The Modern Hotelier #229: #230: How You Can Create More Magic for Guests By Taking Care of Yourself | with Randy Haveson
===
David M.: Steve, who do we have on the program today? 
Steve Carran: David, today we have on Randy Haveson, the CEO and founder of Woth@Work. Thanks for sitting down with us. Randy, how you doing today? 
Randy Haveson: I am doing so well. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate this. 
David M.: Absolutely. We're excited to have you. So we're gonna kick it off. We're gonna go through a lightning round. We're gonna get to know you a little bit better, and then we're gonna dive into some topics. Sound good?
Randy Haveson: Yeah, let's go.
David M.: All right. What's something you wish you were better at? 
Randy Haveson: Something I wish I was dancing.
David M.: What's the emoji you use the most?
Randy Haveson: It's two emojis. It's the rock and roll sign, the smiley face with the sunglasses, and then another rock and roll sign. That's my favorite.
David M.: What's a luxury you can't live without?
Randy Haveson: One massage once a month.
David M.: Got it. So if you had a time machine, you go into the future or back to the past, which way are you going and what year are you going to? 
Randy Haveson: Ooh, 1960, whenever Woodstock, I wanna go to Woodstock. That would be, yeah. So whatever year that's where I'm going.
David M.: That's good. Yeah. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Randy Haveson: Stay outta your own way.
David M.: That's good advice. What is your favorite city and why? 
Randy Haveson: Lānaʻi City, Hawaii. I mean, it's really sad what happened over there with the Maui fire. But I just love that city. I love the whole vibe of Maui. It's awesome. So that's my favorite. 
Steve Carran: Great. Well done Randy. So now we're gonna go into your background a little bit more. What makes you tick? So, oh boy. 
Randy Haveson: Alright. 
Steve Carran: So you grew up around the LA area, is that correct? I did, yes. Grew up in LA. Nice. How did growing up in LA shape you into who you are today? 
Randy Haveson: I'm a city boy. And I learned that by being there and there was a lot going on. There were Kings games and Dodger games and theater. And movies and the beach. I mean, there was just a lot going on and I really, really enjoyed being involved in all of that. So. That's a lot of who I am, that's probably why I am in San Diego now. It's LA but a lot more mellow. 
David M.: Yeah. You went to San Diego State University and you got your degree in psychology and your master's in counseling. What made you interested in going to that school and taking those degrees? 
Randy Haveson: I wanted to get out of LA, right? But I like the warm weather, so I thought, let's go San Diego. So I went down there and fell in love with the major. It was all about figuring out who I am, that's really why I started. And then my life kind of took a few little turns there, and when I finally came to, I realized psychology was what I wanted to do, and counseling came after. Everything kind of straightened out and I thought, I wanna make a difference in other people's lives, like people have made a difference in mine. 
Steve Carran: Really Well said. So you have such an interesting backstory. Uh, I learned about it on the TEDTalk you gave, but you really have kind of focused on culture and ego as well. How did you really decide to focus on those things? 
Randy Haveson: Growing up in LA the way that I did, a lot of people are invested in their own ego. Hey, look at the car that I'm driving. Look how much money I have. Look at the house, look at the cute girls I have on each arm. And that was what defined who they were. And as I started to become involved in my own personal growth, I realized that that ego is a killer that is not who a person really is. Ego is what you have. Self-esteem is who you are. So I learned that differentiation and a lot of times our society will say that they're combined with each other, that the bigger the house, the more worth you have, but it's not true. So it's about who you are as a person, that's what gives you your worth, and what gives you that pride in who looks back at you in the mirror. It's not about what you have. That's the ego. 
Steve Carran: Well said. So now we're gonna dive into your career, how you became the CEO and founder of Worth@Work. So you started your career in the education side of things working with universities, really focusing on the education of drugs, alcohol and health overall, what did you learn in those earlier days that you still take with you today?
Randy Haveson: Actually, it was that work that led to this. And led to when I worked in the hospitality for those two years, when I would work with college students, I would take my message, whether it was alcohol education or healthy eating or whatever it was, and I realized that the presentations are different for a fraternity than it would be for a sorority than it would be for a first year student than it would be for an athlete.
So I learned how to modify my presentation for the audience that I was speaking to. So I take that here, whether I'm speaking to housekeeping or front desk or valet, it's a different presentation because they have different needs and they're in different lanes. So the presentations need to be geared to them.
