It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Brian Proctor, Founder, Leeds Hospitality Group, interviewed by Lan Elliott

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Brian shares why investing time upfront is one of the keys to building high-performing teams.  He also explains how his The Power of Gratitude at Work program helps transform organizations – and why it’s easy to do.  Brian underscores the importance of public speaking and why loving what you do, saying Yes, and raising your hand for more opportunities are critical.

Lan Elliott:

Hello and welcome to its Personal Stories. My name is Lan Elliot with its personal stories, and today our guest advisor is Brian Proctor, founder of Leads Hospitality Group, and I've been wanting to meet Brian for a while now, so I'm delighted he's here. Welcome, Brian.

Brian Proctor:

Thanks. I'm delighted to be here and looking forward to chatting with you.

Lan Elliott:

I wanted to start with your journey to leadership. What are some of the inflection points in your career and if there was a factor or factors that you think were the secrets to your success.

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, I think I've always wanted to, I've never been the type of guy to sit in an office, right? So very early in life. One big thing that struck out with me was my father was a banker back in Canada and on a Sunday, and I'll make this story brief'cause it's a long one, but on a Sunday. He took me into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. He was practicing his speech for the next day. And the Queen E was an old CN hotel back in the day. And the pomp and circumstance, the doorman was dressed as a beef eater. The rich colors, the maitre d took care of me in the restaurant while my dad was practicing the speech in the ballroom. And I just fell in love with the feeling of being in a hotel. So from that standpoint on, I always took jobs where I was with people and working directly one-on-one with people in the public. And so that kind of ingrained in me, when I thought about schooling is what can I do? And the hospitality business was just a natural. So having done the, finished the schooling, did what everybody did, just jumped into the first job I could find at the Westin in Calgary, Alberta as a night auditor back before computers were invented. So you actually had to. Balance the hotel. And that really was a way to learn the business side of it right from a very early age. And then the career just progressed into it Sheraton. And then I was fortunate to build some good relationships. Which are so key in this business to come down to the states based upon having these key relationships from the Sheraton and Halifax, Nova Scotia of all places. And then, I'm a Canadian kid. I got, I was with ITT Sheraton. I got called by Four Seasons to go work in Toronto. As a Canadian kid, you get a call from Four Seasons, you go, you just go no matter what. And they were, I think

Lan Elliott:

everybody gets a call from Four Seasons. They're probably gonna go

Brian Proctor:

I think. I think so. Really strings, your heart strings with a Canadian with everything that Izzy, had created at that point went on to create even more. And then, it came back down to the States in Beverly Hills with Four Seasons. And one of the big changes for me was leaving that type of a company Four Seasons and joining Interstate Hotels, and I credit. Guys like Ted Darnell and Alan Raey and Bob Grainy. They showed me what the hotel business was as a business, because up until that point, I think I was just having fun. You're dealing with the Krem de la Crema of society with Four Seasons. You've got the best hotels, you've got the most staff. Ted and the guys at Interstate really taught me what the business was about and how to make money and how to work on behalf of an ownership group to make that hotel successful. So I had the best of both worlds. I was able, I knew service and now I knew the business side of it. And then I went on to my best 20 years in the business, 19 years in the business with Starwood. And just had a, started as a general manager with them and they were very nice and brought me into the corporate world side of it. Again, another important part was, Rick Sewell, Dave Milas, taking me under their wings and showing me how to grow into these different types of positions. So I think. From that standpoint, I was able to then branch out into what I'm doing now as a consultant and a someone who works with hospitality, tech, startups and things of that nature. So in a very quick four minutes or whatever that was, that's very quickly how I got to where I am now.

Lan Elliott:

Such an incredible journey. And we had talked about how I knew your name and I couldn't figure out how, and then I realized I worked with people. And my W days, who reported up to you. So I'd only heard about the mythical Brian Proctor. I'd never actually had a chance to meet you until now, so I'm glad that our paths finally crossed.

Brian Proctor:

I don't know about the mythical part, but

Lan Elliott:

I wanna talk about continuous growth because we find that for a lot of leaders, curiosity and this desire to continue learning and growing as a big part of their path. And I'm curious in the various roles you have, if you ever came across. A skill that you realized, you know what? I'm going to need to really get better at this thing that I didn't need before, but I'm going to need it in the future. And that you really focused on it and I'm curious what it might be and how you did it.

