Episode 02

(0:00) Welcome to the BLTNT podcast. I’m your host, Matt Loria, serving up real stories of business, life, technology, and transformations. You’ll hear from interesting people about big changes from career shifts to life-altering decisions, and the innovations that help make it all happen. 

(0:14) It’s about sharing those lightbulb moments, pivot points, challenges overcome, and the journeys that inspire us to think differently.  

(0:23) If you’re on the lookout for insights to propel you forward, stories that resonate, or just a bit of inspiration on your next BLTNT move, you’re in the right place. Let’s dig in. 

(0:42) Hi, everyone. I’m Matt Loria with the BLTNT podcast, and I’m really excited because I’m sitting here with Andre Van Hall. Andre’s somebody that I met through the Vistage network. 

(0:54) He was an expert speaker in the Vistage group. And for those of you who don’t know what Vistage is, it’s a group that is, they say, where leaders learn and grow. 

(1:07) So their goal is to help CEOs and business owners grow their business through executive coaching and peer advisory groups and so I’m in a Vistage group here in Michigan where my chairperson is a fellow named Dr. Bob Holland. 

(1:17) And Bob invited Andre in just a couple of months ago to be our expert speaker. And it was all about change and just an amazing conversation that then led to another couple of amazing conversations with Andre that makes me happy to be able to share this with you. 

(1:38) Andre has a couple of titles. He’s the Curiosity Instigator. He’s the author of The Curiosity of Change, How to Bring Light to the Dark Side of Change. 

(1:55)  So we’ll be putting a link in our descriptive here of how to go buy his book. He’s an expert speaker. And I did also learn that he’s you used to be a hooker as well, I heard. 

(2:10) I was a hooker in a rugby team, but that…  Thanks for clarifying that early because I didn’t want to, I wasn’t sure if, you know, people would be okay with that or not. Yep. (2:17) That’s the guy in the scrum, way in the middle of the scrum with ears being crushed from every direction. 

(2:26) So, so, so, hey, we’re here to talk about BLTNT, Business, Life, Technology, and Transformations. And Andre is full of all this sort of stuff. You know, business was the thing that kind of initially brought us together and we wrap it all together with life. 

(2:43) And Andre has got tons of experience with technology and you’re going to hear about so many different transformations in this guy’s life. It’s making me so excited to share this with other people. 

(2:54) So thanks for being here, Andre. Want to tell us a little bit more about yourself?  

(2:57) Well, Matt, a delight to be with you and all the preparation you have done for this chat is unbelievable. So, kudos to you for being so organized and prepared. And yes, I love Vistage, you know, because I think that when you go to Vistage, you have to be curious, right? And otherwise, you wouldn’t be there. 

(3:20) And I also talk about humility and the importance of humility.  

(3:25) And man, have you shown me humility during the pre-interviewing and stuff and how you poke fun at yourself. So, I truly look forward to spending time together this morning. 

(3:35) Great. Yeah. Every interaction has been just awesome with you. So can you walk us through a little bit of your career? I know you have some military background, hospitality background, and then we have to then argue about the premier athletic clubs in the nation here.  

(3:52) Well, first it was darkness and then God created the… No, I’m not going to go back. But yeah, I mean, I grew up in Argentina and I did my military service there, which was compulsory. 

And after boot camp, I ended up being a waiter for the officers and fell in love with the idea of the hospitality industry. 

(4:15) Do you have any military experience?  I do not. No, I’ve always had a shorter haircut, but never in the military. 

(4:20) We compete on that, don’t we? That’s right. That’s right. But so anyway, so I fell in love with the idea of being in the hospitality industry. 

(4:28) So I left Argentina to start my hotel career at the Hotel Filiare in Hamburg in Germany. And at the time was named one of the top 10 hotels in the world. So it’s truly a privilege. 

(4:41) But I started as a pot washer and not the Colorado kind of pot, right? The ones you cook in. And so, you know, I was for two and a half years in that hotel, worked everywhere, every position you can imagine. 

(4:53) And then I went to the Ritz in Paris, another one of the top 10 hotels in the world. 

So it was unbelievable, right? I’m starting my career. I am this kid from Latin America, working at two of the top 10 hotels in the world. And it was awesome, right? (5:09) Meeting Coco Chanel and Mick Jagger and Charlie Chaplin and the Shah of Iran. 

So and then I got admitted to hotel school in the United States and I came to study hotel school. And then I moved all over the country, working at hotels.  

(5:22) And so I lived in 13 cities and then 12 years ago, I went suddenly blind.  

(5:29) And I was the CEO of the DAC. Now, you and I are going to-Not the real one. 

(5:35) The real one. (5:36) This is where we need to argue, right? Yes. So the DAC for me is the Denver Athletic Club. 

They’d opened in 1884, which is a little bit before the Detroit Athletic Club, right?  

(5:48) That’s right. Yeah. I don’t know the exact, but I do know we have a beautiful old building here that it’s the, what do they call it?  

(6:03) The gem of Detroit. I mean, it’s such a great place.  And what a location because you’re walking distance to two stadiums, and you’ve got guest rooms at the club. It’s just unbelievable. What a great- Yeah. And the access from the freeway is just amazing. I mean, the view, you can see right into Comerica Park where the Tigers play. 

(6:25) So yeah, we’ve got a great club at the Detroit Athletic Club. You should do. So then I was running the DAC here and then I went suddenly blind within two weeks and I had to reinvent myself. 

(6:40) And people think it’s overnight success, right? But it was hard,  I had to learn how to speak. I went to Toastmasters and I talked a little bit about Toastmasters, right?  

(6:47) Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I’ve been through Toastmasters myself and we had a lot of fun with the different roles that you play in that training, right? The um and the ah counter was always my favorite because it didn’t matter who you were, it made you curse when you start to really realize  how many filler words we use in our conversations. 

(7:08) Yep. So, you know, and then I joined the National Speakers Association here in Colorado. We go to something called Colorado Speakers Academy. 

And so, they taught, they taught me how to speak publicly and whatever and how to write a book. And so, I wrote a book and then I started speaking at retirement homes, right?  

(7:33) I mean, they literally brought the gurneys in with guys with monitors beep, beep. So at least I knew they were alive. 

They were listening, it’s another story, right? 

(7:39) But they say practice, practice, practice. That’s what I was doing, practicing and slowly but surely I found a real good lane, if you want, on my highway of speaking on change management.  

(7:53) Well, and having sat through your talk on change most recently, I mean, you know, at the end of the three hours that you were talking, I think every one of us wanted another three hours of it, right? It was not, there was at no point where we exhausted by our speaker. 

(8:10) We were, we wanted more. Wow, that’s a privilege to hear that. Thank you so very much. 

But so I have a passion for what I do and, you know, when people say, you know, you’ve got to find your why and I definitely know my why. And because my goal is to make a difference in your life, right?  

(8:27) And so this is another opportunity that you’re giving me to, you know, set some light on ways to deal with difficult change in life. And for me, you know, when I went blind, I was told you could be blind in two weeks. 

(8:49) And so I had to like this, you know, spin and learn how to use technology as a blind guy. And it was so much fun to go through that. Frustrating, frustrating. 

(8:56) Sure. But I mean, a true pivot point, right? I mean, unbelievable pivot point in your career there in life, where is to say, okay, this is the change that’s being thrust upon you.  

(9:09) What did you say about the military service? It was compulsory?Yes. 

So was your blindness, right? You were quickly compelled, whether you wanted to or not.  

(9:21) We had talked about that when you were in the hospitality business, and by the way, we will get more into the fact that you’ve gone blind and some other health challenges that you’ve dealt with. 

