Finding Courage in Adversity, with Lynell Gordon of Inhabit

Alex Husner  0:00  
Welcome to Alex & Annie the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie and we are joined today with a very special guest we have Lynell Gordon, who is a partner in inhabit and a fellow podcaster of the how we grow the vacation rentals show when I was such a pleasure to see you today.

Lynell Gordon  2:22  
Thank you. i It's a pleasure to be here guys.

Annie Holcombe  2:25  
We love having you around us you your energy's always so positive and infectious. So it's great to have you on the podcast

Lynell Gordon  2:31  
did OHS so we have we do? There's no question about that one.

Alex Husner  2:38  
So I was on your podcast, listen, I think probably about this time last year. And that's actually the first time that you and I had met and just really enjoyed that conversation. And then obviously, we've stayed in touch now and we go to these conferences and get to spend some time together. But just have enjoyed getting to know you. And you've had just an amazing history and background within the vacation rental space that we all know and love. But for our listeners that maybe have not met you can you just give us a little bit of background of where you came from and how you got to the amazing place you are now

Lynell Gordon  3:10  
sure so my family's in vacation rentals. When I went to school, I thought I was gonna go to law school, I wanted to be an attorney. So I got a degree in political science, took me all sets. And the first time I went to class, I was like, This is not what I want to do. I don't want to deal with other people's problems rest of my life. So went back to school for computer engineering, not recognizing the fact that it doesn't matter what you do, you're gonna deal with everybody's problems every day. It was just like, very young and naive. And so when I went back for computer engineering, I went to work for Fortune 500 companies, I wanted to do programming. I had a background in a lot of tech background in hardware, but I wanted to do software. And so I started work for a company called Corning Incorporated. They're a manufacturing company, they were pulling glass for fiber optics. And I started programming their love database program. And it was like my thing. And about three and a half years into that job. They were going to lay people off, and I was a single mom. And I thought this is gonna be a really bad thing. And I had a guy who had started out working for AOL. He had a big techie background, he was an incredible programmer. And he said, Well, let's start a company together. And I said, Okay, all right, let's do it. So they offered a severance package of six months, and I took that six months to go out and beat the hedges and get people to to work with us to do database work. And that's how my first step Tyler company was born. Me and my partner and we were asked by my sister, and this is in the days of property plus guys, you know how far this is going back? Way before verbo or Expedia or anything? Yeah. And they asked us my sister's And how about, would you please program a website for us? We're like, Yeah, we'll do a website for you. And I went to my partner said, look, I think this is maybe a good industry to get into vacation rentals. And he said, Yeah, we'll do this, we'll do this website. But he said, I don't think there's any money in it. I said, Okay. So we did the website for them. And then property plus the company at that time, asked us to do a product for them. And we were going to partner with them. And we want to do a rev share with them. And so we wrote this program that did a really cool thing. It actually was cutting edge technology, where you were able to call in, and it was an automation thing. So housekeepers would call in from the field, and it would automatically record their call. They could do all kinds of stuff in there with inspectors and all that kind of stuff. So we started out doing a program like that. And the day before we were to go to res fest. You guys remember the days of rest fest? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  5:56  
that's right. It was great. Yeah.

