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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #31 - Encouraging Your Good Team Members to be Great | with Anthony Melchiorri
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Gain Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, food service, travel, and technology. Today, we have our co host here, Michael Goldrich. How are you,
Michael?
Michael Goldrich: I'm doing well. Thank you, for having me.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. And our very special guests, Anthony Melchiorri, president of RJO Hospitality. He's a TV host for multiple shows, including the latest one coming out, Hotel All Stars.
And he's an author with his latest book, Show Up, talking about lessons for hospitality and pretty much any job that you could possibly want. It's a very important book with timeless lessons itself. so much. Anthony, how are you?
Anthony Melchiorri: Well, thank you very much for that kind introduction. I'm doing well. Michael, how are you? Adam, how are you?
Adam Mogelonsky: [00:01:00] Fantastic.
Michael Goldrich: All good.
Anthony Melchiorri: So, Adam, you mentioned the book. In the book, what is the one thing, what is the one thing you took away from it?
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, we could get into your life lessons. I do think that one thing that people maybe skip over about your background is that you're from the military. You're from the Air Force. Is that correct?
Anthony Melchiorri: Uh huh. I was at five years and I was on some great projects. Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, you know, I'm obviously a big believer in the discipline that comes out of the military and the Air Force. But the one lesson that I took away from your book, of course, is the importance of consistency Consistency in your life, in your character, in what you, promise to deliver and what you actually deliver.
And I think that stands for any industry.
Anthony Melchiorri: Well, thank you. You know, I was, um, last night we, we have a one, once a month card game, 30 buy in tournament. And my friend who has one of the biggest real estate, Law companies in the country were actually in the city, I should say. and I, the game started 7 30 and I [00:02:00] go, why are you late? And he goes, cause I had to work out.
I go, yeah, but today's the game. Why don't you just work out in the morning or work out tomorrow? And he goes, no, I get up, I go to work. I come home at this time I eat and I work out. And then if I have some time I'll do things. And I was like, you never break down. He goes, I never break down. He's really freaking consistent and it works for him.
Adam Mogelonsky: I guess the term there would be consistency compounds, which is to say consistency over one week. It is what it is, but consistency over a decade, you can accomplish incredible
things.
Anthony Melchiorri: It's a compounded
interest.
Adam Mogelonsky: Exactly.
Michael Goldrich: but, I think that there also needs to be flexibility. So like, take your
impression of that. He's consistent, but you also need to be flexible because now he's saying, you know, by being late, he gave off, uh, it's a little bit disrespectful if everyone else is on time. It's, you know, so I think
they're,
Anthony Melchiorri: don't think anybody took it that way, but it was more that the time you brought [00:03:00] in, it was kind of late in the game and we beat them. But anyway, but yeah, consistency, flexibility, my favorite words, durability. Um, we all get kicked. We all get knocked down. Matter of fact, my the name of the book was going to be called, Get Your Head Out of Your Ass. cause we all get to that point where we can't see because our, you know, our heads up our butt. And, uh, my wife said that's not allowed. So we went with, show up, which is kind of really my thing. I, when young, a lot of my friends call me and say, you know, I have my son, he's 18, 19 20 and he's lost or whatever. And when I get them on the phone, and then first of all, they have to call me cause I won't call them. If they call me, I'll take the phone call from their, their child. And I say to them, walk out the door, put your pants on, walk out the door, and do something. Go to the store, go to the gym, go meet a friend, go walk on the beach, but move.
Just move. And too many people are waiting, they're sending their emails after college or after high school, sending their, their resume, nobody's looking for me, [00:04:00] because no one is looking for you. You know, and I think that that there's a fallacy in this world that if you do, you know, a little bit, you do a little video, you do this or you do that, people are going to notice you. And one of the things I say to them is nobody cares. Nobody cares. We all got our own problems. We all got our own challenges. We all got our own. Bill's and own things that we have to solve and if we can help you that doesn't interfere with our track We're gonna help you and people don't realize that I help a lot of people.
I I try to mentor as many people as possible But we have to stay on track and a lot of young people, a lot of people, period, don't understand that.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, you know, it's something that you can learn, uh, and, you know, the, the book Show Up does talk about that in several places. So I'm wondering if you could draw on your own experience working literally in the fields of hospitality from the ground up, the, the front desk and seeing back of house.
