Here Goes Nothin’ – Matt Landau on Leading with Connection

Alex Husner  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real woman of vacation rentals. I'm Alex, and I'm Annie, and we are joined today by none other than Matt Landau, who needs no introduction. But if you do not know who he is, he is the founder of VR. MB, MB, your MB, sorry, I missed out the first time, and here goes nothing. Matt. It's so good

Matt Landau  
to see you. So good to see you guys, too. Thank you for the intro.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah. So I was gonna say, why don't you tell us who you are, but I really, honestly don't think that there is a person in this business that doesn't know who you are, but why don't you catch us up where you've been the last year, what you've got going on? I always introduce

Matt Landau  
myself as community leader like that's the through line that I've found about my work over the last two decades or so. I started off managing vacation rentals back before Airbnb in Panama, the historic district of Panama, and there was no information online about how to generate more bookings other than Heather. Heather was the only other person out there. Yeah, started sharing what was working for me in terms of marketing, but also on the technology front, as that evolved best practices and VR and B vacation rental marketing blog kind of quickly became my platform, my educational platform to connect property owners and managers with one another to build their businesses more sustainably so there's this huge gold rush of people who are looking for overnight success and shortcuts and whatnot. I wanted to build a safe place where we could talk about doing things the right way, in the company of other leaders who wanted to do the same. And vrmb has really been my my baby now for almost eight years, and just it's been that long. Yeah, time flies

Alex Husner  
crazy. How many members do you have in the community? Almost 1200 Wow. That's amazing, yeah,

Matt Landau  
and it was like a pretty significant shift, going from only online community building with vrmb to starting to host retreats. And I found that wow, when I'm in person with someone and several people, a whole new level of discovery becomes available. And frankly, I didn't have any experience hosting retreats, and in hindsight, didn't really know what I was doing when I started hosting retreats. And it's a very safe, supposedly safe space that you're creating. And I was just kind of trying to go by instinct. But it was only after I started hosting these retreats that I was like, wow, this is a job facilitating groups who are going new places within one another. Is a serious job, and it's a profession. There are professional facilitators who do this for a living. So really, to answer the question, over the last year, I've been immersing myself in that community of professional facilitators whose job is really to bring people together and unearth possibilities to build collective wisdom, as we call it. And that's just really become something I'm really passionate about. And in our industries, I mean, I'd love to talk about today, it feels like we need that level of human connection and breakthrough more than ever. To me, I don't know how that lands with you guys. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
absolutely. And I think you know, it's interesting that you've brought now this next level of, literally, professionalism and expertise to these retreats. Because it really, I mean, it is. It's a big responsibility that I don't know if you've really thought about it that way when you first started them, but it's like, when you've seen the changes that people are making to their lives, like, I think that also, in my mind, it must have just been like, Okay, wow. Like, I want to make sure that, you know, not that you're guiding anybody in the wrong way, but like, how can I make this even better for them? Because just without having a whole lot of experience, it was already from the first ones you did just, you know, awakening to so many people that attended these so it's got to be very fulfilling, I think, in your journey, just in those retreats, and how much you've grown too in that process? Yeah,

Matt Landau  
it has. That's a really keen observation. I think the journey that I've been on is also similar to the one that a lot of our colleagues are on, which is, how can I go even deeper into the human connection aspect of this job? And that is not a conversation about scale or automation or any of the number of regulation, any number of the things that managers these days are working on. That's a totally separate art, and I have found it to be very different and challenging kind of learning, you kind. Have to experience these things, as opposed to, like, reading a playbook and copy pasting someone else's solution. It's a very experience based kind of design work. So I've just found it to be really challenging, and something that I've kind of scratched the surface of accidentally in the past. But now I'm like, Whoa. This is something serious I really want to sink my teeth into. You know, it's

Annie Holcombe  
interesting you say that you know that we need this now more than ever. I think about a week ago, I watched a TED Talk that a friend of ours, Andrew McConnell, did, and it was about a kind of moment in his life where he realized that, you know, we were and I know he's not speaking just generally from the vacation rental industry, but I think it resonated for my I feel like my vantage point is we spend so much time looking at the numbers and judging everything based on numbers, and everything is about the analytics, and what does the data say and what does the data tell you, and where does the data direct you, and that we forgot that at the root of it, it's people, and it's the connection, and it's those touch points with people and Those moments that are so important and that he had gotten to a point where he was so deep into the data that he was leaving out the biggest, strongest, the most important connections in his life. And so for him to bear his soul and talk about that, I thought that was really It made me cry, because I just felt, I felt bad that he had gotten to that point. But what a great lesson to share. And I think it kind of speaks to what you're trying to do, is that we need to have more personal connections. And yes, we need to have data, we need to have technology, we need to have all these things, but if we leave the persons out of the business, then we don't really have a business. I mean, we're in hospitality, after all. And hospitality is that is that human connection and making people feel and experience and so I think it's all interesting timing that this is coming up.

