Teague talks about his entry into the family business, his style of leadership, and how he builds and develops the talented team around him. He shares how taking a risk at the start of the pandemic has ultimately played a role in leading to the company's most successful year yet and how he overcomes challenges. He discusses his public speaking advice, prioritizing the life part of work life, and what advice he'd give to his younger self.
Teague talks about his entry into the family business, his style of leadership, and how he builds and develops the talented team around him. He shares how taking a risk at the start of the pandemic has ultimately played a role in leading to the company's most successful year yet and how he overcomes challenges. He discusses his public speaking advice, prioritizing the life part of work life, and what advice he'd give to his younger self.
I am Rachel Humphrey with d e I advisors. We are an Arizona nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering personal success in the hospitality industry, and I am delighted to invite to the show today straight off his win for Financial advisor of the year. And Alice Tig Hunter with Hunter Hotel Advisors. Tg, welcome to the show. Hi Rachel. How are. I am doing fantastic. One of my favorite things is actually to also interview people who interview people and put you on the hunt this time and get a little chance to spend some time with you. But as we're gonna spend about 30 minutes together covering a wide variety of topics. Nothing off the table. And as if I know you at all. I know nothing prepared to go. Let's just jump right in. One of my favorite things about the hospitality industry is how unique everyone's path to leadership can be. You and I can both achieve tremendous success in the industry, but have very different ways of getting there. So tell us a little bit about Teague's story. What's your path to where you are today? And were there any, pivotal points in that maybe guided you in this direction?
Teague Hunter:I love it. I'm gonna change'em. How many of these have you done? I like the third person or the hundred and third person.
Rachel Humphrey:You'll have to go back and check out d e i advisors.org and check for yourself.
Teague Hunter:I'll listen to my, I listened to them in preparation for this. I'm sure you know that. Alright. How did I get started? I cheated, right? I came out it the old-fashioned way. I took over my father's business. And I growing up I knew what dad did. You're raised in it, you're driving from to the beach and you get to stop off at hotels. Three hotels along the way, and I would tag along with my father. But growing up, I, I didn't want to join the business. I don't know why. I just wanted to go start my own, do my blaze my own trail. So I wanted to be, at one point I wanted to be a wealth manager, had internships with Merrill Lynch. That's what I wanted to do. Quickly realized I didn't wanna work with people's money cuz that's too expensive. People are really tight with their own money. So I wanted to work with business money. And I thought technology was the right path. When I graduated, I went to work for business to business and and technology quickly realized there that I didn't care for corporate America, sorry that I was an entrepreneur. I had an entrepreneurial spirit and anyone that I knew with any talent left. I was there three years and then I came and looked around for the next entrepreneurial thing. And the best thing I could find was my father who had started his own business. So I came and begged him for a. Not, knowing what he did, I don't care. Let's go make this happen. I could be in charge of our own destiny. I'm all in. And when we start, listen, we were tiny. I vividly remember we were in Northside Drive office building. Like the first thing I remember when I walked in with dad was like, seriously, dad, we gotta get into office space. This is uninspiring. And we were there for another five years or so. So I didn't make any immediate change. But we were small guys just selling, days ends as far as the car could drive. There was no internet, there was no what have you as far as the car could drive and trying to work our way up going. We were, again, even then, the liaison between the Main street guys who was our, the whole community and the the owner operator who's our core business and Wall Street, the very first Wall Street REITs that were started, my father sold the first hotel to the first hotel. Oh, wow. Which, the REIT doesn't exist anymore. That got gobbled up by bigger REITs. So it's our industry has come a long way.