[00:05:00] how did you learn this, this principle about getting out there and really having that durability?
Anthony Melchiorri: I had, I had a colonel in the military one day. He said to me, Colonel Hallam, he's like Colonel Jessup from A Few Good Men. I was attached to an army base in Honduras for six months
because I took the officer training school test, which is a commission test, and I needed to extend my, um, I was four years and I needed to extend it until the test come back to see if I passed the test.
Long story short, he sends me to Honduras. My Colonel, Kenning sent me to, Honduras, which is Solocon Air Base, and I meet an Army Colonel named Colonel Hallam. And Colonel Hallam said to me, do a little more and you'll go a lot further. So he worked out, we worked out together, me and him. I was a hundred and fifty.
45 pounds. At the time, I was one, only five people on base that can bench press 300 pounds. 'cause every day he worked with me. Okay. We played sports. I got in, I got, I, I found my faith again. I got confirmed. I was on the honor guard. I, [00:06:00] I did every little thing I could to give myself an edge. And it worked. And then when I was at Whiteman Air Force Base, even before that, same thing, I went to college at night. Three and a half years ago, I got my bachelor's degree. On the weekends, I worked at Oberlin Park, at Embassy Suites. Uh, I would drive up from Whiteman Air Force Base on the weekends and I would work at Embassy Suites.
I'd go to college during the week at night. And during the day, I was a high performing Air Force Sergeant. And, um, when I got out, I have a book in my garage that says burnout, because I was burnt. It was done. I couldn't function because I was so burnt out. But I got a four year, four and a half years, almost five years Air Force career, which was a good career.
I won a lot of awards. I got my four year bachelor's degree. in business and I had three and a half years worth of hotel experience.
So when I was out, I was ready and I was on the honor guard and I played sports and I got religion and I worked, you know, I, I, I was always involved. And so I've learned that do a little bit more and you go a lot further because a lot [00:07:00] of people see that little more, that little edge as inconvenient. I see that little edge because I'm hyper competitive is I'm a good loser. I'm a great loser. If I lose, I lose. But I'm only a good loser because I leave it all on the playing field. And if you beat
me, good, God bless you. And I, you know, I'll give you a, I'll shake your hand. I'll give you a hug and say, I was, I was in Vegas and I had a little time to play in a 200 tournament when I was at the Forbes event. And this gentleman, he beat me, he had a straight, he had a straight flush. And I gave him a high five and a hug. And it was like, no one's ever lost a tournament and give somebody else a hug. I am a good loser, but I don't like to lose like most people, but I'm hyper, hyper competitive. And if you do a little bit more, you will go a lot further.
So I learned that in the
military.
Michael Goldrich: that's, it's interesting when I was in college. Uh, I had a fraternity brother that came back from the Army Rangers basic training and I asked him, well, what's the one thing you learned? He says, you can always do one more. That's what he said. You could always do [00:08:00] one more. What
Anthony Melchiorri: When I do my keynotes, I was on a backup. I was on a match. About six years ago in the gym, a friend of mine's gym, and he, I'm not, you know, I'm not a fighter or anything, but we're doing something. I don't know, we're working out, and we're doing some Muay Thai, and he kicked me. And I fell and I, uh, apparently I made a noise.
He was a championship multi fighter, world class known multi fighter. He's like in all the fights I've ever had, as he falls on the floor laughing, I've never heard a sound like that come out of another human being. Cause I sounded like a 12 year old girl. And he hit me. I went down and made a ridiculous sound and I go, I can't get up. And he said, Yes, you can. I go, no, I can't. He goes, raise your hand. So I'm on the floor, squealing, and I raise my hand, and he goes, now raise it a little higher. And I raise it a little bit higher. He goes, now raise it two inches higher. And I raise it two inches higher. And he goes, get the hell up. And that taught me the greatest lesson.
So now on every one of my keynotes, that's how I end it. I ask everybody in the audience, [00:09:00] raise your hand, raise it higher. Raise it two inches higher and then I drop the mic and leave. And everybody gets it. Everybody gets it. You know, and one day I've never done this, but one day I'm going to have somebody videotape that hand go the first time, the second time and third time.