Matt Landau  
You know when, when I started attending vacation rental conferences, probably right around the time I met you guys, it was a discussion of, okay, how do we make sure that we're unique and authentic, but we also have the consistency in the standards to offer a consistent experience to our guests. There was a lot of talk about consistency of operations and linear growth. In that sense, how many units can we get? How many markets can we represent? And I love that period of our industry, but now I think we've moved into a phase in which the human, the authentic, the real, the genuine voice. It's not just like something we also have to do, because now it's like, Wait a minute. Who am I even

Alex Husner  
Yeah, and why do I want that? Or do I still want that? Yeah, and what

Matt Landau  
has changed over the years about me and my life, what has changed in my market, what has changed about the expectations of my guests? What's feasible? What do I think is cool? What do I not think is cool? Like this is a discovery process that chances are it will lead you somewhere significantly different than when you first got started. Certainly was the case for me, and I just hadn't really considered it a priority. I was so focused on the consistency and the standard operating procedures and the technical side of growth that I had lost my human connectedness. And this is just something like, it sounds almost, woo, woo, but in this super disconnected world, we are not connected, and it requires work.

Alex Husner  
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think, you know, going back on your point about, you know, the standardization, and I do think it's like that was, and people still talk about that now, and I think there is, it's still part of a broader context. Conversation. But I think that became just the general, okay, we all as vacation rentals. We need to make sure that we're, you know, coming forward, as you know, having the same types of experiences when somebody goes somewhere, and you think about it like, I mean, franchise restaurants nowadays, I just had this conversation with somebody recently, like outbacks and bone fish and Coronavirus, those used to be back. You know, 15 years ago, those were like the restaurants to go to if you're going out to eat, right? And I feel like the rise of local restaurants in many destinations has just soared past that. And you go to those franchise restaurants now, it's like they're they're not as busy. The quality, in my mind, is not quite as good. I don't know if it's just because now I've eaten at a lot of other restaurants and comparatively, maybe, but I when I go to those, yes, I want it to be I just want it to be good. I guess I want to be consistent. But I go to all these other restaurants because I don't want it to be exactly the same, like I have my qualities that I'm looking for. And, you know, it's like the phrase you can have, you can have something fast, good or cheap, choose two. So, you know, it depends on what you're actually really looking for. But, you know, I just, I think that people really want more unique. Experiences, and that trickles down, not only into their travel, but also into their own relationships and what they're doing personally. And it's just, it's more of like an authentic approach, and just kind of like a pivot, I'd say, as far as what a lot of the conversations are around that now I

Matt Landau  
also think about it as a reprioritizing so like authenticity, if we've agreed that authenticity is something that customers want, and we feel that we are authentic, and we have plenty of room to grow in that capacity, it requires lifting authenticity up on our priorities, like maybe when we first got started, it was somewhere in the middle, or maybe when we started it was at top, but it has fallen. I look to the micro brew Association of America. I think it's called the Brewers Association of America. They are so organized around this business value of authenticity. They have different types of micro brew companies. They have the tap rooms, they have the distilleries, they have, the bars they have. They utilize strength in numbers to work together, to accentuate and amplify their own individual flavors and styles. And they all work together because authenticity is at the top of the priority. So it's not looking at each other like a competitor in that right? It's like whoa. We all do our own thing, and we refer friends, and it's a beautiful thing. And I think that our industry can really take a page out of that book, but it requires really shifting resources towards that

Alex Husner  
new even in podcasts, I would say too. And that's always something funny that people ask. Are like, oh, like, are you nervous about there's this podcast, that podcast? No. I mean, like, I listen to podcasts, and I, if I find a new one that I like, I just keep adding more to my list. You know, it's not a, it's not a or question, it's question. And so many different conversations we're having lately.

Annie Holcombe  
Matt, I wanted to ask you kind of on the conversation of authenticity. I go back to my word a couple of years ago was authentic, and it was where I had to. I found the strength to stand in my own as Amber hurdle always says my own power, but my own self, and recognize that I wasn't everybody's cup of tea, and that there were people that needed me the way I authentically AM, and finding comfort in that was really important. But I feel like some businesses mistake uniqueness and authenticity for the same thing, and I don't think that being authentic necessarily means Well, I think authentic is unique, but I don't think being unique uniqueness is necessarily authentic. It's kind of like, is vacation rental, short term rental. Is short term rental, vacation rental. Like it's like, how you define it. So do you think that people are focused, have been focused on being unique to the point that they have forsaken being authentic? I don't know, to be

