I just started off with the passion and then the connecting with other people that, that have been successful. Welcome back to the Art of Connecting Podcast. This is your host here, Haydynn Fike, back with another episode for you guys. And today I am so excited to have Mitch Patel joining us today for our show. This has been honestly, a long time in the making. You don't even know that. But I have wanted to meet you for a long time, and I've known Mitch without him knowing me for like four years because when I was in college, my management professor Kurt Capel, brought out your wheel that you have in your company. Yeah. And so I've known about vision hospitality since I was probably a sophomore in college. Wow. So, hopefully that I, I kind of wanna throw it in this a little surprise for you today'cause we studied your business years ago, and here I am getting to sit and talk to the man himself. So thanks for being here on the show today. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Just like pretty much every episode, I wanna start with a quick introduction. If you can just tell people who Mitch Patel is. Sure. So my name is of course Mitch Patel and I am the founder and CEO of Vision Hospitality Group. We're a hotel developer, owner operator. We have 42 hotels and eight states. And close to 2000 associates. But I'm most proud of being based right here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I love it. I'm a big Chattanooga fan. As any of the listeners have ever listened to any of my shows, even if I'm interviewing someone that's, I interviewed someone in Africa, I. And I was talking about Chattanooga and he is like, I need to come and visit Chattanooga sometime'cause I talk it up so much. So I'm so glad you're based here. It's so cool to get to watch your projects. With all that being said, I want to first start off with a little bit of origin, origin story. We don't have to go like crazy into it because just like my last guest, Kim, you were on Mike Costa's podcast and I listened to that show, and I know you go way into the backstory. So if you wanna just give a brief backstory about how you ended up getting into hospitality. I'll give you the cliff notes. All right. No. So look, everyone has an origin story, right? And I love hearing those origin stories as well. A lot of people know where you are today, but I wanna know how they got there, right? Because that's the, those are the things that I wanna learn. But yeah, so I'll go, I'm not gonna go way back. But I will start with my father coming to this great country with$8 in his pocket to pursue something that is truly amazing. And that's the American dream, and you're not gonna find a better dream in the world than the American dream, the greatest country in the world with the greatest opportunities. So yeah, I grew up really poor. You know, my, my, my parents wound up leasing an 11 room motel and, grew up in an apartment behind the motel office, cleaning rooms, doing laundry, taking out the trash. That was our daily lives. And that's what I thought. That's what everyone pretty much did. Until, you know, you go to school and you realize that other people are taking vacations and you're, you're, you're motels are actually busier during the holidays, so you're actually working even more. Mm-hmm. And then the fifth, my fifth public elementary school, we moved cross country in the middle of my fifth grade school year from California to Cleveland, Tennessee. So talk about a little cultural shock. And yeah. So they bought a little larger motel at this time. Again, I found you know, myself in the family business, cleaning rooms, doing laundry doing front desk now a little bit older. And and because I, I grew up in this business, the last thing I wanted to do is pursue that business as a career. Mm. And it's this immigrant mentality, Haydynn, it's like my parents came here because simply for a better life, for the next generation and the generation after that. And so they, they, and, and this is true for a lot of immigrants they wanted to, they, they felt like they had to work really hard, so you could be a professional. Right. They don't want you doing what they did. Right. And so, and I didn't wanna do that either. Yeah. You're like, I don't wanna scrub a toilet. That's right. That's not something I was aspiring to wanna do. I respected and appreciate it, but that's not what I was aspiring to wanna do. So be a doctor, a lawyer and engineer. And so I took the engineering route. So I became a civil engineer and I got my master's degree in transportation, traffic engineering. And you're probably going, where's this guy going from there to there, right? And I'm working in Atlanta, designing roads doing traffic studies, transportation plans. I'm in my cubicle and I'm just not enjoying it. Hm, don't love it. You know, I, I was, I felt like I was always a creative person, loved art, loved architecture, and couldn't do much in engineering with painting those white lines purple and taking the road this way or this way. And so I wound up looking at my watch often. What time is lunch? What time is five o'clock? By the way, those that are watching and listening, if you are looking at your watch constantly, you're probably in the wrong field. Hmm. Okay. And that means that you just can't wait for the time to go by to do the things that you really want to do. And really. Love to do, and that's no way to live a life. Right? Yeah. And I did that for three years, and every time I would talk to my parents, my, my, my, my dad would go, that's life. You know, you're an engineer. It's not gonna be fun. Just do it. And so I said, swallow the