August 25, 2025 • 36 mins
Michael Bresler’s remarkable career transition from the hospitality industry to the realm of AI operational excellence is all about leveraging his transferable skills across diverse fields. He shares insightful stories from his early days as a camp counselor and hotel room service to leading innovative AI projects as an independent solutions consultant. Topics include lessons on managing conflicts, understanding intrinsic rewards, embracing failures, and the importance of operational excellence with added insights into Michael’s passion for both for-profit and nonprofit efficiencies.
▬▬▬▬▬ Resources ▬▬▬▬▬
- Michael Bresler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbresler/
- Broadheights: https://broadheights.com/
- Spirit To Serve: https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Serve-Marriotts-Way/dp/1607968509
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- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CackleMedia
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cacklemedia/
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▬▬▬▬▬ Timestamps ▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Introduction to Transferable Skills
00:24 Meeting Michael Bresler
00:51 Michael's Early Career
03:25 Lessons from Hospitality
10:47 Navigating Challenges in Room Service
16:15 Teamwork and Support in Hospitality
18:25 From Textbook Sales to Real Estate
19:57 Career Shifts and Learning Experiences
22:39 Building a Consulting Practice
23:35 The Importance of Asking 'Why'
27:48 Pursuing Passion and Efficiency
32:56 Final Thoughts and Reflections
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Transferable skills, skills, skills from Cackle Media.
This is transferable skills. I'm Noah Michigan, and today's
guest is Michael Bresler, who shares his skills journey from
hospitality into AI operational excellence.
A super interesting conversation.
I love how Michael and I met. I love how this conversation
came to be. And I think you're going to
(00:21):
really like the conversation itself.
I hope you enjoy it. I'm excited to have Michael
Bresler here. Welcome to the show.
Great to have you. Thank.
You so much, I appreciate it. I'm not in my usual studio and
I'm on the road. And actually this is quite
fitting because you and I met while I was on the road.
We met at a baseball tournament that both of our respective sons
were competing in, in Columbus, OH, and I had a great time on
(00:43):
the sidelines talking to you. That sparked a connection over
LinkedIn. I started reading a lot of
content that you're writing, andI absolutely love it.
We'll get into some of that stuff and we'll start from the
very beginning of your career. Tell us where that began.
Well, I would say my career began probably as a a 14 year
old, as a counselor in training for a rec camp.
That's why I think my career starts there because as a 14
(01:05):
year old I remember distinctly doing dumb things and being
yelled at. And back then you could be 14
and be employed, right? And I've ever, I would do stupid
things like I was 14. So I was like in control.
When you grow older and become an adult, you start to realize
the value of being able to empower the kids and be able to
(01:27):
give them the support, not use your not necessarily power.
I didn't have like authority. Well, you're a bigger kid.
So I remember one time in dodgeball, I got in trouble
because I hit a kid really hard and they were like, your
accounts are trading like you'renot, you're not a camper
anymore. So you can't just beat up on
children. You're really competitive.
Yeah, you got a little crazy, soI remember.
(01:49):
It's like that scene in Billy Madison.
I mean, I, I look at that as my career because that really
started, you know, the, the maturization of myself as far as
just like responsibility and accountability.
And it was an opportunity for meto have really some great
mentors who when I look back, I thought they were like 50 years
old. But when I look at some of these
(02:10):
folks now who I've checked on some of them to see where they
are in their lives, they were just 10 years older.
Like, they were just in their 20s.
They weren't like professional professionals.
They were in college or they were finishing up college and
just like maybe a teacher or something.
I literally had the same realization and conversation
with my brother maybe just a couple months ago.
They looked so much older and weassumed that they had all of the
(02:31):
knowledge and experience and knew exactly what they're doing.
Talk about the opportunity at such a young age and be able to
learn from them. This make mistakes in practice
when the stakes are very, very low.
And I don't mean little children's lives and safety at
stake. Trying to figure out how to play
dodgeball with little kids or what your responsibility is and
how to talk to kids, be organized, be on time.
(02:52):
It's it is a very hard job and Iapplaud anyone who's gone I.
Think one of the things also is ego, right?
I think that was one of the things I used from a young age
where I've used that knowledge of where ego belongs, which is
generally nowhere. And now that we're talking,
thinking back about it, a lot ofit was like, you were just a
bigger kid and you could take advantage, right?
And there was a lot of ego, likeyou wanted to like, pound your
(03:14):
chest. You had a clipboard and a.
Yeah, I was pretty much in charge, but not in charge.
There is a fine line between arrogance and confidence.
You're not as important as you think you are at the beginning
of that summer. No sure for sure.
And now the second one, I'm thinking about asking
individuals such as yourself to describe maybe some of the
failures that they have had, especially early on in their
(03:34):
career, the learnings, because we often learn a lot more and
quicker from those failures thanwe do from successes.
And I think that's a really important part towards
developing. Yeah.
No, 100%, I think it is. What's interesting is we never
really talk about the failures. We only see the successes and
interestingly enough, right, it is having the capacity to be
able to fail and to bounce back and to have people around you to
(03:58):
be able to give you a good perspective.
I failed a lot in my career. Luckily, I've had people to give
me a perspective that helped me cope with it.
I, I've used to be more of a perfectionist.
I've learned that, you know, perfection can be a curse or
many times is a curse because you just never, you never, you
never finish. If you're always like, it needs
this, it needs this, it needs this, you're never OK with it,
(04:19):
right? And I learned a long time ago
that perfection is really not the opposite of settling.
Settling actually isn't like a bad thing.
It's just we kind of make it outas a bad thing.
And I would say like, so going into my next, like where my
career went after that, like I was a counselor and then at 17,
I got a job at a Marriott in theDC area working in room service.
(04:43):
And that was, I mean, talk aboutfailures and stress.
I mean that like I would say that was that's what made me the
person I am today, which is kindof crazy to say, but it was a
Marriott back then. The Marriott Junior had written
the book Spirit to Serve. And Spirit to serve was like our
Bible and built Marriott Junior would come through.
I worked at the Bethesda Suites Marriott, which is no longer
(05:04):
where it is today because they moved their headquarters.
But he'd come through Sunday mornings during our shift and
shake our hands and talk to us and ask us questions
specifically around how to take care of guests, right?
He was always not on top of us, but trying to train us on
giving, like, the perfect guest experience, which, on a side
note, bothers me sometimes because we go to Marriott and
(05:25):
I'm like, what happened to thosedays that I was 17?
And like, you know, it was like the spirit to serve.
Like, where's the spirit to serve?
What is going on with these places?
I worked in room service and that's primarily how I paid for
undergrad. Hospitality is something I think
about often because I actually love that as a subject.
(05:45):
It's in service of the individual to give them the best
experience possible. And it's really complementary
with just the notion and principles of etiquette and
something that I don't want to be too judgmental on next, as
all previous generations are. We're always looking down on the
kids these days, you know, But just something as simple as,
from an etiquette standpoint, how do you sit at a table?
(06:06):
Which side does the Fort go on? But then it goes so much further
in hospitality of how do I present myself in service of the
guest to give them that best experience and to be able to
respond in a way that makes themfeel and served and good.
Was that something that drove you into that or is just an
opportunity to work like what drove you to?
(06:26):
Yeah. So, so my mother was a systems
architect at Marriott corporate.That's where she retired from.
So she helped develop all the proprietary systems that
Marriott still uses today. Now they may not use it still
today. I though I did see the really
green reservation screen at a recent check in that I was like,
that's what my mother used to work on.
(06:46):
So like that can't be possible, but maybe you never really know
some of these organizations. My mother worked there for a
long time. And so it just seemed like where
would I want to go to work? I'll just try to go to get a job
at the hotel next to her office.And the, the way I got the job
back then you would, you would see an ad right for like, oh,
we're hiring people at a hotel and you'd, you'd make a phone
(07:07):
call and it would give you through your touch tone.
It would say if you have X amount of experience, press
this. And I was, I said, I have no
experience and I said, OK, well,there are no jobs available for
you. It didn't hang up on me.
So I got my resume together and I walked into the hotel to the
HR office and I was like, I'm interested in a job and they
said we have an opening and theyinterviewed me and they gave me
a job. It was like a weird you're 17
(07:29):
weird time back then. Let's talk about that for a
second. You identified what you wanted.
You found a job, and so that youmade the phone call to try to
get that job to apply for it, and you were basically told you
don't qualify. But that didn't stop you.
You decided to still push forward and show up in person.
Why? You know, I don't remember if it
was my mother or father who pushed me, but all I remember
was I thought it was so stupid because there were no jobs that
(07:52):
had allowance of no experience. And I was just like, how do you
like, how do you actually get started if you have no
experience? Like no jobs are available for
it. And I was like thinking myself
like, so a bell van or like roofservice, like a waiter.