(9:33) Just so that we stick on the business topic for another moment here is you talked about when you came into the hospitality business, that it was during the quality movement kind of era, you know, Dr. Deming’s work and things like that. 

(9:50) One of our executives here, Mark Marheineke, he loves Dr. Deming and can quote him. I love his quote. Oh, you met Dr. Deming?  

(9:57) Yeah, he stayed at my hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. Yes. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. 

Did he give you any quick quips or quotes? No, but it’s interesting because he travels all of the time and he was like in his late 80s then.  

(10:11) And so he had to have one specific mattress for him to be able to sleep. So literally they came and they told us he needs this mattress. So we went out, we bought the mattress, we put it in his bed, he used it for two nights, and then we gave it to an employee as a raffle item. That’s your quality guy there, right? I mean, he follows a process of consistency and he’s going to have it.  

(10:33) It’s process-approved, right? His whole thing is about process improvement. 

But Tom Peters had just come out with the Search for Excellence too, you remember? I don’t remember exactly when it came out, but I mean, I’ve read it. Yeah. 

(10:48) And it was fascinating because I worked for Sheraton and IT owned us. 

And Harold Janine was the CEO and he mandated that every IT division had to have a quality department.  

(11:02) So here I am, wet around the ears, fresh out of college, hired to implement a quality program,  having no idea what quality is, right? And what is quality to you?  

(11:16) Oh, to me? I mean, gosh, I mean, I always think of it as essentially getting what I paid for or getting what I knew I was or what I thought I was getting into. Because quality doesn’t necessarily mean to me high price, or it doesn’t mean that I’m driving the best car. If the car I’ve bought, I drive an SUV because I have a lot of kids and a big dog. And as long as it does what it’s supposed to and is not breaking at inopportune times or not breaking kind of too early before a time of when I know something would wear out, like I expect my brakes to wear out at 50,000 miles. I expect certain things like that. 

(12:05) But the quality to me is that consistency and knowing what I’m getting. 

 (12:12) I read a lot of books because I’m going, okay, so how do I define quality? So I’ve got a housekeeper that is from Croatia, right? I mean, and she needs to understand what I’m explaining.  

(12:23) So after reading book after book, the definition of quality I like the best is a product or service that consistently meets a standard. I mean, there you go. You said it more eloquently than I did, but we’re talking the same language. The exact same thing. 

You said it. Yeah.  

(12:40) So I would hold my mom for graduation, gave me a Parker Pen Company, a sterling set of a pencil, a pen, and a ballpoint. 

And the pencil, I mean, it was very expensive at the time, right? Sterling silver,  okay, whatever. And I would hold a number two pencil and my Parker. And I said, so which one is a quality product? People would invariably at that time pick the Parker Pen. 

And I’m going to but it was number two pencil, right? They design it that the paint has to stay on even if you chew on it. Right. And that the eraser has to stay on the pencil that you get the lead cannot break. 

(13:21) So if it meets the standards, it’s a quality product. Right. And, but my sterling thing is much more complex piece of equipment. 

So it has a lot more standards to meet to be determined a quality product. So don’t look at complexity or price to determine something as quality. So at any rate, that was my song and dance in 1980. 

(13:47) So, we’re going back.  Well, I mean, so Deming would say, what did he say? A bad system will beat a good person every time, which I always thought that was a good reminder, right?  

(14:01) That says you can keep creating these systems. And if they’re not, if, you know, if they’re not designed to do what needs to be done, right. 

(14:13) If they’re not fulfilling the client’s need, let’s just, let’s just use that as an example. Then, then why did, why do they even matter? Right. Well, it is, you know, I was, I was in Montgomery, Alabama and the business chair took me out to dinner, and we went to a really fancy steakhouse. Right. And so, he ordered the Chateaubriand and it came with asparagus and he wanted to replace the asparagus with spinach. And the server said, I’m sorry, sir, but no substitutions. 

And that is institutional failure, right? Because we put this poor server in a horrible position. 

(14:47) Why can’t you substitute? I mean, if you told me that this building doesn’t allow spinach because the chef hates spinach. Okay. 

I’d say, well, maybe, but it’s institutional failure. It’s the systems failed the server and it failed us as customers.  

(15:02) So, we’ve got another frustrated server and a frustrated customer. 

My daughter worked for a restaurant here in Rochester, Michigan, and her, her boss did a great job. He typically hired high school students who would then stay through college. And some would even come back after college and work for him. 

(15:23) And he, he taught them so many different valuable lessons, but one of them was you never say to a, to a, to a guest, I don’t have a button for that, you know, or no. He would say, if the person says, can I have half of a sandwich in a soup?  

(15:34) You just say, yes, we don’t, they don’t sell a half a sandwich in a soup, but he says, but we can cut a half. We can cut a sandwich in half. 

(15:43) We can give them a bowl of soup. If we have the product here, give it to them because we don’t have the opportunity to continue to impress these people if they don’t come back. And so that, that, that’s what gets them to come back. 

(15:52) In New York city, a very famous restaurateur, I don’t remember his name, but it was, I think it was Danny something. And he wrote a book and how about he had the fanciest, most famous restaurants in New York city, right? And this British couple came for their last dinner in New York city at their restaurant. And for whatever reason, she said, you know, I always heard about New York city hotdogs, the dirty water hotdog story. 

(16:19) I know that I know the story. It’s great. It’s great. Right. So, tell the story though, for everybody. The server says, do you want a New York city hotdog? Absolutely. 

We have them. And he ran down the corner to the hotdog stand and bought a hotdog and put it in a fancy plate and served it charge of five times what he paid for it. Okay. 

Whatever. He was absolutely blown out of the world that they had hotdogs in this super fancy restaurant. And they, we love that book. 

(16:44) It’s the, it’s unreasonable hospitality. I don’t remember the author, but that’s the, that’s the book. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I love it. That story.  

(16:55) We tell that story as often as we possibly can because that hotdog, you know, they, they,  they gussied it up a little bit, but I mean, they could have easily said, well, first of all that,  if in that story, if I remember correctly, they, the, the server only overheard them talking about it, the person didn’t necessarily even order it, which was even the further servitude that was going on there. 

Yeah. I had forgotten that. And that is the unreasonable hospitality. 

Right. And it’s a, so we, we, we had an event at the, at the Denver athletic club way, way, way. 

(17:23) I mean, 20 years ago, and the guy had a Blackberry and right. 

And he forgot to charge it. And the waiter was in the room is pouring coffee. He overheard the guy didn’t have his charger and he felt totally lost and nobody had a charger, and he literally ran over to Radio Shack and bought him a charger.  

(17:40) And the guy became a fan of, of, of our place. And anytime he flew in to have a meeting, he, (17:45) he was a developer, and he was doing a lot of development here in Denver. 

(17:51) So he booked our place because this waiter overheard that he didn’t have a Blackberry charger. Right. Yeah. 

(17:56) Then it was a $10, a $10 move, right. A $10 move for a lifetime client. Right. 

And, and without, but also the fact that he didn’t do that thinking I’m going to turn this person into a lifetime client. All he did was just helped his fellow man too. I mean, that’s the other piece of it is, is that when you go in with that kind of, well, I don’t know if humility might be the word, but really just the, the desire to serve first, you know, make somebody else happy. 

(18:24) Good things always come from it. I mean, whether that, whether just you made the person’s day or that they turned (18:28) into a great client doesn’t really matter, but it’s also understanding the why, why am I doing (18:32) this? Right. And so in Europe, being a server is seen as an honorable profession. 

