okay welcome well Gio and David are snuggling close together in a meeting room somewhere sharing a camera if you're watching us online welcome it's so good to see you so David arah is the managing director at the delure group and we'll let him tell us about his background and what that means if you were at the gwa flex forward conference in September he was one of our keynote speakers so got to hear him speak so I'm excited to have you on okay where are you guys today are you in a co-working spa
ce what's going on we're in cat reimagined in very nice okay they were they were kind enough to host us we were across the street having having lunch so you ran in and said wait do they they don't usually allow external meeting bookings is that right we're kind of a big deal knows totally a big deal totally but I'm super excited to yeah I'm super excited to have David on so he was obviously a speaker at gwa like you like you said but uh he and I have really connected on just our passion for peop
le and driving change and impact and all kinds of fun stuff so it's exciting to have him on and kind of continue to follow up on the hospitality side and how important it is to build community and make it an impact and change in the world and he's got some really really cool stuff going on in which he's taken his Hospitality background but for those of us that didn't join us for the talk Dave why don't you talk a little bit about your background how you got in the hospitality business and kind o
f just go from there certainly um it's great to be here with both of you and Gio thanks for for the friendship you know that's the beauty of life as you get connected through one event or another and then that leads to a beautiful friendship I know will be lifelong and and like like you mentioned with we got so many friends already yeah it's amazing you know and it's yeah it's it's been great it's been great to continue connected after the conference and to get some advice on on some of the the
moves that I was making and and he's been really really amazing at at giving me the right advice so I'm grateful for that so I started my career in Hospitality right after I left Bolivia so I'm from Bolivia originally born and raised and then I left and and to went and did a cultural Exchange program in the south of France where I land in a resort and um I immediately was hooked on both service but also on just taking care of people I learned the language fairly quickly and that helped me progre
ss from being a bartender to then moving into all sorts of different roles within the resort environment I did a little bit of wait wait hold on you did a cultural exchange to the south of France where you were a bartender yeah well so let me there yeah it's a good good storytelling right as you can see no so B Exchange program essentially somebody came and lived in my home for a year and then in exchange I went and and and lived in France so my parents wow sacrificed I guess the time and energy
for so that I can go and experience something different and I had to when I was filling out the application form I needed to fill out kind of what my criteria or priorities were what I wanted to accomplish and for me it was very simple it was I wanted to be by the ocean cuz I'm from a landlocked country I wanted to speak a new language and and I wanted to be around people I just wanted to be that those were the three things that that I wanted and I ended up in a resort and so yeah first role wa
s a bartender because again I needed to pick up the language it was quite simple I would say from a role perspective and then after three months I was you know in the in housekeeping and then doing the restaurants and then I started doing more leadership type roles and and I started really falling in love with with the team aspect and how you know you take care of people then they're you know they they feel great and then they come back to see you again you know and that was kind of The Addictiv
e piece of hospitality that that hooked me uh and so I knew I wanted to study hospitality and so when I returned to Bolivia and then went to college in in South Carolina I uh I knew that that's what I wanted to do and so how I landed in South Carolina I I I had a a soccer opportunity to to get a soccer scholarship so that's that's how a Bolivian ends up in South Carolina um so yeah so I went to school at winthrip University I studied hospitality and international business I worked every every su
mmer and throughout all all the semesters I was you know doing jobs in Hospitality restaurants bars country clubs and then I finally became the the hotel manager of the of the University hotel which allowed me then when I when I left College to actually take my first role out of college as a as a leadership position and that was in New York City at the Pierre and I'm going to go quite quickly because it's a long story but from the in New York City I then moved to Miami uh and worked at Fountain
Blue Miami Beach so very different to to the to the style of of New York from Miami Beach I moved to Hong Kong so I worked for a company called s that is a big real estate company based out of Hong Kong but has mixed use developments all over the world and I was sent there to be basically the brand ambassador for their first project in the US but to go and learn about the the company and the brand they call it a brand dunk so I did that for for two years then came back to to Miami and opened the
ir first hotel there then I joined Four Seasons in Hawaii so I went to the other side of the world and I spent years it was amazing I lived on I lived on an island with 3,000 people on it and you know we employed 800 of them and you know the other third were too old and the other third were too young so we basically employed everybody that could be employed on the island amazing experience super mindful that was the beginning of kind of my mindfulness and and spiritual journey and we'll talk abo
ut that a little bit later because it had a big impact but then I went from there to Austin Texas so very different also with four seasons and then from Austin I moved to Aspen Colorado where I spent a season and a half with a company called oer they have some beautiful properties and then from there I went to Mexico to the Rivera Maya I opened a resort in the Rivera Maya and then I moved to uh iiza so where I am now so yeah so I've been all over the world and not only me but my family so I have
family I was gonna say this is sounds like the challenge of this life style is that you move all the time yeah he found himself a Southern bell I did find myself a Southern bell that was as crazy as I was and and around you okay yeah good for you yeah so yeah and so we both caught the the travel bug in the Wonder lless the very very early on and and our kids are just like that as well so my son Andreas is 12 he's been he's lived in four different countries and and in eight different locations h
