Conversation with Tim Murphy, CEO of Tim Murphy, Boomers Parks CEO

And I think the only other thing is, you know, work. Growing up with my parents, actually that's how I got in entertainment and foods. They had a restaurant and a small miniature golf and arcade. So I've been working since I was 8. And, you know, mom and dad always had different businesses. I had fence business, welding businesses, but I end up working in that business for a period too. So then I come down to Florida, work for Disney for a bit, and then all of a sudden I'm working for Abe Gustin. So.

Fantastic. All right, so 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Welcome everybody to the mentorship podcast, whose focus is to celebrate the power of mentorship and bringing out stories of individuals who have been transformed by amazing mentors in their lives who probably they didn't think they were mentors at the time, but being a mentor is literally about shining light on somebody else and letting other people flourish in their own garden. So in this episode today, I have the unique privilege to talk to Tim Murphy, chairman and CEO of Boomer's Entertainment Parks. Tim, thank you so much and welcome to our show.

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Awesome. So, Tim, let's start with you sharing your story. You were saying before you started the recording that you started working from the age of eight, your parents were in service business. So why don't you start there and tell our listeners how your career progressed and then we'll talk about your mentor.

Sure, sure. I think you really have to start back with parents. My dad was an entrepreneur, unfortunately, or unfortunately, only a 10th grade high school education. But he got into different businesses and he started to go into fence business, welding business, construction business. I've worked in all those. But then, it's funny, ended up working for one of his business was called the spirit of 76. It was a small restaurant, miniature golf and arcade. And that was probably my first foray into restaurants and entertainment. And here I am today, many, many years later, still in that area. And if it wasn't for mom and dad having the different businesses, I probably wouldn't appreciate it. How to run a business. The good times and the bad times. What they were trying to do was to fulfill a need, a need of where we lived and grew up in New Jersey. We were five miles from the beach and at the end of the day, people would come back to the campgrounds that they stayed in. We had six campgrounds around us, and my dad built a, you know, what's called the spirit of 76, miniature golf, arcade, and restaurant in the middle and had people all evening, all Summer long and then we would close down for the winter and come back open in Memorial Day and close again in Labor Day. Did that for quite a few years.

Amazing. What a story. You know, even my dad only did, I think 11th grade. And he built a great business and has been a major inspiration for me. So, you know, that's where everything starts. Right. Inspiration starts at home. So during.

And you never feel that it's going to really happen during that timeframe. Right. You know, you're just helping out the family, you're doing different things and you realize how much you're pulling from, from those years and how many times I flashback to what was it like, what did he do, that type of thing.

I think it happens by, you know, sort of osmosis. Right. You are in the environment, so you are constantly learning, constantly observing how your parents have been.

Running this business. So wonderful. So what would be one of your earliest memories of an interesting incident when you were in 10th grade and working at this spirit of 76?

Well, actually during that timeframe of 10th grade, we ended up selling everything in New Jersey and moved to Florida. Then I ended up starting to work for Disney.

By that time. But we had. I had worked for the better part of seven, eight years in the different businesses up there before we finally moved to Orlando, Florida. But the earliest thing I can remember, and it's funny, two things. One, pulling weeds in the golf course as well as collecting balls that were on the golf course from the 18th hole when they go into the final hole. My grandfather had built every attraction, windmills and water wheels and things like that. It was really neat. But then I guess the fortunate thing that I took from that was I ended up having the keys to all the arcades. So in the morning before we opened up, I would go rack up 15 games and every one of them and go play 15 games and every arcade game at the time. Old pinballs and stuff like that. So it was a lot of fun since I knew how to do that when I finally worked at Disney. Kind of it's a little fast forwarding. But when I worked at Disney, ended up working in cash control and ended up emptying arcades and knew how to rack up the games. It was a lot of fun there too at Disney since I knew how to do it.

Amazing. You know, extra advantage of being the child of the owner of an arcade. Must, must be exciting, right?

Well, it's funny because now, like it's a little different because things are with cards and so forth to play games. But I can Play games whenever I want with Boomer. So not that I do it. Not that I do it, but I just. When there is an opportunity, I probably will do that.

