Have you ever wondered what it's like to climb the ranks in the bustling world of hospitality and emerge a leader in business advocacy? Steve McLellan, the former CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, joins us to share the rich tapestry of his career, from its humble beginnings inspired by a book and a cooking show, to reaching the pinnacle of his profession. His narrative is peppered with the timeless tenets of customer service and the joy of serving others—lessons that resonate whether you're a veteran in the service industry or just starting to chart your course.
Throughout our conversation, we touch on the nuances and shifts within the workplace that have shaped today's entrepreneurial landscape. Steve recounts the evolution from personal business ownership to becoming a voice for businesses at large, shedding light on the pressures and pleasures that come with the territory. His insights encapsulate the necessity of confidence and the power of a resilient spirit in facing the challenges and changes that come with any career.
The episode rounds out with a contemplative look at the transition to retirement. Steve doesn't just offer a roadmap; he provides a compass for navigating this significant life change with intention and preparation. From crafting a robust transition plan to seeking fulfillment through community involvement and mentorship programs like "Mission Possible," Steve's approach to retirement is anything but dormant. His story doesn't end with a farewell to a successful career, but rather with the exciting prospect of leveraging his expertise in new, impactful ways.
Have you ever wondered what it's like to climb the ranks in the bustling world of hospitality and emerge a leader in business advocacy? Steve McLellan, the former CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, joins us to share the rich tapestry of his career, from its humble beginnings inspired by a book and a cooking show, to reaching the pinnacle of his profession. His narrative is peppered with the timeless tenets of customer service and the joy of serving others—lessons that resonate whether you're a veteran in the service industry or just starting to chart your course.
Throughout our conversation, we touch on the nuances and shifts within the workplace that have shaped today's entrepreneurial landscape. Steve recounts the evolution from personal business ownership to becoming a voice for businesses at large, shedding light on the pressures and pleasures that come with the territory. His insights encapsulate the necessity of confidence and the power of a resilient spirit in facing the challenges and changes that come with any career.
The episode rounds out with a contemplative look at the transition to retirement. Steve doesn't just offer a roadmap; he provides a compass for navigating this significant life change with intention and preparation. From crafting a robust transition plan to seeking fulfillment through community involvement and mentorship programs like "Mission Possible," Steve's approach to retirement is anything but dormant. His story doesn't end with a farewell to a successful career, but rather with the exciting prospect of leveraging his expertise in new, impactful ways.
Welcome to So you Want to Move to the Country and Raise Goats? This podcast features stories from people who have gone through change. We hope that their insights will help you better understand and deal with the changes in your life. I'm Peggy Koenig and along with my co-host, Catherine Gryba, we chat with insightful people with interesting change stories. We hope you enjoy our podcast. It is difficult to think about Steve McClellan and not think about business. Steve started as the CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce in 2007. He saw a lot of change in business and organizations over that time and most recently experienced his own personal change as he retired from his position as CEO in January of 2022. Steve is not one to sit idly about with his feet up, and he talks to us about the importance and responsibility of continuing to give back after retirement.
Catherine Gryba:Well, today we are thrilled to have our guest, Steve McClellan, join us. And, Steve, you and I have known each other for a few years and you've just recently retired from the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce as the CEO there after 15 years, so you're going to have lots to talk about with change. But let's start first, before we can hit the retirement discussion, What was your career path? I know you were only 15 years with the Chamber, which is a long time, but you would have had other career experiences prior to that. Tell us a little bit about your journey to get you to where you are today.
Steve McLellan:Well, if I look back at it now it seems like a long, long time ago and it is four or five decades I guess. When I finished high school I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I read the book Hotel and when I read that I thought that'd be a cool job being a hotel manager and all kinds of interesting things and people and at the same time I had hurt my knee in a football game accident. So I was at home and when I sat at home after reading this book I watched Celebrity Cook's Bruno Gerussi's show years ago, 1977, and I started to like learn how to cook. So I combined the idea of the hotel as a career and my love of cooking and I took a SASK Poly program. It was SIAST in those days, the hotel administration and ironically I was on the waitlist to begin with and then I got the call when I was on my way to Edmonton to look for a job and make my career there. I got the call two or three days before I was to start this course in Saskatoon and in the fall of 1977 I started the hotel administration program and haven't looked back.
