Full Transcript for Eve Moore, Chief Operating Officer, AI Hospitality Group, interviewed by Lan Elliott

office?" And so I scurried over to his office, and I sat down in front of his big desk, right? 00:02:32.973 --> 00:02:34.223 That's how it felt to me at the time. 00:02:34.223 --> 00:02:35.278 This was several years ago. 00:02:35.752 --> 00:02:46.680 And he goes,"You know you can't have a house." And I was like,"I know." He goes,"You know you can't have a car." I was like,"I know." And he goes you're pretty good at owner relations, so let's... 00:02:46.849 --> 00:03:00.385 Yeah, okay, we'll do it." And so there were a couple other steps along the way, but I would say that was really my first big change where we were born and raised in Tennessee, and we packed up and moved to the big city with a little baby. 00:03:00.427 --> 00:03:02.139 So that was step number one. 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:15.616 And I would say step number two was about five years into my time with Hilton, and I was still in New York And I had decided that I wanted to step into operations. 00:03:15.651 --> 00:03:24.251 And so I remember spending the whole weekend going through this list of things that I thought that I needed to learn to be a GM. 00:03:24.574 --> 00:03:28.884 I got it all typed up and ready, and I went to my boss's office that Monday morning. 00:03:28.887 --> 00:03:32.145 He was our AVP and GM of the property. 00:03:32.707 --> 00:03:41.685 And I said,"I've made a list of everything I need to learn to be a GM." And I delivered it to him, and he took it, and I can just imagine how he was thinking about it at the time. 00:03:41.685 --> 00:03:45.173 And he looked at it and he goes Good. 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:46.016 Yep. 00:03:46.504 --> 00:03:47.270 Go learn it. 00:03:47.389 --> 00:03:50.540 And he handed it back to me across the desk, and I was like... 00:03:50.937 --> 00:04:01.938 I'd like to say that I grew up a little bit that day, because that's when I really realized that it was on me to learn the things that I needed to learn, to develop the way that I needed to develop so that I could take control of my career. 00:04:01.938 --> 00:04:21.428 So anyway, so it was at that moment and shortly after, I really started to find all the ways I possibly could to learn about operations, and I had a great opportunity, again, under the Hilton umbrella, to transfer to the Embassy Suites in Lake Tahoe as the, It was as the AGM at the time. 00:04:21.620 --> 00:04:26.129 And granted, they had a bit of an accounting issue, which I was uniquely qualified to solve. 00:04:26.473 --> 00:04:35.382 And in exchange for that, the GM, who's a wonderful man a- agreed to train me up and really help me become a great operator. 00:04:35.449 --> 00:04:38.579 And so that was probably my second huge one. 00:04:38.579 --> 00:04:45.060 We moved from New York City across the country to Lake Tahoe, this time with a three-year-old and a one-year-old. 00:04:45.785 --> 00:04:51.901 And I really started to transition into operations and to learn from what was a really solid team. 00:04:52.149 --> 00:05:00.130 It was a resort operation, but the team it attracted,'cause it was such a beautiful setting, it a- I would say it attracted best-in-class department heads. 00:05:00.497 --> 00:05:04.052 And so I was able to learn so much during my time there. 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:13.815 So fast-forward, I've had some pretty I would say they all felt dramatic at the time, but some big moves along the way, and lived in various parts of the country. 00:05:13.817 --> 00:05:18.367 When I look back, I would say that none of them were a mistake. 00:05:18.406 --> 00:05:21.478 All of them have contributed into the person that I am today. 00:05:21.478 --> 00:05:38.399 But I'd be remiss if I didn't say my most recent inflection point is probably the biggest biggest one that I've had, and that's joining AI Hospitality Group, which is a startup management company, the first of its kind, the first AI native service provider, which means that we... 00:05:38.483 --> 00:05:44.053 In the hotel business which means that we have built ourselves on an AI foundation. 00:05:44.112 --> 00:05:47.564 And everything that we do is built upon that foundation. 00:05:47.620 --> 00:05:52.670 I will say, I had a great position where I was most recently. 00:05:52.706 --> 00:05:57.177 I had great team members, I had great hotels, and I had great owners. 00:05:57.177 --> 00:06:02.586 And so why not blow it all up and just stop everything and join a startup? 00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:06.672 But as and everyone in the industry knows I think Sloan is a visionary. 