And here we see as a stepping stone to something else, typically. Sure. Right. 

Sure. And, but understanding why am I here? And I don’t care if it’s transitionary or permanent, but I’m here for a specific purpose. 

(18:52) And I think it’s management’s job to help the employees see that. 

And, and that’s why I truly believe in hiring for attitude, you know, and then, but, but training for skill, right?  

(19:06) Yeah. I agree. Except for my heart surgeon. My heart surgeon, I don’t give a hell about his attitude. That’s right. As long as he’s good at what he does. 

He’s got to better be good at what he does. You know, but I also think that it’s, it’s incumbent upon the organization to build a, to build a culture that says, this isn’t, this is an organization that you can come and live your career at. Right. 

(19:34) So you think about that, that where most organizations treat the, the server as a steppingstone sort of role, but like for example, the Joe, Joe Muir restaurants here in, in Detroit, did you ever eat at Joe Muir’s seafood when you were in town?  

(19:48) Okay. Next time you’re in town, that’s, that’s where we’re going to go. You know, those servers at that restaurant, they’re, they’re there for their career, right? So if I go there this month, or if I go there in six months, the same people are going to be there, you know? And so, but they’ve built that organization to allow for that. 

You know, they’ve got a couple other restaurants in the same family that owns, that owns some other restaurants and the same bartender, the same servers there for, for 20 years.  

(20:18) And so when that person has that comfort of knowing that they have a home that they can be in there, they desire to serve better, serve the client better.  Right. 

And then the client comes to expect that and wants to see that person. They don’t want to see, they don’t want to see that where it’s new every, you know, new every few weeks because they’re paying them so low. I mean, these people have to be able to build a career and have a livable wage. 

(20:40) Yeah. And so that’s, I think that it’s the organization also has to build for that too. There’s a restaurateur here in town and he’s a member of the Denver Athletic Club and he has several restaurants in town, but once a year, his, his, his, his crime restaurant is, is an Italian restaurant. 

(20:57) And, but what he does is once a year, he takes his top performing servers to Italy. And in one year, it’s all about olive oil and they’re going to go and taste olive oils and get them to go and go to the olive tree place and watch them harvest it and press it and taste it.  

(21:19) And now the year might be truffle, another year might be pasta, whatever. 

But he, he is giving them the tools to understand the, the joy of a fantastic meal that can be so simple as long as the ingredients are pure and great.  

(21:39) But I believe that the staff, the waitstaff is also significant ingredient that adds to the experience, your dining experience or your stay at my hotel or whatever. I agree. 

I agree. Okay. Well, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about you know, sticking with the business here for just a couple more minutes. 

(21:59) The, let’s talk about the book you wrote and then also this, this move to becoming a Vistage speaker. What that means to you, how you’re leveraging that in your, in your business, you know, how you, how you create value for others, how you create value for yourself. Let’s, let’s talk a little bit about, about that. 

Awesome.  

(22:18) So one of the things that I learned from the National Speakers Association is that when, when, when we speak, it’s not about us and it’s not about the person that hires me, but it’s about the audience, right? So, and so when I, they, they would have professional speakers come and talk to us and tell us how did I make it as a speaker, you know, and you would have one speaker come in and train us and say, don’t write a book. It’s a waste of time. Okay. Whatever. 

(22:48) I excel at doing what I’m doing without writing a book. 

So don’t waste your time. Don’t write a book. But this is how I made it. 

And the next one would come and said, Oh my God, if I hadn’t written my book, I wouldn’t be where I am today. But the beauty about those two approaches is that you hear both.  Now it’s up to you to decide, am I going to go this way? I’m going to go that way. 

(23:08) Right. And so I chose that writing a book gives you some gravitas. And so I had to think about and I chose to do tell stories. 

(23:25) So I tell stories from my career and, and they also say you should not be the hero of your story. And so, it’s, it’s deferred to others. So even, even something that I did, don’t claim responsible for being the one that would did it, put that on someone else, you know, somebody gave me this idea or whatever. 

And that’s the spirit in which I went to write my book. And it was so much fun. Did it help you to organize your, your thoughts better? I mean, I know. 

You bet. Okay. Yeah. 

Yeah, it did. 

(23:57) Did you write a book? No, no, no. I just have the outline and framework for what we do here. 

But I’ve not, I’ve not written a book. So yeah, it’s interesting because we had a speaker that came to us and he held a book up and he says, I wrote my book and you know, the difference between my book and yours is that mine is done. (24:14) You have a perfect book in your mind that you haven’t written it. 

So he says, but mine is done.  

(24:21) It’s not perfect, but it’s done. And that hit me, right? That hit me because I had the perfect book in my head, but I had not written it. 

You know, I, I, I saw, um, there was a speaker.  

(24:33) His name was Bob Goff. I don’t know if you ever heard of Bob Goff. 

He wrote a book called, he wrote a few books, but one of them is called love does. And basically, his book is all about doing, you know, all of this, all of this talk and all this sitting around of, you know, um, you know, pontificating and things like that. And he’s, he’s going out and doing it and he’s building schools in Uganda and doing all these crazy things that, you know, you should look them up and you’ll see, but he’s a doer. 

(25:00) And I think that’s, that is a great reminder to people of the, um, uh, perfect is the enemy of good, right? That guy’s good book was much better than your perfect book that you’re, that you’re thinking about writing or, or whatever it is that you want to do.   

(25:19) That is so true because what I did is, so I didn’t put this in my book because I, as I mentioned, when I spoke to your group, right, I learned the word initiative from my son. Right. And so I was always about curiosity, being curious, right? There’s the title of my book, right? 

(25:32) But it’s obvious that curiosity will only bring it to a certain point. If you’re not a doer, like, like, like, like, like golf is right, then you got nothing. You just got, he takes curiosity plus whimsy, he says. And I think that whimsy is the screw it, let’s do it type of, uh, attitude, you know, on top of the, you know, becomes curious about a topic or curious about an issue or something like that, and then screw it, let’s do it. And he, and he kind of jumps to it. But that’s my point, right? So, so it’s get your team curious. 

(26:03) That is your job is, as, as, as the boss, right? It’s get them curious of, of, of why, why am I doing this, et cetera, et cetera. But then set up a culture where you expect them to take initiative. And for that, you owe them training, equipment, preparation, and so forth. And that’s the process that I call building the road. That your job as the boss, and I don’t care what level of organizational chart you are, you still are responsible for the people that work with you. 

(26:30) And so your job is not just to make them curiosity, curious, but take that curiosity and convert it to initiative. 

(26:35) And that is how change comes about is when people start taking. So let’s talk about the action. So, like with you, with being a Vistage speaker, you told me that somebody introduced you to one Vistage chair, then it was to another. 

And basically, so there was some initiative there where you kind of you know, step one, two, three, four that you, that you put together to, to do that. I don’t know that you necessarily laid it out on paper, but those, those steps, they were all about the initiative of, I guess, I don’t know if you want to say saying yes to each thing or, or, or what, but can you walk us through that?  

(27:12) Cause we do hear a lot of people say, Oh, I want to be a, I want to be a speaker. I want to be a Vistage speaker. 

I want to, you know, do a Ted talk or something like that. And I think you’re working on a Ted talk, aren’t you?  

(27:20) I am. And you know, it’s interesting because people say, Oh, you are so lucky that you knew these Vistage chairs. 

Right. And I’m going like, well, we make our luck.  

(27:32) I met those Vistage chairs because I was engaged and involved in the community, and I was in different boards, and I was in a CEO round table for the chamber of commerce. 