e's been to five different schools and so he's he's very much in that in that lifestyle now so but it we've called a Visa home for the last two years now and um most recently I joined um my my great friend Patrick deler at the deler group as the managing director for their Hospitality Division I I left um a role as coo for a Mexican company called Nomad people in December and after almost 20 years of working working for different companies I I finally decided to go out on my own and and go the e
ntrepreneurial route and and with both executive Search and Consulting in Hospitality but now also I'm very excited about venturing into impact investing and using Hospitality as a as a Communication channel to really bring a bigger amount of impact in into the world so really excited about what the future brings where all excited she's like I don't even know so many questions okay I do have to say the first thing that distracted me is when you were talking about your your host exchange and socc
er so I run our local youth soccer program and we have two coaches from the UK here and those poor guys are in hotels and I am like I have too much on my to-do list I need to find them host families so that they can get out of the hotels and into their cultural exchange so yes absolutely I think it would be it makes a great difference because you know you really do become much more assimilated into the local culture you know and so from a language perspective but also just from the the the inter
actions that they'll they'll have with the community I think they'll be so much more integrated yeah exactly anyway okay wait how did you and Gio connect how did you come to speak at the G through the conference yeah through so who knew you to have you speak Sid Sid yeah through Sid oh how do you Sid had heard of him somewhere else and brought him up and then okay first time we met was the day before the conference we went to dinner yeah okay yeah okay so well tell me I'm Cur yeah I do have so m
any questions but I'm curious about your lens of like hospitality and work spaces yeah so for me what I realized over all these experiences that I've had because every single one of these experiences was completely different right so managing a five-star hotel in Hong Kong is very different to managing a five-star hotel or a lify hotel in Miami which is very different to running a a beautiful Resort in Hawaii right very different types of hospitality but what I realized was that hospitality is a
universal language I I see it as a love language right so just like people love words of affirmation definitely one of my love languages many you know many people love receiving hospitality and many people are just Inc incredibly passionate about offering Hospitality too right and it's as simple as you you know you walk into a building and you run into someone you open the door for them because it's natural you know it's it's in you and it's it's yes somebody has taught you that perhaps when yo
u were young but that's because you know Hospitality can be taught but then there's just people that just naturally have that right or somebody looks at you and they're like wow you have such a beautiful smile nobody's paying you to do that right it's something that's ingrained in you and you just it just comes out and so hospitality is really that right is being able to be present is being able to see the people that are in front of you is being able to um really acknowledge the things that you
appreciate about people um acts of service right which is a big part of hospitality because it's tied to service um so if you tell me what what Hospitality has to do with with any industry but perhap specifically industri where you're talking about human connection and service to me it's it's really the communication channel it's a communication vehicle that allows you to be able to provide what you're what what these people are looking for right which is you you want to go somewhere where you'
re where you feel seen where you feel heard where you know the things that are important to you are actually considered and that's what hospitality is and so I'm I'm actually really happy that now company are using this term Hospitality to integrate an additional level of experience for for their clients you know and so you see head of hospitality is like the new is like the new cool job to have and you see it across so many different Industries and for me it's it's because yeah we're recognizin
g that today's day and age is is causing human connection to break and to separate and to distance rather than to come together which is what we need to be doing and and that's why I love love that Hospitality can be that glue yeah and I mean the great example for it is like I've talked about I can tell you within the first 30 seconds of walking into space whether I think it's successful or not and nine out of 10 times I'm accurate right what's the space look like how am I welcomed am I welcomed
right so I'll give you a great example I was in Detroit yesterday for the day so literally I was on the ground for eight hours to look at space some expansion space for therapy space which Marcus was a former host or guest sorry on here but I walked into two office evolutions and the first one I walked into I was greeted by the owner of the space right so she was working up front her husband came around and you know introduced myself and 30 seconds later her husband came around the corner with
he was doing a tour with a potential client and so very quickly obviously they're owner operator so you get that feel you know he knew who I was he he watched the podcast before and had heard me speak on other engagement so very engaging very interactive but they work the business every day the second space I walked into in an arbor so suburb of Detroit the young lady behind the desk was super uh super hospitable friendly didn't know who I was but I I basically introduced myself and she spent th
e next 45 minutes with me touring me around and talking me about the space and the history and everything else and so in those moments you go this is what it's about right this is what people want people you know we live in a world where people choose to come back to our spaces right they choose to use us you know using Hospitality as hotels go they choose to go back to that hotel and so we we have we get an opportunity to make such an impact in people's lives that they choose to continue to eng
age and enjoy the experience right and so it becomes about more than just the value of of what price is right it's more than a monetary exchange it's an experiential experience and overall just a a life connection right and I mean we we talked about mine with David and and everything else as we kind of had those conversations and everything else we connected on a different level than a professional level as someone who paid him to come speak it was you know the pass for for people and driving ch