pill. Yeah, swallow the pill. And I said, you know what? There has to be something better for me. And I started questioning myself, Haydynn do I have what it takes to be successful in anything? Am I lazy? And I found out that I wasn't in the best position to find success. Hmm. And so I'm not gonna tell you that the hotel industry was just calling. I didn't want to be an engineer anymore. Right. And I didn't want, I don't wanna offend the engineers out there. Engineering has taught me a lot, discipline, logic, problem solving, which I use today, but it wasn't for me. And so with very little money, I saved up$3,000 working as an engineer. I decided to take the plunge in hospitality, move to Chattanooga. There was an opportunity to develop and operate a hotel, very capital intensive business. I had to come up with a lot of capital for my share of the equity. I borrowed every single penny. My with friends and family. My, my, my dad wasn't very supportive of all of this. So that wasn't in my favor and I convinced a lender to, to. Lend us money, signed something called a, a personal guarantee, but there's nothing that they could take from me. Right. So go ahead. I had some partners lined up. I built that first hotel as a contractor, even though I never built a shed before. Wow. And I literally took off my hard hat, learned on, learned to put on a tie, and I'm the opening general manager at the age of 27, even though I never managed anyone at that point. And it wasn't easy. I, I thought about did I make the right decision? Should I go you know, here, and this is to all those that are looking at getting into a business here, you have a paycheck coming in every two weeks. Mm-hmm. You may not love it, but it's a paycheck coming in. Box works, right? Yeah. And then on this side, there's no guarantees. And I, I, I said, did I make the right decision? The business was struggling. Hmm. But I couldn't let my, the lender down, my partners down, my team down, my parents right, my parents down and, and the people I borrowed money from friends and family. And I said, there is no other way but to find success and willpower. Is amazing when you have willpower. And we dug in and worked hard and in 18 months we became the number one hotel in the market. But more importantly, I found my passion where I never expected to. Wow. And then when you find your passion for something, you're gonna work harder. We'll overcome obstacles and we'll find success. Right? If you fall, you're gonna get right back up. You wanna learn every single thing about. That business or that industry. And here's another kind of takeaway. If every industry has a trade journal, right? Every industry has a trade journal, hotel industry to I'm sure you know, engineering of course, as the trade journals. I never wanted to open up my traffic transportation engineering magazine with the latest signal, signal studies. You know. The manholes or whatever that was in there. Right. And today I have all these hotel industry magazines and I want to devour'em. Mm. And so that's when you know you've got something that you really love and, and you know, the, this, if you love something, you're not working now. And and, and passion could be contagious. And it's I'm blessed that I got to do something I love and I really think that is a really important ingredient in entrepreneurial success. I love that story. I'm so glad you went into that because this is like the perfect time for me to ask you what every person that listens to really any podcast that's interested in getting into real estate or hospitality or whatever. The beautiful part about my podcast is you could be doing anything in a lot of what we talk about with the connections aspect, it's applicable, but what you brought up is the situation that I would say most people are in, right? I have five, three grand, five grand, 10 grand, and I have this vision, I have this idea. There's, there's all of these things floating around in my head, and I'm not happy where I am. No. So when you decided to make that jump. I imagine in your head you're like, okay, I know hospitality. Maybe this isn't gonna be the forever, but this is just like, I know it so I can do it, right. Is that what kind of was going through your head? Yeah. Look, I, I don't think I, I knew hospitality that well. Just because I grew up in the business, cleaning rooms, doing laundry, didn't make me an expert in the business at that age. So, but I was absolutely willing to learn every aspect of it. And willing to learn means that you have to connect with people, right? You have to go. I was going all over the southeast talking to people that. We're doing it and doing it successfully. Built their first hotel, their second hotel, or operating that hotel and learning everything that I could from, from these people. And it's amazing how people open up, right? Most people do. And today I do that with a lot of people that are starting out in, in our industry because paying it forward, people did that for me. And I think that that, look, we don't, we don't know all of this. There's a lot of risk in any business, any bus. Most startups fail. Yeah. The hotel business is a day-to-day lease business. Think about it, day-to-day lease during the pandemic, we saw the worst of it. Right? And so it's not an easy business for, for sure. But I, I do have to share this one analogy that I often use, Haydynn. Everyone is inherently different. And we have strengths and we have weaknesses. And from, so there's something that we, we say often. And we wrote a book. I'm gonna have to get you, I should have sent the book to you beforehand. Oh yeah. But it's a culture