Steve Carran: Wow. Well done.
Randy Haveson: Yeah. So that's where I learned how to do that. 
Steve Carran: So cool. 
David M.: So you put together the program party with the plan. Oh yeah. You're an author, speaker. You also started Club 528. How did working in education help you get the inspiration to start those programs? 
Randy Haveson: When I worked in education, I loved it. I loved working with college students. I love working with people that want to learn and want to grow. And it morphed into becoming a professional speaker and speaking 'cause I realized I could impact more people as a speaker. So that's what I started to do. And what do I want to talk about? And as I started to mold my speaking career, it seemed to go more towards self-esteem and empowerment rather than towards health, education or alcohol and other drugs. So that's how it morphed into that space. 
Steve Carran: So just over a year ago, you started worth at work. What caused you to start your own company? 
Randy Haveson: Well, I moved from Orlando to San Diego and when I was in Orlando I was speaking and consulting and you know, just whenever a company or whatever was happening. I did a podcast for a little while, but I worked at Disney part-time. And I loved it. I drove the monorail. Oh yeah. I'm a monorail pilot and will be for the rest of my life. But I moved from monorails over to hospitality. I worked at the Grand Floridian Resort, and I was the greeter there for two years, and it was all about making magic for the guest. And I would watch how other cast members would deal with the guests, and I thought, you know, if they just knew how to turn things just a little bit to create a little more magic for the guest, like I remember a front desk person who would love to talk to kids and she would bend over and I'm like, no, get down on one knee.
Get to their eye level and talk to them there. And she was like, that makes such a big difference. Yeah. And I realized that those little things make a difference. How can I teach others? So when I moved to San Diego, I worked with this company that was looking at what do I want my next career to be? And I thought, I wanna work with hospitality. And to teach people how to take better care of themselves so that they get to take better care of their guests and create those magical moments so the guests keep coming back to them whenever they have a choice of which hotel they're going to. 
David M.: So those who aren't familiar, those are watching, listening tell us more about Worth@Work?
Randy Haveson: Worth@Work is all about empowering the staff member, to feel better and more confident about who they are, and everyone at work is now speaking the same language. I have a few presentations that I do that, again, I'll customize for each audience, but things like the energy ball that we all have, an energy ball that we work off of and it.
Like right now, we're at the end of a two-day conference. We have less energy than we did at the beginning, but that's why it's important to drink a lot of water, eat healthier foods, make sure you're sleeping to make sure that energy ball stays big so you don't come to work with a shot put. So I wanna go and teach people about that concept. And when everyone at work is talking that same language, then when someone's having a bad day, they don't wanna call out, they wanna come to work because that's where their support system is. And the energy that you bring when you're positive and you're excited and the passion that comes with being more empowered now all of a sudden the guests are coming in and a repeat guest will come and say, something's different around here. What did you paint? Or something? It's like, no, it's just a better attitude and a better overall effect with people having more energy when they come to work, because I know there's a horrible issue with retention in hospitality. And if people are happier going to work, they wanna stay. And if they know that I can start as a front desk person and move into management, that they're going to acknowledge that and I'm gonna be rewarded for what I do. They're gonna stay. And when morale is going up, absenteeism goes down and invariably the customer reviews get better, so it's an overall thing. Start with the inside out rather than the outside in. And one of the things that I pride myself on is I am not a one and done. I'm not gonna go to a hotel, do my presentations.
Hey, thank you everybody. I'll see you later and I'm out. The contract will continue. I wanna come back every three months, six months, once a year, whatever's gonna work for the individual client. Everything that I do is customized to that place that I'm gonna be working for. Even if they have five locations, each one is gonna get their own diagnostic because they have different personalities.
So I need to address what's there. Again, I'm not gonna talk to athletes like I do to first year students, so I'm gonna tailor everything that I do. To the audience that I'm speaking to, and I want that continued relationship. And when I was speaking, one of the things that I prided myself on at the end of every presentation, whether it was to five people or 500, it would be my email address is randy@randyspeaks.com.