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, I I think, at each level there's a different. Answer to that question, right? So the constant desire to learn is important. But the other side of that is the ability to say yes to whatever challenges that your bosses put in front of you. And not being afraid to take on that challenge. I was fortunate. I worked with a lot of great companies and a lot of great people where you were allowed to fail. But because of that. Knowing that, hey, I could fail and still proceed. You would try things for example, with the new builds and transitions team at Starwood, we were work from home before there was a work from home because we were opening hotels from Bora to Aruba and everything in between. And none of us worked in an office. We were all working off of C two B wherever we were flying around. Understanding that at every role that ability to learn to say yes. And one of the other things you always want to learn as you go through is how to manage the people that you're working with. And that is so key and so important. And I learned as a general manager and growing up through the hotels, I was probably a micromanager. And that kind of works for you when you're putting your arms around a building. But then you get into the corporate roles and you're overseeing multiple destinations, multiple properties, multiple disciplines. Then you have to learn how to not micromanage and how to trust the people that you've hired or that you've gone on your team. To allow them to do the job, give them all the tools they need, give them all the support they need, but then let them go. Because if I'm meeting with the owner in Bora Bora and we, the she and Phoenix Convention Center Hotel is meeting with the city hall leaders, I can't be in both places. You just have to trust everybody to do what they're doing. So I think for me, those type of things were at each level. You could probably have a podcast on. Just this one question because at different levels I think you're experiencing that differently, if that makes sense.

Lan Elliott:

Absolutely. And this podcast is a lot about continuous growth because our motto is empowering personal success. You touched on it, and I wanted to dive a little bit into building high performing teams because. When you're leading hotels and then you're at corporate and you're leading teams, like you said, there is this element of learning to trust the people and let go and let them do their thing. But you have to relatively quickly put together high performing teams. And I'm curious how you do this either when you're starting from scratch, which. People don't always get to do. Usually you inherit a team, but how do you think about building a high performing team and is there one thing that you look for in people? That are successful in on your teams?

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, I think, and I'm gonna bring up this name probably a lot in the conversation, but with the new Build team, we actually built it from scratch. Realistically there was five or six of the founding members and it grew into a team of over 45 members over the years. And the one thing that I learned from Dave Milas on how to do this, the best way is to invest in the time. While you're selecting the individuals and really taking the time to ensure that those individuals. The, they all come with great ex, experience. The, we weren't interviewing people who had never worked in hotels or anything. Everybody has great experience, but taking the time to really understand who the person is and ensure that they understand what the role plays. I used to joke that the HR guys wouldn't like me'cause I would actually love to interview the partner, spouse of the individual I was interviewing. Because it was a remote working job, we needed to make sure that everybody understood what that meant, right? It meant that you were getting picked up on Monday mornings and being back delivered back home Friday afternoons. 45 weeks a year, that's not for everybody. So taking the time to really get that, and then looking at personalities and their skillset, and are they gonna mesh with the type of environment that the new builds was in, which meant that one day you're dealing with a high net worth individual who's developing a W because that's who was developing Ws, where they were single owners, nine times outta 10 here in North America. And then the next day you're, speaking in front of the city council at the, she in Phoenix Center, or you're, dealing with a, an island population in Anguilla. And that could be a typical week, right? So understanding the personalities of everybody involved and looking at the skill sets and the personalities, Dave really made sure we invested the time. Selecting the right individuals and getting a lot of different diverse people into the team and a lot of diverse people interviewing the individuals who were gonna join the team so that we knew what, what it took to be successful in that type of role. They all, I was interviewing food and beverage people, they were all great food and beverage people, but some would click and some you knew would not be able to handle the aspects of the job. So I think for me, that was one of the biggest things.

Lan Elliott:

Yeah. That's one of the philosophies I learned when I was at w was that in the past other places they hired for skill and at w they hired for personality. And they could teach you how to do the skill, but the personality piece you either had the right personality or you didn't. And I definitely think the amount of time you and your team were on the road, it's not for everybody. Some people think that's very exciting to be traveling around the world, and it probably is exciting for the first three months and then it does become a grind. So I think yeah,

Brian Proctor:

absolutely.