It's not like front and desk, but there's some there's
somewhere or accounting, like there's somewhere there'll be
trading, right training of systems or you're putting a
(08:14):
certain person in front. But like I can be kind and carry
someone's bag. I know Bellman's do a lot more.
I learned a lot of what they do.They're like the glue of the
hotel because they know everybody and know everything
about everything about the area and all the guests.
And they're literally like the they're like, you know, the,
they're the concierge, right? They're the people you would go
to for the secrets of of everything.
(08:35):
Yeah, I think it's like a lot ofthings where you could, it's not
easy to do it well, but then to do it really well just take some
time and experience and everybody needs that
opportunity, that first open door to walk through to start
getting that experience. I definitely remember dropping
that. My mother worked next door.
Yeah, that helps I. Thought that would be helpful.
But that's using your network. I did that for a few years.
(08:57):
It was very eye opening and I mean it made me mature a lot.
Yeah, tell me about that, where those moments of discovery were
for you, because that listen, like camp is great.
And it's like you said, I think it's an excellent first job and
it's not to be undermined or undervalued.
This is your first real job. You're serving adults, you're
not serving kids. And what was that experience
(09:18):
like and how did you? Learn yeah, there are a couple
things that that that happened. I never worked in an environment
that had shifts, right. And when you have shifts,
basically there is no really consideration of your own
personal schedule, vacation schedule.
They don't really care. The policy was, you know, you
could take off two of three holidays a year.
And it was basically you had thechoice of this was the three
(09:40):
holidays were Thanksgiving, New Year's and Christmas, and
nothing has counted as a holiday.
And there were times where I didn't work on Shabbat.
And so there were times where New Year's was on Shabbat, but I
didn't want to take off New Year's.
I want to take off Thanksgiving.And they're just like, no,
Shabbat doesn't count. That's your choice.
And then they would schedule me on Friday nights.
I mean, they, they knew, they knew my beliefs.
(10:02):
They were just like, they're just trying to get their
business done. I understood that part.
I. OK.
But here's actually I think what's the real thing here
that's important to acknowledge They made that policy because
that was minimum effort to them.They said our problem is we
don't want to be understaffed and I get that.
So the natural responses. So let's just make sure that
people have to be here for most of them, right?
(10:24):
Yeah, we were paid 425 an hour and then we got tips.
I moved to night shift about sixmonths in because the night was
just better. I was taking classes in the
morning, but I mean, I was getting like $200 in tips every
night. And this was in the late night
19971998. It was, it was ridiculous money
for a 1718 year old that there was no life balance, right?
(10:47):
The other piece was the ability to deal with conflict became
something that I may not always be good at it when it's like
when it's really personal because I'm sure like my family
will listen to this and be like,wait, he thinks he's going to
conflict. OK, but that's what it's with
your wife or family. That's just a lot riding on it.
It's really hard, but because it's right.
(11:09):
But like when you vest up someone's order or like they
asked for a Chardonnay and you brought them white, but they
thought Chardonnay was red, which happened a few times when
I was there. You know, it was like very
stressful because you think about the experience, right?
Like you're in room service. It was very interesting when we
first got there. We would rotate, right?
Like whoever was at the phone would answer the phone and we'd
rotate like people going up and getting this stuff done right
(11:32):
and delivering the orders. And then we started figuring
out, we had one person who was just really good at taking the
orders. And then we had one person who
was really good at setting it up.
And then I was the guy who was running around like I was the
younger, I guess, more handsome one.
We're getting a lot more tips. We would split tips at the end.
I was getting more tips and I moved a lot faster, right?
Because I was like, I mean, they're all like 4550 years old.
And I did some wadering there too.
(11:54):
When you're a server and you're in a public rest restaurant and
someone has like a challenge with you, like you're, there's a
billion people there. The thing about room service was
you'd go up to someone's room, the door would close behind you
and it was you and them. And so there's a couple of
things that that I had to reallyquickly get over.
The first was a lot of the people would open the door being
(12:15):
very immodest, which is very uncomfortable for me.
And I had, oh, look, I was a 17 year old guy, right?
Or 18 year old guy, not look, ofcourse, be respectful and not
look. But it was like weird, like
sometimes they would try to flirt with you or whatever.
It was this very strange. That was one piece of it.
But then the other piece, the conflict part was like if you
were late with an order, right? You're like walking into the
room and they're waiting for youand they could be annoyed and
(12:37):
you have like literally one-on-one just having them like
lay it laid on you, right? And then if you messed up
something and having to bring itback up.
So I, I learned very quickly just how to engage in a
uncomfortable experience where you had no idea the environment
you're walking into when you knocked on the door.
It could be like a woman in a towel.
It could be a woman who like she's annoyed at you because she
(12:57):
asked for 5:45 in the morning coffee and you just woke her up
or the person in the afternoon who we had this one woman, I saw
her her name, she would get in every Sunday because it was the
hotel also served consultants. So there was like IBM and
Lockheed Martin next door. We had this one woman every
Sunday night and we got to learnthat part of why she was what we
(13:19):
thought mean was because it was just like a terrible experience,
a life for her. Like she was a consultant on the
road. And so every Sunday night she
would arrive to the hotel and leave on Friday mornings.
And she always have a picture ofher kids on the desk.
We used to make fun of her. Oh, she orders like a Mac and
cheese and whatever every. And then we got to dough her and
we would bring her a bottle of wine.
(13:40):
We remember her like her anniversary or her birthday and
try to celebrate. So those are like the great
memories. The hard memories were like,
like I mentioned someone a couple of times, people would
order a Chardonnay or a Merlot or a Pinot noir, whatever, and
they would think it was a writer, a red or a white or the
opposite. And we would deliver them the
Merlot and it was like red and they're like, I wanted white.
(14:03):
No, but you asked for Merlot. OK, fine.
We'll switch it out when you're in the room.
It was apologizing, but at the same time trying to figure out
like, how do I educate that person?
Do I not educate that person? This was very interesting to be
able to navigate. So for me, I think that was a
big part of the growth because what would happen was the reason
why they sent me because no one else wanted to go in the rooms
because especially when you had a disappointed guest, that was
(14:26):
the hardest part of my job. And the stress was we get really
busy and like they'd say 03540 minutes and then you get on your
walkie talk and you'd be like, OK, this guest called 50 minutes
ago. They're still waiting.
Do this one first and you're like, oh Lord, here we go, Doc,
right? You got to make them feel good
about the experience, knowing that you're already starting
behind and conflict resolution at that young age, diffusing
(14:48):
situations, Something that's very hard for most people,
regardless of their age, is being apologetic, knowing at the
same time that you were right. A sort of apologizing for
someone's experience when they ordered the wrong thing and you
brought them the thing that theyhad ordered, but they expected
it to be different. And that's really hard no matter
your age. And you got to figure out how to
swallow your pride, apologize not for what you brought, but
(15:12):
for maybe the disappointment or different expectations that they
had for the experience. And so you got to get past that
before that, you brought up something that is really
interesting and actually very mature that that takes a while
for organizations to figure out,which is leaning into individual
strengths and skills and how you're going to make the
experience better for both sidesof the party and everybody as a
(15:34):
whole. So you might think that in
hospitality, if someone's going to or maybe the group of people
on the same shift are going to essentially be vying for
whatever is going to either be easiest job or the one that's
going to yield the biggest tips,right?
But what you as a collective shift figured out, OK, we're
(15:55):
going to split the tips. And so no one's going to be
vying for the one that's going to get the biggest tips.
And we're also going to basically allow everyone to lean
into the their own unique individual skills, the strength
that they have. So somebody is 55 years old and
they don't want to be lugging heavy suitcases.
I get that. Or maybe somebody is young and
they got a lot more energy or somebody's just more detail and
(16:17):
oriented and they can work the system.
But essentially as a shift, you all basically picked the roles
that you are going to be best atand worked together for a much
better outcome. And then everybody was rooting
for one another and supporting one another because you were all
getting the split of the compensation of the bonus in
there. It wasn't just the immediate
staff. When we get backed up, the sous
(16:38):
chef would deliver sometimes. The manager for the restaurant
would deliver sometimes. The bellman who I just ran into,
by the way, a week ago, because now he runs concierge at a local
hospital. He's like the one guy you want
to see when you're checking in and you have no idea what you're
going to be seeing. And he's that, he's the guy,
right? I've been checked into a lot of
hospitals and a lot of times youdon't really feel seen.
You're just like a number. But that's how we treated
(17:01):
everybody at the hotel. Like he was, I mean, we
everyone, everyone loved him. They loved him.
I mean, he just has that smell, has that personality.