And that is how I met my first Vistage chair who was on my CEO round table group. And then he became a Vistage chair. It was a natural progression. 

(27:49) I call the CEO round tables that chambers have a Vistage chief, right? And, but then the second chair is because I was involved with a friend of mine, I was consulting for him.  

(28:02) And then he had the Vistage group for dinner at his house. And he invited me and his Vistage chair lived literally half a block from my house. 

But I had to have that relationship with this other guy, accept his dinner invitation.  

(28:21) The third Vistage chair, I was writing my tandem on a fundraiser for rotary clubs. And this Vistage chair rode behind us because I have an obnoxious speaker (28:28) and I play old rock and roll on it. 

Right? And she said, she sent me an email the next day.  

(28:34) She saw my, my bib name, my name on my bib. And she sent me an email saying, I wrote behind you the whole ride because your music motivated me. 

Right? That’s great. And I saw Vistage chair.  

(28:46) So what are the chances that you will meet three Vistage chairs within six months when you want to be a speaker? Right. 

And so it was lucky, but I also had to create, I had to be in the right place at the right time. And that takes some purpose, and you have to have the initiative.  

(29:07) I think people also don’t realize that sometimes, you know, you probably didn’t want to get out of bed some of those days. Right. And, and I mean, I think about it, I think about whether it’s the DAC or, or whether it’s a Vistage meeting or whatever it is, you know, I might not want to drive that far. I might not want to do that, but every time I do that, I am definitely helping create my own luck by exposing myself to, you know, new people to meet new places to go. 

(29:34) And so I never regret it. Luckily, my wife is a good, a good instigator for me. And she pushes me out the door to go, to go do those things, even on days that I don’t want to. All right. So let’s talk about initiative and luck. So what is the initiative you had to take to have your wife accept your proposal? Well, I think it’s not, it’s, it’s not my wife accepting my proposal. 

(29:54) It’s me accepting my wife’s proposal. So, my wife, my wife is the one who’s saying, get out there.  You know, I’m saying, I don’t want to do that today. 

You know, I’ve, I was on for the last three days.  

(30:02) I don’t want to have to do that. And, and she’ll push me to do that, but I have to have the humility to listen because I could have the choice to just say, you know, damn it, I don’t want to do it. You know? And instead, I have to say, you know, she’s probably right.  

(30:17) She’s probably not telling me this for her own good. She’s telling me for my own good. Right. So, I have to be, I have to be open to the criticism. And I think that that is, you know, foolish pride can be the, can be the, the, the detriment to anyone, right. 

Where it’s like, well, I’m the man of the house. You don’t, not going to tell me what to do. You know, how, how well has that ever worked out for anybody? Right. 

Also, I’m the man of the business. So don’t tell me. And I’m the same thing. 

I’m the CEO and let’s not be gender specific. Right. But I mean, it, it, whether the man or the woman, but it’s, it’s so hard. 

(30:55) That’s why I talk about humility in my talk. One of the first things that I talk about is humility. Because if you’re not humble, then you will not listen to your wife. 

Right. Like you just said. Yeah. If you’re not humble, you can’t hear, I think is, is, is what, is what we’re saying.  And, and the, the, the era of, of growth in your organization, change in your organization coming from the top down is gone because you can’t be the only one with the ideas.  

(31:21) If you’re the only idea person in your organization, because you don’t have the humility to let other people challenge your thinking, then I believe your history in today’s world, you have to engage every single one of your team members into the change process. 

(31:37) Even, you know, as I mentioned in my, in my stories, okay, whatever my dishwashers, right. It’s typically my least paid employee, but they have helped me bring change into the organization. 

(31:47) And, and how do you create the culture where the chef is humble enough to want to hear the dishwasher that is potentially somebody who hardly speaks English but has an idea. 

(32:00) Right. And so many times we were talking about labels earlier, right. But so many times we put people down based on their ethnicity or sexual preference or gender, et cetera, et cetera. And we allow these things to influence how we quote, unquote, see them. Right. And in my case, it’s, it’s how I perceive them rather than how I see them. Right. Although you, during one of our meetings before you, you, you can see well enough to see the shine off of my head. I remember, I remember that. 

So, the shapes and colors, you can see the bright light. Yes. You get it. 

(32:30) Well, you know, I remember, you know, being in the hotel business, you know, it’s I mean, I’m not bragging, it’s just a story, but I got to shake hands with every president from Nixon to Obama. And so, you’re on TV a ton, right. When you’re running a hotel and every time the makeup person comes in is going on my forehead and going like, okay, I get it. 

(33:00) This episode of the BLTNT podcast is sponsored by Auxiom, business IT and cybersecurity designed to outsmart chaos. Empowered by Juniper Networks, automate your network with Juniper Networks and the Mist AI platform, the world’s first AI driven wired and wireless network.  

(33:18) So, so let’s, let’s switch over to the topic of life. I mean, you’ve, you’ve had a really interesting life. You know, not only did you, you know, grow up in Argentina and now here you are living in the United States, but with 13 different moves in between. Yes. 

(33:35) You know, you’re married, you have kids, you went blind, you got sick. Can you, can you talk, you know, maybe breeze through that a little bit? I mean, it’s, it’s not your, none of this is your identity to me, but I mean, I, I love when people get to know you, how I know you. Right. And there’s things that I know about you that, that a lot of that comes from, you know, how did you become this chick magnet that you’ve taught that you, I’m sorry. 

(34:02) But my dog is the chick magnet. Your dog’s the chick magnet, but I think, I don’t know. I think I, I’ve had a lot of calls already of people looking to, you know, to get your number.  So great. So, talk about that on the personal life. Yeah, my personal life. (34:15) So, you know, I married my wife in DC, we met there, and we moved from DC to Burlington, Vermont was my first child manager’s job, which was awesome. And people talk about how cold the Yankees are and how welcoming the Southerners are, that I was blown away by the hospitality and the welcoming of the community in Burlington, Vermont. 

(34:39) If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and work, they accept you, right?  I was in two and a half years, and I got to co-chair the Rotary Club and I was on the board of United Way. I was on the board of the Chamber of Commerce. I was on the board of Vermont Symphony Orchestra. 

(34:52) And this is my first position where I was able to do these things. So, it was a learning experience for me on learning to get engaged. And the reason it was the job manager before me at the hotel was at a bar with the director of sales and was badmouthing Vermont and Burlington on how there are more cows in Vermont than there are people and what a cow town it is. 

(35:16) And the business writer of the Burlington paper heard it. And he, the next day, berated the job manager on how he was putting down Burlington, the city that was allowing him to make a living. So, he didn’t last very long after that. So I was sent out to turn the picture around.  

(35:39) And so, I, the paper came to interview me as the new job manager of the biggest hotel in Vermont. And I had them take a picture of me with my windsurfer in one hand, my skis up in the air in the other hand, and with the sign of the hotel behind me, Lake Champlain in the background and the Adirondacks in New York on the other side of the lake. 

(36:05) And the caption was new job manager loves everything Vermont has to offer. So that was a learning experience for me is how do, and it’s manipulated sounds so negative, but how to find the weaknesses and to use them to turn a situation around, right? So, the weakness was that our hotel had been perceived as a job manager that hated everything about Vermont. So I can, so anyway, so, and then my wife and I, we moved to Atlanta where I ran the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. 

(36:37) And then we moved to Louisville, Kentucky where I ran the Hyatt, and it was a turnaround situation. And then I came here to Denver to run the Adams Mark Hotel, a big 1200 room hotel. 