book that we wrote. It's an internal book for our team, but we do share it with, with friends and partners. But in that book, we, we, we put this quote that, that placed the, the squirrel in the tree and the fish in the sea. Now let me explain that. We're all inherently different, like I said before, and I was that squirrel in the water when I was an engineer. And guess what I get to do every single day? You know, I'm in my natural habitat. And so I think that, that don't let the money or the success or your lifestyle drive. You know what your, your, your decision or that be your purpose.'cause that's not a very good purpose, right? And once you find something that you could truly feel like you could be good at and and you have a passion for, and by the way, where you feel like you could be good at is typically where you're gonna have a passion for it. And so, and when you, when you find that, then I think that. That the, there's a huge opportunity ahead of you to be successful. And there's gonna be bumps in the road, like I said. But I think that, that you have a better chance of overcoming it. But there's so many other things that you have to have to be successful. And like I said, I just started off with the passion and then the connecting with other people that, that have been successful. If it's role models in, in books. Or if it is people that you don't even know, but you have read about them, that they've been successful in this industry or even outside of the industry, you could take those things and apply it. We're always learning, right? I'm learning today, you know, from you and you're learning from me. And I think that that I don't know if I wanna learn, nor do I don't have the time, nor do I have the passion. To wanna learn about everything, right? And so I think that you've got to really know where are those few places that you're gonna, that, that you're gonna be really passionate about. I know, I know what they are for me, and and that's where I want to spend my time. Because you're a very young gentleman. I've been doing this a while now for 28 years since I started the company. Well, and I've been alive. Oh, wow. I make it feel, me, feel really old now. So, but time, the age of 27, I didn't have anything. Mm. I didn't have money. I didn't have a network, I didn't have knowledge. I didn't have really anything. But I had time. Mm-hmm. Now, fast forward 28 years later, I'm blessed with the business acumen, a network that I could honestly say the second to none in this industry. As the chairman of the American Hotel Lodging Association this year, and so many other positions that I hold in this industry. That we, we have this a, a phenomenal network. And you know, capital, we have capital now, right? Which we didn't have back then. Yeah. We have all of these things experience, tremendous experience, which we didn't have back then. But now time becomes your most precious currency. Mm. And so I value. Everything now, almost everything that we look at, decisions that we make in business or in the personal life, I look at through the lens of time. So I, I wanna rewind a little bit and talk about the connections that got you into that first deal. Sure. So were you. Just telling everyone that you knew that you were tired of engineering. Like how did that, how did that first deal come about and who, who were some instrumental people in that? Absolutely. Look, you can't, you can't do all of this yourself. So that's why those connections are so important. So I was very fortunate that I had a family member that was in the hotel business and, you know, that family member grew up in the hotel business as well, just like, you know, just like I did. And he had a couple of hotels and he was looking for a partner to grow, and so he reached out to me. And said there was an idea of doing a hotel in Chattanooga, but it was really just an idea. And so then the rest of it really was fell in my lap right. To, to take that idea of this hotel at the Hamilton Place, mall area to reality. And so we, so that, that connection with that family member, his connection with others, and together. We created the base, the capital base to, to come up with the equity that we needed. And then of course I leaned on these people quite a bit early on, and, but it didn't take long for them to start leaning on me. Right. But, but initially, you know, you don't have that, that knowledge and that experience and that information. So those connections were really important. So I was very fortunate. That I had that because if I didn't have that, I don't know if I would've gotten into this business just blindly. Right? So I think that was very important. Now the, the, the, the funny thing was the, that that family member said, well, you're a civil engineer. Why should we hire a contractor? You know, why don't you figure it out? We could save a lot of money. Right? And I'm like going, I've never built a shed before. Right? And one of the first things that I did, you know, is I, I, you know, when we were ready to go I did understand quite a bit about plans because being an engineer and the drawing, so, you know, the, I did the civil site plan myself and then hired an architect to do the hotel plans. And then when it came to building, I hired a, a, I mean, I, I rented a, a porta potty and I rented a trailer construction trailer. And and then I, I had Excel spreadsheet and and those are the three things that I needed to get started. And and I, and I, you know, interviewed subs and, and wound up again getting this hotel built as a, as a contractor. And so I look back at it and you go, wow, you know, it's crazy. Some of the