So it was like, it was really, it was like cool to see him.
The other thing is a lot of it was just the the trainings that
we did and everything was about the whole concept of just how do
you service your guests? So as a 1718 year old like we
(17:23):
had, we were empowered to say, hey, this guest is having a
really tough time. Can I get a bottle of wine to be
sent off? And they go to the bartender.
Bartender would do it and would go to this comp budget and they
would even reward us, not rewardUS financially, but they would
call us out and say, great job. You saw a need and you sent up
(17:43):
two glasses of wines and oh, yousent up a free birthday cake or
a piece of cheesecake or whatever you did.
So you made the decision to makethem feel good and they would,
they applauded that type of stuff.
So it was like this very much this culture of just, it was
very much just around all of ourgoals.
And you mentioned the tips thing, but I really believe that
(18:03):
the people there in service, a lot of the reward was intrinsic
of just knowing that someone wastaken care of.
And when you think about this guy at the hospital, that's you
can see that's what he's doing. He's walking around and talking
to folks and like he's just, he's trying to make everyone
stay as pleasant as possible, which takes a kind of person to
(18:24):
do that, tell you. So concurrent to hospitality, I
was also selling textbooks on half.com.
I was making $700.00 a month. I haven't heard that that domain
in a long time. So I did that for 13 months
until eBay, vaulthalf.com. And also at the same time all
the college, university bookstores got a lot smarter and
(18:45):
they started doing like used. And then at the time also Amazon
was starting to penetrate into the bookstore world.
They really started from, my father would take us to the
Public Library in Wheaton, MD, and they had a bookstore
attached to it. And every other week they would
clear out the bookstore and throw books away and recycling
(19:06):
into the dumpster. We were going by the dumpster
and I saw some books in there and I thought I would just try
to sell them. And so like even on my wife's
first, our first dates, it was aThursday, I need to stop by the,
the library. So I pulled up the car to the
dumpster and I jumped in and I basically would sell all the
textbooks. I wouldn't sell like the
paperback romance novels, They weren't worth anything.
(19:29):
But the textbooks I would sell. And actually interestingly, and
it was 0 cost basis because they're all free.
And what taught me there also isvery similar to my experience in
the hospitality industry was that like you live in Montgomery
County, it's a different world because my father was like,
you're not going to sell these books anywhere.
Who wants to use them? And majority of my clients are
Mississippi and Louisiana. And I was able to undercut
(19:50):
everybody on half.com. I did that for like 13 months
making some good money and then that kind of got disrupted.
And then after that, what'd you do?
So I, I got my real estate license that I had for a while.
I got that because as a junior in college, I've been dating my
wife already. And so I proposed to her and
part of the getting permission for my father-in-law.
So I get engaged was I had to get a job.
(20:12):
Because I had to tell you what happened was like I stopped at
the hotel because I decided hospitality wasn't for me.
What happened was I started sitting with the general manager
of that hotel and I would sit with, there was a consultant who
was a consultant for Bill Marriott Junior.
And after I would serve him usually coffees at 2:00 in the
afternoon for a business meeting.
I started asking him questions. And so I got an opportunity to
(20:33):
sit down with him for an hour. I don't remember his name, but I
remember he was always in room 214.
It was a nice corner room. So he sat me down to to really
ask what I wanted to do. That's what kind of got me
thinking. And then I talked to the general
manager and he told me how he became general manager in
Bethesda. His kids were 17 at the time and
he they lived in seven differentcountries.
And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not gonna do that.
(20:55):
So I decided that wasn't gonna be for me.
So I got a real estate license. I didn't really do much with it.
I passed the test. But then for real estate, it was
the first time someone told me, which kind of gets into really
the mindset of everything that we're going to talk about is
they're like, Michael, you can'tdo it half ass.
You either do it or you don't doit.
Because I was like, oh, I want like Sunday mornings.
(21:15):
I would go every Sunday morning,I'd answer the phones and I'd
make cold calls, right, to try to sell real estate.
And this agent came to me and said, Michael, you're not going
to get anywhere because you're either all in or you're not like
you're half in, like your Sundaycalls, like you're not going to,
you can't do a business just working 3 hours a week because
that could have happened. And you're not going to get that
one cell, right? It's impossible.
(21:36):
And so I started realizing that I wasn't prepared yet.
And that's like I ended up getting a role as a research
analyst at a research company inMontgomery County.
I did that for two years. I guess my career started with
my first job. I worked at Broadridge Financial
Solutions, which at the time wasthe Argus Group that was
(21:57):
acquired by ADP. ADP back then did more than just
payroll. They did car dealer services and
brokerage. I was there for 10 years.
I had nine different jobs, 9 different jobs.
I got promoted almost every year.
I was there at the Marriott too.I was training as a line cook
and I also was helping with the distribution guys because I was
(22:21):
always talking to the executive chef about career and he's, oh,
let me teach you how to garnish strawberries.
Great. Whereas like my colleagues, if
it was downtime, they would go sit in the Emilie lounge and
drink coffee. I was like, hey, this is
distributor guy. How does merit distribution
work? And could I help you figure out
how to do that? So that's what I was really
doing. So I was making salads and
(22:41):
that's cool. I learned about really a lot of
the key business concepts of restauranting.
So right now, so I have a consulting practice called Broad
Heights and the idea is to empower organizations to
maximize every dollar and to free up staff time using
operational excellence and AI orother technology.
(23:01):
One of those skills that I've picked up on or really looked at
is just the ability to ask why five times.
It's not like the pro tip, but all you need to do really to
figure out your efficiency problems is to ask why five
times because generally you go real deep into it.
And I use the ask why five times.
I've used it in interviews, likewhen I've interviewed people,
you ask a question and they giveyou an answer.
(23:23):
It's always very like shallow. And if you ask why five times,
they'll give you the truth. My whole progression in my
career has always been around being inquisitive and
questioning why things are done the way they are.
I've always felt this idea that the only way to gain
appreciation, empathy for someone else's role is to
actually get in their shoes and do their role.
And so a lot of my career progression has been just
(23:47):
raising my hand and saying, OK, I've learned how to do capacity
planning for printers. Now I want to learn how to
print, which I was not good at, by the way.
And now I want to bind a lot easier to do and then go
through. I want to learn client services
now I want to learn roject management.
When I thought about that careerin 10 years, like I had eight or
nine different romotions or job changes because I would do my
(24:09):
job and I'd always be looking atways to automate or to
streamline my job. And then always trying to
volunteer to do other jobs because I was always interested
in like, oh, that's interesting.Like how would I do that?
And so I never really had so much intention as far as where I
wanted to go. I'm interested to see the next
thing or what the next thing looks like.
And then I worked at another organization for 10 years and
(24:30):
then I was part of an AI startup.
And so a lot of where I came to today was two different things.
I would say my goal is we go into an organization and it's
really just me right now, but sitting with clients and really
trying to identify how to provide them a solution that
best fits what they're trying toaccomplish, right?
So being very agnostic to tools and agnostic to process, but
(24:51):
just like use what your goals are, how do we help you reach
those goals more? And how do we help free up time
by using automation or efficiencies or asking
questions? And so throughout my career,
that's what I've done, whether it's internal projects or for
clients, working with clients toask questions, to figure out how
to make things work a little differently.
(25:12):
What differentiates me is that people come to me as like an AI
consultant cuz of my background in AI, but it's not like a magic
wand. I don't think there's a magic
wand for anything. So the work I do essentially is
to figure out what are the root cause solutions and how do I
help you solve those problems, right?
And so the way I got to it was really two things.
Number 1 was my whole career, I've always wanted to do this
(25:36):
type of work. I've never really had the
courage to go out and do it on my own.
I've always worked for other organizations that when AI like
Chachi Vt came out, which was like the first consumer based
tool. November of 2022, I saw an
opportunity there that I wanted to try to do something because I
thought to myself, if I didn't try something now, I'd probably
regret it down the road. But if I fail, I wouldn't regret
(25:59):
trying. And so I, I joined the NAI
startup as like a Co founder. It taught me a lot over over a
year and a half. And it really taught me what I
really wanted to do in my life, which is really to help people
use technology in a proper way. But what pushed me into it was
really that I had left a good job to go to a startup.
(26:20):
And when I decided to leave the startup, my wife was like, what
are you going to do? I was like, well, I'll apply for
jobs. And then she actually said to
me, well, Michael, you're already out of the workforce.
Like since you're already out, why don't you just do what you
want to do? Why go back in the workforce and
then say you're going to dream of doing this?
And I was like, that's AI was like, I don't know, that's a
good point. Can we just stayed longer,
right? It's already been a painful year
(26:42):
and a half. Can we?