Lynell Gordon  5:59  
Amazing conference. Yeah. Phenomenal. It was like the best conference of the industry. And this year was in Orlando. And I got a call from one of the partners there the day before, we were supposed to go in there. And I had my mom with me, and my kid was with me. And they said, you know, we'd like to buy your product. We don't think we want to you know, we don't want to do this rev share thing. I said, Well, no, I gotta tell you in my head, guys. I was thinking Julia Roberts. When, what was it this very expensive, you know? Yeah. Yes. And I said, that's exactly what came into my mouth to Ted. I was like, Ted, it's going to be very expensive. And he offered me a low amount. Yeah, he offered me 40 grand at the time. And I was like, Well, no, I said, I'll take it on the road. I said, we'll sell it ourselves, you guys, thank you very much for the opportunity. And that's what we did. And so we started doing exclusive websites for companies, because we had really unique technology. We were one of them. We were one of the first companies to do booklets. So you could look at live on the internet. And we just took technology to its greatest lengths, and started doing really cool stuff. And we created these back ends that were elaborate. And eventually, we broke that whole back end out and began to sell it in pieces. And that's how LSI tool started. And that was my company. And I made a lot of friends. Can I just say that people that I made friends with from that point, especially my first clients, and we're still friends today, you know, it was this, this thing where I remember Scott Leggett who eventually became my CEO, years later, that he was one of our first customers. And there was like no reason for him to trust in us to help him make more money, because that was the thing we wanted to do was help everybody in vacation rentals make more reservations, that was our passion. You know, let's make more money. Let's make people work less, let's walk into an office and let's look at efficiencies and see what we can do to make their business better. And still today, I love doing that. I have a friend who is going to call me in about an hour. And she's like, and she runs a property management company. And she's like, I've taken it as far as I can we built it out. Now I need to know what I can do. And so she's calling me to consult with her on that. And it's just what I love to do. So over the years, and I've been in this business, you know, 22 years now. So he years ago, I sold my company to inhabit, really believed in what inhabit was doing Can I just say it was I talked to my clients at the time. And I said it's a unicorn and rainbow story. And it truly is because it's a unicorn. And there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow watch and see, because what they were doing and what they did was they took the best in class in different companies, whether it was a PMS company, see they don't just have short term rentals, they have long term rentals to Sam long term rental software, short term rental software, a lot of those things we can learn from each other, especially you guys out there that are property managers that do both long term and short term, you know that there's an overlap there, there's a great overlap, especially with real estate sales, and with vacation rentals, or long term rentals, too. So it's just a marriage made in heaven. They took all these companies and put them together. And you know, it takes a while to put technology together. Imagine this Imagine you are a property manager. And you say, Okay, I want this property management. So I want my property management software to do this. I want my housekeeping to do this. Because in my business model, I need for this to happen. And so being able to pick a one, this is my processor, I want this person to do my insurance. I want this kind of insurance, and maybe I want to insurances, maybe I want an insurance that will you know, Cancel for any reason, but I also want another insurance for my property owners to do XYZ and you have all these products. And it's to me it's like your here's a here's a checkbox, tick, tick, tick, I want this, I want that I want this, I want that. But I want them all to work together. Because from my point of view coming from LSI tools, I worked with all the PMS is and we integrated with all of the software's. And if my company, my client came to me and said, I need XYZ, I'd say no problem. Let's go. Let's go to breezeway, breezeway, we'll help you with this, you know, we have this product, but this might work better for this particular thing that you want to do. And so being able to have a whole choice of products to me, I thought it was like a unicorn and rainbow story. And I'm still excited, I still look anytime you grow. There's always growing pains, but they've done an incredible job in the last three years, and especially in this last year, bringing things together in a way that really helps their clients. We've had a lot of people come back from other property management systems, to, you know, the systems that we have in place because they, they were promised a lot of things that didn't happen. And they were disheartened, because they couldn't do business, they wanted to do business. And that's my passion. You want to do business in a certain way, you should be able to do it on the West Coast, they do business totally different than on the East Coast. You guys know that. When they sign their contracts totally different. If they even sign a contract, they may sign just what they call an addendum, blah, blah, blah. So there you go, what, so what I've done is I sold my business to inhabit and I said, What do you need me to do, I will do anything at all, to help us grow, because this is what I believe in eventually, that you know, I, I have to tell you, I'm very happy. I think they've done a great job. And I'm very excited with what's going to happen over the next couple of years. And especially what's happened in the last year, they spent a lot of that time improving all of the products that they have. So I'm excited to see what happens in the next nine months. Well, let's get

Annie Holcombe  11:48  
it sounds like you're your baby, you were able to kind of give it to them and trust them that they were going to do do right by what you've developed. And it's interesting the way you describe what inhabit is doing because we recently talked to CJ Stam, Julie bird and Travis Wilburn, and we had a conversation about the all in one technology that a lot of the PMS is are trying to do. And I think you guys have taken it in a different direction where you have all the components within your company. But to your point, everybody operates differently in their region, their market, their their style of business, their size of their business, there's so many differentiators between the different levels and different operators. And so trying to have an all in one that is fits everybody is is nearly impossible. And what you guys do is that you have you know, you have a basically a store shelf that people can go in and pull the components off that they're looking for, to suit their business need. And I think that that's a really smart play, and a smart way to handle what this business is evolving into. Because again, it's it's going in so many different directions, you've got people that never want to scale past 10. And then you've got people that want to scale to 3000. And then there's people that operate somewhere in the middle. So to think that any one software could answer all of those pieces, and parts into your point of view, some have short term, some have long term, mid term is really hot these days, too. So I applaud that kind of thinking. And I think what you guys are doing is really smart.

Lynell Gordon  13:15  
I think it works well. And I think it takes anything time to get off the ground. You guys know that. Even in property management, it takes you a while. And like you said there are people that don't want to grow past 100. There are people that don't want to grow past 25. There are people that have 13 properties, and it's there all these luxury properties is all they can do to make it work recently, I was approached by someone who said lanell, we have 20,000 units, do you think that you know, this particular software can handle it? I'm like, I know it can handle it. No, I don't have to think about those things. I know what's on the backend now. So I was able to take my products and respect them to people like I would spend time with engineers. And I would they would say, Okay, how is this working? It's okay, now you need to do this. And if you do that, that will do that will do it for these coasts if you do it this way. But if you do it this way, it'll work for the West Coast. And so I didn't have any desire to keep LSI in perpetuity, I wanted it to be sucked in to other softwares because that's where it was useful. Think about it. LSI was not a property management system. We were not an accounting system. We had all different types of products. We have products for owners, we have products for guests, we had a lot of communication, a lot of automated communication to save people time in the office. And so what I wanted was I wanted every PMS at an habit to have everything that LSI did built in. And I wanted to make sure that everything and if they couldn't build it in or for couldn't be because it was too complex. For it to work hand in hand. No problem, no problem. We can have it installed and it'll sit right on top. It'll talk back and forth. That's the important thing. The problem we have when we install so many different software's and property management is they don't talk to each other and you end up To double entry, you end up with two different pieces of software that may do the same thing, but they don't match up. For instance, if you took key data, rental insights, and wheelhouse if you took rev Max and you put them all next to each other, and you fed them all the same data, they would spit out different things and look at it differently. It depends on when that was specked out the very base what it did. So it wasn't hard for me to say, you know, here's where it should be in key data, here's where it should be an LSI. Here, it should be in redmax. If you look at wheelhouse, if you look at price labs, here's where it should be, you know, here's what you're looking at. So I think the ability to choose products, keep your base, keep your property management system that you love and be able to build on top of that, and have a tech stack that actually works. Our biggest problem, and I think I said this to you, Alex, when we talk, we have all the software's as property managers, and we don't use them, we don't use them to the to the fullest of our ability, we just don't. And that's because there's, it's because of a couple of things. Either we don't have the manpower, we don't know that that product does that. And that's another thing, we don't do a really great job in the enterprise software level. Normally, we send out these communications that say we did this update, and here's what you can do. Now, it's really cool stuff, even with Zoom, or with say, Microsoft 365, those types, they don't either. So it's just a really hard thing to do those update notes and have new training every year. But that's one of my favorite things, especially about this phone call this afternoon. I know that this company is not using their software to the extent that they can. So I'm really excited to help them by saying, hey, push this, and this will make it happen. Right?

