Brian Leon, CEO of Choice Hotels Canada interviewed by Dorothy Dowling

Brian, a seasoned franchise business leader, has steered Choice Canada's franchise support and business development. Drawing on his family’s legacy in Canadian franchising, Brian's strategic decisions, have positioned him as an adept leader, dedicated to fostering the success of franchisees.

Transcript

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Dorothy Dowling 0:03

Greetings. I am Dorothy Dowling, a principal of DEI Advisors. We are a non profit organization dedicated to personal empowerment. I am delighted to welcome Brian Leone, CEO of Choice Hotels Canada. Brian, it is such an honor to have you with us today.

Brian Leon 0:19

Dorothy, thank you so much for having me. It's absolutely my pleasure to be here. I appreciate you thinking of me.

Dorothy Dowling 0:24

Wonderful. Brian, we always start with each of our DEI advisors asking them to share their career journey with us. And I know you have been the CEO at Choice Hotel Canada for some time. So I was wondering if you could share with us how you got selected for this role, how you've developed in this role, because I know you just bring so much value to your franchisee community and your team at Choice Hotel Canada. So I know our listeners would love to learn more about how you have been so successful.

Brian Leon 0:52

Sure. Happy very kind. It's it's been 17 years for me now at Choice Canada and quite a journey here. I was, at the time I was hired at Choice they were looking for somebody who had specifically a franchise background. Our company is as most of our most other hotel chains franchise based company. And I had spent most of my career in positions and other franchise organizations. So that was how I ended up getting into the role at choice. Prior to that, as I said, I was in leadership roles and franchise organizations, more of the food service site, but grew up in the food service and hospitality industry. And and so it's been kind of part of my life for a very long time.

Dorothy Dowling 1:36

Great. Thank you. And I'm just wondering if you have a personal mantra that has helped shape your personal and your career journey.

Brian Leon 1:43

I think, you know what I would say when I look at my role here at choice, one of the things that I have learned is that there's nothing that ever happens in our company. That's somebody in our team doesn't know more about than me. So as a leader, I think one of the most important things that I can do is try to ensure that we've got an environment set up where we've got great people on the team. We give them the freedom to make the decisions that they need to make. I try to be supportive to them without micromanaging, but make sure that they have the autonomy and the authority to make decisions in a business like ours. You really need to be nimble. We're in a very competitive business. We have a lot of strong competitors out there. And one of the things that we see for us as being a competitive strength if they're really focused on the success of our franchisees. And empowering them, making sure that that we equip them with the ability, with all that they need to be able to do their jobs and let them do their jobs. That's I think that's really the most important thing for, uh. Probably the most important thing for me and probably one of the things that I've learned over years and in the franchise world. I think the other thing that I would say when I look at being in a leadership role in a company like ours and particularly in a franchise organization is to recognize that there is just an awful lot that you can learn from your franchisees. And that's, for me, has always been something that I think I've really felt is important to recognize and important to harness within a franchise organization. A lot of franchisors talk about it, but I think very few of them are actually really good at being able to harness the strength of your franchise system. And you look at it. Company like ours, and we've got, say 350 hotels, open or under development across the country, we've got an enormous pool of talent, not just within the head office of our company but throughout our franchise community, our hotel owners GMs of hotels, a lot of the people that, different roles working at the hotel level and they are, they're out there in the trenches all the time, and so I think it is, So important to the success of our company and to our ability to be competitive in this industry, for us to be able to harness that strength and really be able to leverage the talent that we've got right across our entire system.

Dorothy Dowling 4:01

When you say that, Brian, it makes so much sense to me that when you joined the organization, they were looking for someone that had the depth of experience in the franchisee space, because I think that culture that you have built with your franchisee community to leverage all of their great expertise and that collaborative co innovation approach that you have brought I see how much you, And I'm sure it's because of that spirit of mutual of respect that you have really engendered. So I congratulate you on that because that is not an easy thing to do. It's a lot of stakeholders that you're trying to continue to drive value to, but also listen and make sure their voices are heard. So you do that extraordinarily well. So I I know that we can all learn more from you in terms of how you do that. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about career champions. Most of us have had some that have been impactful in our careers. So I don't know if you have any that you might be able to share with us.