Matt Landau  
honest, I haven't, I haven't really thought about those two words as they relate to one another, enough. But what I can definitely say, and I've gone through this personally over the last six months or so, artists have this deep, original source of expression, creative expression. They have a deep vision for what, how they see the world, right? And they put something up on a canvas, or they make a sculpture, or they put together a performance, and that's pure essence of them, right? That has to be coming from their own original place. That can't be copying anybody else. They can't be looking at other artists thinking to themselves, well, I'm going to try to do something similar to this one, and the moment they do, people can sense the lack of authenticity. In that sense. So when I've actually started hanging around artists, I've been like signing up for all these art foundations, and I just attend the galleries, and I just listen to them, and I just stand around them, and I they like through osmosis, make me more confident in my original voice, which, before I started hanging around them, I wouldn't say I had too strong of an original expression. Yeah, it was something that over time, was just kind of coming out, but it wasn't a clear style that I was in touch with. And over this time of hanging around these artists, I have learned that that's a practice like women are way more familiar with this than men. But like, if you had asked me, what was my my style of dress in the past, I would have told you, Lulu Lemon, like the stretchiest, airiest, most up to date model. That's my style, only to realize that, oh, wait a minute, I actually can take some time to think and pick together what I think is cool from different stores around the world, right? And, of course, there's the flip side. Oh, people are going to think I look weird. Or, you know, this is like, not doesn't fit in with some norm. Arms. But what I have learned about putting a stake in the ground and really standing in your power, as Amber put it, is like you're gonna turn some people off if you're doing it right. In fact, if you're not distancing people or repelling them in some way, Oppositely, you know, attracting people, you're probably not doing it enough. And that was a place I found myself falling into. I was like, Man, I'm just kind of like trying to keep everybody happy. I'm not taking a strong enough stance. I gotta be more artistic. I gotta stand for something cool. And I think that that for me has been a real tough process as an adult. Yeah, yeah.

Annie Holcombe  
I love that. I'm reading Mel Robbins the let them theory right now and that. And it's funny, the chapter I just read, like, right before we got on this, what she was talking about, you can't please people. And if you're, if you're spending so much time trying to make everybody around you happy, you're not, you're not making yourself happy, and you need to just let people be and feel and do and respond the way they're going to respond. And all you can do is see it. Try to see it from their lens. So if a situation comes up where they're you feel they're judging, or they're they're looking at you in such a way, it's like, well, put yourself in their shoes for a minute, and maybe you'll understand. And I don't think we necessarily do that enough, but you do have to get comfortable in your own space to know, like, do these Lululemon pants feel good to me? Or should I be wearing a different brand? You know? Like, it's absolutely okay to do that

Matt Landau  
right somewhere a little bit weird and uncomfortable definitely helps right. Strengthens your own style. But, and I have to just add this, you start developing this style, this take this vision right for the future and you share it with people, and you're gonna get a bunch of different responses. You're gonna get some people who are like, don't really understand what you're talking about. You're gonna get some people who are like, offended. I mean, they're just really repulsed. And that can be very frustrating, and it can make you doubt

Alex Husner  
yourself what you're doing, yeah?

Matt Landau  
Then you meet someone, even if it's one person who's like, I love this. I'm right, yeah. And there they get it, and you're like, oh my gosh, they get it. And that fire for me, is what I was searching for. I over the last 10 years that has been fizzling, and I found I was like, This is it? This is what I want to double down on. And I think how it applies to all of our listeners is that every one of these businesses in this industry is sitting on a gold mine of their own original style and way of delivering hospitality, your own style of hospitality that's unique or authentic to you, that with some exploring is the future. It's incredible. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
yeah, yeah. I mean, I was just backing up a little bit, then we'll go back into the hospitality side. But this is fascinating conversation. You think about, like, how much of a role brands have played in all of our lives, as we were growing up and in whatever years. I mean, like, it just brands are such a big part of that. And talking about the clothes, I mean, again, back in the day, I mean Abercrombie and gap and Old Navy and these brands that used to go to a mall, and it's like, you could very much tell, I mean, on some of the other sides, like the skater brands and like, like, more like, completely opposite kind of, like, if you're in high school, kind of, type of person, quote, unquote, you were, and how much that was so defining to us as we were, as we were younger, by what our clothes were, right? And how much that has now changed too, that it's like, I don't just wear one brand of clothing. I mean, actually the opposite. I mean, I do Rent the Runway and I wear tons of different brands, because it allows me to be able to show my authentic self, showing up in the situations for what is appropriate for that. But I think, you know, as this relates to kind of the bigger picture there, it's like, how do we it's almost like we're going away from exclusivity in so many different ways. Of like, you don't have to just be this. You can be this and that. I mean, I know when I started my own business last year, people saying, Wait, like, you're gonna work for you're not just gonna work for one company. You've always worked for one company. Like, no, I'm gonna work for a bunch of companies, and I'm going to have my podcast too, and I'm going to do all the things, but it's when you've been trained to be one thing and do one thing a certain way. It's hard to, you know, kind of shift your mentality on that. But I think you know how we apply that in hospitality businesses is just celebrating the the uniqueness of that authenticity of having different experience than everybody else in your market. And it doesn't have to be that's wildly over the top difference, but there are Mark marketable differences between how a guest feels, feels being the operative word with you, versus staying with somebody else. And maybe it's little things that the guest can't even quantify, and that's fine, too. You.

