Mike Bayer
You're listening to the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, and as I mentioned in the last episode, we want you to imagine how it will feel to solve some of your biggest rental business challenges by the end of October. You can master the art of building trust with guests and owners, creating unforgettable guest experiences, and developing a high performance team that supports your growth. Sounds amazing, right?

Mike Bayer
Heather Bayer is your favorite podcast host, and now she is available to be your coach and mentor as you overcome the current problems you are facing with your business. With expert-led sessions, interactive exercises, and a treasure trove of resources, the Vacation Rental Management Growth Accelerator Coaching Program will equip you with the tools to overcome operational challenges, stay ahead of industry trends, and make your business stand out in a competitive market.

Mike Bayer
Each week, you'll dive into essential topics like values-driven leadership, owner acquisition and retention, responsible rental strategies, and community engagement. Plus, our live Q&A sessions will ensure you get personalized advice and support. Click on the link in the description of this episode or visit vacationrentalformula.com for more information.

Mike Bayer
Now, let's get started with this episode. Here's your host and coach, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer
I want to share a recent post by Matt Landau, and he says, These days, I'm convinced that 99% of entrepreneurs and executives could massively benefit from a creative intervention in which the current pattern of business-as-usual is halted, outside expert viewpoints are received honestly and openly, and time is taken to digest what is blocked or what could be infinitely better or reimagined. A 'creative intervention' is a way of tricking yourself into thinking outside the box before it's too late, which in my opinion, is basically the number one most powerful professional skill of the future.

Heather Bayer
In this episode I'm talking to Matt Landau, and we're going to take this apart and figure out what it means for you.

Heather Bayer
This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources on this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer. And as ever, I'm super delighted to be back with you once again.

Heather Bayer
You know, I've known Matt Landau for over 11 years. I've been blogging about vacation rentals since 2005, and I wrote a book called Renting your Recreational Property for Profit in 2007. It got the attention of the HomeAway Event Committee, and I was invited to speak at their summit in Phoenix. For those listeners who might not have heard of HomeAway, it was the biggest platform for rentals at that time. It had bought out the original VRBO, along with multiple other listing sites, and was a huge deal. And AirBnB hadn't even surfaced as an option then. But it was my first ever conference, and to say I was nervous was a massive understatement. The audience were mostly independent owners, as HomeAway hadn't really embraced the property management space. So there were a lot of people who managed their own homes. I was talking about how to create a Wow experience for guests. And on the first evening, there was a Meet-and-Greet, and I can't recall how we got together, but I found myself in a group with a couple of younger guys from a company called VR Leap, and a vacation rental photographer who was giving a presentation on taking impactful photos.

Heather Bayer
We were all new to the speaking circuit and really apprehensive. So we promised to be at each other's sessions so that we all had a familiar face in the audience. So I went to Matt Landau's presentation on tech and operations, and I listened to Tyann Marcink talk about how to take great photos. And we've all remained friends ever since then. Matt went on to found his Vacation Rental Marketing Blog, become a keynote speaker, and over the last 11 years, he's made his name as a thought leader in this industry. His deep understanding of the business has inspired countless property managers and owners, not through providing tips and tricks to succeed, but by encouraging them to become more thoughtful and intentional leaders. So in this episode, we dive into an inspiring conversation with Matt as he explores this intervention of creativity and professionalism in the vacation rental industry. Matt shares some recent really transformational experiences where he discovered new ways to think about hospitality alongside business growth. So he emphasizes the importance of stepping out of comfort zones, something we don't do very often, embracing creative risks and balancing operational efficiency with your individuality to create meaningful connections. And of course, the goal, Unforgettable Guest Experiences.

Heather Bayer
So tune in to learn how cultivating creativity can lead to innovation and rejuvenation in your business, and why sometimes the most impactful decisions start with the mindset of, Here goes nothing. Hey, welcome back, Matt Landau. How many times is it?

Matt Landau
2,022!

Heather Bayer
Well, this is episode 570-something, and I think you have appeared in most of them. In one way or another.

Matt Landau
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me back.

Heather Bayer
Always, always my pleasure to have you back on the show. I didn't realize it's 10 years. Was it 2012, actually, that HomeAway conference where we met?

Matt Landau
And how time flies.

Heather Bayer
I looked it up the other day. You can still actually get that agenda online.

Matt Landau
It's fascinating to think back to what the industry was like back then. So AirBnB didn't exist. So the people who were attending...., I didn't even know conferences existed, right?

Heather Bayer
Well, it was my very first conference. It was Tyann's, Tyann Marcink's very first conference. It was for a lot of us. And it's like, Wow, this is very cool. And the fact we all got to speak as well made it even cooler.

Matt Landau
Yeah. And just being able to see for the first time, whoa, there are other people in this world that do this?

Heather Bayer
Yes.