Lan Elliott:

It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I wanted to turn to the power of gratitude. I don't do New Year's resolutions. I set an intention for the year and this year there was gratitude coming from everywhere. So it said to me, this year, my intentionality had to be around gratitude. And so when I discovered. Your wonderful podcast Tuesday's. Thanks. I thought I really hope I get to be on that podcast. And I really wanna meet Brian who came up with this amazing idea for a podcast and I've listened to episodes. They are wonderful. And in addition to the podcast, you also have a program you created called The Power of Gratitude at Work, and I wanted to talk. About how did gratitude become such a central focus in your work, and what's one thing about gratitude that most people don't realize?

Brian Proctor:

First thank you for the kind words about the podcast. I appreciate that. It's a bit of a passion of mine and it's started during the pandemic, really as a, I just noticed we were, the world was losing a lot of good people and when you did, you would see LinkedIn or other. Social medias, go crazy about what an impact that individual had on me and dah. I never got to thank them. So I just said, you know what? You need to thank people while they're around. So I made a personal commitment on my personal LinkedIn page,'cause that's all I had at the time, was to thank one person a week for 52 weeks for having made a big positive impact on my life when I finished after 52 weeks. I was fortunate enough to be on another great podcast called The Hospitality Mentor by Steve Turk, and I loved it, and so I said at the end, Kay, can I call you next week and teach me what a podcast is? I didn't know what a podcast was. And he said, you need a microphone, a laptop, and an idea. I had two outta three. I didn't own a microphone, but I do now. And that's how it was born. And then, I thought maybe I'd do 10 or 15 of them'cause I didn't think anybody wanted to talk to me. And then. People said yes to be on the show and the likes of John Murray, CEO of Esta, Jeff ti CEO of Wyndham. It's been incredible. And so that really continued my thought process on gratitude and then through 150 plus episodes. You hear a lot of the same messaging from these leaders of how gratitude had shaped their careers and how would it shaped their lives, and so having. Combine those two, the learnings from the podcast, my own interest in gratitude, and I would love to think I did gratitude well as an, as a manager, but I don't know, you'd have to ask people who worked for me. But I put it all together and developed this power of gratitude at work, keynote and workshop where we do actionable daily activities that leaders can add to their toolbox to. Use it as a skill.'cause it's really, it's like anything, you have to practice gratitude to get good at it. And what you wanna do is you want it to become a habit so that you're not thinking about it as much as just a habit. And then you watch how it spreads around the organization that you're working with. When people see you. Daily doing some of the activities that we suggest, then they react and they start doing it. And so there's a trickle down effect from seeing leaders do that. And what I found surprising was there's so many studies about gratitude that I had never thought about. And there's a gentleman, I call him the gratitude ambassador Kevin Monroe. He really, got me. Going a little more than I was already. And he was a great mentor for me at the beginning of this. And so that's how it came about. Through that there's. If we had more time, there's a story I have with my mother came from virtually nothing. She, and by the grace of whatever, her and my father got together and she instilled at us from a very early age to be grateful for whatever you have.'cause she grew up with nothing. And we were very fortunate to, to have more than she could ever have dream of. And I remember her teaching us that at a very early age. And that kind of set the tone. And as a Canadian we say thank you a lot, right? We say two things, we say sorry and we say thank you. That's just what we do.

Lan Elliott:

What's one thing about gratitude, you think people get wrong?

Brian Proctor:

I don't know if they get it wrong land. I just think they think it's too difficult and it's really easy. People think. Gratitude has to be this big gesture like at Thanksgiving, right? We get around the table, we do all the thanks for this, that it can be saying thank you to the cashier at the grocery store. It can be any little thing. It's, and it grows from that. The more you think about it, it's very easy to do. I, again, back to the Canadian roots, I bump into people and I say sorry, or they bump into me. I say they, I say sorry to them or thank you, right? It just starts that way. So I think people think it's a big thing. It really isn't. Just start with the simple thank yous. It, it can grow into handwritten thank you notes. It can grow into. An act of gratitude at a standup meeting or before a meeting you can say, Hey, I, you can do public thanks. You can do personal. Thanks. It's so easy once you put your mind to it and once you think about it,