00:06:06.682 --> 00:06:14.262 He's so innovative, and he spent so much time building out this new company that it's a huge honor to be a part of it. 00:06:14.322 --> 00:06:17.079 And what could possibly go right, as people like to say? 00:06:17.911 --> 00:06:28.233 So I think that if you were to look back at my past to say, what is it that ultimately makes me do these things, that I can't answer that one. 00:06:28.245 --> 00:06:35.934 My husband asks me this from time to time, but what is it that makes me able to ultimately be successful in these roles? 00:06:35.978 --> 00:06:58.029 And I think that every position that I've selected along the way has been selected because it expands my knowledge, because I can learn something else, because I can do something differently, or in the case of where I am now, because I can finally, I think, give back to all the teams that I've worked with in my past. 00:06:58.031 --> 00:07:12.216 We've just been layering things onto the GMs and directors of sales and others along the way, and I think that we finally have a solution, and if we build it the right way, and we will, like this is gonna be an unstoppable change to our industry. 00:07:12.267 --> 00:07:15.259 And it's just something that I couldn't stand the thought of not being a part of. 00:07:16.326 --> 00:07:36.389 I heard so many great themes in what you talked about, from saying yes to opportunities before you felt ready, to figuring out

that your development was on you to go and learn the skills yourself, that no one was going to do it for you and shepherd you along. 00:07:37.084 --> 00:07:45.557 And I also love the theme of selecting a leader that you wanted to work with and collaborate with. 00:07:45.567 --> 00:07:47.199 That's also a wonderful theme. 00:07:47.850 --> 00:07:54.619 One of our interview hosts, Dorothy Dowling, likes to say,"One of the most important things you can do is select your boss." 00:07:55.324 --> 00:07:56.387 I completely agree. 00:07:56.437 --> 00:08:00.838 Along the way I did not do that intentionally, but I was so fortunate. 00:08:00.937 --> 00:08:09.264 I was so fortunate to have leaders who knew what I brought to the table and knew what I didn't bring to the table and helped me get where I needed to go. 00:08:09.591 --> 00:08:11.516 I wanna be that kind of leader myself. 00:08:11.548 --> 00:08:12.329 I don't know... 00:08:12.418 --> 00:08:13.225 I should call them. 00:08:13.245 --> 00:08:16.269 I don't know what it is about them that made them see that. 00:08:16.281 --> 00:08:20.512 Maybe I was just relieving something that they didn't enjoy doing, right? 00:08:20.512 --> 00:08:24.031 Which was cleaning up the books or whatever it was that I was good at. 00:08:24.038 --> 00:08:24.932 But I really... 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:25.958 I've been very fortunate. 00:08:25.958 --> 00:08:27.259 I completely agree with that. 00:08:27.374 --> 00:08:34.133 It's important to pick the people that you work with, and if you accidentally don't do it the first couple times, you should really be conscious of it from there on. 00:08:34.818 --> 00:08:35.562 For sure. 00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:50.400 Let's talk about taking risks, because I think it sounds like your husband would say you have no issues taking risks and jumping in with both feet, but you are a self-professed Gen X skeptic. 00:08:51.177 --> 00:08:59.470 And yet, because it was Sloan, you were open to taking a new job that heavily leans into AI and innovation. 00:09:00.361 --> 00:09:04.977 But taking calculated risks is a big part of most leaders' journeys. 00:09:05.740 --> 00:09:09.509 How do you prepare yourself mentally to take a chance on something? 00:09:10.919 --> 00:09:11.749 Oh, gosh. 00:09:12.049 --> 00:09:17.611 I think that there's this balance of, what have I done before? 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:23.832 I've done a number of things that sound like they're unreasonable, and they've always worked out. 00:09:23.855 --> 00:09:31.254 I've always been, like, at the end of the day, smarter than I was before, more well-rounded than I was before. 00:09:31.282 --> 00:09:38.339 And so I think that there's just this path that you go down of am I, for me, am I going to be smarter? 00:09:38.679 --> 00:09:40.424 What's the worst that could happen? 00:09:40.804 --> 00:09:57.169 I do enjoy, and I needed to do this with Sloan, which I've been transparent about, but I need to do a pro/con, like an old-school pro/con, where I sit down and I go through the list of what are all the things that I'll benefit from and what are the risks? 00:09:57.493 --> 00:10:05.596 And ultimately, for me, it's always been in five years, am I gonna regret not having made this decision? 