So I always tell people that we should never let the child in us die. I'll be around, right? It's we, as we grow up, we, you know, forcefully put the child down. But I like to be a child, you know, forever kids.

I think it actually does give you the opportunity to think differently. Right. And what I say now today, and I know we're going to talk about some other things now today with Boomers Parks. I sit and stand where the guest stands. I sit and look at what they look at. I try to figure out what they're going to do next or where they need to go, or maybe what I need to put in front of them. Whether it's a message to buy food or it's a message to play a different game. But when you do that, I think you think outside the box versus maybe sitting in a corporate ivory tower and not really think about it. One of the things that we did with our company is I made sure we didn't have a corporate office. I didn't want to be somewhere far off. I want to be able to get. Be close to the parks so that I can see what's going on. And so I visit the parks quite often because of that, and it gives you a different perspective.

Interesting.

So let's fast forward. I see that you've been in the arcade business, then eventually to several restaurants that most people know, Dennis and Applebee's, and now you're running Entertainment Park. So you always been in some hospitality space. So what's your definition of hospitality? I mean, how do you see hospitality from your experience?

I think the biggest thing is giving the guests what they want. I don't. I think in. In the entertainment business, which is a lot more expensive than say, the restaurant business. And I built a lot of restaurants, so I understand the cost going into those restaurants, but I also understand what it costs to put a big attraction into a park. And a lot of. A lot of folks say, well, you know, we could put this. This is going to draw this. This is going to do that. I think a lot of people, excuse me, do this from gut. I don't think they really think through, well, what is it really going to do for you? You don't have to spend $20 million for an attraction or $5 million for a new restaurant. If you can add new things, it's going to give you that much More so I think that's kind of the key that I've taken from all of this. And this is going to get to my mentor. With Applebee's, I pull off of a lot. He created lots of different prototypes for Applebee's. At one point, he had seven different prototypes. I mean, sizes of buildings, size and look and feel. And guests would go to. I call it something from everything from a Denny's Diner, like 3,000 square feet, to the Kansas City Raceway, 8,800 square feet. And Applebee's used to be based in Kansas City. It's now in Southern California with a different company. But when he was there, he was looking at how can we get different things to our guests? How can we create the Applebee's experience, the feel, the look, the touch in smaller markets and bigger markets. So when I look at a park now or a restaurant, I look at the same thing. What can we physically do?

One does demographics support some type of financial investment? And if it does great, then we go on to what is it the guests might be looking for? What can we add towards it? What I see a lot of folks do in my industry, the entertainment industry, is just buy something because it's a new shiny thing and they want to bring it in. They don't really think of the impact of what it's really going to do. I mean, will it create more food and beverage sales? Will it create lines? Do we have good throughput, those types of things? I don't think people think through this. And it's just a neat shiny thing because I saw it at a convention. We have annual conventions outside of the pandemic. IAAPA conventions in Orlando, and you can see all these attractions. But what is it going to do for you? What is it going to do to add to your experience for your guests? And if it's not the right thing, pass on it. But a lot of people get stuck on that and they just go after it and they think, build it and they will come. That's not always the case. If you have a plan, great. But that's the key. You got to have a plan on what to do with it. And it's. I think back to my days at Applebee's, four years of Dave Gustin, former chairman CEO of Applebee's International.

Great guy. He just a little background. He bought Applebee's when there was 52 units. He had four of those 52 units as a franchise. It was owned by W.R. grace out of Atlanta. Then he moved to the Kansas City with His partners, they expand it. And he retired with over 1300 Applebee's built nationwide and worldwide. So he did something 100 Applebee's a year for 10 years straight. That's amazing when you think about it. Wow.

So excellent, excellent segue into your mentor who you talked about briefly, Abe Gustin. So let's talk about Abe. How did you meet him? What was the first conversation that you can recollect?

