An attorney by training, Noah shares how advocating for himself led him to several important Development roles at Marriott. He explains how taking on challenges created visibility and opportunity, while also sharpening his skillsets and abilities, which were ultimately transferable to different roles. Noah also describes how his intellectual curiosity and competitive drive motivate him through the discomfort of dealing with the risks and challenges he encounters. He explains how he found his mentors and champions and how developing a couple deeper relationships can have a real influence.
An attorney by training, Noah shares how advocating for himself led him to several important Development roles at Marriott. He explains how taking on challenges created visibility and opportunity, while also sharpening his skillsets and abilities, which were ultimately transferable to different roles. Noah also describes how his intellectual curiosity and competitive drive motivate him through the discomfort of dealing with the risks and challenges he encounters. He explains how he found his mentors and champions and how developing a couple deeper relationships can have a real influence.
Hello and welcome to D E I Advisors. My name is Lan Elliot on behalf of DEI Advisors, which is an Arizona nonprofit dedicated to empowering personal success. Today I'm really pleased to have Noah Silverman here with us, and he is the Global Development Officer for US, and Canada, for Marriott International. Welcome, Noah.
Noah Silverman:Thank you. Nice to be here. Good to see
Lan Elliott:you. I've been looking forward to having you on, so really glad that the day is here. And Noah, I know you're just about at your 26th anniversary at Marriott International, and you've had multiple roles over the years. I think I met you when you were an attorney a few years back. We won't say how many, but would love to hear a bit about your journey and some of the inflection points and maybe what are the factor or factors that you think have contributed to your
Noah Silverman:success? Sure. At least in terms of inflection points, there were a few critical ones. As I look back and it is hard to imagine that it's already been almost 26 years. I did I did start my life as a lawyer. I was a Kind of a native of the DC Maryland area. And after law school, I came back to came back to DC and worked at a law firm. And one of the things I learned fairly quickly after being at the firm was that that life at least on a permanent basis, was not going to be for me. So a few years into. My tenure at the law firm, I started looking for other things that, that I could do. And really the most, the the kind of initial, significant inflection point was when I made the decision to leave private law practice in DC and join married international back in 1997 in our law department. And in a li litigation role at the time, that's what I was doing in in law practice was civil litigation. And so I consider myself an accidental entrant into the hospitality business. I unlike so many people that you meet in, in hospitality that knew that it was a field they wanted to go in or a. Or a an industry they wanted to work in, even as early as applying and going to college. All I really knew was that I didn't wanna leave the DC metro area when I was looking to leave the law firm. And coming to Marriott, 90 97 in our law department was a a significant kind of initial inflection point for me and a very happy accident. In hindsight, obviously I've been here a lot of years and I've really enjoyed my time in this industry and taken that leap to, to come here back in 97 was a huge part of that. Maybe secondly was after having been at Marriott for for a few years I realized that it wasn't necessarily about where I was practicing law. It was more the practice of law that I didn't really love. And so to my eternal gratitude Marriott didn't only offer me an opportunity to come in and work at Marriott to begin with in our law department, but also gave me an opportunity. Once I decided that I no longer really wanted to be a practicing lawyer period to move outta the law department and move to a role on the business side. And I did that back in 2002. So even that now is more than 20 years ago into a role in our then relatively new global asset management team. And that was another kind of significant evolution. I, at that point, I'd been a lawyer for almost 10 years. It's what I'd been trained to do. It's really all I knew how to do. I, I'd certainly been told that law degrees were useful for doing different things. And there were others that came before me at Marriott that had moved from the law department to the business side. But having been given the opportunity to move into that, in that role on our asset management team, Was another huge kind of opportunity for me to change the direction of my career and allow me to go pursue something that in hindsight I enjoyed a heck of a lot more than the practice of law. And then maybe just the last one I'll mention in terms of inflection point is when I came into the development discipline. So I did a bunch of different things in the business side after leaving the law department between asset management, project finance, development, asset management and it was in 2010 that I finally came into the a role in our development team leading our US and Canada full service development team working for Tony at the time, who was running Tony Capano, our now CEO O who obviously was running then our global development organization. And having been given the opportunity to come into. Development in 2010 was another significant inflection. And obviously I've been in development in the years in now, two different roles ever since. And have just loved that opportunity and that role and have been doing it longer than I've done any other role that I've done at Marriott, but have also enjoyed it more than any other job.