Cause if you have like two, 3000 people in the audience and they do that, it's something, it's a visual that's unbelievable. And every single person there, I can talk about anything, but if I asked them, what did you get out of that? They go, when you said hands up at the end, I get it. You know, I, this morning I was out on the beach and I'm running and I hate running. And the guy I'm running with was like, all right, run as much as you can and then stop running. And I was running and I was running further cause I didn't want to disappoint him. And I just did a little bit more and then I gave up. So it's, it's, it's all that. It's just give, you know, I, I live by nobody cares.
I live by do a little bit more and try not to complain. You know, I try not to complain, but sometimes I
Adam Mogelonsky: So, aside from keynotes, [00:10:00] aside from this in principle, you've also seen this on the ground, uh, working day in, day out with hoteliers in the back and front of, front of house. And I'm wondering, how do you, how do you inspire people to believe in a little bit more? When you're on the ground and you're working with line cooks, uh, you know, midnight shift, service people, night auditors, how do you inspire that in a hospitality setting?
Anthony Melchiorri: Trust. It's gotta be trust. You gotta be able to say it from the top down. You know, I work with a lot of clients, and I work with one client in particular that I love more than I think I've ever loved a client. They have 50 hotels in New England, and I'm doing executive development programs with them. I wouldn't say for them, but with them, with their team.
And I just love them. They're the best team. And, you gotta build the trust. So anybody I work with, It's especially when you're coming from television. You know, I've been doing this for a long time. I was first vice president of asset management for Tishman. I've [00:11:00] operated, I've turned around hotels, I've consulted, all that. But people are like, are you really going to get down and dirty? I'm doing a a contract right now. Soon as I'm done with you, I'm going to finish the contract. And they're like, but are we going to get you? I'm like, yeah, you're going to get me. Like, but aren't you busy? I was like, Everybody's busy, you know, you know, my friend, a friend of mine goes, you know, you're hard to whack.
I go, why? He goes, because you're always somewhere. But You know, you can't look busy. You can't show the client that you're with because it doesn't matter if I'm there, I'm there. No one, I don't take phone calls. I don't do, I do whatever you need me to do. So it's very much being disciplined and, uh, don't, I don't do everything.
I do the things that I can do. I don't do everything. And that's another important word. No, no, I will not do that. I can't do it, not because I'm better than anybody, not because I'm busier than anybody, just because I have to stay what I'm capable of doing and if I give you my word, I've got to back up my word.
If I say I'm going to be there Tuesday, I'm going to be there Tuesday. I was in a meeting, [00:12:00] one of the owners said, Hey, can you meet at seven o'clock in Boston for breakfast? There's only time you can meet. I said, Absolutely. I got up at two o'clock in the morning and I drove to Boston just two weeks ago, had a meeting with him, had another meeting with somebody else on the team, and I drove back. That was 10 hours of driving for maybe three hours of meetings. They don't want to hear that, you know, I, well, I can't do it Tuesday or Wednesday. You can do it seven o'clock, I can do it seven o'clock, I'll be there. And so, and I love doing it. I just, I love what I do. I love this business. You know, I was at a Forbes event last, uh, last week and it was, I'm honored to be able to give out awards and, and do different things for them, moderate panels, and it's one of the greatest things I do because I never thought when I was a younger person that I'd be in the room with the best of the best of the best asking to present. So it's, um, you know, it's, it's something I love doing.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, we talk about the best and the best and, of course, you're up here and we've talked about inspiring other people, so I [00:13:00] think that's a good segue to talk about your TV show coming out,
Anthony Melchiorri: Can I interrupt you for a
second? I don't understand what you mean by I'm up here, right? And that makes sense. I've worked really hard for my status in our business, right?
But you've worked hard. Michael, you've worked hard. Everybody's worked hard. I am no higher on the ladder than anyone else. I can drop to the low rung.