Well, I mean, okay, so I was hired as a CFO for the Central Florida Applebee's. It was later since sold a few times, and now I think the ownership for that franchise is in Atlanta. But Abe, I got to meet him as I was being hired as a CFO. Small little 7 unit Applebee's. We grew to 15 before I left the company, and they end up selling the company a couple of years after that. But what I took from him was a fatherly figure, someone he just wanted to share his knowledge. He spoke. You know, you never try to hide things. He was always very upfront, very transparent, very honest, full of integrity. You know, I'm sure he tried different things, you know, to get the business. You got to do whatever you got to do to make the business happen. But he was just a man of integrity to me. And what I really loved about him was thinking outside the box. Yeah, we knew. He knew from building so many Applebee's that you could basically cookie cutter this in the right demographics and go forward. You got to know the competition, or is there Chili's in the areas, or TGI Fridays in the areas, or who's the other competition in these grill and bar segment? But, you know, if you could get to a market, and especially like Florida, that's why he picked Florida, because markets were growing so fast, the whole communities would be built within a couple years because the demographics were growing so fast. So he knew that if he could get there before the competition, he might even have to pay just a little bit more. But he knew at the end of the day for the land, he knew at the end of the day that he could grow that market a lot faster. You get a better rate of return on his investment if he could get there before the competition. And at one point, we had it laid out that we could have done 35 different locations in central Florida. But what happened after that? I ended up leaving the company. But if you remember the 2007, 2008 timeframe, everything kind of tanked. So anyway, but he knew going in, he knew that he had different prototypes from Applebee's. That he could place in different markets, slightly different size buildings. Most of them were generally 5,000 to 4,500, or excuse me, 5,000. 5,500 square feet were the typical Applebee's. But he knew going in the markets, if he could be there first, and it didn't burn too much capital to be there first for a period of time because you're going to lose a little bit until the demographics, everyone moving in happens, then you've got a better opportunity for growth. And that's how I look at all businesses. I've taken a lot of his lessons. He was big in franchising. So I've helped a lot of franchise businesses. I worked with about 150 different brands over my career as a consultant or working for some of those brands. But the idea here is how do you become first if you can, and what differentiates your product from everyone else? How do you. In case of my boomers parks, how do I differentiate from other parks? If I have a lot of outside activities, which has been great during the pandemic, and I got a lot of inside activities, which hasn't been great during the pandemic, but if I have different components, I can go after wider spread of a crowd where someone like a Dave and Buster's, that's here in Southern California, I've been here for several months and they're still not open.

Because they're all indoors, you know, so I have an opportunity where they don't. So I'm going to use that as a strength. And how do we grow and build more facilities utilizing that strength or finding facilities that are like us, that I can turn into boomers? Because now I've got my experience, I have the cookie cutter mold that I learned with Abe Gustin, that I can take other places. So that's kind of how I look at it. And I see. So looking across the United States, nationwide, we're going to grow where the highest growth rates are and find locations that are like that, that maybe we can buy because I work for a private equity firm. And then we can turn them into a boomer's park. But I take those lessons from aid. How do you cookie cutter this approach that you can just drop in and it basically, it's how do you learn how to print money, if you will, at all these different locations? If you drop in the food and beverage, you drop in the ride, you drop in the arcade, you drop into different things, you drop in the different services, the promos, you have the secret sauce, you know, you have a Secret sauce on how to do this. So that's, you know what, I take a lot from Abe when, you know, when he was thinking through those things. How do I put smaller Applebee's in smaller markets? How do I put bigger Applebee's and bigger markets, you know, where could I really do a lot of different things? And I will say it was great because when I was in Orlando, he got me back to Kansas City to take a look at those locations to see what he saw, that I could take them into the Orlando market.

Amazing. So how to get there first and how to have the unique advantage or unique experience so that you can stay ahead of the competition. Now, let's go back. You said you actually met him when he hired you to Applebee's, but what was the first meeting like? Did you know that relationship will blossom into something like a mentor, mentee relationship or how did that happen? Why? Did Abe work with you?

Yeah, not really, when I think back at it. I mean, this is a very high powered man that had retired, have run a very large global corporation.

Very smart. But what I did learn pretty quickly, his love for his children.