Brian Leon 5:02

Yeah, absolutely. I do. I would say for me my probably biggest mentor in business and in life has been my dad. And I was really lucky to have a father passed away a few years ago, but that was just incredibly supportive and had also spent his, he'd spent his entire career in hospitality. I suspect that might be one of the reasons why I ended up in hospitality. You're asking about career journey before. It's a funny thing because, you could never, I think you can never really predict where your journey is going to take you. I could have never predicted, like when I went to business school in university, I got out of business school and all of my friends went out to work in like investment banking and consulting and stuff, and I bought a little restaurant in downtown Toronto. And no idea why it moves like crazy. I, it was probably one of those, one of the stupidest things I could have done, but it was quite an experience and and ended up, from there owning a second restaurant and then sold my restaurants and the broker, the business broker that sold my restaurants ended up recruiting me. Into business brokerage. So I spent about five years as a business broker and sold something like 200 restaurant businesses. A restaurant and hotel brokerage company. But I worked on the restaurant side and sold, a bunch of restaurants mostly in Toronto and greater Toronto area. And Like an unbelievable learning experience being able to see all these different the ins and outs of all these different businesses. And in the course of that started to represent a bunch of smaller franchise organizations in doing their franchising work for them. So I would do resales of their restaurants, or I would do recruiting of new franchisees into their system. Typically smaller franchise systems that didn't have an actual franchise department and franchising for me had always been something of interest because of my dad because he came from a, franchise background and and in the course of that. I stumbled upon somebody that had opened a opened a bagel store in Toronto and I ended up leaving what I was doing, joined I guess the second store, set up an office in the second store, and it became the largest bagel chain in in Canada, second largest in the world. Actually, we had a tremendous run until we didn't but it was, but we had a tremendous Bagel stores across Canada and internationally. We opened in Russia, we opened in Europe and and it was quite a run but then but then that business changed. But to answer your question about about mentors for me, it was my dad, through my whole journey he has been there. My dad had a really really an interesting business background. He was born in the depression, a child of the depression and, as so many. Of his era, never finished high school. He was, I would say, brilliant, but never finished high school, had to go support his own parents and then spent five years during World War Two in the Army and the Air Force. But then he got into got into the food service business and in the food service business, he was running some restaurants in Toronto. From there, got into the hotel business opened the first airport hotel at Heathrow in London, England. And which he will, he often told me is that was I guess where I was conceived when he was running this hotel in in Heathrow. And and uh, and at that time he met Colonel Sanders and, uh, and ended up being involved in bringing KFC into Canada. And that started a, long journey for him in the hospitality business. And and. And he was, he had quite a, quite a successful career. So I always looked at him as being a mentor and even he was 95 when he when he passed away. But right up until, until the time he he left us, he was somebody that I would talk to regularly about, business issues. And he had, right up until the time he died, he had just a brilliant, sharp mind and was somebody I was just really be able to count on.

Dorothy Dowling 9:04

Hospitality and franchising was in your DNA. You grew up with it. You had an amazing mentor that probably showed you about that relationship engagement with the franchisee community that I'm sure just established your career path and in a fundamental way. So thank you for sharing that. That's an amazing story.

Brian Leon 9:23

Yeah, definitely it did. One of the things that different things, you learn from different people, but I always remember with my dad, he was the company that he ran in Canada became the biggest hospitality company in the country. So it was a sizable company, but people what people liked about him was his ability to personally connect with people in their stores. I would hear stories about how he would make a. Make a cook feel like a king. That was something that somebody had said to me when when we were celebrating his his life. And remember after, when he passed away, I'd edit some letters from franchisees that would talk about the impact that he had on them. And I think you look at things like kindness that I think sometimes. are just are just not, you just don't see them as much in the world of business as you as you should. And, when I looked at looked at everything that I learned from him, it was about integrity and about kindness and about trying to to always do the right thing. And that was, I said it was a, he was a great mentor for me.