Matt Landau  
Me, I could not agree more, and I think about it through the lens of a vision. So when you're going to invent something entirely new, when you're going to innovate, let's say when you're going to release this new Alex on the world. Old Alex has only ever worked for one company. That's all. That's the image that people have had of you. That's the image you had of yourself, right when you're when you're shattering the old image, when you're busting it, you're breaking it up, it dies, and you're starting this new thing. I found the single most helpful accelerant to be a vision. Because if you have a vision, if you're like explaining to people, no, no, no, I'm actually going to be doing several things, and here's what it looks like over time. Then they'll be like, they'll get it or but at least they see kind of a longer, a longer term plan, as opposed to saying we're going to disrupt stuff,

Alex Husner  
right? Yeah. I mean, tell people what you want them to believe, and they will believe it, right? I mean, like seeing is believing, and you have to be able to show people, I think, to get them to that point,

Matt Landau  
yeah? And telling ourselves, like I'm still trying to tell myself this new vision story, yeah, right, yeah,

Alex Husner  
yeah. Tell yourself what you want yourself to believe too.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah. So, Matt, I mean, you talked about it without saying these words, but you had an aha moment, which is what we love to explore on this show. What was it exactly? So you were doing the Keystone retreats, and you couldn't, you slowed on those, but everybody that went to him walked away with, like, a new thought process about themselves, about their business. And it was really, I think, a business, from what I could tell, like, more business diving in the business, as opposed to, like, personal, what was the, what was the pivot that you made? What was the thing that gave you this moment to say, like, Aha, I need to be going this direction, to go to the retreats you're doing now, for some

Matt Landau  
reason the word pivot bothers me. I don't know why. Like, I say it to myself, I was like,

Annie Holcombe  
No, it's not, yeah. No, it did, yeah. I guess healing, it's like I got layer

Matt Landau  
a couple layers deeper, okay, on the onion. And for me, the aha moment was I had been attending vacation rental conferences for as long as I can remember, probably you guys as well, and I didn't really venture outside of our world. I mean, every now and then I'd go to an entrepreneurial thing or whatever. But I booked a ticket to attend the house of beautiful business in Morocco, and that takes place each year. And I went to this conference, you guys, and my mind was blown. I was like, wait a minute, you're telling me that these are 700 business leaders from all different verticals doing super creative things, and they're all together to talk about the future, and it's hosted inside a former presidential palace that's open to the sky, and there's no stage, but rather a catwalk like Throughout the tangerine trees. I was like, What is this place? And I met all these people. I was like, Who are you people? Yeah, and it completely shook me up. It popped my bubble, my echo chamber of vacation rentals, because that's the only conferences I had ever attended. And first of all, I was like, whoa. We need to have cooler conferences. That was my first response. And then second, I was like, Wait, how like, what specifically about this? Am I most inspired by, and what specifically do I want to focus on? And for me, I brought it down to premium in person gatherings as like a business model of the future. I believe, across any industry, so many businesses are remote, so many people are really never even physically in contact with one another in person. It's all done virtually that we lose the human connectedness. We lose the ability to like actually take a breath and get to know someone as a person, as opposed to just the teammate who's doing the task. So I think premium in person gatherings across business verticals are a business model of the future. That was one aha moment. The second one was, I want to host these events with leaders from different fields, because I see the breakthroughs that are happening are all universal. They're all from that same part of the onion, which, like, whoa, I'm growing this company, but I actually don't even know our authentic voice, and I'm kind of not excited about it like I used to be that little Crossroads could be in any number of different business verticals. I've just found it to be now like so exciting and dynamic and challenging and invigorating, really, to get together with leaders from. Different industries, because if you're in entertainment and this person's in real estate, and this person's in hospitality, and this person's in food and beverage, and this person is a musician, and you have people talking about their breakthroughs together, it gives so much more texture. And it's just like so freeing. It's liberating, and it contrasts night and day with the feeling of kind of suffocation, like limitedness that I felt. I felt like I was kind of like in a bubble, like, was it a ceiling or something? It was even pop, and now I'm just like, whoa.

Alex Husner  
The world is my oyster. I love that. And so tell us a little bit about here goes nothing. And I mean, there are people going to this that are a lot of people that we know that are within the vacation rental industry, but you also have people from outside the industry. And I'm sure part of that decision was what you realized when you went to Morocco. But tell us about the planning and maybe how the first ones went. I think that was what back in December the first two. Yeah,