And that told me a little bit about him, that he's a nice guy, so to speak, at the end of the day. So you start realizing you could probably approach him and ask him different questions. And by the time was there for four years, by the time I got there, it was a point where I was giving him a hug like a father. His second wife giving her a hug as well, you know, and it just, it blossomed over a period. Time didn't happen immediately, but you could tell the type of person was willing to be open. I mean, you got to be able to read people. You got to understand if they're transparent. He was a pretty transparent person. Seemed like he was pretty honest, was full of integrity. See, you know, these are values I take back to. I'm an Eagle Scout, so I take the back. When I was a kid, when I see those in different people, you gravitate towards them and you, you start asking more questions. Hey, he's still my boss. Still, you know, he's still the boss overall. I mean, he's the money guy for the whole company. He's the chairman of us, of ours. Even though I, you know, I had a CEO that was his son and a COO that was his son. I was a cfo, kind of the black sheep out, if you will. But I could always go to him and talk to him about his kids because they weren't coming Together, we had that as an executive team. We had to be all together. When we're showing to all of our team members, all of the guests in newspapers, whatever it may be, we need to be together on this. And he gave me that opportunity to talk about it. And so I think it was just over time, you realized you sensed that he had the right qualities as a good leader, then that allowed you to open up. Of course, you had to prove yourself, you did a good job yourself, that type of thing. You proved yourself. He opened up a little bit more, and over time, it just allowed me to ask questions. Why would you pick that particular location that we're looking at? Good ingress, egress, cross parking, whatever it might be. I'm a commercial real estate broker, so we would go out and look for properties in these. In the Central Florida market, nine counties in Orlando, dma, and he would give his input. He literally opened roughly or seen at least 50% of all those that opened up at Applebee's. He physically went there and took a look at it and said, this is why it will work. This is why it will not work. This is what you're going to have to do if it's not going to work to make it work. And then if it's just absolutely no, then they didn't open an Applebee's there. So it's really interesting. It took a period of time to understand, but by the fourth year, we were then at a point where, you know, it was like another fatherly figure to me, you know, that he would just open up, and so you could ask anything at that point. In the beginning, I wasn't, you know, you're cautious. You know, you don't want to upset them. Right. So you want to be able to, you know, deliver on your job as a cfo, you know, so you gave good financials or good information or what we need to do to finance things. And he saw that, and he liked that. So he would open up over a period of time. So you got to be able to prove yourself a little bit when you're dealing with a mentor like that. But if they're good and honest, they're also free to open up and tell you how they feel.

That's amazing. So you use a lot of words that I described in my book about mentor and mentee having that trusted relationship, because as a mentor, you really want to share your wisdom with a sense of care, because you have to genuinely love your mentees and appreciate how they are growing because of whatever impact you're having on them. And for the mentee, I describe it as trust and act. You got to trust in your mentor's wisdom, but take action because you really believe in their wisdom. So you're willing to do it with absolute faith. So I'm so happy to hear that Abe had that kind of an influence on you where he was honest, he was transparent, he was truthful, he gave you the open sort of space for you to ask the right questions. But what you also said about you had to earn it. Talk more about what was it about you that Abe made you who you are today, that today you are a CEO of another large franchise organization. So what were your qualities that if you reflect back as a mentee that made Abe take interest in you?

I think it's just proving it over a period of time. I just, I really believe having discussions with them, finding out what he likes, right? I mean, I'm not saying you're finding out he likes this type of food or that type of food, but what does he like in a business? What is he going after?

