WHERE DID YOU VACATION AS A CHILD?

We lived in Boston, not too far from the beautiful beaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, however we used to vacation in Miami Beach each summer. It would take us 4 days by car to get there and 4 days to get back which left us 6 days at the beach. It was my mother’s favorite place and therefore became the family’s destination of choice each year. Each night as we stopped to rest along the way, it was my job to inspect the motel room alongside my mother, before finally selecting where we were going to spend the night. Specifically it was my job to look under the beds for any foreign creatures. I guess that is where I got my first glimpse of what would eventually become my life long career in the hotel business. In a sense, I guess the OA process was born here.

HAVE YOU EVER WOKEN UP ONE DAY AND WISHED YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK?

I think I can count on two hands the number of days I have dreaded going to work in my 42 years in the hotel business. Most of those happened when I was sick or under the weather so to speak and yet I pushed myself because I had a deadline to meet or a jam packed day that I thought required my involvement.

I am not naïve here in that I understand how rare it is to have been in one industry virtually my whole life and to have had the good fortune to have enjoyed my work so much. I think it was Earle Nightingale, one of my favorite motivational speakers and authors who said, “The key to success in the workplace is to find something you enjoy doing and then find someone who is willing to pay you to do it”. Now that is good advice in my opinion.