risks and some of the things that you, you did, but sometimes, you know, ignorance. Could be to your advantage. Absolutely. It could be to your advantage, you know, ignorance, mix, mix with a, a. Never seizing desire to succeed. That's right. There was no option to fail in this. That's right. Right. Like, and honestly, I think maybe now you, you probably might be a little more afraid to fail than you were then, because if you fail back, then what's, what do you have to lose? You know, you go back and you pick up another civil engineering job. If you fail now. Okay. But what happens, I don't think I'm going back to the cubicle in now, but I think you bring up a really, really good point. And this is another piece of advice that we'll give to the people watching the, this video in this podcast is the risk taking risks. Most people, it's, that's the hard part to overcome. Mm. Taking, taking. That risk here. You have a job that's paying you every two weeks. Do I leave that and take this, this risk with something you don't know exactly. If it's gonna work out, do it while you're young. Mm. Do it while you don't have anything really to lose. Yeah. And and there's stories and stories of people that failed. Most people that have been successful have failed many times. Mm-hmm. And so. I'm not gonna tell you. I mean, we've had a lot of setbacks. Okay. Nothing has been perfect and rosy, no business has probably ever been like that. Right? And so, but you do it while you're young because when you get older, you, I wasn't married, I didn't have kids, I didn't have a mortgage, you know? I didn't have a lot right back then to lose. Right. And so, like you said, I could have. Gone back, it would've hurt my ego. My parents would've told me 10, 15, 20 times I told you. So that was driving me as well. Hmm. Because I wanted to prove everyone that I could do this. Right, right. And, and going back to the willpower, you know, I, I, I, I use a lot of analogies, so bear with me. I'll talk to young people often and, high schoolers, college business, business school students. And I'll say, I'll ask the question, how many of you work out? And a lot of people will say, raise, I saw your incredible gym there. Yeah. And most people, you know, that workout that get great results is because they can overcome the burn. Hmm. Where. The majority of people that don't obviously get the, the majority of people don't get any results, is what I'm trying to say, is because they quit before the burn. The burn is what's telling your mind and your body to quit, but it's also feeding you hormones to make. Your muscles and your body's stronger for whatever you're trying to do. Right? And the same applies in exercising to business and in life, right? Same thing. Most people quit when they feel the burn. Right? And those that know how to overcome that burn and have that willpower. That, you know what? I am not gonna let this get in my way and, and have that perseverance most of the time find success. And even if you don't, you get an education that's worth it's price thousand, it's priceless. Yeah, that's right. And something that, that I've been thinking of while you were talking that one of my, my mentor says is your present day reality is your worst case scenario. The life you live today. If you have nothing, right, like if you've got three grand to your name, your present day reality, that's the worst case scenario is that you can be right back where you are. If everything goes wrong, there you go. Right? So you're at the bottom, the only one way, right? So I love all of that. It's, it's really cool here. So from, from what I understand, you were unhappy with engineering. You had this family friend that had said, Hey, you know, I have this idea. I think Chattanooga's up and coming market we could do a hotel by this mall has been succeeding. Had Hamilton Place been still continuing to increase at that point? Was it like,'cause I know at some point it kind of died off. Like, where was Hamilton place at at this point? No, Hamilton place you could say was in its prime thing, right? It opened in mall, opened in late eighties, and this is like mid to. About 96, 97. So it was hitting, its its peak with all the developments around the mall and the restaurants. And so, yes, so it was probably one of the best hotel markets in this whole, like a 50, 7500 mile radius. So you knew it was a good idea. You were like this. Like you went and probably visited the mall. I imagine just walking around, like talking to people like you do and just asking like, Hey, you know, what do you think of this mall? Like, do you like this? Like, how did you make that decision to just like, all right, I'm going all in. Yeah, no, I mean, look there was a lot of demand generators in that area. There's a lot of restaurants. What we learned was that pe guests love amenities more than where they're going to visit if it's on business, or even if they're visiting family. They wanna stay where there's a lot of amenities. And, but look this, we had a lot of challenges. This hotel brand no one had heard about. Are you, are you able to share which one it is? Yeah. I mean, it's all, which one? It's a, it's a Homewood suite, so we're talking about now people know what that brand is. Yeah. But back then we were like one of the first homewoods in the country. No one knew really what this brand was. It was before Hilton purchased it, so there was no engine really behind it. Wow. And the location was. Off the beaten path, you know, in real estate they say location, location, location. Right. Well, this was, I did not follow that, that that, that, that advice. It was a c probably