From Forbes Travel Guide to Global Impact: Stuart Greif on Leadership That Lasts #legacybuilding

Welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavloski. All right, all right, all right. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Legacy All Stars podcast where we shine a light on remarkable individuals who use their success to make a positive impact. Today's guest is one of those special rare leaders who blends innovation with purpose. Stuart Greif has spent over 30 years helping transform global travel and hospitality, leading strategy and operations at Forbes Travel Guide while driving conversations about technology, empathy and inclusion in leadership. Stuart, my brother from another mother, it's an honor to have you on the show. Welcome.

It's an absolute pleasure and honor for me as well, Alan. Thank you.

Yeah, always good to see you. As usual. I want to go jump into the questions and the first one is really about what you've become known as and you've been called one of the most influential voices in hospitality and technology. What continues to inspire you about this space?

Yeah, I think to me first, you know, defining influence and inspiration. To me it's not about ego in the spotlight or being an influencer or you know, out on Instagram. It's really creating meaningful impact and connection in supporting, advocating others. I love the quote from the Reverend Jesse Jackson about never looking down upon someone unless you're extending a hand to help them up. I think about it in multiple levels. I get incredible joy from connecting one on one with people. I also recognize our time is scarce. So how can I connect with some people like Ashley Johnson, who leads hospitality hued for black and brown hoteliers or female founders in hospitality or women in travel hospitality alliance where that investment can scale across many. And then I also think, I mean, you're a musician, Alan, and for the folks that may not know it about you, you have an opening act that for some pretty decent sized famous bands coming through your music in ways that you don't even realize is having a positive impact on people even when you're not playing from your recordings. And I think, you know, sharing insight, sharing wisdom on LinkedIn's a great platform professionally. Not in a preachy way, but hey, I find this interesting and curious and just real quick, if I could to wrap like that. My friend Taryn created something called Everyday Genius. All of us have genius inside of us, something we're just and we don't even think about it. But she quoted, you know, Kobe Bryant who was asked, you know, is he more a person where like win at all costs? And that's the Vince Lombardi Winnings, everything? Or are you afraid of losing that drives you? And he said, neither. He said, I'm driven by understanding and learning and what happened and what worked. And in being present, I think in the doing and what's interesting and being curious and being driven by that passion, that's what leads to success and sometimes setbacks and failures. But if you fail, you're not defeated by it. Failure is a feature of life. It's not a bug. And if you expect things to be storybook perfect, you'll always be disappointed. So how do you bounce back knowing that's part of the journey?

Well, you had me at Kobe Bryant, being a big, big black Mamba fan myself. You had me there. How do you see the relationship between innovation, empathy, and leadership?

Yeah, I think, you know, there are all aspects. I think empathy matters regardless. You know, one of the reasons I love travel, there's a famous quote by Mark Twain that talks about, you know, this notion of being able to understand and see life through another person's perspective. And one of my favorite travel writers, Pico Iyer, talks about, you know, we first travel to lose ourselves, we next travel to find ourselves. And this notion of stepping outside of the little areas, you don't have to go halfway around the world. You can find it in your own community. So I think empathy is the foundation of human connection and community and what makes most of us, unless you're a sociopath, and there are some. So apologies any sociopaths were watching, maybe not the podcast today to tune into, but that's really what. What fulfills us, that's what fills our buckets, lights us up. And I think empathy matters regardless. Innovation in a very positive way is what has driven kind of the human race and all of us forward. Everything we see and touch in the world came, you know, unless it's organic and natural, came from an idea, somebody happened, and nobody put something new in the world coming from a place of no. And so I think people that innovate are courageous. They're going to fail. Not everyone succeeds. And so that in and of itself sometimes disrupts the things we're used to. And that can be hard. And so I think you also need empathy to help bring people along and understand that transition. AI, which I know we'll touch on later, is one such innovation. But we're no longer riding horses and buggies and whips and automobiles originally scared the horses and were underpowered. And yet this improvement put an entire industry of people that made buggy whips and anything that had to do with buggies and horses largely out of business. And so in short periods, while in the abstract can be wonderful and move us forward. We need empathy and we need to support and help people pivot into new ways of doing things that on the whole should benefit humanity, each and every one of us and collectively.

Yeah. You know, as an early adopter of AI myself, I often find myself talking to people that are new to AI or just trying to get to know it. You know, yes, it needs guardrails and yes, we want to make sure that it doesn't derail our entire society, but it's here to stay. And you either have to learn to live with it and evolve or die into a certain extent. So it's important that everybody understand the tools that are available, get to know them, learn how to work with them.