Rachel Humphrey:It's interesting as you share that though, because you say it was a cheat, but you tried other things and came back to something that you've now stuck with. So it can't just be a cheat, it's gotta be that's where the fire in the belly is, or that's where the passion is or something else. And you've taken as you. What started off as something much smaller, much more focused and turned it into what Hunter Hotel Advisors is today. Not downplaying your entrepreneurial role in it at all. One of the things that I think that you are best known for, and I don't know if this is a common opinion or not, is your ability to network your relationship building. And I always like to. Why or how I have been impacted by certain of the leaders that I select to interview for d e I advisors. And you have an incredible energy about you that when I am done talking to you, including today, I always feel good. I feel better than when I walked up and started talking to you. And I know you can't live like that 24 7, but I'm wondering is that something you hear routinely? Do you have Character traits that you have, maybe that you think have really made you a successful networker? What would you recommend to people that are trying to find their stride in that
Teague Hunter:space? Oh yeah. Listen and I got lots of stories that I can share, but I, for me, it's just who I am, right? Naturally, who I am. I'm naturally positive. I'm naturally high energy. I'm naturally inclu. And I think I probably have a high emotional intelligence, as my mother used to tell me. So I relate with others. Like I'm trying to feel how is are others, how the people across from me feeling. And I think that. Helps dictate who I am for better and for worse. So I think I'm heavily influenced by that. But we spend a ton of time in energy networking. I'm a people person. I've learned, I get my energy off of people. And that's from public speaking. That's from interaction. From this interaction. My wife gives me a hard time cuz I, I walk into a room and I glow. Let's go, let's chat. Who, what am and I'm, it's natural curio c. Yeah, I even part of that, TIG talks, TIG Watson is a little kid. My father would say it, but I'm naturally curious. I want to know answers. I wanna learn. I'm constantly trying to learn and I don't think I know everything, whether that's people above me in the world or people below me in the world. There's all different perspectives that you can learn from if you're smart enough to ask the questions and listen.
Rachel Humphrey:That curiosity is a theme that we've actually heard a lot from many of the leaders that we've interviewed for d e I advisors and I think shows that we never stop learning, as you just mentioned. And that's actually a perfect segue, hunter. The Hunter Conference is a camp Miss event of the year, and certainly everybody goes for different reasons. You attend many of them throughout, but what do you get out of attending conferences? What do you look for in terms of planning your attendance or which you're going to, and at the end of the day, why is Hunter one of those places that's so important for people to, in the industry to continue to.
Teague Hunter:Yeah, so listen, I'm very biased. For starters, at other conferences, when we go to conferences we like everybody, we plan meeting back, to back, right? Every 30 minutes. Half hour on the hour. We are planning meetings. We're double booked, we're triple booked. The entire team has lots of meetings and we'll have 40, 50, 60 meetings in a day and a half, two day conference. So it's a lot and you're exhausted and then you go into dinners and breakfasts and you're burning at 24 7. But again, I enjoy that. I like it. But you gotta be organized to make that. Our conference is a little the opposite because we're the hosts as the team says, the hostess with theists, we I plan no meetings, so I, and I run around the floor and I pop into all the different sessions and see what I can learn and listen. And we're hosts, so we throw, it's one giant party from. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, evening after evening. And I enjoyed, I, our, the sales pitch is the hotel is the reason we started, the reason Bob Hunter started the Hunter Conference 35 years ago, if I'm right. He was at NYU and sitting front row paid his money, taking his notes, and they said, oh, by the way, we don't do anything less than 25 million. Wow. And that was 35 years ago. So what is that? A hundred million dollars. So he's got furious and said There's a whole world of people under 25 million who need the information more than these Wall Street people need it cause they have all the information. So he stormed out and he saw name was Jerry. One of the magazines, Hodo Businesses Management at the time, and said, if I start one of these in Atlanta for under 25 million, will you support me? And they said yes. And then he needed a university. So he went to Georgia State, C B Day School of Hospitality had just started and said, if I start one of these, will you support me Thinking that they would have to go to committees and that would bail him out from this brilliant idea. And they said, yeah, we love it. We're in. So that's how it started. And he wanted genuinely to educate the real hoteliers of the world. And that is still our theme today. Our owner. Percentage of attendee is 40% owners. Alice, NYU is 15 one 5% owners. So we are the core of the people who come. It's not private equity, it's not Wall Street, it's not vendors, it's not franchise, although they're all there. But we are the core ownership. Who's developing, who's building, who's operating this stuff on a day-to-day basis. And we still believe that's the core of our. And I love selfishly, they're all brilliant entrepreneurs taking risks, which I love near and dear to my heart. We all get along really well.