ange the passion for you know our our history and you know from a family standpoint and kind of howage and everything yeah and so that's the interesting part with with his background is it's it's outside of just hospitality and hotels but how does it translate into the workspace which has quickly become just like the hotel industry right there's a lot more options there's a lot more product types consumerized right it's like well now people are paying out of their own pocket which I think I don'
t think we're that close to the hotel industry but to your point from I mean that is one of my biggest questions and I'm curious what you think and you don't have to have an answer because I don't know how much time you spend thinking about this but people talk about Hospitality Gio what you experienced I sort of think of as like table Stakes like if my community manager doesn't act you know like that I gone like that should be what you experience as a baseline yeah so I just but but to get to a
higher level of hospitality might may require more humans like it's hard a community manager and she's probably the only one on staff unless she yeah so like amazing that she spent 45 minutes with you she's probably now behind on this like whole list of you know things she had to do today but I think about that a lot because I think it's so hard to get people out of their homes today yeah and so like what is that experience how and how does the business model adjust like I'm so I'm going to Sun
Valley for Mara's daughter's wedding tomorrow and I'd called the hotel for some I think to I was making sure I had a room because I hadn't gotten a lot of I but anyway just making sure I was confirmed and I said oh how do I get there from the airport and they were like oh you know give me a minute and I'll text you a bunch of options they texted me a bunch of options which is great and then yesterday I was like do I do I want to rent skis do I want to bring my own skis and I was like maybe I co
uld text that number back I wonder if they're going to respond and I just texted them back immediately they were like oh we have a ski rental place on site like super easy you're all set and I was like this is amazing because I've got way too much to do before I go take two days off and you know do this and and I was like how does that translate to the workplace you know like I I was I was so delighted that they helped me kind of solve that yeah I don't yeah I just keep thinking and like unreaso
nable Hospitality you know this all this like but how does it translate to a workplace and a business model which is like not super high margin so you can't just like throw people more you know humans I yeah what are your again without the pressure of like the perfect response no I think I think about it a lot and I think it's you know for for for the hotel business to have gotten to that level you know I mean I think it's unfortunate to say that but I think that what you experienced is is an an
omaly in in in the hospitality world I mean they're getting it right yeah and perhaps the sacrifice to getting that right is a bottom line sacrifice because they're throwing a bunch of human beings at something and now it's just unsustainable I'm I'm assuming because it's not always the case it's not an inexpensive Hotel night so there's that fa okay but it's not you know it's not than Hawaii level by well what I mean by that is that you know the margins that you would have achieved in a in an e
xpensive hotel 10 years ago versus what you would achieve today are very different right so the business model is becoming less and less profitable if you continue down the same path right that service level and that yeah not the service level but how you were going to attain that service level so the use of technology is critical in my opinion right and and there's been this push back in hospitality or in human- centered businesses to use technology because there's a fear that human connection
is going to be lost right oh no we can't rely on technology because then the human connection gets lost in my opinion that that's a a fallacy because you don't even know if you were talking to a human or not it's a great point or where they were located I mean I don't know you know but they immedately responded with an answer I wanted in a like a warm I I felt great exactly exactly right and so for me the most important piece and this gets translated into most businesses is you need to separate
the functions of administrative and experience right so you're not contacting them for an experience per se you're contacting them to get something done to to a transaction I need skis and this is what I need and what you want is efficiency right you want it that in 20 minutes you've nailed your your your skis you've got it all you don't care about the warm fuzzy those are that's the little cherry on top if if they get it but if you would have gotten your skis in 20 minutes it wouldn't have matt
ered if they made you feel great about it or not yeah right so I don't want to feel bad about it but I don't right I have very low expectation except well you won't feel bad because the expectations that you get you get the final result that's the expectation so if you separate your ministrative touch points from your experiential T touch points and you actually are very intentional about the type of humans and the type of technology that you're assigning to these touch points then you've got su
ccess because what happens a lot is you have this community manager that is super bubbly extroverted amazing with people 45 minutes but they are not naturally Adept at technology at managing pnls at the more administrative set that's not the type of brain that that that is right so us right usually you're getting one skill set yeah and if you become a community manager you come it's because you've demonstrated that you can do all of that right because the the problem that lies there is that the
jobs are their roles that you've created not around the human but you're trying to fit need to get done yes and so and so this person that was amazing at taking care of people got promoted because you didn't want to lose that person so you promote them into the next job and then you don't realize that 80% of their time they're going to continue doing the job that they were doing before because that's what they love to do they're right do forecast your right build your perform so when you send th
em when you send them the when the finance person says hey I need you to forecast they're gonna procrastinate that till the very last minute they're going to sit there and have this impostor syndrome they're going to sit there and be like man who can I ask that's not going to think I'm an absolute fool because I have no idea how to do this right and and that's or I don't want super energy work or exactly it drains me it takes away from me and so if we now get into this and I'm writing a book on