I love that you chose the word tool because it's just a tool. It's an incredibly powerful one. And a tool is an implement for us to augment ourselves as human beings trying to scrape a tunnel versus using a tool we create to do it. And I think that really is the right framing with guardrails of how do we use it? There's a Harvard Business Review article that had the quote that I think is much cited now about, you may not be replaced by AI, but you might be replaced by somebody who knows how to use it or uses it better. And we use Microsoft Excel in a lot of ways and computers in ways where things were written. So the scale and the power of it is exponential and what it can be used for, but it's not really that much different. Anyone who's of a certain age has gone through the rise of the Internet and e commerce and mobile phones and apps, and they've completely rewrought industries. We all had to learn a new way of doing. But if you were to ask, and we all, to be honest, you want to go back to waiting in a mile long line at the airport for three seconds of eye contact for a paper ticket, when you can do that in an app and check in and get your boarding pass in less than 30 seconds and never leave your bed. So where does it remove friction? But ultimately, the remaining part of the journey, the human part, is even more integral because for 10,000 years, that's part of who we are. And empathy is how we connect and understand one another.

Yeah. And you know, disruption can be seen as a nasty word by some people, but it really can be a positive disruption and a new way of looking at things that makes our lives easier, for sure.

By the way, when you said earlier about being called inspirational and influential, I've been called a lot worse in my life. I'll take it. Usually by family members, not my wife, but I grew up in New Jersey.

There you go. Yeah.

Not exactly the most polite people.

We're direct. Probably too direct sometimes.

Yeah, there you go. At Forbes Travel Guide, you're helping define what excellence looks like for brands worldwide. What principles guide that work.

Yeah, I mean, I think at its core, it's integrity. It's being independent and being willing both to have a high standard and the highest level of excellence. Our ratings business is firewalled and we have a separate presence president, but it's also collaborating with the industry. While we're independent, we continue to have ongoing conversations to learn and understand. We work across 100 countries and human experience, service is what matters. If you think about in your travel journey. If you stayed at an amazing hotel, ask your audience. Imagine most incredible hotel, and the service was awful. Would you go back and stay frequently? Would you say, somebody, hey, you should stop by and poke your head in and check it out or go to the restaurant or. Or maybe stay for a night, but you wouldn't want to come back. So we focus on service and the human connection. You know, hospitality to us is how you treat someone, how you make them feel. The Maya Angelou quote. Like, you may forget what they said, what they did, but you never forget how they made you feel. And I want you to imagine I can make this easy. The Hotel Fayenda in Miami has a hotel in New York City as well. Imagine you're traveling with your kids and you came back to your room and you never saw housekeeping, even, let's say, hypothetically, the entire visit. And there in the chair, when you come back in your room are your kids, three stuffed animals tucked in with a towel as if they're tucked in at bed with a little book, one of the kids books. They're being read at night with little mints on their pillow. How would that make you feel? Right. It's about that emotional connection. It's about experience. Now, service matters, though, right? And so the way we think about it, I have a friend Rick, who used to work for me, and. And he's telling this story about his dry cleaner, who's amazing, and, hey, Rick, how's the family? And always remember details. There was only one thing Rick said. He was a terrible dry cleaner. He was a wonderful man, but a terrible dry cleaner. So you need both. You need to be able to have part of hospitality and that service operationally is no small thing, as anyone who's worked in a service industry, to do day in, day out consistently at the highest level of service. And it's not memorization, it's like playing a sport and reading the fields. You need to be able to adapt and adjust. If you're Sandra Fallen, you came to my front desk, you just traveled halfway around the world. And I said, welcome, you know, Mr. Pavlosk, how was your trip? He said, actually, it's pretty terrible. We got delayed. You know, I've been in the air 18, 24 hours now. I'm actually in town for a friend's funeral. And I said, that's wonderful. Can I tell you about our breakfast options? Cause that's how I was trained. Right. That doesn't work. So I think the empathy to some of the other things you talk about and how you treat people really is. It's fundamental. It's just how you treat people. Right. And then do you have the X's and O's to execute in your business operationally?

Absolutely. You know, you've had a wide range of experiences. I've known you for a long time. You've worked at major corporations as well as nimble startups. How do those experiences shape the way you lead today?

