It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Jyoti Sarolia, President & CEO, Ellis Hospitality Group, Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey

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Jyoti shares the skills she's developed and the relationships she's built through her service on industry boards and associations. She discusses the important roles her mentors have played in her career and how she develops relationships that serve both her personal and professional lives. Jyoti discusses work life management and self-care and how to counteract imposter syndrome.

Rachel Humphrey:

Hi, I am Rachel Humphrey with d e i advisors. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering personal success in the hospitality industry, and I'm so excited to welcome to the show today, g o t Lia, who's the president, and c e o of Ellis Hospitality Group,

Jyoti Sarolia:

g o t. Welcome to the show Rachel. Thank you for having me. Grateful to be here.

Rachel Humphrey:

For those of you who are not familiar with G o T or her background, I'd encourage you to go to dei advisors.org and read her bio there. But we are going to jump right into things so that we can spend as much time together today getting to know you and hearing some of your tremendous insights. Jot, tell us a little bit about your hospitality journey and your path to leadership.

Jyoti Sarolia:

So I have a very unique story, but it's not unique'cause I know a lot of people that have similar stories, but my grandfather's two brothers immigrated to America in 1952 and came through Ellis Island. With very little money and very little knowledge of the language. And what was really good for them was that they knew someone in San Francisco who was already part of the hospitality industry that they were willing to go to. That was on their agenda. Six gentlemen took a train and went to San Francisco. And my parents, so they got into, they met a gentleman who was running a hotel. They saw how wonderful it was to live on site as well as work on their business. And they took both my grandfather's two brothers worked on and end jobs for about five years until they were able to take risk and lease their first hotel. And when they did that, their spouses were able to come and almost, I would say 15 years later. My parents came in 1967, so if you're asking me when my journey started it was probably when I was born in 1970'cause we lived at the Elder Hotel, which still remains in our extended family's portfolio. And my mom I. I don't remember at the age of one or two or three or four, but I remember seeing my mom going to our little hotels that we used to own on Lombard Street and work all day from nine to two. And then she would come home and take care of us and do her whatever role was expected of her. Happily. My first encounter with hospitality was when I was at the age of nine. They allowed me to sit at the front desk and pick up the phone. And it wasn't just the ordinary phone, it was this big switchboard with cords and stuff and room numbers, and I think it was 128 rooms that hotel that we were living at. So I got to start there. And as I got older, as I got to learn a little bit more English and our weekends and our summers, I would say for the next till I was 18 years old, a lot of it was to help around the various positions that were in the hotel. That's where I got my start. If you ask me where I got my passion is when I bought my first hotel in 1996 in Spring Valley, California. My husband and I raised enough capital over the two years that we were working and we borrowed some money from our friends and family as well. Before we were able to put together a down payment on a hotel. It was our first hotel, and our parents were able to help us put down payment on. Their per percentage on their partnership. So I think my journey literally began being a hotel owner and the feeling that I had.

Rachel Humphrey:

Wow, that's an incredible story and I have met your mom and had an opportunity to spend some time with her and what a great role model for you to have. And we're gonna talk a little bit about role models and mentors in a few minutes. I always love to share with our audience reasons that I have asked a guest to join us as a guest advisor. And it's because this person has really impacted my hospitality journey or my life in some way. And you are an incredible. Volunteer. I don't know where you find the time you run your business, you have your family, but you are very involved with h l a, with a hoa, with I f a, and not just involved in terms of attending or reading, but really volunteering, serving on boards, being of service to those associations that give so much in the industry. I have two questions I wanna ask you about. That. One is what type of. Skills have you learned through the board service, through the nonprofit board service that might be different from what you've learned as a hotel owner or running your company? And then also how do those, does that end up impacting your business on the backend?

