The Cost of Progress in Vacation Rentals with John Suzuki

Alex Husner  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: The real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and we are joined today by the one and only legendary John Suzuki, John, it's so good to have you on the

John Suzuki  
show. Oh my gosh. It's such an honor to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh,

Annie Holcombe  
the honor is completely ours. I feel like I said off camera. We've seen you speak so many times, and I've wanted to get you on the show. And just for challenge of scheduling and everything, we couldn't get you on but we're you're here, and we have you in full, high def, full, hi def, John. So we're really excited about that. I really, honestly, I say this about a number of people, but I don't think there's very many people on our side of the business that don't know who John Suzuki is. But in the case, there's not, why don't you give us a little bit about your background and what you've done to this point? Because now you're retired, but you've started this whole other career.

John Suzuki  
Yeah, yeah. So a little bit of my background. I won't, I won't go, go back, go back too far. But in the vacation rental industry, I started in 2004 and this was, this was during the days of fax machines. You know, it was before online bookings. It was before all the things that we now view as normal and and, you know, I saw an opportunity at the time to bring vacation rentals, which was just a little cottage side industry, they called it specialized accommodations at the time, into the mainstream of travel. And so it was amazing. It was an amazing ride for almost 20 years. And, you know, we saw, we saw several generations of of technology that happened. You know, you saw everything from web based computing, which was not a thing at the time, and and just just the rise of online bookings, to online distribution to guest reviews, to yield management to all these different kinds of things, all the way up to moving from the yellow pages of vacation rentals to full e commerce, right? Yeah, and, and so through it all, I was, I was with. I started with a little company called escapia, which is a software company which was acquired by Home Away, which was acquired by Expedia group, which and Home Away became VRBO. And my last job with the company was one that I invented, and I was the global evangelist and ombudsman for Expedia group and and it was, it was just, it was the best job in the world, and I had the coolest title. But I retired. I retired when in 2222 23 whatever, I finished a book that I had written called American Grit. It was a 15 year effort, and then I started a podcast last year called finding better, which has become the joy of my life. We've we've done 150 episodes, and it's just all about sharing experiences and wisdom and finding better in life and and, yeah. So technically, I'm supposed to be retired, but I've got several pretty significant products projects. I'm getting ready to launch a thing called finding better university where folks can come and create and present online courses on their experiences and finding better it's all experiential and and who knows what else I'm going to be doing, but I'm having that. I'm having the time of my life.

Alex Husner  
Well, you're not retired, I know that. So even though that might have been, that might have been the fact you thought you were going on, but Right? Isn't it amazing, though? Right? I mean, none of us really know what's going to happen and what Look at you

John Suzuki  
guys. Look at the two of you. I mean, I mean, you guys have this amazing podcast, this amazing platform, and look at all the different things that are being created from it, right? And all the opportunities you guys are getting, and then, you know, and that you guys, that's wonderful. I mean, you get, you're an inspiration, because I tell people, listen, start down a path and keep your eyes open. I mean, who knows what's going to happen and and I'm experiencing, experiencing it. You guys are experiencing it's just wonderful

Alex Husner  
well, and it kind of loops into one point I was going to make and brings it more together to the current day. But one thing we'll say, you're one of the few people that we have. Not the few, but, I mean, you're probably the minority people we have on the show that really do remember those the olden days of like pre e commerce, but, you know, bookings distribution, because a lot, you know, a lot of the industry now is people that have just come up in it within the last five to 10 years, and all they know is this newer world of, you know, VRBO and Airbnb and the OTAs and Yellow Pages and magazines and newspapers and I mean that used to be the way that vacation rentals were advertised back in the day, but I think about those days that you remember, and certainly we do, too, and when you took on that role or created that role as the evangelist within the organization, there was a lot of that change coming into play, right? And so a lot of companies were very nervous. They were, you know, not knowing where things were going. And I think just, you know, that really made a lot of anxiety within property managers