And frankly, there are so many different types of businesses out there. From a leadership point of view, there's very strict rule. There is, you know, I've got the idea, but I'll let these other people do it, but I'm going to steal their idea for the thunder of it. He was not one to do that. He was one to really, you know, kind of open up, let you go after it, let you make mistakes. I mean, he'll tell you right up front if he definitely shouldn't go a certain direction, that it's adamant or he's had experience where that failed in the past. But, you know, if he thinks that you might be able to do it, he'll let you go do it. But as a good mentor, you know, he's going to give you the pluses and the minuses. Here's some thoughts about this. And it's funny because I worked with some students when I was at the University of Central Florida where I grabbed graduated from. And so I helped some students as they were getting ready to go out. So try mentoring them. I would give them my experiences, but then say, you know, it's up to you. You need to make the decision that you want to go after and have the right conviction as to why you're going to do it. I think I learned that from him, that he was willing to say, here's what I think, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't do it on your own. Your way and so that was great because I got to. I would say got to fail in a safe environment, you know, unless it's talking millions of dollars. And that's not something we would want to lose. But, you know, when you go down a path and you're trying something and you suggest. And he opened up and said, you know, I think this is the way it should be done. Now, got to keep in mind he was a bit of a type A personality in his business when he was there. And I think when he retired, he became a little more open. So I think he was very driven individual. He wouldn't have built 100 Applebee's a year for 10 years straight if he hadn't. Right? So there's something about that. There's a drive that you gotta have. But, you know, at the end of the day there, he realized, I think, with some of the people that he hired, that there's more than one way of doing something. So, you know, if you're willing to listen to advice, modify it, but understand it's your responsibility. You know, if you've taken his advice and utilized it to the T of everything, he said, it might be shared responsibility at that point, but you go off on your own to do this. It's your responsibility to execute, good or bad. And so I think that's one of the lessons I've learned. It's finding the right, over time, finding the right people that report to me now to give them what they need. I mean, there's some. There's no question, here's what you need to do. There's some that I've got in my management team need a little more help, you know, to think through that kind of. I ask questions of, it's not to do anything wrong, but how do we do this? How do we make this happen? And we rely upon, well, the rules say this, the county rules, state rules, pandemic issues we've got right now. And I would be like, well, how do we make this happen? Instead of saying, no, it's done, it's over. That's the state rules. How do we make this happen? And if I get all my answers to, we can't make this happen. Okay, fine, I'm going along with it, but I'm going to keep. Keep pinpointing, let's keep going after until we figure out how to make it happen. And I think those lessons are, you know, when we had Applebee's, we were. Frankly, he was. It was a very highly levered company because he wanted the Central Florida Applebee's. He had a nice house in Longboat Key down in South Florida. He wanted to be kind of close to it in Orlando, so he wanted that. So he paid more than he should have for the Central Florida Applebee's. But with it, you have bank restrictions when you have loans, and you can only do so much. So how do we build? We have a commitment to Applebee's to continue to build more locations. So we created new entities so the debt would not be on the original or a burden on the original loan, but now it's on a new loan. So he was always about, how do we make this happen? So those are some of the, I think, creative things that over time, I've learned with him.

That's very nice because there's always a thousand reasons why you should not do certain things, but then if you focus on it, then you can't take any action. And without action, there won't be any result, any lessons learned, and any unexpected outcomes, too. Because if you stand back thinking, Here are the 1000 reasons why you should not do something, then it's a sure chance that nothing will happen. I don't know if it was Michael Jordan who said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So sometimes you have to take the shots with asking those questions. How do we make it happen? That's a great, great advice to all the listeners on looking at their own professional personal growth is how do you make things happen in spite of the constraints that may be looking at you much more prominently than the opportunities that may be hidden? That unless you really double click and triple click on it, that opportunity may not open up. So how would you describe Abe? What are some of the words, let's say five words to describe Abe.

Genuine, honest, integrity.

He's transparent.

And it's not really what. It's not one word, but old school.

Old school. Okay. Wonderful. Genuine, honest. What a beautiful to remember a great man. Because I love Applebee's, you know, they always have. I am. I am a vegetarian, so they always have good vegetarian choices. And I love the family feeling. So I think when you started the discussion, you said Abe loves his family and he was. He was a very loving man. And I can see that sort of transfer over to the restaurants because people are much more friendlier and you feel like you are at home eating at an Applebee's. So you know how the.

And if you think about it, it's kind of the local grill and bar. So if you went into each of the Applebee's, that's. That was part of their decor, to have something in there for the local high school teams, the police department, the fire department. It was the local place to go hang out. I mean, started as really kind of like a bar. And then, you know, how do we add food to this? And then it was. I think it was Applebee's elixir and bar. Anyway, so that the idea here was it was a local experience. So that's how the packaging went in. So it would only be the local college teams or NFL teams, whatever it might be that people are gonna respond to, because that's what they think about in their market. So that's what he wanted. Each of those markets, when they went in, to have something that was a local identity, so you felt like you were home.

So I'm sure you are implementing that philosophy and mindset in your.