Jyoti Sarolia:

Wow. There's a huge list of it. But let me tell you my favorite ones. I remember being part of CHOC on the regional advisory Board. I went to my first meeting and when you think you own a hotel, you are born in a hotel, you thought you knew everything. So you get in there thinking, okay, you need to be heard. You need to like, oh, be participating. So you raise your hand and you start talking. My biggest, and I didn't, I did raise my hand. I did give feedback, but there was one person who now becomes one of my mentors. He told me to just shut up and listen. And that's how he said it. And I'm like, I'm volunteering. I'm taking my time. I traveled on a plane to get here and you're telling me to be quiet. And it took me 15 years to know what that lesson meant to me. And, listening and not speaking and understanding. I think is a very powerful tool when you sit on boards and not only when you sit on boards, when you lead teams allowing, trusting your team to do their job and listening, whatever frustrates them, whatever makes them happy. I think that was a really key ingredient to what was missing that I didn't have before I joined that board. So I really, I share the story. And I did share the story that I went, I did go home crying because it's really hard to listen to someone tell you that you've never met. But it's been one of my biggest learning lessons and it's been a pivotal point for me. So that's one. And I think the second, two other things that I think is important is It's never easy speaking to people, right? We, I don't think we grow up being social. When you look around and I look around all the time, we go to restaurants and there are people that are not talking. Clearly being social is not something that's natural. I think you gotta work at it. And I think that the ability to manage projects, being charge of projects, doing research and development, sitting on these boards or even, doing report outs. It gave you the capacity to, one, be prepared, and two, being able to speak in front of a smaller group as we get bigger. That I think that to me was a good lesson. And the third part, which I think is the most important part, and I literally share this with a lot of, I go to a lot of the hospitality career day development days at universities, and I always say to them, Hey, look. Building the right connections or building the right relationships will really like literally jumpstart where you need to go. It's like that little push that you know you get that you wanna do, or if you are a fan of, is it. What is that? The marvel flash. I dunno if you watch flash, but it's like you run slow and then you're running really fast. I think when you have the right network and the right team, or if you network and you find the right person, that can exponentially get you faster where you wanna go. So those are my three advice.

Rachel Humphrey:

That's incredible. And the idea of listening more than you speak, certainly the skills of public speaking, but also the relationship building so important not only to advance our careers, but in your personal business as an entrepreneur as well. And you touched on a couple of topics there that I wanna follow up with a little bit. And one is public speaking. It is what most people will identify, especially women, is what they see as one of the greatest hurdles in. Their career development or their career progression. Have you always been comfortable public speaking, whether it's to your team or to one of the associations that you're involved with or now? You're on every national industry conference around and how do you prepare for public speaking opportunities that you

Jyoti Sarolia:

have? So I. Well, someone once called me, actually it was Pat from Choice Hotels at a dinner. He said, Joy's an introvert. And everyone on that table that was sitting there turned around and looked I don't think you're talking about that joy'cause she's not an introvert. And I didn't realize that going back into my earlier life, that I literally was an introvert. And what I mean by that is I like sitting quiet in a corner and absorbing and watching the room. And I think I've mastered that skillset'cause I continue loving to do that even to this day. And I went back and I'm like how. Most of them think I'm not, but one person think that I am at, and he himself is an introvert, bright, brilliant, right? Speaks when it's necessary. But he's an amazing listener as well. I think what I did was I took a leadership class in eighth grade. It was called Leadership and it was grade neutral, so it didn't matter what grade you were in. So I took it in sixth, seventh, and eighth. And in eighth grade he says, I think you should. Consider writing a speech for the salutatory space, right? So it's valedictorian gets to speak and there's a salutatory speaker, and I look at, I'm like, what? Me? There's about 600 people that are in that audience at graduation. How am I gonna speak to 600 people, let alone write a document of inspiring, graduates and parents and anyone else that's there. And he says, I think you can do it. I actually ended up being picked over almost 228 applications. And I owe a lot to that teacher and me for taking the risk, but I. What I wanna tell you about that story was, I didn't know this, but I know it now. So I spoke in front of six people. That was my first public speaking in my opinion. We, my mom and I did an interview with the magazine, and in that magazine, it was a dual interview. And I think the question, and I forget how it was asked, but they asked my mom like, when did you know that your mom, your daughter, was going to be a rock star? Star, right? And she says I went to this eighth grade graduation. My daughter got up on a podium. I didn't think she was gonna do it, but she ended up speaking so well that her granduncle who first migrated, had tears in his eyes. Just to be happy to see a family member achieve that particular moment. But I was really happy that my mom remembered a story and she shared it with the reporter'cause she's never shared it with me. So I think everyone can do it. If you ask me what it takes to speak at conferences, to be on a panel or to even moderate some incredible female executive, it is overwhelming. I do have butterflies in my stomach. It is nerve wracking, but I remember one thing. I have an incredible journey where I didn't go to college to learn this stuff. It was all applicable, right? We relive and breathe all the work that we were going to do, number one. And and another person told me as Well, look, joy. Everyone in the audience understands fifth grade English. You don't have to speak big words, but you just have to be authentic in your conversation. So that eighth grade celebratory speaker with being on these boards and being able to speak up to 1500 people, There isn't anything that I am afraid to do anymore because I have, not only do I have the experience I have the comfortness to be able to speak, but Rachel, I also think it's so important to people, especially people that look like me, To be able to be on that landscape because there's not a lot of that I see. I wanna learn from other female leaders as much as I wanna learn from a lot of my male leaders and just to inspire someone to do the same after me, I think that's always been my motivation. So it's not to speak as much, it's to see who else behind me can speak to.'cause they listen to this podcast and said they can do it as

