Robyn Benincasa Hilton Keynote P1

We're going to start things off today with an incredible speaker. I can tell you a lot about her, but the truth is she can tell you her story far more effectively. So let's all take a look at this. NBC Sports presents the Ford Iron Man World Championship. The competitors here range from professional triathletes to lawyers to doctors and many teachers, but there's only one adventure racer who happens to be a female firefighter. I'm not a triathlete. I'm a rotwiler competing with a bunch of greyhounds. Robin Benakasa has started and finished this race three times before. Iron Man taught me how to be hard, how to be just mentally hard and to suffer, and I took that and brought it to adventure racing. And I'm spent. They have traveled here from every corner of the world for ten nonstop days and nights. They must hike, mountain climb, paddles, ride, and race through some of the most captivating yet dangerous terrain in one of the last great wilderness areas on Earth. Last summer in the leech infested jungles of Borneo, Robin's team brought home the Eco Challenge Championship. We have the Eco Challenge winners. They are on the roof right now. That's Ian, Robin, Mike, and Isaac. How you doing, guys? And I want to ask you guys, what more of this is the toughest part? It was just so mentally hard. I remember one night in particular. We were laying on the jungle floor, but not only bugs crawling around beneath us, but leeches falling from the trees onto us like rain. Oh my god. Pink, pink, pink, all over us. Oh my god. This is the world's toughest adventure race. Let's start this day off right, make some noise for Robin, Ben and Kasa. Are you guys ready for an awesome adventure? You guys, I was like a somewhat ready. Oh my gosh, I love you people already. We're going to have so much fun. First of all, I have to say congratulations. Here you guys are at the top of the mountain. From what I understand, you exceeded every metric last year, all three brands. You have a crazy huge here, a day, just goal for next year. I mean, the future is so bright around here you guys got to wear shades, right? Please give yourselves a hand for that. That is awesome. Awesome awesome. And if there's one thing I know about everybody on this all-sweets team, it's that no matter how high you climb on that mountain, you are never going to be the kind of person that just sits there and throws out a picnic blanket and enjoys the view, right? You guys are always scanning the horizon for the next highest peak to climb. You're in pursuit of your goals, no for your properties, for your teams, for your communities, for your families, for your guests, for the grand. So in honor of that perpetual journey, not just from good to great, but great to exceptional, in every aspect of your life, I'm honored to share with you guys what I've learned from some of the world's greatest extreme teammates about how we build and lead the kind of teams that succeed against the toughest of odds year in and year out, no matter how difficult the challenge or how tough the climb. And especially in those times when change is the only thing that stays the same. I want to share it with you guys today in the most fun and hopefully entertaining and inspiring way that I can. And that's using some examples from my super silly ludicrous sport of adventure racing. Just had a curiosity, has anybody ever heard of adventure racing before like one minute ago? Bueller, Bueller? Yeah, yeah, I saw seven hands. Yeah, that's actually a lot, you guys. You should get like a half a hand and then I see them turn to their buddy and go, oh no, that's the amazing race. So it's a sport that was invented by a crazy, awesome Frenchman and popularized around the world by a little known character named Mark Burnett, his name you recognize from Survivor, right? And evolve small teams of men and women. You have to have one man and one woman on each four or five person team depending on the rules. And the race director will ask you to meet them in the most remote place they can find on Earth. And each team has set a map, encompasses and rules. And the next morning they say, everybody set go. We'll see you guys in 600 to 1,000 miles, whichever team gets their first wins. And it's all non-motorized transportation, kayaking, mountain biking, wet water, afting, mountaineering and the clock never stops. So if you sleep and when you sleep is all part of your team's strategy. So the winning teams will get like an hour and a half of sleep every 24 hours and be racing the rest of the time. But as if the physical part isn't hard enough, here's a real kicker. One of the team has to stay together within 50 yards of each other from start to finish. I mean, there's not that many people like in our families that we want to spend that kind of quality time with, right? And if one of your teammates quits or is injured and has to leave the race, your entire team is disqualified. So based on the rules of this crazy sport and the fact that we couldn't say that we were successful unless all of our teammates also cross the finish line, which sounds very familiar to every manager and leader in this room. Most important thing we learned out there had nothing to do with sports. What we learned is that the secret to success is to play less than individual and more as a team. As a coach, as a leader, you play not your 11 best, but your best 11. In other words, the magic really happens when you as a leader inspire superstar individual team members to also be great teammates. Does anybody here want to be an adventure racer when you grow up now after that charming description? No, of course not. You're all too smart. And you have real jobs managing awesome hotels. But guess what? According to Fast Company Magazine, every successful business professional is in an adventure race every single day of your life and especially you guys. Because you have a small team of men and women who are trying to make it through a seemingly endless series of checkpoints and pursuit of an early impossible goal. We're going to get extreme time pressures and constantly changing conditions and with the goal of doing it among