on this specific point which is the future of Teamwork because it's that's we need to start understanding the human yeah and then we need to start creating roles around what they're good at what they're naturally good at what energizes them what gives them passion and then because another person the person right next door is is exactly the opposite and so they're going to want to take on the other type of tasks right so you may have that one person that's incredible at getting the back of house
backend stuff done but they don't want to go talk to a person up front you know and so if you take them out maybe 10% of the time just to stretch them to get in out of their comfort zone to get them to learn something new amazing but if you're expecting them to do 5050 front and back that's when the inefficiency kicks in that's when that's when you don't get the results so I hope it's a long-winded answer but I hope it helps you know for me it's technology putting the right people in the right P
lace separating experience from Administration and then you you can really create that that experience that you're looking for let me give you a very relatable example you have two podcast hosts one that's good at scheduling people and talking and the other one that's good at everything else including getting a podcast on a platform and it was funny we had the conversation earlier he goes so what platform do you I said Zoom he goes well how does it work I was like you have to ask Jamie anything
get on Zoom and talking I just show up Zoom because Gio couldn't get his microphone to connect to the platform that I wanted to use got it got it got it pretty much pretty much Gio right Gio brings the great guests he ask the best questions I love it I love it you guys make a great team though EXA but that's a great examples I mean I always use you know the example of the holiday in versus The Four Seasons right the holiday in you're going to walk up there's G to be someone with a dis shoveled s
hirt texting their boyfriend and they're going to give you a key and that's that's it right and you walk up to the Four Seasons before you even get inside the the belt hop has asked your name by the time you get to the front desk they've come around they've greeted You by name they know what floor you want to be on they know the temperature of your room they know what your favorite wine is or bottle of water whatever the case is and so you're you're expecting a different level of experience at t
hose levels right as it ties into our industry right is there's there's spaces that you go to that are run by nobody yes you know it's a bot like space an iPad you walk in and you click on the the counsel you're going to see and it lets them know you're there there's no Manning or womaning the space but it's really well designed and it it yeah yeah need that right people know they're going to see the this therapist and that therapist knows their schedule just needs to know hey they're in the lob
by now that's right but then you go all the way to like a you know shift right that's got you know an event planner they've got a culinary they've got all kinds of stuff then you take a level above that and look at AR roome who is an event driven business on top of co-working and they've got 14 people running around a space because they've got you know an event with Toyota with 10 Executives and theyve got another room next door with 14 administrative assistants from Fujitsu who are the ones tha
t are planning these conferences and so it's very Hospitality FNB driven and so what is your what's what is it that your brand stands for what are you trying to deliver is the big part and you know sometimes like I won't stay stay at an Airbnb I I just don't right because I want to know if I have a problem I can go downstairs and talk to someone about it I can pick up the phone and have it addressed and so I'm a bonvoy person because of that right because of the point system because it's easy to
get things resolved I avoid Airbnb right I you know using cars I'm an Avis person I avoid what's that one that people use that new ride share deal that people turo turo right oh how awesome I can get a Maser a pink Maserati but I some guy's dropping it off that was you know smoking weed in it the night before at the nightclub yeah right and so if I have a problem with that I'm not going to Avis who's going oh you're a platinum or whatever level we need to take care of you and so it's all prefer
ence right I know a lot of people that prefer to stay in Airbnb that's not me what's your what's your expectations yeah I know I do Wonder though again back to the like I feel like we're emerging from functional is fine to I know there will always be Market segmentation but there are so few Hospitality focused brands in workspace I just I think it's got to be an emerging segment and I I do really like your answer actually about so I run a program called Community manager University and we actual
ly just had a call right before this and you know I am sort of trying to support the many hats that they wear like I teach them how to read a p&l and we also talked about how to manage difficult you know all the you know all the hats and I'm thinking like yeah it's really hard maybe I should not even be supporting that approach in general and I think in our industry we're starting to see folks who will take that burden out of like you know Mark Burge kind of it ex like he'll handle the operation
al aspects there's woman woman who runs a space called team Savvy and they will yeah do your back end so that you're if you have a team they can be focused on front facing they don't have to do the spreadsheets they don't you know all the things that are I mean you probably can never eliminate all of that from and you just you have to figure out the model and you know shift is a little bit more premium priced and their end user is not a startup or somebody who's really early in their career it's
somebody who right appreciates a different kind of experience I just I think there's a lot more to come there I'm curious in the in in in the kind of Co co-working space flex space the the organizational charts that have been created because it's a fairly new industry right so ha H have the companies evolved the workforce or have they kind of stuck to the very hierarchical by division by Department the typical tradition organizational structures is there is there kind of like a norm in the indu
stry or everyone is a little bit different I me Gio you'd have a perspective on this too I think it's a really lean industry which can be I mean it's kind of like what maybe what you're saying about the hotel industry it's like well it used to be really profitable and you know some of their revenue sources were like people needed to come to fax things or make copies you know like there were functional things that you couldn't do at home and there was a lot of margin in that and you know more ser