(36:48) And then five years later, they put it up for sale. 

And my college roommate was the job manager of the Denver Athletic Club. And he was moving to run the New York Yacht Club. So, I applied for his job and I got it. 

(37:08) So, I was running the DAC and I did it for 10 years. And then I went suddenly blind, as I said, in two weeks. And, and the club was highly supportive in my transition. 

(37:14) They are the ones that helped me realize, because I was sitting there waiting for blindness to come at me. And they are the ones that say, Hey, we’ve got to purchase you the equipment to help you transition into blindness, the technology and so forth. And I wasn’t thinking about that. 

(37:28) So they’re the ones that open up my eyes to the reality that I can’t sit here and wait. But then shortly after that, I got fired from that job. And then I got diagnosed with a nasty cancer. 

(37:39) They did the surgery. They thought they got it all metastasized to my lymphatic system. And I found out it was the same cancer that killed my dad at age 60. 

And I was 62. And then my oncologist said, Hey, there’s a brand new treatment. It’s called immunotherapy. And there’s a trial going on. And we’re going to try to put you on this drug. And if it,  if it works for you, we can save your life. 

If not, you need to set your affairs in order.  

(38:07) I’m sorry, my granddaughters are having a great time upstairs.  

(38:11) It’s a perfect time when we’re in the topic of life. 

You’ve got your granddaughter there. So I had to have surgeries to remove all the lymph nodes that had been. And then I had to have 18 infusions of immunotherapy, one every three weeks for a year. 

(38:25) It was four miserable years, right? Going blind, losing my job, cancer, metastasis. So it, I had so much support from my (38:34) wife, my family, my friends. And you know, one of the so difficult things for me to realize was that I was looking at the change and how it affected me. 

(38:51) And I did not understand that my wife, my children, my executive team, they’re all were being affected. So my challenge to the listeners is also so many times when change comes into your life, it’s about you.  And I’m challenging you that it’s not about you. 

(39:09) You need to realize that as much as you being affected, the people around you are being affected too. And so if you had a similar situation where you went through difficult change and you were unable to see how it was affecting people around you. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had a few different, I mean, in starting this business, you know what I mean? 

(39:28) I think there were some stressors there that I was, well, let me make sure I get this out.  

(39:34) You had said something to me about that your self-centeredness was what wouldn’t let you see how your blindness was affecting your family. 

And it’s so funny because you talk about that.  

(39:45) And I think, you know, the Andre that I know, right. I got to meet you in this chapter of your life where you’re this, where you’re this humble guy, you know, you’re, you’re the, I mean, aside from well, I, I, I thought there was always that you were the chick magnet, not that the dog was,  but so I guess I got to figure that out. 

(40:00) But you know, I, I find you as this very, this very humble person is very gracious person. And so to hear you even explain yourself as self-centered is, is, is kind of ironic, but you know, I’ve had, I’ve had lots of different pivot points in my life, you know, from, from how I’ve adopted my kids to, you know, to starting this business. And so, you know, and, and I think I’m, I think I’m very self-centered, even though I try, I think I try but, but when I see how I’ve behaved in certain situations and I look at the effect of things on my kids, you know, or on my employees, I go,  oh, okay, now that was more about me. 

(40:43) I got to adjust that. So I don’t have any perfect specific examples. Sorry, but isn’t that what it’s all about? It’s, it’s, it’s having the humility to realize we’re going to make the mistakes and, and, and, and it’s going to be about me, (40:58) but having the humility to be able to say, oh, or surrounding yourself with people that are willing to, to tell you, hey, your, your breath is foul today, right? Yes. 

Yes. Instead of people that just tell you what you want to hear. And, and, and that is what I think is so dangerous in personal life and in business life is when, if you, you know, I love to tell the story, right?  

(41:25) In Colorado, water is precious. And so our kids in fifth grade in Colorado taught about water conservation. And my kids were a year apart. So, so they were, you know, for two years of being lectured by my fifth graders on water conservation. 

And one night I’m brushing my teeth and my daughter says, dad, you can’t run water when you brush your teeth, shut the water off. Right. And I was like,  wow, what would a 1950s dad have said? Right. And shut your mouth, get out of my bathroom. And so forth. Yeah. 

(42:00) He also kind of said that children are meant to be seen,  not heard, or all those different little quips that we hear, you know, that luckily have luckily have changed. Right. But they have changed, but we had to change with them. 

(42:09) Right. Because I still know people that, you know, and, and that all around us, I, I think that the shame is, you know, as we look at the political divide that exists in our country today, is a lot of it is because we believe that our side is the right side and the other side is so wrong that we can’t begin to compromise.  

(42:32) But everything my talk is about be curious about what the other and have the humility to understand that your side is not always the one that is right. 

(42:44) And if there’s one thing that I want to leave with my audiences is this thing about understand that that humility is the one that’s going to allow you to understand that there’s other kinds of thinking and why you may abhor what the other side is doing.  

(43:00) There is some purpose and that our job is to find that point of compromise where I’m not happy,  you’re not happy, but we moving forward. And I think that we’re stagnating because we are refusing to see the other side. 

And, and we’re judging, right? One of my big talk thing, my talk is about how we judge instead of assess and the importance of that. And you find yourself being judgmental at times?  

(43:29) Well, yeah, I mean, I actually was listening to one of your other talks last night while I was, while I was at soccer practice with my son. He must have been really is the, is the, what a, what a great reminder, right? I mean, I, I think about how, think about any practitioner right now, I’m in the middle of we’re doing, we’re renovating a house and, and that’s one example where, you know, you bring in, you bring in a contractor and as soon as the contractor sees what someone else did, the person before you, right, which was probably in 1970, right, is this is garbage. 

(44:05) Like, why would anybody do this like this? You know, why does the judgment even need to exist? Let’s just assess and say, oh, this electrical is done. It’s to an old code.  

(44:16) We’re going to bring it up to the new code. We don’t need to slam it. There’s no, there’s no value in it. And we, we do it in the it world. 

(44:25) I mean, the it world, we’re, we’re guilty of it all the time, right? We walk into a place and we say, how on earth could you not have this level of cybersecurity or whatever? And it’s like, we, we have to, that’s, that’s the piece that, that, that we can be better at every day, right? Which is walking into a situation saying, look, what does it matter where they’re, you know, why somebody did something the way they did before.  

(44:45) They’re ready to get it right now. Right? So let’s assess where we’re at. 

What’s the gap between where we’re at and where we need to be. And let’s just move. Let’s just make it happen. And so I think that the, you know, that judging versus assessing, you know, assessing takes all of the emotion out of it, where judging is, is all emotion. And the other thing is also, I think that it’s our jobs to give feedback to our teams, right? And to, when they do something, we are so great at critiquing and you did something wrong, we’re going to write you up. And our HR departments are all about finding fault. 

(45:20) Look at your employee handbook, right? If you’re in a big corporation, one of your listeners and, and read the handbook, the handbook is all about the handcuffs that you put on your employee. You shall not do this. You shall do it only that way and so forth. 

(45:35) And where is the motivation is if you want to be a successful employee with us, okay, do this, and we’ll reward you that way. And I can never forget the story. So I’m, I, I was at the) top one, top 10 hotels in the world, right? I get into the kitchen, I’m an immigrant from Latin America, don’t speak German. 

(45:59) And it was very, very hard for me to get to understand the German culture. And so after I apprenticed as an associate, all the positions in the kitchen,  the chef gave me the honor of making the lobster bisque. And it was a whole big process of braising the lobsters and taking out the lobster meat and then taking the shells and braising them with tomato paste and then mirepoix and so forth and then putting the cream in and, and, and, and stirring that in a huge, huge pot and then sift it and so forth. So I’m done. Okay. 