Alex Husner  16:42  
Yeah. And I think you know, it's with the technology, but it's with so many other things in the space that I'm seeing, too, that, you know, property managers, they, they're very busy, whether you're the owner of the company, the GM, actual property manager reservation, as you're busy doing your actual job that, in a lot of cases, to be able to learn every different new functionality, or existing functionality of what you have in a product is really cumbersome. And it's like, you know, that's where the conferences are helpful, so that they can be open, have their minds open to things or, you know, working with people like, like you or for me on the advertising side, that, you know, it's not just the tech, I mean, just looking at agencies and the advertising work that's being done, and just not having the time or necessarily the background to know what questions to ask and what is even possible. I think that's that's kind of led to the technology providers in the space really guiding where things have gone in the industry, because it's like, there's just not always been great feedback from managers, because that's not really what they do. You know, I mean, like they're, they're brought these things that have been developed. And sometimes things get developed in silos that they probably aren't necessary. But there's a lot of push on it. But I want I wanted to go back to a couple of things you said from when we first got started, because I think there's some interesting things here and aligns with what you're just talking about with the software. But back in the day, and this is probably around when you started doing bookings for websites. The switch was a big initiative of Verma. I'm sure you remember that. And just as a blast from the past history lesson for anybody who's recently gotten into this space, the switch was supposed to be basically a connector between all the vacation rental companies and how we wanted our information displayed on verbo. There was no Airbnb at that point. But like it was kind of the collaborative getting together on it. And it ended up imploding. It never came to existence they chose, I can't remember what company it was maybe Amadeus it was a hotel based technology provider that was going to build it. And it never came to fruition. But you look back to those days. And I remember those days that we had online booking at condo world for well before then. But most vacational companies did not have online booking. And at that point, it was like the switch was almost it was it was too early for something like that to come on the scene. First, you needed to get people to the ability to be able to actually even take payments and books online. But just those days were so interesting. And like you see how fast and how far we've come since then it's like these conversations just would never even been in anyone's minds back then.

Lynell Gordon  19:18  
So they put a bid out for the switch. They put a bid out to all the technology companies to put something together and we put something together and they chose ours. They chose our proposition to do the switch. And let me tell you what. So yeah, so this is how I didn't even know.

Annie Holcombe  19:34  
We're getting a really good lesson here. So

Lynell Gordon  19:36  
we wrote it, and we implemented it. And then here's what happened. We ended up in Austin, Texas. I think it was Austin. So the whole Verma board was there. We're all sitting around this table and quite frankly, I'm the only woman at the table. That's the truth. Surprise. We talked to them. We said look, if you don't choose to do the switch, if you don't choose To do this vacation rental switch, then what's going to happen is this, everybody's going to put their data somewhere, that company where you put the data, if it's not this Co Op that we create, they're going to own the data. And they're going to own it for a long time. It'll take a while. But they'll own your data. And you won't be able to make reservations without them, especially in places where direct bookings are not going to be the deal. And I remember when they did that, I turned to what was before a verb over bow after that vote was done. And they voted to go with the other provider. And I shook his hand, I said, Congratulations, you're going to make a lot of money in the next 10 years. I did because that was the truth. And, and there are certain areas of the US that chose not to participate. And they chose to try to push direct bookings. And today, because I know for a fact some of those markets still have 99% direct bookings. But at that time, think about how SEO was what happened with SEO in that time. When you put data out on a WebPart page, the way that Google at the time, the way that the SEO was and the way I read it, it content was King remember you still hear that now but not like it was then as it was at the very beginning. If you put if you put three bedroom oceanfront emerald down Realty. Then anytime, you know, vacation rental anytime anybody would search for vacation, rental ocean, you know, oceanfront vacation rental, emerald oil that would come up. So SEO at that point was incredibly credibly important. It is today, but it's in a different way today. Back then we owned it, we literally LSI our clients. Remember I said we had an exclusive clientele. They owned those areas. Anytime there was a search, they and they came up first. But eventually what happened was they created the database of the verbose stock off, you know, all the all the vacation rental by owners and all those everybody put all their stuff there. And that became the place that people went to look for vacations. And it still is, if you look, you know, there's still a great deal. They still own a large part of the market and and made a gazillion dollars. But that could have been verbs that could have been VRBO. I mean, VRMs they chose not to hang steak. There's a pretty woman again, oh,

Annie Holcombe  22:28  
my gosh.