Lan Elliott:Yeah, I think it's interesting. There have been a number of attorneys that have done really well at Marriott. I'm thinking of Arne Sorenson, who actually is also a litigation attorney, I think before he joined Marriott. And obviously had an incredible career. A and was your last ceo? Yeah, Arne.
Noah Silverman:Arne was a hero to a lot of us for a lot of ways, but for me in particular he wore an extra special Kate because he was really an unbelievable example of someone who had managed to transition from the practice of law to a really successful career leading, ultimately, obviously leading the business as our ceo. And I held him up as a personal hero for a lot of reasons that one included.
Lan Elliott:Yeah. I think he was a hero for really a lot of people, not just at Marriott but beyond as well. Yeah. One of the things we hear from leaders is that curiosity is such a big part of their path and helps them to grow in their career. And we find that as you develop in your career, you need different skills. And sometimes we encounter a skill that we didn't realize was going to be important to us as a leader, and then we need to fine tune it or even develop it from scratch. Is there something in your career, one of these skills that you encountered and said, you know what, I need to work on this, develop it a little
Noah Silverman:bit more. Just one, or you want a list of a hundred? I, why don't you pick one? I'm trying to learn, I continue to try to learn every day. There are some things that kind of jump out at me and I just mentioned back in 2002 when I made the. Transition from having practice law again for almost a decade to moving into a role in our asset management team. And that was a really significant shift for me because lawyers really do process information using words, right? So if you gave me a hundred page contract in the days that I was working on our franchise team in the law department, I felt very highly skilled at being able to read that contract, understand that contract, interpret its different provisions, and offer an opinion on it. On the other hand, if you gave me at that point in time, a what to many people would be a fairly simple single page spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers on it, intuiting information from that one page was not really a skillset that I had. And I really did have to develop that. I had to think differently about, there were certainly skills that I brought from having been a lawyer. To working in asset management, negotiation skills, structuring skills, being able to think about how to solve problems which lawyers do a lot and which business people do a lot, but in different ways. But I also had to understand the sort of levers of the business from a financial perspective and an accounting perspective and a numbers perspective. And, at that point my math had largely ended maybe my first year of college. In fact, when I started taking. I went to college thinking I might be an econ major and I loved Econ 1 0 1, which was macroeconomics. And then when I got to micro, I'm like, oh, there's way too much math and graphs and other stuff on here. I just can't, I can't do it. I really felt like I had a limited depth when it came to to really complex math. And thankfully, a lot of what we do in our industry is really not that complex. But I did have to retrain or maybe in some ways train for the first time, the portion of my brain that, that could learn how to Look at that spreadsheet whether it's a proforma or evaluation, and just understand really what the numbers were saying from that page. And honestly, I've now been doing this 20 plus years and I still don't think I'll ever do that in some ways as well as some people that came, through that financial or accounting background. But I've also learned embrace That the need to learn and develop there, focus on that, develop that skillset, and then realize that, oh, there are some other skills that I bring to the table that maybe some others that don't have the legal background may not have as well. So it, it will always feel like, I'm carrying or walking with a bit of a crutch. Around some of those things but that's maybe the example that comes most to mind of one where I really had to lean in and learn something new that was way out of my comfort zone in order to be effective and good at the role that I was, that I'd been tru entrusted with at the at the time. And still have to think about those things as part of my current role.