Lan Elliott:

I love that. I have to say, I did not grow up with the advantage of gratitude being a big part of my upbringing. It just wasn't very central and I had to be a bit more intentional about it. I think I would've been better off if I had learned the gratitude piece. Earlier and the power of gratitude and how it doesn't just make it nicer for everyone around you, it makes it nicer for you as well, and it just lightens things and I really loved leaning into it. I recently read a book called The Gratitude Diaries, which was a woman's journey over the course of a year. Of really leaning into gratitude and includes research that she had read as part of her work, and I just think it is a wonderful skill to develop. And you're right, once you get used to it, it becomes so much easier.

Brian Proctor:

Yeah a little tease. So the first thing of gratitude for me, I was and this is gonna be hard to believe when you look at this face, but I was a child model growing up and it all started from an act of gratitude that blew up into, about five or six years worth of. Modeling, for lack of a better term, and doing that professionally from an act of gratitude started by my mom and something else. So that's a little bit of a tease'cause I talk about that on the keynote and it's in the book. And it's fun. And I'll just say that for the Canadians listening, I was the black diamond cheese boy for about three or four years up in Canada. They'll know what that is. You won't. But they will.

Lan Elliott:

One of our co-hosts here on the show, Dorothy Dowling, is actually a Canadian as well, so I'm sure she will know that ad and be happy to know that we have that child model here on the show.

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, it was fun.

Lan Elliott:

Let's go to talking about developing a network because one of the things I love about this industry is people tend to stay in our industry for a long time. They don't tend to bounce in and out. A lot of people find it and think, oh, this is actually where I wanna be. And you and I discovered it early, but one of the beauties of hospitality is that you start working with people in whatever capacity and your networks actually turn into friendships. It's great when you can get it to that point, but the starting can be really daunting. And I'm curious what advice you have for people about developing a network and how to get started and how do you do it in a way that's natural for you?

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, I think, the first thing is you have to work at it. It doesn't happen organically, right? Like other things, it changes through your career cycle, right? So when you're working, your network is pretty much those people you interact with on a daily or weekly basis. And then when you step away or you change, you've almost gotta start all over again. And I found this, I stopped working. I call it retired, but I retired from the daily grind back in 2000. And 20. And what was interesting to me, the minute you're no longer a titled professional, you really find who your close network is because they'll still talk to you because I didn't have anything to give anymore. And the amount of people that just ghost you at that point, or just fall off the crater. So what I found was those first two years after quote unquote retiring, I had to work at rebuilding A, a new network, and b. Finding out my old network who really mattered to me and who I really wanted to continue that with, because it does, it fell off. And when you make those changes it's dramatic. So for me, you, I find the people that I have similar philosophies, similar interests and. Again, I like to have fun, but you've gotta work at this developing a network. And you Oliver Bonker, who went on to some amazing things, he just retired of as chairman of, I think it was H Hotels over in Germany. He's moving back to the states and we had a chat and it was like. How does he reconnect with everybody and how do you stay relevant and you have to rebuild the network based upon that next juncture in your career. To me that's, you gotta work at it. It's not easy. It's a lot of work. Yeah.

Lan Elliott:

I think it's easier today than it was when we started our careers. Now we've got email and internet and LinkedIn and there are different ways to connect with people and. I think also LinkedIn can actually be a really powerful tool. I've had people reach out to connect with me that way, and I've met some incredible people. Now, for example, it's personal stories. My three co-hosts, those were not people I knew during the time I was working, and now they are incredible colleagues to share this podcast with. And I think you end up gravitating to people, like you said, who share a similar view of the world rather than just happenstance working with them.

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, I, I tell people when I started Leeds Hospitality back in 2020 and Tuesday, thanks. And now power of gratitude at work, I was spending three hours a day, four hours a day on LinkedIn. Just trying to build that network to the new, going from being a COO of Bridge Street Global Hospitality to founder of Leeds Hospitality. It's a whole new audience. It's a whole new thing. And quite honestly, I was probably on LinkedIn three to four hours a day working at every day, five days a week just to build. The client base up the connections. People who you know, might be able to help me and I might be able to help them, and just getting to know people like you that I didn't know before.