Matt Landau  
so the here goes nothing mantra for those who don't know, a lot of Europeans have no idea what that even means. So the way that I interpret here goes nothing is at some point you're going to have to take a jump. You're going to have to take a leap. You're going to have to bet on yourself, and it's going to have to have an element of the unknown, of unpreparedness, like you're going to have to step somewhere new that you can't control, and you need to go for it. Eventually you're going to come to that moment when you're like, here goes nothing. I'm going to do this. And this is what I believe is a shift in mindset. In my case, I was kind of stuck inside of that world, but I wasn't really willing to go outside of it. I was kind of intimidated about what I was going to be letting go of. What were these new, intimidating things that I would find? Who are all these leaders who are probably way more accomplished than I am? You know, all the normal concerns about going somewhere new. When you when I experienced it, it was really eye opening. And for me, the mindset shifted possibilities. Because it's no longer from a place of kind of scarcity, you know, people use this word abundance. It's now from this place of like, oh, there's a lot possible in my life right now. So from a high level, here goes nothing. Is about taking the leap and being willing to bet on yourself in unknown new futures like this, I believe is something I want to continue to refine over time, but I think it's really key to all industries moving forward with the amount of change that's happening, we all need to develop this element of risk taking, but also intuition and authentic voice development really determining who we are and what we think is cool. So I think from a high level perspective, that's really the essence, I've started working one on one with groups. In this capacity, we'll do an engagement virtually, or I'll go to their venue, to their team, and facilitate an experience that's very similar. It's about more creativity, about solving problems from outside the box, which, by the way, when we talk about in our industry how to scale, one of a kind. We don't talk about creativity nearly enough. It is probably single handedly, the business value that unlocks scale in this sense, like if everybody is versed and trained in what it means to be a more creative vacation rental manager, if the maintenance person or the housekeeper, or anyone is creatively solving problems in their own way that they think is right, that's like a huge unlock. So I kind of try to bring this business value of creativity also curiosity is another value that I think deserves bumping up on the values list. So I kind of like work directly with teens in this capacity. But the bread and butter of these retreats that you were referring to are deep dives. They're creative deep dives into a new next breakthrough, a next creative breakthrough. And we did two over New Year's. It was a huge leap for me,

Alex Husner  
yeah, living what you're preaching. I lost

Matt Landau  
so much sleep. I I kind of over. I bit off more than I could chew financially, signing a deal to to do four retreats at this very fancy venue, and then I'm trying to struggle with ticket sales like this is my protocol on my own. It's very exhausting and stressful. Can't sleep at night, and that, as it turns out, is part of the process, right, right? So I show up for the first retreat. I'm like, oh my god, we're actually here, and there's actually still. Right now, what

Alex Husner  
that happened to you during Keystone too? So I've been very blessed that I got to go to one of the Keystone retreats, and I am going to the next here goes nothing that I'm so excited for. But at the Keystone retreats, you told us back then you also had, like, just a coming to Jesus moment a couple days before the event that you realized I don't know what I'm gonna do when these people get here, what am I gonna say to them? Like, yeah, you're like, totally freaked out, right? Like, but you pushed yourself through that big leap, and now this is another big leap, but I think that's so important. It's like, if you were just up there being like, I knew everything about big leaps, and I'm just here, just sitting back, and I'm gonna watch you guys struggle, it wouldn't be as authentic as it would be knowing that you're also going to share stories about in this exact same process of helping us, what you've gone through to get there, to be able to do that in the first place. And I

Matt Landau  
think to a great degree, this is what, this is what Here goes. Nothing is like. This is what I believe everybody can be doing when you take that risk, when you double down on yourself, coming back and telling the story to your constituents about how real it is and how terrifying maybe it is, or how inspiring it is, or this incredible thing that happened, or this confusing thing that happened. This is the art of storytelling emotional resonance, and I believe there's a muscle that all leaders in our industry can can begin to exercise. It's the creative muscle of telling these stories, and it, I promise it, begins to inject juice into your veins like that. Repetition of coming back to your team. You guys are never going to believe this. But I want to try a new experiment. We're going to try something totally new that's never been done before, and we're going to see how it goes, and we're going to report back and tell everyone about it. That's like, a pretty exciting premise,

Alex Husner  
yeah, and for the people that are in other industries or just in general, but are most of the big leaps that people discover in this Are they for their business, or are they personal leaps, very

Matt Landau  
closely intertwined, almost always a personal discovery that has massive business implications. So I'll give you an example. There was someone who realized at this last retreat that they were actually the blockage in their entire business. They were a control freak. They weren't delegating. They were micromanaging. They were not empowering their teammates. In fact, they were looking over the shoulder of their team and making people uncomfortable. They were not using their time wisely. In fact, they were like stifling growth. So that was the business blockage. But personally, that's like a really honest discussion I have with yourself. Why? Why do I micromanage all these people? Why do I have trouble letting go of control? There is no one answer to that, but upon some discussion with fellow leaders who are also going through their own respective processes, I think this is a healthy way to bring out these discoveries that we wouldn't necessarily come to on our own. But this person realized like, wow, I have trouble letting go. I have trouble trusting in my team, and with that single aha moment, a shift happened, and that person went back to their team, and the team said, You seem different. You seem like something changed for the better. And everything changed. And I think this is just really interesting to compare this to our normal conferences, where at least I will leave a conference with a huge, long list of like things I want to do, you know, or a whole bunch of technology that I need to try, or whole bunch of like people I need to contact that's a good kind of productive conference. This is very different. This is an inner shift that happens because you've actually gone somewhere and allowed yourself to discover something new. And when that little inner shift happened, you get somewhere closer to the truth about who you are and what you want, then watch out world like then things just start dropping. And I think it's the most exciting feeling in the world to find this kind of excitement and and passion. Again, that's what I was searching for.