(46:32) I worked all day on this enormous pile of lobster bisque that we were serving at a banquet. And I’m so proud. And I go to chef, and I go, chef, it’s ready. 

And chef says, all right, let’s go and see this. And he’s grandstanding, right? So the entire, so, so we have sous chefs for every position,  all the sous chefs are all coming here to look at how chef is going to react to my soup.  

(46:55) So he takes a saucer, he dips it into the soup, it’s, swirls a little bit to cool it down and takes a sip and he throws this, the thing against the wall. You call this a bisque? This is a disgrace. All day of work, wasted. Okay. He’s berating me. He says, bring me the salt. 

(47:15) So I brought him the, the big salt container. He took a little bit of salt, throws it in there, stirs it, takes another saucer. Okay, perfect. Now you can put it away.  But, and, and everybody applauded, right? Okay. It was his underhanded way of truly giving me a compliment. 

(47:38) Okay. But he had to do it with some theatrics or that. I felt destroyed when he threw that saucer, but everybody else knew what was coming. 

Right. And, but you’ve got to compliment your staff. You’ve got to let them know when they shine. 

(47:51) And that is what I think we do so poorly in business. And it’s all about finding their, what they, you’re late.  

(47:56) You didn’t do this to specifications. It’s always about finding fault. And we do that with our children. We do it with our spouses. And when was the last time you, listener, went to your significant other, your spouse, you give him a hug and a thank you and say, thank you for this awesome meal. Or, or, or thank you for the paycheck you brought home or whatever.  

(48:16) And we start to take each other for granted. And all of those things that when we are dating, that we celebrated and, and we are so, as we discovered things in our partners. And, and, and, and we, we tend to forget to do that. Yeah. 

(48:36) I just, I just read something about, about lifespan and it was about the,  the six-second kiss. If you, if you get a six-second kiss on your way out the door,  that your, your lifespan, I think is 10 years longer than the average person.  Oh my goodness. 

I’m going to have to change that. Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. 

(48:50) So, but you know, it’s funny because my, we met with our financial advisor when we’re, I was 55, my wife was 53. And the financial advisor said, I got great news and bad news. 

(49:01) I’m going to say, what is the great news? It’s going to, you’re going to retire in great shape. 

(49:06) So great. So then what is the bad news? You’re going to have to die at 72.  So you have to talk about living longer. Well, I don’t know anymore. (49:16) Oh, that’s great. That’s great. So, so let’s talk a little bit now.  

(49:23) Let’s, let’s go over to the technology discussion here. We’ve got we’ve got about about 15 minutes left here. 

(49:30) The technology that you’ve been leveraging. So you know, I’ve heard some of it, you and I have (49:36) talked a lot about it. I mean, obviously this is a passion of a shared passion for both of us. 

(49:41) You had some experiences in your life where you’ve seen other people not embrace change, not embrace technological change. Yes. You’ve had technological change thrust upon you. 

(49:53) I mean, actually, I mean, you could have easily chosen not to leverage technology, but you have and so much so that even on one of our last calls, I’m showing you, I’m showing you my screen and saying, Andre, what do you think this, how do you think this looks?(50:06) Because I forget that you’re blind every time we talk, because we taught one, we talk on video every time we talk. Yes. You know, you’re doing something on your computer. 

(50:15) So I don’t even remember that you’re my blind friend. Yeah. You know, you know why the blind man fell into the well? Why is that? He couldn’t see that well. 

But that’s what I talk about, too, right, is to have fun. And for me, technology is fun. And I used to build my own computers when computers started, and I would buy the case and the motherboard and the soundboard and the video card and the power supply and have to connect it all and then load disk after disk of disk, OK, whatever, of the operating system. 

(50:57) And then I sign resources through the autoexec back, back to the config sys or the subroutines that upload it to tell your computer I’m a computer and this is where my video card is or whatever. So, I loved technology my whole life. I used to build stereos when I was in Argentina, when when the transistors came out, because my father built his first stereo,  but with tubes. 

(51:17) Right. And I built mine with transistors and and I would sell them to my friends. (51:24) So, technology is something that I always embraced. 

And thank goodness, you know, I was in Phoenix two weeks ago and speaking there and I called for an Uber and the app told me, um, we’re sending you a driverless car. And if you don’t want it, push here, we’ll send you a (51:42) regular car. And I’m like, hell no, send me the driverless car. 

Right. And it was so cool. Right. 

(51:47) So the car arrives and my phone is talking to me. Right. Because I got set up for the blind. 

(51:53) And it tells me when the car arrives, there’s a button on your screen in the middle of your screen. Push that button. It’s going to unlock the doors. 

And so the car arrives.  

(52:03) I unlock the doors and I let my dog, my guide dog in and my bag, my luggage in. And then it says, OK, close your door. 

(52:11) And when you’re ready to when your seatbelt is on, push this button on the screen in the car and we’ll start driving. And it was I made a video of it because it was fascinating. OK, to be in a driverless Uber car. 

(52:31) And so but it’s it it’s sad to me how we tend to reject the advancement of of of everything. Right. We invented fire. 

We were afraid of how fire was going to burn people and hurt people or whatever. And then we steam and we’re always opposing progress. And but to me, something like the autonomous car is is going to be so much safer. 

(52:52) The car is not crying. The car is not not eating, is not texting, is not drunk, is not distracted. Right. 

(53:04) So, is the autonomous car going to kill people? You bet it is. But I’m also willing to put a lot of money on saying that it’s going to kill a hell of a lot less people than people do.  Right. 

(53:17) Oh, sure. So I think embracing technology, we don’t need I’m typically on the bleeding side of technology. But I think we need to adopt it. 

And because even in you know, I love to joke that hotel industry, the hospitality is the world’s second oldest profession.  

(53:29) How’s the oldest profession? But look at the changes we’ve seen in the hospitality industry.  

(53:36) What was your experience with technology? Well, so I when I was younger working my way through through college, I owned a little business where we installed electronics on boats. 

(53:48) And so always the most fascinating thing for me was the autopilot, because the boat autopilot, you know, at the time I was working in that we were we were leveraging,  

 you know, GPS radar technology and then autopilot. So you could literally have your boat. And this was in the late 90s. 

Right.  

(54:10) You could literally have your boat if you if you plotted the course correctly on your GPS, you know, point to point to point. You could have your boat drive you anywhere and you didn’t have to be touching anything other than the throttles because the throttles are not that part of the autopilot. 

(54:26) It’s all the steering. And, you know, ever since then, I mean, I could not wait for the driverless car. I mean, or for at least for the type of technology we have today where the car will drive you, you know. 

(54:36) And so more recently, I was able to order a car that had that had the ability to drive. So, I got the GMC with the Super Cruise feature. And so, you know, every time I hear about the driverless car or anything like that, I mean, I’m just so excited by what is to come. 

(54:55) Now, I know that there’s going to be some carnage to come from, you know, if you just if you just if you just take AI plus driverless vehicles, you know, plus impending economic factors that are coming, we’re in for a shitstorm here of major proportion. Right. But but hopefully on the other side of it, I mean, we’re human. 

Well, hopefully we’ll we’ll survive through it and then we’ll and then we’ll thrive through it. But you’re right. I mean, we’re going to see less people dying because of this or needlessly dying. 