I can be a busboy tomorrow. I am just a person trying to prove myself every day, trying to live up to my word and trying to be authentic. That's all I am. This is all gone. When I got tapped on the shoulder with Hotel Impossible after 12 seasons, I've never really talked about this. After, I'm sorry, nine seasons, over 108 shows, or 108 shows plus extras, plus we had spin offs, and I got tapped on the shoulder. Actually, I didn't get tapped on the shoulder, they just didn't pick up the show anymore. And my partner was upset. My friends were upset. People were crying. And I was just like, What are you doing? Like, what are you upset about? Did you not [00:14:00] think, like, we're only one of 200 TV shows in the history of television to go over 100 episodes. Did you not think that, Honeymoon's had 32 episodes. Did you not think that one day we're going to get tapped on the shoulder? I remember being in this water park the last night we were shooting in Sedusky, Ohio, as my team was having the greatest time in the world. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, how blessed am I? How lucky am I that I got to take this ride? I am the only person in the history of America to ever do a very successful hotel show because of everybody in the industry supporting me. And I said this to my production crew when I created the show with them. I said, if we. Do this for the hoteliers, we will be on forever because there's a lot of us. And if the second I say something that I'm full of crap, they will turn off the channel. But as long as they can be sitting there go, Oh God, I wish I could say that. Oh, wait till Anthony sees this. Once I get that, then we're in. So, I'm just, you know, I'm just a busboy trying to, you know, trying to clean a table. [00:15:00] And I believe that. It's not just a statement. If you know me behind the scenes, if you know me, David Millili is my best friend. If you know that about me, then you know who I am. And I'm not, you know, I'm not, listen, this could all, you know, Nobody gives a crap about me tomorrow, and we have to prove ourselves every single day.
So, as far as I'm concerned, there's no this guy's here, that guy's there. If you run a five star hotel, or you're a CEO of a fourth season or whatever, are you better than the guy that runs a different brand? No. We're all the same, and we all have to support each other. All right, I ranted enough. I'm sorry.
Adam Mogelonsky: No, but it's a very important lesson therein, and uh, you know, everyone has their challenges, everyone, everyone is busy, everyone has the stuff they, they have to get done. We are all, it's, it's actually very humbling what you said, in, from my perspective.
Anthony Melchiorri: Yeah, we're all, we're all here for a second, man. And we all got to be humbled and we all got to be believe in something and we all got to help each other. And, you know, the one thing where maybe I got a reputation in the industry is, I [00:16:00] don't like Mediocrity. So
if there's one thing that I would say that has helped me in my career is, I accept mistakes, but I don't accept mediocrity. And there's a, there's a, it's so different. Everybody makes mistakes. But are you making the mistake from mediocrity or are you making a mistake from being the best? If you're making a mistake from being the best, who cares? But if you're already mediocre and you make a mistake,
I'm kind of irritated.
Michael Goldrich: about mediocre without mistakes?
Anthony Melchiorri: Yeah, but you're, you're not going to be around the teams that I like being around. Right. I'll give you an example. If you're an accountant or you're a salesperson and you're good at that, but you don't do extra, you leave at five o'clock, you don't work weekends, but you're good at what you do, I love you.
You're great. You're part of my team. But if you're not good at what you do, and you don't do any extra, then what the hell do we need you for? But if you're good at what you do, and you're solid, great! So you don't have to be exceptional, you just have to, you just have [00:17:00] to do your piece. Whereas Bill Belichick said, just do your job, right?
Just do your job, and do it well. And then there'll be high performers, right? There's one of the things I say is, out of 100 people, 70 percent are good. 20 percent um, suck and 10 percent are superstars,
but what do we do? We spend all of our time with the 20 percent of the people that suck instead of promoting them to customer and getting them out of your way. You know, do the right things, counsel them, all that, do it fair. I give people way too many chances, but once you give them the last chance, they gotta go. And then the 10 percent just wave to them because they don't want to be bothered. They just want to be a superstar and make sure they get promoted and make sure they get their bonus and make sure they get taken care of. And then go to work on his 70 percent that are good. But need to excel, you know, and every single person, if you're holding hands with them, but I always say, hit the baby, kiss the baby, hit the baby, kiss the baby, meaning push the baby, but make sure they feel [00:18:00] loved and cared for. And if we go over the edge together as a team, we all go over, nobody goes over by themselves. So if you're in that mindset, I don't care if you're, you know, in the middle or at the top, you will eventually come where you need to go because you want to be on that team. And the people that don't, it's exhausting. Being on a high performing team is exhausting. You know, I was in a meeting yesterday.