Lan Elliott:

Absolutely. I wanted to switch over to mentors and champions because you had alluded to people who had put you up for roles or suggested you move into roles. How important is it to find mentors and champions in the business world, and how does one go about doing that?

Brian Proctor:

Yeah, I, I ca I came into mentorship in that later in my career, meaning. I really now believe it's so important, and I think when I talk to kids in schools or I'm on a project now here in, in upstate New York, it's really about having the gumption to ask for to mentors, right? You have to seek out a mentor, right? So you wanna find somebody who you admire their. Style of management or how they're running, whatever business they're running, but you have to seek them out. They're not gonna come calling to you. They're not gonna come say, Hey, I wanna mentor you. And I think a younger me, that's what I should have done more of is reach out to these more senior executives that were around and said, Hey, can I, tag along, can I ask you questions? Can I get an hour of your time a month? So there's I think there's that seeking out of the mentors. The executives higher up. But there's also developing that network, getting back to networks, developing that networks of peers. They don't even have to be in your same industry. But if I'm a director in the hospitality industry and there's a director in the, the entertainment industry level type positions, how are you managing? What are you doing? What are some of the things, and cross pollinate those ideas. But again. You have to seek them out. I think that's, I think a lot of people sit back and wait for someone to mentor them versus going out and saying, Hey, can I have your, you're gonna get turned down.'cause some people don't like being a mentor or don't have the skillset, but you've gotta find those people that will help you tremendously.

Lan Elliott:

I love the intentionality of seeking people out. Because you're right, there are people who are lucky and they're very. God mentor comes down and mentors them. But I think for a lot of people who are successful, they have been intentional about doing it. And I love something that you said about people that you admire, the way they manage. Because what I see a lot is people selecting a potential mentor based on them having the role that they would like to have one day and saying, how did you get there? But I do think. Looking around and saying who is doing it the way that I wanna do it? And really. Leading their team, being a leader rather than just a manager. I think those skills and looking at it more from that perspective, rather than just the person sitting in the seat you wanna sit one day is such a broader way to think about it. So thank you for sharing that.

Brian Proctor:

Sure.

Lan Elliott:

Let's touch on public speaking because you have this podcast, you also. In your, the Power of Gratitude at Work program, do a lot of public speaking, how important is that in elevating one's career, regardless of where you are in the industry?

Brian Proctor:

Yeah. I recommend to anybody listening is if you have any remote fear of public speaking, get over it quickly. Go take a course, go take a public speaking class. Carnegie, whatever it is, because public speaking, a lot of people think public speaking is speaking in front of hundreds or thousands of people. Public speaking is speaking in front of a room of six of your peers that you're trying to get them to buy into your way of doing whatever you want them to do. And if you not, if you're not equipped to do that, if you don't have the confidence to do that. No matter how smart you are, no matter how great your idea is, if you can't communicate it to either three or four people, forget about getting up in front of a thousand people and selling your idea. So you can tell I'm not overly shy. So I'm I don't have a problem doing this as long as, and this is the second part as I always bring up to people, is if you are. Thought out and you have done your homework and you know what you're speaking about, then you can sell it to anybody, right? Because you're, they're gonna feel the confidence in your tone. They're gonna feel the passion with which you're talking about this subject, and they're gonna buy into it. They may not agree with everything, but they're gonna listen and they're gonna react to that. But if you haven't done your homework, if you're not prepared, people will see through that. You've been to hundreds of conferences where you see someone just reading off a PowerPoint presentation. They're not really, and if you even need the PowerPoint presentation to me that says you don't know what you're talking about. Because that's always a good test. Turn the PowerPoint off. Can you still deliver that speech or deliver that presentation? So I think it's all about preparation, a passion for what you're doing and having the, again, people don't like public speaking, I get it. But you gotta get over it if you wanna be successful, I think.

Lan Elliott:

That is such a good point because I think for most of my career I said, as long as I know my material and what I'm talking about, that's enough, but. How much more impactful could I have been if I could have also delivered it in a way that really resonated with my audience? I do think there is a lot of practice that goes into becoming better as a public speaker. You and I get to do it through our podcast. I also decided to join Toastmasters 20 years later than I probably should have. But I think that idea of preparing, practicing, all of those are really important to do thank you.