If I can ever be a support, if you ever need someone to listen, shoot me an email. I'll be there for you. And they would, and it was awesome. There were times where students would email me six months later. And they'd say, Hey, you know what, I need someone to talk to. I'm having an issue with so and so, and I would talk to them, and I want to do that with the places that I'm working for too. I wanna create partnerships. I don't want jobs, I want partnerships with people who get this. And I've met some folks here who get it and they're so excited about having me come in and do that work with them 'cause making that magic for the guests is what it's all about. 
Steve Carran: You bet that that is great. So now we're gonna dive into the thought leadership section of this episode. So a lot of hospitality consultants when they start working with hotels, will review SOPs, review those training manuals, maybe do a mystery shoppers, something like that. You do something completely different. Can you tell us about that?

Randy Haveson: Sure. Yeah. I don't like the whole mystery shopper thing. I like being transparent. 'cause when you mystery shop, they feel deceived, 
I don't think that's effective, what I do, phase one is an organizational diagnostic. I go to the hotel for a couple of days. I stay on site. I'm going to the gym. I'm going to the restaurant. I'm interacting with the people. They know I'm there. Oh, you're that guy, Randy, right? Yeah. Hey, is there anything that you want me to know? Anything that you tell me is gonna stay with me and I have an iPad with. You know, eight to 10 questions with a six point scale and you know, could you just take five minutes and answer this, your name?
Nothing is gonna be on here, but let's get an idea of what they think is going on here. Not management telling me 'cause a lot of time management doesn't know, right? So I wanna get to the people, that's where it really matters. And to find out what their assessment is, then take the data, analyze that, and then go to leadership and say, this is what your people are thinking and this is what they're feeling. Okay, how can we now create programming that's gonna support them? So it's all about from the bottom up. And then I wanna work with the leaders. Here's how to support people. You know, one of the things that I really like, a lot of people who do the consulting come with hospitality backgrounds. Okay. I have a counseling background.
So I have that mental health piece on how to address that. You know, not, Hey, let tell me how you're feeling. I heard that you're having an issue at home with you. You know, do you want it? No. But it's being able to address, Hey, I know you're having a bad day. Is there anything I can do to support you? So those are the things that a manager and a leader can do.
So I want to train them too. And then step two is to implement the programming, whether it's me coming in, in person, doing video training, uh, doing train the trainer. My preference is first visit; I do it in person. Second, we talk about doing videos and train the trainer as a follow-up. And then I come back after a year or six months and let's see what's working and what needs refreshing. That's great. So that's the way I'm gonna do this. 
David M.: Yeah. That's great. So you worked in Recovery University, administration and personal transformation for decades. What made you realize the same principles could transform to hotels? 
Randy Haveson: Because it's people, right? People are people, and it doesn't matter if you're a trash collector, a front desk person or an astronaut.
It's about people and its teamwork and working together. And how am I gonna be part of the we, you know, I, I love the saying We over me, right? And to support the team as a whole. I have a presentation called, if we're all quarterbacks, who's gonna catch the ball? And everyone has a place on the team, and it's important for everyone to realize what their team is. You know, one of the things that I talk about is Tom Brady is not Tom Brady without an amazing front line in front of him. 
David M.: Yeah. 
Randy Haveson: So I think the most amazing person on that team was Jeff Saturday the center. He saw everything going on and he was the communicator for the team to make sure that Tom kept safe so that he could do what Tom Brady does. So everybody has a role. The engineer who's working the overnight shift has a very important role If that heater goes out at midnight, that engineer coming in, are they gonna say, I hear your heater's broken, or are they gonna say, I am so sorry that this happened. Let me get this taken care of for you as soon as I can, and then leaving a note the next day. I hope everything's okay. If anything's gone wrong, you let me know. Make it personal. It's about people working with people. 
Steve Carran: That's great. You've introduced this idea of a bully voice and a best friend voice. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? 
Randy Haveson: Love that I realized it in my own life. You know, back in the day before my transformation, I would listen to that bully voice that I had in my head. I was never good enough. Everything was always wrong. I was making mistakes. I would talk to someone, it's like, oh my God, I can't believe you said that. That is, and that's what was going. But over here was this voice. That was Randy. You're okay. You're a good guy. You have a big heart. You do make a difference.
So I realized that we all have these two voices, and when I started, the bully voice was like a megaphone, and the friend, best friend voice was a whisper. So as I started to do that in my own life, I started using it in my coaching practice and in my speaking, and I was doing that to the point where I wrote a book called Becoming Your Own BFF, so that we start listening more to the best friend voice rather than the bully voice.