Lan Elliott:Yeah, and I think a couple things come to mind when I hear what you were just saying about learning the financial side of the development role. I came up on the financial side doing more quantitative things, and then when they finally. Duck me doing a contract and negotiating contract, that, for me was a big learning piece. Sure. But I think there are always transferrable skills, right? Because I ended up using my analytical skills to read contracts in an analytical way, and how do we leverage what rights we have in this document? And
Noah Silverman:I give this advice to people all the time don't allow people to tell you that you're not re, you're not skilled or ready for. A different kind of role. It's all in some ways about how you package yourself, and the ability to in maybe it's to genericize your skillset so that it's more translatable into a different role than the one that you were doing. A, again, that transition from lot of asset management for me, or what we called asset management, which is actually quite different at Marriott than it is at in a lot of other Hospitality businesses. But that negotiation side of the business, that problem solving side, that understanding, how to how to sit across the table from somebody who may be unhappy with a situation and work through and not being afraid of that conflict. Those are all skills that, that came from the practice of law that, that I brought with me to the business side. And then needed others to develop alongside them to be effective in those roles. But sometimes it's about, the marketing pitch and what you can do and how it applies to the job you're looking at. Yeah,
Lan Elliott:and Joel Eisman who started that group at Marriott, has brought, had brought a number of attorneys that were very successful in that asset management who went on to development like Michael Evans, who we've had on the show as well. Let's see.
Noah Silverman:Yeah, I just watched your your Honor with you, Michael, the other day. And it was a little bit of a trip down memory lane, cuz obviously we were colleagues in that group at the time.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely. I think Joel saw, the ability for the transferrable skills and it was just really very smart in the way he looked at it. Now, we had touched on it a little bit, but you had mentioned previously how you enjoy taking on challenges. Could you share a little bit about how seeking out challenges impacted your career?
Noah Silverman:Yeah. It, I'd say it impacted my career in a couple of ways. One I do think that anybody who's willing to do the or jump into hard problems and then finds ways to help so solve them tends to get, maybe more attention. Than some others. That, that group that we've now spent a decent amount of time talking about, that was my first non-legal role here tended to work on a fair number of pretty it was oh two, so we were, coming out of the we're really in the middle. When I first joined that group was oh two. So we were in the middle of the of a recession at the time. There were a lot of challenges in the industry post nine 11 and in the recession. That really had started in some ways a little earlier, and so working through a lot of those challenges, they tended to be high profile. Issues and finding solutions to them, especially when those solutions were maybe the least bad outcome as opposed to one that anybody really is super happy with. And then helping the company to understand. That that, that was the right path to take it. It created visibility to things I was working on that old, that definitely had impact on my career longer term because of the challenge. And so I think I think being willing to embrace. Challenge can be rewarding in and of itself as well. But in this case it was rewarding in terms of creating visibility and opportunity for me, longer time, longer term. And then there is the development that comes. I think from taking on challenges and working on hard stuff, it just sharpens your. It sharpens your skillset and your abilities in ways that ultimately I think, are again, transferable to multiple different opportunities and roles. I've done a bunch of different things in my time at Marriott. I think each of those different jobs has given me a perspective that has helped me learn about Look through different lenses and learn different things that, that serve as building blocks for additional challenges or opportunities that may come going forward. It's true of, I think, leadership and running, running the team as well. But also true of the more kind of specific projects and other things that you might be working on within your team. Yep. It also means
Lan Elliott:that you're always learning new things as you're moving from one thing to another. Just that importance of a growth importance of a growth mindset where you're continuing to learn. Yeah.
Noah Silverman:I think, I've always been driven by at least some degree of intellectual curiosity. And one of the re one of the things actually I realized about, or one of the motivating factors I should say about why I ultimately didn't wanna continue to practice as a lawyer is that. As lawyers get more seasoned, generally speaking, you are being, paid for your expertise in a particular area. And so I don't think there's too many people that really want to be working with a lawyer that, 20 years into a career is doing something for the first time. With tenure, years should come. Expertise on that side. And yet there was this mindset, and maybe it's true of other places as well, but certainly was true at Marriott. There was a mindset at Marriott that having different roles broadened you as a potential leader in a way that. Was gonna create opportunity. And so that, what I realized is that played more naturally to just me as a person, that I didn't really I would start to lose motivation if I felt like I was gaining a certain level of expertise in a topic. And as soon as I got close enough to, I never, I obviously never got to perfect knowledge about anything. But as I got to whatever the. Threshold was, there was always a threshold at which I felt I know enough about this. I want a new challenge. So let me think about going somewhere else where I'm gonna take my knowledge level, maybe from 85% back to 45%, and then start learning and growing again. And it seemed like there were more opportunities for me to do that and challenge myself that were rewarding to that kind of intellectual curiosity in different business roles than would've been the case had I stayed. As a lawyer. And so that just was really appealing to me. The opportunity to continually seek out things that I didn't know as much about but motivated me to learn and come up that learning curve and kept me engaged and ultimately more satisfied in my job and career path than I otherwise might have been. Just stagnant in, in one role where maybe I had perfect knowledge, just no longer feeding that, that kind of curiosity that I've got.