Lynell Gordon  22:31  
So now I'm doing Yeah, about a year and a half ago, and habit came to me and they said, Linda, we want to do a podcast. I was overseas at the time. My husband is a biblical scholar. And he examines ancient Hebrew manuscripts and ancient manuscripts, Greek, Hebrew, all kinds of things. And we were over some little country A rinky dink airport, trying to remember were waiting on a flight that had been like 12 hours overdue. And they gave me a call. And they said, Linda, we want you to do a podcast. I said, we're doing a podcast. And I said, that's great. Awesome. What can I do to help? They're like, we want you to host it. And I said, Great. Okay. Okay. I don't know what that means. But okay, I can make it happen. And it's probably the most the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. The podcasts are vacation rentals for me, is so cathartic. talking with people about vacation rentals is like, the easiest thing ever. I remember, somebody said to me, and I won't say who was somebody asked me lanell? How have you gotten so many downloads? And I said to them, I have no idea. I really honestly do not know, I do not know, I assume it's because I have really great guest. Like you, Alex, you know, I have a really great list, like you, Annie, you know, on the show that that know about vacation rentals, I hope that it will help people, you know, I hope it will help people to grow their business, and give them new ideas, the same way that we do when we get together at our conferences and people. You know, they come and they say I have this problem. You were talking about technology, Alex and the way that sometimes tech technologist and the technology companies just go off and do their own thing. But a lot of the technology should come out of that big why are the big problem? What's your problem? Tell me what's your biggest challenge? And I try to ask everybody that comes on the program. Now, what's your biggest challenge? So we know so people will know out there our biggest challenge and Property Management at this point? And what it is so yeah,

Alex Husner  24:30  
I guess my life? Well, we've built the same way. I mean, I cathartic is certainly one of the words I would use and just fulfilling you know, and you've learned so much from being on the other side of the mic. And we were just talking before we started that you had John Suzuki on your show. And I just listened to that this morning and talked about how you know it's also cathartic for the person that you have on the show, to be able to talk about their experience because we've all if you're in this business, if you've Been in it as long as we all have, you have some sort of a love for the industry, and certainly for the people. And it's fun to tell the stories. You know, I mean, I can't even imagine 1015 years from now how many more stories I'll have. But I mean, the ones that I've got so far pretty darn good. You've done a great job with your show. And and I think you're spot on that the podcasts have become, I think, in a lot of cases, actually a better vehicle than conferences to get a lot of these conversations out there in a way that anybody can listen to them. Not everybody can go to all the conferences or any of the conferences. So we stumbled into this, we were doing clubhouse and just thought, we'll just start a podcast and had no idea what we were doing. But the consistencies is what I can say. I think

Annie Holcombe  25:48  
the reason you get so many downloads is because you were so easy to talk to and you're easy to listen to. And I think that you have this way of pulling information. I know when I was on your show, it was like way in the beginning, when I had done a lot of like one on one podcast, it was just like we'd done the clubhouse we'd started our podcast, but I had not done like an interview that was just me, it was me and me and Alex interviewing people. And so, but I remember, like, you just drew things out of me, because you're so easy to talk to. And I think that that's the thing about podcasts, and we have found with our show is that people like it, because it's just a regular conversation. We're not trying to be salesy. We're not trying to, you know, give the guest and our essay we want the guests have an opportunity to talk about their business, for sure. But it's more about like, why did you create this? Why are you in this business? What is your passion? Where? Where are you deriving your joy from it, and I think that you are able to share that with your guests and yourself. And you and I know just knowing you personally, you were just a very joyful person. So that's why you're successful in it. Yeah,

Lynell Gordon  26:51  
thank you, I find people fascinating. I think that think about how surface level we are most of the time, you know, I've traveled so much I have very little time to, to have friends. And that's the truth. There are there are very close friends that I've had for years and years, but most of the time, if we want to have friends, we have to spend time with them. So I would suggest that all of us that like each other so much in this business, for real there are people I genuinely have huge respect for. And any you're one of them and Alex you know, you're one of them, too. I mean, I've I've talked to you both personally, we should do like a getaway like girls get Friday, a Shabbat, you know, take like a weekend or literally and we go, we go do things together and enjoy time together. Another thing that people do in this industry that is very helpful, especially in property managers, guys, listen to this. Find other property managers that you like, and I know you're in groups, but find people that you like that do what you do that aren't in your competitive area, go spend a weekend and just just relax. Because when you were allowed to talk about things, and there's a lot of problem solving to be had. Because even though we do business differently in Rome, think about Susan doe, who I love, observes, you know her business and she's she's she's focusing on South Africa this year, she's gonna be doing Safaris. That's different than what, say Rochelle, my sister does at Holden beach. But they still have the same kind of marketing issues. They have marketing issues that are similar. They have communication issues that are similar. They have accounting issues that are very similar how to take money, how to put money away, how to, you know how to where to put it and how to do well, not where to put it in North Carolina, they're pretty darn cool.

Annie Holcombe  28:40  
I pretty much tell you where

Lynell Gordon  28:44  
I actually walked away from my business in 2015, I could no longer work with my partner. It was very

Alex Husner  28:50  
the marketing business or the rental business.