Rachel Humphrey:What a great story too about Bob recognizing a need or an open lean and not just going, oh, here's a need, or an open lean, but actually finding a way. To fill it and then build it to what it is today. So that's really great. Where else do you go other than conferences for continuous growth? This industry changes so quickly and there's so many moving parts in all aspects all the time. Do you have other must use resources as you're trying to keep up with what's going on in the industry? Oh,
Teague Hunter:I, I would actually go outside of the industry at least for. So I'm Y P O, I'm heavily involved in my Y P O forum. We've been together for a while and that's great. And what I mean by that is there are leaders of other industries that are in there, manufacturing technology, software logistics. So I have industry leaders of those and I can talk to them about what they're doing. What's happening in their industry. So looking for recessions and looking for clues or things improving or slowing. And we've been doing it long enough that we know that I'm six months ahead of one of the other guys. My business goes great, his is great six months after, and vice versa. One of the guys, one of the software guys has just laid off 125 people in his company. So you can start to see that. And we learn from each other. How do you. We're much smaller than that. He's company got a thousand employees, so he laid off what, 12 and a 5% of his team. And that's a, those are all people. And even at that big of a company, it's how do you deal with people and layoffs? So that's where I go for my growth. In the industry, it's sales 1 0 1, you're going back, jumping out on an airplane. I'm sorry, this zoom stuff is great, but I'd certainly rather be shaking hands, having a cup of coffee, eating lunch, having a cocktail together with you and I, we would get so much closer and so much more done on that emotional side. Then we will, over this zoom, we can get business done here and some technical over email and text. But you can't replace that in person, and I think that will stay forever. One of the things, I hope the next generation keeps it, I hope they don't figure out a way how to live without it.
Rachel Humphrey:I, people talk about that a lot and I remember shortly after nine 11 when people weren't traveling and it was really the onset Video conferencing. Our law firm was desperate to try to set something up and people worried about the same thing, but in due time it all got back and then was bigger and better than ever for in-person corporate travel. So I, I don't see that The zoom is certainly convenient and it helps probably in some environments, but I couldn't agree with you more about the in-person. And what I loved what you said about your growth is that it's an important lesson to remember how much we can learn outside of the industry. It doesn't have to be talking to. other brokers or other hoteliers or whatnot, and you might actually even learn more. I think some people are worried that their only career path growth would be within the industry or within the role that they have. So that's excellent advice. And any one teg and excellent advice, I know, don't let that go to your head. Anyone who spends time around you will always hear you praising the great team that you have around you. Giving credit really building a consensus. How do you develop talent? How do you identify talent? Maybe as you're bringing on new people, are there traits that you look for? Are there gut instincts you follow? What do you do when you're looking to build out your
Teague Hunter:team? Yeah I can say as an overarching, People are the most important thing in life, in my opinion. So they're certainly the most important thing in our business, and we are only as good as our team is. It is not me by any stretch. It is a collective of talent. Finding that talent is probably the hardest. Thing that any organization does, whether they admit it or not. We are very particular about who we bring on. We are really a small, tight knit, we call it a family. We joke you can come on, you can get the hunter tattoo. You can change your name to Hunter. We allow you to hyphenate it's great, once you're in. Which. Attracting is difficult, but retention is a big part as well. We know very quickly, I think, whether you're gonna last with us for a while and we have very little turnover. We didn't, we've learned that over the years we've had our share of turnover, but now our team is really tight and really committed and obnoxiously talented. I view it as a. So my sport. Terrible sports analogies, but we're a team. We're just a team and if we pass you the ball and you do something great with it, go score. We're gonna pass it back to you. The team is going to, not me the head coach. The team is gonna pass you the opposite of this. True. If we pass it to you and you dribble it off your foot and you one time, it's fine. You do that too many times, the team is naturally gonna quit passing you the ball if they quit passing you the ball. Eventually it comes to me and now, hey, we don't, I don't think we need you. So you want the ball past you and you want to do great things. And I'm, my leadership style is very inclusive and it's very you get a lot of responsibility. We're gonna give you a lot of rope to grow. We want to, I want your thoughts, we want your input. You're the one running this job. How would you do it? What do you think is the most efficient way to do it? The best way to do it. No com Shit, go run with it if you need some leader. I'm a big believer in mentors. we have mentorships, senior people with junior people, even internally. But we are gonna push you into the deep end and you're gonna learn, you're gonna pick it up. Where can you help out the team?