Lan Elliott:It definitely feeds into being comfortable, being uncomfortable. That concept where if you're always growing, you're always learning new things and looking for a new challenge, that's something that you need to be okay with not being the expert always. And that there are opportunities when you're learning new things. But obviously take taking on new challenges. Taking on new roles means you're also taking calculated risks. So can you share an example where you've successfully. Taken a risk and maybe how you prepared yourself mentally to do that.
Noah Silverman:Yeah I feel like I'm continuing to talk about that first of the three inflection points I talked about, or the second, of the three inflection points, which was the move away from, my 10 years of law practice to to a role in our in our, on our business side. But that, that felt like a huge risk to me at the time. I had investment in in law school, quite literally time and money in training me to be a lawyer. I also had investment in the number of years that I'd spent developing my career as a lawyer. And all I really knew at that point, after college, three years of law school and almost 10 years of doing it, was that I actually I knew I was pretty good at it. I actually did not. I was not, Failing in any respect as a lawyer. I actually think I was a pretty good lawyer. But I also knew I wasn't happy doing it. And there, there came that point where I really felt like it was important to find my way into something that I enjoyed it. It was no longer about chasing whatever the next important career. Door opening opportunity might be and more about reaping some of the rewards of the investment that you've made to do something that you might actually like and enjoy. And and so it felt like a huge risk to, to move to the to that asset management team because I wasn't sure that I'd be able to figure out, how a financial model works. I wasn't sure that I would be successful in looking at deals through a through a business lens as opposed to looking at them through. A legal lens. And there are, there were as many examples as they were. There weren't too many examples like Arne obviously. But there were other examples of lawyers that had transitioned out. But there were also examples of lawyers that had transitioned out successfully, I should say. But there were other examples of lawyers that had transitioned out to business roles unsuccessfully, and then had to rebound back into legal careers and. I definitely didn't want to do that. So it, it felt like a huge risk to do that. I felt much more kind of a c when I first joined that, that team, in terms of being on a much deeper learning curve than maybe I had even anticipated. And it took a while to, to, feel like I was settling in and that and gained some confidence back that I really didn't have any issues having when I was When I was practicing law. And ultimately obviously it paid off and I did settle in. I learned a lot. I was given opportunities after that, that I wouldn't have had. But for having, making that move. But it definitely took a willingness to take a leap into a very uncomfortable place and challenge myself and see if it was gonna give me the things that I was looking for. And thankfully in, in that case, it really did. Did you
Lan Elliott:have days where you, at the beginning, where you went home and you went, oh, I don't know about this? Or do you have your own internal pep talk? Like how do you how do you mentally get from that place of where you think maybe. I don't know if this was a good idea to persevering to get to the other side.
Noah Silverman:And maybe in some ways, thankfully I'm motivated more by the discomfort than I am uncomfortable with the discomfort, if that makes any sense at all. So I I find that the challenge in the discomfort motivating because I, obviously, I don't like to fail and I think I've got a bit of a competitive drive in me as well, and so the discomfort of that risk and challenge was helpful in keeping me engaged and motivated and driven. That's not a, that's not. True a hundred percent of the time though, in fairness. So there were certainly times and I won't I won't divulge the specifics of the review that I got the first year that I was working for Joel and asset management. But it was different, let's say, than the reviews that I'd grown accustomed to getting at year end as a lawyer and I did. Kind of have moments after that where I said to myself, did I do the right thing? And I'm, and am I on a right path? Am I on the right path to to succeed in, in, having taken this leap a year ago? Or do I need to think about, maybe being less happy doing what I'm doing, but maybe better at what I'm doing? And going back to the old role, and again, thankfully I chose the. I chose the, I don't think I'm gonna get fired, but maybe it's gonna take me a little bit longer to get there. And I'm so much happier doing what I'm doing now that there was, there was no no serious consideration really to, to going backwards at that point. But yeah you just, I just had to fight through those those moments when they came. Yeah. And
Lan Elliott:the industry's richer for you doing that, obviously.