Rachel Humphrey:

well. I love hearing that and certainly getting your roots early again. And now another recurring theme is talking about mentors, because you mentioned it in the association and nonprofit space of having somebody who told you to listen more and how important that became. And then when I ask about public speaking, now you're talking about a teacher. Who really became a champion and ally for you, encouraging you to do something outside of your comfort zone that you excelled at. So let's switch gears for a minute to mentors, allies and champions. I know that mentorship is probably, if not the most important thing that you enjoy talking about. One of them. What is the, why is it such an important thing for you both to be on the receiving end of mentors, but also then to pay it forward and be a mentor to others?'cause you mentioned being important for others to, who look like you, to see you on this interview at panels and other things at conferences. Why is

Jyoti Sarolia:

that so important? I do agree. I think mentorship is very important. Especially when you want to, I So I, okay. I get very emotional when I talk about this because I feel that the mentors that I've had in my life has literally accelerated where I am today and really contributed to my growth. And I wanted to just mention a few so I can feel a little comfortable talking about it. What got me into wanting to have mentors, right? As I mentioned on chop, right? 12 years in the organization. I got to chair it I think after the ninth or 10th year into the organization. But I wouldn't have been able to have the courage or I thought have a successful year if I didn't have, our, the preceding president Zine has been a good mentor of mine. I have a good friend named Kevin, who's been a mentor of mine. And I also have John. A lot of them have actually, all three of them have chalk experience. So to navigate boards, to navigate N F A C group, to navigate just life. They're not only my business mentors, but they're also my professional coaches as well. My mom is the other one, and my husband also is a great mentor of mine just watching and listening to him. So you asked me, why do mentors provide such great support to us as we grow? They provide me with time and knowledge, and specifically they're actually sounding boards on ideas that I have or things that I'm struggling with, or things that you can't bring home, or things that you can't. Talk talk to your colleague, and I know you must have had those moments where you've had to have some of those hard conversations and you wanted to filter it through someone. So when you do say it to the right person, it was on point and grow and good, right? I think that to me is very important. And I have a specific story COVID to me was my biggest challenge, right? 2020. I have two hotels in San Francisco, four in San Diego. But literally our borders are closed, tourisms. Closed or business people are not traveling. Brands thought it was three to four months. I thought it was a little bit long-term just looking at what was happening to China on third quarter of last year. So I made a phone call, I called my mentors and one of'em I said, and I said, I know you're going through the same thing. I know you have about 22 hotels of your owns to manage and thing. I won't take a lot of your time, but. You were successful in 2008. What did you do and what advice do you have? And, from a business perspective, he said to me, be positive, be proactive. And I and I didn't know what that meant. Be positive, be proactive. Every day is going to be a challenge. How you wake up and how you tackle that day. Your mind frame's going to be the biggest contender. That was one positive. Be proactive was, you had a hoa, you have H N L A. You had i f a, they had calls on a daily basis. You also had shock. You had all these calls to get on every day. All these things you gotta do every week and all these things you had to do every single month. That proactive part of it, I figured it out on my own, but I know what they meant. And we we did well as a company. We did well throughout 2020. No complaints. We've actually learned a lot from that, that we've implemented the practices and I think that we are successful because of that. But, So that's one example that I wanna share. I can be here all day talking about more, mentors are, who do you call when when you need advice or when you need to seek advice? And who is going to be your champion, your coach, your advisor. Those are the people. I think that mentor word is morphed for me into different other types of roles they play. But that's to me what they mean to me.