Dorothy Dowling 10:24

I'm sure that he looks down on you, Brian, and is really proud of the way you continue to support his legacy and the way that you support your franchisee community. But thank you for that story. It truly is amazing to have a parent in your corner like that, that, just deliver so much value to you just from in, observation on a daily basis of how they continue to support others. So thank you. I'm wondering if I could talk a little bit and I now the dots are connecting because I do have great admiration in terms of the culture of the team that you have built at Choice Hotels Canada. You just have. such amazing teammates. They follow you because they believe in you and genuinely appreciate the opportunity to work in the environment that you have established. I'm just wondering if there's any wisdom that you would share with our audience in terms of how you have really fostered that, that strong strength of building such a strong team.

Brian Leon 11:21

Yeah, no, it's a, I think, we do have a great team here. I'm really lucky. The one thing that I would say that I've always tried to reinforce with our team is we're a hundred percent franchise organization. Now I'll sound like a broken record saying this, our teams say this a hundred times, but a hundred percent franchise organization, we are only successful if our franchisees are successful. So our, fates are inextricably linked. What makes us successful as a franchise system is having happy, successful franchisees that feel that we are adding positively to their business and particularly in the hotel space. One of the interesting things about the hotel space, when you look at it as a franchise model, it's really many ways different than to the food service side where you're dealing with much more. Traditional business format franchising and the hotel space where franchisors actually have a lot more control over over the relationship you're dealing in the hotel space. We've got franchisees that own their own real estate. They have to control their own asset, and it's not unusual to see a hotel that could be. A Comfort Inn one day becomes some other brand another day or a Holiday Inn Express become a Hampton Inn or something like that. You would never see that in the food service industry. You'd never see a McDonald's become a Wendy's or a Wendy's become a Burger King. And I think it's one of the things that keeps us honest as franchisors is that we have to be driving. You have to be delivering value to our franchisee, and that is the one thing that I try to instill in our team is almost, I would say, a healthy fear that if we aren't delivering on our value propositions. our franchisees, then we've got competitors that will, that will go out and try to do that for them. So I think having that lens on it, I think really helps us. And, I think from, from the standpoint of our team here, I can tell you that we've got a team that actually genuinely care about our franchisees and we hire for it. And it's just. It's just embedded into our culture. We like to spend time with our franchisees. We like to have fun with them. Our, we enjoy our franchisees. We have friendships, with our franchisees and what, one of the things that I really, I love seeing, I spent a lot of time traveling across the country and we've got hotels and markets all across the country, and I probably spent way too much time traveling, but I do believe that it's important for me. to keep connected both with our team across the country and with our franchisees across the country. And you just can't do that over the phone or by emails. But one of the things that always impresses me is when I see the connections that our team have. With our franchisees and I'll walk into one of our hotels with one of our regional directors and they'll know everybody's name and they'll know their kids names and they'll know, and you can see that there is a genuine personal relationship there. That I think it's good from a business for the business. But I also think it just makes it makes things a lot more fun for our whole team. And I want our team to have fun, enjoy what they're doing to enjoy the relationships with our franchisees. It is really something that just for us is an important part of the way we do business.

Dorothy Dowling 14:34

I'm sure you role model that to everybody, Brian, because I know everyone looks up to see what their leader is doing to get signals in terms of how they should do their role. And I'm sure they all learned that from you. I've always been a big believer. I, I have this personal mantra that relationships are the currency of life. So I share that vision with you that it's what we invest in those relationships that everybody wins as a result of that. But thank you for listening. for sharing that because I do think the level of engagement that your team has and the mutual support and respect that they have for each other is something I rarely see. And I know that begins with your leadership. So again, I'm a great admirer of how you have developed that culture in your organization.