(55:29) And everybody’s going to die eventually, but needlessly dying from certain types of accidents and things like that. Our productivity can go up or at least our life enjoyment can go up. You know, my brother and I always talk about, you know, the the driverless car is perfected when all the seats are facing each other, like in like in an airplane, like in a smaller airplane where you’ve got, you know, you and your wife facing me and my wife. 

(55:49) And we’re talking the whole way. We’re on a three-hour drive. Right. 

That’s when we know we’ve got to be in a drive. To me, it is like I have to speak in St. Louis and I order driverless car that text me. I arrived. 

And then when I go outside, it knows that I’m blind.  

(56:06) So beeps to let me know where the car is. That’s great. 

And I walk to the car and then my Bluetooth is connected to the car. So, my music is playing through it. It has, you know, Wi-Fi and I’m working in the car as we drive to St. Louis. 

(56:17) And then I say, OK, it’s time to go to sleep.  I push a button that darkens the windows, and the seat goes flat and I go to sleep.  And then the car turns on the lights and play some nice soft music and says we’re 15 away, 15 minutes from your destination, you know, and it drops me off at the door of where I’m speaking and ready to go. I have to brush my teeth, but you know, do some things yourself still.  

(56:46) But you had told me, I mean, that the technology one almost going blind was because it forced you into the technology so much. You were right at the forefront of leveraging the virtual meeting protocols. 

(57:05) And so when you were really coming on stage, if you will, with in the Vistage speaking world or the expert speaking world in general, you didn’t have to switch anything.  

(57:18) You had it all. You had it all set up and ready to go. 

And I mean, right there. I mean, that was something that really launched you and had you ready. And, you know, is that advantage still there? I mean, maybe a little bit because you were a first entrant to the to the to the stage. 

(57:33) It is because it allowed me, like, you know, I can do stuff like, you know, making myself transparent, OK, or move myself around the screen. OK, so so forth. And I can put my slides behind me like they do in the news, et cetera, et cetera. 

So that allowed me as a presenter in during Covid, when I was really beginning to emerge as a speaker. 

(57:57) To be named top new speaker for Vistage. And that’s amazing. 

And that is what propelled me. But it I had to literally push myself. And when I went to the Apple store and I told them I’m going to go blind, I need to learn voiceover, which is the Apple ability to speak the screen to me. OK. 

(58:18) In this blind world is called screen readers. Right. 

(58:23) So, something that’s interpreting what’s in the screen and reading it to you. And it’s complex. And in the lady that was teaching me is going like, you know, I can’t believe it, you know, that that here you are still being able to see it and you’re coming in to ask me to teach you when I’ve got clients that have been blind for five years and they’re still pushing back, and they don’t want to learn. 

(58:46) And so but again, it was that imperative of knowing that it is my responsibility to adapt to change. And if I want to stay in the forefront of change, I can’t sit back and wait for somebody else to do it.  

(59:02) How many people do you know that have had a pivot point in their lives and have gone down and down and stayed in the darkness of the pivot? Right. 

And as I like to say, is that change is inevitable, but personal growth is optional.  

(59:19) So what is an example in your life where you pivoted and you had difficult change, but you had to find the hotspot right to pull yourself out of the darkness? You have an example. I mean, I have an example that that kind of hits me often. 

I have a I have a heart rhythm issue that I had.  

(59:39) I had some work done on last year and then it was gone and then it kind of came back. And so, you know, kind of on a daily basis, I have to I have to, you know, trust the doctors. 

Right.  

(59:51) They say, hey, this is this is not dangerous. It’s very uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous. And you know, but I what I always say is that I take teaspoons of people of everybody that I meet. And so for you, you know, what you don’t realize that you do for me is that I’m every time I feel one of these the sensation, I think about, you know, because I think, you know, Andre said it’s you know, I could do nothing about my eyesight, but I could do everything about my attitude. And so it’s kind of like the same thing for me. 

(1:00:23) Like, I have to just. You know, push through it. I have a friend who she’s also a therapist, and she says she follows the I am model that she identify, acknowledge and then move through move forward. 

Right.  

(1:00:35) You don’t you don’t have a there’s no W in there for wallow.  There’s no S in there for stop. Why me? Right. Right. And I mean, and but I think human nature in general, I mean, and I’ve seen so many people do it. And I and I know my natural human predisposition is to is to go back in that dark room, just like you said, you know, go in that dark room and not do right. And so I think that would be my biggest example to you would be would be that. But I mean, I’m sure there’s a hundred others that I could think of if I wasn’t on the wasn’t on the spot. 

Yeah.  

(1:01:12) But, you know, the technology talk about judging and assess, because I think we tend to judge technology and we always want to see the dark side of technology.  

(1:01:19) And is there dark side? Of course there is. OK. Yeah. And I mean, we invented the nuclear bomb with a destructive goal, but it then became something that I believe that that nuclear energy is going to be eventually our savior. We cannot. I don’t think we can. You know, sun doesn’t shine 24 seven. 

(1:01:39) So solar panels only work half of the time or when it’s not cloudy or in summer and when the same thing and so forth.  

(1:01:46) But nuclear is I think it’s a clean technology, but we’re afraid of it. And but we need to learn how many of us have died from inhaling the noxious fumes from carbon emissions that have shortened our lives. 

And we’re not measuring that versus the few disasters like, you know, Hiroshima and then Three Mile Island. And what is it, the one in Russia? But Chernobyl. Yeah,  

(1:02:17) I truly think that if we’re willing to assess the potential of nuclear, we can really clean up our environment a hell of a lot faster. 

And the weather. And I don’t care whether you say it’s climate change or it’s global warming. Right. 

(1:02:37) I mean, it’s two different approaches. But either way, I believe we have to change our behaviors. And it’s no different whether it is towards climate change or whether it is on how we live our lives. 

(1:02:50) This is, you know, I was just listening to YouTube about a new wheelchair that is coming out. And so the person is sitting in the wheelchair, they push a button and the wheelchair rises them so that they’re sitting eye to eye with you in a conversation in the cocktail. 

(1:03:07) Why? Or if they are going through the supermarket and they need to reach the can on the top shelf, boom, it takes them up. But astoundingly, they turn the chair around and they back up to stairs and then these tracks come out and the chair rolls you upstairs. Wow. OK. 

And so, wow. Right.  

(1:03:31) I mean, where is all this? So, well, you can imagine, I’m passionate about technology and the potential that it holds for us. 

(1:03:45) And I believe that particularly in America and Americas, we are great at inventing the parachute as we go down the cliff face.  

(1:03:53) Right. You know, I think if we can bring, I mean, it’s almost, you know, you think about that conversation about the about nuclear energy, right? 

We could have gotten into a conversation here where we have a battle of wits on what I think or you think or whatever. 

(1:04:09) But at the end of the day, if the humility can remain in place during that conversation, that could say, hey, one of us could be, both of us can have some wrong in what we’re saying.  

(1:04:19) But nine out of 10 times, nine out of 10 conversations, the outcome that we’re looking for is exactly the same. We’re both looking for, if I was taking a different positionon it, right, if I took a different position on it than you, is that we want sustainability. 

(1:04:35) We want something that’s good for all of us, whatever good might mean. And we also both know that human beings will pervert the whole thing along the way. Right. And so somehow, we have to figure out how the humility piece drives more of us and that we train that into our kids or, you know, example it into our kids. We’re not going to be able to force it into them. But, you know, and that’s why when I kind of wrap up here and I think of, so there’s a Jimmy Buffett song that says, we learn to be cool from you. 