vice because you know that was kind of inherent in in solving that so I mean it's a it's pretty lean I think and I think one of the challenges is be people look at it exactly how you described like well I need all these things done here's my budget my budget is for one person or maybe you know one and a half people and I do think that is an argument for scale Kat actually sort of resists this approach they're really leanly staffed but an argument for scale is to be able to to distinguish like ok
ay this person is like back of house this person is front of house you cannot do that with a model where there's one person they just they have to do it all you know like it or not and whether or not that's sort of optimized so when you're running its scale you can do more of that but you're still talking about like one person per 8,000 feet at the Space level you know then you have to have multiple locations to have any sort of like executive level team I it's a it's challenging well I mean let
's tie it back to hotels right I mean Co changed everything for hotels right absolutely because you were used to going to hotel and you expected I'm a weirdo by the way so I I'm the type of person that goes straight in my room and puts up the Do Not Disturb because I don't want anyone my I don't need anyone in my room until I leave but most guests expected their room to be cleaned every every day yeah sure and and then it became you know when you check in they're like well we we'll clean your da
y every third day or and if you need something ahead of time we'll we'll go into the room right so hotels were to use Co to become even more lean Yeah by using that excuse and then you know we all we've all had the whole little card and that's if you don't want to reuse a towel yes if you don't want to use the towel you want to be environmentally friendly let me for sure for sure let me guilt you into not using the towel totally right but even then have to use it more than once uh even take it o
h and by the way we'll give you extra points if you don't use multiple towels but then you take it to another level in the FNB right they're like we're not doing we're not doing room service and some hotels have not gone back to room service because they were able to cut back on expenses and use CO as an excuse yeah and it's just kind of stuck right and so again it's what are the experience why are people choosing I mean is that making a difference in people going back I don't know right it's in
a case by casee basis that each operator has to make the decision yeah and I think I I I think the point that you make Jamie which is key is you need to know who you are and what type of service you're delivering right so as long as you're not trying to be everything for everyone and you know okay I'm I'm select service I'm full service I'm you know very highly experiential as long as you know and you're you're really honing in on what that type of EXP experience is then then then you can get m
uch better and you know going point back to this idea of lean from a human perspective doesn't necessarily have to mean lean from an experience perspective right because we are all used to taking care of our own business now right so great example you know we walked in uh and we were trying to find out the way to connect to the Wi-Fi um and it wasn't it wasn't the most easy seamless way to connect to the Wi-Fi but it doesn't do have to be that way right a nice sign on the wall or a nice text mes
sage that's very timely when you're walking into the space now there's the technology that understands that you've walked in and boom you could have all the instructions on how to navigate your workspace through a text message it's not always about humans having to deliver that right technology can deliver that as well as long as you're walking in a space that's based on efficiency um then then that's what you're going to expect but if you're walking into a a five-star hotel you're going to expe
ct somebody that can come and resolve your problem immediately when you call them right and so it's based on on what type of identity you want to want to have right and what type of personality you want to have for the guests yeah and I think that's the important part is is who your team members and what value do they bring right we I joked around about what what your expertise is and skill set as far as being organized and being able to handle all that stuff and you know it's easier for me to h
andle the Mac stuff right it's it's easy for me to find guests and get them scheduled and do all that fun stuff but that's what makes our partnership so great on top of we have different perspectives right different backgrounds different ways of looking at things you know you know this will be our first personal question so so like Gio how are we like a half hour in and you you have because you're it was so deep I Dave's been on the road 10 days we'll we'll tap into kind of the new stuff he's go
t going on but you know you're you're a great CEO out trying to make stuff happen for your family and everything else and you've got a COO back home Jessica running the house and making sure you know things are going well so what are the things about Jessica your wife yeah that that allow for you to do what you do that make you a better person yeah so I'm going to start by clarifying something the CEO is undoubtedly Jessica no doubt about it so uh she's been running our home and leading our home
for the last 20 years and done an amazing job with our kids and so and I say that because I needed to I needed to learn my place in my life right and I and I realized that I may be the leader and and the manager of the businesses that I've operated and everything but I I needed to learn that my role at home was not to be the CEO it was to be more the COO or you know um sometimes the CFO or whatever it is but when I gave her that that the place where she Des deserved is when our family actually
flourished and thrived because um yeah she's she's in charge of all the big decision making that happens in our home right and so my role is to support that but yeah so she's she's an amazing woman first of all she is somebody that has a grown through the industry that I've been part of as well so she's never just kind of taken a backseat so she's been you know my strongest adviser she's been very intimately aware of every step that I've made the decisions I've made the people I've worked with s
he's given me more advice than most people mentors or coaches that I've had in my career so it's been a true partnership you know and for me it's about involving the people that are around you and that you're spending the most time with in in everything that you're doing you know and if you think that there's a separation you very quickly will find out that that's not the case right and so the quicker you're able to integrate the people you love into the decision making process and into your day