I mean, it wasn't like painful, painful, but you know, it was a
shift in life, right? Like for instance, you're
traveling right now, you're doing this work.
It's very much like we were on vacation two weeks ago and I'm
working. I was working the whole time
before, but I could have taken vacation time and got paid.
But now if I don't work or I don't close, I don't get paid.
So it's a totally different mindset now, right?
(27:03):
Even yesterday, I worked all dayyesterday, which I've always
worked Sundays. But it's very different when the
success of your business relies on it versus if you're just
trying to get clients to be happy.
It's a it's a very different mindset.
Well, I think there's probably acombination of intrinsic and
extrinsic when it comes to your own business is yes, if you're
not working, you're not maybe earning money and that's the
extrinsic. But then there's also the
(27:24):
intrinsic. You're doing it because you're
doing it for yourself and you'redoing it for the clients that
you're working on behalf of because you want to be doing it.
You like it, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.
You wouldn't be running your ownbusiness if you didn't like your
own business. If you don't like your job and
you're working for somebody else, you either stay with it
because you've got some sort of golden handcuffs, you don't know
what else to do, or you quit andyou go do what?
Whatever makes you happier. Yeah.
(27:45):
No, that is true. Day it is, or what time it is.
Another piece of it was, so I'vebeen in, I've been in Jewish
slave leadership or probably 1520 years.
I also got to see a lot of opportunities for efficiency
within the nonprofit space. And this was like a realization
that what's important to me is to work with good people and to
(28:09):
work on something that aligns with both my expertise and my
passion. A lot of my passion from a
perspective whether it's for profit or nonprofit is just like
maximizing every dollar. On the for profit side, yes, it
looks like shareholder value andROI.
On the nonprofit side, it's really about being a fiduciary
for donors money and that's how we get really big.
(28:30):
You call it a pet peeve, but it's really like a big passion
of mine is whether it's for profit nonprofit, right?
I think that there's really important ways or critical
foundational ways to be able to transfer your business.
And then there's I'll call it the cheap ways, which is like
the easy ways. So the easy ways are I'm gonna
raise membership dues because I need more revenue, or I'm gonna
(28:51):
raise my prices for my shoes because I need more revenue.
And then the other side of it ison the expense side is I'm just
gonna cut head count, right? Or I'm gonna I'm gonna cut
services. I'm gonna make it this better or
cheaper. I call it cheap because they
might be a solution as part of the bigger package.
But there's so many things in the middle that can be shifted.
I'll bet you that like almost all 99%, nine percent of
(29:15):
organizations are not as efficient as they could be,
right? Some are worse than others.
Some are good, but they could domore.
And I think about, especially asa father of two boys, the times
when you know, like you're donating to an organization,
which it's not that you have extra money, it's instead of
something else and you're payingfor, let's say private school,
(29:37):
right? That's you're doing it for, it's
not like you have extra money topay for that.
It's a choice, right? It's prior, you're prioritizing
what's important to you, which is fine for everybody.
And when in the for profit too, it's, you're gonna buy a $300
baseball glove for your child. That's, that takes away from
something else. It's not like you have $300
laying around for a baseball glove, which by the way, that
(29:57):
was in my head was an ROI because I bought him a glove
every year and a half and spent 50 bucks.
And so I was like, you're going to be on varsity as a freshman.
I'm sick of spending 50 bucks every season on a new glove.
Let's just get you one that's going to last for a long time.
So that was so there was like a logical methodology to my
madness of spending that much money on a glove.
(30:19):
But the idea is came with AI is what I'm preaching is it's
really only as good as a person using it.
So why would I'm doing in the business side is talking first
about operational excellence because that's where I see a lot
of the causes and opportunities around efficiency and
productivity and then layering on technology like artificial
intelligence because AI can exponentially move a business
(30:42):
forward. The other example I would give,
because this was a really new experience for me when it
happened, was I torn my meniscusmaybe 10-15 years ago.
I already had a previous injury from playing high school
basketball. And so I went to an orthopedic
surgeon. I went to three of them and each
of them wanted to do surgery. I nursed my knee for probably
(31:03):
3-4 years, wore bracelet and everything like that.
I went back and I finally said Idon't want to do surgery.
Like what are my options? And the guy said, well, you
could try physical therapy. OK, so go to physical therapy
and within two minutes she says,I know your problem, your butt
is weak. And I said, what are you?
And I thought she was just beingmean to me because she can be
mean, like as a physical therapist, she's that kind of
(31:25):
motivator, right? I said, what does that mean?
The reason why your knees are inpain is because your lower back
and your butt, your core is so weak you can't do anything with
it. And all the lift is on the
knees. And so we get your core, right,
your knees will be better. I went through this 6 feet boot
camp with her and I can walk better than before.
I'm healthier, I'm stronger, less back pain, the surgery of
(31:49):
PT thighs. That's not always going to be
the case for everything, but it really is how I see operation
accidents in AI, right? It's like a surgeon's going to
say, oh, hey, you have a torn meniscus.
Oh, and by the way, you also have some arthritis from
basketball. Yeah, we're going to cut your
knee open, micro fracture surgery and all this stuff.
But doesn't solve the root problem, right?
Because the root. So yes, the yes, I did have a
tear. And those are the things that
(32:10):
are like in in a business, thereare things that are abundantly
clear as far as things you have to fix and you want to put
something on top of it. And that's why they're asking
why five times is so important. If you don't fix the root cause
of what's really happening, you're just going to be back in
the same situation, right. And so if I would have gotten
surgery, my belief right now is I would have retorn it unless I
(32:31):
did nothing physically my life again, I would have returned it
because I would my rest of my body would have been like great
new knee. Let's see how quickly we could
tear this one. If you satisfy bad debt and
collections and fix that bad debt problem in your business,
but you don't actually go and resolve the issue that's leading
towards all that bad debt, it's just that balance is.
(32:52):
Going to continue. It's just recurring.
Again, it's just recurring. That's awesome, I love the
analogies. Given your natural strengths and
your learned skills, what job might you excel at but are also
exceedingly overqualified for something that's a guilty
pleasure? For you?
OK, so my dream was always to become a teacher.
Knowing my wife's a teacher, knowing what teachers do.
I don't think I must have overqualified, but I could see
(33:13):
myself going into education and doing something around STEM,
maybe focus around entrepreneurship because a lot
of my journey I didn't learn in school, right?
Like in school I was taught get good grades, learn topics that
you probably aren't gonna need to know in the future, go into a
good college and then go get a job at a big company and then
retire. But is the 401K the way to
(33:35):
retire? There's no more pensions.
And my father, who is military, it was always pushing all of us
to get a degree, go to the government and retire with the
government. I'm not think it's right or
wrong, but I think that there's a reason or opportunity for kids
to hear like the other side of it, which is the idea of
entrepreneurship, building the future.
And a lot of it is, I think, teaching the kids because I
(33:57):
learned this myself too over thelast 10 years.
I was always very scared of doing what I'm doing.
Now I am scared many times a daybecause it's hard, right?
It's hard to have all the pressure on you.
That's not very easy. Sometimes I think I'm crazy.
But one thing I've come to realize and recognize is that
you, me, everyone listening, we're really no different than
(34:17):
Gates or Musk or Zuckerberg or anybody who you think of who's
out in the world, who's created something like we're really no
different than those people. I really believe that that's
kind of like guilty pleasure maybe is to, I've done some STEM
stuff in high school, like to beable to share that kind of
thought. We live in this world, right?
They created this kind of world we live in.
They're really no different thanus.
The only difference is that theyhad the courage to take a risk
(34:39):
and take a chance and to bet on themselves.
And this is what I've had for mywhole life is like this innate
feeling that I can always do more.
I'm frustrated even in my own business.
Like I can do more, I can do more, I can do more.
What am I missing? I embrace that as something
that's very positive as far as like pushing.
But sometimes I don't like it because it's like I wish I
couldn't see everything I see. That's bad, right?
I wish I could just live a life sometimes where I was just
(35:01):
agnostic to the world and everything was wonderful.
And yeah, I didn't. I understand that problem of
over analyzing every single thing in your life, looking at
it and trying to optimize for every single thing for either
personal in your life or even just not even personally
connected to you. Going out into the world and
looking around and saying why didn't they design it this way?
Or they could do a lot better ifthey just do it.
You're standing in line in a store and you're like, oh, if
(35:22):
they just change this one thing,it would be much better.
And you're constantly thinking that way.
But yes, in in some areas you could find ways to make those
over analysis into productive conversation where you can apply
it to things that you do actually have control or
influence into. But in most of the times, it's
just noise and it's just perfectionism that is not
(35:43):
necessary. So I understand wanting to quiet
the noise in your brain and being satisfied with just
standing around and taking as the world comes and as life what
throws at you. Michael, thank you.