Annie Holcombe  
Feel like I'm having my own aha moment here. So if for people that are listening and they think it's not the right timing for me, or maybe it is the right timing for me, what would you say to somebody who's on a search and not sure if, like diving in? Because, I mean, it's, first of all, it's, it. Not just like a weekend away. I mean, it's, it's in another country, so it's a big expense and time. You know, commitment. What do you think people need to consider in considering this for their next step?

Matt Landau  
One thing that I would not have considered is the unimaginable upside. So oftentimes, when we're like in a existing echo chamber. We can, we think we can predict what's going to happen when, in reality, there could be an outcome that's far better than you ever imagined. So I think that's first of all, just worth acknowledging that, wow, maybe there are possibilities or ways of doing this that's infinitely better or more meaningful than I've even scratched the surface of yet, I think first of all, that's important to recognize, because otherwise you're comparing it to the cost of a normal conference, and it's not a normal conference. But second, I think you have to decide, you have to be intentional about your curiosity for more or better, and you have to be like, have turned a corner, in a way, and said to yourself, like something is not working for me. Some pattern is blocking me from going to the next level. I don't know what it is. Or in my case, it wasn't even like a pain. It was just like a dull, a dulling of my enthusiasm over time. And I think it has to do with the being spread thin, and it has to do with all the spinning plates, and, you know, all the things that we all do every day. But once I was like, I sense something more. There's got to be something more. I think that turning point in asking questions like, well, what might that be for me? I think, I think that's a huge turning point. Let's just remove my solution from the discussion for a moment. That's a huge turning point. Like, I'm not happy. I think things could be even better. I know I deserve it, but I'm not sure how that's huge. The next step for me was to surround myself with people who were at that next stage. So we all do this at certain growth periods of our lives. I love the idea of like finding someone I really admire for all the right reasons, and asking if I can help them, or just getting proximate to them, reading their material, serving them any way that I can in order to learn. I think that, like you know that saying, what is it we're up average of the people closest to us in our lives, or something like that, suddenly, your crowd that you're hanging with are on another level. You will sort of evolve into this new level. And I would recommend surrounding yourself with people who you really admire, who are outside of the current set. And if you know where those people are already, like this house of beautiful business was a great example. Maybe there's a consultant or a coach who's at that level, who knows you and who can challenge your assumptions or ask you question you never been asked before. Like we're talking about a shift. We're talking about a major shift. And if you want to go there, if you're curious enough, and maybe you starting to see glimmers. That was me. I was like, oh, there's a little glimmer of a moment at a keystone event where, like, I was touched by a human moment when someone changed. It's like that. What if I did more of that? Work more with people who want to do that right, and then working from there is such a different experience than in my past. I would have aligned with someone who had resources. I'm kind of embarrassed to say, but how would I have known

Alex Husner  
Right, right? Yeah, that wasn't the biggest thing that you needed, exactly. So I was

Matt Landau  
like, Well, let me find someone with resources, and then let's do the project. Whereas now it's like, no, what if we start with someone who's really aligned, who really wants to build something meaningful for themselves, yeah, and work from there. And that's when this almost fractaling thing starts happening, and you're like, Whoa. I'm suddenly seeing a bunch of other people who are doing these kinds of things. And for me it was like one of those, like, once you see it, you can't unsee it, sort of, yeah. And the beautiful part about it is that you don't have to leave, technically, you don't have to leave anything if you don't want to. You can incorporate this new vision. You can allow it to inform everything that you're doing now, so it'll just make you a better leader, a more powerful leader, because now you have this insight from different people who are doing, like next level things. So again, my retreats removed from this entire conversation. I think it's a mindset shift of saying now's the time I'm. Being called to something more. I don't even know exactly what it is. I'm gonna make some explorations into that and see where it takes me. Dun. Dun. Dun.