Somebody said, how do you keep all your energy? I go, what energy? I don't know. I get tired like everybody else, but I just love what I
do, man.
Michael Goldrich: You know, your, your story reminds me when I was at Starwood, we came up with the, uh, this award called the Starwood Weekly Award for Excellence. We called it the SWAFE Award. And every week you'd try to nominate somebody to get the award. And what invariably happened is just giving people the award for doing their job. And, you know, like, no, that's not the purpose of this award. This award is doing a going above and beyond, but there's only a certain percentage of people that do that. So you always end up giving the same award to the same people over and over again, because you really don't have a lot of those sort of those [00:19:00] excellent people.
Anthony Melchiorri: Yeah, yeah, when I, when awards like that happen, one of the things I say to people, whether I'm running the company or I'm consulting, is give the award when somebody bangs on their desk and goes, damn, that guy needs that award. That girl needs that award. Like, don't give it every week. Don't give it every month.
Give it when somebody has an aha moment and goes, where's the award? Where's the award? I got to go get that award. That's when you give the award. because then we're thinking about who deserves the award this week. And well, you know, she didn't get it this week and he didn't get it. And then He's never gotten, and he's getting upset because he thinks, you know, it's ridiculous. So you give it when you have to jump out of your seat and run down the hall and give somebody an award. That's when you give those awards.
Michael Goldrich: Makes sense.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, the whole idea of cultivating superstars, so you have your 10 percent and you have your 70 percent you want to promote, and I did want to segue to, to promote your new show and to talk about it, Hotel All Stars, because I believe that's sort of what it's about. So could you talk to us about where this, the inception of the [00:20:00] show and how it fits into the industry right now?
Anthony Melchiorri: So I'm with my production company on Zoom or something with Atlas Media, who's the production company that's done Five Star Secrets, Extreme Hotels, Hotel Impossible, and been with me since 2011. And every once in a while, they'll call me and they'll go, Hey, we want to do a new show. And I'm like, no, thank you.
Click. Click. Click. Not interested. I don't want to do a new show. I never wanted to actually be famous. And I never, it was never my intention to have a TV show. I got the show because I wanted it at the time because I want to teach the business. And I put my hand over my face, I'm going to do a new, I'm going to do a show on TV. And I was blessed. And my father from above and God just came together and said, here you go. Go do it and see what happens. And when I did that, I always made an agreement, that, um, I will always, uh, teach this business. So if a kid calls me from college to get my cell numbers, so many times people are like, Did he just give me something?
He called me. Is this really Anthony? I go, if you ask me again, I'm gonna hang up the phone. So my job is to teach this wonderful [00:21:00] business, right?
And so once we got the show, we went through it all, I was done. I was tired after all those years and I loved it. It was a blessing, but you know, How I make my living is I, I do, I run Argeo Hospitality. And so, one day, I don't know, I really don't know. I remember Hotel Impossible where I had the epiphany. I don't know where Hotel Allstars came from, I really don't. But I remember calling the production company, I was on the phone with them, and then we started talking about it. And I don't know if it was their idea or my idea, I don't really know how it came to be. And I was like, I want to teach people that don't know this industry exists. So if you want to be a vet or a lawyer or a doctor or a mechanic or a truck driver or a policeman, you don't say, Oh, I want to be a hotel general manager. I want to be a hotel person. That's not on the list. I want to at least get it on the list.
And
then have you maybe do an internship, just get on the list of, I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a hotel person. And [00:22:00] so I wanted to get people that don't know about the industry. So what we did was. It's a competition show, um, where, uh, we bring people to really nice hotels, three people, the first two shows we did with three people, and we put them through a competition.
And the winner wins a job in the, hotel, in the resort. We're going to expand that. as we do more shows and if we're fortunate enough to do more shows where it doesn't have to be somebody that is completely a newbie to the hotel industry. It could be somebody that's in the industry that wants to continue their career and put them through some challenges.
So we're going to change that a little bit because I think I, I think it's not fair to maybe somebody that's worked at the front desk if they want to be on the show and kind of get into these five star hotels and four star hotels. So we did Breakers, which in and of itself is not only the most beautiful hotel, but you could imagine I had to call in some favors because they're not interested in doing television shows at their resort. And Paul and his team were very kind. [00:23:00] Paul was like, yeah, I'll do it, but my team won't. And then after a period of time we were fortunate enough for them to be convinced. We've been to 50 countries, 48 states. We've gone to the best hotels in the world for five star secrets. So we know how to act. My team knows how to act, right?