00:10:05.738 --> 00:10:11.701 And so when you really look at it that way, you can look at it on a long-term plane, and you can say there are always... 00:10:11.952 --> 00:10:23.905 knock on wood, there are always gonna be opportunities out there to continue to do things the way that I've been doing them, but this in particular is something that's not in my current world that I can't necessarily just go do. 00:10:24.235 --> 00:10:36.758 And so this, because I know Sloan, because I believe in his ambition and intelligence, because I know the team that we're building because of all these things, the backing of the venture capital partners, right? 00:10:36.758 --> 00:10:43.024 There are so many reasons why this in particular became a, a decision that I couldn't pass up. 00:10:43.072 --> 00:10:54.780 But if I look back along the other choices that I've made, there's always been something where I've gone through this rational test of what's the worst that could happen, what's the best that could happen? 00:10:55.147 --> 00:11:05.922 And my husband and I, going back to those first couple of moves, we were always like, first of all, we've lived in Tennessee forever, so we were interested in seeing more of the country, but we're always like,"You know what? 00:11:05.922 --> 00:11:06.979 What's the worst that can happen? 00:11:06.979 --> 00:11:08.573 We can do anything for two years. 00:11:08.932 --> 00:11:18.258 Let's go see what it is." And we had so much fun raising our kids in different parts of the country and meeting new people and getting new cultural experiences. 00:11:18.349 --> 00:11:26.561 I don't know, on the heels of multiple pathways of good experiences, each new challenge just becomes like, why not? 00:11:26.749 --> 00:11:27.611 Let's just try it, 00:11:27.751 --> 00:11:32.669 you mentioned two things that I wanted to call out. 00:11:32.687 --> 00:11:38.886 One was having a supportive partner that's willing to take these leaps with you. 00:11:39.610 --> 00:11:57.110 I love the pro/con exercise to work through risks and benefits, but also the idea of anticipated regret, which is where you think five years from now, will I look back and regret not taking this job? 00:11:57.359 --> 00:12:02.303 And it can be a very powerful tool to really understand should I do this, should I not? 00:12:02.303 --> 00:12:03.844 Will I regret not doing it? 00:12:03.855 --> 00:12:05.250 So thank you for sharing that. 00:12:05.321 --> 00:12:11.019 I think that the key is or at least for me, it's always been what am I going to? 00:12:11.059 --> 00:12:12.432 I'm not leaving something. 00:12:12.447 --> 00:12:13.863 What am I going towards? 00:12:13.903 --> 00:12:18.714 And so to your point, anticipated regret, I probably

need to unpack that. 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:24.014 But it is really seriously the way that we've made so many of our decisions over the past many years. 00:12:24.744 --> 00:12:25.988 That is beautiful. 00:12:27.926 --> 00:12:36.528 I wanna talk about leaning into innovation because you've said AI can give back time to focus on what matters most. 00:12:36.821 --> 00:12:38.006 Can you talk about that? 00:12:39.009 --> 00:12:39.687 For sure. 00:12:39.880 --> 00:12:46.950 So I guess, what I wanna start with is talking about how we've burdened our teams over the past many years. 00:12:46.991 --> 00:13:00.089 The GMs, the directors of sales, the leaders, the above property leaders, like everyone that we are asking to run our businesses, we just keep piling on these administrative responsibilities. 00:13:00.090 --> 00:13:05.628 And people will say the more systems they get, it doesn't necessarily mean they're getting better data always. 00:13:05.638 --> 00:13:07.653 Sometimes they're just getting more to coordinate. 00:13:07.725 --> 00:13:15.389 And so my teams of the past have heard me express these concepts forever. 00:13:15.405 --> 00:13:23.916 I was looking at some old photos the other day and I saw a GM conference I did back when I was in Atlanta, and it was called Survival to Strategy. 00:13:24.543 --> 00:13:26.691 And so way back then I'm trying to get... 00:13:26.691 --> 00:13:27.629 This is pre-COVID. 00:13:27.643 --> 00:13:31.048 I'm trying to get us out of the survival mode and into a strategic mode. 00:13:31.447 --> 00:13:34.109 Focused on what matters most is something that I... 00:13:34.315 --> 00:13:35.330 is my mantra. 00:13:35.668 --> 00:13:38.303 The 80/20 rule all of these things. 00:13:38.322 --> 00:13:41.822 The Dirty 30, that's one that I'd like to socialize here today. 