Welcome to Howl Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen to and while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Well, my guest today is one of the best brand builders I've ever met, Ben Wepp ern, the CEO of AJ Capital, which includes the iconic line of graduate hotels. He's also developed hospitality partnerships with Field and Stream, Chip and Joanna Gaines, and get this, he's even got a hotel right now on the 18th green at St. Andrews. I gotta tell you, when I heard that, I nearly dropped everything and went straight to the airport. But no matter what he's working on, Ben always taps into the power of storytelling to connect with people. Players are at the heart of every hotel and any space his company creates, and it's a big factor in how he's building and inspiring his team too. When you listen to Ben, it's clear. If you want to connect with people, you need to understand how to use storytelling. You're going to find so many great insights here on how you can leverage the power of story to make stronger connections with your customers and team. So let's get to it. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Ben Weppern. One of the most amazing things that's happened to be in the last five months is that I'm playing golf with you. And you say, you may not remember me, but I was at your son-in- law's wedding or your daughter's wedding and actually was at your house. Now this was 17 years ago. My son-in-law, Jonathan Butler, was your very first employee. Talk about a small world. It really is. What a small world. I remember it. I'm John with a great guy in Supervivili. I got to give him a lot of credit. We had no clue what we were doing. He must have answered an ad in the paper. There was zero leadership going on, but him having the confidence and the trust to work with us. I mean, we were at a bad office on the middle of downtown Nashville two guys trying to figure it out. I'm surprised we had enough furniture for John, but he came and worked hard every single day. And I remember going to his wedding and I remember meeting you. And I've been exposed and surrounded myself by people that are just seeing it, you're a product of what you're exposed to. I remember listening to you talk. It was so inspiring and then learning about you and who you are and what you do in the brands. It was a really great experience for me and I remember going like, man, I got to get my shit together. It's time. So John's a great guy. And please tell him I said hello and send my best. Well, you've gone your way and he's gone his. He's now a family counselor and you're one of the biggest brand builders in the hotel and resort business out there. And you obviously have a knack for finding talent. John being one of those guys . But what do you look for when you're hiring talent and how has it evolved over the years? Yeah, we've done a lot of people finding us more than us finding them. And I think it takes time to really figure out who you're, who's going to jive well just terms of the cultural fit and the impact. I mean, we really look for people that are passionate about what they do. You know, people that are into problem solving, that are entrepreneurial, that want to take on a lot of responsibility. I mean, you want people that are mission driven and that are inspired by what you're doing. You know, it's not like, you know, you think about us going into opening in a hotel in the university anchored market. It's a small town, a small community. It's not that we're necessarily going to pay more than the holiday in or Hampton Inn or Hilton Garden Inn or whatever our competitive set is. But we have a real mission, right? We want to humanize hospitality through space. And people are inspired by that. It's the same idea that, you know, you're not going to make more working at the Apple store as opposed to T-Mobile. But I'm guaranteeing the customer service, the experience. Nobody has a T-Mobile tattoo on their arm. But people join Apple because they want to be part of something bigger than them. And we really look out for those people. Yeah, I always say nobody ever goes to work every day. Want to be a part of something mediocre. And you built a great company. Give us a snapshot of AJ Capital and the work you and your team do. You know, our idea is to build the most meaningful places and the most meaningful spaces and really create the backdrop for memorable experiences. We look at a lot of overlooked markets that we think are consistent with, you know, our passions and our pursuits. And then we have tried to, you know, really humanize hospitality and manifest really design driven specific faces that reflect their community. Every product should solve a problem. Every product should tell a story. And every product should reflect the culture and the community where it resides. And so, you know, we're well known for the brand graduate hotels, which is in 37 markets around the U.S. and the U.K. We started a brand about four years ago, three years ago, called Marine and Lawn, which is around, you know, building hotels that reflect as spectacular as the, you know, courses and communities where they reside, hotels that mirror that St. Andrews, North Barrett, Dornick, Port Rush, Whirl County Downs, you know, markets like that. We're going to be coming into the U.S. but that shortly. We just launched another brand, 1871, iconic Heritage brand Field and Stream. We 're taking that idea of, you know, that lifestyle type product and applying it to limited select service hotels in, you know, outdoor recreational driven markets. We're partners with Barry Stern, Lincoln Starwood Capital on that. And then we started building, you know , communities that have, you know, mixed use, whether it's residential, office, retail, really building it a glomeration effect of like-minded companies that mirror each other and, you know, come together to create a really inspiring backdrop in spaces that people can connect to. And so, you know, we're always looking for new ways to grow and evolve and recreate ourselves and disrupt ourselves and think that, you know, better design is a better business. And the physical world, you know, has limitations, but your imagination doesn't . And so we continue to, you know, try to push those boundaries and not settle. We're best known for graduate hotels, which you launched in 2014. How did you put