Yeah, I think regardless of your viewers chosen vocation or industry or function in your career, there's some people and they know like, hey, I'm going to be a CFO or an accountant, I want to go to this, or I love digital marketing or you know, I'm a musician and that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. Many of us find that there are different things we're passionate about along the lines learning. And what I found is the more diverse experience and frankly, the more diverse your teams bring in different perspectives, the better you understand the world and connect dots. And you need some modicum of like, almost like this intersection of people that have deep domain expertise and people that kind of understand how to connect dots horizontally, one's not better than the worst, you need both. And so I think my experience, whether it was in a startup where you can move really quick and there's an incredible kind of excitement, enthusiasm and pace, which also can be great. Ruling and large corporations that have different strengths and assets and brands, you start to be able to say in different modalities, what do I draw upon in my tool set that fits this situation better or that I can apply? And so for me, the texture and differentiation even includes managing people. People are different, they're motivated by different things. They have different things in their personal life. They have different technical needs, they, they have different kind of soft skills they're developing and some people have certain strengths than others. Right. That maybe somebody has ADHD and they're exceptional at what they do, but they have trouble communication. That's not their strong suit. How do you adapt and adjust and flex to see them, to motivate them to fit a career path in development that supports them getting stronger without putting them in situations where you kind of have the wrong skill set or the wrong type person in the wrong role that is, you know, not going to help you, them or the organization. So empathy, again, you know, you brought it up. Community, how you connect, how you treat people. But ultimately I think it's this diverse approach to life as well as business, which is just a subset of that.

Yeah. And hearing people and valuing their input is so important.

One of the best CEOs, many CEOs that I've worked with, but one of the best had what I would call a very high question to statement ratio. So there was a point at which he had enough experience but the old saw about listen to be understood. I think that's really critical to your point. I'm glad you brought that up. I don't know, in a lot of cases I might have expertise or biases. So asking and understanding enough like an hourglass to funnel till you understand. And then at some point as a leader you have to drive decision. But life isn't like it's all or nothing. Sometimes we treat it that way. Amazon talks about two way doors. A lot of things we ascribe to, wow, if I make this decision, well, you know, if you're like, ah, you know what, that was a good reason for making the decision, but it didn't work out or that's not the way we thought. Control Z Most things in life aren't irrevocable. Most things have two way doors, not one way, but we put so much emotional stock in it or we want to test something out. Well, is there a way to test two or three different ways at small risk, small scale and let's see what we learn and then apply that.

Right, Right. Good point.

In my experience, many leaders and many people talk about purpose. Few of them truly live it. What does purpose driven work look like to you?

Oh wow.

I'm reminded of the quote that I don't know the original attribution. Chip Conley of Modern Elder Academy, formerly Joie de Vie and Airbn BE Strategy Officer A mentor to the founders, often cites, which I love, and I want to make sure that I get it right, that the purpose of life is to discover your gift. So the purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. And the meaning of life is to give it away. People talk about passion. Passion matters. Passion ignites, interests, coalesces. It burns bright, but it. Passion doesn't sustain over the long term. And I think purpose and meaning are those things. And Chip talks about this a lot in Modern Elder Academy. Folks should definitely check out. Had a wonderful experience there and very much respect Chip and everybody that's a part of that. You know, purpose and meaning are the things that, you know, have a mission, that have something that aren't about just a paycheck. And sometimes that's okay. Look, in life, you know, we're often in places where I'm not suggesting that, you know, everything you do in life has to have some higher purpose. Sometimes, you know, I call it gsd, getting shit done. You know, pardon the phrase, right? Or it's something you got to do. That's just part of it. Most people, I think, don't realize that much like investment, experience compounds over time. And I think in this world of social media, especially for the younger folks who may be listening, there is this mirage that, like, success is instant or everybody's an influencer, Everybody's, you know, driving a Lambo and like yolo everything, as opposed to really, it comes from a cumulative investment of time, experience, learning, trying different things. And that as well as a network of people you meet along the way and how you learn from them is what, longer term, especially over the years, is what leads people to success. We celebrate. We have a bias that. That's wrong in terms of whether it's statistically representative of the young CEO who made it. But most successful CEOs, the average age is actually in their mid-40s to early 50s, not 20s. So for every CEO that we point to or Sam Altman that we look at, that's exciting. It grabs headlines, it spurs imagination. But most of it actually comes from wisdom of cumulative experience to distilled knowledge, as Chip and others would describe it, for example.

Yeah, most definitely. I want to move on to another important subject to you and I. We both have strong women in our lives. You've been recognized globally for your allyship and support for women and inclusion. What does being an ally mean in practice to you?