00:13:41.849 --> 00:13:58.763 When my first job out of college, our partner this was with Arthur Andersen, which is no more, but our partner Bob Bowen, may he rest in peace, socialized this idea of the Dirty 30, which is that 30% of your work that is administrative in nature and bogs you down. 00:13:58.763 --> 00:14:04.451 And his counsel to us as newly, new college graduates, was to knock it out at the beginning of the day. 00:14:04.705 --> 00:14:07.951 I still struggle with that but it's a concept I haven't forgotten. 00:14:08.003 --> 00:14:15.046 And I'd say for our hotel teams now, I think we probably have built it up to the Dirty 50 if you really look at it. 00:14:15.102 --> 00:14:24.642 And so while we give them these concepts all the time and we try to ask them to be strategic and delegate what they can, the pressures and the burdens of the deadlines never stop. 00:14:24.739 --> 00:14:30.251 The AP deadline, payroll deadline, it's month-end close, you've got to do your income journal. 00:14:30.453 --> 00:14:50.198 Like all of these things, it's time for owner reporting, now we have a quarterly owner meeting, and all of these things take so much time for them

to do and do accurately that it can stop them from the work that we want them to be doing and the work that they wanna be doing with running the business Making sure the guest experience is good and making sure they have a solid team culture. 00:14:50.301 --> 00:15:12.268 And so I think now finally with technology and innovation, like we have the ability to ingest all of the data from all these disparate sources into one data lake, and then we can build our agents to feed into that, and we give the agents all of these mundane routine tasks that no one... 00:15:12.379 --> 00:15:13.410 We- Two things. 00:15:13.422 --> 00:15:20.539 One, it's taking the time from people from doing other things that they should be doing, or two, it's preventing them. 00:15:20.549 --> 00:15:24.015 They should be doing it, but they're actually not because they don't have time. 00:15:24.017 --> 00:15:41.604 And so it's like you imagine that as a GM you have your team, but now you also have this army of agents who have been trained on your hotel specific information, on your market specific information, and they're out there doing all of these things behind the scenes so that you don't have to. 00:15:41.794 --> 00:15:44.576 And what you get to do is you get to manage the exceptions. 00:15:44.596 --> 00:15:48.474 You get to be involved with the key decisions that, that need to be made. 00:15:48.759 --> 00:15:51.105 You get to be in the lobby and talk to your guests. 00:15:51.105 --> 00:15:56.361 You get to be at, at night time you get to greet folks when they come back for the day. 00:15:56.373 --> 00:16:00.171 You get to be with your team members on the floors in the back of house. 00:16:00.192 --> 00:16:14.570 All the things that actually drive a great hotel you can actually do because no longer are you shuffling paper or toggling between screens because these things are happening for you and now you're able to run your business. 00:16:15.442 --> 00:16:16.230 I love that. 00:16:16.863 --> 00:16:17.058 I love it. 00:16:17.058 --> 00:16:17.068 I 00:16:17.130 --> 00:16:17.505 think- 00:16:17.889 --> 00:16:18.144 Let's- 00:16:18.258 --> 00:16:25.225 I can't wait to see how AI changes our business hopefully for the better over the next five years. 00:16:25.275 --> 00:16:26.484 It certainly will be for the better. 00:16:27.484 --> 00:16:36.320 You've hinted around continuous growth, which is something that you have always looked for, where could I learn something new? 00:16:36.583 --> 00:16:43.601 What's been an important piece of advice you've received recently, and how will it change your leadership or strategy going forward? 00:16:44.828 --> 00:16:54.236 So we are very fortunate to have Rackhouse Venture Capital as one of our venture capital partners, and Kevin Novak is the founding member of that. 00:16:54.458 --> 00:16:57.144 He was the head of data science for Uber. 00:16:57.770 --> 00:17:20.680 And so a few weeks ago, our investors gathered with our leadership team, and

one of the places on the agenda was a placeholder for the investors to give us their words of wisdom and their advice, because these guys see so many startups, they see all of these things happening, and they have knowledge to impart to us. 00:17:20.682 --> 00:17:36.189 And so Kevin Novak said to us,"I encourage you to practice AI pronoia as opposed to AI paranoia." And granted, you would think that we surely would, given this is the basis of our company. 00:17:36.602 --> 00:17:40.122 But pronoia is an antonym to paranoia. 00:17:40.554 --> 00:17:51.743 It was coined in the 1980s, and it means something like assume that all the forces in the world are conspiring for you for good as opposed to against you. 00:17:52.055 --> 00:17:57.405 And so when you think about that framed in the world of AI, it's really a mindset shift. 