John Suzuki  
lives. Oh, it was terrible. So

Alex Husner  
they they put, or you put yourself there. They put you there at, like, literally the perfect time, right? Because that's what you're good at doing, and that's what you've now transitioned in this new phase of life in a similar way of sharing experiences and and, you know, sharing that you don't have to have everything figured out. It sounds like,

John Suzuki  
Yeah, I actually created that role because of the angst and the pain that that, frankly, we were creating, and that people were going through. And it wasn't just we, I mean, it was, it wasn't Expedia, it was just technology in general, right? I mean, the whole world was moving to e commerce, the whole world was moving to distribution, the whole world. And, you know, the biggest problem was that, when you make such a big change like that, you know, you have, let me just give you a couple of examples, you know, you think about cancelation policies, right? How many property management companies are out there amenities? You know, we had, we counted them all up at the time when, when you took all the different amenities and the amenity descriptions, there were 2000 of them.

Alex Husner  
I was not more than that even. I mean, yeah, how crazy,

John Suzuki  
and it was. It was one of those things where we can't list 2000 amenities and do a search on 2000 amenities, and yet everybody wanted their own amenities, right? Yeah, and their own descriptions and so, and that that was just a simple thing, let alone cancelation policies and refund policies and and getting the, getting the online booking calendars, you know, integrated and accurate. So it caused a lot, a lot of consternation and upset and and I realized that the biggest reason why things were going so South was because our communication sucked. It was terrible, yeah, I mean, I would, I would have customers coming to me and say, John, well, you just launched this thing that my guest just told me about, and then I would go back to the company and say, Why? Why aren't we communicating this? And the answer would come back, well, we sent an email three months ago that this was Yeah. And so every, everybody had every right to be, to be so, so upset with us. And of course, they I volunteered to take all the arrows and the bullets and torches, and you know, I even had a customer come up to me and say, John, why are you? Why are you doing this? Why are you letting them use your reputation? What? Come to work for me, I will pay you whatever you're being paid, just work for me. Get the hell out of there. And I told her, I said, you know, here's the here's the thing. As long as I'm on the inside, I can fix it, but if I'm on the outside, there's nothing I can do to help. Yeah, and I really believe that. And eventually we got it together, and, and, but, but that was oh gosh, just it was so painful. And the reason why it was so painful for me was because it was so painful for everybody else. And I had never wished I would never want to go through that.

Alex Husner  
And people listen to you, though, I think I actually remember. I remember probably the first time I met you. You came to my market in Myrtle Beach. And I think it was around the time that the match back policy was put into place on verbal but then if you still went to somebody's website and booked direct, you still had to pay the commission. And, you know, there was just a lot of people obviously were upset about that, but I think that got rolled back. And there are several other things that got rolled back. But, you know, that's what happens when companies work in silos. And you know, we're all trying to protect our own best interest, but at the end of the day, you if you're going to lose your customers, I mean this, they won't stay there. But. Communication is key. So

John Suzuki  
yeah, and, you know, and hope and hope

Alex Husner  
and hope, yeah, we can make it better just because it's like this right now, we can't

John Suzuki  
exactly, exactly. So communicating what, what we're what we were moving towards, and what we're trying to do, and helping people understand the whys and what we were doing. You know one thing I told people every time was, I am always going to be honest with you 100% it's a non negotiable. Now here's the thing. You may not like the answers I give, but they're going to be completely honest answers. And you know what? Everybody I didn't, I didn't have a I can't remember a single person who called bullshit on me on that yeah, you know, when I said that, people said, that's all I can ask for, yeah. And, you know, and, of course, I'll tell them the whys in terms of, you know, the whys and the hows and everything, as best that I can understand it. And the really cool thing about that, though, was that the deal that I made with the company, was that I was going to go out and do this, but when I came back with what we need to do to fix it, you guys, meaning the senior leadership of the company, have got to fix it. And they did, and they did. I can't remember. I can't recall a single recommendation I went back to the company with that they didn't implement. So that so all credit to them as well. But, but, yeah, that was those are, those are good times.