So we assured them, Paul trusted me, great show. Then we called Tamara at Margaritaville, the chief marketing and sales officer, who's a friend of mine.
I said, what do you think? She said, I'm in. So we did, we did the shows, we put them in a can. but the first call, after we decided that we wanted to do the show, was not to Netflix or not to Viacom, it was to Chip Rogers, AHLA. I said, Chip, I have this idea. I wanted to be funded by the hotel industry for the hotel industry.
I don't want it to be the way it used to be. Because one, that world is different than when I started in 2011, [00:24:00] 2012. And I want, like, let all of us, including you two, all of us, Support the show.
Let us support it. Why do we need an outside entity? Because the show's on all these years because all of us watched it, right? All of us watched it. That's why the show lasted so long.
So let's fund it this way. And Chip said something I wasn't expecting. He said, yes. And I was like, I got off the phone and I was just like, Wow, did he just say yes? That was cool. And then after a couple of months and lawyers and stuff, they did it, right?
And nobody made any money. If it wasn't a money thing, it's, it's Chip just wants to, and AHLA's job is to get people in the industry. That's their job. That's their mission. So now our job is, and you probably saw a lot of the social media, our job is to get everyone to watch it. So I'm asking you and everybody else, you know, get people to watch it when it drops, it's going to drop.
We're going to do middle of March, but now we're going to do the end of [00:25:00] March. The first show is going to be Margaritaville. It's going to drop on YouTube for free. And the reason it's free is because Chip at AHLA funded it. All they want is eyeballs. So it's very rare that you don't need a return on your investment.
We'd like to get them a return on investment and pay it in full. But the mission is to get people in the industry. I think it's fun. It's a nice show. As we go forward, we're going to edit it a little bit as far as how we do it. But, um, it's the show I've always wanted to do. And I remember sitting in the morning watching my crew, my old crew, because I wouldn't do it unless my old crew came back. So my camera guy, who, uh, John Keller, who does, if you ever watch Feeding Phil, he's his camera guy. He's the best in the business. Then my friend Alex, who's, a producer and just everybody, Dana and everybody just came back and Enrique, our sound guy, award winning guy. And as soon as I saw them, I started crying.
Nobody knows I cried. I went to cry a lot and I cried and I was like, I can't believe that I'm doing this again. Like this is, this is not what I expected or [00:26:00] wanted, but it came to fruition. And it was, um, Yeah, it was, it was unbelievable. So I was very blessed to do it and hopefully people support it.
Adam Mogelonsky: Just for reference, we are recording today on March 8th and the first episodes, they come out again, when did they come
Anthony Melchiorri: Oh, you can do March. Margaritaville will come out March, uh, uh, probably April 1st, April 2nd, and then, uh, Breakers will come out probably in May.
Adam Mogelonsky: Okay, perfect. So, and what is, uh, The actual promotion vehicle, the on ramp to get people onto YouTube to watch the episodes.
Anthony Melchiorri: social media, the hell out of this thing. All of my channels, uh, Hotel All Star, we ha we just hired a publicist yesterday. Uh, or the media company Hired that published this yesterday. Uh, getting me on talk shows, getting me on podcasts, just getting the word out. We, you know, if, if everybody, including you guys, talk about it, and, and AHLA talks about it, Margaritaville, and Breakers, they have [00:27:00] major mailing lists.
If we watch it, if nobody else outside of our industry watches it but us, and then we send it to a friend whose kids go into college or whatever, that's the purpose of this. , we are. Millions, millions strong. So we can support this, um, within our
organization.
Adam Mogelonsky: What raises such an important issue that you talked about, you mentioned briefly, which is making the senior roles at a hotel aspirational. So, you know, people are going, oh, when I grow up, I wanna be a firefighter. When I grow up, I wanna be a doctor, uh, et cetera, et cetera. And this in a lot of ways is part of a cluster of solutions that I dare, dare I use the term they have to come in, in order to make the role of GM and others associated with that.
We, they have to be aspirational on the same level as where other industries and other professions are.