Alex Husner  
Naturally, the genesis of this type of retreat, the people that are going to it are somewhat similar in one way or another, right? That they're all going to this for seeking something, you know, they understand what it is. Nobody's being fooled into they don't know what it is. And they'll discover the day that they get there. It's just a vacation, or whatever. They know what this is. So you're going to be around people that are like minded. And, you know, I know, for me personally, when I went to Keystone, that's when I met Valerie Genghis, who is, you know, become a one of my dearest friends, and one of Annie's also, and I would have probably, I mean, I would have probably met her, I'm sure, at a conference at some point. But would we have become the close friends that we are now, if we hadn't met in that scenario? I don't know, probably not. Because when we had that three, four days there of just, you know, very intense and getting to know each other, and just what a wonderful relationship that came out of that. But I think it's the relationships as much as it is all the other personal discoveries that happen at these events. And the

Matt Landau  
magic is that, like someone like Valerie, or you could really point to any of the other leaders in our industry who are really crushing it, leading with this incredible authenticity. Yeah, she knows they all know that it's a never ending process, yeah? And you don't, like reach a level of excellence and then call it a day. So like, Valerie is actively investing in this stuff for herself, right? Yeah, meditation with her own creative business development. So like, I think that's where it begins to get, very exciting, is that everybody is not looking at this from a linear Knowledge Graph, yeah, but rather a curiosity graph. It's like no investing in yourself really unique part of the world, or this really unique business, and you're curious about, genuinely curious about how to get to the next place. Let's talk about that.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good like, I always think of a statement I say to my son, and I've always said to him, is, like, you know, surround yourself with self, with people that make you a better person. And whatever that, whatever that better is, it could be different from day to day, but it's like finding those people that make you feel better, make you think better, make you want to be all of that better, and it's leveling up each time. And it doesn't mean that those people are and I go back to something this is kind of off topic, but we were at vrma with you, and a gentleman that you had met and who had been somebody who was pretty pivotable, Pivotal at the time, I think, for you. And sorry to use the word pivot again, but he had, he had said, Well, what do you think about these conferences? And I said, Well, I enjoy them. I said, What do you think? And he's like, I find them transactional. I find this one transaction. And I remember we were like, He's not wrong, because it did. It had become, I know, from a and there's been a lot of like that, soul searching within the industry about how vendors are treated differently than supply, you know, like, just the different pockets of people. And like, how do we all work together for the greater good and and feel part of something bigger? And I think that I walked away from that thinking, Okay, well, you know, you don't want life to be transactional. You want to be around people that are going to continue to level your yourself up and level them up. Doesn't mean that they have to go away. You bring them with you, and if they don't want to come with you, then they're not part of that. That doesn't mean that there's a transaction that was involved in that, but it does mean that they were there for that purpose, for that moment in time,

Matt Landau  
and we're and it's about being more yourself. Yeah, this is the energy that we need to lead with. If everybody can be even more like themselves, even more naturally like themselves, which requires work, yeah, even more authentic. There's a place for everybody that is a train I will get on any day of the week.

Unknown Speaker  
Me too. I'm right there

Alex Husner  
to come with me.

Annie Holcombe  
I need to do a Go Fund Me to get through this. I love, I love that you're doing this man, and I think that one of the things that I have always been admired, been in awe, been attracted to about you, is that you have this constant and you remind me of Valerie in this sense, is like, you've got this constant curiosity. And so it's funny, because my word for this year is wonder, like, I just want to wonder what's out there for me, for the people around me, for the business, for my personal life, my marriage, like all these things. And I just, I don't want to, like, not have that sense of wonder and sense of, you know, of looking outside of what i My world is from day to day. And so I think that you've always, you've always just exuded that. And I think it's something that's kind of to your earlier point of like, some people really gravitate to it, and some people are repulsed by whatever it, you know. Like, there's just people, but they're the right people, you know. Like, they're the right people are. Attracted to that at the right time.

Matt Landau  
And I would add that, like, society and corporate America really does hammer a lot of these things out of us. Yeah? Like as children, we are all super original and imaginative and creative curious, yeah. And as Alex pointed out, like over time, we kind of get lumped into boxes, or we kind of like start wearing the certain brands and kind of just start associating with people, because that's what we do as we're growing up. But now we're being asked to channel this original, authentic self, and we're like, I don't know how to do that. It's worth the process of beginning. That's all I have to say. I feel like I'm just starting at age 42 but like, it's never too late, right? It's, it's so

Alex Husner  
interesting, though. I mean, I'm 39 I'll be 40 this June, and it's like, you know, all these things that people told me over the years of, like, the different decades that you're in and what what you care about. And it's like, when you're in your 40s, you finally realize you don't care what anybody thinks, and you want to do what you want to do. And I think that, like, kind of progressively becomes more and more as you get as in your 50s and other decades too. But I think that's that's a big part of it. It's like, you know, through all of our different phases, however differently they look, it's like you start realizing what really matters and what doesn't. And like, the things that I think about that, you know, 10 years ago were so important to me, and like, who I wanted to be around and why that was important doesn't matter to me at all anymore. So, you know, I think just being able to be cognizant of, like, how you have changed throughout your lifetime, and what those decisions are and like, but like, having time to sit and think with that as you take another big leap, or, like, go into it the next phase. I mean, we've still got a lot, a lot of years left to live here, so want to make them good.