Rachel Humphrey:I love that. That's actually the way that I learn the best. And you don't hear many leaders describing that as a leadership strategy. But I love the idea to both give opportunity to shine, learn from maybe what wasn't as successful the first time. And give credit where credit is due. I love that.
Teague Hunter:I can tell you it doesn't work for everyone. If that's not your, some people just, Hey, tell me the task to do A to Z and I'll do it in order, but please tell me what to do. And that's great. And my suggestion is if that's your personality, go find that job that fits that, that is not us. We're not very good at that at all. It's organized chaos. On a day-to-day basis, we wake up, what are we doing today? Where's our. Paycheck coming from where's our next? There is not a guaranteed income stream, so we gotta be entrepreneurs and roll up our sleeves and all go figure out what's best for the team.
Rachel Humphrey:The interesting part about that though, is that trait that you're talking about is very hard to identify whether, in my opinion, whether it be on a resume, in an interview, even in a series of interviews. So to hire that particular person, because if you say, this is the environment, everybody's gonna be like, oh yeah, that's great. That's me. Whether they are not, I think unfortunately tends to be the case in the hiring process. Is there a way that. Maybe some traits that you've seen that lead to that or give you that gut instinct that somebody actually has that desire to learn in that way or that capability to learn in that
Teague Hunter:way. So I'm gonna give some two terrible answers. One is, I think ultimately it's just gut instinct. Yeah. Can I get that read off of them when I meet them and when we chat and oh, by the way, when we interview, everyone on the team interviews them, right? They meet the entire team, they meet the entire family. Everyone gives me their input. I meet them and then we go back and we chat and we discuss. So we get a lot of different perspectives. Even the newest employee on the team, I want their opinion cuz they have a perspective different Yeah. Than I do and everyone else. So we're heavily team oriented. Oh. I had a good story, but it just jumped away. Oh I was trying to think of the people. We'll
Rachel Humphrey:come back, let me know if you think about it and we can Great. And we can pivot back. Okay. One of the things that I know about you is that you, I source you a lot for speaking when I have that opportunity. You are very comfortable with it. You. Will prepare if people want you to, you won't if given the option. But how important do you think that public speaking has been in your role as a leader? And that can be, whether it's presenting to your team, presenting to a board public speaking can take many forms. It can of course take. A conference in front of five, 6,000 people. But how important do you think it's been and how do you prepare? What would you tell people that say, you know what, this is my biggest hurdle in what I think will be a path to leadership for me.