together your initial strategy to try and fill the gap in the market that you saw? We had done, you know, four sort of design-driven boutique hotels in Chicago. Hotel Lincoln was the first one. It was a days in that had been closed down and shuttered for five years in the neighborhood where I lived in Lincoln Park. We then did Thompson Chicago, S oho House Chicago and Chicago Athletic Association and kind of looked back and Hotel Lincoln was, you know, just in terms of, you know, pure ROI was the highest and trying to understand what were the characteristics that really made that such a success. And, you know, we found out it was, you know, incredibly high barrier to entry, you know, market. There was no competitive set. And the competitive set was, you know, obsolete or tired or just not much of anything. So that created a lack of, you know, sort of competition, which is, you know, really important, you know, tribute in business is can you, you know, can you make your own game? That's a good way to win. And then we really connected the people on a visceral human level by telling the story through the physical space, people taking, you know, ownership of it. And so we started looking at ways we could replicate that in other major markets and went to, you know, Westwood in L.A. or, you know, outside of New York at NYU, you know, I should have mentioned, DePaul was pretty close. The University was close to Hotel Lincoln. We had a lot of business from that school. And as I mentioned, we really told the sort of what Bill Bradley says, you know, you can fool the fans. You can't fool the players. We really connected the players because we told those very specific stories that you would get those inside jokes of the neighborhood. Frank Baum, who wrote Wizard of Oz, lived in neighborhood. John Parker was the name of Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard who was drinking when he was shot. And so we named the rooftop bar Jay Parker, David Mamet, the playwright, lived in the hotel for a while and wrote this article about Elaine who would call him in the morning. So our coffee shop was Elaine's coffee call. So taking all that and applying that neighborhood in the know into these markets outside of major metropolitan areas. And one of the guys in my office was like, you should check out Ann Arbor. And I should have mentioned, you know, I'm from Ohio. I do not like Michigan. And I was like, I don't want to go there. He's like, you should check it out. It's a really spectacular town. And it's got a lot of similar characteristics. It was just one hotel. And so I go to Ann Arbor and I'm like, damn, this place is awesome. And it's really just spectacular just in terms of the collegiate atmosphere, the experience, the academia, the nostalgia. And there's one hotel downtown that absolutely dominates. But you know, it was, it didn't, you know, have the infrastructure or distribution or, you know, sort of modern amenities of a sort of, you know, current boutique hotel. The guy said he's not , he's just like, I would never sell his name. His name is on the door of the hotel. He said, I'm not selling this. Well, I'm trying to curious why he wouldn't sell it. And then he mentions that he has a hotel in Madison that is a similar, you know, he likes these university markets because they're counter-sickical. There is not, you know, a lot of volatility. And so we started looking at Madison. We were looking at a hotel in Oxford, Mississippi, where, you know, we're all misses at the same time, just a, you know, good characteristics, lots of leisure, demand, and also the university is an anchor. And literally I wrote an email, you know, which I, we still, I still have today's, is we should do Ann Arbor and we should do Oxford and we should trade a brand around, you know, college towns. Let's roll. That was it. So we put together a business plan and went after it relentlessly and found out pretty quick that we were definitely filling a void in that white space and we could have first mover. And so we blitz scaled it and then we build a moat around it. You know, that's what we continue to do is to keep dredging and, and growing it. And, you know, we've really struck a chord and it's become, you know, a verb, if you will, you know, I'm going to graduate, going to graduate and it's easy. It's simple, but really the focus on, you know, going to a space that you're familiar with that, you know, old, but a new experience there. We call it new stolja. So creating new memories in those spaces and we're really passionate about it. Now I understand that you create a fictional character for each of your properties that guides the creative process. For instance, tell me about the main character for graduate Nashville. The journey, the sort of customer journey or the design creative process all starts with the story and the sort of fictional characters you mentioned and it changes in each property in Nashville. That's a great one because it's very personal to the entire team. And, you know, the idea there was sort of small town, aspirational, you know, country music singer moves to Nashville from, you know, small town, you know, East Tennessee. It comes to the big city, lives on a couch. And so I'll give you the application of each part of the journey and the story. So there's a couch. So you go into a lobby of graduate Nashville . There's stadium seats of chairs of couches. So she's sleeping on the couch. She's working at a karaoke bar. We have a karaoke bar called Cross Side Critters, which is an anim atronic karaoke bar where you go and sing. And I grew up going to Chuck E. Cheese. So the same idea, you know, when you're in a birthday party and you go to showbiz or whatever they call it. And you, you know, that big giant animal, we created a band. David Eric is actually the lead singer. He's a pig. It's pretty funny. Eric Church. Yeah, you would love it. And so she's working at that karaoke bar and it's divey, smoky. It's got hard wood floors and there's velvet paintings of all these country music icons on the wall. And she 's there waiting tables. And one night the lead karaoke host calls in sick. And so she has to go up there perform and she hits it. And she absolutely crushes. She's super nervous, but she gets discovered and she signs a record deal. And she then, you know, sort of moves to LA and there's this Dolly Parton song and I