Two weeks ago I made coffee. At my apartment, make it before I go to bed, and I have a timer set. So when I wake up in the morning, my coffee's ready. And I woke up and something happened with the coffee maker. There was coffee all over the counter and all over the floor. And my first thought was, oh, Randy, what did you do? And I thought, how funny, because in the past, oh my God, I can't believe you did that or what did you do wrong? And, oh, I can't believe you did. I don't have to do that now. I can laugh at my mistakes. I'm not perfect, I never will be. And it that bully voice says, perfect, perfect, perfect. But it's a lie. There's no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an illusion. Allow ourselves to be the best we can be in any given moment. And sometimes I'm not at my best, so allow myself to have my down days too. And we need to all give ourselves permission to just be human. 
Steve Carran: Give yourself a little grace. 
Randy Haveson: Yes. Oh, that's so important.
Steve Carran: Yeah. Love that.
David M.: I like that too. So your program starts with a comprehensive diagnostic. So what are the actual measuring that reveals the properties, training programs that aren't sticking? 
Randy Haveson: What people are saying about what's working and what, what's not working. And I will take a look at what are the training programs that you've used and how do you think they went? Oh, I think they were great. And they, and then I go talk to the people and they don't even remember anything that was said. So it's important to find out from them what's going on. That's so important to talk to the staff in all the different departments. 
Steve Carran: So it's not a secret that there's a labor shortage in the hospitality space. For those hotels that are short staffed, maybe a team that's just going through the motions right now, what are things that they can do right now to maybe shake things up a little bit? 
Randy Haveson: Go to your local college and say, do you want some people, we would like to start a work study program and hire some of your people here at the hotel. So simple. Now these kids are coming in and the superstars, the ones who really, oh wow, I'd never thought about this as a career. This might be really great. Train that person, mentor that person, and that's gonna be your future GM. 
Steve Carran: That's a great idea. 
Randy Haveson: So local colleges, schools, right? Schools, trade down. Hotelier schools, local trade schools, for the engineers and the housekeeping. They're out there. They're out. But they get locked into this is how we do things. No, that after COVID we found, throw that away. 
Steve Carran: A hundred percent agree. So this is part of the episode. We've been asking you questions this whole time. So now we're gonna turn the tables and we're gonna let you ask David and I a question.
Randy Haveson: What are you passionate about?
David M.: That's a great question. Well, besides the Philadelphia Eagles, I think I'm passionate about, I think it might sound weird, but I think just like laughter, I like the idea of humor and people enjoying themselves. So a little piggyback on some of what you were saying about not taking yourself so serious. So for me, I kind of strived to always kind of, I've recently had some things where I screwed up and I'm trying not to like, let it eat me up. I'm trying to look at it as it's a funny learning experience. 
Randy Haveson: Because how many times in your past did something happen and you thought it was the worst thing that could have happened, but it turned out to be; wow. I learned a lot from that. Now that's brought my next evolution, so yeah, you never know what, where the blessings are gonna come from?
Steve Carran: That's right. Kinda like him. I'm a Packer fan, so it's football season, so, we don't miss too many football games. But you know, it's really funny how passionate I've become about podcasting and doing these types of interviews, we do research before every episode on who we're talking to. And it's so awesome to hear perspectives of so many different people in the industry and where they come from their background, how they got to where they are.
And it's really inspiring to see how people do come from a dishwasher or from a busboy and now they're the CEO of a hotel. So just seeing how people got to where they are, but podcasting and talking to folks like you has become something that I have absolutely loved. 
Randy Haveson: That's awesome. Great answer. Thank Steve. We'll have to talk to you some more.
Steve Carran: We might. I think we can do that. 
David M.: Alright, well that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where you can let people find out more about your company and how they can get in touch with you. 
Randy Haveson: Great. The website is worth@work.com, just like it is right up there. I wanna make it really simple and easy go to the website, take a look at it. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and I'm happy to answer any questions you have and I'm here to make a difference. So I'd love to do that in hospitality. 
Steve Carran: That's great. And you said your email one time, what is it again?
Randy Haveson: At randy@worth@work.com Oh, that was good. Thanks, Steve. 
David M.: All right, well that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged Podcast. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thank you for joining us.