Noah Silverman:I don't know about that, but thank you for for saying so.
Lan Elliott:I think so. Having had the opportunity to work with you let's talk a little bit about building a network, cuz obviously you've got a really big network, but for a lot of people, networking isn't something that's very comfortable. How have you developed your network and how do you network in a way that suits your personality?
Noah Silverman:Yeah. So I start with the last part of that question, which is, how do I do it in a way that suits my personality? I do feel like I am a I don't feel this way. I know I am introvert. And so I, I have to approach the business world, both looking at relationships around the hallways of Marriott, but also our relationships with our owners and franchisees, which are really important as Working in our development function. A as an extrovert, right? You just you you're the introvert in an extroverted world. And so I, I do it in ways that I'm comfortable with, but I also try to do it in ways that feel authentic and natural to me. And for a lot of the early part of my career, the, before I really took the development role, I was I was focused on, my network was really more of an internal network within Marriott. A lot of my jobs were were focused on engaging with other Marriott associates. And so that networking was to try to connect with my coworkers in ways that helped, would. One people that I liked, thankfully in, in our company and in our industry, I find a lot of people that I like. So I think building a network with people that you enjoy spending time with and trust their feedback is maybe the most important aspect of that. And then secondarily in those early days, it was also about finding people that I felt. Might be able to help guide me in certain respects around career opportunities. And a few of the jobs that I got post law department came because I had reached out to. Leaders of those teams and expressed interest in learning more about them. And and potentially if there were ever an opening working on those teams and some of the people in those shops, Joel, you mentioned who hired me into that asset management role but others as well. Eventually Tony as well. When Tony hired me in development. Back in 2010, not only were an important part of my network, but were important kind of champions and mentors to me as I was working through different aspects of my career. But it was important. It was important to me to find people that I felt like I could trust and that I connected with and that That there was you could also develop a, a friendship with beyond just professional guidance and advice they may be willing to give. Yeah. It's a wonderful
Lan Elliott:industry where I think a lot of people will meet. For business reasons and then become friends afterwards. So I don't know if that happens in every industry but I do find it a lot in ours. Let's talk a little bit about mentors and champions, cuz you, you touched on it a second ago and you had mentioned Joel, but I'm curious, how important is it to find champions and mentors and how do you go about it?
Noah Silverman:I think it's, I think it's really important. It's hard to describe a step-by-step guide into, making it happen, finding mentors and champions. But I was given a piece of advice when I was career advice when I was still at the law firm. So very early in my career post law school from one of the partners at the time who told me that. As in as important it is, as it is to have others that are looking out for you and to be on radar screens and things for when there's opportunities that present themselves there, there really is nobody who will care about your career more than you are gonna care about it. And I've carried that advice with me through my entire career. And in fact, I tell people it's, I think it's some of the best career advice I was ever given is recognize your own role. In that, in, in your career because just naturally you're gonna care about it more than anyone else might. At the same time, you know that decisions that are gonna be made that could involve you, whether it's a new opportunity for a different role within a big company or a promotion within that company, that it's gonna take somebody. Being willing to stand up and advocate for you while you're also advocating for yourself to make those kinds of things happen. So while while I think it's incredibly important and maybe singularly important at the top of the order for you to be willing to be an advocate for yourself, having mentors and champions is maybe next in terms of. Significance when you think about the roles that they will play in those opportunities, in those promotions and I can point to multiple instances in my background here at Marriott where that's played out to be true. In terms of how to go about finding mentors and champions it's maybe a corollary of the question you just asked about how to build a network. I see it as two sides of the same coin. Find people that you can trust express to them. What you are interested in, try to build a relationship so that they know you and understand you and vice versa. And and maybe also recognize that while, a broad array of relationships are really important it's. Deeper relationships with a couple, maybe a couple people that have an ability to have a real influence. Maybe more important than try, than having surface relationships with kind surface level relationships with everyone. So I was a significant beneficiary of some folks along the way that really took an interest in me. And then thought of me when opportunities presented themselves and in part because I was in their ear telling them about things I was interested in doing, but also because they were willing to be supporters of mine. And it was a significant factor in the different roles that I was given a chance to to try over the course of my career.