This is a great conversation. Love to have you on.
And I suspect we'll probably have a Part 2 because you
brought up a lot of subjects anddisciplines that interest me
that I think we can actually do a show specifically on certain
(36:04):
characteristics, execution processes.
It'd be awesome to talk to you about that too.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
I want to thank the Columbus High School Baseball Tournament
for making it possible for Michael and I to meet,
facilitating that introduction, which is really what made
today's episode possible. I also want to thank you, our
listeners, for joining us on this episode of Transferable
Skills. Remember, the skills you've
(36:25):
gained can take you anywhere. Until next time, keep exploring
those transferable skills.
Transferable skills, skills, skills from Cackle Media.
This is transferable skills. I'm Noah Michigan, and today's
guest is Michael Bresler, who shares his skills journey from
hospitality into AI operational excellence.
A super interesting conversation.
I love how Michael and I met. I love how this conversation
came to be. And I think you're going to
(00:21):
really like the conversation itself.
I hope you enjoy it. I'm excited to have Michael
Bresler here. Welcome to the show.
Great to have you. Thank.
You so much, I appreciate it. I'm not in my usual studio and
I'm on the road. And actually this is quite
fitting because you and I met while I was on the road.
We met at a baseball tournament that both of our respective sons
were competing in, in Columbus, OH, and I had a great time on
(00:43):
the sidelines talking to you. That sparked a connection over
LinkedIn. I started reading a lot of
content that you're writing, andI absolutely love it.
We'll get into some of that stuff and we'll start from the
very beginning of your career. Tell us where that began.
Well, I would say my career began probably as a a 14 year
old, as a counselor in training for a rec camp.
That's why I think my career starts there because as a 14
(01:05):
year old I remember distinctly doing dumb things and being
yelled at. And back then you could be 14
and be employed, right? And I've ever, I would do stupid
things like I was 14. So I was like in control.
When you grow older and become an adult, you start to realize
the value of being able to empower the kids and be able to
(01:27):
give them the support, not use your not necessarily power.
I didn't have like authority. Well, you're a bigger kid.
So I remember one time in dodgeball, I got in trouble
because I hit a kid really hard and they were like, your
accounts are trading like you'renot, you're not a camper
anymore. So you can't just beat up on
children. You're really competitive.
Yeah, you got a little crazy, soI remember.
(01:49):
It's like that scene in Billy Madison.
I mean, I, I look at that as my career because that really
started, you know, the, the maturization of myself as far as
just like responsibility and accountability.
And it was an opportunity for meto have really some great
mentors who when I look back, I thought they were like 50 years
old. But when I look at some of these
(02:10):
folks now who I've checked on some of them to see where they
are in their lives, they were just 10 years older.
Like, they were just in their 20s.
They weren't like professional professionals.
They were in college or they were finishing up college and
just like maybe a teacher or something.
I literally had the same realization and conversation
with my brother maybe just a couple months ago.
They looked so much older and weassumed that they had all of the
(02:31):
knowledge and experience and knew exactly what they're doing.
Talk about the opportunity at such a young age and be able to
learn from them. This make mistakes in practice
when the stakes are very, very low.
And I don't mean little children's lives and safety at
stake. Trying to figure out how to play
dodgeball with little kids or what your responsibility is and
how to talk to kids, be organized, be on time.
(02:52):
It's it is a very hard job and Iapplaud anyone who's gone I.
Think one of the things also is ego, right?
I think that was one of the things I used from a young age
where I've used that knowledge of where ego belongs, which is
generally nowhere. And now that we're talking,
thinking back about it, a lot ofit was like, you were just a
bigger kid and you could take advantage, right?
And there was a lot of ego, likeyou wanted to like, pound your
(03:14):
chest. You had a clipboard and a.
Yeah, I was pretty much in charge, but not in charge.
There is a fine line between arrogance and confidence.
You're not as important as you think you are at the beginning
of that summer. No sure for sure.
And now the second one, I'm thinking about asking
individuals such as yourself to describe maybe some of the
failures that they have had, especially early on in their
(03:34):
career, the learnings, because we often learn a lot more and
quicker from those failures thanwe do from successes.
And I think that's a really important part towards
developing. Yeah.
No, 100%, I think it is. What's interesting is we never
really talk about the failures. We only see the successes and
interestingly enough, right, it is having the capacity to be
able to fail and to bounce back and to have people around you to
(03:58):
be able to give you a good perspective.
I failed a lot in my career. Luckily, I've had people to give
me a perspective that helped me cope with it.
I, I've used to be more of a perfectionist.
I've learned that, you know, perfection can be a curse or
many times is a curse because you just never, you never, you
never finish. If you're always like, it needs
this, it needs this, it needs this, you're never OK with it,
(04:19):
right? And I learned a long time ago
that perfection is really not the opposite of settling.
Settling actually isn't like a bad thing.
It's just we kind of make it outas a bad thing.
And I would say like, so going into my next, like where my
career went after that, like I was a counselor and then at 17,
I got a job at a Marriott in theDC area working in room service.
(04:43):
And that was, I mean, talk aboutfailures and stress.
I mean that like I would say that was that's what made me the
person I am today, which is kindof crazy to say, but it was a
Marriott back then. The Marriott Junior had written
the book Spirit to Serve. And Spirit to serve was like our
Bible and built Marriott Junior would come through.
I worked at the Bethesda Suites Marriott, which is no longer
(05:04):
where it is today because they moved their headquarters.
But he'd come through Sunday mornings during our shift and
shake our hands and talk to us and ask us questions
specifically around how to take care of guests, right?
He was always not on top of us, but trying to train us on
giving, like, the perfect guest experience, which, on a side
note, bothers me sometimes because we go to Marriott and
(05:25):
I'm like, what happened to thosedays that I was 17?
And like, you know, it was like the spirit to serve.
Like, where's the spirit to serve?
What is going on with these places?
I worked in room service and that's primarily how I paid for
undergrad. Hospitality is something I think
about often because I actually love that as a subject.
(05:45):
It's in service of the individual to give them the best
experience possible. And it's really complementary
with just the notion and principles of etiquette and
something that I don't want to be too judgmental on next, as
all previous generations are. We're always looking down on the
kids these days, you know, But just something as simple as,
from an etiquette standpoint, how do you sit at a table?
(06:06):
Which side does the Fort go on? But then it goes so much further
in hospitality of how do I present myself in service of the
guest to give them that best experience and to be able to
respond in a way that makes themfeel and served and good.
Was that something that drove you into that or is just an
opportunity to work like what drove you to?
(06:26):
Yeah. So, so my mother was a systems
architect at Marriott corporate.That's where she retired from.
So she helped develop all the proprietary systems that
Marriott still uses today. Now they may not use it still
today. I though I did see the really
green reservation screen at a recent check in that I was like,
that's what my mother used to work on.
(06:46):
So like that can't be possible, but maybe you never really know
some of these organizations. My mother worked there for a
long time. And so it just seemed like where
would I want to go to work? I'll just try to go to get a job
at the hotel next to her office.And the, the way I got the job
back then you would, you would see an ad right for like, oh,
we're hiring people at a hotel and you'd, you'd make a phone
(07:07):
call and it would give you through your touch tone.
It would say if you have X amount of experience, press
this. And I was, I said, I have no
experience and I said, OK, well,there are no jobs available for
you. It didn't hang up on me.
So I got my resume together and I walked into the hotel to the
HR office and I was like, I'm interested in a job and they
said we have an opening and theyinterviewed me and they gave me
a job. It was like a weird you're 17
(07:29):
weird time back then. Let's talk about that for a
second. You identified what you wanted.
You found a job, and so that youmade the phone call to try to
get that job to apply for it, and you were basically told you
don't qualify. But that didn't stop you.
You decided to still push forward and show up in person.
Why? You know, I don't remember if it
was my mother or father who pushed me, but all I remember
was I thought it was so stupid because there were no jobs that
(07:52):
had allowance of no experience. And I was just like, how do you
like, how do you actually get started if you have no
experience? Like no jobs are available for
it. And I was like thinking myself
like, so a bell van or like roofservice, like a waiter.
It's not like front and desk, but there's some there's
somewhere or accounting, like there's somewhere there'll be
trading, right training of systems or you're putting a
(08:14):
certain person in front. But like I can be kind and carry
someone's bag. I know Bellman's do a lot more.
I learned a lot of what they do.They're like the glue of the
hotel because they know everybody and know everything
about everything about the area and all the guests.
And they're literally like the they're like, you know, the,
they're the concierge, right? They're the people you would go
to for the secrets of of everything.
