I'm Only Doing This For Your Own Good

I traveled to Phoenix this week to give a speech to a group of hospitality GMs and HR leaders.  The speech was about things your Mother told you that apply at work, like: “I’m only doing this for your own good”.  It’s fun to watch the reactions I get when I ask people to raise their hands if their mothers said this and other things like: “this hurts me more than it hurts you”.  These gems (and lots of others) can be found in a book called Momilies – As My Mother Used To Say by Michele Slung - I highly recommend it as a source of smart things you can say to remind colleagues and friends about what’s important.  But I digress.

In the audience was a woman I recruited 22 years ago to be an intern during the opening of the Mirage.  Back then she was a UNLV Hotel School sophomore who wasn’t sure what she wanted as her concentration; she ended up working for me for the three remaining years of her undergraduate program and then I lost track of her.  Fast forward 22 years and she’s now the Director of HR at a major Scottsdale resort, and she told me she credits her career and success to things I told her all those years ago.  The moral of this story is that you never know what impact the things you say and do might have on someone.  I was thrilled to see the professional she’d become and humbled by the knowledge that my efforts helped in her development.  Take time this week to reach out to someone and help them to find their way.

My message this week has to do with deciding where to go in life:

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the one who'll decide where to go.”  Dr. Seuss

To think like an owner, from your head to your shoes, is certainly something that that only the you that’s in you can choose.  For this you’ll need to work well with others and help them succeed, and always be looking to help with their needs. Also you must teach others to shut out the lights when there’s no one around, as you leap over tall hurdles in only one bound.  And at the day’s end when the work is all done, you’ll have steered a steady course for all and everyone – and they’ll know that you know the absolute way to go because you’ll have shown them all everything that they should all know.  So be an owner-like thinker from your head to your feet, and see how this helps you and your colleagues to never ever miss a beat.

Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel was born in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His mother often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. He credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.

Stay well!