the best of the best in the world. High adventure racers. Yeah, this is not a sprint baby, but you guys do every single day at your hotels. That's an endurance race. And if you want to go fast, you can go alone. If you want to go far, you got to go. Yeah, so how do we as leaders create those best 11 teams that Vincent already talked about? Well, for my team mate tonight, we call it the eight essential elements of extreme performance. And this is how we build and lead world class teams that are better together than any individual could ever be alone. And I'm going to share the highlight with you guys today. And we'll start with the team. Total commitment. There's no plan B. It detracts from plan A. Total commitment to the finish line. How do we inspire that with all of our team members? What we call it the four P's. First of all, an incredible plan that's constantly communicated to the rest of the team. And ensuring that everyone on your team understands their importance and their role in getting to the finish line. And other than a sense of purpose as the second P, you're why? Why do you get out of bed every morning? I mean, maybe it's genuinely creating those exceptional experiences for your guests. Or maybe it's your loyalty and love for the brand. I mean, you got to have something deep in your soul that helps you wake up every single morning. You're big why? Because people want to do well, but they also want to do something good. Just like you guys are going to do this afternoon, right? An elevated perseverance is the third P. You always go the extra mile for your guests and for your team members and for your families. And you never let how you feel affect what you do because feelings are overrated, right? We show our commitment in what we do. And your preparation is the fourth P because guess who the luckiest people on Earth always are? The most well prepared, right? Because luck happens in those moments where your incredible preparation meets opportunity. But I'll tell you one thing we learned for sure about commitment in these silly races by definition, commitment doesn't even start until the fun stops. Or as one of my teammates very eloquently put it, "Hey guys, we don't find out if we're committed to winning this race until it starts sucking." All right? I mean, everybody starts strong. You know, real success only comes to those who are committed to be at the finish. So this first video clip from Adventure Racing, I'm going to share with you guys, is our team in the jungle in Borneo in the Eco Challenge, where the fun had stopped for us like five days earlier. And we're racing the French on Team Inter sport, which you'll set as a theme throughout this whole presentation. In these years, it was always our team versus the top French team at the front of the pack, neck and neck. Because the French invented the sport. And we were the first international team of Americans and Aussies and Kiwis and Canadians to ever challenge them at this silly game that they created. So we had a really fun, friendly rivalry with Inter sport over the years that kind of became more of like a, okay, best way to describe our relationship with Inter sport is if I have signed filled people. Drive sign filled fans. My tribe. Yay. So eventually we in Inter sport had more of like a sign filled Newman kind of relationship. So we're racing about the front of the pack on day five. We go running into this caving section. And it appeared as though all we had to do was run into these caves, ascend these four ropes, run down this ridge line, jump into our boats, paddle 60 miles to the finish, and yay, we're going to win the eco challenge. Not so fast. We go running into these caves. And our first step in the caves. Up to here over our knees, you guys. What's at the bottom of caves? Bad poop. I know. And it doesn't even have anything to do with the story. I just have to give you the picture of the day. I was always up on this mini tangent. I have to tell you what happened real quick. Okay, so we're waiting through it trying to find our ropes. And my third step. No shoe. Right. And it was one of those moments and my sister, she'll be with me on this. And I had to throw down one of my girl cards. All of a sudden, a girl card is using very sparingly. We do a lot of great things for our teams. We don't have to dig in bad poop for shoes. I'm just saying. There's still girl jobs and boy jobs. It's separate but equal. But I digress. Right. So we finally find our ropes in the back of these caves. And we're ascending up. And we're about halfway up and suddenly my rope is shaking around. I don't know what the heck is going on. I look down, guess where's the bottom of my rope? Yeah, little tiny Frenchman. Newman. He was way down there. And the French team captain is actually shaking my rope and he starts yelling up at me. Get the officer off, Rob and we come to win the eco challenge. French. So standard issue me. I kind of go into full panic and I started ascending as fast as I could trying to get away from him. And I had a really smart team captain. A guy named Mike Closer out of Al Colorado. He quickly assessed the situation. Yeah, Mike Closer fans. He said, hey guys, there's only four ropes here. It's the only way forward on the course. They can't get past us till we get off. So what do you think we did? Did I hear cut the ropes over here? Is this the sales director section? No, we stopped, right? We stopped. We ate all our food. We drank all our water. We prepared for battle. So we get to know that for about 15 minutes. We finally pop out the top of this thing. And we quickly realize this section is a hell of a lot longer than it looked on the map. And it's 120 degrees out. And my feet are bleeding and I'm covered with leeches. And I've been in the same Lycra outfit for five days. And I start to kind of figuratively get to the end of my rope. And sometimes when girls get to the end of our ropes, we-- Shaw. [LAUGHTER] There were no shoe stores up there. [LAUGHTER] So there I am crying at the fun of the world championships. And my teammates are running down the head. Now the best team in the sport is chasing us down the ridge line behind us. And I can't