Annie Holcombe  
Certainly learned a lot about your character at that point, right? How much you can actually withstand every day. I'm sure there was days you went home and just, yeah, doing, why am I doing this right?

John Suzuki  
Yeah, but there, but, but I knew that we could get it right, and I knew that, in the final analysis, that we could make things better and and some things were not better, but we brought the industry into the mainstream of travel. In fact, we did such a great job that during covid, the vacation rental industry was the only

Alex Husner  
travel

John Suzuki  
right? And so and so, by that measure, that was, that was a good thing, and that that couldn't, that couldn't have happened if we weren't, we weren't in the in the E commerce space at that time.

Annie Holcombe  
So looking back on on your career, that part of your career, because obviously you have a new one now. What are your What are your like, biggest maybe, what do you think your biggest successes and maybe a big failure for you, that you for you personally, that you like, wish you could go back and change?

John Suzuki  
Yeah, I think, I think my big, I think we talked about my biggest success right in the industry. It was, it was because I, I mean, that was, that was truly an industry wide revolution. I mean, it was, it was really, it was something that had to happen. Yeah, and, and, I think I had, I think I had a part in helping it happen and lowering the pain,

Speaker 1  
yeah, so lessening the burn, yeah, yeah, the,

John Suzuki  
I guess you know, I wish I could have done better, or I wish I could have, you know, it kind of goes back to what you we were talking about earlier. You know, the phrase that I coined that over the years of technology and the generations of technology, we've gotten so smart we've forgotten our heart. And you know, as time went on and we did go into the mainstream of travel, we became much more smart and kind of forgot our heart. And you know, when, when I started in the industry. I mean, it was, it was a, it was mom and pops. It was, it was just, I mean, people loved each other. They, well, they still do, right? But people, people were, you didn't have the corporate profit pressure, yeah, yeah, that, that is, now, you know, part of the mainstream of anything. And you know, I wish I could have done better at,

John Suzuki  
at helping us not lose so much heart, you know. And you know, there's ways to do that, you know, and I'm and the cool thing is that I'm starting to see a renaissance. I'm starting to see people do business with more heart. And, you know, because I honestly believe, and throughout my career, I have is. Long as you're taking care of people, as long as you're taking care of your customers, as long as you're taking care of your employees, and as long as you're doing the right thing, some money will come. The money will come. It's when you focus on the money that you start screwing up right and and I feel like, I feel like the industry was, was such an industry of abundance. There's so much abundance of opportunity and time kind of made it, made it into an industry of scarcity, or at least that's, that's what people's mindsets were, yeah, and I wish, I wish I could have done more in terms of opening up, you know, taking off the blinders, helping people take off the blinders, and seeing the abundance. Because, you know, you you work differently if you work in a world of abundance, as opposed to World of scarcity. And I feel like over the years, the mindset became more and more of a scarcity mindset in the industry, and one of abundance. And I wish I could have done more, you know, to give people an opportunity to see see more abundance in the industry.

Alex Husner  
Yeah, that's a really profound answer. Yeah. I mean, you think about it like there's just what covid and pre covid Is this bubble of vacation rentals just really started to pop there. There was so much attention, because obviously these tech companies saw there's so much that could be improved here, right? There's just so much opportunity for things to be more efficient and money to be made. And I think it's that when all of that started, that was part of the the scarcity mindset, or just like the, you know, fear of missing out if I don't do this, if I don't have every, each one of these different tools, like, I'm going to lose gas and lose owners. And I think it did. It just caused a lot of anxiety. And I don't think that that's changed. I think that's part of what Annie and I recognize all the time, is that people come to us and they're asking, you know, what? What property management system should I be on? What guest app should I be on? Like, how should I be doing distribution, email marketing? And it's like there's so much information out there and so many people vying to get the money from those things that it can be really hard to choose at the end of the day. And know what's really right for you? You know, because it's, there's not a one size solution. Every company has different needs. Every company works better with different providers than, you know, than some of the other ones, like the because it's, it's relationships at the end of the day too,

John Suzuki  
absolutely, and that's you kind of hit the head on, on, one of the things that I wish, I wish we could have done differently, right when, when you live in a world of scarcity, you know? I mean, the bottom line is, we're here to serve, and in the case of a lot of, a lot of companies, we're, we're here to serve the property managers, right? And, you know?