Yeah, the first thing I'll say too, in recognition and tip of the hat to your Wife Gail, my wife Jennifer, both in incredibly accomplished. I'm in awe of my wife. And, you know, she's every bit a partner and equal. It doesn't mean everything's symmetrical or the same and every relationship's different. But, you know, I know what Gail has accomplished. I hope at some point you can have her on, too, if she hasn't been already. I know it might be, but you should, because she is inspirational as well. To me, it's, you know, being an ally and advocate. It's about more than mentoring. It's about even when or especially when women aren't in the room, whether in the boardroom or other context, of making sure they have a voice, of advocating to bring them in so that they are in the room speaking to their leadership and success, making sure there's equity with pay and promotions, ensuring that we recognize that the reality, again, if we're intellectually honest, most of us, the historical. And this isn't woke. This is just like just stepping out. Just neutrally worded that men have led business historically, and therefore it's going to bias to the things. Do we not think that if it was flipped, if all women had led businesses historically, not men in government, et cetera, that there'd be, you know, fewer happy hours at a sports bar and probably better balance of, you know, policies around families and family need and having a kid so that one doesn't have to choose stepping out versus pursuing a career or without having it be a setback. And so I think the point is, until the data tells me different, and not just with women, with people of color, with different groups, lgbtqia, it doesn't matter when you look at the data and say there are higher hurdles to capital, to opportunities, to promotion, it's not because women are kicking our asses like, you know, and I say this not to be provocative, you know, in colleges, there's even concern for men now. But, you know, the women still have the glass ceiling, as do people of color and others. And so I think it was a woman who at Harvard, at a commencement address, said something to the effect that talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not. There is no way, if I grew up in a small village, let's say in India, far away from the U.S. in our system, or if I wasn't a white man, that I would have the same kind of access opportunities. And, yes, you know, not everybody starts out equal in life. But when you look at the data, for example, women drive 80% of the decisions in the travel industry when it comes to travel decisions. Yet they represent only 15% of the founders and only get about less than 3% of the capital from venture.

Yeah, they drive 90% in my household.

I was gonna say it's probably 110. My wife and I are, you know, we work together, but point taken.

Yeah. You know, where do you see the biggest opportunities I want to move on to hospitality and AI. Yeah, where do you see the biggest opportunities and risks for the hospitality industry as AI continues to evolve?

Yeah, I think AI, as I mentioned, so it can be used in, you know, just about any and every direction from streamlining finance and accounting to freeing up people from this, you know, so I'm greeting you with the free front of my head. I think the biggest opportunity for the industry is AI's ability to free up a lot of time and bandwidth from folks doing things that aren't about creating human connection, that aren't creating unique experience. Wouldn't you rather instead Alan, of having a check in at a hotel have an arrival experience like where you're welcome, A check in is a technical thing that we do and yet like we're all tethered to this front desk and the computer. But wow, what a mind shift to say what's an arrival experience for Alan, not check in. So I think AI has the promise and will, I think over the short to midterm deliver what is going to be both more investment headroom to create more time and focus on the guest and personalization as well as more profit for the owners and investors to make it work. My concern is mid to long term because the structure of the industry, and I don't want to get too technical because this isn't like a deep dive in travel. But you know, the brands, their management companies and their real estate owners, often people are shocked to realize that oh, the hotel brand doesn't actually own the hotel and the person actually working in the hotel works for a third party company that specializes in running hotels. And so with good intentions you can have a misalignment. So my concern is that opportunity to reinvest that money in a better experience get gradually squeezed into profitability. Not because owners are greedy, but because there's economics of every industry, whether it's an airline that has fuel and labor costs. You know, a hotel that many cases is an investment vehicle for real estate investors. Even though we as guests experience it as a hotel, it's not always the primary.

Customer may actually be the owner of the hotel. It might be real estate investment trust that isn't about long term hospitality per Se it's about how do I make money or I'll invest somewhere else. So I think that's AI is both the biggest opportunity and the greatest risk to me is that we're in this bifurcated economy, which concerns me as a human being, where luxury and wealthy are getting wealthier and the middle class and people at lower income are really struggling in pain. And the hospitality industry, like the airline industry, because of these dynamics you have, like what we do at luxury and in other places, you know, real genuine hospitality, but it's at a price and human connection, or you have something that's more like accommodation, you know, a nice place to stay, a warm enough breakfast, but you're really not getting something that's experiential. You can still do both. Jury Hotels does an amazing job, but oftentimes successive public company ownership of real estate or private equity squeeze, squeeze, squeeze over enough years, we're really kind of in this bifurcated accommodation versus, like to me, what's true hospitality, at least in the US Overseas, it might be a little different in cultures like Japan and Thailand or where rates are coming in at high first world rates, but the labor costs are still reflecting the developing economy and there's more room to both have profit and create great experience with people.

Right? Exactly. Well, I always talk about legacy on the show and I want to talk about that with you now. When you think about your own legacy, what kind of impact do you hope to leave behind? And you can go any direction, family, business, whatever.