keep walking because I'm crying. I can't see. And there's a 1200 foot drop on either side of this teeny tiny ridge line. So I'm standing there dead still. And finally, my buddy Mike realizes I'm not down there with the rest of the team. And he starts trucking back up the ridge line. And I'm just bracing for impact. Because it was one of those moments where your teammate could have said just the right thing or just the wrong thing, right? So Mike approaches very calmly. I'll never forget what he said. He said, OK, Rob. I got a wife and a daughter. And I know that you people have to do this. [LAUGHTER] And then he said, but there's a difference between people that are going to win this race and people that are going to lose this race. And it's not that people that are going to win aren't crying. It's just that people that are about to win the eco challenge are crying. And then he grabbed my hand and said, and they're walking. [LAUGHTER] And bless this heart. You held my hand as we all cried and stumbled and made a way down the ridge line the next several hours being chased by the best team in the world. And I realize, man, it's right. You know, the way that you show your commitment to your team is in finding a way to bring your very best self even on your worst day. Or in my case, you don't have to stop crying. You just have to keep walking. So here's a quick little clip in Borneo. On the ridge to Eton Peak, the lead teams are learning that things are not always as they've seen. There's a fake force summit. It'll be soul destroying when they get there and realize they've only gone a third of the way and now needs to descend and climb higher and higher than ever before. It just takes such courage to overcome the expectation of something being easy and to find out it's really, really hard. That's what eco challenge is all about though. Digging deep in your soul and keeping going. It's a race about character. I remember that whole entire section being a very, very difficult one for me. I was pushed to my limit. It was incredibly hot. My feet hurt so, so, so bad. The terrain was really uneven and the section was a lot longer than we ever dreamed it was. So my expectations of having a nice short caving section and a run back to the beach became this six hour nightmare aton on really, really bad feet with the team right on our heels. And again, Amanda Leopard skin like our people. But you guys have had that moment though, haven't you? In your hotel or in your career where you have this crazy, hairy, audacious goal and you have this amazing team and you operate with one heart and one mind in pursuit of that goal. When you cross the finish line, it's the best feeling in the world, isn't it? And that only happens when you as a leader create that 100% total commitment to the finish line. All right, next essential element of building world class teams is all about your ability to inspire yourself and your team members through times of great challenge, change and adversity. Because if there's one thing that everybody in this room knows, dealing with the crazy changes in people's personal economy and how and when they travel and technology, how they want to interface with us, how they want to book our resorts, competitors nipping out your heels, especially the non-conventional ones, and that crazy roller coaster of finding and retaining amazing talent and just running a business. We all know that change is the only thing that's ever going to stay the same in your life, right? It's how we respond to change that dictates our success. And we also know that no matter how hard we try or how well we plan, a journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly. Stuff happens, man. You know, some days with a bear, right? You know, we got salmon jumping in our mouths all day long. Some days with a salmon. So how do we keep ourselves and our team members inspired on those salmon days? Maybe not to survive them, but maybe even use those salmon days as a springboard. You know, a way to take things up a notch. Well, a lot of it, of course, is your attitude. Do you see and speak to your team members in challenges versus roadblocks? When you place something as a challenge, it helps people rise to the occasion. It's part of your history. They always want to rise when there's a challenge. And are you consistently ruled by the hope of success versus the fear of failure? Where you focus your energy and intent and effort leads you to two completely different finish lines. Next time you're faced with a difficult challenge, think about where your brain goes and hibernates. Are you a person that kind of lives in one of my fears by concerns, my obstacles, my worries, and you kind of stew around there? Or are you a person that says, yep, all these things are going on, but guess what? I still got to find a way to win. What is my fastest best way to this finish line? Now I learned a set in the hard way for my buddy Ian. First time I raised with the best team in the world. And we're an Ecuador in the French version of the eco challenge called the Raid Galois. And of course, we're racing the French team in a sport at the front of the pack for six days. We can't shake each other. Day seven, we started three days down in river to the finish line. And it started with each team in a white water raft. So we jumped on ours, they jumped in theirs. And my brain had operated on fear of failure my entire life. So of course, my focus was on them, right? Were they gaining on us? Were we going to lose? So as we're going down the river, I would paddle, paddle, paddle, turn around, paddle, paddle, paddle, turn around. I did this for hours, seeing if we were going to lose. And finally my buddy Ian, who was sitting behind me in the boat, steering, he was so annoyed by where my focus was, unsimply not losing, that the next time I turned around to see where they were, he was actually so mad. He took his paddle and he threw it down on the boat, all pissed off. And he grabbed the top of my head, which was facing backwards. And he physically spun my head back around to face forwards down river. And he leaned over and in my ear, he said, "Winning is that way." [APPLAUSE]