John Suzuki  
And it's such as, it has become such a complicated world for property managers and, you know, and I feel like in a lot of a lot of senses, there are forces out there that purposely want to make the world complicated for them.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, I agree with that, yeah, yeah,

John Suzuki  
and that that's not, that's not heart, yeah, not now, yeah, you know. And you know, I mean, it's very, very simple, sell to your strengths and sell to solve problems, right? Help people understand what the problems are that they're facing. And you know, if you have, if you have a solution, to help them solve that problem, then talk about it, don't I don't know it. Just, you know, I really feel sorry for our property management community out there because of the kinds of things that you just talked about, Alex, it's so complicated. I mean, if we could just kind of step back and figure out, okay, it doesn't have to be this hard. Yeah, it really doesn't, you know, ironically, ironically, and a hope of mine is that technology, moving forward, is going to make things easier for the first time. You know, I know that. I know that there's a lot of people out there who are intimidated by artificial intelligence, who are afraid of artificial intelligence, but you know, for the first time ever, in my 40 years of being in technology, we have a technology that can teach you how to use it. True, if you want to learn about about artificial intelligence, go ask chat GPT, what do I. People,

Speaker 1  
right, right, yeah, right.

John Suzuki  
And it's just amazing and, and the thing is, is that okay? Let's face it, folks, if you're one of those people that's fearful of artificial intelligence, snap out of it, yeah, okay. Because it is our future. We're in it, and it's only going to become a bigger part of our lives. Listening to Elon Musk In a interview on YouTube that just came out yesterday, he was saying that you know, in terms of being fearful of your jobs and fearful of what what the future is going to be, our economy, in his view, is going to grow and be, what do you say, orders of magnitude bigger than it is today. In other words, hundreds and 1000s of times bigger than it is today because of what artificial intelligence, robotics, all these different kinds of things are going to bring. I don't know if he's if he's right or not, but if he's half right, yeah. I mean, there's going to be enormous opportunities that we that we just don't know about today, right? Yes, things are going to things are going to become obsolete. Skills are going to become obsolete because skills there, there are things that AI can do better, faster, cheaper, but who knows what's going to happen? And so one of the things that I share with people, because I've had lots of people come to me and technology, some of whom are incredibly talented people who have been unemployed for 12 months, right? And they'll ask me, What do you think, John, and I'll tell them, stop doing the same thing over and over again if you're not getting the result you want, right? But I tell folks that I believe that the best, the greatest muscle for people to build and start building, is scrappiness. Is a muscle of being scrappy, of being able to look around and see, identify opportunities and go after it. Yeah, right, yeah. Take off the blinders. Look at stuff, because all kinds of stuff is going to happen, right? And if you, if you can, if you can be in that place where you know what, go after it, try it, don't be, of course, you're going to fail, right? But you're going to learn in the process, and then you're going to go off and find something else to do, and eventually, any anyway, I don't know how I got off on that tangent.

Speaker 1  
Good. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2  
yeah. I think

John Suzuki  
you folks look at you folks, right? I mean, I look at you, and I look at I look at the like I said that the things that you're doing and the podcast, and all of a sudden, all these different things are opening up to you.