(08:35):
Yeah, I think it's like a lot ofthings where you could, it's not
easy to do it well, but then to do it really well just take some
time and experience and everybody needs that
opportunity, that first open door to walk through to start
getting that experience. I definitely remember dropping
that. My mother worked next door.
Yeah, that helps I. Thought that would be helpful.
But that's using your network. I did that for a few years.
(08:57):
It was very eye opening and I mean it made me mature a lot.
Yeah, tell me about that, where those moments of discovery were
for you, because that listen, like camp is great.
And it's like you said, I think it's an excellent first job and
it's not to be undermined or undervalued.
This is your first real job. You're serving adults, you're
not serving kids. And what was that experience
(09:18):
like and how did you? Learn yeah, there are a couple
things that that that happened. I never worked in an environment
that had shifts, right. And when you have shifts,
basically there is no really consideration of your own
personal schedule, vacation schedule.
They don't really care. The policy was, you know, you
could take off two of three holidays a year.
And it was basically you had thechoice of this was the three
(09:40):
holidays were Thanksgiving, New Year's and Christmas, and
nothing has counted as a holiday.
And there were times where I didn't work on Shabbat.
And so there were times where New Year's was on Shabbat, but I
didn't want to take off New Year's.
I want to take off Thanksgiving.And they're just like, no,
Shabbat doesn't count. That's your choice.
And then they would schedule me on Friday nights.
I mean, they, they knew, they knew my beliefs.
(10:02):
They were just like, they're just trying to get their
business done. I understood that part.
I. OK.
But here's actually I think what's the real thing here
that's important to acknowledge They made that policy because
that was minimum effort to them.They said our problem is we
don't want to be understaffed and I get that.
So the natural responses. So let's just make sure that
people have to be here for most of them, right?
(10:24):
Yeah, we were paid 425 an hour and then we got tips.
I moved to night shift about sixmonths in because the night was
just better. I was taking classes in the
morning, but I mean, I was getting like $200 in tips every
night. And this was in the late night
19971998. It was, it was ridiculous money
for a 1718 year old that there was no life balance, right?
(10:47):
The other piece was the ability to deal with conflict became
something that I may not always be good at it when it's like
when it's really personal because I'm sure like my family
will listen to this and be like,wait, he thinks he's going to
conflict. OK, but that's what it's with
your wife or family. That's just a lot riding on it.
It's really hard, but because it's right.
(11:09):
But like when you vest up someone's order or like they
asked for a Chardonnay and you brought them white, but they
thought Chardonnay was red, which happened a few times when
I was there. You know, it was like very
stressful because you think about the experience, right?
Like you're in room service. It was very interesting when we
first got there. We would rotate, right?
Like whoever was at the phone would answer the phone and we'd
rotate like people going up and getting this stuff done right
(11:32):
and delivering the orders. And then we started figuring
out, we had one person who was just really good at taking the
orders. And then we had one person who
was really good at setting it up.
And then I was the guy who was running around like I was the
younger, I guess, more handsome one.
We're getting a lot more tips. We would split tips at the end.
I was getting more tips and I moved a lot faster, right?
Because I was like, I mean, they're all like 4550 years old.
And I did some wadering there too.
(11:54):
When you're a server and you're in a public rest restaurant and
someone has like a challenge with you, like you're, there's a
billion people there. The thing about room service was
you'd go up to someone's room, the door would close behind you
and it was you and them. And so there's a couple of
things that that I had to reallyquickly get over.
The first was a lot of the people would open the door being
(12:15):
very immodest, which is very uncomfortable for me.
And I had, oh, look, I was a 17 year old guy, right?
Or 18 year old guy, not look, ofcourse, be respectful and not
look. But it was like weird, like
sometimes they would try to flirt with you or whatever.
It was this very strange. That was one piece of it.
But then the other piece, the conflict part was like if you
were late with an order, right? You're like walking into the
room and they're waiting for youand they could be annoyed and
(12:37):
you have like literally one-on-one just having them like
lay it laid on you, right? And then if you messed up
something and having to bring itback up.
So I, I learned very quickly just how to engage in a
uncomfortable experience where you had no idea the environment
you're walking into when you knocked on the door.
It could be like a woman in a towel.
It could be a woman who like she's annoyed at you because she
(12:57):
asked for 5:45 in the morning coffee and you just woke her up
or the person in the afternoon who we had this one woman, I saw
her her name, she would get in every Sunday because it was the
hotel also served consultants. So there was like IBM and
Lockheed Martin next door. We had this one woman every
Sunday night and we got to learnthat part of why she was what we
(13:19):
thought mean was because it was just like a terrible experience,
a life for her. Like she was a consultant on the
road. And so every Sunday night she
would arrive to the hotel and leave on Friday mornings.
And she always have a picture ofher kids on the desk.
We used to make fun of her. Oh, she orders like a Mac and
cheese and whatever every. And then we got to dough her and
we would bring her a bottle of wine.
(13:40):
We remember her like her anniversary or her birthday and
try to celebrate. So those are like the great
memories. The hard memories were like,
like I mentioned someone a couple of times, people would
order a Chardonnay or a Merlot or a Pinot noir, whatever, and
they would think it was a writer, a red or a white or the
opposite. And we would deliver them the
Merlot and it was like red and they're like, I wanted white.
(14:03):
No, but you asked for Merlot. OK, fine.
We'll switch it out when you're in the room.
It was apologizing, but at the same time trying to figure out
like, how do I educate that person?
Do I not educate that person? This was very interesting to be
able to navigate. So for me, I think that was a
big part of the growth because what would happen was the reason
why they sent me because no one else wanted to go in the rooms
because especially when you had a disappointed guest, that was
(14:26):
the hardest part of my job. And the stress was we get really
busy and like they'd say 03540 minutes and then you get on your
walkie talk and you'd be like, OK, this guest called 50 minutes
ago. They're still waiting.
Do this one first and you're like, oh Lord, here we go, Doc,
right? You got to make them feel good
about the experience, knowing that you're already starting
behind and conflict resolution at that young age, diffusing
(14:48):
situations, Something that's very hard for most people,
regardless of their age, is being apologetic, knowing at the
same time that you were right. A sort of apologizing for
someone's experience when they ordered the wrong thing and you
brought them the thing that theyhad ordered, but they expected
it to be different. And that's really hard no matter
your age. And you got to figure out how to
swallow your pride, apologize not for what you brought, but
(15:12):
for maybe the disappointment or different expectations that they
had for the experience. And so you got to get past that
before that, you brought up something that is really
interesting and actually very mature that that takes a while
for organizations to figure out,which is leaning into individual
strengths and skills and how you're going to make the
experience better for both sidesof the party and everybody as a
(15:34):
whole. So you might think that in
hospitality, if someone's going to or maybe the group of people
on the same shift are going to essentially be vying for
whatever is going to either be easiest job or the one that's
going to yield the biggest tips,right?
But what you as a collective shift figured out, OK, we're
(15:55):
going to split the tips. And so no one's going to be
vying for the one that's going to get the biggest tips.
And we're also going to basically allow everyone to lean
into the their own unique individual skills, the strength
that they have. So somebody is 55 years old and
they don't want to be lugging heavy suitcases.
I get that. Or maybe somebody is young and
they got a lot more energy or somebody's just more detail and
(16:17):
oriented and they can work the system.
But essentially as a shift, you all basically picked the roles
that you are going to be best atand worked together for a much
better outcome. And then everybody was rooting
for one another and supporting one another because you were all
getting the split of the compensation of the bonus in
there. It wasn't just the immediate
staff. When we get backed up, the sous
(16:38):
chef would deliver sometimes. The manager for the restaurant
would deliver sometimes. The bellman who I just ran into,
by the way, a week ago, because now he runs concierge at a local
hospital. He's like the one guy you want
to see when you're checking in and you have no idea what you're
going to be seeing. And he's that, he's the guy,
right? I've been checked into a lot of
hospitals and a lot of times youdon't really feel seen.
You're just like a number. But that's how we treated
(17:01):
everybody at the hotel. Like he was, I mean, we
everyone, everyone loved him. They loved him.
I mean, he just has that smell, has that personality.
So it was like, it was really, it was like cool to see him.
The other thing is a lot of it was just the the trainings that
we did and everything was about the whole concept of just how do
you service your guests? So as a 1718 year old like we
(17:23):
had, we were empowered to say, hey, this guest is having a
really tough time. Can I get a bottle of wine to be
sent off? And they go to the bartender.
Bartender would do it and would go to this comp budget and they
would even reward us, not rewardUS financially, but they would
call us out and say, great job. You saw a need and you sent up
(17:43):
two glasses of wines and oh, yousent up a free birthday cake or
a piece of cheesecake or whatever you did.
So you made the decision to makethem feel good and they would,
they applauded that type of stuff.