Teague Hunter:Yeah. I think so one, I think it's interesting you said, so one, I. And public speaking, like you don't have, not everybody's good at it. And you don't have to be. So try and partial that as figuring out your roles and where your comfort zone is. I will say on public speaking though I, there's some, I'm gonna butcher this, but there's some rockstar, I don't know, ick Jagger or somebody old like that, that said some people get sweaty and nervous and and. and then they, and then they go inside and run away and go hide. And then there's others who get sweaty and panic and get really nervous, and then the legs turn on and then they're, that's when they know they're ready to rock. I think that was Mick Jagger. I, for, I know that I get sweaty and nervous and scared, not as much now, but I used to get it, whether it was speaking to the team, whether it was speaking at a panel or especially, I vividly remember going to a ho the first time you invited me to speak. There was, good grief, it's a ho, there's five, 6,000 people. Yeah. And I was a comfortable speaker and I was. Panicked, right? I was very nervous. I don't remember. And somebo, I'm making it up. Nikki Haley or somebody was either in front of me or behind me, David Robinson, like you guys have Bill Clinton speaking, like amazing people. And I'm like the warmup act for these people, So I remember like they were all talking backstage and I'm panicked like, oh God, I probably didn't sleep well the night before. So it all is natural. For me, I realized I'm one of those people that the lights come on and let's go. I, let's do this. And so I love it. And what did you give, like five minutes or seven minutes and I take 19 and I wreck the whole schedule for the re re for the rest of the week. Yeah, I understand that.
Rachel Humphrey:But I invite you back year after year, even with that. What about, how would you tell people who are just trying to get started? Obviously that, the six, 7,000 person room is probably not gonna be your first public speaking gig, but to present to management or to present a sales pitch, like what are some of the things maybe early on that people could be thinking about doing that are trying to take that step at getting the sweaty to excited or the sweaty to. I used to stay as a trial lawyer all the time. If I'm not nervous, I'm not prepared because part of it for me is what's at stake, whether it's trial lawyer, whether it's talking to you right now. I think nervous energy is great energy. I don't know that I wanna be sweaty, but I'll take that if that's part of it. But what would you tell people trying to maybe take some of those first
Teague Hunter:steps? I think it's like everything starts small, right? So it, it starts communicating with coworkers. It just does, and then it's presenting to a group of coworker. and then it's presenting to a boss or a manager. All of that is public speaking. We ha our, Catherine, our newest employee on our very first all teams, Monday morning Zoom call, were there and running around and everybody's speaking and it was, Hey, anybody else got anything to add? And Catherine raised her hand and says, yeah. A couple things I need from everybody. Wow, great. Super. Ed, next thing you know, she's speaking. I think she's now spoken every, at every team meeting, so it doesn't have to be, and then that builds up. And oh, by the way, back to we pass you the ball. You use something great with it. I now, I probably call on her instinctively. All right, Catherine, what do you gotta add? and she's gonna add something or not. A lot of that is personality. A lot of that is not, but I think you start small and then you build up to it, and when you're comfortable and when you're doing better at it and you're gonna get bigger and bigger opportunities.
Rachel Humphrey:Not just starting small, but just doing it, like you said, just do it the first time and then with each time you get more comfortable with it, regardless of the
Teague Hunter:environment and I think one of the lessons, like people don't bite. People don't care. We're the bosses now. We don't like, you're not gonna embarrass yourself. There're no dumb questions. There's no dumb whatever. You're probably smart people. You're gonna, whatever you say, someone else is probably thinking as well. So let's go. It's okay to speak up. No, that's
Rachel Humphrey:great. All right. Let's talk about some of the times, obviously on your path to your role now. You're gonna have challenges, obstacles every day. None of us leads without having to overcome either some setbacks or some hiccups. What is your process for overcoming those? Do you have a way you think about tackling challenges? What is your general thought?