Alex Husner  
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. If I, if we had chat GPT when we started four years ago, and I could have just put in there. How do I start a podcast? What equipment do I need? Stuff? It would have saved me a lot of time

John Suzuki  
and a lot of money. Yeah? Oh, for sure,

Alex Husner  
yeah. Some things chat GBT can't solve for though, I have lost our our recording, our ring light that we take on site to conferences. I think I'm up to the fourth one now that I've lost on an airplane. So there's

Annie Holcombe  
something running joke now. It's

Alex Husner  
just, I mean,

Annie Holcombe  
chat TV is never going to solve forgetfulness. Like that's No,

John Suzuki  
I wish, I wish, but it's getting better and better. So who knows? Who knows? Yeah, right, yeah, but, but it is. It is getting better and better and like, like you said, if we, if we had chat GPT, I mean, chat AI can build you a website in like three minutes now, yeah, yeah, right. I mean, I have a friend, friend at VRBO. His name is David Egan, with Expedia group, and he's working, I mean, he, he, he has built me an entire website in 30 minutes. How long did that take us before?

Annie Holcombe  
Oh, gosh, my husband builds websites for a living. So trust me, like it's something we talk about all the time. It's like, right? It can be better, it can be faster, you know, but you still want to be involved in it, because you want your your touch on it. But that's, I think, that's the worry is, is, is there's so much going on and things are moving at such a fast pace. It kind of goes back to your experience at VRBO, like things are just happening so fast that the communication to people to help them feel comfortable with that change isn't going along with it. So it's like, by the time you realize something's happened, it's three days past it happening, and you're hearing it from other people and like, How did I miss this? And what is that? How does it affect me? And it and it becomes overwhelming. So I think that it all goes back to, like, that human component of all the relationships. It's regardless, it's the trust and empathy that, yep, we just have to keep that at the core. And I think you what you do through your evangelism at verbo, and through what you're doing now with your podcast, what you did with your book, what you do when you go on stage. I mean, you bring that human component that I think people just feel like, I said off camera, like they feel very grounded, because you're like, oh, okay, I don't have to freak out. John's here like he can make me feel comfortable. Feel comfortable about all the all of this, but we talk about it all the time, just in the sense of vacation rentals, it's like it goes back the hospitality. And I feel like there are people that are in it for the quick dollar, and those people have caused a lot of challenges. I'm not going to say problems. I think they've caused a lot of challenges, but the people that are in it for the right reasons to be hospitable and provide people with this place to, like, have core memories for their children and their, you know, last grandparent trip or whatever that be. I mean, those are the people that are the the heart of the industry, and we need to make sure that that heart keeps beating and it doesn't get overwhelmed by all this technology and thirst for money and all the other things that are happening,

John Suzuki  
yeah, yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And you know, the the whole idea of human connection is a double edged sword. And you can either be you cannot either create that human connection honestly or dishonestly, sincerely or insincerely. And you know, for and that's why I say think with your heart, right? Let's get back to it. Let's get back to our heart. And my hope, my hope is that is that artificial intelligence and the rise of artificial you know, here's the thing, folks, just, just something, something to think about. For those of you who are a little bit intimidated, you use chat GPT as your bullshit monitor. Yeah, I'm serious, right? I mean, if you hear a claim out there, just go on chat GPT and say, show me the show me the show me the data. Show me is this true, right, right? And it'll come back. Who is this guy? You know, you can I even go to chat GPT and say, Hey, tell me about David Egan. Is he a good guy? And it'll come back with an answer. I went and I asked that, hey, what about John Suzuki? Is he? Is he a good guy of the finding better podcast that came back with an answer? Right? Fortunately, I thought it was relatively accurate. But, you know, I mean, just, just using it for that, that kind of stuff, and making you smarter, you know, what? What can I do to I don't know, just just come up with questions and of, given the circumstance, what can I do? What are the kinds of things that property managers are doing to increase their bookings during the

Alex Husner  
Yeah, it'll come up with stuff. Yeah, yeah. Think about chat GBT being like someone you're talking to at a conference that you want to go and get all the information out of their mind. It's a friend, yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing what you can what you can learn there. But, and really, I mean, even if we just had chat GPT around covid, imagine how different our lives would have been right now. I mean all, at least for as far as I mean our lives, and also the lives of people in our industry, that that's when a lot of this confusion came about, of like not knowing how to run these businesses and how do I pick these different tools and things? But, you know, it probably would be very different,

John Suzuki  
very much so, and, you know, and that was just, that was just four years ago, right?