00:17:57.405 --> 00:18:01.482 And so it's like AI is my co-pilot, not my competitor. 00:18:02.010 --> 00:18:04.446 AI is here to help me. 00:18:04.681 --> 00:18:12.248 AI is going to deliver all the things that I need in order to make me wildly successful and help me to grow. 00:18:12.359 --> 00:18:22.567 And so it's not a blind optimism so much as just a way to really think about, as you embrace AI, how can it change your life for the good? 00:18:22.749 --> 00:18:24.948 So there's enough worry to have otherwise. 00:18:24.961 --> 00:18:38.939 But so for me, I would say I think of my responsibility as finding a way to communicate with my teams Things that help them navigate change. 00:18:39.229 --> 00:18:47.255 And so when you think about AI Hospitality Group, AI in general entering into our workforce, there's a lot of uncertainty. 00:18:47.778 --> 00:19:01.851 And when I think about how I can help a team embrace AI and embrace what's in it for them, I think of this concept as, for me, it was an eye-opening concept. 00:19:01.886 --> 00:19:02.757 It's already... 00:19:02.829 --> 00:19:07.689 I was already embracing it, but it flipped the switch in my mind of a new way to think about it. 00:19:07.690 --> 00:19:16.026 And I think it'll really help me to convey a mindset to those that ultimately are out there living this every day. 00:19:16.028 --> 00:19:21.478 Because there are people who are still obviously afraid of it or resistant to it. 00:19:21.499 --> 00:19:29.044 And I think if you think about what can it do well as opposed to what can go wrong it's important. 00:19:29.432 --> 00:19:46.148 I- we were at the Destination AI Summit a few weeks ago, and there was a debate about, it was about underwriting and the use of AI in underwriting, and one of the debates against it was, AI is so confidently wrong, right? 00:19:46.148 --> 00:19:49.940 It'll present something so confidently and it's completely wrong. 00:19:49.954 --> 00:19:52.990 And one of the CFOs on the stage said,"Guess what? 00:19:53.015 --> 00:20:08.412 I have 25-year-old analysts who also confidently pre- present wrong information." And so the message really was that you have to invest time in training AI just like you invest time in training someone new to the position. 00:20:08.412 --> 00:20:10.489 I think there's so much opportunity out there. 00:20:10.565 --> 00:20:11.536 I can't wait to see it. 00:20:12.615 --> 00:20:13.266 Amazing. 00:20:14.689 --> 00:20:25.622 I want to pivot to navigating politics because you've said you didn't realize there was politics involved in getting ahead in the workplace until one day you did. 00:20:26.247 --> 00:20:31.582 How did you realize that it exists, and what did you do differently from that point onwards? 00:20:32.651 --> 00:20:37.435 I would like to start by saying I'm so glad I didn't know that politics existed. 00:20:37.537 --> 00:20:47.836 When those early moves that I was making, I had no idea that I could be politically helping or harming myself. 00:20:47.851 --> 00:20:57.472 I just tried to do my best work, and I felt like the, the moves that I was able to make was a result of the good work that I had done. 00:20:58.079 --> 00:21:19.038 In fact, one of the, the SVP of ops one day came over to talk to my VP of finance to say,"Eve's doing a great job, I just want to let you know." And so my VP of finance came into my cubicle and said,"Hey, David came over and said, you're doing a great job." And I was like,"Great, thanks." Like I didn't even get it. 00:21:19.068 --> 00:21:20.596 I didn't even understand it, right? 00:21:20.638 --> 00:21:24.031 And so I don't know when it actually dawned on me. 00:21:24.032 --> 00:21:32.467 I think that, the farther you go, the more you get out on a limb, maybe the farther you get into the field, you start to hear... 00:21:33.390 --> 00:21:34.557 you're in tune with things. 00:21:34.557 --> 00:21:35.189 You're listening. 00:21:35.189 --> 00:21:44.516 You're trying to understand how to navigate the world, and you start to hear people talking about, the perception of someone or, maybe you see how someone else navigates it. 00:21:44.516 --> 00:21:49.982 So I can't actually draw back to exactly when I realized it was a thing. 00:21:50.359 --> 00:21:52.253 But it very clearly is. 00:21:52.292 --> 00:22:17.825 And so I guess the way that I've changed s- since then which has been a long time ago, is really trying to understand who the decision-maker is, who has access to the decision maker, who's influencing the decision maker behind the scenes, how do I connect with those additional people instead of, just having a good idea isn't necessarily good enough. 00:22:18.131 --> 00:22:25.032 There are a number of people who influence the decision makers who have a long list of things that they need to influence. 00:22:25.044 --> 00:22:28.567 So the first step is really making sure that your stuff is on their list. 00:22:28.921 --> 00:22:33.993 So how do you connect with them to help them see the importance of the things that you think are important? 00:22:34.045 --> 00:22:47.980 So it's a, it's a It's a long game, I guess I would say, because