c plus location. Wow. And, and so it, the, the cards the deck was against us, you could say. And first time. Manager, general Manager. Didn't, didn't, so we did 10% occupancy. First month, they 10% occupancy. That is awful, by the way. And that's, that's May. Yeah. And June, we did a little bit better. And that's where I, I, I was sharing with you that I Oh my, I mean, this is not gonna work. Mm. And then we just dug in and we said, people what are what? What are the problems? Mm. People don't know about this. This is a nice hotel. It, it's a, a suites, they have little kitchens in it. It's new. Heck, we've got a good team that we, we built here. People need to know about it. Hmm. And so we just got the word out. We just, it was marketing, it was sales. We just and before we knew it, you know, people found it. This is before the internet, right? I mean, nowadays you could put a. A burger joint in a D location somewhere. Right. But if it's a great Burger Haydynn's burgers, then they'll find you because we live in a transparent society and all you have to do is type in best burger in Chattanooga and 4.9 rating, some burger shop pops up, people are gonna find you. Right. That wasn't, there was none of that back then. Mm-hmm. And I, and I'll never forget when we opened the hotel. I was looking at this report where it, it, it, it gave me like where the business was coming from and the number one was walk-ins, just people coming off the, the street Who does that anymore? Wow. Two telephone reservations and there was this 1% at the very bottom internet. It is 1%. Wow. And I remember saying, we better keep an eye on this. Hmm. And then it went to two, three over time. And today, of course, overwhelming majority of our business comes probably what, 95%? Mobile? Mobile. But it's mobile now, but online, right? Yeah. Through the app, yeah. Yeah. Overwhelming or the. The three pl or Yes. Or the OTAs. OTAs, yeah. Or the OTA sites. That's right. But some sort of mobile app is where people are gonna find you now. Wow. So how, okay. This would be a great transition point here. And so something that I would be curious about is in this world where everything's on the internet, right? And it's been really fascinating being at Chattanoogan to see, like my city, I just saw it on a, a music video. Two days ago, it was like this Christian artist watching his music video and it's, he's on the bridge, you know, doing this music video. I was like, that's cool. You're in Chattanooga. And so people are starting to find out about our city a little bit. So how do you create connections with your customers now with the internet being so prevalent? Oh, hey there. It's me again. I know you expected Morgan Freeman to come on and talk about the biggest company in the world. Well, I'm sorry, but you get the next best thing. This show is sponsored by the company that I co founded, Acadia Capital, and acadia is a hard money lending fund originating loans in Southeast Tennessee and Northern Georgia on residential one to four unit renovation properties. We are regulation D five Oh six C fund and are actively seeking accredited investors. We provide fantastic first position real estate back returns. If you're ready to get your tired and lazy capital to work with a minimum 8 percent return, go to Acadia loans. com backslash invest. Not only do we accept standard investments, but we can also accept self directed IRAs and other self directed retirement accounts to take advantage of tax advantage investing. Thank you so much for listening to Art of Connecting now back to the show. Yeah, no, look most of our hotels are, you know, we, we. They're branded. We partner with Hilton. We and Marriott. Marriott's the, the world's largest hotel company, 200 plus million Bonvoy customers. Mar Hilton has close to 200 million Hilton Honors customers. So you have this huge audience of customers and, you know, they're, they're, they're seeking to stay in Chattanooga. And then of course now you're competing with all the other hotels. And hopefully your hotels will stand out, where they'll choose. But then there's also, we do marketing where we want people to come from not just seeking Chattanooga, we're, we're getting them to come to Chattanooga that where they may not be seeking Chattanooga. That's where Chattanooga tourism company comes in. The Tennessee, of course, at the state level. A lot of marketing what they do. And then. Yeah, our, some of our hotels like the Edwin the Kinley, you know, and the Grady in Louisville, Kentucky, I mean, these hotels, we really go out and seek that customer that would love to stay at this type of hotel. And it just happens to be in Chattanooga, right? And, and I'm that customer. I will go out and. Seek certain hotels and it just happens to be in this city. You know, I'm not necessarily seeking that city. And so there's different types of travelers out there and outdoors. We right, we we're just this become, this mecca. For outdoors activities. Right. And so people don't, a lot of people don't know about that. Yeah. And so you have to really target that outdoors community and say, you know what? Come to Chattanooga, you may have heard of Boulder, but Chattanooga's world class in rock climbing and, and you know, spelunking to hand gliding to, to hiking and mountain biking. Right. And, and you could come to Chattanooga to do those things and you'll have an incredible experience and. So we have attractions and, but you know, it has to be more than that. What is the Chattanooga experience is really what I challenge our Chattanooga tourism company and others that market our city. You know, I can't think of one major