Teague Hunter:A again I'm gonna answer this sort of in my leadership style. I'm just picturing when we have issues, what do we do? My style is an evolver, so I naturally go ask the entire team their opinion, right? And if I can't get the entire team, I'll get whoever I is close. Hey, here's what we've got. Here's the best way I see it. Which, oh, by the way, helps me talk through it, okay? When I can lay the problem out to others. But again, they I believe they all have perspectives that I don't have. So they can offer me a good opinion. So I win. Faced with challenges, grab the team and say, all right, everybody, sit down. Here's what we've got. What do we think? Oh, by the way, that brings'em into the decision making. As well. It doesn't mean I always listen to them. Often, I'm like, great, I hear you. I'm gonna go my own direction. But I bring them in. Listen, one of our, if I may ramble, one of our biggest obstacles of the pandemic, right? You may ask about that later. You haven't. I, the lessons I learned, let me keep rambling. From the 20 2008 pandemic G gfc, sorry, 2008 great financial crisis, right? Was the people who succeeded best were the people who acted the swiftest. And that meant. Cutting staff, reducing overhead cutting. Marriott and Hilton fired a lot of people very quickly, and that was the right decision. Then as a leader, I've learned we're al you gotta be a student of history, by the way. I recommend that. But the, we're always fighting the last battle. We're always fighting the last war. But I took my team in March and April and May of 2020 and said, We obviously got an issue and all hotel companies, were going to zero hotels, were going to zero occupancy and everything was happening. We knew there were gonna be no transactions, there was gonna be a lot of headaches and a lot of layoffs and a lot of questions, which oh, by the way, is why T Talk started, which we'll circle back to that cuz people needed information. So I brought the team together and asked their opinions what we should do, et cetera. What did they all see? and got a lot of input and then I said, I'm going to make the exact wrong decision. I know from the last battle, the G FFC that we saw, we should cut everyone. We should start making cuts, difficult decisions right now. As a leader, that is my job. We should start making difficult decisions, start having layoffs, start cutting people and hunker down and try and just get through. But I also know how difficult it is was to grow this team, which everyone again is a family member. Far too emotionally invested in all the team members. And I said, I am not going to do that. I'm gonna do the exact wrong thing and we're gonna keep everybody around because I believe in everyone and I love everyone, and we are gonna try ride this thing out together. They came back and said, we love it. Thank you. We'll all take reduced fee. We'll take whatever you need. Just please keep us around. We don't, we want to be here. So we made it through 2020, with no cuts, no layoffs, and I think a hundred. Fee. We happen to have a really good client in Blackstone or Motel six that we could get deals done. So that paid the bills. And then in 2021 we had a fantastic year, and in 2022 we had our best year ever. Yeah.
Rachel Humphrey:So certainly taking a huge risk that would've gone against, advice and counsel or even prior experience and just going with your gut again, building that great team, knowing the importance of it on the outcome. What a great story to share and what a great lesson to see is that, sometimes going against the grain, stepping outside of that, best lead PLA path is gonna be the best path to take.
Teague Hunter:We as I, we also, hang on, I gotta tell another pandemic story, so I No, you're good. I like this one. This May, whatever. So there was a one of the, one of the guys graduated graded, graduated in May. He pre-interviewed with with us over the holidays. We knew his father and so he was coming to work for us in June of 2020. So he shows up June of 2020, ready to get started, and I said, his name's Colin Flannery. And I said, Colin, I love you. You're a really good kid. There's some something about you that I really like. I, there's no way I can hire you. Right now I am trying not to lay off people, and how can I tell them that their bonus, that they don't get any bonuses, and yet we hired this new person, so I cannot hire you, but I will help you get a job. You should go to one of the servicers. They're gonna be super busy. Let me call Rialto or Eleanor or one of those people have happily help you get a job. Or a distressed fund that's raising Peachtree and all these guys are raising distressed funds. Let me help you get your job there. He goes home and thinks about it and comes back and he says, Nope, I'm talking to my dad. And he agrees you're the place I'm coming to work. And and I don't wanna do anything else. I said great. He says, if you'll have me, I'd like to come. I, so I can't pay you, but I won't, not, I won't kick you out. I'll let you come hang. So for three months, June, July, August, he showed up, worked. We were still open by the way, worked helped us out. Became a very valuable member of the team in three months. And in three months I realized we weren't gonna lose the company and the world wasn't gonna collapse. And so I said, okay, fantastic. You're hired full-time. Oh, by the way, here's back pay to catch you up for what you were. And he's a val, very valuable member of the. But he took a risk. We took a risk. Yeah. Sometimes you gotta make decisions and it worked out.