Anthony Melchiorri: I love what you said. And like, because people say, I don't want to be at the front desk. [00:28:00] I don't want to do work in a house, I don't work for food and beverage. I want to be the GM. I remember when I was a kid, right before I went to the military, I wanted to be a cop, but I didn't want to be a cop. I wanted to be a detective.
And I called my local precinct, 61st precinct in Brooklyn. And I got the desk. Sergeant, I guess. And I said, I want, how do I become a detective? And he goes, well, you have to become a police officer first. I said, I want to be a police officer. I want to be a detective. I'm really good at being a detective. And he goes, you have to be a cop first. I go, I don't want to be a cop. I want to be a detective. Uh, and then obviously he laughed at me and hung up the phone and then I went into the military. So you can't be a detective before you're a cop. You can't be a GM before you know what you're doing,
right? So, so I never really thought about that until you just said it. But yeah, so you want to become, listen, I want to be Brian, the, the CEO of Gwinn, right? You know, , Brian's a friend of mine and I want to be him, right? Like, that's the greatest job in the world as far as I'm concerned, I
think, North America CEO of Gwinn, great, great company. And [00:29:00] so you got to start somewhere.
You got to come into the business, but you have to want to do it. How many kids go to medical school and break? If you want to do it and you see yourself in the operating room or you see yourself talking to a client, you're there already. Oh yeah, this other stuff is just, you know, you just gotta do it.
You gotta work 18 hours a day. You gotta not eat for a week. You gotta do whatever you gotta do to become a doctor. Whatever you gotta do, you gotta do. So if you, that's how I saw it. When I first came outta the military and I looked at the skyline and I said, I want to, I want everybody in New York City to know my name.
I wanna be in the industry and I want to be the first people call. People call if they want to run a hotel. I didn't know anything. Ne little did I know I'd be in Spain. The taxi cab driver pulls over and goes, oh my God, you're in my car. Little did I know people would know my name to that extreme, but I had a goal.
My goal was people will know my name in New York City. I did that relatively young and then all of a sudden it happened, you know, the show and everything. [00:30:00] But you have to put it there and then work towards that goal without thinking about the goal. This is important. This is really important. You talk about manifesting, I was manifesting before I knew what the hell the word meant. You just say, that's where I'm going. And where do I start? Okay. And then you forget that that's the goal. You have to forget the goal. You have to forget it. You have to work every day that's in front of you. You have to take the right jobs. You have to talk to the right people. And then when you're right near that goal, you're like, Oh, there's the goal. If you're constantly chasing it and you're constantly thinking about it, you'll never get there because it's exhausting because you'll see how far you're away. Like, man, that's far. If you just do today better than anybody else that could come close to you, I always say when I took over a hotel, you know, um, I will be friends with everybody in my comm set, but, you know, good luck to you all, because I come in to be number one, uh, number two. I remember calling, I'm sorry, I'm [00:31:00] going on a tangent, I remember calling the principal of my daughter's school and I congratulated him for being the fifth. I texted him in the morning. It was like six o'clock in the morning. I texted him and I go, congratulations. It was the fifth best public school in New York City. I said, congratulations. I'll never forget this text back. He goes, I don't wake up in the morning to be number five. I have hundreds of schools, right? So, so that's how I feel. It's like, I don't wake up to be, you know,
number
five.
Michael Goldrich: do you think a lot of what you shared is generational? Like, I think a lot of, like you say, you know, um, you pulled up, said, I don't want to be a cop, I want to be a detective, but I think a lot of this younger generation now where it's instant gratification, this also to achieve the career is almost like delayed gratification. So how do you coach these kids to realize it takes time to get to where you want? I know you just kind of communicated that, but. How do you get them to realize it's just not instant, where everything right now in their, their life is instant?
Anthony Melchiorri: I think we all get kicked, right? So the first time they get kicked, they'll start [00:32:00] seeing that. In our generation, my generation, I'll say, because I don't know what you want, Michael, but when There are people that were not good. And there were people that were great, and there were people in the middle. Right now, there are people that are great that are young, and people that are mediocre, and people that aren't. Right? And if you do a little more, you'll go a lot further. And I don't think, maybe, percentage wise, it's a little bit more difficult now. So I'll give you that. But I don't think it's as extreme as people think.