Matt Landau  
They call it in corporations. They call it change management. Yeah, exactly. But it's a bad thing to change as humans. That's very difficult. It's like the hardest thing full stop. But when, when you choose that you want to do it, and then you go into a discovery process, well, what does that mean for me? Like, what am I going to do now that those priorities that I built my business on 10 years ago are no longer important to me? What's What are the new priorities? I don't know that discussion is starting the new chapter, as opposed to just being paralyzed by, I don't know what it is like. That's, I think the paralyzed by the fear is where a lot of us get stuck, but stepping into it, here goes, because I think that

Annie Holcombe  
like, because, I mean, if we're going to throw age in the conversation, I'll be 55 conversation, I'll be 55 in August. And so 55 is like, AARP card, you know, retirement. But I think about how you know, grandparents were and my parents, like, you know, you have to have everything figured out. You've got to. And I think that it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized, like, it's okay to not have it figured out there's no time. Yeah, there's the only, the only time expiration we have is one that we really don't know when it happens. You know? So it's like, if you're going to be living for an like, a expected expiration, what? What does that look like? If you don't know when the expiration is, like, what can you do? What can you accomplish? Like, it's okay to not know, and when you start to feel comfortable in that space of not knowing, I feel like there's just so much discovery that happens to you as a human, as a, as a, as a partner, as a spouse, as a as a friend, as a sister, as a daughter, like all of those things for me have just, you know, I just feel like there's Just an untapped amount of discovery out there to happen. And now, if you had asked me that when I was 25 I would have said, well, crap, I better do this all before I'm 50 because once I hit 55 I'm, like, out the door. I got my red card. I gotta go, you know. So it's, I think, that more people understand that and are willing to, like, step into that uncomfortable space of it's okay not to know, but you can't not try. It's so

Matt Landau  
inspiring.

Alex Husner  
Yeah, it is

Matt Landau  
so inspiring. When you look someone in the eye, you say, I'm not exactly sure what's about to happen, but here's why I'm making this bet on myself. And then you report back what happened. There's suspense, yeah, there's joy, there's sadness, all the feels right, and it's so engaging. And this is a style of leadership. This is creative leadership. This is how we communicate with people on entirely new levels. It's by incorporating those steps into our communication. It's like a it's like a skill, an art, and

Alex Husner  
learning, learning to bet on yourself and learning, learning to trust yourself too, right? I mean, that's probably the biggest thing. I mean, that's what a lot of advice has been given to me, of like, when you're nervous about making a big change. I mean, think about the times when you've done this in the past, and you know, to that effect. Like, why journaling is so important. And I'm sure you've probably at the retreats that you've already put on, Matt, I'm sure you must have huge journals of notes that you've taken, right, so that you can remember everything. But that's, that's a big that's a big part of this. Like, you have to be able to remind yourself and go back and be like, I was really nervous back then, and then worked out, you know, and it's okay to not know all the details. And

Matt Landau  
I think for me, what really changes things is an experience, a moment in which everything changed. And in some cases, it's losing a loved one, or being diagnosed with something, or being laid off from a job, or any number of crises. In this instance, it's self generated. It's like, I know I want more, but I don't know what it is. And coming to a new realization that, whoa, I'm a I'm controlling all these people. I am the blockage for my business, right? Gave me goosebumps when I realized it, yeah, one experiential shift like that. For me, everything changes, and it's very different than coming back, like I said, from like a course, being like, wow, this person used this phrase, which I remembered, and this three easy steps reminded me of this is an energetic experience, not unlike going on a trip, a travel excursion, and meeting someone or experiencing something that changed your life. That is the kind of learning that I want to cultivate for people. And it's just like it's impossible to UN see. Well, Matt,

Annie Holcombe  
I feel like we say this a lot, but I mean, we could talk to you for days, we could talk to you for hours, we could talk about this for a long time. So definitely would love to have you back after Alex has a chance to experience your retreat and dive deeper into into it. But in the meantime, if anybody's interested and wants to learn more about this and maybe sign up or just explore what it could do for them. How do they reach out to you and find out more about it? Yes,

Matt Landau  
I appreciate that the website here goes nothing without the g.com is my new home base currently. The landing page is a summary of the retreats that are taking place in May. But there's also a place to add your name to the list. Once a week, I've been hosting online conversations, private talks that are free with thought leaders in the world of creative leadership. Annie, you came a couple days ago and were unfounded.

Unknown Speaker  
It was amazing. It was this week,

Matt Landau  
we have a friend named Camilla who's a VP of Business Development at Sony. So like people who are doing creative breakthroughs for a living, and the objective of these calls is to just start introducing people to the world of possibilities out there. And those are, those are free. So that's kind of like my way of giving back

Unknown Speaker  
gifts. I love it.

Alex Husner  
I love that. Well, I could not be more excited for coming down to Costa Rica in about, let's see, little bit over a month from now. And yeah, would love to have you come back on and I'm sure I'll be sharing many learnings that I have, whether you're on the show or not on the show, directly or indirectly. But if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, in the meantime, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast com, and thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next week.