think it was 1984 called, you know, White Limousie. The idea that she goes to LA and she sees a white limousine and she's made it. And so it's called white limousine, but the entire bar is pink. And we have a giant chicken wire sculpture of Dolly Parton, which is a, you know, very Instagrammable and fun and interesting and it's floral and pattern. And it's right kind of on this thin line of, you know, tacky and gaudy and elegant, which is, you know, kind of like her and our muse. And then she sort of travels the world, becomes the queen of country music. We have a lot of queens, country music, inspiration. We have Loretta Lynn, Dolly, obviously, Dolly Part on, Dolly West, you know, people that were inspired by portraits in the room. And that room then is reflection of all of her travels around the world. It's got a four post bed. It's floral. It has a bunch of Vanderbilt references, like the honor code, the squirrels, you know, all the, you know, the anchor down. But then it's like, she's refined and smart and beautiful and sophisticated, but she still got that, you know, real country in her. And so you'll see that in the room. And that's the sort of, you know, circular journey. And we have that, you know, in really every single, not really in every single property, we just opened in Palo Alto. We hit, which was a really spectacular asset. We're about to open in Princeton. And these towns are so rich with stories. And we do that even when we're applying it to other brands or other product, you know, we try to, you know, live in the future and create what's missing and try to tell that narrative in each one. You know, you're the CEO, obviously, and, but it sounds to be that you're almost, well, you're not almost, you are. You're the chief storyteller, you know, you know, how does storytelling play into other aspects of your leadership? It's instrumental in every part of it. When you think about it, I mean, when you're trying to manifest something and particularly thinking about when you're starting, you have to be able to tell that story. You have to be able to articulate it. You know, your unbrid led passion and interest very clearly, very passionately. And people have to believe that you're going to do it, you know, because they're investing as you and you and your idea. And you know, everybody can sit here and talk about this. But the real hard part is doing it, as you know. That's a long journey from talk to execution. And being able to say, you know, I don't have anything in common with lazy people. I'm going to get this done. I care so much . This is, this is my, you know, lives mission and my work. We're going to, you know, we 're mission driven. We're going to execute this business plan that doesn't have any comps, right? We're building something that's in the future. You have to be able to believe my story or you 're not going to invest in that being part of that journey. And so the story is everything. And you know, think about a songwriter. I mean, the writing of the song is then comes into life. They manifest that through the chords and the lyrics and the person singing. We do the same thing, but in physical space. So we're telling that story. And, you know, hopefully people connect it. And some people won't. You know, a lot of people think I'm out of my mind or they think that, you know, this product, you know, this looks like a living room. And I'm like, well, that's great. Because what we're doing is not for everybody. All of those obstacles or opportunities and work clothes, that's okay. We want to build something that's differentiated and to be differentiated is actually very difficult. One, it's hard to bring it to life. And then two, it's not for everyone. That's okay. Because the people that like it will really resonate with us. And those people, the lifetime value of that customer, the brand, the basket, or ship them taking ownership and sharing it with people, that's the most valuable salespeople there are for us in the world. That's exactly what we're looking for. We're not for everybody, but for our people, they're going to say, these people get me, they understand me. I'm going to take that journey with them because I believe in the story. Because you're listening to this, I can tell you're the kind of person who wants to learn how to lead well. But there's a lot of companies out there who want to take that desire and charge you $500 or $1,000 or heck, even $20,000 to try and show you how to lead. That's just not right. If you want to be a better leader, I believe you deserve to have access to something that will truly help you. And it shouldn't cost a fortune. So I want you to go to how leaderslead.com and start my leadership class. It's really and truly free. And after you take this class, you're going to feel more confident in your role and you'll be on your way to getting big things done with your team. Go check it out at howleaderslead.com. You know, when I interviewed Jim Nance, who I believe is a mutual friend, you know, for this podcast, he mentioned that no one does his research for him as he prepares for a broadcast. He views at his responsibility to dig for those nuggets and insights. Do you have a similar approach as you're working on a new project or what's it look like? I do think that the conviction, the confidence, is what gives you that ability to execute and getting people to buy in. You don 't want a leader that's scared going up, you know, into battle. You want someone that is going to take you in there, roll up their sleeves, you know, be on the front line and grind with you every single step of the way. And I mean, that's what happens to us, right? We've been in the foxhole. We've faced, I mean, incredible adversity. And so you could choose your heart. You might as well choose something that you really love. And when you love it, you're going to go every single day and give it everything you got, you know, from start to finish. And Jim is an incredible example that Jim was born to do what he's done. I mean, his voice, his passion, his conviction, you can't make that up and you can't make this up either. You either love hospitality and you're an agent for change or you're just not because it's too hard. It's too hard to do it and to just to pretend. You know, you pride yourself on the ability to rejuvenate places that others pass by. Is this a gut feeling or how would