Well, and to that point, there's some things that we're doing. So we've created a boomer's backyard. Boomer's backyard is a place to hang out, watch games and sporting events on big screen TVs. It's where you can eat food. We have heaters out there for California, some lounge chairs to sit out, tables, of course, for California. It's great because it's outside and we had some Edison lights going over top of it, so it feels like your backyard. The inside, we're changing it a bit into a chill zone. You're going to go inside, you want to cool off when it does get hot. So we're creating some things like that. It makes it feel a little bit closer to home. And some of the other things that we're starting to work on is how do we build a story, a story of going through our park. I mean, you think through theme parks. Theme parks, Disney and Universal and Sea World and Legoland and stuff like that have some sort of theme going through. That's what I want to add to this. So it makes it feel. Feel like there is an association to this. What am I going to accomplish out of it? I'm trying. I want to sell more food, right? I want to sell more attractions. I want to sell more things. But I want this to feel like this is a fun place to go to, that you hang out. Most that open up FECs or family entertainment centers or small amusement parks just throw things out there and hope that they're going to come. And they don't understand sometimes why, why they don't. So I want an experience for them that says, what's the next thing, as a business person, I want to extract as much money from them. They come through my park. But at the end of the day, I can't do that if they don't feel comfortable, you know, that's what I want them to do, is I want them to feel comfortable. And so if we moved our demographics to a slightly older crowd, now mom and Dad's happy. Corporations are happy. They can have corporate events there. Mom and dad will hangouts, they'll eat good food. I mean, we're at our Nashville hots and our Korean barbecues. We're upgrading the sliders and flatbreads and different things like that so things that people would want. We're getting full liquor license. We've always had beer and wine, but now there's opportunity to have a drink if they want to have a drink. Adding a little bit of what makes me want to go there versus saying they're going to go to a different restaurant when they leave. But if mom and Dad's happy and stay there, family's going to eat. Mom and dad could then do some more things too, in the park maybe when the arcades and so forth in California open up. But the bottom line is there is now an opportunity to give them a reason to stay if they're happy. Guess what? They spend more money. The longer they stay there, they spend more money. You know, It's a fundamental 101, you know. But the bottom line is if we don't, if they're not happy, if they go to some other go kart place or some other fec or small amusement park or water park and they're not happy, they're going to then leave and go somewhere else and take their money somewhere else. I would like to capture their money, build volume and frequency within my facilities. And that's no different than the restaurant industry, because the restaurant industry was building volume and frequency. More times coming back, more things are going to buy. Correct?

Correct. In fact, I just finished reading a book. It's called the Hospitality Edge by Michael Fiato. And very, very interesting perspectives on hospitality. He comes from the hotel business, but talked about what is so called technical hospitality, where you expect certain things to be there. And he talked about emotional hospitality. Very emotional is where they have an experience, a story that they will go and Instagram about it, tell 20 people about it. So it's the emotional aspect of it that most places don't pay attention to, because that's the experience, that's the story, that's the feeling that they will share for the rest of their lives. So I think something that has taught me a lot, even in the mentorship.

Space that I am in, how do I make our customers, our mentors, our mentees, feel truly cared for, that we really value their time and attention?

And it's something that I've done with my team. We're in the entertainment business, and although we're not Disneyland or Disney World, there's a lot of similarities of where we're going. So I basically say, what would Disney do? You know, and this is what I want my team to do. Now, that doesn't mean you can change culture overnight, but that's the direction you want to be able to go. Because to your point of something, you just said it's about experience. So if I've created a great experience, remember that. And they're going to come back to it. When you think of Disneyland, California, you know, Epcot Center, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, all those, you know, it's an experience you feel when you go there, and it's experience you're willing to, as a guest, to pay more for that experience.

And I don't mean to say this incorrectly or negatively, but we're really trying to move from a Walmart customer, very discounted customer, to a target customer that's willing to spend a little bit more, a little more educated. They want a better experience. So that's ultimately what we're trying to create here. Now, have I got all secret sauce built in since we took over in June? No, because we've had pandemic closures and everything. But that is the next step. That's something that we're just starting to work on, will be the training piece of this to really push out the experience. Because when you go to Disney, there's a certain experience. I worked for Disney for six and a half years and it's. I love my experience working for Disney. I think I have such fond memories working for them, let alone how long I've gone there and taken my kids and annual passes and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, you do that and you're willing to pay for it because it's a different experience. It's different experience in Universal, it's different experience in SeaWorld, different experience than Legoland. And that's why I go back to my team and say, it's about, you know, it's really about what would Disney do? So that's what we've got to implement.