Brian Leon 15:20

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thank you. No, thank you. And I appreciate that. And the one thing I would say when, you look at a business like and this is true for all, certainly all franchise businesses, is that you can't avoid Conflict within your system. You're always going to have some situations that come up where with a franchisee, even a great franchisee, you have maybe some conflict, conflicting interests, or, things that we are doing and that we think we need to do for the betterment of the entire system. Maybe are not necessarily the best thing for one individual hotel or franchisee. And I think that a lot of franchise systems can really get caught up in those things and they end up becoming the focus of whole lot of energy. And one of the things that I say is we will not we are not going to spend any time fighting with our franchisees about things. We, we don't, that's very unproductive for us. We, we need to find ways. We need to recognize that there's always going to be potential for conflict in the relationship, but the big key is how do you resolve that and how do you find ways to resolve that in a positive, constructive way so that the relationships stay strong. And I think if your franchisees. Genuinely trust that you have their interests in mind, and I believe in our system they ought to because we do, and I think they, they see that, but if they genuinely believe that, it just makes, it makes everything so much easier.

Dorothy Dowling 16:39

Brian, I think the wisdom that you just imparted in terms of understanding, there is always going to be some natural conflict, and I think the way you articulated that, sometimes what's going to happen, Good for the greater good may not necessarily be good for one individual. That is true in life in general, but I do think the way you navigate that and trust is really that foundation because some people will go along with what is good for the greater good just because they trust the people that are leading that effort. So again, that, that's a really important lesson I know we have a mutual admiration of Susie Grinnell. She has done amazing work there. I'm wondering if there's anything that the Hotel Association has helped you in terms of your career development that you would offer in terms of encouraging people to be involved in industry associations.

Brian Leon 17:26

Yeah. Actually it's a yes. I, I would say definitely, and not so much specific to the hotel association, but I'll tell you that for me, volunteer work has been something that I have been involved in for as long as I can remember, and it has been really meaningful for me in terms of, if I say career development, certainly in terms of knowledge and, for me, it started I'll tell you it started like a long time ago when I was when I was in high school. My mom was a volunteer driver for the Canadian Cancer Society and she had cancer and and even, going through her treatments as difficult as they were. Sometimes she was out there driving people to their. To their treatments. And and she passed away when I was And when I was 16, I got my driver's license and I started as a driver, as a volunteer driver. So that was my start into the world of volunteer work. And I did that through kind of high school and university. And and then after university was asked to join a committee. At the Canadian Cancer Society, and so I spent many years as a volunteer on committees and ultimately as a chairman of volunteer development for Toronto and then as a vice chair of the Toronto District and this is at a time very early in my 30s, and for me to have that opportunity at that age to be sitting around the table and board tables, a lot of people that a lot more experience and knowledge than I did. It was a little intimidating at times, but it was it was a wonderful. For Wonderful learning experience. And, from there, I went into roles I spent many years on the board of the Canadian Franchise Association. I spent many years on the board of an organization. I chaired the board of an organization ultimately called Canadian Feed the Children, which was a children's aid organization, international aid organization. And I can tell you that through those types of roles, The things that I learned that were absolutely applicable to business were really important for me. It was and one of the things that I will often recommend to young people embarking on their careers for sure to give back, but also by giving back, you're going to get a lot more from that than than I think you ever give you look at the opportunities to be involved in volunteer work, whether it's on the industry association side like I am with the hotel association now or on the on the charity side which may not be so directly related to the work role, but Can provide some wonderful learning experiences. I think it's something that I can tell you has been very important for me. And to this day, I think about lessons that I've learned in all of these different not for profit organizations that I've been able to apply to our businesses. And and I just encourage people, particularly young people to really think about looking for some of those opportunities.