you describe your decision-making process for what you take on? We want to be part of the backdrop of really memorable spaces. And so when you think about where our hotels reside and what's around them, the hotel has to mirror that. And we're not selling rooms. We're selling a fantasy. And we're incorporating the guest into the story. So, you know, we're selling a lifestyle and fulfilling a fantasy. And people are part of that. We're not the heroes in the journey. We 're the support system. We're creating that backdrop. We're the directors. You can tell when you go to a place, whether it's a hotel or a location, they just hit you in the gut. And you may not know why, but there's something so special and so unique and so you're so emotionally connected to it, you just want to be part of it. And it makes you feel that emotional, visceral, sort of limberic. Wow, you know , I'm just lucky to be here. And we have so much, you know, gratitude for those moments and those experiences. And we just want to celebrate them through the space. And we just know, you know, obviously we've done, to your point, the research, the underwriting, all of the, you know, evaluation to know that this is a market. And then we know what we can build it to, you know, in terms of what the market supports. And then we just, you know, pour our heart and soul and our passion into what we're doing. You know, you have this motto for your team, which is we are all students, which seems fitting for a brand like graduate hotels and what you're doing across the board. Tell me a story of how this shows up in the day to day of your business. Well, we are all students who's born out of the idea. It was, it sort of came to life. We were doing a hotel in Charlottesville and they have the idea that you're continuing to evolve. It doesn't stop when you leave college is that you're always a student. And we're students of, you know, we're curious because when you stop learning, you die, right? When you stop evolving, you die. And I think that we are all students is very indicative of that, that, you know, the world is malleable. If you want to pursue it and grow and evolve, and you can change with that, and you never stop learning. And, you know, you take that idea to so many adjacent things in your life, whether it's, you know, personal, professional, any business, you can't just sit there and be okay with what you're doing. You got to disrupt yourself or, you know, somebody else is going to, you know, here you are now, you're overseas and you're doing destination golf hotels. Tell me about your hotel on the 18th green at St. Andrews, which is so cool. I mean, you just, I saw a video of it. It just fit looks fantastic. How did it come to be? It is so special, you know, it's the birthplace of golf, right? I mean, this is the home of golf. It's 600 years old, Old Tom Morris, the old course, the sea, you know, the beach where they film chariots of fire. It is like out of a movie, the history, the memories that people have made there. You know, our job was to help, you know, celebrate that and just tell the story . I mean, it was to not mess it up, right? Because the backdrop is so outrageous. We were buying a hotel in Oxford, UK, where we wanted graduate to be. We wanted to be in Oxford and we wanted to be in Cambridge, the two oldest, most iconic, you know, university anchor communities there. And the gentleman, Donald McDonald, he can't make up his name. And he's an incredible guy. Irish man owned, you know, a portfolio of hotels and he asked us, you know, I didn't want to sell Oxford, but I'd sell the whole thing. And I went to, after somebody in my office had gone and said it was magnificent, went to St. Andrews and I just lost my mind. I mean, you know, I'm obviously an emotional, you can see, I just, I'm like, this is, this is the holy grail of golf hospitality of golf as a whole. And so we had this incredible hotel that's, you know, 150 years old and a parking lot next door literally on, I mean, it's on the 18th, David, it's like, you fall out onto the 18th green, you watch the first tee shot, you see a swelking bridge, you see the road hole. I mean, it is, it's literally feels made up. Like it's like a screensaver. And so I go there and he takes me to the roof or the top, you know, the top floor of the existing hotel. I'm like, it's like when the world goes, a wizard of Oz, when it goes from black and white to color, I'm just like, oh my gosh, like this can't be. And so, long story short, we ended up buying Oxford and St. Andrews. And then when we bought St. Andrews, and I've never, I've never been or played golf over there or anything, David, we understood it had those very same characteristics of graduate where people would come over , they'd go to different markets. The hotels were lackluster, very, you know, mom and pop and, you know, non, you know, the in the US hotels are like 85 15 in terms of branded, non branded. When they're branded, they have great infrastructure. They have, you know, brand qualities and standards. Over there is the inverse. And so a lot of mom and pop very fragmented. So incredible destinations, hotels need a lot of work, but incredible architecture and good bones. And so then we started to grow the portfolio with people that were are passionate about golf and hospitality. And it's been an incredible brand. And you know, just the idea of, you know, your personal passions and professional pursuits, combining those makes a great product. And so this was a perfect application. And so we're trying to concrete the most inspiring product in the most inspiring places in the world. Well, I tell you, you have definitely done it there. And, you know, your other properties are sensational over there. So hats off to you. And I've heard you say that we don 't look at ourselves as owners, but as stewards. What's an example of the difference between the two ? I think a steward looks at it as not just an opportunity, but a responsibility. And when you're a steward, it's a long term investment in the community, not just a specific property. And, you know, an owner, you know, just kind of owns, right, is there you can do as little as possible. A steward is always polishing their assets, always taking care of the people. When you're looking and building something with real, you know, very passionate about the product, and you're thinking about