attraction in Charleston, South Carolina. Right. But it's like the number one destination. Yeah. People for travel about it. Right, because it's the food. It's the, the, the history, it's the people, the architecture, it's the placemaking, it's the public art. All of that makes it an experience and people are craving experiences more than ever, and I've gotta share this with you. I think that those businesses that are gonna be the most successful in the future are where it's not. Where they take it, where they're selling, not a commodity, but an experience, right? Like a coffee shop used to be just, okay, I could get a cup of coffee'cause I need caffeine and let me get it to drive through. Now it's way more than that, right? Right. Because of the interior design, because of the music, the lighting, you know, the, the, the, the atmosphere that it's, it's created where you could connect. With somebody else and meet somebody at that coffee, coffee shop, the relationship they have with the barista and how personalized they make it right now, it's not just about the coffee, it's about the whole experience. Right. And so another analogy I'll use is my first lifestyle experience was when I, when I bought a, a ticket to take me from point A to point B. And that was Atlanta to London. And that's a commodity, right, to take me from point A to point B. But Delta you know, they, they put me on Virgin, their affiliate airline, that, that, that. And so I was hesitant initially, but because of the lighting, the music, the uniforms, the smells, the entertainment the food and beverage, the standup bar that they have. All of that. They made it a memorable experience. And now the memorable experience becomes the commodity. Right. And people will pay a premium for that. And so the hospitality space can't just be shelter Haydynn is what I'm saying. A thousand years ago. A hundred years ago, yes. It was shelter, right? A place. It was whatever you pulled up to on the side of the road. Exactly. When we were raised, you need a shelter, you need a bed, you need a shower, right. Shelter commodity. But. People like the Edwin, we're not selling shelter. It's a choice. That's right. Yeah. We're selling an experience and it's the music, the lighting, the history the storytelling that we're doing there. All of it makes it a memorable experience. And I think that, that if it's Warby Parker. But eyeglasses, I mean, you could go on and on about even banks, you know, how they make, how, how they made it less transactional and more experiential. You know, you could take almost any, any industry and and those that can make it a better, more memorable experience are gonna win. Hmm. How we can edit this out if you don't feel good about it, but how proud does it make you to know that Bill Gates has slept in your hotel? Yeah. Of course it makes me proud. And so many other you know, iconic people have stayed at the Edwin, which makes me really proud because that's a custom bed that we created there specifically for Edwin. And we want to immerse people, and I'd love to tell you a little bit about the story of Edwin, but I, I had an opportunity to meet bill Gates. So I was a trustee at Ben Wood. And Benwood was making this arrangement with Bill Gates and touring him through Chattanooga. And and so at the very end, they wanted to take him to Whiskey Thief and and meet with some, some stakeholders in the community. And so I was there, of course, early and Bill Gates got there early before everybody else got there. So of course, I chit chatted with him and he wanted to go outside and I gave him a little tour. And he was really surprised how mountainous Tennessee was. I said it is in east Tennessee because what he had experienced his experience with Tennessee was Memphis before. Oh. And so it's a big difference between west and East. Yes. And so, but we had a great conversation and but yeah, look, I'm really proud, but getting back to the story I wanted to tell Bill Gates, the story of Chattanooga. In the way I could tell it very briefly through the lens of the hotel. Yeah, that sounds great. So, a great boutique hotel should be like a great story with twists and turns and discoveries, right? And then there's emotional connection that you make to a great story. Right now you could tell the world, right? And so the Edwin story lends itself from the bridge and you know, it, it has, you know some. Really bad history, right? But it has some, some, it's, it's also a beloved bridge too in terms of how people use it and connects the North Shore to the, to this, this, this part of our, our downtown. And so they're gonna tear it down at one point. And and so many people in the community. We're so glad that they kept it. And we have beer festivals, right? We have wine festivals, art festivals on that bridge. It is our most photographed iconic you could say element iconic element in our city. It's, it's what I say, it's our Eiffel Tower is the Walnut Street Bridge. So what does a bridge do, or what does a bridge it? It, it connects. Right? Mm. And so the story of the Edwin is really tear these walls around us. This is the old south, rapidly becoming the new south. Mm. And tear those walls around us and connect to all that. What makes a community great from art, culture, food history, whiskey, you know, whatever it may be that we're trying to tell. And so that's the story that Edwin. And you have to write the story first before a title can bubble up. And so I wanted the title, like what's the title? What's the name? Right? But we had to be patient and write the story. And then the title is basically, I asked the question, who designed this bridge