Dorothy Dowling 20:09

I think the way you describe the experiences that you've had, Brian is very impactful because I do agree that when you're in a volunteer role, you get to take on more risk and different responsibilities that may be way above what you would be, you would able to do in your day to day work simply because the organizations rely on volunteers. And so if you put your hand up, you often get those opportunities to learn and grow. So I do think it affords people the opportunity to try out different things and learn, but also just the observations of working with many impactful. individuals that some of that informal learning is an incredibly impactful to one's career. So thank you for taking the time to, to share all of that. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about risk taking because we always want to understand what risks individuals have taken in their career and how did that impact their growth and the learning and the outcomes that came from that.

Brian Leon 21:05

Yeah. And for me, my career journey was quite a bit different than most of my friends that I went to university with. I came out of a business school The vast majority of my friends, so many of them went into banking and industries like that and spent, spent many years in those industries. So mine was really different kind of going off on this entrepreneurial kind of thing of starting my own restaurant and and then from there rolling into kind of the world of franchising and that is really where I've spent the vast majority of my career is in the world of franchising and it's business that I really enjoy. I love the franchise relationship. I love the business model. I'm a big believer in the model of franchising as a great way to do business. I, what I really. Really like about it is the when you look at the impact that you can have an individual's lives and how, the system like ours, we've got so many franchisees that have come from all different walks of life and and we get to be a part of that and hopefully we get to be a part of a successful business, risk taking. Is something that is just obviously a big part of a business, particularly, when you're doing those types of entrepreneurial endeavors, I think what I know what I would say when I look back at my career, and I look at, some of the times where maybe the risks haven't played out, that well if you look at some of the challenges that you've come across, I think back to, At the time I mentioned at the in the bagel business, a company called Great Canadian Bagel. So we started with two stores in downtown Toronto, and I was working in the back of the back of the store and kind of doing everything. I started as director of franchising and leasing and but it was just me and then the president slash owner of the company that that it was just us that was the company. And then from there. We built it became the fastest growing food service franchise in Canada grew to about 160 stores across the country and and had a really a wonderful trajectory of growth and success in the early days. And that went on for a few years and get some great growth and, franchisees doing really well, but then the business really started to turn, people, if you remember this back in, it was a handful of big bagel chains out there and we were one of them and we all really got hit when we had people concerned about carbohydrates. The Atkins diet was it was the big thing of the day. And then we had a whole bunch of. non bagel chains doing a way better job of, bagel programs like in Canada, Tim Horton's getting into bagels and then the grocery store is getting into bagels. So all of this convergence of factors that took our revenues, at the store level from being double digit positive growth to being double digit negative growth almost overnight. And it really created. Massive challenges in the in the business and for our franchisees. And, one of the things. that I would say, from there, uh, that I learned you really get an appreciation for the risk that our franchisees are taking every day, in, whether it's a hotel space or whatever it is. That was probably the most difficult time of my career because we had a lot of franchisees that just, had gone from doing really well to all of a sudden they were not doing well and this is not something that you can measure by looking at a P and L or a balance sheet. This is people's lives. And that is the thing. That is the great thing about franchising, but it is the tough thing. The hard wrenching thing about franchising when you get Into that point where you have franchisees that for no reason of their own just are not being successful and and the reality is, if it's a franchise or a lot of the people got into the business because they trust you as a franchise system, they trust your team. I felt they have trusted me personally and you worry about letting them down. I think one of the things, it's really informed the way I think about the franchise relationship that is something that you just have to respect as a franchisor. And one of the things, I'd say. I like most about our business in the hotel space here is that by and large, our franchisees have been very successful over long periods of time in the hotel space. Generally has been a really good place for people to invest over over many years. So We've got a lot of franchises that have been in our business for 10, 20, 30 years. And most of them that have been in for a long time, they've done pretty well because we've got an overall rising tide of real estate values and business values. And we're at that point where we're seeing second generations come into the business. And it's a it is, it's just great to see that. I just, I love being part of a business where we can have an impact help to have that impact of having allowing our franchisees to really create businesses that can be great things for their families and their kids and their extended families. It's it's really, probably the thing I like most about our business.