Speaker 3  
Yeah, four or five years ago seems like light years ago. But yeah, if you think, yeah, if you

John Suzuki  
think about what the world could have been like it had we had it back, then try to imagine the world of what it's going to be like five years from now, right? We have it today. Yeah. I mean, who knows, who knows, but the but the key to it, you know, you've heard the saying there's three types of people, those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wake up in the morning and go, what happened? Yeah, you know, right? Yeah. Don't be, don't be one of those people get in and use it. It's actually fun. If you want to get a really great chocolate cake recipe, chat, GPT, if you you know. I mean, it's just amazing. I one of the things that I do in the morning, the first, one of the first one of the first things that I do, and this is going to sound weird to a lot of people, I take a big glass of water, I put I put a teaspoon, half teaspoon of Baja, gold salt in it, and I drink it. You know, why did you read that?

Annie Holcombe  
Did chat TV? Tell you to do that?

John Suzuki  
I heard it. I heard it, and I validated it on chat. GPT, gold sea salt has got 60 different trace minerals in it. Oh, and it's actually good for you, and it helps you hydrate, not

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah. Where do you find Baja gold sea salt with Amazon? Very particular. Amazon, of course, that was, that was probably a rhetorical question as soon as I threw it out there, but yeah, but

John Suzuki  
I heard, I heard it on some video somewhere, maybe on Instagram, and then I'm like, that sounds weird, but that sounds pretty convincing. So I went to, yeah, I and chappy, GP, yeah, oh, these are the things. Then it gives you the caveats. It says, if you have high blood pressure, consult your doctor. Yeah, right. So anyway, anyway,

Speaker 1  
yeah, right there, right there. On Friday,

Annie Holcombe  
yeah, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Yeah. Well,

Alex Husner  
we want to hear a little bit more about what you're building right now, John, as far as this university in these classes, and how that ties in with the podcast. So maybe tell us a little bit more about this new business.

John Suzuki  
Yeah, so right now, it's, it's in the works. You know, my podcast has been such a joy. I mean, it's just been amazing, and with amazing people, sharing amazing experiences, teaching folks. You know, the whole idea is, is, you know, learning from others on how to live a better life, you know, because that's what everybody wants and so, so this finding better university is going to be something where people can come to to learn, to learn from these people. It's going to be all experientially based friend of mine, David Fishbach, who's also in the vacation rental industry, he owns a amazing business called beachfront only here in San Diego. He and I were in a in an argument one day, and I asked him, I said, David, do you want my opinion on this or not? He says, I could care less about your opinion. And I said, well, that's kind of rude listen. He says, I could care less about about your opinion, but I'll listen to your experiences all day long.

Alex Husner  
Oh, I love that.

John Suzuki  
And I went, Whoa. So, so this university in my podcast is all experientially based, wisdom based and and the courses that we're going to we're going to curate courses, help folks build courses. It's all about it's all about experience and and helping people find better so that people will be able to come if they want to learn about how, how they might be able to, you know, better relationships, better money. You know, better careers, better pets, right? Better parenthood, just everything. It's just going to be all about life and and so that's going to come later this year, which is, which is really cool, which is really cool,

Annie Holcombe  
that's, that's exciting. So you said this was, this is kind of your new like, I guess love, like, something that you're putting your heart and soul into. What do you do when you have free time? You've got

Alex Husner  
to be in retirement. So,

Annie Holcombe  
yeah, so you've taken retirement and turned it on its head and decided to keep working and doing and and sharing your joy and your positivity, which is tremendous. We need more of that in the world. But what do? What does John Suzuki do when he unwinds