Lan Elliott:I love that. And I wanna go a little bit deeper actually, cuz you just touched on that you were in their ear when new opportunities came about. Can we talk a little bit about advocating for ourselves? Because you've already started to allude to it, but I wanted to go a bit deeper into it because one of the things you're really good at doing is when you see an opportunity that you're interested in. You'll go and talk to someone and express your interests. And not everybody does that, and not everyone has the confidence to do that. In fact, there's a generalization that women are not very good at advocating for your, for themselves or holding up their hand for an opportunity they'd be interested in. I know I haven't been as good as it at it as I should have been. Can you share how you've done it? How have you a advocated for yourself when you see opportunities you're interested in?
Noah Silverman:Yeah. And I'll confess, it wasn't super comfortable for me either. Again, and give me a Myers Briggs test. I'm definitely gonna come up on the introverted side of the ie. Part of that equation. And yet you just have to do it. As I as I mentioned I knocked on some doors to express interest in different roles along the way so that people could think of me if and when there were opportunities, on their team. And I helped them understood who I was as a person and what I understood, what I thought my skills were and how I thought I could be an asset for. For them on their teams if opportunities presented themselves. And there are at least two occasions, if not three of the multiple jobs that I've had since having come to Mart where that was a direct that played a direct role in me being given The the opportunity to compete for that job at the end of the day. By no means did it result in me getting the job, but certainly it was having been in their ear putting myself on their radar screen. Got me in a consideration set so that when I a applied for those roles, I don't think I otherwise might have been thought of. And so I did have to reach out, out of my comfort zone and put myself out there as having interest in it and it paid dividends. Even when it's not easy, again, gets back to that, that that career advice that I got early in my days at the law firm, that nobody is gonna care more about your career. Then you're gonna care about it. And what that translates into is is taking some responsibility for your career. By all means. I am a believer that if you do a great job at your job and go above and beyond, that will get noticed. And that will and should result rightfully in opportunities coming your way, but it will not result in every opportunity that could come your way. If coupled with doing a great job and going above and beyond and making sure that you are showing up on those radar screens, you're also willing to put yourself out there and put yourself into the ears of people who have the ability to influence your career and letting them know that about who you are and what you want to do, and what your aspirations are. I think that's a really important role for leaders generally to understand the hope, dreams, and aspirations of everybody on their team. But I also think that there's a responsibility that comes to that for others around the organization the people that are on those teams to convey that proactively to their leaders, but maybe equally as important to people who aren't their leaders, especially if they may be thinking as I was at different times in my career about. About different roles in the company and different departments than the one that I was in.
Lan Elliott:Yeah, I think that's I love so much about what you said. One of them was, be really good at your job, right? Because people are gonna notice that, but then that's not always going to give you all the
Noah Silverman:options. Yeah. That's table stakes, right? Because fall falling below being really good at your job, bad things happen. Yes. But when you're really good at your job, then you are then you're doing the. The things that, that present the, it's the opportunity for opportunity, right? You've done the task number one, which is just be great at what you're supposed to do. But you do have to go beyond
Lan Elliott:that. Yeah, and I think a lot of people who work really hard, they do a great job, but then they think that's going to be enough and that things will naturally happen and some things do naturally happen, but I do think as you start to get towards the top of the pyramid and there are fewer and fewer opportunities, everyone's table stakes, as you said, doing a good job. So if you want those roles, and as you get more senior, there are fewer of them, you need to hold your hand up and ask for it and advocate for yourself. Absolutely. If you're gonna be on that list, absolutely. Yep. So one of my favorite questions on our interview series is what advice would you give to your younger self? And I don't know if it's the advice that, that you just mentioned earlier, but I'm curious, what would you tell your younger self?