Lynell Gordon  28:53  
It was LSI yeah, I've had a bunch I haven't, but I created another business from that. But at LSI we could no longer work together. It was a very abusive relationship. And that doesn't I'm not saying he's a bad person, you know, he was a bad person. He's no longer with us. But it was very abusive to me. And so I we decided one of us has to go and anybody that's been in business with partners, you know, sometimes that happens, even if you're not in business, even if you're just working for them, or they're working for you. Sometimes they have to go or you have to go. So I decided to leave. And I opened up a real estate company, which I loved. It's called an ECB it was called unseenbeaches. It funded it for the time being, I still have my URLs and everything. But I started selling real estate. And oh my gosh, now let me tell you, that's the most fun you've ever had in your life. That is you building that business from the bottom up, doing all the cold calling, like I literally walk Oh, yeah.

Alex Husner  29:49  
So much in the world.

Lynell Gordon  29:53  
So I started that. I did that for a couple of years, actually for about 18 months, and I made more money at that I'd made it anything else in my life. Oh, yeah. The chairman of the board called me and said You have to come back to work. You have to come back to LSI. Yeah. So no way am I looking at, yeah, one of my first clients, James W. Smith, down in poli sci, Sloane and, and Jimmy and chat. And I mean, there's still there's still such sweetie, I still have great memories. I actually was looking back, I just found an email between us. Like, yesterday when I was looking and I, I had my resignation letter. So I did that for a while. And I really loved selling real estate I have and I still have my broker's license, I learned a lot about what some of the things that my clients were going through, which was really good. But anyway, then I had to come back and run LSI. And I did that for another couple of years until I could sell it so

Alex Husner  30:51  
well, I think you've worked in so many different facets of the industry, which is why you have such a great perspective. I mean, not only within the technology, the marketing, but also in the actual product and the real estate side in the rental business in the podcasting side. So you've you're very well rounded. I'd say as far as your experience in it, we'll be back in just a minute after a word from our premier brand sponsor turnout.

wanted to touch on some things, switch gears just a little bit, because I think you're inspirational for people, whether they're in this industry or not, and just just your mindset, and I know you're a very spiritual person, I know that you are very thoughtful and intentional person as well. And I really loved what you shared in that episode with John Suzuki about goal setting and not just thinking about goal setting from a company perspective, but from your for your personal self. And that's, you mentioned that you have written down your goals, I think since 2015. Is that when you started or was it, or was it forever,

Lynell Gordon  34:15  
forever.

Alex Husner  34:15  
Maybe I'm crossing my story there because I started in 2015 or 2016, I started writing down my goals every day. And I I'd say probably about 90% of the time, I still do it every day. And when I started that it made a huge difference in my life. And I think what you write down and what you are intentional about does become what what your life is. So just maybe if you could just share with our listeners a little bit about you know, how much journaling and just intention has made a difference in your life.

Lynell Gordon  34:44  
So productivity is really important no matter what we're doing, no matter what our job is. And I have found that on a personal level, writing down my problems and what my thoughts are and the difficulties that I'm going through and praying about those is really important because I can go back three years later, and I can look at that what I was dealing with. And I look and see what God's done in my life for that. I also write down like, right now my list is at 22 things that I have to do that I want to get done in the next today, yesterday, I want them done. You know, there are things that I have to do. And there are things that we put off, there's some sort of techniques that you can use, depending on how you process life, that'll help you, one of the things that seems to help everyone is being able to make a list of the things, your goals, what you need to do what you want to do. If you if you want to grow your company, from 25 to 50 properties, there's a big technology gap there, that happens during that particular thing, there's also a lot of other things you have to do, you don't just have to get owners, you have to provide the services you need for that you there are so many back end things that you have to do. And your goal may actually not be to get to 50 properties, your goal might be to get to $3 million in profit. And in order to do that, there may be more ways to do it than you think. So writing down your problem or your goal, then thinking about the way to get to that you may get to that goal of an extra million dollars by doing like doing a technology to help you do early check in or even doing early check ins that may you know at 150 a pop, you could get $30,000 A season, there's 30,000 of that million that you're looking for, or 100,000, or whatever it is, you know what I'm saying? writing down what you have to do. And then writing your thoughts down each day, you're not going to be able to solve all your problems every day, we none can, you know we walk through life and life is not easy. There are times that it's easier than others. But if you sit down and you're thoughtful about where you want to be in three years, or where you want to be next week, depending on where you are in your own life, it's a lot easier to find those solutions, if you write them down. And then if you get to the place that you're stuck, you can always ask somebody, okay, here's my thoughts. Here's where I'm thinking, you know, here's where I want to be, here's where I am. And I can't think I you know, I don't know how to get there. That's one thing, okay. The other thing is when you're managing your own business, or you're managing your own life, having a list and walking through that list makes you more productive anyway. Because you don't forget things. I don't know about you. But I remember my phone number. My address is about it. You know, I have like that list of 22 things. I can't tell you one thing on it right now, as I think about it, not one, but they're all in my notebook. I moved my notebook from right here into the kitchen, where my husband and I do Bible studies. Every morning we're preparing a study for Passover. It's on Hamas, the word Hamas is in the Bible. And we're looking at everywhere that the Bible uses the word Hamas and what it means and what it's saying. And we're looking at all the prophecy, the prophetic pieces. Well, not all of them. But we're looking at two in particular that that use some Austin that forgot actually talks about Hamas there. And we're going to hopefully do a webinar. It'll be my first webinar. You guys pray for me think think about me. I've never done a webinar before. So it's a big difference podcasting webinar, huge to me, because I want to do polls, I want to get feedback from the audience. And so that's a new thing for me. So we're going to be doing that in April. So we're doing the studies now. But I write down everything. And it is there are a lot of studies you guys can look them up that show that if you write down your thoughts that it relieves stress, you're a lot less stressful about something when you've written a problem down. And that's really cathartic. Yeah, isn't that cathartic? Started

Annie Holcombe  38:43  
a day,

Lynell Gordon  38:44  
Alex, how you're doing?

Annie Holcombe  38:45  
I used to journal I used to journal a lot and I started I got a gift actually someone that we had on the podcast send us a gift and one of them was a was a book. Right here The Five Minute Journal? Yeah,

Alex Husner  38:55  
yeah. I wanted every day since I started. So

Annie Holcombe  38:59  
I've been doing I got to be fully transparent say I'm not doing it every day. I've tried. I'm but I'm but I'm, it's better. Like I, you know, I when I was younger, I used to journal all the time. But I think because it's in the small little nuggets. But it's interesting because like the it's the focus of like, start your day on a good note and end your day, like, you know, with gratitude of what you've accomplished, and to your point, you're not going to do everything, you're not going to be able to solve all your problems, but if you can chip away at it, that's progress. And that's you know, that's that's what we are as humans, we just we little progress at a time. And you you brought up your your religious studies, and I wanted to touch on that because I think that that's one of the things that I love about you. It's like you're just this multifaceted person and you have all these all these layers to you. They're not like overly complicated, I would say but they're they're very important and they're just so different and not that they are in conflict with each other but they're just things that you just would never I never know about you until you get the chance to know Villanelle. So I would tell anybody out there, if you have the opportunity to sit with lanell, like, sit with lanell It's, it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful experience. But the last year in your life has been very, it's been full of a lot a source of anxiety and stress and horror, and sorrow and joy and all of the all of the things. And you handled it with a lot of grace and a lot of humility. And I remember the first time I was able to see you after things happened in Israel, and you had been in Israel when the bombings or the attacks had happened. And I remember just seeing you and it was just such a, I don't know, I felt overwhelmed by it, because I just wanted to hug you so bad. But you were just you were just very thoughtful about the way you told us about your experience. And it wasn't coming from a place of anger. And it wasn't coming from a place of pity me it was we need to do something. And I think that you've taken your position in life, and you're doing something with it. And I would love to hear more about what it is that you are doing. Because I think you're doing a lot of studying, you're doing some things, you've been going back and forth to Jerusalem and doing some things. And I just I think it's again, it's different. But we just have so many fascinating people in our business and learning about it is wonderful.