Steve McLellan:I spent ten years in the restaurant business working in hotels but never actually running a hotel. I was a manager, I was a matriot at the stage, rest, dinner, theater, I was at new restaurants and, as me and my partners had a restaurant and nightclub in Kenosie Lake and in Yorkton, we had a restaurant. And then I got married and decided that it was time to settle down, if you will a little, and I joined a group in Saskatoon called TISAS, the Tourism Industry Association, and I became an association manager in 1989 and I spent eight years there and then I went to Tourism Regina for another eight years after that and then, in 2007 I believe, the opportunity at the chamber came open and the way I went made another change and never looked back. I loved every single day almost I can say with great honesty, every single day I went to work. In my entire career I looked forward to going to work.
Peggie Koenig:That's great. I just have to ask you this burning question, Steve Did your experience in hospitality and in hotels and restaurants actually match the drama that you were expecting when you read the book Hotel?
Steve McLellan:Much of it did. Now, the book was by definition created drama. But in my time in the hotel world, absolutely. A hotel is like a little town. It operates 24 hours a day. It has new people coming through every day as guests. Even in the restaurant business there's drama, there's personalities, there's creativity, there are rules to follow. There's the whole dynamic. So it was in the restaurant business. You're kept on your toes a lot and in the hotel world it's 24 seven. So if you know somebody who's a hotel general manager, you pat them on the back because I'll tell you what you never know when your phone rings at three o'clock in the morning what the what the call is about. But the good managers do it very well and you see the results and the positive outcomes and the great experience of their guests. But I didn't see all of the drama that I read in the book. But I see lots.
Catherine Gryba:Steve, you were in the service industry in the late 70s, early 80s. How has it changed than what it is today? I mean even experience in a restaurant. Is there much change than what we're seeing today, or is it?
Steve McLellan:The fundamentals are absolutely the same. One of the lessons learned early in my career was that you've got to love dealing with people. I think hospitality, you either have it or you don't. Customer service you can train. So a waiter who can fake it well can do very well as a waiter. But those people that are truly hospitable in the sense of they want to serve people, they want to make a person's evening as a dinner guest or in a nightclub or in a hotel, they want to make their experience positive. If they've got that in their system, away they go. So those basics haven't changed. What has changed is the people and where the people come from. It's a lot more international people in the food service industry nowadays.
Steve McLellan:When I was starting, the chefs were German, often or Swiss, and they had that sort of reputation. Sometimes they would be like chefs you see on TV now, quite dramatic and so on. But that's where the big time hotel chefs came from and most of the service staff were born in Canada for several generations Now. The world has become much more globalized and in the hotel business and the food service business not only are the people much more global, but so are the items on the menus, the things you and I have eaten in the last 10 months in restaurants. You compare that to when I started. They were meat and potatoes kind of thing. Pizza wasn't exotic when I started, but the kind of Thai food and Afghani food and so on that you can get now. None of that was around. So the product on the table has changed, the people serving it and preparing it have changed, but those basic fundamentals there's been no change there.
Peggie Koenig:So, Steve, when you made that decision to leave hospitality in the service industry and move into associations, right, what was driving that? Why did you make that change?
Steve McLellan:Yeah, it's a good question. Well, two things. The first was that I got married in the fall of 89. And in the restaurant business I was out of Kenosee Lake. Then we had a great business and my partners were superb and our staff were great and the customers were very supportive.
Steve McLellan:But when you're in the restaurant nightclub business, particularly at a resort, it's a 24-7 kind of a thing. And I got to a point where I had never in my life had what I consider a normal life and people will say, well, that's a boring life, but it's normal. I used to fantasize, strangely enough, about coming home from a job at five or six o'clock, having a glass of wine, deciding what I was going to make for dinner, make it, watch the news and enjoy a nice dinner at home. And people went well, that's boring, that's what I do all the time. They come to me in the restaurant and I tell them this fantasy of mine and they will well, that's crazy, but I would actually fantasize it because I was 25, 27 years old, I'd never lived that.
Steve McLellan:So that was part of it. Getting married was a big chunk of it. The other scenario is my partners were ready to go and move on to other things and so it was just a good time for us. But I still be there, had the opportunity with TySas not worked out and we moved to Saskatoon? I don't know that, but certainly the door opened and I walked through it and never looked back. But it was just time I knew that and a lucky opportunity came about.
Peggie Koenig:So when you say partners, Steve, did you actually have an interest in the business? Were you an entrepreneur?
Steve McLellan:Yeah, I was. We had my brother and a couple of other partners. We had a restaurant in Yorktown for two years and that was a great experience. That's where I met my wife. Actually, she was working in Yorktown and at the same time we had the Moose Head Inn at Kenosilake and I was a partner in that. My aunt was our lead partner and another long time friend, good friend, brian Rutten, was a partner and my brother as well. So yeah, I say sometimes I owned three doorknobs and a couple of pork screws, but I was indeed a partner. She was a good lesson for me in terms of putting my own money at risk and, of course, when it was my aunt's money, which was the incentive, she was an owner when I went to Kenosee Lake. You look at life and operation and business differently when you've got your stake in it. You're not just a hired hand, if you will.
Peggie Koenig:So you were really in training, Steve. You were in training to become an advocate for business way back.
Steve McLellan:You know, I think so and I think it served me well. And even the skills I learned in the hotel administration program and I'm a huge fan still am of SaskP olytech and what they train people and even though I didn't actually run a hotel, my training was in the food service business as well as the administration. All of that served me well the marketing classes and so on. But back to the in training to advocate for business, I tell people now that unless you've been in business as an owner, you don't know that there's a muscle between the shoulder blades that contracts when it's Tuesday and you know payroll is Friday and you know you don't have enough money in the bank account, that muscle between the shoulder blades starts to knot up.
Steve McLellan:And unless you've experienced that and found solutions through it, you can be very callous about these people who buy and own and run businesses saying, well, you know, you should contribute to this because it's a write-off, or look at all the money you're making.
Steve McLellan:And people would say that to us on a July long weekend at Moose Mountain. They would come out and say, oh, look at all the money you're making. I said, come back on January out of Saturday and see how we're doing all those realities and of course it was good experience for me. Everything about it was good the people I met, the things we did, the Things we were able to try and sometimes succeed, sometimes not, but all of that gave me, I think, a great basis for both the tourism advocacy and marketing through tourism, rijana and Tysas and Especially my 15 years with the Saskatchewan Chamber, where I knew the pain that some of these companies were feeling and the Challenges that they had, whether they'd speak of them or not. I knew they, they. They had good, days of bad, and my job as an advocate for business was to try and understand the depth of those bad days and offset them by government policy or programs that we could bring to play.
Catherine Gryba:You know, steve, over the course of 40 or 50 well, four to five decades, as you put it in Working in the workforce you must have noticed change in the actual workplace. You know, especially being Moving from, you know, industry into association, then being CEO. What are some of those changes that you noticed on? You know how people worked in the workplace.
Steve McLellan:There's been a ton of them, and and there's been. If you were to graph it, I would think that a lot of the changes are very recent. Certainly, over time I've seen a lot more young people in business. It used to be that you almost had to have a bit of gray hair before you'd get into any kind of a business the cost of getting into so much. Nowadays there's some amazing young people running businesses, and I look at it from 65 year olds Blosses that young can mean a lot of different things, but there's a lot of 25 year olds that are running really amazing businesses and and across the spectrum.
Steve McLellan:The other thing I've noticed clearly is technology, and that's one of the things that pushes Semi dinosaurs like me out to the sidelines a little with a grin on her face and a smile and knowing how well these young people are doing. But technology is so important in terms of how people run businesses now. I remember back in the day at the lake where we bought our first computer, we had to go up to Prince Albert to get training on it. So all of those kinds of things are just absolutely critical now to running a successful business. The other thing I've noticed is the variety of business types I tell young people now are told them when I was at the chamber I said when I finished high school there was about a hundred and fifty occupational quotes that I had in my potential career path and three Provinces that I could have gone to my world. You know, I didn't know about beyond the hundred and fifty jobs that knock quotes, their call or people that I knew didn't go further than Manitoba, saskatchewan or Alberta.
Steve McLellan:Now a kid who is Graduated this past June they've got a hundred and ninety seven countries they can choose to work in and that's I use that number because that's how many there are roughly in the world and they've got about twenty five hundred occupations.
Steve McLellan:Some of them, many of them, didn't exist when I was graduating. So the world is so much bigger and so many more types of businesses. You know we celebrate the tech world in Saskatoon and Regina have some amazing tech companies that couldn't have existed the home delivery of food, the online scheduling of Restaurant staff all of those technology pieces couldn't have existed when I started out and now they're there and huge businesses. So all kinds of changes but certainly a lot more young people. And the last piece, reference to the changes Is that the people that are working then are from all over the globe. You know, in the old days you might get the odd Australian or, as I referenced, the Swiss or German chef, but now we are blessed as a province, as a country, where we have people that are working here and teaching us and we're teaching them, sharing skills and interests and attitudes from around the globe, and that's a huge benefit, and the more we embrace that, the better we are as individuals, as companies and as communities.
Peggie Koenig:So lots of change, certainly so, steve, yeah, I agree that certainly the world is larger, but it's larger but it's also smaller in many ways. You know, when you look at at the opportunities out there, we're all so closer, we're so much more connected now, so in some ways it's a little smaller too. I'm interested in knowing, because you're very confident you, you present is very confident and as you went through down this career path, where there ever moments where you were very anxious about whether or not you you could succeed as you moved into Different areas, like moving into advocacy from hospitality, was there ever a time where you didn't weren't confident and you had to dig deep to find it?
Steve McLellan:Well, there were many times I had to dig deep. I I don't think there was ever a time where my confidence Weined and I went holy mackerel, am I out of my leaguer? There's a difference, and not that I'm preaching or or blowing my own horn, but I think that there's a difference between confidence and arrogance. Confidence is when you do it with passion, with some expertise and with people around you who you know can deliver, and you do. You may not deliver exactly the outcome that you thought going in, but you're confident that you're going to get through this project or role. Arrogance is Comes to you know, I would define it, if you will, from those people who just tell the world that they can do anything at all and they may or may not deliver, but they probably won't and they'll turn off their colleagues or their partners as they go.
Steve McLellan:So I've always been confident in my own skills and my own abilities and I've also known full well is that I'm never on a solo trip around the globe. Here I've been blessed in my career and personally as well, with great people who I can. As I got further along, you get better people in and people that you know have worked with you for several times, in many cases and for years where I can just let them roar and I just stand at the back of the room and smile and go. Man, didn't they make us look great as an organization and all the good things they did, whether it was a policy document or an event, you name it. I've had good people around me who have helped me shine.
Peggie Koenig:So, Steve, confidence. It would seem to me that confidence and resilience go together. What were things that helped you develop resilience? Have you always been resilient, or was there something in your experience that helped you become more resilient?
Steve McLellan:It's a great question. Yes, there has been. One of them is you need to take those things that didn't work as well, where you said, okay, time to get up dust off and take another run at it if you will. If it was in my chamber world and advocacy issue that didn't get the legs or the lift that I wanted, or if it was an event that we worked at or a marketing program at Tourism Agena, I learned early that nothing, very few things are going to be exactly the way you think it should. I've been blessed where many of our marketing campaigns did work very well and, with good people around and careful consideration and planning, they came off as we hoped or better.
Steve McLellan:But you do need to have a bit of resilience. You need to have a bit of thick skin because the reality of the world is, particularly as a business advocate, there are times when even people within the business community are going to say I disagree wholeheartedly with what you've done here and you have to be able to say I hear you, I appreciate that. Tell me why and I'll learn from what you share with me. May not change our perspective, but I do want to listen and back to that hospitality concept, if you will. I think I've had the ability and the desire and the sincere willingness to sit down with people who disagree with what I've done, or what we've done is taken a stance on, if you will, as a policy document and I want to listen to it. I want to know why they would disagree and I may, again, not change our position, but I will know more after the conversation with them. They may be 100% wrong, I may be 95% wrong or 100%, who knows.
Steve McLellan:But you've got to be able to say OK, you've got to move forward with the confidence of the people around you.
Steve McLellan:And if you're confident that you have done the right things in the world of advocacy for business, if you have had those conversations with people who know the issue well, if you've talked to the businesses who you represent extensively on a particular issue and you have a confidence that what you've heard is translated into a policy document, if you will, then you go forward with some confidence and even if it hits the wall, you know at least you got there doing the right things In the business advocacy world, you'll learn early that once you take it to government or other business organization or whatever any level of government. Once you take it to them, they've got to take that all that good thinking that you've done and put it through another filter of can they afford it, does it conflict with other things that they have as priorities, and so on. So resilience is critical. Otherwise, quite frankly, you wouldn't last as a business advocate or a business person very long, because there are some times you stub your toe but you learn from that and keep moving.
Catherine Gryba:So, steve, when did you retire? It's a year and a half ago now. And before you retired, did you make plans for what you plan to do? Or did some people say, you know, take a year and don't make any plans and see what comes? I'm interested in you know how you transition from working that process and also secondly, really curious, because you're still so passionate about hospitality and advocacy and is that working its way into your plans and retirement?
Steve McLellan:Well, first, on the reti yes, it is. I guess to some extent it's still it's. If I think I have a hospitality gene in my system that I'll never leave, I hope. But in terms of the planning to retire piece, my wife and I took a trip. We talked about it when was time and originally I was saying I wanted to stay with the chamber until COVID was done and then we realized COVID is never going to be done. I call it the COVID onion.
Steve McLellan:Every time you turn around there's another layer of impact on business, on individuals. The issue around remote work is still alive and well and comfortable and uncomfortable for many different companies, and so there's many things. So we said, listen, how will we know when it's time? Well, we said, do we have a desire to do something else? Yes, Can we afford it? We said, yes, we think we can. We had a very talented financial advisor and they said, yes, you can afford to. If you live on carrots and beans, you're going to be okay. I also knew that and for my wife's job we worked with the provincial government in mind. There was transition options that would segue into. You don't want to ever just leave the company and say I'm not coming back Monday. I'm gone when you leave as a CEO. So there was the transition process that we had in place.
Steve McLellan:But my advice would be twofold on that to people who are pondering it now. One of them is when the head starts to go, the body should follow fairly quickly. You do not want to be that person who hates their job all of a sudden. Like I said earlier, every single day for my 45, 50 year career I wanted to go to work every morning. I look forward to it. You don't want to also be that person who's sitting around waiting, counting the days. You can do that when you set the date, but if you're a year or two or three out, my gosh, don't hate those last years. The other thing that people advise on and I think this is good advice is to make sure, before you retire, that you have things that you know you want to do and are going to continue to do and do more of them. Those things. Then they say it could be four or five, it could be travel, and people that are saying I'm going to travel all the time are kidding themselves because you'll get tired of that and don't say I'm going to start.
Steve McLellan:I'll give you an example. I said I wanted to learn how to fly fish and I got a little bit into it before I retired. But when I got retired and started to try and fly fish, I loved to fish, I would do a lot of that, but I wanted to fly fish. It wasn't something that was an easy fit for me, so it shouldn't have been on one of my four or five items is the point. So those things like a new pair of shoes don't buy a new pair of shoes before you go on a long hike.
Steve McLellan:Know, work them in, Know that they're comfortable, Know that that's what you truly want to do, because when you plan to retire and you want to do these things, you'll either be disappointed that they didn't work out or you'll be disappointed because it doesn't feel good and then you run out of things to do. You will find other things to do, but you've got to find a comfortable fit and don't say on the day I retire, I am going to take up golf, I'm going to learn how to play the guitar, I am going to go fly fishing. Do those things in advance. So when you do leave, just do more of them, not just starting from scratch and I think that will make your retirement much easier. And, on that note, when people retire from their regular, their career jobs, if you will, there's still so much that has to be can be done in this community and across the provinces volunteers or as on a paid position basis that people need to look forward to.
Steve McLellan:That sort of thing, Maybe completely different, but what they've done. I've got one friend who was a tourism marketer and he's shuttling cars around Saskatchewan and other provinces. His wife was an event, a class person, and she's working part-time at a doctor's office now. So different things, but enough to keep the head going, Put a little money in your pocket, which is fine. But there's all kinds of things as a volunteer or as a paid part-time that the companies are looking for people. So that's useful to look for those and maybe have them lined up before you retire. Don't take another part-time job or a full-time job when you leave immediately, but so that one year window thing is useful. But by all means there's so much that can be done out there. Nobody should be bored when they retire.
Peggie Koenig:So it sounds like you did a lot of preparation, a lot of thinking. You're thinking about this. You did a lot of preparation. So when you actually left, Steve, was it as you expected or was it as difficult as I can imagine? If I walked out of what I do, Were there some challenges for you initially leaving?
Steve McLellan:There were some changes, but no challenges. The first thing that was hard to do was to let go. So the chambers in great shape, these great people, the person who took over for me on an interim basis did an exceptional job. The CEO that's there now is doing a very, very good job. So you've got to be able to say quote a friend of mine it's not my monkeys, it's not my circus. You need to be able to step back from both the organization and also business things. There would be things I would see in the news that I go oh my gosh, we've got to find out about this. I go, no, no, you don't need to find out about it. It's a chamber responsibility. They will look after it and they do and they will. So that was the change of to release yourself from that tie to those issues and your responsibility to the members and the business community.
Steve McLellan:The other thing from a time perspective is you forget sometimes how two things how much time you spend working when you're working full time, it's at least nine hours a day, including an hour for lunch how much of your social world, social life, is built around business dinners, convention attendees, and you have friends that are at those events and they can still always be friends.
Steve McLellan:But don't expect that you're going to spend as much time with them because you're a professional friend with them. It could be very close for many years. You can still keep in contact, but it's different. So knowing how your life socially and I would say, intellectually is going to change is something that's important. And those people that keep showing up back at the workplace every couple of weeks for coffee at some point you got to just say you know what it's time, move on and being ready to emotionally is critical and be able to fill that time. There's lots of things people can do, but you've got to step up to do it. Otherwise, frankly, you hit the rocking chair and life is terrible and you regret retiring.
Catherine Gryba:You know. I think, steve, what you say is so true about you've had, you know, really such a a great career and you've learned so many skills For society it is I think it's our loss overall, as people are in their 50, 60s moving and don't contribute back something, whether it's paid or volunteer. We need that knowledge base, those skills, those bad expertise, and it might not be in the career job, but I think it is incumbent upon all of us to think about what can we give back to our society in whatever way to help move things along? And I think we have a bit of a responsibility and it sounds like that's very much of what you're thinking.
Steve McLellan:Well, we've actually taken it a little further. Here in Regina there's four of us that are semi-retired guys and we came with that exact analysis, catherine, where we said there's too much expertise sitting dormant. So people would say, listen, I was whatever an association manager for 25 years. I don't wanna do that anymore. But okay, you don't have to.
Steve McLellan:But imagine the skills that you could give to a small nonprofit not as a board member necessarily, although that's an option, but giving them some strategic advice and providing them a strategic planning session that they could never afford to pay for and help get them up to the point where professionals then can go in and help them on an ongoing basis, whether it be communications, hr, whatever the case is.
Steve McLellan:So the four of us have got this concept we call mission possible, and it's to utilize that expertise not only for the good of the community but, quite frankly, for the good of that person who has developed that skills over those many, many decades and say you can still use them in a different way, different formats, shorter time frames and the way we go to make the community stronger and more effective. And we're working on this concept and we've talked to very many people about it and I think this fall we're gonna see it roll again. But there's so much expertise out there that's sitting dormant and, even if it's not direct, there's things we can do as people who've been around the block there to be able to assist other groups or individuals or young people through mentorship and so on. We can't just let that expertise drift.
Peggie Koenig:And I think, steve too, that we often go into retirement and we think mentally in our head well, I should go dormant, right Like retirement equals dormant, which I think is something that definitely has to change, is changing, and I'm really happy to hear that you're sort of at the forefront of that, because there is so much, so many skills and so many competencies out there and dormancy, as you say, you don't wanna hit the rocking chair. I mean, that's the end of it.
Steve McLellan:The thing that a lot of people say is, oh, I don't wanna work because I wanna travel. But when do you wanna travel? Well, a month in January, okay. What about the other 11 months? What do you wanna do then?
Steve McLellan:And the flexibility that we can require as retirees to say, listen, I can help you, but I can't help you here. Or here's the other reality. I can help you, but I'm gonna dial into that meeting from Dory Lake, saskatchewan or Port of Iardy, wherever you might wanna go. So there's great flexibility there. We just have to be wise enough to look for it. Or it could be. I mean, I know guys that were 50-year bankers that were delivering flowers around Valentine's Day because it was kinda cool to do, and gave them something to do Didn't necessarily do it for the money, although that was fine and people are driving cars or doing the shuttle service.
Steve McLellan:Whatever the case is, gets them out of the house, gets them out of the rocking chair, keeps their mind going and their socialization is going. All of that is critical, and there's so much more that can be done. I could, within six blocks of my home. I'm sure I could go knock on doors today and talk to retired people. Say how many days hours a week are you bored? And that to me, and I will keep you from being bored. We don't need to be busy 12, 14 hours today, but we do have the capacity to be busy 12 or 14 hours a week perhaps.
Catherine Gryba:Steve, this has been remarkable. We really enjoyed learning about. I had no idea that reading the book Hotel really started you on a hospitality journey, and congratulations on really a great and successful and distinguished career. And really I for one I'm looking forward to hearing what more you're doing in retirement in a particular mission possible. So thank you very much.
Steve McLellan:Thank you, it was a pleasure talking to you.
Peggie Koenig:If you've learned just one thing about change while listening to this podcast, please subscribe on Apple or Spotify and share with friend this episode recorded via Zoom Audio producers Peggy Kinnick and Catherine Greiber. Executive producer. Kinnick Leadership Advisory theme music La Pompée written by Chris Harrington, music publisher in Vato Market. For information on this podcast, please visit wwwgetyourgoachca.