it in terms of 100 or 200 years, it's much different than just being an owner. And we also, we're on both sides. So we're owner operator of our assets. There's a lot of times there's a disalignment of interest in owner and operator. We're a fully vertically integrated interdisciplinary firm. Everybody cares. And that's when you're a steward is that you're fully committed to it. It's like your house, a steward owns their home and an owner is more a renter. They're just there passing through trying to make a buck. We obviously want to be profitable. That's a big part of it. But I think being passionate about it and investing in it does lead to that profitability. What do you do and how should leaders keep their eye on the long, long game? Yeah, I think, you know, great ideas have the power to shift perception and create value where it didn't exist. And when you're doing that, it's not a, it's not a daily , you know, hotels are daily, right? They're different than a lot of other businesses, right? We have a daily lease. You got to really be crazy to get into hotels. Think how hard that is. When you have an operating business and a daily lease. Now, it's a great inflationary hedge and hotels of all of a sudden become in vogue in terms of investing when the markets right now are very unpredictable. Hospitality is still is active and people are investing in leisure and travel. So those markets continue to grow. But it's very difficult and challenging and ambitious. But if you're committed to it, and like I said before, in COVID, I mean, aren't we went to zero and we had 2,500 employees, we had to stop. We had no choice, right? In order to save them for the long term, we had to make really short term sacrifices for long term gains. And people were, I mean, we were scared. I was scared. I don't know how you couldn't be. I mean, this was something unprecedented the world had never experienced before. But they knew that we were committed, right? It wasn 't some, this wasn't some hobby, right? This is our lives work and our mission and we're completely committed to changing, you know, hospitality and building this brand. That's why, you know, founder led businesses. A lot of people will only invest in because they know they care. This isn't just, you know, some job or some, you know, where you're just leaving. Like, this is my life. And these people are the most important part of the business and letting them go. And then the market's just going to zero. Operating businesses are not scheduled to go to zero. I mean, right? Can you imagine if Taco Bell just stopped? First of all, you have a lot of hungry people out there. But it just stopped. And so we always knew though that this wasn't going to be permanent. You know, we knew that it would come back at some point. So we just had to survive in advance, you know, every single day and do what we had to do and use the opportunity as a, you know, as a pause to sort of look around and say, who do we want to be and how do we get there? And so we were obviously committed. And then we started growing and building these other platforms during code. We'd use it as a time to reset the organization and, you know, build that , you know, platform. So then we could take the skyscraper up as we grew coming out of it. You've teamed up with Eric Church to open a bar restaurant, a music venue in downtown Nashville. What's the unique story you hope to tell with this project? Really, Eric's story, you know, Eric's story is a way to inspire other people, how Eric has done it, you know, his way and his way only never compromising for integrity, always being about the music and the songs. And then, you know, there's a lot of bars on Broadway. There's a lot of, you know, country music artists who have spaces. But it was Eric's idea, you know, as you know, the attack, you know, how you and I connected, you know, was through Eric, who's, you know, my best friend came in, said, you know, another group approached him to do a bar and he said, you know what, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, you know, with you. I was like, oh, shit, you know, that's a huge responsibility. And just, you know, the idea of doing it with your friend and telling his story is a huge honor. And so I just want to make sure that we did it right . But the idea that, you know, it's another hockey talk downtown, you know, Eric would never do anything that is like everybody else, right? I mean, Eric came down there was, you know, playing for tips on a stool and printers alley at, you know, Fiddle and Steel, writing songs, working at QVC, selling knives. I mean, Eric is a grinder and Eric is, you know , so committed and so passionate about what he's doing. And Eric came down there and, you know, people told him he was out of his mind, but he stayed at it. And he was inspired by people like Chris Christoperson and Wayland Jennings and, you know, Johnny Cass and all these other great musicians and songwriters. And he did it the right way. And so our space there is a journey through Eric's career. And what we're doing completely different than anybody else. There is a ticketed, seated music venue that's two stories that's a church within the five story building. And Eric's going to play there. Other artists are going to play there. And it's really about the songs, about the songwriters, right, which is a fabric and backbone of Nashville and Music City as the songwriters. And so having that venue and then we work, we're collaborating with Rodney Scott who does, you know, whole hog barbecue, James Beard Award, winning chef out of Charleston, who's a magnificent guy, we're doing a rooftop, hell of a queue, you know, play on hell of a queue. And we weren't going to do anything halfway. Right. Eric's never compromised. He's never done anything halfway. And we're all in in this space. There's a dueling piano bar. It is magnificent. It's going to open at the end of this year. I cannot wait for this. We're going to be going to get you on there. Stay tuned. Oh, yeah. I can't wait. I will definitely be the first one at that that venue. Believe you that is fantastic. And he's so committed to it. David, as you know, I mean, you know, he pours his heart and soul every single day. There's so many stories. There's so many songs. They're so inspiring. Every detail in this space. Eric's reside, you know, has been instrumental in. There's