I have a mentor, her name's May, she's overseas. Brilliant entrepreneur, started a company everybody should check out called Linens in Love that repurposes used towels and sheets from hotels.

Sounds like we need to get her on this show.

Actually, they donate to animal shelters, homeless shelters for family. These are things that can no longer be used in the hotel but are still perfectly good and a variety of other good causes then be able to use it. Kind of joke, you know, I hear the song Dust in the Wind by Kansas and there's a famous Shelley quote or poem about Ozymandias, about ancient Egypt or, you know, the Middle east where there was a pharaoh. And now all that's left is this like, you know, little bit in the desert. Sticking out in this vast desert of a couple thousand years ago was a tremendous kingdom that's like remnants that's, you know, look upon my works, ye mighty, and behold. And it's like, we're not here that long. I don't think about legacy like, you know, 100 years from now, how many of us remember the people that transformed the world 100 years ago? Maybe, you know, the name, like Henry Ford or, you know, some of these names, Edison, but, you know, 200, 1,000. Like, the reality is, like, even, you know, the Elon Musk will largely be forgotten in history, you know, with enough time, even in our own family sometimes that, you know, what was somebody like? So to me, like, legacy, I don't think about it of, like, how's my name gonna be in a building? It's how directly. I don't even think of it as legacy. I think about how am I affecting the next generation, how am I helping individual groups and then broadly play a role in. In lifting up others, in helping. And if anything, I think about it in terms of my kids and other people's kids in their generation, of what am I doing? That quote that I shared, to give the gift away of what I know, where it's welcome and how it is, and especially older folks or people, you know, when you talk to younger generations, a lot of times we want to help and we think we're helping, but the reality is you have to ask and listen. The economics, the world they're living in with social media, social media with AI, with the cost of housing and healthcare is so different. This, like, avocado toast, like, criticism. That's not what's going on. You need to understand where they are and meet them where they are to help share perspective and thoughts and respect that only they know what's going to be best for them and how they integrate it, whether it's our own kids or somebody else's. So for me, it's how do we touch people in a way that helps lift them up and gives them some of the wisdom we have to take in whatever manner they decide to do it.

Yeah. You know, this is totally off the subject, but at some point, I think we're going to do another episode with you and it's going to be all about you sharing the vast experiences that you've had with other people that have been making a difference, because not everybody can be featured on the show, but we can talk about and lift up those that are making a big difference. So I think I'm going to hold you to it.

Yeah.

And I'm going to bring you back on here to talk about other people.

I'd love to share. Like, one of the things I think I've been known for, that I'm proud of in the industry, humbly, not in an ego way, is that like, connecting people is kind of a superpower, but it doesn't take that much. And like, if you're at an event and you talk to someone, they're like, oh, I'm looking, doing this. And then later on you're talking to someone else and they're like, oh, this person talked about this. Or, or by email. It may not fit in my day job, but for an extra two or three minutes to connect people, I find, for example, there's this guy, Calvin, amazing passion project. He wrote and researched in detail the history of black hotel, motel and inn owners in the United states from the 1700s to present. And he was raising funds and got, you know, much of the way there to publish this book. This gorgeous, beautiful, well documented with rich history and images called Hidden History. So if you go out on Amazon, I'd encourage people to get it. It's a beautiful coffee table book. And I simply connected, helped. He reached out. I didn't know him. I vetted, you know, I knew a couple people in common. I asked him to send something that I could vet and take a look at and then was able to help connect with one or two people in my network that just simply helped, like what he had already done. It's all Calvin and it's just like this. How can you be helpful? How can you help people you already know that may connect to each other, may unlock huge value? And I proudly, we, my wife and I donated a small amount. But more significantly, I connected in somebody prominent who was able to help get this book over the finish line. And it's real, it's in the world and it's gorgeous. Hidden hospitality and these stories, you know, that otherwise would be lost to time are hidden no more. So that's the thing to me is if I have one appeal and I can lever your audience and platform just to share is like, you know, help connect people without expectation, without being transactional simply because like the same way if you had a friend who shared something, if you hear it and you can do it, it doesn't take that much time to do it.

No, it really doesn't. Well, my friend, we've come to the end of the show, sadly, but I'm going to get you back on here eventually to talk about world of knowledge that you have about other people that are doing amazing things. Stuart, thank you for reminding us that true leadership isn't just about innovation. It's about elevating people, empowering communities and building with purpose. You've given us a masterclass in what it means to lead with both vision and heart. And again, thank you for being here.

Thank you, Alan, for our audience.

I hope you take inspiration from our many guests, including Today's special guest, Mr. Stuart Greif. Until next time, I'm Alan Pavloski signing off for Legacy All Stars.