-to-day the better off you're going to and and for me I I fortunately learned that the more vulnerable I was becoming the stronger support I had and so it gave me more confidence to go back out and make tougher decisions and to you know a great example is anytime I would walk into the house with a new job opportunity and saying you know my job opportunities weren't like oh hey I got promoted right and and I'm moving offices from this corner to this corner it's like no no we're we're moving from
you know we're moving to Hawaii we're moving to Hong Kong so those decisions are are you know they're not one person decisions right and in fact you know right now we're living in Ibiza and we're living in iiza because my wife and my kids decided they want to live in IA right so it's it's their time to make that choice right and they've they've sacrificed and moved their entire career for me and now it's my turn to to do that for them while I have the flexibility to do so so yeah part but the CE
O gave you permission to become an entrepreneur yeah it it was a joint decision honestly it was you know it's not you know it was like okay are we open are we ready to start this new Venture together right and are we start and and we both recognize that the the the the power The Joint power that we have is is magnifies everything right and so if we come in to a venture we're doing it together and so it's not an entrepreneur it's a we're a business and we're and we're in it together for sure I lo
ve well and that takes trust and passion and everything else right I mean clearly yall got that report and a lot work on communicating it's yeah I mean you make it sound lot of mistakes a lot of mistakes a lot of you know personal Journey too you know a lot of when you when you're finally able to surpass some of the traumas that you've had and that you recognize that those exist and that you're okay and speaking about them openly and using them as a platform to learn I think all of that right it
comes with maturing and and and making a lot of mistakes like I said you know especially being Hispanic right Ma Shmo of of admitting that you don't know everything right and I mean so humility is such a big part in all this right and as it ties back to operations right whether it be co-working or Hospitality or running a household it's about being humble and knowing what you're good at and what you're not good at and you know it's something that as we all get older we're better at going hey th
is is not my skill set let me bring in the right person rather than trying to do it uh do it myself and I think that's that's the biggest part that I see as I interact with operators um across our industry or any industry right is going who are you and what are you right so many people think oh we've got the best product I'm like well have you been down the street and looked at the other operations well no we've never been in there I'm like so how do you know who you're competing against how can
you tell someone we're better than they are but you've never been in there right you don't know what the space looks like you're not able to really have those interactions and connections right and so it it's just interesting how that plays out yeah for sure for sure and it's I think it's also tied to the level of presence you know and I think that we talked a little bit about this earlier that unfortunately nowadays people are so distracted um you know and so I think it's taking people longer
and or or a harder fall to recognize that you know they don't know everything and that you know that they are not perfect and that it's okay that it's okay not to be perfect in fact it's celebrated now you know and that the only way to gain trust with people is if you do demonstrate vulnerability and humility but we're we're we're in many ways going backwards you know we're going the wrong direction um because of the amount of distraction and the amount of yeah limit limits that that Society is
putting on us you know through through technology in particular and the and the you know the lack of tools that we're giving people in order to properly manage technology and and the the emotional Distortion that that's bringing you know and then the fact that we can't regulate you know is it's just a big problem unfortunately and so that's where I think the the the human centered business is is is a way out and is a way in hospitality is that like I said it's that love language that can help yo
u really stay connected there's a major longing for for belonging in in humans right now and they don't know how to achieve it and that's why people many times will choose to go into these businesses right right why why would I choose to go in into a co-working space instead of working from home five days a week is because I want to see another human being I want to interact with them and so that's that longing for belonging is a is a is a beautiful tool that or a beautiful necessity that that w
e can tap into in order to make a successful space well I mean we can make such an impact as operators as people within the industry right on people's lives on people's businesses on our communities you know and so I think that's the bigger part is what's you know we've talked about it what's your why right what are you trying to why are you doing what you're doing yeah are you doing it for the right reasons right and I think you know that's a big conversation that David and I had you know month
and a half ago two months ago and as he was kind of stepping out of his role in the hospitality world that he was working in at the level he was working in and so you know at the end of the day he wanted to continue to drive impact he's like how can I help the co-working industry how can I help the hospitality industry how can I do bigger things and you know we had we had lunch right before this and I'd love for him to talk about that kind of briefly as to what he's working on now but it's all
about stepping out and going how can I impact the Greater Community right in other ways and so youve you're kind of launching a impact Le business fund that that's doing all kinds of cool stuff outside of just hotels you want to talk that about that briefly and why you're doing it yeah sure yeah so once I recognized that Hospitality was a love language right this was a realization I really p ized about a year ago um and and it started when I started speaking in conferences and I started really g
oing down this path of conscious hospitality and how the only way to really improve our communities is by raising the level of Consciousness right and it's no longer about giving people more process and more rules it's the opposite right is how can we actually get people to care so that we can get rid of rules and so that people can do it because they actually are driven by whatever that mission and that intention is is and and so once I realized that that I could use this communication language
or this tool in a much broader scale and that there's a need for it is when the idea of wow I can really make a much bigger impact and I can make a bigger impact on communities and I can make a bigger impact on human beings with this idea of of of longing for belonging and I essentially recognize that I've been building communities for for years for 20 years right every hotel is a community because people come back you know and and you welcome them back and so we've like like Gio mentioned you
know my my business partner and I who came from the oil and gas business you know a very successful oil and gas business uh Financial entrepreneur sold this company was going through a bit of a spiritual journey decided that what he didn't want to get back into the the oil and gas business after he sold his company even though he he had received an incredible offer to go and run a major company and you know he at first of course he was like yes title money all of it Fame whatever and very quickl
y he felt yeah but this is not feeding my soul this is not this is making me shallow inside and and and when he reached out to me I was going through the same thing you know I was like yeah I mean I could go and take another big job with a big company with a big name and a big title but what I realize is that those things mean nothing if you're not making an impact in people's lives and so we've decided to start essentially an impact investment fund where we use it as a vehicle to really uh part
ner with great companies that are doing beautiful things to improve humanity and to improve the communities they operate in there's definitely a Hospitality element to that where we're going to have these beautiful Community spaces where people can come together um and really take advantage of of of the entire ecosystem it's a very circular ecosystem so from regenerative farming to of course hotel stay or you know Community type staying um to recreating Blue zon and and really essentially lookin
g at what does the retirement home of the future look like so that like-minded communities can come together and really and you know bringing great companies that have a a a brighter future in their minds along the way you know so educational opportunities sustainable energy nutrition um Fitness holistic health uh these are the pillars that we're looking at the at the fund through um and it it's been amazing because it's really brought me in front of people that have some great ideas and uh what
they need is just the momentum and they need somebody that can take that and and believe in them and and bring it to life so very exciting future ahead and tell me about the book yeah so the book is called the future of teamwork so the whole idea behind the book is that again going back to the changes that we're seeing in society and and how unfortunately business has has you know not evolved at the pace that we needed to evolve in organizations because the generations that are coming into the
workforce are evolved Generations you know we the people that are in gen Gen X and some Millennials are are don't see it that way unfortunately and that's the big problem that was my realization was like wow all we do is we complain about them we say they're lazy we say they're entitled we say they don't care there's no loyalty all we created them right this gen Z is is a is a is the generation that Gen X created right it's literally called The Generation because they generated that group of peo
ple and it's based on the decisions they made as parents and the decisions that you know baby boomers made as Grandparents right so not to anybody's fault there's no judgment because a lot of the repercussions of what happen to us in our life they're not intended right it's not like we intended to make people a specific way but it happened right and so the fact that technology got introduced to this generation as digital natives through a group of people that had no idea what they were doing wit
h technology and how to take care of technology or how to use it right plus the fact that we were getting busier and busier and so we were spending a lot less time and presence with our kids led to this crazy change in in the way that we see the relationship with authority the relationship with parents the idea of attachment right um the idea of you know before we had attachment based on knowledge right so you would see the the figure of an authoritative figure a teacher a pastor a coach uh a pa
rent all of that all these people had attachment to the younger people through knowledge they were the ones that knew how to do things right I don't know how to do let me go ask my dad I don't know how to do something let me go ask my coach or the pastor the you know now it's not based on let me YouTube exactly exactly have a 12y old also exactly she thinks she knows way more than I do I'm like she does she does she she has more knowledge yeah she has more knowledge or access to knowledge right
and wisdom wisdom is applied knowledge right it's knowledge with experience and so we used to then look up at the grandparents be like they were the source of wisdom and so we really didn't know how to do something or we didn't believe what our parents were telling us we would go to the source of wisdom and be like hey is my dad right or is my mom really saying truth like can you validate this for me now you don't need that anymore and so the the idea of wisdom is gone right and wisdom you know
grandparents think of the grandparent figure now they're just the fun nice person that you need to take care of because they're at the last phase of their life and you know they become like a child again you know it's a very different attachment and so the same thing happens at work right so the boss the person that thinks they're the boss because they have the corner office and the title has no attachment to their teams so interesting I can't wait to read this book yeah this is hard so yeah and
so when I tell people hey if you think that you're the boss you're wrong those people are your boss now and so your job is how do you create attachment with these people if you want to really be the boss right and so that attachment has to be created through connection right no inherent there's no right your org chart like they don't they they don't buy that that's not a framework for them really yeah correct so yeah they see hierarchy in they they don't see hierarchy as as a way of of of you k
now it gives you power but it's fake power right and so that's why the moment you turn around they're like I'm going to do it my own way anyway because it's 10 times faster than what this old man is telling me or this person that has no clue right so it's it's really interesting so that level attachment is is really critical and it works at home as well right you can be the parent that thinks you know everything but has no idea what your child's going through or you can be the parent that doesn'