nothing that he doesn't approve or work on. That's it. You know, anybody like Eric and, you know, we've done bars or hotels with other people that are, you know, we're honoring. They're all committed, right? None of them do anything halfway. That's why they're so successful. And he's so emotionally vested in this. And it's going to be really special. There's also a podcast, you know, studio on the quarter of second or Broadway location is magnificent and we're super inspired to get it open. Fantastic. And speaking of projects, you know, the Field and Stream brand that you've acquired and you're going to have the Field and Stream Lodge, which is 20 hotels and close proximity to national parks, beaches , mountains, ski slopes, you know, tell me about just, you know, real cliff notes on what you see of the opportunity here with that brand. Yeah. And that's a, you know, and again, that's being a stew ard in an iconic brand. You know, Field and Stream means so much to so many people. It's been around since 1871. Barry had owned it back in the day, sold it and, you know, all kept the rights for the lodging. And Barry was in my office one day and he saw I have a bunch of bass on my wall . And he was the connection. I said, you know, I love the fish and so forth. And so he said, you know, I own Field and Stream, the lodging rights. I go, I mean, we, and we had been talking about, you know, partnering on a brand or doing something creative in that space. And so well, that's, you know, everything is either an absolute yes or complete absolute no, that was an absolute yes. Tell me where to go and to sign up because the idea of taking a lifestyle brand , which is Field and Stream and applying it to limited select lifestyle brands and limited select service hotels don't really mix. But Field and Stream actually connects to that. The marketplace is massive. You know, these aren't COVID trends in terms of outdoor recreational travel. I do think as people are so connected to the metaverse, they want to get more connected to the universe and building a place that is rooted in trust and nostalgia and purpose driven, which is what we do as we've talked about in that world. Great combination of personal passions and pursuits and then applying it. And we're in, you know, state parks and resort destination travel type places. And our competitive set is, you know, a Hampton Inn or a Red Roof Inn or a Comfort Inn or whatever. When you go see, you know, on the side of a highway and you're traveling in Montana, are you going to stay there? Are you going to stay at Field and Stream and get here, get outside. And the properties are beautiful. They're elegant. They're simple, you know, but they're, they're, they're speaking to outdoor recreational travel and really inspired by that. And Barry's, you know, a world-class entrepreneur and brand builder. You know, I'm not sure there's anybody better and partnering with him has been a spectacular experience and great learning, you know, for our entire team. And it's no surprise been that Chip and Joanna Gaines announced when they're, they're innovating a hotel in Waco. They chose you as their partner. One of the Fixer uppers stars been like his business partners for Hotel 1928. That's got to be who to. Yeah, it's super fun . You got a pretty exciting fun life. There's, I didn't know there was another way to do it. David , that was, that, that's it. And I didn't even know who, you know, Chip and Joanna, I wasn't familiar with them and went down to Waco and was blown away with what they've created. They're entrepreneurial and creative spirit and it is great building that was built, as you said, in the 1920s and just had tons of character, tons of charm. I mean, it's really hard. I mean, renovating a historic building, which we've done as much as probably anybody in the country is really challenging really, or it's you want somebody that's done it before. You know, we've made a lot of mistakes and, you know, doing it and, you know, there's still a lot of variables you can't control, but there's certain things you can based on prior history. And so they wanted a partner. We spoke the same language, Chip is hilarious. You know, we started talking about imposter syndrome and all the things we deal with and then wanting to build something, you know, meaningful that reflected the culture of their community. And so the building, it was a Shriners temple. Awesome architecture. And I said, yeah, why not? And they're wonderful ambassadors and partners and sponsors and very involved Joanna on the design chip on the conceptual both, you know, Chip does a lot of the demo with his hammer. I'm just kidding. I'm not sure. But he's a great, you know, sportsman and wonderful person, both of them, magnificent team, their head Doug McMe at the time who who had stayed in one of our hotels called and say, Hey, this would be a great fit. And he was right. And so , you know, that's part of the adventurous journey is you just never know what's next. You know, what are you guys going to do the next five years? I have no idea, David. I have no clue. I know we're going to try to get better and work hard every single day and, you know, continue to manifest these ideas. But I would have never guessed we're doing that. I would never guess I'm on the phone talking to you. You know, and so it's been a great experience with Chip and Jo anna. That hotel is going to open soon and it's super cool. They did a whole show around that process, which I think will be really informative and interesting to people how a hotel sort of comes to life. That hotel special and I can't wait to get it open. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Ben Weppern in just a moment. As you heard, Ben and I are both big admirers and sportscaster Jim Nance. Now, we all know and love Jim's iconic voice, but you may not realize just how much work he puts into every broadcast. In our episode of How Leaders Lead, Jim talks about the importance of showing up prepared. It's the process that makes you really able to do a game of that stature that had 50 something million people watching. Buffalo and Kansas City, the game has been, again, regarded by many as arguably the best football game of all time. Your week really is nothing but research and reading and talking on the phone to many people as you can behind the scenes. I build these spotting boards and I'm taking notes on a legal pad and at the end of the week, I transfer from that legal pad over to my spotting board the really, really sweet stuff that the things that I want to try to get on the air if we can. If the game takes us there, but that is the most direct thing that you can see physically as far as your research. The rest is up here in the head. You compartmentalize all of these things in your head and you're ready depending on where the game takes you. Some unknown guy makes a play, a pivotal play in the game. I'm ready to tell this story. When you combine talent with hard work, you've got an unbeatable combination. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Jim, episode 76 here on How Leaders Lead. You talk about we getting better every day and you never know what's really next. You have an internal document with 23 core values that guide you and your team. What was your process for putting that list together and why did you do that for your team? I do that every year. 23 was magic. Today's the 23rd, by the way, because I'm Michael Jordan and his influence and inspiration on so many millions of people. That was the 23 for 23, but we'll call it something. Do a lot of reading and podcasting and ideas that inspire me and want to help inspire the rest of the team. So 23 for 23 had a great ring to it. I guess I'll have 24 next year, but we've done it every year, except the last couple, I think, during COVID. We're talking every single day and we had everybody on the phone. But the idea that you have fundamental principles that you can always look back to, and everybody, when you're making a decision or people have a lot of autonomy in our organization, I'll pull it up and look at it now. Every single one of these holds true every single day. Small towns, big stories. And we took some Michael Jordan quotes in here. Limits like fears are often just an illusion. We had a Phil Knight one. Let everyone else call your idea crazy. Keep going. Don't stop. Don't even think about stopping until you get there and don't give much thought to where there is. Whatever comes, just don't stop. I mean, come on. Right? I mean, it's like, what wouldn't fire you up about that? More difficult, less competition. Anyone can fall down and fly to stairs, but few can actually sprint up them. One that you have that I was interested in was don't over celebrate achievement. Every accomplishment is just a stepping stone to new challenges. How do you balance recognizing what you've done and at the same time putting that relentless dissatisfaction with the status quo? Melody Hopson says, you know, she's pleased but not satisfied. And that's exactly how I feel. I love that mindset is I'm certainly pleased and incredibly grateful, but I also feel like I have a lot to prove. A lot of people to be thankful for and a lot to show them. We all a long way to go. We're still just getting started. Definitely have the second inning mindset. And we're taking those principles, the lessons learned, applying them to the next thing. It's continuing to get better and be a student of my passions is what makes me tick. And I think that's what makes everybody else tick and that's what gets people on board of this mission driven organization and the culture that we've created. So you can 't just sit there and rest on your laurels. I mean, that's not how you get to, I mean, how many Taco Bells are there? A lot. Yeah, a lot. A lot more than they're all will be. And our idea was never to be the biggest. We just want to be the best at what we do. And that is the idea is, you know, dominate these small niches and scale to, you know, adjacent markets or create real value. And so you have to be fiercely committed to it. And we are and the purpose behind everything that we do is to grow and get better and to drive value in each one of our spaces. Yeah, but can you wear people out with that relentless push? Oh, yeah. How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you motivation with day to day recognition? Oh, 100% you know, wear people out. And that's sort of like self-selecting process of getting people that that want to be worn out, that want to be pushed hard. There's a lot of, you know, recognition at the corporate level. There's a lot of recognition at the property level. I mean, these are all independent businesses when you think about it. They're part of something bigger. David, but each hotel, each office building multifamily, you know, everything has a general manager and it starts at the top. And that person running their organization, giving the ability to be creative, recognizing employees, recognizing the people that are there for a long period of time, all of their rewards. We have a lot of different metrics, obviously. We can measure very easily and giving people a pat on the back. But that's part of the people that join up for this journey. They want to be pushed. They want to grow. They want to evolve. Or they wouldn't do it. It's too hard. I love it. You know, you want people that want to be worn out. I love that. I think that's great. You know, business has been so much fun. And now I'd like to have a little bit more fun with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? I'm ready for you. What's one word others would use to describe you? Relentless. The one word that you think best describes you. Passionate. If you could be someone beside yourself for a day, who would it be? I mean, it's hard not to say. I mean, I don't know. Michael Jordan, I'm not sure if he can still dunk. So I don't know. I'd love to be a musician for a day. I mean, to play a concert and get on stage and see what that would be like in front of all. I can't sing. I can't, you know, do any of that action. So it'd be fun to be Eric, Eric for one day. Being such a big time basketball fan, what will you always remember about the first time you met Michael Jordan? Oh my God. I mean, the first time I met him, I was at his camp. I was 13 years old. I took the money from my bar, my bar, Mitzvah, and went to Michael Jordan Flight Camp in Elmhurst. I'm from Dayton, Ohio, and took a picture with him, which I still have. And it's incredible, which I'll send it to you after this. I can't. But no, actually, this last summer when he was here, Eric and I, you know, got to spend a bunch of time with him, and whoever said, you know, don't meet your heroes, never