Rachel Humphrey:

And you're right. Having a support system through anything is really important. But being faced with Covid and as part of an industry that was so badly impacted, devastatingly impacted, never more important than to have a support system and mentors that you could turn to. And now of course, as I said, paying it forward and being that same for others who come along after you is incredible to see. I have had an opportunity to talk with you some about. Being a woman in this industry and work life management certainly applies to men and women. We're all trying to juggle so many responsibilities, and it might be parents, it might be children, it might be hobbies, it might be other things that you enjoy doing. Talk a little bit about your work life balance strategies and has that changed during the course of your career? What type of lessons have you learned?

Jyoti Sarolia:

The one lesson is I really didn't hear the term, the, my mom, so I told you she started right away in the hotel business, but we also had this thing where she had to also do the meals and take care of the children and as a, teenager. I really un didn't understand. I didn't hear that terminology. It didn't impact my life because my mom always taught me one thing. It's great to have a passion, a passion to do something, but here's what you have to also be able to be a queen of, right? It's providing meals and cooking and being tidy and raising children. And I'm not telling you can't own your own business, but I'm not telling you, you can't thrive here, right? So I think she literally let me be so comfortable and to have that experience of being able to balance what, but here's what I say work-life balance seems highly unlikely, especially for me. But what work-life management is more realistic, and I think we hear that a lot about women, right? So how do I manage the demand, right? Like I, yesterday there's, I could have prepared and planned for something, but I ended up wanting to spend a little bit more time with my mom because I knew I was going to be able to be okay for that thing that I was required to do on Monday, right? So that's an example. When can you be comfortable knowing where you can shave off some time from work and where you can dedicate it to where it needs to at that moment, and being able to balance that to. That is the, that's the biggest if you can master that skill and understanding when to do that, I think that would be a really that's how I would, that's how I achieve that, that that question. And it's, and it, to me, it's all, it's always constant. Rachel, we're. My business doesn't end on Friday, and it doesn't necessarily end on Friday. When we take on this role, when we give ourselves these positions people are rely on us. And there are people that, teams look to us, right? So we gotta be present in all fronts. So it's a constant challenge. I do my best to be able to do what I think is necessary for the moment and learn to get back to the thing that I'm a little bit behind on and try to catch up whenever there's pockets to do I

Rachel Humphrey:

like your sharing the intentionality of, I knew that I could do more in one space, but I'd still be good enough at it, so I chose to spend some more time at home. I think that way of processing where am I needed most or where do I want to be most at any given point is a really great way of looking at it. Relating to work life management. There's been an enormous. Shift over the last couple of years coming out of the pandemic. I think especially on self-care and wellness and a real focus on whether that's physical, emotional, mental, whatever it is, hobbies, again, that type of thing. Do you think that you've done a good job with a focus on self-care? Do you think you do a good job today? What would you tell? Rising leaders who are really at the point in their career where maybe they're starting to sacrifice a little bit of wellness to advance their career.