Great question, great question. So since you're talking about the experience, you know, one of my life's mission is to encourage as many people as I can in this lifetime to have that mentorship experience, especially the millennials. When you tell them about, hey, have good conversations with people that you don't work with, talk to somebody, and all of them say, but I don't need to. Everything is fine right now. But they are completely missed. The experience that we are talking about is having those caring individuals in our life who we can talk to, who they can share so much wisdom. So can you share some?

And it's really interesting. Even the mentor gets a lot out of the. Out of the time that you're spending with a mentee. So that's, you know, I've gotten it out of when I was, you know, mentoring UCF students, you know, the juniors and the seniors getting ready to graduate. What's the next steps? What are they going to get involved in? What do they want to do? Who do they want to get talked to? You got to go out there. You've got to be willing to risk yourself. You know, even just as a personal experience. Recently I've reached out to a lot of the park presidents of Six Flags and Disney and SeaWorld, Knoxbury Farm and others. And I've talked to them, and it's great that you have a little CEO title behind your name to get to talk to some of those people. But the point behind it is, can I give them value? Because almost every time I talk to them, I'm learning something. So you're creating your own mentor mentee relationships, even by just picking up the phone. But I don't think a lot of mentees get that, that it's not that hard. I know life gets in its way, And I had one. I remember back in Orlando at UCF and trying to give the best advice, and it went for a long time. We talked all the time, but she just wouldn't do. She kept finding something else is almost like an excuse of, I had to do this now, okay, but you need to get to this. If this is what you want to work on, you know, this is what you want to get to know. So you go out on a limb. I don't know all these park presidents, but guess what? Now I know a lot of them. You know, I know a lot of owners of feces and water parks and vendors. That's in my market. And. And it was good. I was CEO of another FEC before, but I didn't know these people. So now it's an opportunity to gauge. Florida is different than California. California is different than New Jersey. You know, who's the different people around them? And there's still hope out there that. Which is the good thing, because you're trying to say, where are we going next? But when you go out on a limb and you go out of your comfort zone and really try to focus on how can I help these people and how can they maybe help me? I'm not always out there to try to get something to help me. It was to open a conversation to maybe get to know them and all of them. As time progresses, I said, you know, mind if I check back with you in another quarter, see how things are going? You know, what's going on here? Things change in the industry, but it gives you perspective and it gives you new ideas, and those ideas all come together with frameworking your company. So I'm a high, big believer. But I think a lot of my mentees that I've had, like the University of Central Florida, they were afraid to come out of their comfort zone. They didn't want to go talk to people. And really, frankly, most people don't mind giving you the time of the day. There are a few jerks out there. Yes, there are. But for the most part, people are very open to give you information and help you.

I think you used some of the magic words about having conversations, having an open mind, and getting out of the comfort zone. In fact, this podcast and everything I do in my life around mentorship is to get people outside that comfort zone, because growth and something new always happens at the edge. That means you have to get to the extension of your circle and go say hi to somebody new, have a conversation, don't have an agenda. Because if you have an agenda, then you will exactly get the agenda done without giving possibility for something extraordinary to happen. So for all those listening, I highly encourage you to pick up the phone or send a text to someone or send a send a request on LinkedIn to someone that you admire and just ask, hey, just want to have a conversation. And who knows where the conversation is going to lead to? Because one conversation can change your destiny. And that is how each one of us have had that open mind to go have to go have a good conversation with someone, and then, you know, that conversation eventually evolving into a trusted relationship. Any other words on regarding mentorship, Tim, before we wrap up?

No, I totally agree with your last statement and I think with people that are scared to make those calls, pick up the phone, do an email, get connected on LinkedIn, whatever it might be, don't forget that you know, almost all those individuals, probably all those individuals put on their pants one leg at a time, you know, they put on their shirt. They have to do the same things we all do. So when you really break it down, and I would say all of them are really interested, you know, even though there's some, there are definitely some out there very interested in themselves. I get that. For the most part, everyone that I've talked to, very open, you know, there are a few. You go, yeah, I probably won't talk to that person yet. But for the most part, you find people are willing to help. If you ask for help, they're willing to help solve your problem. Yeah, there's people that are busy, don't get me wrong, and you got to do it at the right time. You just can't go right in front of them if they've got a big issue they've got going on and they've got to address pandemic, you know, things like that. But after you get past that, you go, you mind if I talk to you in another month or so? Yeah, no problem. They, you can strike up some really good relationships and be willing to, you know, receive and give, you know, when.