met him. He is just such an incredible person and curious. And I mean, we got right into it right away. 80s NBA college basketball. He's such an encyclopedia. He's like, nance. He knows everything and asking questions about, you know, who is the hardest guard. I mean, he gave answers to things I just never would. He was telling me, like, you know, the most underrated player is Kevin McHale, hardest guy to guard. I'm like, wow, you know, just like stuff like that. And he's just such an inspirational thing. And you think about how great he is, not just basketball, brand, business, culture. I mean, he's such an icon and so inspirational for so many people. There's nobody better. What's your biggest pet peeve traffic? I hate traffic. It is literally debilitating. I was in Chicago on Sunday, and I had to sit in traffic for an hour and at 20 minutes, and I was literally hitting my head against all you can imagine, right? I feel like I'm in a straight jacket. Traffic is the worst. What's the first word or phrase that comes to your mind when you hear the song Rocky Top nostalgia? If I turned on the radio in your car, what would we hear? The same thing over and over. And my kids are like, do you know there's other artists besides Eric Church and Morgan Wallen? And they won't listen to podcasts. And I love podcasts. Founders is my favorite. I listen to all of them, you know, yours and how I built it. But like Eric and Morgan. And then they have a song together, "Man Made a Bar." And I like, they literally, I mean, it's like, you know, it's a manifestation of everybody making a bar together, or just the idea. But I think those are the two most talented artists in the world and are obviously, you know, friends and so very inspired by them and their careers. All right. Last question in the lightning round. Finish this sentence for me. Hospitality is. Hospitality is smiling. Hospital ity is welcoming people into your home. Hospitality is taking care of people as you would like to be taken care of. And hospitality is the anticipating guest needs. And hospitality is humanity. That's the last question in the lightning round. But just going back to what you just said, how does your view of hospitality impact how you lead? I think, you know, you want to be human. I think you want to be empathetic. I think you want to, you know, anticipate the other side of the table in the equation and try to put yourself in their seat. You know, what are they thinking? How would they like to be treated? You know, how can you anticipate where you're going? How can you look around corners? You know, hospitality is not just hotels. Hospitality is applied to every single asset class, every single business in the entire world, whether you're in restaurants, retail. And if you work at, you know, H&R block, hospitality is integral to the success of your business. And there's some great books on that that you can read and just reinforcing that shared beliefs and really engaging with people and bringing people together for, you know, shared experiences and a shared mindset. That's hospitality to me. Last question. What 's one piece of advice you'd give to aspiring leaders? You had to just pick one. I think there's no shortcuts. You have to do the work. No matter what it is, you have to do the work. People respect that. You have to build a really solid foundation before you can go up. You have to commit yourselves. And the culture drives commerce every single day. And that culture is the most important thing of your business. And that'll help you build the base and to take vertical and to do it passionately, to always invest in it, every invest in yourself personally. And that'll then, you know, your results professionally. And, you know, just underdogs are always hungry. They always want to eat. So stay hungry. You know, Ben, it's always fun for me to really interview and learn from great leaders. And there's no doubt in my mind you have that it factor that was going to carry you forever. You're a superstar in your industry and your desire to get better and better and win more championships is going to keep you moving to higher and higher heights. So I just want to thank you so much for having the passion you have and having the insights you have and sharing with our listeners. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate all your support and leadership and friendship. It means a lot. The first time I ever had a chance to get to know Ben and we sat down and ch atted. It was so easy to hear why he's been so successful. He's a really thoughtful guy with a tremendous amount of drive and passion and commitment to what he's doing. But it never gets in the way of what really matters. And for Ben, it's all about those human moments of hospitality and connection. And you know, as well as I do, leadership is all about connection. If you want to connect better with your team or build a brand that people feel connected to, you've got to embrace the power of storytelling. Just like Ben has, it's such an effective way to draw people into a big idea. So this week, I want you to ask yourself two questions. Where do you want to strengthen a connection with your team or your customers? And then how could you tap into the power of storytelling to do it? When you strengthen your skills as a storyteller, you strengthen your leadership skills and it can impact your entire business. And I hope today's conversation inspires you to do just that. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders use storytelling to create connection. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Kevin Warsh, the former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and one of our country's leading financial experts. The key to being a better leader is to go find better leaders and learn from them. We only come to know who we are. We only come to reveal ourselves by interacting with other people. I guess there are people that are probably born great leaders. But for most of us, we end up being around really good leaders and really bad leaders. And it's incumbent upon us to try to pick up those good skills and to avoid the bad skills. So be sure to come back next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How leaders lead. Where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I may get a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. [BLANK_AUDIO]