I talk to young people all the time. Okay? I have three children. Okay? From 21 to 25. I have twins at 25, or 24, I might. Uh, Baby 21. And they work hard. My daughter started at 16 as a dishwasher in a bakery. My other daughter right now has got, she's a theater teacher, she, uh, master's degree, she works on the weekends in the theater. Uh, my other daughter had two ACL surgeries and never gave up and finally played this year as a volleyball player. My other daughter, uh, you know, [00:33:00] works really, really hard. She works from home. Matter of fact, she just came in and went back upstairs. She works from home two days a week. She Money's on Fridays and she's an event planner and it works for her.
She doesn't want to work five days a week from an office. Okay. It works for her. it's really important that you understand that the flexibility they're asking for and the way they want to work, we would have loved that when I was 20 years old. I would have loved being able to work from home on a Friday.
I would have loved to be able to tell my boss, I don't really like the way you're talking to me right now. So why don't you take a chill pill? You know, when one of my executives, uh, threatened to put a poll up, my, you know what, if I made that mistake again, I would have loved, and I said something to him, because I've always had a little bit of an edge, and I said something to him, respectfully, but I said something, most people wouldn't have. So we all want that ability to stand up for ourselves, to be flexible. To work on our own terms, okay? All of us. Right now, we're all working on our own terms, right? You know, this morning, I was running on the beach, then I had some meetings, I have a contract due, I can do this from my, [00:34:00] from, you know, the comfort of my home, and then I can either close shop at 5 o'clock or work till 12 o'clock tonight.
It's on me. So, I think That the younger generation get a bad rap. In one way, they deserve it, but just like our generation, the people that didn't want to be successful deserved it. They want the trophy, but they don't want to, they don't want to do the work, right?
The trophy doesn't come when you win the race.
The trophy comes in practice. So to me, there are so many kids that I'm around that are so, so good. And there are so many kids that I know, a couple come to mind, it's like, good luck. You talk a good game. So I just think it's up to us to hold them accountable. So when they are being that person that's not willing to do the extra work, hold them accountable.
Meaning, like, I mentor kids and there's some kids I don't call back. Because I asked you, there was one kid that called me up a couple months, a couple years ago and he was whining, I [00:35:00] mean whining, like on the freaking thing, can't get the break, can't get this, get that. Just do me a favor. I said, just like this, I said, put a little stone in your shoe, put a little rock, just a little one, a little stone, find it somewhere in the concrete, put it in your shoe, walk around with it for a week and then call me back.
Didn't call me back for like a year, emails me through LinkedIn and said, I got, I got the lesson. Thank you. That was it. Never call me again. Never call me again. It's like, we all get too comfortable, and we all complain, and we all whine, and we all worry about our challenges. I have challenges every day. We all have challenges.
But, the worst thing you can do is be comfortable for too long. That's the worst thing. When you're really rocking, you're killing it, and you're above everyone, and like, man, you know you're making more money, and you know you're getting this, and you're getting that, and everything's smooth, and I've been there, like, you start to lose perspective.
And then, when you get punched in the face a little bit, you're like, ah, that felt [00:36:00] better. Like, what do you mean it felt better? I'm talking to myself now. Like, what do you mean that felt better? It's like, ah, I forgot what it was like to struggle a little bit. So, we all need to rock and a shoe, because if you don't have a faith, if you don't have understanding, if you don't have gratefulness, I always say you can't have a bad day if you live a grateful life.
If you don't have that, everything else is crap, man. So when you're doing great, you're mean to people. And when you're doing shitty, you're mean to people. You know, it's like, you've got to be a person that wants to bring everybody with you.
Adam Mogelonsky: That is the best way to finish off this episode here, Anthony. So many lessons, and as you pointed out, these lessons transcend generations. They apply throughout. And I really hope people will listen to this once, they'll listen to it twice, they'll really digest what you said. And, of course, uh, to everyone listening, uh, please check out Hotel All Stars so we can really make this show, [00:37:00] uh, an ongoing success and really promote the, what it takes to become a true hospitality leader.
Anthony, thank you so much for coming on.
Anthony Melchiorri: It was a pleasure. Thank you. Have a great day.
Adam Mogelonsky: Thanks.