back in the 18 hundreds? And it's, and it's this famous bridge builder. His name was Edwin Thatcher. Oh wow. And and guess what? I was a bridge builder, literally. Wow. And now, figuratively we're all bridge builders. Hmm. You're a bridge builder today, right? Connecting with me and connecting with your audience. Right. These stories, and so we're all bridge builders and so it was it just, it just came really naturally, organically, and and thus the Edwin Hotel. Just, just fits perfectly for what we're trying to do there. Wow. I had no, I, I never knew that the bridge builder's name was Edwin. That's really cool to learn that. I had, I had no idea. That's really, really fascinating. And if any of you guys are listening to this'cause of people, literally people all over the world that listen to the show the Edwin is a hotel in Chatanooga, Tennessee and probably the best location you can have for a hotel. It's phenomenal. It is. It is right in the middle of absolutely everything, and you look right over the river on the Tennessee River and the walking bridge. So if you ever are coming in town, come support Mitch and stay in the Edwin and bump his a DR up. I, I appreciate that. Whenever I travel all over the world people ask you, where are you from? Hmm. And then I don't, I'll say Chattanooga sometimes, but just Tennessee will pop up, right? Two things. Elvis and whiskey. Hmm. So that's thus had to have Whiskey Thief up there. Yeah. And have a whiskey bar. Absolutely. I need to introduce you to my mentor. We're gonna have him on the podcast in a few episodes. He owns the largest bourbon bar in the country. Oh really? So they have 4,000 exposures in Louis. Wow. And he invest with some Patels too. Okay. Well, we have a hotel in Louisville called the Grady, and we have a bourbon bar in the basement about 150 year old building and converted it to the Grady Hotel. Wow. That's incredible. All right, so we are coming up on our time already. It's it's gone by very, very quickly. Yeah. I wanna, I wanna hear one more story. And you kind of talked about the Edwin being a bridge in between people. What, what were some challenges you had in building that property and what connections did you use to overcome them? Yeah, look there were a lot of challenges. Development's not easy. There's a whole process that you gotta go through from an idea to completion. So that the biggest challenge there was, it was not zoned for a hotel. So it was an a two, three story office building, 1970s, not historic, great location like you alluded to earlier. So we had the vision of what we wanted to do there. But it had to be zoned commercial. And so the, the pushback it was in the neighborhood. Right. A lot of, I mean, there's people that live all around it. The pushback was they didn't want something commercial coming there and not what they wanted. Hmm. Right. And Chattanooga, the, the commercial zoning, allowed you to do anything commercial. So meaning that you could have put a Waffle House there, right? Waffle or a, yeah. Hey, waffle House. I, I, I like Waffle House, but I don't think everybody would like wa a Waffle House. You could put a check into ca, check into Cash Place right there, or whatever, a pawn shop. And so people were afraid of what would go there if it went commercial. Mm-hmm. And I had to go door to door. And really, again, let's talk about connections. Mm-hmm. Right. I went door to door, introduced myself, let them know what I was doing. A lot of people knew who we were and which was great. I had three or four town halls that I, I, I did that have personally would let them know what, how much we love this city and what we wanted to do here. And then I, I understand there's some people that say, Mitch, well, okay, what if you, you get this zone commercial and then, and then something happens to you and you don't do this, and then somebody else winds up doing something. And so all I could say is, you have to trust me and that I'm gonna get it done. Right. Right. And so when we went to the planning commission and we went to to city council and all that. You know what they, they, they ask you usually the question, the audience. Okay. Who supports this project instead of 75 to a hundred people there? That would probably object. They came to support it. Wow. They all stood up and said, we support this project, and I don't think that that would've happened if I didn't make the connections in a genuine. Way with the people in that community. And I've gotta, I've gotta end with this. From day one, we wanted to be the living room of the neighborhood. Hmm. And with those one-on-one meetings with the town hall, we took the community's input in what they would like to have seen there. Art. You know, a rooftop bar a really good restaurant there that had outdoor seating, a spa, you know, we did all of those things that tell the Chattanooga story. That's not a brand not, not a big brand. It's a independent hotel that tells. That's so hyper-local to this community. That's what they wanted to see. And we delivered it. And now it truly has become the living room of the neighborhood. And the best compliment that I I, I get is one of these neighbors, he's always over there bringing the dogs. And, you know, there's, there's water and snacks for the dog. And they he said, you know every time I have family, I put them up here. Because we feel like it's ours. And so that was the first time I've ever heard anybody say that. Wow. Is they feel like it's theirs. Hmm. And so if it could be a communities business, a restaurant, a coffee shop. Right. A hotel. Then you're on to success. I'll tell a quick story about that because