Jyoti Sarolia:

Boy, I think I was, yeah, I have I do have wonderful advice to give to those that are listening. One, it's not perfect, but two, recognizing having something in place to balance that, I'm gonna do it in a practical way, right? What does my day look like, right? It's seven days a week. I do drop things sometimes when someone asks me a question, but I've learned to create boundaries. So I say to, the person that comes to me with a issue or applied or this or that, I go look. Let me finish this, and as soon as I'm finished this, I can squeeze you into this and help you solve this. Just challenge, right? So I create boundaries to fi focus on the things that I'm responsible for. I make time for those that I think needs my attention or my support, and I do I help in that regard. And and so that's work, right? What do I do for myself? So I know my family works a little later, so I just have to work a little bit earlier. So I do wanna work out at least five days a week. And I'm not traveling. I do orange Theory fitness. Running helps, doing weights help but being in a community of people, right? They're there for the same reason you're there. They woke up like you woke up, right? I don't look to the fact that my family's not joining me. My family's not doing it. I'm there for myself, so I really am not concerned with anybody. But being in a group environment makes me feel like rah. And I get a lot, I get my workout, and now when I travel, I actually look for orange theories out there and try to fit it in as much as I. Can, so I carry my heart rate monitor and I think it's important. I'm in San, when I go to San Francisco, my mom is gonna approach 75 this year. She does this one and a half mile walk to the water. So she wakes up at six. So no matter what time I go wake go to bed, no matter how much I hang out with my brothers I make an effort to wake up at six and make sure I'm walking with her at six 30. We catch up on our time together. As well as getting some exercise in, if you have a phone call, we're always on a lot of constant calls. If you don't need to present anything, take it on a walk. Some of them gives me about 10,000 steps a day. I can easily clear just on being on calls while I'm walking, as long as I'm not presenting or needing to write things down. And then the last part, Rachel, this is one thing that I've actually begun to do more recently. Is I now have these, when you sit on these boards and you work along side with a lot of incredible leaders, I now want to, we're friends, right? Friendship develops in all of this stuff, right? So we learn to visit people, we learn to visit each other. We have this fun little NAPA group that we do. I'm the only woman for the most part in these groups, but I like it. They allow me, they treat me exactly as they are. Like if we pay, we all pay. If we make decisions, we all make decisions together. We all have a hand in it, but I. We like talking about where we are in life. We like talking about business, business things, new ideas, even things like estate planning or it's not relating to us with work, but it's relating to us as our family. There's a lot of great ideas that come through those moments and I think that to me has been a game changer. And aj has been very supportive and he does the same thing with his friends. So I think to me, that's part of that thing that you can add in terms of the self-care bucket. Just going out and doing that.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love all the different nuggets there. You've got a commitment to exercise, you've got fresh air, you've got the time with your family, you've got the time with friends. All really important pieces for people who work so hard in taking care of themselves. I've got a couple of questions. I knew we were gonna run short on time'cause 30 minutes goes so quickly. But a couple of, just to wrap up, you mentioned earlier the relationship building that you have developed through board service and other things, but you also have. Incredibly deep relationships in this industry and for each of us, developing relationships might happen in a different way. So you and I might network differently. We might rely on different strengths in our personalities or avoid different things in areas that are more concerning to us, but we might end up with the same network at the end of the day. How have you tailored your networking to your personality or to your character?

Jyoti Sarolia:

I think I started. The journey by seeking out people that had talents that I didn't have. So I remember this one scenario where I, I met I saw a colleague of mine that literally worked the room so well and I wanted to work the room really well, and I just was around their space and Hey, have you met Jot? She's our first female chalk, chairperson. And he was really excited, right? So then I walked around and then, after half an hour I was like you have to network on your own now. And I said, no, I've been watching you for a year or so and you know a lot of incredible people. If I can just find four more of you, that's five of you. I would know about a thousand people at the end of the year. And then, he didn't respond. He looked at me like little flabbergasted as to what I was really meaning I. So I learned early to be intentional of who I network with. I learned early who I would network with and what that would mean. And I continue doing that. The part that now I'm working on is how are they a part of my life, right? I'm getting to have everyone know each other. That's part of my life. Just a couple weeks back we had one of the f a C group in our backyard. I hosted a small dinner with whomever wanted to come, but just to be around them again and be able to, talk to everybody and be around everybody. And I said to them in that little speech, I was grateful that they made the time to come on their last day there. And I also said, these other people I wanna grow old with, these are the people I wanna see our grandkids grow up with. Because a lot of them, they provide perspective, They help me in a professional way, but they're also helping me in a, a personal way. Our families are becoming friends. Those networkings can turn into really great relationships throughout the year. So I continue doing that. I.

Rachel Humphrey:

And I love the messaging in there too, that you can build an incredible business network through personal social interaction. It's not all about business. You may never talk about business yet. Continue developing those important relationships for you. I wanna wrap up with two of my favorite questions. Those who listen often know that I love the question of advice to our younger selves, and part of it is because I think reflection is such an important. Important part of our personal growth, but also we change over time. And so looking back at your 21 year old self, what would you tell 21 year old Joti about how things would turn out or maybe something you wish you knew then that you didn't?

Jyoti Sarolia:

What I would tell my younger self would be is be intentional when you're at school. So find the right path, but don't worry about the, that's not the path that you're going into. I definitely didn't think this is where I was going to be. I had a different path in mind. But work hard. Number one, right? Build those relationships. Number two. And one thing that I wish I had done better growing up was when I was, when I traveled to somewhere make the most of it, right? It wasn't to stay up and stay longer hours, it was more to meet people, sit in the sessions, learn a little bit more. And the fourth thing, and I used to do it so much when I was growing up before the age of 12, but somehow I stopped reading. But I would've, I wish I had read more back then. As, and I do as I do now, but I took a big break in the last decade. If you're listening, be real. And then resilient, right? What does resilient mean? You'll have losses, you'll have gains. Your capacity to grow from all of that, and to learn from that is going to be really big. And and we only learn from our failures. So it's okay to fail. It's okay to keep trying at something that you don't think you're gonna be good at. And being comfortable, being uncomfortable is another thing. There's so many things, Rachel, but those are the few things that I can think of. But I go back to that one thing that I said, being positive, being proactive. You can apply that to anything that you do in life. I wish that person had, I wish I'd known that person and my younger self, or that person or someone else would've given me that advice. I think that I would've lost I would be somewhere different, even more so where I'm at today because of that. It's very powerful to me.

Rachel Humphrey:

Wow. So many great pieces of advice that you would've given to your younger selves, and so many will benefit from listening to that. So thank you so much for sharing that. Joti, we are running into our last question here. So thinking about the motto of d e i advisors to empower personal success, do you have a final piece of advice you wanna share with our listeners?

Jyoti Sarolia:

I sat on this panel a few weeks ago and we talked about imposter syndrome, and I didn't listen to that word, but it's been around since I think the late sixties. And the self-doubt knowledge, what I would tell, the golden nugget is. If you've been in your career and you're good at your career and you've done it for a long time, you know it. You are good at it. You shouldn't let someone or yourself think that you're not. That literally is imposter syndrome is when we don't feel that we're worthwhile or we don't think we belong at an area I. I go back to thinking, how did I get to these boards? A lot of them were asked of me. A lot of'em were, they sought out to me. That was my biggest moment is why I'm so loyal. When you say, why do I show up a lot? I show up because someone thought that they saw something more in me than I saw in myself. And if I can give one advice is that I think a lot of us already have that. And maybe they just haven't been shown by someone that they also respect. But I'm telling you that as you're listening to this podcast, besides being positive and proactive, believe in yourself. Work really hard and get to where you wanna get to.'cause I think you can do it. Wow.

Rachel Humphrey:

That's such an incredible place for us to end today, jt, on behalf of the hospitality industry, on behalf of my personal career growth, I wanna say thank you so much for your leadership, for all that you are doing, for inspiring the next generation of hospitality leaders as well. But it's been so great to visit with you today and I'm incredibly grateful for your commitment to d e i advisors.

Jyoti Sarolia:

Thank you for the opportunity. Blessed always, and to

our

Rachel Humphrey:

audience. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry.

Jyoti Sarolia:

Oh, I just wanna say thank you for the opportunity, Rachel. This is an honor to be able to have this conversation and share some insight. So thank you and I'm very appreciative. Thank you so much.

Rachel Humphrey:

And to our audience, thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope you'll visit dei advisors.org and listen to the more than 100 interviews with industry leaders that we have shared. Also, you can stream through your favorite podcast streaming service. So thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you again.