Lynell Gordon  41:22  
Yeah, October 7 was a big day for us. We were there when when the attack happened and when the when the bomb when they started shooting rockets at us. And I think that in those situations where you literally your life is literally in danger. It gives you time to think about what's important to you. It really does. And I'll be real Frank, my my thought was, as we were sitting in the bomb shelters, with my husband, I like to think about was, you know, I'm fine. If you know, I've had a very good life, God has been so good to me. If this is my last day on the planet, I'm just happy I'm here with my husband, because he is the most incredible human being on the planet. I didn't know that you could be this happy with someone he told me last night. I mean, it's just he said, I have such a good relationship with my husband. And I waited a long time, I never thought I would get married. Again. I had I had been married. It was a really bad marriage. And I don't know why I picked abusive people, but I did in my life. And I know there are women that do that. Maybe it's because we're straw i i don't know somebody psychologically much more knowledge psychologically than I do have those types of things for psychology. No, but I don't. But with my husband, he said to me last night, he said, Have you always been this cute, always your whole life? And is it it's just you who thinks I'm cute. And I kind of you know, you just we just fit together? We're just puzzle pieces. He's just like the most amazing person. But what I wanted to do, and you're right, the first thing we thought about when all those people were killed in kidnap, the first thing you think about is what can I do to help you and what is it that I can do? And I found that the Israeli people are so resourceful. The day after the attacks, I was I drove to my sister in law's house. She's my sister. As much as you know, my sister, sister I love Don't get me wrong. I love my sister. She's like the best person in the whole wide world. But so are my sister in law's. And I consider them just as close family. They're lovely, lovely, lovely. And they were collecting all the supplies. Because what happened was, when the attack happened, they called in all the reserves. All the young men in the country. And they didn't say come in tomorrow, come in next week come in, in three days. They said Come now drop everything. They had no underwear. They had no deodorant, the women and the you know, their women's soldiers, their women in combat there. They had no, no feminine products. A husband said it's the first time ever about feminine products in my life. You know, when we went shopping, and there was a huge shortage of those things. And so what they did was everybody got together and bought as much as they could. And they took them in carloads, and they took them in, in plastic bags, and they took them to the front to where they were and gave them two units so they could give them out. There weren't even enough to look through fests, you know, to go around, they didn't care. And I, I'll just tell you upfront, I'm a Zionist. I truly believe that the Jews should have a place to live. I think they should have a place where they can practice their own religion, their own country. I think everybody should you know, I'm not I'm not saying that against anyone I'm saying that for for someone, the difficult parts there. And it was really difficult. I have Tiktok videos mostly for this. And there were there were a lot of unsafe places that we went a lot of very unsafe things that we did, one of the most touching things I did was three days after the attacks, I went down to where they were hosting them, it was a displacement camp is what it was. I don't know if you know what that is. But that's like after, after the concentration camps, they put people in displacement camps, because they didn't have anywhere else to hide them. And so they didn't have anywhere to house them, not hide them, nowhere else to house them. And so they housed these people who were in the cupboard says they housed them with the Dead Sea. Guys, the Dead Sea is one of the most beautiful places in the whole wide world. It's stunning. The water. If you look online, at some of the pictures there, you'll see the water is like this crystal blue, like the sea through Blue. Like you can put your hand in the water and you can see it easily you can see your feet no matter where you are at the Dead Sea. It's stunningly gorgeous. And the backdrop so I went there because I I wanted people to be able to tell their stories. You know, there's a couple of ways you get over that type of situation that happens your life my father was murdered in front of me. And I remember afterwards, I talked to everybody about it strangers, everyone, you know, he was shot to death in front of me and died in my arms. And I knew that these people had seen that with their loved ones with their children, with their parents, with their, with their husband and wives. They were there. And they saw them killed in front of their eyes. So I went down and I thought I would take as many stories as I could, for whoever wanted to speak not trying to get news. Listen, the news was there. The Real News was there. Not the first day when I was there, but the second day when I was there, and I just said, my sister, my sisters, our optometrists, both of them. One of them is president of Posada, one of the optical called one of the college's medical colleges there in Jerusalem. I can't believe it came out of my head. She's going to hit me with that. No, no, she would never She adores me. But um, I can't remember the name of it. And she just became president. But anyway, they both came down and they took all this medical equipment, because when people were taking it, this happened at 630 in the morning. So they got on a bed and render their bomb shelters, they didn't take time to put on their contacts or put on their glasses. So these people had no glasses. And they had no they had no clothes. Actually, a lot of them came in their pajamas. A lot of them were disrobed and came without any clothes. And so people brought all those types of things. But they were they're giving eye exams. And I said, I'll go down, and you talk to them. Anybody that wants to talk about the situation, let them know, I will record it. And I will put it out there. And so that's what I did. And I think that when we're in situations that are difficult in our life, we should think about this. One day, someone who's been through that type of situation may come into your life. And when they do, you want to have the opportunity to to help them in any way that you were helped when you went through it. And I can tell you, when I went through that situation with my dad, God helped me. And I knew that if and I just needed to talk about it, and there was nobody to talk to. So I talked to complete strangers that my dad died. Imagine that. And that's just a part of the part of the trauma, you know, that I went through and how I handled it. And so I thought I could help people that way. So I did that. We also raised $100,000, and gave it directly to two people to help them on this rug out I was really proud of that. That was a lot of money. I thought that would help us to really not a lot of people raise a lot more. But that was my husband and I that's what we could do. So that's what we did. And there's a big story there. I am going to write a book. And that'll be that'll be a part of it. But But mostly, I have to tell you, mostly right now I'm working on technology, trying to get the nonprofit that my husband has and that we're working on trying to get that to a place that it's automated technology. You know, you always want it to be at a place where you don't have to have so many people you can afford to do things. But I want to talk to women about trauma that they've been through in their lives specifically about abuse, because I have a lot of experience there. And help people that listen to those damaged and telling stories about people talking to women who've been through it and walked out of it. Those kinds of people can help other people because they Oh, I see myself there. This is what they did. Maybe if I do this, I can get out of the situation. So that's really my passion. And the next year I'm going to start that podcast and already had my first 12 guests and that's as far as it's gotten. I'm too busy right now. So Wow. Well 12 the lot. That's my story to it. Yeah.

Alex Husner  49:57  
It's amazing. Isn't that you've raised that much money, that is a lot of money. And it's also amazing, the intangible value of what you gave those people of just listening to them, I think that there's, there's so much there and they won't forget you because of that, you know, that's, that's very impactful for somebody in that situation. But, yeah, you've had a heck of a year for sure. And you've, you've seen a lot, you've done a lot. And that's, it's a lot, at the end of the day, it is a lot. I think the book would be wonderful. It probably will also be cathartic for you, you know, to get all those experiences out onto paper, and help more people, you know, I mean, that's, that's about at this point, it's like, how can you scale your knowledge and experience to people? And that's wonderful. Yeah,

Lynell Gordon  50:42  
life is about? Yeah, really.

Annie Holcombe  50:44  
I was gonna say, like, you know, we've talked to people, we're in hospitality. And I go back to some reading that I did, Deepak Chopra wrote some books years ago, and I got head into them just like loved him. And one of the principles that he talks about it, and I've kind of, it's been something that stuck with me was that we're all born with a heart, you know, with hospitality to give and serve and, and be there for people. And if you go through your life, and you share your hospitality, and you are hospitable to people, and you're gracious, and you have gratitude, that eventually the buckets of everybody that, you know, they're outstretched and you're filling them up, there is going to overflow back to you. And I think that that's the nice thing about like, what we do in our industry, is that we're helping people create these memories through our hospitality, that eventually it comes back to us in the form of, you know, more business or referrals, or whatever it is. But the common thread with people that are in our side of the business, or like this professionalized side is that desire to help people that desire to see people succeed and thrive, whatever it is, and what you've done. Well, it's just It's so heartwarming, and I'm sorry that you went through it, I really, truly am all the things that you've been through, but very grateful that you that you've stayed in the business and share that with all of us.