John Suzuki  
my grandkids, my grandkids, my family. You know, I like tuna fishing, and so I fish during the tuna season. I just retired from paragliding and and I really miss that. But I also, you know, just, just three weeks ago, I was reached. I'm sort of kind of back in the in the vacation rental industry, because three weeks ago I was I was contacted by someone I'd known for years and years, who told me that he was starting an AI startup in that with one of their markets that they're targeting, it being the vacation rental industry, and so I'm doing some consulting work with them, which is, which is just amazingly fun and and it seems like when I do have free time, something comes along to fill it. Which is, which is, which is, which is. Being retired is a really nice place to be, because I can, I can go after it if I want to.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah, my father in law always said, when he retired, he said, as long as it doesn't interfere with my fishing, I'll do it, but the second that's when it becomes a problem. So, yeah,

John Suzuki  
that's it. You know, the thing that I miss the most, and this is the case for a lot of people, when they when they leave jobs or they leave leave careers, is being with people. Yeah, yeah, you know. And so I guess I fill my free time with me and with people,

Alex Husner  
and I would go so far to bet that's a big part of why you found so much joy in the podcast. Because I know for for us, I mean, for me, especially like I worked in an office for 13 years, and when I went. Remote, it was like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm not going to see people during the week, you know, and but because of the show, I feel like I'm still always connected. And of course, we do a lot of video meetings these days. That helps. But the podcast, you know, has it does really kind of fill that connection and just having these great conversations that in this case, I mean, we're talking about things we do for work, but it's not work specific, related and it's just fun. And if you're if you're happy and you like what you're doing, you'll never work a day in your life, as the old saying goes. So yeah,

John Suzuki  
and you know, and you know, for you, it's your podcast is providing connect, connection for you. But look at all the 1000s of people that you're enabling connection with, right? Yeah, right in your audience. And that's, and that's, and that's just really, really cool. It's wonderful, yeah, yeah. I mean, we've, we've, I have a core belief in my life that we all share a common purpose, and that purpose doesn't make the world better than the day we landed on it. And when you lift others, you do lift the world. You do make the world better. And so congratulate by that measure, especially congratulations on your success, because you guys are doing that. Oh, thank you

Alex Husner  
very kind of you. Yeah, yeah. Well, John, it has been just a pleasure just chatting with you and getting to catch up, and honestly, I didn't know going into this interview where the direction was going to go, and we said before we hit play, we actually kind of prefer if we don't really have a whole agenda anyways, but it was just wonderful to hear your perspective on the old days and now what you're doing, and I think you're obviously bringing a lot of joy into the people that you meet through the podcast and through this university that you're building. So we're excited to continue to watch that journey, and I can't wait to go listen to your podcast. I didn't know that you had a podcast, so now I've

Speaker 1  
got my I've got my weekend binge ready for me.

John Suzuki  
Yeah, and you know what, I would love to have you guys on it's all about sharing experiences, and, you know, helping, helping people find better in their lives. It's, it's, it's really cool. And thank you. This is, this has been so much fun, hopefully, hopefully, I was able to meet your expectations and exceeded them are exceeded. I just, I'll just, I'll just, you know, let me just say one thing you guys, to the world out there, life is too short. You know what I mean? You know, one of the I did, I did a real short, short, short video, and I talked about, one of my cardinal rules in life is never to deal with unpleasant people, because life is too short and they suck the soul out of you and but the corollary to that is, don't be unpleasant yourself. Yeah, right. Life is, life is too short. I mean, give, give. It's so much more fun to lift people than it is to chop them off at the knees and and, you know, I wish that on on the industry. I wish that to everybody in your audience. I wish the greatest abundance to everybody. And I do believe that huge abundance is coming. So, you know, building that muscle of scrappiness and opening your eyes to the new opportunities is going to win the day.

Annie Holcombe  
That's some stage advice there. I love it.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, it's very timely. I love it. Very timely. Oh,

Alex Husner  
man. Well, John, if anybody wants to reach out, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

John Suzuki  
Best way is John suzuki@gmail.com or they can go to John suzuki.com and if they'd like to see, if they'd like to get a copy of my book called American Grit. They can go to John suzuki.com and download it for free. So yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

Alex Husner  
Great, perfect, awesome. Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai