Gratitude "Podcast" Interview: Michael Anderson

Well, hi everybody. It's David George Brooke. That Gratitude Guy was yet again another special guest. And this one is special today on the gratitude podcast interview regarding the pandemic. This is none other than Michael Anderson, the general manager of the Columbia Tower Club, a place that I have gotten to call home and have made it really kind of my second place to be. And he does an incredible job as our GM. Mr. Michael Anderson, welcome to the podcast

Well, David, it's good to be with you, and thank you for that introduction

I wish we were together in person, but this is just about as good

It's not too bad. It's not too bad. It's getting to be kind of a close second, and it's between Zoom and FaceTime and that type of thing. It's been fun and so forth

So, as you may or may not know, the reason I'm doing this is to get really different people's perspective on what we're going through

And I know you very well, and somebody who juggles a lot of balls, as you do and it takes on a lot of responsibility

It's a good person to ask some of these questions. So I've got four or five questions for you just around kind of what we're going through

So number one, first question is, what is your best coping mechanism in dealing with something

like this coronavirus pandemic? You know, I think for me, I've been paying attention to how I feel

And, you know, any... acknowledging, you know, if I have got any anxiety or worry or what have you

recognizing it. But then what's helping me is I kind of separate it from it, give it a little bit of distance

and make sure that those feelings aren't necessarily who I am. And that, you know, I remind myself that I'm not those feelings

It's natural to worry a little bit because we don't know how long this is

going to be and there's that unknown but it's okay to have those feelings it's not good I think to

have them to dwell on them and frankly what's helped me the most is just to get engaged

and you know show up and and do things that I can do right now that matter and that are under my

control. And that's really how I've, you know, been feeling. The days I do that well, I feel

pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. And it definitely like anything, it goes where there's the, the good days

the bad days, the going half mad days, as Jimmy Buffett once said. But, and in fact, speaking of how

it changes a little bit, do you notice, has your ability to focus on what you're really grateful for

Has it changed what you're most grateful for before versus now? Did you notice it's different

in the things that you're really focusing on that you're thankful for? I definitely, I think one, because I miss, you know, contact with people

You know, I right now live alone. And so when I'm here at the club, you know, we are trying to social distance and be careful and so forth

but it helps that, you know, I interact with several of, you know, my teammates as we're trying to do things

But what I definitely, I, every day I'm trying to think in terms of, you know, look at this beautiful sunshine today, the weather we've got

You know my children and I had you know my daughter had a birthday and we did a virtual birthday party So it a matter of those types of things

I'm making sure I've got a good book and so thankful for that

And the fact that, you know, I'm healthy. I haven't had any symptoms

I've been careful. I guess I'm not so worried about that. I just hope that we get to the other end of this and can start, you know, continuing to

build our future. Yeah, exactly. And as you and I have had many conversations regarding the type of job that you have and what

it requires and you have to be so good at so many different things and accounting mind

and the marketing mind and the personnel mind and all these different pieces of that job

I likened it a lot of times. I'm sure I've said to you before being in a pilot because I've been a pilot for

number of years. You've got to be able to do a ton of things at the same time. But with that in

mind, what tips or maybe thoughts or ideas might you have for the person that doesn't quite

get as busy and now that they're homebound that they might be able to be doing why they're kind of

stuck back at the old home or condo? Well, I'm sure everyone has a list of things they wish they

had time to do. And boy, this would be a great time to click off a few of those things

And I've talked to friends. You know, it's if you're handy, maybe doing something like that, but, you know, I'm not necessarily that handy

And, and so forth. So my list is more I'm always, I've got a list of the people I haven't talked to for a while

And I want to catch up and say hello and how are they? I, you know, I've busied myself with kind of some strategic thinking

I think that as we come back through this, work-wise, the club is going to probably open back up in stages

And so what does that look like? How can we plan for that

How can we make this time period productive? so that when we come out of this, I mean, some of the interesting, you know, gratitude towards

our trying to do all of the social media and virtually learning with these tools and so forth

You know, Brittany and others, Rachel, we've gotten better at it because we had to

and we've had time to get better at it. I think the food kits and food to go and Ricardo and I, for example, were talking today

about what if we were to start making homemade pasta, homemade sauces, label it, have the Caesar salad kit and so forth

so that there's some nights our members, you know, in the future maybe

hey, I don't want to cook, but that's a fantastic meal and I can take it home with me

I mean, you'd be a perfect example. You, you know, leave four or five o'clock and take a bag with you and you've got

you know, homemade, you know, regitoni and, you know, Bordelaise sauce that

Ricardo made, you know, so so I think if all of us

think in terms of, hey, this is a great time to be creative and think outside

that's kind of trite, think outside the box, you know, that's what I recommend

others, you know, just be thinking about okay what good can come from all this Yeah And I think I been using this term a lot lately about making lemonade out of lemons and so forth and taking and seeing the silver lining through all this

pandemic and so forth. And but it kind of leads into my next question. You kind of already

answered it too, but I think again, somebody who juggles as many balls as you do and has as

much responsibility all rolled into one job in addition to your personal life and whatever is this

concept of when this is over and we know it's going to end. We don't know when. But we do

know it will end and there will be a vaccine or there will be different times where they've

flattened the curve and gone on the downside and so forth. But any other thoughts for people

what they can be doing now, why they have the time to kind of hit the ground running when this

is done? It's this, this condition we're in and where we're going. There's going to be some key

learnings that come from all this. Absolutely. And I think just like, I don't know about you, but I didn't use Zoom, I think probably once

in two years, and now I'm using it all the time. I laugh

The birthday party for my daughter, we talked about, my 91-year-old father-in-law was on Zoom

Oh, wow. And, you know, he did quite well. He held, you know, he had, he needed a few questions

He probably did better than me. And I think there's so much, you know, like Rogers, you know, has a series coming up about marketing and so forth

Using social media this way and so forth. I think those are things that I would suggest

Yeah. And, you know, the, the, there's, there's. going to be some good to come from this

Definitely. And, you know, I don't know if we'll be shaking elbows for the rest of our lives

But it's truly, you know, just also the planning of now that this has happened, I think there's

going to be a window of months where, you know, we've got to decide, I guess, how ready

do we want to be for something like this again? and have those key learnings too and so forth

But business-wise, I just, you know, I hear things about restaurants that 50% of them may not come back from this and so forth

You know, what is that going to do to our hospitality industry and the neighborhood and so forth

It's, you know, I think we just all have to, you know, I would recommend we're all

more kind. And think in terms of win-win instead of win-lose right now

Because that's going to help all of us. You know, it's a matter of, you know, trying to be good citizens

Yeah. Both in the business community, but elsewhere. It's a good point

And I think that we know that this country of ours went through 9-11 in the recession in 2008

and different things there. But this has been the first thing, I think, I can recall

it's ever affected the entire world. So we are kind of in this together. And so to be kind to other people is such a great point as well as the other things you mentioned

And which leads me kind of to my last question for Michael Anderson is

you have sort of like a quote or a philosophy or a mantra or something that kind of describes

your approach to life and how you know you and I are in the same generation We been through a lot and a lot of jobs and big responsibilities and managing people and so forth has there ever been something

that you kind of think out that kind of describes how I approach my my approach if you will to life

and people and so forth yeah you know um I I over the over the years have used um a lot of

different rituals and things to to help my help me uh you know but I think

I think the one thing that comes to mind is I get to pick my own attitude

And, you know, that no matter what happens, no matter who else is trying to influence me

that I get to pick my own attitude and that when I'm good at that

the outcomes are always far better and it enables me not to get defensive to listen better

and it really ties it all together for me I think another is not to be so hard

you know on yourself yeah you know that that sometimes speed of delivery and

getting something started is far more important and taking those first steps

then getting locked into trying to have it be perfect right from the get-go

And, you know, that, you know, so, so yes, pick your own attitude

I like that. I like that. I get to pick my own attitude and all speaks about how we

the approach we have every day can be plus, minus, can be left right, up, down

positive, negative, whatever, and it is a choice. And that's a word I use a lot, too, is it is a choice

but I also like the part about being kind to yourself. And I've said many, many times we say things to ourselves

We never say to a friend. And I just don't understand why we're so hard on ourselves

And the only explanation I have is that maybe it just pushes ourselves harder

And I'd rather we're harder in yourselves and way too easy. Like, well, that's close enough

And it's like when you talk about the metrics at CTC, always pushing to be better

whether it's the guest experience or whatever it might be. It's always good to be pushing hard

But I like that. I really, really like that. I pick my own attitude

And you may see that in the upcoming Monday morning minute. So just to be watching out for that because I like that one

I may have to steal that one from you. I've stole one trick from you

I still have an old, I'm looking at it right over here, an old Franklin planner

Oh, yeah. I do update it every year with the pages. Right. But it has the very first

task every day is attitude and I write that every day. Excellent

And then towards the bottom, I write the word gratitude. Oh, excellent

I always write down, and this is I started doing after you and I were talking

And I just, I write down things every day, a few things in the morning that I have gratitude for

And it kind of kicks the day off the right way. Yeah, it sure does

It sure does. because I heard somebody once say gratitude turns what you have into enough

So let's say it's a good way to go. Well, thank you, sir. I so appreciate

Those are great tips and ideas. And I get to pick my own attitude

I love that. You're just so reinforcing the idea that's a choice we all get to make every single day

left side of the bed or the right side of the bed. So thank you so much. I appreciate you being on the gratitude podcast

Well, David, thank you for including me. You bet. Take care. Thank you