So it was like this very much this culture of just, it was
very much just around all of ourgoals.
And you mentioned the tips thing, but I really believe that
(18:03):
the people there in service, a lot of the reward was intrinsic
of just knowing that someone wastaken care of.
And when you think about this guy at the hospital, that's you
can see that's what he's doing. He's walking around and talking
to folks and like he's just, he's trying to make everyone
stay as pleasant as possible, which takes a kind of person to
(18:24):
do that, tell you. So concurrent to hospitality, I
was also selling textbooks on half.com.
I was making $700.00 a month. I haven't heard that that domain
in a long time. So I did that for 13 months
until eBay, vaulthalf.com. And also at the same time all
the college, university bookstores got a lot smarter and
(18:45):
they started doing like used. And then at the time also Amazon
was starting to penetrate into the bookstore world.
They really started from, my father would take us to the
Public Library in Wheaton, MD, and they had a bookstore
attached to it. And every other week they would
clear out the bookstore and throw books away and recycling
(19:06):
into the dumpster. We were going by the dumpster
and I saw some books in there and I thought I would just try
to sell them. And so like even on my wife's
first, our first dates, it was aThursday, I need to stop by the,
the library. So I pulled up the car to the
dumpster and I jumped in and I basically would sell all the
textbooks. I wouldn't sell like the
paperback romance novels, They weren't worth anything.
(19:29):
But the textbooks I would sell. And actually interestingly, and
it was 0 cost basis because they're all free.
And what taught me there also isvery similar to my experience in
the hospitality industry was that like you live in Montgomery
County, it's a different world because my father was like,
you're not going to sell these books anywhere.
Who wants to use them? And majority of my clients are
Mississippi and Louisiana. And I was able to undercut
(19:50):
everybody on half.com. I did that for like 13 months
making some good money and then that kind of got disrupted.
And then after that, what'd you do?
So I, I got my real estate license that I had for a while.
I got that because as a junior in college, I've been dating my
wife already. And so I proposed to her and
part of the getting permission for my father-in-law.
So I get engaged was I had to get a job.
(20:12):
Because I had to tell you what happened was like I stopped at
the hotel because I decided hospitality wasn't for me.
What happened was I started sitting with the general manager
of that hotel and I would sit with, there was a consultant who
was a consultant for Bill Marriott Junior.
And after I would serve him usually coffees at 2:00 in the
afternoon for a business meeting.
I started asking him questions. And so I got an opportunity to
(20:33):
sit down with him for an hour. I don't remember his name, but I
remember he was always in room 214.
It was a nice corner room. So he sat me down to to really
ask what I wanted to do. That's what kind of got me
thinking. And then I talked to the general
manager and he told me how he became general manager in
Bethesda. His kids were 17 at the time and
he they lived in seven differentcountries.
And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not gonna do that.
(20:55):
So I decided that wasn't gonna be for me.
So I got a real estate license. I didn't really do much with it.
I passed the test. But then for real estate, it was
the first time someone told me, which kind of gets into really
the mindset of everything that we're going to talk about is
they're like, Michael, you can'tdo it half ass.
You either do it or you don't doit.
Because I was like, oh, I want like Sunday mornings.
(21:15):
I would go every Sunday morning,I'd answer the phones and I'd
make cold calls, right, to try to sell real estate.
And this agent came to me and said, Michael, you're not going
to get anywhere because you're either all in or you're not like
you're half in, like your Sundaycalls, like you're not going to,
you can't do a business just working 3 hours a week because
that could have happened. And you're not going to get that
one cell, right? It's impossible.
(21:36):
And so I started realizing that I wasn't prepared yet.
And that's like I ended up getting a role as a research
analyst at a research company inMontgomery County.
I did that for two years. I guess my career started with
my first job. I worked at Broadridge Financial
Solutions, which at the time wasthe Argus Group that was
(21:57):
acquired by ADP. ADP back then did more than just
payroll. They did car dealer services and
brokerage. I was there for 10 years.
I had nine different jobs, 9 different jobs.
I got promoted almost every year.
I was there at the Marriott too.I was training as a line cook
and I also was helping with the distribution guys because I was
(22:21):
always talking to the executive chef about career and he's, oh,
let me teach you how to garnish strawberries.
Great. Whereas like my colleagues, if
it was downtime, they would go sit in the Emilie lounge and
drink coffee. I was like, hey, this is
distributor guy. How does merit distribution
work? And could I help you figure out
how to do that? So that's what I was really
doing. So I was making salads and
(22:41):
that's cool. I learned about really a lot of
the key business concepts of restauranting.
So right now, so I have a consulting practice called Broad
Heights and the idea is to empower organizations to
maximize every dollar and to free up staff time using
operational excellence and AI orother technology.
(23:01):
One of those skills that I've picked up on or really looked at
is just the ability to ask why five times.
It's not like the pro tip, but all you need to do really to
figure out your efficiency problems is to ask why five
times because generally you go real deep into it.
And I use the ask why five times.
I've used it in interviews, likewhen I've interviewed people,
you ask a question and they giveyou an answer.
(23:23):
It's always very like shallow. And if you ask why five times,
they'll give you the truth. My whole progression in my
career has always been around being inquisitive and
questioning why things are done the way they are.
I've always felt this idea that the only way to gain
appreciation, empathy for someone else's role is to
actually get in their shoes and do their role.
And so a lot of my career progression has been just
(23:47):
raising my hand and saying, OK, I've learned how to do capacity
planning for printers. Now I want to learn how to
print, which I was not good at, by the way.
And now I want to bind a lot easier to do and then go
through. I want to learn client services
now I want to learn roject management.
When I thought about that careerin 10 years, like I had eight or
nine different romotions or job changes because I would do my
(24:09):
job and I'd always be looking atways to automate or to
streamline my job. And then always trying to
volunteer to do other jobs because I was always interested
in like, oh, that's interesting.Like how would I do that?
And so I never really had so much intention as far as where I
wanted to go. I'm interested to see the next
thing or what the next thing looks like.
And then I worked at another organization for 10 years and
(24:30):
then I was part of an AI startup.
And so a lot of where I came to today was two different things.
I would say my goal is we go into an organization and it's
really just me right now, but sitting with clients and really
trying to identify how to provide them a solution that
best fits what they're trying toaccomplish, right?
So being very agnostic to tools and agnostic to process, but
(24:51):
just like use what your goals are, how do we help you reach
those goals more? And how do we help free up time
by using automation or efficiencies or asking
questions? And so throughout my career,
that's what I've done, whether it's internal projects or for
clients, working with clients toask questions, to figure out how
to make things work a little differently.
(25:12):
What differentiates me is that people come to me as like an AI
consultant cuz of my background in AI, but it's not like a magic
wand. I don't think there's a magic
wand for anything. So the work I do essentially is
to figure out what are the root cause solutions and how do I
help you solve those problems, right?
And so the way I got to it was really two things.
Number 1 was my whole career, I've always wanted to do this
(25:36):
type of work. I've never really had the
courage to go out and do it on my own.
I've always worked for other organizations that when AI like
Chachi Vt came out, which was like the first consumer based
tool. November of 2022, I saw an
opportunity there that I wanted to try to do something because I
thought to myself, if I didn't try something now, I'd probably
regret it down the road. But if I fail, I wouldn't regret
(25:59):
trying. And so I, I joined the NAI
startup as like a Co founder. It taught me a lot over over a
year and a half. And it really taught me what I
really wanted to do in my life, which is really to help people
use technology in a proper way. But what pushed me into it was
really that I had left a good job to go to a startup.
(26:20):
And when I decided to leave the startup, my wife was like, what
are you going to do? I was like, well, I'll apply for
jobs. And then she actually said to
me, well, Michael, you're already out of the workforce.
Like since you're already out, why don't you just do what you
want to do? Why go back in the workforce and
then say you're going to dream of doing this?
And I was like, that's AI was like, I don't know, that's a
good point. Can we just stayed longer,
right? It's already been a painful year
(26:42):
and a half. Can we?
I mean, it wasn't like painful, painful, but you know, it was a
shift in life, right? Like for instance, you're
traveling right now, you're doing this work.
It's very much like we were on vacation two weeks ago and I'm
working. I was working the whole time
before, but I could have taken vacation time and got paid.
But now if I don't work or I don't close, I don't get paid.
So it's a totally different mindset now, right?
(27:03):
Even yesterday, I worked all dayyesterday, which I've always
worked Sundays. But it's very different when the
success of your business relies on it versus if you're just
trying to get clients to be happy.
It's a it's a very different mindset.
Well, I think there's probably acombination of intrinsic and
extrinsic when it comes to your own business is yes, if you're
not working, you're not maybe earning money and that's the
extrinsic. But then there's also the
(27:24):
intrinsic. You're doing it because you're
doing it for yourself and you'redoing it for the clients that
you're working on behalf of because you want to be doing it.
You like it, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.
You wouldn't be running your ownbusiness if you didn't like your
own business. If you don't like your job and
you're working for somebody else, you either stay with it
because you've got some sort of golden handcuffs, you don't know
what else to do, or you quit andyou go do what?
Whatever makes you happier. Yeah.
(27:45):
No, that is true. Day it is, or what time it is.
Another piece of it was, so I'vebeen in, I've been in Jewish
slave leadership or probably 1520 years.
I also got to see a lot of opportunities for efficiency
within the nonprofit space. And this was like a realization
that what's important to me is to work with good people and to
(28:09):
work on something that aligns with both my expertise and my
passion. A lot of my passion from a
perspective whether it's for profit or nonprofit is just like
maximizing every dollar. On the for profit side, yes, it
looks like shareholder value andROI.
On the nonprofit side, it's really about being a fiduciary
for donors money and that's how we get really big.
(28:30):
You call it a pet peeve, but it's really like a big passion
of mine is whether it's for profit nonprofit, right?
I think that there's really important ways or critical
foundational ways to be able to transfer your business.
And then there's I'll call it the cheap ways, which is like
the easy ways. So the easy ways are I'm gonna
raise membership dues because I need more revenue, or I'm gonna
(28:51):
raise my prices for my shoes because I need more revenue.
And then the other side of it ison the expense side is I'm just
gonna cut head count, right? Or I'm gonna I'm gonna cut
services. I'm gonna make it this better or
cheaper. I call it cheap because they
might be a solution as part of the bigger package.
But there's so many things in the middle that can be shifted.
I'll bet you that like almost all 99%, nine percent of
(29:15):
organizations are not as efficient as they could be,
right? Some are worse than others.
Some are good, but they could domore.
And I think about, especially asa father of two boys, the times
when you know, like you're donating to an organization,
which it's not that you have extra money, it's instead of
something else and you're payingfor, let's say private school,
(29:37):
right? That's you're doing it for, it's
not like you have extra money topay for that.
It's a choice, right? It's prior, you're prioritizing
what's important to you, which is fine for everybody.
And when in the for profit too, it's, you're gonna buy a $300
baseball glove for your child. That's, that takes away from
something else. It's not like you have $300
laying around for a baseball glove, which by the way, that
(29:57):
was in my head was an ROI because I bought him a glove
every year and a half and spent 50 bucks.
And so I was like, you're going to be on varsity as a freshman.
I'm sick of spending 50 bucks every season on a new glove.
Let's just get you one that's going to last for a long time.
So that was so there was like a logical methodology to my
madness of spending that much money on a glove.
(30:19):
But the idea is came with AI is what I'm preaching is it's
really only as good as a person using it.
So why would I'm doing in the business side is talking first
about operational excellence because that's where I see a lot
of the causes and opportunities around efficiency and
productivity and then layering on technology like artificial
intelligence because AI can exponentially move a business
(30:42):
forward. The other example I would give,
because this was a really new experience for me when it
happened, was I torn my meniscusmaybe 10-15 years ago.
I already had a previous injury from playing high school
basketball. And so I went to an orthopedic
surgeon. I went to three of them and each
of them wanted to do surgery. I nursed my knee for probably
(31:03):
3-4 years, wore bracelet and everything like that.
I went back and I finally said Idon't want to do surgery.
Like what are my options? And the guy said, well, you
could try physical therapy. OK, so go to physical therapy
and within two minutes she says,I know your problem, your butt
is weak. And I said, what are you?
And I thought she was just beingmean to me because she can be
mean, like as a physical therapist, she's that kind of
(31:25):
motivator, right? I said, what does that mean?
The reason why your knees are inpain is because your lower back
and your butt, your core is so weak you can't do anything with
it. And all the lift is on the
knees. And so we get your core, right,
your knees will be better. I went through this 6 feet boot
camp with her and I can walk better than before.
I'm healthier, I'm stronger, less back pain, the surgery of
(31:49):
PT thighs. That's not always going to be
the case for everything, but it really is how I see operation
accidents in AI, right? It's like a surgeon's going to
say, oh, hey, you have a torn meniscus.
Oh, and by the way, you also have some arthritis from
basketball. Yeah, we're going to cut your
knee open, micro fracture surgery and all this stuff.
But doesn't solve the root problem, right?
Because the root. So yes, the yes, I did have a
tear. And those are the things that
(32:10):
are like in in a business, thereare things that are abundantly
clear as far as things you have to fix and you want to put
something on top of it. And that's why they're asking
why five times is so important. If you don't fix the root cause
of what's really happening, you're just going to be back in
the same situation, right. And so if I would have gotten
surgery, my belief right now is I would have retorn it unless I
(32:31):
did nothing physically my life again, I would have returned it
because I would my rest of my body would have been like great
new knee. Let's see how quickly we could
tear this one. If you satisfy bad debt and
collections and fix that bad debt problem in your business,
but you don't actually go and resolve the issue that's leading
towards all that bad debt, it's just that balance is.
(32:52):
Going to continue. It's just recurring.
Again, it's just recurring. That's awesome, I love the
analogies. Given your natural strengths and
your learned skills, what job might you excel at but are also
exceedingly overqualified for something that's a guilty
pleasure? For you?
OK, so my dream was always to become a teacher.
Knowing my wife's a teacher, knowing what teachers do.
I don't think I must have overqualified, but I could see
(33:13):
myself going into education and doing something around STEM,
maybe focus around entrepreneurship because a lot
of my journey I didn't learn in school, right?
Like in school I was taught get good grades, learn topics that
you probably aren't gonna need to know in the future, go into a
good college and then go get a job at a big company and then
retire. But is the 401K the way to
(33:35):
retire? There's no more pensions.
And my father, who is military, it was always pushing all of us
to get a degree, go to the government and retire with the
government. I'm not think it's right or
wrong, but I think that there's a reason or opportunity for kids
to hear like the other side of it, which is the idea of
entrepreneurship, building the future.
And a lot of it is, I think, teaching the kids because I
(33:57):
learned this myself too over thelast 10 years.
I was always very scared of doing what I'm doing.
Now I am scared many times a daybecause it's hard, right?
It's hard to have all the pressure on you.
That's not very easy. Sometimes I think I'm crazy.
But one thing I've come to realize and recognize is that
you, me, everyone listening, we're really no different than
(34:17):
Gates or Musk or Zuckerberg or anybody who you think of who's
out in the world, who's created something like we're really no
different than those people. I really believe that that's
kind of like guilty pleasure maybe is to, I've done some STEM
stuff in high school, like to beable to share that kind of
thought. We live in this world, right?
They created this kind of world we live in.
They're really no different thanus.
The only difference is that theyhad the courage to take a risk
(34:39):
and take a chance and to bet on themselves.
And this is what I've had for mywhole life is like this innate
feeling that I can always do more.
I'm frustrated even in my own business.
Like I can do more, I can do more, I can do more.
What am I missing? I embrace that as something
that's very positive as far as like pushing.
But sometimes I don't like it because it's like I wish I
couldn't see everything I see. That's bad, right?
I wish I could just live a life sometimes where I was just
(35:01):
agnostic to the world and everything was wonderful.
And yeah, I didn't. I understand that problem of
over analyzing every single thing in your life, looking at
it and trying to optimize for every single thing for either
personal in your life or even just not even personally
connected to you. Going out into the world and
looking around and saying why didn't they design it this way?
Or they could do a lot better ifthey just do it.
You're standing in line in a store and you're like, oh, if
(35:22):
they just change this one thing,it would be much better.
And you're constantly thinking that way.
But yes, in in some areas you could find ways to make those
over analysis into productive conversation where you can apply
it to things that you do actually have control or
influence into. But in most of the times, it's
just noise and it's just perfectionism that is not
(35:43):
necessary. So I understand wanting to quiet
the noise in your brain and being satisfied with just
standing around and taking as the world comes and as life what
throws at you. Michael, thank you.
This is a great conversation. Love to have you on.
And I suspect we'll probably have a Part 2 because you
brought up a lot of subjects anddisciplines that interest me
that I think we can actually do a show specifically on certain
(36:04):
characteristics, execution processes.
It'd be awesome to talk to you about that too.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
I want to thank the Columbus High School Baseball Tournament
for making it possible for Michael and I to meet,
facilitating that introduction, which is really what made
today's episode possible. I also want to thank you, our
listeners, for joining us on this episode of Transferable
Skills. Remember, the skills you've
(36:25):
gained can take you anywhere. Until next time, keep exploring
those transferable skills.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com