Dorothy Dowling 26:01

I think your lesson in terms of that personal commitment to the franchisee's success And how seriously you take that commitment, Brian is it's very powerful because I do share with you. It's really hard to see someone put all of their personal wealth at risk. And then as you said, through no fault of their own, that suddenly they have lost it. I do think that whole risk management and trying to be part of their success is an important lesson. I'm wondering if we can shift a little bit onto some personal elements of your story because, today in this space, everyone is talking this evolution of concepts from lifespan to health span. As leaders, we're encouraged to live a healthy life and to role model that for others. As you had said earlier, that you spent an enormous amount of time traveling and being present for all of your franchisees. How do you balance all of that demand when you're on the road?

Brian Leon 26:57

Yeah yeah, I wouldn't want to suggest that I've got it all figured out. I think when I look back in my career, there's one thing I could probably, that I would want to change. It would be probably spending more time with the family. And I think so many of us, and Roles like this would say that it's just there's never enough time, particularly when the kids are young. I've tried through my whole career and as much as you try to be present, it's just there just never is enough time. I think what I would say is one of the things I've learned over the years is there is no limit. How much time I can spend working and still not feel like I'm totally on top of everything. So I felt like I'm always going to be struggling to be on top of everything I want to be on top of. So I've learned to just be at peace with the fact that maybe I'm just never really going to never really going to get there. And one of the things that I would say that I've tried to impart on our team here. Is that they're never going to have a problem with me putting their family first. That is absolutely something that that I will expect as laughing with one of our, one of our employees. It was probably a year, maybe a year or something that got to go came to me and was struggling with, we'd had a a meeting coming up. That was an important meeting where. He was all going to be together, but he had a conflict with a it was one of his child's hockey tournament, and he was coaching and was struggling with what he could do. And I just said there is no question about where you need to be. And so I ended up banning him from the meeting. I said you're banned. You can't come to the meeting. You're just, you're not welcome. Just do, you do what you need to do. The work will be here for you when you when you're all done. And and I think that's just, I, I think that is, Something that I think our team appreciates that and they expect it. And I think companies ought to be like that because life is too short. We just, we don't we don't get enough time. We all work hard and our team all works extraordinarily hard. One of the things that we, I want to make sure that we do is cut them the slack when they need, time to do the things that they need to do. I think the other thing that I would say that I've maybe been a little bit better at is just the focus on trying to keep healthy because when you're traveling a lot and you're out for dinners and all that kind of stuff, it's pretty easy to just. Get out of a pattern of your own kind of personal wellness. So I, always have been pretty focused on keeping active. It used to be a lot more running and long distance running and marathons and crazy stuff like that. As I've gotten older, I can't do that stuff anymore. But but I still, probably work out pretty vigorously, four or five days a week and just try to make that a part of the regular routine because I find that I think for, mental and physical health. You really need that, particularly when you're working a lot and traveling a lot.

Dorothy Dowling 29:36

Brian, if I may I really love the statement that you made about being at peace with never being done, because I do think that is an amazing statement that you made because the truth is so empowering to individuals to learn that, that yes, you're always going to be running and you're never going to really get over that finish line. And so I really appreciate you sharing that because I think that's something, We can all learn to be at peace that's okay. And I also think the element that you just demonstrate in terms of really allowing your teammates to have balance in their life and to make sure that they're showing up for their families, because I do believe that holistic approach to life and staying well brings much more successful employees to the workplace. So I understand even more now the commitment that your employees have to Working within your organization and the commitment that they have to your leadership. So So thank you for sharing that in such an honest way we're moving up near the end of our interview and we always ask each of our advisors if there's something They would offer to the community or something that they would offer to themselves If they were sitting, you know giving them their younger self some advice I'm wondering if there's any final closing thoughts that you would like to offer to our audience in that regard