Rachel Humphrey:No, and I think that comes back to this gut instinct of building a great team, but people wanting to come work for you reflects the success of. That mission that you've been on. I talk about this a lot. We're gonna run out of time. We could talk for days and days. This one I wanna do quickly, right? Most people talk about work-life balance, work-life management, and they're talking to women. I don't know why that is. With regardless of gender or family situation or even having a life outside of work that is not a spouse and children applies to all of us. So you're on the road. High pressure job lots going on. You've mentioned your wife. I know you have a daughter. Talk to me about have you been successful at finding some balance? I know this hamster wheel of life can get oftentimes spinning much faster than we expect, but any thoughts on. on managing those
Teague Hunter:two. I just think you have to make it a priority. My father was at all of my games when I was young, so was my mother, and that meant a lot to me. So I made it a priority to be at all of my daughter's activities. She's 17, she's a junior in high school. She plays basketball, lacrosse, and anything she was doing in the school play anything. I made it a priority. Put it on the calendar and to be home, schedule the trips. I'm gonna travel and then I gotta get home. I gotta be home for that game. And I think my team is learning that from me as well. And we as a leadership are not, you gotta work till midnight. Do they respond at home text? Absolutely. That's who we all are. but don't work. Go be with your family. Go entertain them. Oh, by the way, we have two brand new babies in the Hunter family, David Perrin Baldwin little girl just born. And Allison has Henry who's just born. So we're growing this Hunter community on a regular basis, and we, selfishly we spent probably the first hour of every Monday in the office catching up on how was everybody's weekend and how were the sporting events and what were the birthday parties and what did everybody. Nice. But I think that
Rachel Humphrey:matters. No, that's great. All right, two quick last ones. I love this question I've told you before in part because I think reflecting is really important. We are all works in progress along the way. What do you tell 21 year old Teague about the path to that you didn't know then that, you know now?
Teague Hunter:I think I would, I think I would say it's gonna be okay. And probably not just okay, but better than you ever. So have confidence in yourself. And go for it. Take risks. Don't be conservative. Say yes as often as you can and go for it. I vividly remember my first hotel that I sold. It was a Holiday Inn in Milledgeville, Georgia, and I sold it to Canal Dave and I was 23 and he was 23. And neither of us knew what the heck we were doing. Canal now owns 200 and something hotels. and and our, we did two and a half billion in revenue, sold 173 hotels last year. And our biggest client is Blackstone. I know there are a lot of people's biggest clients, but, places we never thought we would be
Rachel Humphrey:Nice. All right. Keeping in mind, d e i advisors is here to empower personal success. We've covered a lot of ground today, but there's always lots of things that you may have swirling around in that Teague brain of yours. What is one final nugget that you would leave our listeners with about taking that next step in their career or empowering themselves for whatever it is that they wanna be doing?
Teague Hunter:Oh God. I got a lot, but I probably picking off the last comment, just be you. Be honest. Have confidence in yourself and know that you can do this. Try to have some good sense of who you are and what your strengths and what your weaknesses are. I try to put the right people in the right. I don't wanna put square pegs in round holes. Just doesn't work. Oh, by the way, so know what your strengths and weaknesses are and lean towards your strengths. Oh, by the way, go find a mentor. I was very fortunate that my father was an amazing mentor and he cared about my success. I try to put mentors, the senior people with the junior people and let them grow together, right? The junior people do the stuff the senior people don't want to do, and the junior people learn the stuff the senior people know. So wherever you are, Find a mentor. Find someone that cares about your success that will take you under their wing and learn from them. And don't be willing to work hard and put yourself out. That
Rachel Humphrey:is great advice. Tig, on behalf of my own personal career journey on behalf of the hospitality industry thank you for your leadership. Thank you for all you're doing, for spending a little bit of time with us today. To our listeners, we know you have a lot of ways you can choose to spend your day, so thanks for spending a little bit of time with us. If you liked what you heard or even if you didn't visit us@deiadvisors.org. We are also streaming on all of your favorite podcast channels. We look forward to having you join us again. And Teg, thank you so very much for joining us. I should have
Teague Hunter:said something controversial, Thanks Rachel. You're the best. Have a good day.