Brian Proctor:

Yeah.

Lan Elliott:

As I expected, we're getting close on time, but I do have two more questions for you. One of them is a favorite here on its personal stories, which is what advice would you give to your younger self and let's say 22-year-old Brian, what would you want him to know?

Brian Proctor:

I think what I would've wanted to know and do was put up my hand more often and ask. I was very much a, I don't wanna say shy'cause I don't know if I've ever really been shy, but I think I was a quiet learner and a quiet leader. And. I think if I'd put up my hand more and ask for more work or ask for different assignments early on, I got to the point where I started to do that. But to your point, back when I was 22, 23 years old, I think I let, I think I thought that things would just come to me if I worked really hard, and you have to, and that's part of it. But I should have been asking more, I should have been saying, Hey, let me try this, or can I go there? Or can I do this? And I should have asked for things that were outside of my comfort zone, right? Rather than just saying, okay, I'm the assistant front office manager, and I'm gonna be the front office manager. Now that I'm gonna be the rooms manager, I should have said something to the effect, all right, I'm a front office manager now. Now I wanna be the restaurant manager right with, and just jump in there and assume that I could do the job because I'm a good hard worker and blah, blah, blah. But, so for me, I think that was it. Just put my hand more, be a little bit more aggressive with wanting to be the person that they go to.

Lan Elliott:

I love that idea because I think for most of my career, I thought that having the technical skill was the most important thing. And then you see people moving around and being successful, and then you learn there are other skills that are really valuable that can allow you to move and do different things rather than just being good at your one thing. So thank you for bringing that up. Brian, I just have one last question, you have offered a lot of really great stories and advice for our audience who are listening. Our motto is around empowering personal success. Do you have one final nugget of advice for those who are looking to advance their careers?

Brian Proctor:

I probably have about five, but I'm gonna, so the top two or three is the one thing I preach and I've preached it all my life, is to do what you love, enjoy what you do. You know the money will come. If you enjoy what you do, you're gonna do it well and the money will follow and. I'm an walking example of that. I started off as a night clerk at$7 an hour, in the hotel business. And we're, hotel business isn't known for paying a lot of money, but I did very well because I loved what I did and I was good at it, and people saw that, so you get rewarded for that. The other thing, two other things real quickly is one is to say yes. Say yes to any challenge. Your boss gives you. Now I realize you may not be able to move across country, but if they offer you something, they've seen something in you that they think you can do that job. So don't be afraid to say yes, even though it may sound crazy coming from your boss. They've seen something in you that says to them, this person can do it. And then the last thing was and this I really learned from Tuesday. Thanks. It was really reinforced. There are no, there's no one single way to get to the CEO's desk or the whatever role you're looking at. You talk, I talk to 150 people who are all very successful and they all got there in different ways. Some went, and not all of'em went to Cornell. Not all of them, some of them started as a bellman, no education and became. CEOs and general managers and very successful. So don't get tied up in this saying I gotta do this, or I gotta be at that school. I gotta do that. Make your own path. Say yes. Love what you do and you're gonna have a great life. And if you don't love what you do, then go find what you love to do and that'll be better. So those three would be the things I preach to everybody.

Lan Elliott:

That is wonderful advice. Thank you so much. I love that. There is a theme that if you do what you love the hours are long and it can be hard sometimes, but if you really love it, it makes it worthwhile and the time moves quickly and hopefully you're doing it with people that you enjoy being with. So

Brian Proctor:

For 10 years on the New Build team, I tell you, I didn't work a day, I never worked a day in 10 years because I never, I, it was just the passion that we had for that team and I just loved it. So that's. Where I look at it from.

Lan Elliott:

Amazing advice. Thank you so much, Brian, for being on the show. I so appreciate you and the wisdom you've shared.

Brian Proctor:

Thanks for having me.

Lan Elliott:

Absolutely. And for audience, if you've enjoyed this conversation with Brian, I hope you'll go to our website, it's personal stories.com, where you can find many more interviews with hospitality industry leaders.