(1:05:08) So I’m always looking for what’s the thing that makes Andre so cool. And so, you know, I think you’re a humble badass, right? That’s what I would wrap you up in a nutshell with. Well, but it’s mutual because I’ve got the same kind of respect for you and what you’re doing and you’re being adventurous to try this new business and go down this line. 

(1:05:27) So thank you. I admire your chutzpah for that. Thank you. 

Thank you.  

(1:05:34) So we do want to wrap up with kind of what I would call tomorrow’s transformation. So, we’ve heard all of these different transformations that you’ve made, which is, you know, your life has been nothing but changed. 

(1:05:49) So, you’re the master of it, whether, you know, forced upon you or decided upon you throughout your time. I mean, all these career shifts, all these moves, the DAC, losing your job, becoming blind, having cancer, surviving, teaching yourself to be a speaker.  

(1:06:02) All of that. Yeah. I mean, it’s just like you’ve embraced it, right? So, you know, let’s talk about tomorrow’s transformation.  

(1:06:14) So, God willing, you’re here with us over the next 10 years. 

Yes. I’m going to ask you two questions. So, God willing, you’re here with us for over the next 10 years. What’s it going to look like for you? And then the second question will be, and what are your predictions for your business and for mine over the next 10 years?  

(1:06:30) Wow. Great questions. You know, in 10 years, it’s interesting because when the radio was invented and we said, wow, this is the end of people needing to travel and so forth, then the TV, we said, oh, well, this is going to destroy it. 

OK, whatever. And then the Internet came out and in the hospitality industry, we were terrified. OK, right now there is a trial, and they have to take the position. 

They fly the person in.  

(1:07:02) So that’s an airline ticket and that’s a taxi and there’s a hotel night, et cetera, et cetera. But now we do the depositions online, et cetera, et cetera. 

(1:07:13) So how is that going to affect our industry? We’re always terrified about how they say, but I believe that our job is OK. So, if that is the direction it’s going to go, what is our step to go in the direction of facilitating the meetings? And, you know, there’s an unbelievable technology now where you set up a boardroom and it’s a half of a table and you sit at this half of the table.  

(1:07:42)The other half of the table has an opaque glass screen that is reassuring. 

OK, whatever. And then another hotel has the exact same setup.  

(1:07:49) And we meet online, but we’re at the same table eating the same meal at the same time. And half of you are on the glass and half of us are in the room. But it starts to become more transparent and you can have this. You told me, Andre, a thing is going to be a discussion. 

(1:08:11) It’s a two-way thing. But that is what you want to do. So you can now have Thanksgiving dinner with your remote family that can’t travel, but both be, you know, and this might be time differences. So you might have to compromise.  

(1:08:30) OK, so. Sure. But the thing is embracing the changes coming and being willing to say, my job is to see what is the potential of this. 

(1:08:36) And even if the potential is to destroy the model that you live under today is to visualize and say.  

(1:08:45) So where am I going to go with this? OK, so if I was an Uber driver today, I’d be thinking, OK, what is going to happen to my business model once the car is driverless? 

(1:08:58) And sometimes you go from hotel executive to speaker, right? So the change is radical and you’re doing a radical change, too. 

(1:09:12) So, I think it’s having the curiosity and the wherewithal to understand you’ve got to make change happen when I have the resources and not to wait until I’ve been so affected by the change that I no longer have the resource to go in a different direction. (1:09:33) Resource and also relevancy, right? I mean, if you let the transformation that’s occurring go beyond you, you become irrelevant and you don’t have a chance to catch up. And so then that goes into that. Then you’re into the victim world. But. So I have done that. 

(1:09:50) I’ve done the online thing right during COVID. And it was great. I adapted to that. OK, whatever. But I still believe that the in-person, that having the speaker in front of you as a real person and seeing the, you know, as a whole person, that I don’t believe that is going to change.  

(1:10:11) We change how we read books, right? And we now have so different models. 

We can listen to them. We can kindle them. We can have them on paper, et cetera, et cetera. 

(1:10:16) But there’s the model that of consuming books still exists. Now, what is the format is a different story. And that is how we need to adapt and say, OK, so the model is changing. 

(1:10:28) But I think we still will go out to restaurants. Are there now organizations? My sister lives in Germany. And she she has the problem, she lives on the third floor and she has a hard time moving around. 

(1:10:42) So, there’s this company that delivers her an uncooked meal to her door and then she has to prep it. And so it’s it’s how how is that industry adapting to facilitate us, OK,  to continue to be able to consume a good meal when we are not as mobile, et cetera, et cetera. 

(1:11:04) So I don’t know if I answered your question. 

Did I? Let me let me try it.  

(1:11:09) Let me let me ask a direct question about the technology and cybersecurity business.  

(1:11:16) So what are your predictions for my for my business in particular, you know, as a guy who you because you think you really do think down the road. 

And so and you embrace technology on so many different levels and you embrace technology, not just from the bits and bytes technology. I mean,  we didn’t get into this and we don’t have to necessarily.  

(1:11:42) But your dog, I mean, you actually were apprehensive initially about getting a dog because you said, I’m going to learn to use the cane and the cane doesn’t the cane doesn’t poop and the cane doesn’t have to be fed and all these things. 

(1:11:53) You know, you’ve said that in some other places that we’ve that we’ve discussed. But but so so you’ve embraced technology. Even the dog is a technology to you. Right.  

(1:11:59) The training of that dog is a technology and the use of that dog. So just put yourself in the position of me, a CEO of a of an of an IT company and say, what are you predicting? What do you predict in the next 10 years, the future of IT and cybersecurity? Yeah, it the way that I look at it is we’ve always had the black hat guy. 

Right. And the one who is trying to defeat your systems.  

(1:12:25) But I think we’ve weaponized the technology and that there’s there is countries whose they they hate us so much that they truly are trying to destroy us through attacking our technology. 

(1:12:42) So I think that more and more and more, we have to adapt a defensive way of protecting our borders,  if you want, in technology. And but we also have to make it you know, I think that AI (1:13:00) is going to help us get there. But we have to simplify technology. It’s very simple today.  

(1:13:06) Right. But we have to take it to a whole new level. 

And people our generation struggle. And my three year old granddaughter upstairs runs circles around my wife and turning on the TV and finding the program she wants to see. And my wife is going like, Andre, I’m lost. OK,  the granddaughter goes in, boom, boom, boom, she does it. But how do we take that to a whole new level? So from your perspective, I see you going to have to set up barriers to protect us. 

(1:13:37) Without making it harder to use, you know, and it’s I everything that I has ever as what is it called the double verification system, right, where they send me a multi multi factor. 

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s a pain. 

Right. It’s it’s a pain.  

(1:13:56) We so so I it’s the same thing in airports. 

Right. I going every time I go through TSA, I’m going like the terrorist one, because think about the cost, the cost. I remember when we were able to to escort our friends to the gate and walk out to the tarmac and watch him get onto the plane. 

Right.  

(1:14:16) Yeah. And in all the levels of security that we had to implement. 

And so every time that I see that cost, I’m going to let the terrorists have one. And but how do we simplify that process? How do we simplify what you do and still keep us super safe?  

(1:14:36) And I think that that is where you guys need to be going is is making us super safe without adding complexity to the process.  Thank you. 

Thank you for that. Well, this has been my pleasure to have you part of this.  

(1:14:51) It’s my pleasure to share you and your story with anyone who watches or listens to this to this podcast. 

So thank you for being here, Andre. And be well, (1:15:02) it’s my honor and privilege. So thanks so much for including me. 

And you’ve got a great format and I love it. So, thank you. All right. 

(1:15:06) Thank you. All right. Take care.