:30:42.895
You know, because we view ourselves as a private equity firm, so we invest across private credit, you know, across real estate, and across, you know, some other asset classes.
00:30:43.026 --> 00:30:44.675
Obviously, we do a lot in the hotel space.
00:30:45.135 --> 00:30:49.806
Um, so it's, it's one of those things that you gotta find what you're passionate about and what you actually...
00:30:50.266 --> 00:30:53.246
You know, what you can wake up, I would say, 100% of the days.
00:30:53.246 --> 00:31:03.435
But the reality is, is there's days that all of us wake up where we're like,"I really don't wanna go to the office." But where you can wake up 85% of the day and really love what you're doing, then you probably got the right...
00:31:04.036 --> 00:31:06.796
You have the right career probably set in place.
00:31:07.516 --> 00:31:08.336
I love it.
00:31:08.336 --> 00:31:09.445
Could not agree more.
00:31:09.445 --> 00:31:17.506
Well, Greg, I'm so excited that you joined us today and shared a little bit more about your journey, your leadership insights to our audience.
00:31:17.546 --> 00:31:19.365
Thanks for spending some time with us today.
00:31:19.365 --> 00:31:31.355
We know you have a lot of ways to choose to spend your time, and we encourage you to head over to itspersonalstories.com to hear from other hospitality industry leaders who have likewise shared their journey and their leadership thoughts.
00:31:31.365 --> 00:31:33.506
So Greg, thank you so much for joining us.
00:31:33.836 --> 00:31:33.986
Yeah.
00:31:33.986 --> 00:31:34.746
Thank you, Rachel