one time I was walking with my friend. On the bridge, this is before it closed down to a little bit and it started raining and we had just finished walking across the bridge. It was cold and started to get rainy. So I was like, why don't we just go in the Edwin real fast? And we, we went upstairs by the fireplace and just sat and talked. And there's this, I don't, I don't know how much that couch costs, but it's very comfortable and very nice. I'm sure it costs you a lot of money to put that couch up there, but. I mean, to be able, and no one said anything to us. No one was like, are you a guest here? Like, why are you sitting? Our, we're in our, like, we're in our, we were walking, you know, we're in our, our, our normal gear, but to get to go up there, and we just sat and got to get out of the weather and talk and sit and absorb that environment, you know? And then there's other times where I've brought my friends in town and we've gone and spent thousands of dollars at the bar, right? So there's those two extremes that sometimes they just come in and sit down and take a second. And there's other times where you're there to do business, but it truly is a welcoming facility, and that's a, a kudos to you. Well, th Thank you, Haydynn. And, and that has to be purposeful. I remember when we opened, one of my employees said, we have a problem. We have so many people coming in to use the restroom that aren't staying here, and I said, what is the problem? Mm. Show them the way. And you want to, you want people to feel like they belong and all walks of life, right? No matter, I don't care if they're gonna, they're not gonna buy anything there, you know? And that is what we have strived to do it, the Edwin. And I think the team has done an amazing job of that sense of belonging. Hmm. Absolutely. Well, on that note, I want to ask our final question and that is, what is a connection to a person or group of people that's changed the trajectory of your life or career? Yeah, look I, that's a good question. You know, the, the, the. People that would call mentors in my life. You know, one is my father. My father would, would push us really, really hard at a young age. And you know, I didn't know at that time what I was learning. He never had to sit me down and teach me a lot about life lessons. Because we lived it every single day. So my parents and my father, I mean, they, they are, I, I mean, I am, because of my experiences, I, I, I felt sorry for myself, you know, many, many years ago like five different elementary schools. Why are you making me do this? I mean, this is a brown kid, right? That is being moved from one elementary school to another elementary school and having to. Fit in and belong. We talked about belonging and it wasn't easy, but I look back and I'm so glad that they, they taught me, you know, the, the, this, this, no, not no entitlement. That work. You gotta work hard for everything that you want in life. You know, don't complain, don't make excuses. Plow forward and treat people. This is really, really important. Always, always treat people with the utmost respect and appreciation. And I'll end with this, that culture, we didn't get a chance to talk about culture, but maybe on the next one. But culture will define a company's destiny, but character will define an individual's. So if there's one last thing that I could that I'll share is. Always, you know, be a good person. Treat people with respect and appreciation. Good things will happen. And that's what my parents taught me at a very young age. I saw it and I lived it. And and talk about connections. Let's end with connections. Who do you want to connect with? Someone that is that you're building a genuine relationship with? Likability trust. Trust is everything right. In building that connection. And I think that that is so important. There's no shortcuts in life. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Business is a marathon, not a sprint. And I think if you do those right things I think good things happen. Wow. Well, Mitch, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This has been incredibly inspirational and I know I've learned a lot. So if people are interested in supporting you or learning more about your brand, how would they do that? Yeah, look, I mean, we, we have a website vhe hotels.com. Feel free to get on it. Everything's on there. From our little bit about our history to our portfolio of hotels throughout the country our community work that we do. So there's so much on, on our website. But yeah, we're, we're right here in downtown Chattanooga. Proud of course to be based in this great community. And even though we're in eight states and growing, but wonderful, wonderful people in this community, they're so supportive. If you're gonna start a business, there is probably not a better place to start a business than this community, so supportive. The business network and community is so supportive, but also the customer is so supportive and you won't find that everywhere because we do have hotels in many other many other states and cities, so. Wonderful place. Amazing. Well, thanks so much for being on the show today, guys. Thank you so much for being listeners of the show. Without you being here listening, this would be me just talking into a microphone pretending like I'm doing something cool. So thank you for listening to arf Connecting. If you can't just leave a five star review on Spotify, apple Podcasts, wherever you're listening, and share this episode with a friend if you got something of value out of it. Uh, this is Haydynn, your host of Art of Connecting. I'll see you on the next episode.