Noah Silverman:Thankfully I had somebody else to give me that little that little diddy of advice at the time. I did, I wouldn't have to give it to myself. But look, I I spent a number of years post law school being pretty unhappy doing what I was doing, progressively less unhappy. I was I liked what I was doing at Mariet a lot more than I liked what I was doing at the law firm. But I was about 10 years into a career and really had been in three different jobs, two different employers, and really wasn't enjoying what I was doing. But was nonetheless working pretty hard at it as well and trying to be successful at it. And and I, I. Because I eventually found a way out of that into jobs that progressively gave me an increasing level of job satisfaction, personal satisfaction, and happiness. I guess maybe the advice that I would give to my younger self, if it, if I caught me in that window of 10 years there is that, it's, you're on the path. It's a process. And and realize that. That that path and that process is part of what will lead you into a place that, I can't des describe as every day as is jumping for joy and zen levels of just off the charts, levels of zen and happiness. But I really do love what I do. I have loved. The time that I've spent at Marriott, especially after I transitioned at a law, and I don't think honestly those opportunities present themselves to me had I not done the things that I had done before. Which doesn't mean that somebody else couldn't have ended up in the same job coming up through a different path they did before me. But in, in my case, it was that path that led me to a place of job satisfaction, professional satisfaction, personal. Happiness and growth. And so maybe that's what I tell myself in my younger days is, just realize that it's part of the process and you're on the path and keep working hard and keep doing a great job and realize that things will, there, there is a payoff for this for this investment of time and development that you're making in yourself, even in da, even in days where it feels like it's a grind. And I think by the way it's a little bit of a challenge at times with with the younger generation. I have two kids that are in their twenties. Early twenties. I think that sort of career progression, patience maybe is not the the single greatest trait of the next generation. But I do think that investment is an understanding that sort of good things come to those that not just weight, but are investing their time and development is an important lesson for it would've been an important lesson for me. At, in my early twenties, and I think it's an important one today. That's wonderful.
Lan Elliott:As I expected, we are running out of time because I know there's so much great content for you to share, which you have done today. That's your nice
Noah Silverman:way of saying I'm really talkative, Lynn, but I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to chat.
Lan Elliott:I think there's been so much great content that you shared that I wanted you to just go deeper and share more. But I'd love if you could share one final piece of advice just keeping in mind that our mission at D. D e I advisors is around empowering personal success. What advice would you offer to women and underrepresented groups who are looking to advance their career? One final. Nugget,
Noah Silverman:I can't say the best career. The best piece of career advice I ever got was was to know that you're gonna care more about your career than anyone else. And as a result of that invest yourself in making, in, in helping to facilitate outcomes for yourself that you are, that you're searching. So putting yourself out there, building networks, finding champions and mentors, doing the things that we've, spent the last several minutes. Talking about I, I can't say that's the best piece of career advice I've had I've ever gotten without saying that's it. I really do believe that's the best thing that I can convey as well which is to recognize that and invest in yourself and do the things necessary to. Put yourself out there even where it's uncomfortable. Without, by the way, being somebody, I'm not trying to tell people, be somebody you're not. Create a kind of inauthentic work version of yourself. That is not the advice that I would give do it in a way that. Maybe you are least uncomfortable with, if it's uncomfortable for you but in a way that, that feels like it's still true to who you are and authentic to who you are as a person. But be willing to to get uncomfortable a bit in order to advocate for yourself and be your own champion for first, because I think that that will help with all the other pieces. That are also important to being having a long and successful. Career and it never stops, by the way. I still feel that's, that, that's true. Even with the number of years that I have, continue to be curious, continue to work hard, continue to do a great job continue to care about yourself and others and and continue to, in investing yourself in ways that, that hopefully continue to allow you to learn, grow and get additional opportunities.
Lan Elliott:Thank you as a fellow introvert, I love the way you stated that we can still make headway even though it's uncomfortable. You just lean into that a little bit. So yeah, thank you very much Noah. Really appreciate your sharing your insights and your journey with our audience, and it's really my pleasure. Thank you. And for our audience, if you enjoyed this interview with Noah, I hope you'll go to our website, d e i advisors.org for more interviews with hospitality leaders. Thank
you.