Lynell Gordon  52:08  
There's one more thing that I would suggest to us that I do keep in the back of your journal, especially if you travel like it, you should keep like three or four thank you cards. Now I keep boxes of thank you cards right in my kitchen where I do my journaling, because I like to you talk about gratitude, and anything that can't be that can't be overstressed. Gratitude is such an important part of our growth as humans, and it's an important part of our growth. So what I do is I take out a thank you card, and I in the mornings, and I try to do at least one a week. Okay, I try. I was there doing one, like, every day, I was doing one, and then it got to be too much. And I was like, Okay, once a week, I'm gonna do this. And I think about one person that I'm grateful to. And, you know, it may not even be somebody I know very well. But I write them a thank you note, I tell them why I'm thinking I try to be very genuine. One thing that they taught us when I don't remember I was going through some business class, you know, I did a lot of business classes was that when you think an employee when you tell them they did a good job, be very specific, what did they do a good job at? Because otherwise, it's a platitude. So we don't I'm not, I'm not talking about platitudes. With this gratitude letter, it's a letter that says thank you, because you touched my life, because this is what you did. And it doesn't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be well written. It just has to be honest, and sending those out. I mean, that means a lot to people to know that you actually thought about them. I mean, the fact anyone you said, you know, I thought about you, I wanted to hug you. I had so many people that thought that and that did reach out. And even afterwards, they said, You know, I was thinking about you, I knew that because God preserved my life going through some very serious things that you know, it take it would take, it would take a lot to pull some of that out of me because we don't talk about it afterwards. When we got back. I had like, I had videos with a million views, you know, and I had like, tons of followers and I just dot posting completely. I couldn't I didn't have it in me. You know, I didn't have the emotional money to spend there. And it just this Hamas teaching that next time and are doing we he's just gotten to the place that he can he can talk about it. So I'm really looking forward to the Passover teaching. I'll send you guys links because it's really gonna be he's so smart. And he's so interesting. He's just fabulously interesting. And you don't have to like religion, or even like Israel to like the teaching if you if you if you like interesting historical things. It'll be fun to listen to, ya know, I'd

Alex Husner  54:46  
love to check it out. Yeah, another podcaster Yeah,

Lynell Gordon  54:50  
he is podcasting wants to teach me a lot he could teach me a lot. The first time I read the first time that we Did recording and we did some we do some TV recordings to the first time we did a TV recording, I had some very seasoned people sitting there in front of me. And I was so nervous. I was like, I have no idea what to do. So you just, it's like you guys, you know, you're just yourself then you know you don't know what you do. You just You just be yourself and you okay, it is what it is whatevs. Afterwards, he had some really good advice for me, and I really appreciated that. But um, yeah, I'm up for any advice anybody has for podcasting. I'm there, I'll take any constructive criticism, anything

Annie Holcombe  55:29  
you have to say, oh, Villanelle thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing, we just adore you. And I can't say how grateful so grateful to know you. And I'm gonna cry because I just, I just, I know what you've been through. And just so cherish our friendship with you. And thank you for your very kind.

Lynell Gordon  55:48  
I cherish our friendship too. Yeah. And you guys, I wish you the best of luck at everything that you do and everything that you're going through. I know you're going to be successful. I know you're going to be successful at whatever you put your hand to, because you're so genuine. And if there's anything I can do, you let me know, I'm here. We're friends. And let's do a girls weekend. Come on, we should get a group of like 810 Girls, I know where we can rent a vacation rental. Mike might know a couple of people that have some houses that we could go play at. Well, I was gonna say I'm gonna be in Holden beach next week. And Alex, you should come see me. I gotta get my vacation rental ready for the season, you should come down. You should you should bring your family handy. You should come to you guys should come and just spend the weekend with me. We should play together a little bit. I don't know what I'm going to I do what they tell me to get in habit. If they want me at a conference, I'll be there. I am not I've been at every conference that there's been for the last 20 something years. So I'm not unhappy at missing any. But I'm, I'm going to continue to do the podcast and I'm actually reaching out to, to a lot of the clients that inhabit they have me you know, I'm helping people consulting with them to help them with a vacation rental. So anybody if you need help, if you need help in your business, and you just want somebody to talk to about it, give me a text, hit me up on LinkedIn, I think that you can email me at lanell Gordon, the number four at Gmail, that's my personal email address. Or you can hit me up on LinkedIn. There's somebody that monitors that with me, which is really helpful. So if you get a if you look, if you get a message got under tell you if you guys get a message asking to go on the podcast, on my podcast, please say yes, because we're actually there are people that were re inviting that I really said, you know, we just didn't get enough time with them. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And I pray that God bless you guys. And all you do.

Annie Holcombe  57:39  
Thank you, Lynell. I

Alex Husner  57:40  
absolutely Same to you. Thanks for having me if anybody wants to get in touch with Andy and I can go to Alex and Danny podcast.com and thanks for tuning in everybody.