Brian Leon 30:56

With my younger self, I wouldn't know where to start. There's just, I made so many, I made so many mistakes over the years that gosh, I know a lot of people say, yeah, I have no regrets. I would do it all over again. There's a whole bunch of things I would want to do over on, I think, but but having said that, I'm really happy with where I'm at today. And, and so the dots have connected. In a way that has worked out for me and I think it works out for, for most people. I think what I would say for young people is maybe to not try to figure out where all the, how those dots are going to connect going forward. Try to get into roles where you are, Given a great opportunity to learn and that's probably the single biggest thing I would say to to young people today Is you know find roles where you've got a great opportunity to learn where you've got an opportunity to make a contribution where where you are treated well within an organization. And if you're not then just leave and move on I think young people today have a way healthier attitude towards work. Back when, employers could not treat you that well, but people just wouldn't leave. They would just figure that they were they were stuck there. And I think that that's a good thing. But really focus on, the knowledge, that that you're going to you're going to be able to get work really hard. One of the things, and we see this with our young people today, a lot of people will joke and say, Oh, young people today, they don't work so hard. I certainly don't see that in our business. We've got a lot of young people that work in our company and they are hard workers. They're committed and dedicated and they really want, they want to learn, they want to expand, they want to broaden their horizons. And and I think that's just great. So that they need to find opportunities where they're, where they've given those opportunities or they're appreciated, they're treated well and that they can enjoy, again, life is too short. Don't do stuff that you that you don't enjoy if you're not enjoying your work. And I'm very lucky that I have a job that I enjoy doing every day. I love coming into work and it's great to have that. I know not all people, have that. I think my first full time job before I started university, I spent a year working on the hog kill floor of a meat packing plant, slaughtering hogs. And I say that because it's so many people go through life doing jobs like that, where you don't really. I guess you can get some enjoyment out of the job. I certainly didn't get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And and you look at people that are in roles like that and they could be in roles like that for their whole career. And when I was there, one of the things that jumped out at me when I was doing that was that there's an awful lot of really smart people that were working the kill floor, that Canada backers back, back then, and could have done any one of a number of things. It could be doing what I'm doing today, but it's just circumstances. in that day in that role. I was, lucky that I had circumstances where I didn't need to didn't need to stay in that role beyond beyond a year. But but I, I think, the other things that I would say just in terms of business are to think about these are things I got from my dad think about having fun, think about integrity, think about kindness, and if you let those. Those kind of thoughts guide you. I think you'll you'll have a good, fun career.

Dorothy Dowling 34:02

Well, Brian if I may add, I really would like to express my appreciation because I do think the honesty of you expressing that there are certain things that you would like to go back and do over. I think that, Speaks to the learning journey you have been on and how you've grown in your career. And I do think that is really that element that we all have to make that investment in our career and continue to grow and learn. And hopefully some of the mistakes that we've made. impactful lessons in terms of how we look at our future self. But I just again want to express my gratitude because you've been very honest and candid with our audience. There's lots of great wisdom that you've shared with everyone. And again, I just want to also express my admiration and appreciation for the great work you do for the industry and how you're such a brilliant role model in terms of your commitment to your franchisee community. There's so much that we can take away how we can be better in that regard. So thank you.

Brian Leon 34:58

No, I appreciate that Dorothy. And needless to say, the feeling is mutual. You've been a wonderful leader in this industry and incredible. And I've appreciated the guidance that you've given given our team here.

Dorothy Dowling 35:09

Thank you. I hope that you will consider visiting our website, DEIAdvisors. org, where you will meet many other leaders like Brian and be able to listen to their wisdom on our webcasts and podcasts that will empower your knowledge and feel your spirit. So we hope to see you there. Thank you.