t care about how things get done all they care about is the well-being of the child and supporting them and being next to them and you know the one thing that technology cannot give is this human intuition and understanding like wow Jaime's having a really tough day today why don't I go and relieve Jaimie from that responsibility she has so she can go and take a minute to regulate and actually figure out what she needs to figure out and then tomorrow she'll come back and be the better version of
herself technology can't do that for us yet right and so that's where attachment grows and that's where parents that are present that are actually present aware of what's happening with their children are the ones that are having these really great relationships with them right and so when they become 15 16 17 rather than completely you know disregarding their parents or not commun they are more communicative and they say Mom I'm having this problem or this happened to me this is going on becau
se they've created and maintained a level of attachment so that's that's essentially where the where the book is headed wait and this is just from your this is like a little off the hospitality theme it's really interesting but like yeah just this is just from like your work life and how you're like your lens yeah it's what I've learned through the different cultures and through the you know mistakes the positives the negatives from being a parent you know I think I like this is universal yeah y
eah yeah and and and the goal or the mission I would say or the vision is to really help if the workforce evolve right and help the human resources component of a an organization reclaim attachment and reclaim power over through Power not not not so that you can move things together as an organization right and and so that and again if you flip this the model and you're like okay it's no longer about this hierarchy it's about the human beings it goes back to this idea we were talking about it's
like now if I'm like when I do executive Search or executive placement for a company I don't go to the company and say okay what is the role that you need to fill I say these are the five people that I have that are amazing that could fit your company cult because they have similar values this is what they're good at why don't we create a role that makes sense for this type of person or why don't we put a list of responsibilities together that would actually fulfill this human being right and th
is human being will remain loyal to you because you're giving them responsibilities that actually make them Thrive and let's build a compensation structure that is Progressive so that this person can have a Lifeline of 5 years with your company and isn't jumping to the next role just because they need to sustain their family exactly exactly you got Jam's wheels turning on the I know I'm so interested in all of this it's fading um okay Gio what you got your final your final question you want me t
o ask my final question yeah my usual one no you you've got you've got better ones you've gotten the last couple you've gotten a couple really good ones go deep no Jamie I don't I don't remember what my last one was you might have to ask I I have to ask it yep what what are you most passionate I mean obviously your family but what are you most passion I mean you obviously bring this energy when you talk about these things I mean if if you could basically give one piece of advice on impact on com
munity on Hospitality on all those things what would that be from your heart it would be to learn to live present to elevate Consciousness individually collectively I was a very distracted Millennial like most Millennials very distracted I was on my phone all the time definitely addicted to my phone addicted to Al uh use that as a numbing substance I had a I remember having a conversation with my wife where I said you know I never cheated on you with a woman but I definitely cheated on you with
alcohol I had a romantic relationship with alcohol I used it as an excuse I used it as a as a way out I used it when I wanted to feel good I used it when I felt bad you know so I definitely had a tumultuous relationship and and history in my in my family I you know had a I I had the fortune that I had a partner that you know was able to be very open and and straightforward with me to help me get out of that and then started on my journey but I think you don't need to go to hit rock bottom to rec
ognize that the only way out and the only way to actually enjoy life and live a fulfilling life is to be present and that you have to be super disciplined in order to create those spaces to be present so starting a meditation practice starting a journaling practice really honoring every time you put something into your body whether it's food water beverage just it's okay to sometimes do things that perhaps aren't necessarily great for your body as long as you're doing it with a lot of intention
right so you know sometimes I'll I'll I'll have a beer for example but when I have that beer it's with absolute intention knowing that that's my one treat and that I'm going to absolutely savor it and and it's completely reclaimed my relationship through of alcohol right so I don't have to like not drink at all because now I know that that's my moment right and same thing with a coffee in the morning whatever it is and then yeah it's also Le if you lead by example in that way and walking a prese
nt life people around you do the same and it gravitates and and the more you do that the more Collective the Consciousness level rises the more the more happy we are as a society right and the less we need distraction and this addiction to dopamine so I would say just learn to live present as long as possible and take control take command over that voice in your head because it's it's not the it's not the driver in the car it should be sitting in the back seat waiting for for your awareness to b
e the driver and and that that's it so that's what I would say we got big shoes to fill we've had a couple big ones Jamie will few weeks ago this one Cur yeah nice job Gio thank you David for taking the time to do this on your like worldwind trip on so you're on your way back home after this you said I'm on my way yeah right after this I'm headed to the airport and and happy to go see my family and hug my kids and and give my wife a big kiss she deserves it so okay well keep us posted I want to
know when the book's done when is the book due out it so q125 so just a few months out so yeah I'm excited about it yeah love to have you back on to talk about the book sounds great that'll be our excuse sounds great any excuse to hang out with you guys is welcome
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