And where you can.

You might not be able to help some of the people that could be a great mentor to you. You may never be able to help them at all. But be willing to give them something back. You know, maybe there's something they like, maybe there's something they're looking at for investments, maybe, whatever. Maybe there's something you can do to get in front of them. But be willing to give a little bit back. But to your point, go in with it with a wide open, no agenda, just start talking. Hey, tell me a little bit. I'll tell you about myself. Tell me about yourself. You may find you're always looking for something that's going to connect. What is it they've done that I've done or no, or people I know, they know. And I'm a marathon runner, so sometimes that's a lead off for me. Some people have run or they've done other extracurricular activities. People have run businesses. I'm trying to find a connection because if I find a connection, they're more open to talk to you. Just like we're actually filming this as a zoom call. But, you know, what are some of the gestures you can make? What are some of the things you can do? What is the feel that you can give to them? And if you can do that and make that connection, they're going to say, you know, I know you more than I know someone else that I've talked to. And I'm going to talk to you more and I'm going to try to help you more. And most people genuinely are helpful. They want to help. I have no problem. I was helping a couple kids recently with boomers. They had a DACA report that they did and they came in second place in their school, which is great. I wasn't really trying to over help them about boomers. And they said, now we're going to the state championship. Is there any other guidance? I said, you know what, I'll get my entire team to give you some guidance back. And I did. Just a couple tips here or there. I asked my team, don't take too long, just give them a couple tips. And they had like a 40 page report. Give them a couple tips. I don't care if it's spelling issues, picture issues or some new ideas that you want to give them. Just give them something. Hopefully they'll be successful. They were very appreciative. But you never know until you ask that. And when someone is, I don't feel I wasted my time with the individual. I feel we learned something from the whole issue for our business and about loyalty and attendance, visibility, those types of things. It wasn't everything that the report was about, but I learned something from it. So did our team. But in my way of saying thank you, I said, I'll get my entire team to help you. So you never know until you try. But the best thing is make a connection, get them to like, you know, like, and trust. That's what it's all about. And if they will do that, you probably got a friend for life. And a mentor for life.

And a mentor for life. That's, that's an excellent piece of advice, you know, to find those friends for life, find those mentors for life by being open. And what an excellent, excellent story about Abe Gustin, who we had a chance to remember. Rest in peace, Mr. Abe. And for inspiring for starting such a wonderful sort of restaurant.

Chain that is serving and giving so many beautiful experiences to families across the country and even around the world. And Tim, for you to reflect on him, share some of the lessons that you learned from him by interacting with him over so many years. I'm sure it will inspire many, many listeners today to find those people in their own lives and also be such people for other people around themselves. So thank you very much. You know, mentorship is, at the end of the day, a human Connection. It's a trusted human interaction. It's a human to human to human relationship. And when we have such relationships, you know, millions of them around the world, we can make the world a better place. And that's really what my mission is all about. So I want to thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today and share your mentorship stories, starting, you know, with your parents. So what are your parents names?

Tim, Allen, Jean. Al and Jean. Both passed away.

Yes, both passed away. So that's another opportunity for us to thank them for.

Raising you to be who you are today. You know, my mom and dad were very, very instrumental in my success. You know, I wouldn't be here if my mom didn't take the risk of having an eighth child, you know, who I believe I was to be aborted because of some wrong diagnosis. And then she said, no, no, no, I just want to give it a shot. And then eventually I came or came out just fine. So thanks to our parents who make, who give us the life, this very precious life and, you know, share important lessons, not intentionally, just by, you know, just by doing, just by being the role models and making the environment such a healthy, loving environment for all of us. So, Tim, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate your time and.

It'S been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Absolutely. So until next time with the next episode of mentorship Podcast. Signing off, Ravi Gunlapalli and Tim Murphy today. Thank you so much. Stay safe and be well. Stop the recording.