you're wanting to make good relationships with folks so that good things can happen. 00:22:48.142 --> 00:22:53.839 Peggy Berg has a pie chart that I know we've seen in a number of different settings, and I... 00:22:53.871 --> 00:23:06.282 My relationship with Peggy started with the Castel project many years ago, but it talks about how your performance is only 10% of your ultimate success and 90% comes from your impact and your exposure. 00:23:06.412 --> 00:23:14.865 And so I put a lot of responsibility on myself, believing that if I am doing a good job, everybody is gonna win at the end of the day. 00:23:15.132 --> 00:23:20.361 The team's gonna be happy, the guests are gonna be happy, the owners are gonna be happy, the brand is gonna be happy. 00:23:20.362 --> 00:23:28.667 And so I constantly am seeking this perfection level of, if I can just do it all right, then everybody is gonna win. 00:23:28.684 --> 00:23:39.691 And I do believe in, I do believe in the benefit of successful relationships that are all built on a common goal. 00:23:40.092 --> 00:23:44.987 But with that being said, we can't negate the impact of politics as much as we would like to. 00:23:46.192 --> 00:24:01.116 You mentioned relationships just a moment ago, and we talk about developing a network, but in the hospitality industry, it's really about developing relationships with people across the industry. 00:24:02.431 --> 00:24:08.287 And you're very intentional in doing two things related to developing your network. 00:24:09.374 --> 00:24:15.301 The first is you're very intentional in staying connected with people you previously worked with. 00:24:16.454 --> 00:24:23.440 I want you to talk about that, and then also you have very specific advice about networking when you're at a conference. 00:24:23.490 --> 00:24:24.663 Could you also share that? 00:24:25.229 --> 00:24:30.422 I think that my intentionality has come from me being really bad at networking. 00:24:30.438 --> 00:24:30.448 Okay. 00:24:30.537 --> 00:24:39.503 And so I have decided that when I have a warm and positive thought about someone in my past I text or I call. 00:24:39.571 --> 00:24:47.790 And so it might be a joke, it might be I saw the weather report for the West, and El Nino's gonna bring the snow last year that you didn't get. 00:24:47.856 --> 00:24:52.501 Whatever that little random thought is, I've decided that it's important to act on it. 00:24:52.859 --> 00:24:58.798 With that being said, when I have this sense of gratitude towards... 00:24:58.827 --> 00:25:03.419 I reflect briefly on, wow, this person really had an impact in my life. 00:25:03.419 --> 00:25:11.694 Thinking about this conversation, there's probably several phone calls that I should make over the course of the next couple weeks sometime just to say thank you to folks. 00:25:11.701 --> 00:25:29.271 But I do like to pick up the phone or send an email or send a text just to say,"Hey, I've been thinking about the impact that you had on my past

and my life, and I just wanna say thank you for taking a chance on me, sticking it out with me, supporting me," whatever it was that particular person did. 00:25:29.553 --> 00:25:32.326 Supporting my family when we lived across the country. 00:25:32.535 --> 00:25:36.720 All the things that folks have done, I do like to reach out and say thank you. 00:25:36.846 --> 00:25:38.816 But again, I would say I've been... 00:25:39.155 --> 00:25:45.749 It is something that I always should focus on because, people really matter in your past in your- Love that in your current. 00:25:45.749 --> 00:26:06.891 But, Absolutely and then my specific advice for folks who are at conferences or otherwise, when I was a first-time GM, I found myself at a Hilton conference, and I was at a dinner with some of the GMs, more seasoned GMs from my region on the West Coast. 00:26:06.907 --> 00:26:10.390 And these guys were so impressive. 00:26:10.428 --> 00:26:11.811 We were at dinner. 00:26:11.849 --> 00:26:15.492 I was grateful they welcomed me in,'cause now I was in the Southeast. 00:26:15.847 --> 00:26:36.236 And we talked all night long about ways to make business better, and I It dawned on me then that really I think the goal of a conference is to find the people who are really focused on driving the business forward, who are energized by innovation and improvement and connect yourself to those folks. 00:26:36.265 --> 00:26:39.654 Because those are the folks that are gonna help you continue to learn and grow. 00:26:39.656 --> 00:26:44.761 They're g- the folks that are gonna be great resources to you, and hopefully you to them along the way. 00:26:45.059 --> 00:26:51.884 There's so much opportunity for, negativity or, misery loves company, they say, right? 00:26:51.909 --> 00:26:58.901 And so I think that you can always find someone who is eager to talk about what's going wrong. 00:26:58.913 --> 00:27:08.838 But if you find the folks who are focused on what is going well and how they can improve their own businesses as a result you'll never be, you'll never be sorry. 00:27:09.961 --> 00:27:12.515 Always great to talk with a positive person. 00:27:13.816 --> 00:27:15.934 Let's talk about the Superpower Pose. 00:27:16.625 --> 00:27:17.201 Okay. 00:27:17.626 --> 00:27:19.523 I know this is one that you love. 00:27:19.537 --> 00:27:22.828 What is it, and when has it been helpful? 00:27:23.364 --> 00:27:41.855 So the superpower pose is something that I first saw from a TED Talk with Amy Cuddy where she talked about having broad posture, how doing certain things with your body can ultimately affect what's going on inside. 00:27:41.866 --> 00:27:56.464 And so the one that particularly resonated for me was the superpower pose, Superwoman pose, Superman pose, whatever you wanna call it, where you put your hands on your hips, and you throw your shoulders back, and you put your head back, and you take a couple of deep breaths. 00:27:56.481 --> 00:28:12.461 And if you are in that moment of fight or flight, or you have a lot of anxiety, or you're gonna have to give a, presentation or do a podcast for heaven's sake you can actually feel the energy coursing through your body. 00:28:12.484 --> 00:28:16.893 And I know there's a lot of people who will roll their eyes at this if you haven't tried it. 00:28:17.287 --> 00:28:22.895 But if you find yourself in that moment of stress and anxiety, I promise it works. 00:28:22.931 --> 00:28:39.036 And so I have used it anytime I have some high-stakes thing happening where I feel the slightest bit or the greatest bit of anxiety, and I put my hands on my hips, my shoulders back, chest out, head up. 00:28:39.057 --> 00:28:44.307 There's probably some more specifics that we should research and share, but and it totally works. 00:28:44.307 --> 00:28:58.951 And so one of the examples Of me knowing that it's not just me is I, we had a new owner, a new hotel in our portfolio and task Eve was coming out because the meeting was about to start. 00:28:58.980 --> 00:29:07.054 And I'm quite sure you know about task, you have a task Lan as well, where meeting was about to start, the AV wasn't set up, the GM wasn't in the room yet. 00:29:07.386 --> 00:29:09.634 We needed to be buttoned up and we needed to be ready. 00:29:09.634 --> 00:29:15.416 And so task Eve, left the conference room, went to find the GM and I was gonna be like,"Let's go. 00:29:15.425 --> 00:29:16.446 Where's the laptop? 00:29:16.455 --> 00:29:17.284 Let's get it set up. 00:29:17.307 --> 00:29:35.040 Can we go ahead and make sure everything is good?" And I walked in and the GM was pale and quivery, and she was vulnerable and she said,"I'm really nervous." And so I went from task Eve to the other Eve, which was like,"Okay, let's do this. 00:29:35.181 --> 00:29:35.839 Just listen. 00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:36.593 We're gonna do this. 00:29:36.810 --> 00:29:41.143 Trust me." And I said,"Put your hands on your hip and your shoulders back." She's looking at me like I'm crazy. 00:29:41.486 --> 00:29:44.904 And then we go into this super power pose, and I was anxious too, right? 00:29:44.910 --> 00:29:46.407 'Cause this was an important relationship. 00:29:46.407 --> 00:29:47.325 We wanna do a good job. 00:29:47.578 --> 00:29:48.964 I was like,"I can feel it. 00:29:48.987 --> 00:29:59.750 Can you feel it?" And she's"I can't feel it." And so fast-forward to her coaching me, she's like,"Eve, other people need to hear about this." I use it now, I use it with my daughter. 00:29:59.762 --> 00:30:03.548 My daughter's, in, in high school and before she does things she uses it. 00:30:03.554 --> 00:30:16.459 So I have tried to situationally talk to others about it as they're facing some sort of, you know, situation that makes them feel insecure, nervous or, when all the cylinders are firing but not in a productive way. 00:30:16.749 --> 00:30:18.923 I'm a huge fan of the super power pose. 00:30:19.875 --> 00:30:21.413 I have a big speech coming up.

00:30:21.451 --> 00:30:24.342 I think I'm going to try the super power pose before I go on. 00:30:24.344 --> 00:30:26.636 I swear you will not be sorry. 00:30:26.636 --> 00:30:30.022 You have to fully buy into it though. 00:30:30.029 --> 00:30:31.339 You can't half-ass it. 00:30:31.411 --> 00:30:32.468 You gotta really do it. 00:30:33.377 --> 00:30:33.739 Okay. 00:30:33.743 --> 00:30:35.807 I'm going in the ladies room and I'm gonna try it. 00:30:35.823 --> 00:30:36.452 That's right. 00:30:36.489 --> 00:30:37.022 That's right. 00:30:37.573 --> 00:30:45.912 Eve, I always love talking with you, but we are getting close to our time, and I wanted to ask you two quick final questions. 00:30:46.416 --> 00:30:50.776 The first is, what advice would you give your younger self? 00:30:51.276 --> 00:30:55.565 We talked about a couple of things already that I would've said, so I'll just reiterate them. 00:30:55.790 --> 00:30:58.951 Picking your boss, picking your culture, and picking your partner. 00:30:59.002 --> 00:31:03.751 These are- things that are key to ultimately how you experience your career. 00:31:04.073 --> 00:31:07.085 You can make mistakes, but don't be a victim of your mistakes. 00:31:07.358 --> 00:31:11.982 Mostly with the boss and culture, not so much with the partner, but stick with the partner. 00:31:12.053 --> 00:31:21.359 But anyway but I would say that the other thing that I think is important is prepare yourself for the job you don't even know that you want. 00:31:21.586 --> 00:31:32.673 So if you- are of the mindset to say yes to new assignments, say yes to things that you don't think you're ready for, to raise your hand and let people know that you want to learn and you want to grow. 00:31:33.027 --> 00:31:36.559 Ultimately, I never intended to be in the hotel business. 00:31:36.644 --> 00:31:39.640 I never intended to be above property in the hotel business. 00:31:39.708 --> 00:31:55.278 I never intended most of the things that have ultimately happened in my career, but they all happened because I said yes, I asked for more, and ultimately, I wasn't afraid to jump in when an opportunity presented itself. 00:31:55.291 --> 00:32:05.730 And so ultimately I became prepared for the job that I didn't know that I wanted just by staying broad in my experience, and broad in the things that I was doing. 00:32:06.489 --> 00:32:07.763 Amazing advice. 00:32:08.073 --> 00:32:09.364 With with a positive attitude. 00:32:10.032 --> 00:32:10.425 You do. 00:32:10.442 --> 00:32:12.374 You are always positive when I see you. 00:32:12.717 --> 00:32:13.596 I love that. 00:32:13.676 --> 00:32:14.338 Thank you. 00:32:15.109 --> 00:32:20.759 You've offered so much great advice, and the superpower pose to our audience. 00:32:20.840 --> 00:32:28.163 Do you have one final bit of advice, keeping in mind that the mission of our show is around empowering personal success? 00:32:29.385 --> 00:32:43.455 I would say that my mantra has always been,"Don't stop until you're proud." And so if you look back on the work that you've done, do you feel like you've done your best? 00:32:43.487 --> 00:32:46.155 Have you given to it what it deserves? 00:32:46.396 --> 00:32:48.814 Have you given to your team what they deserve? 00:32:49.128 --> 00:32:55.077 Have you given everything that you possibly can to make sure when you look back on your body of work, you're proud of it? 00:32:55.626 --> 00:33:01.992 And I think that is, for me, the most important part of who I am. 00:33:02.054 --> 00:33:05.748 I, sometimes I work more hours than I should. 00:33:05.748 --> 00:33:08.615 Sometimes I focus on work maybe more than I should. 00:33:08.632 --> 00:33:15.887 But ultimately, if I can look back and say,"I'm proud of what I've done, I'm proud of what I've delivered," then I feel like I've been successful. 00:33:16.771 --> 00:33:23.406 That is such great advice, and also explains why you have been so successful, Eve. 00:33:24.009 --> 00:33:27.604 Thank you so much for being on our show today. 00:33:27.851 --> 00:33:29.382 Thank you for inviting me. 00:33:29.428 --> 00:33:30.798 It's been awesome to be here. 00:33:31.425 --> 00:33:33.780 Wonderful to have this conversation with you. 00:33:34.461 --> 00:33:45.528 And for our audience, if you've enjoyed this conversation with Eve, I hope you go to our website, itspersonalstories.com, where you can find many more interviews with hospitality industry leaders.