Matt Landau
I think that's where we started nerding out together.

Heather Bayer
I think it was. What a lot of water has gone under the bridge in that time between there and now. And I think we're going to talk about some of that now because I'm just seeing this really unique situation coming where something's got to happen, something's got to give to get people comfortable with this industry again. Because I'm hearing so many stories from people saying, It's tough. It's a challenge. It's difficult. We don't know where we go from here, because it's like we're back in 2019, but we don't have the guests that we had in 2019. And we have twice, three times, maybe 10 times the amount of properties that we had in 2019.

Matt Landau
Yeah, and now the guests have totally different expectations. And as a guest, I'm like, I don't even know if it's worth staying in a vacation rental anymore because it's such a crapshoot. I might as well go back to hotels.

Heather Bayer
Oh, yes. Yeah. And I'm thinking exactly the same thing. I would go somewhere, even if I was staying just a night, I would think, Oh, stay in a vacation rental. But now, A, it is pretty pricey. Even to stay in a vacation rental overnight, it's cheaper to go into a hotel. But you're absolutely right about the crapshoot. You just do not know what you're going to get. I've found that more times I'm not happy with what I've got.

Matt Landau
Yeah. The industry has changed such a great deal. I mean, the world has changed a great deal in the last month.

Heather Bayer
Oh, yes.

Matt Landau
It's like so much has changed. And I think the important conversation, what we're going to talk about today, is really taking a step back to evaluate the business that you built and how different terms may have changed over that time, how different priorities in your life may have changed, which is a very healthy process to re-evaluate priorities. But it's just not something that we humans tend to do naturally, I feel.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, you're exactly right. One of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you was because you've been doing some prolific posting recently. I know that you are talking about your Costa Rica retreat in December, which I can't come to because it's Christmas and nobody will let me go. But you've been talking about that and you've been sharing some of the information on what might happen at that retreat. And I've just been so blown away. But anyway, we're going to come.......

Matt Landau
I think the word is spewing. And I feel like there's a pipe that's got a clog. It's clogged, like a major blockage. And then just a bunch of water is being shoot.... And finally, just like it gets unblocked and then just spews everywhere, goes all over the kitchen. That is how I feel right now. So, yeah, we'll use that as a little teaser for later.

Heather Bayer
Yes. Yeah. Because I'm seeing you everywhere. Every time I open my phone on Facebook, it's just Matt Landau. And you're walking down the street and you're talking about it again. So, yeah, we will come back to that later. But one of the things I saw, you did a post that started with you saying a seismic shift is about to take place in the real estate industry. And it was a little bit about the NAR Commission verdict or outcome of the massive lawsuits there were against the National Association of Realtors. And you went on to say that you spoke to, and you can go and talk about this. You said, I know this because yesterday I spoke with a friend who is a power broker in Chicago, and she explained that only one thing is for sure. Now is the time agents are forced to think outside the box with new business models. And those who take the time to go there and dream up their new visions will be trailblazers of the new real estate era. And it just got to me and I thought, well, that's exactly where we are.

Heather Bayer
We haven't, as a whole, had to deal with massive lawsuits, but we are in that, I don't know, post-COVID situation where things have changed. And everybody seems to have their head in the sand and going along thinking that we can carry on just like we did from 2019, but we can't. So that's where I want to go with this to start with this thinking outside the box with new business models. How do we even begin to do that?

Matt Landau
I think we start by taking an honest assessment of where we're at. And if we're feeling extremely passionate and alive and loving life, then we're in a really good place. And this doesn't necessarily apply to people who are in that place. If we're taking an honest assessment and trends in our business are not reversing anytime soon, fundamental things about our lifestyle are unsatisfactory. We know deep down that we need some change, but maybe we know what it is, maybe we don't know what it is. But we're honestly taking note of what the future holds. And if it's getting a little bit more challenging or maybe even a little bit better over time, is that really what we want? Or do we want something that's orders of magnitudes better?

Matt Landau
I came to this conclusion, Heather, because I stayed in my vacation rental business longer than I should have in hindsight. I've never really shared this, but in hindsight, I just stuck it out for a number of years without the passion that I had. It wasn't painful or anything, but I just wasn't full-on excited anymore.

Matt Landau
I wasn't really in the office much. My absence was affecting the team, but at the same time, the team was perfectly capable, and the business went on. But in hindsight, I stayed in that business and in Panama for too long. And in hindsight, what I wish I had done was basically given myself a creative intervention. And this phrase, intervention, is pretty strong. A lot of us have maybe been involved in an intervention as it relates to substance abuse. Have you, out of curiosity, Heather, ever been involved in an intervention?

Heather Bayer
I have not....., maybe to a small degree.

Matt Landau
Yeah. I haven't either, although my parents were involved in one for someone that they knew. That intervention process is powerful thing. It is orchestrated, and it's the people who you really love. It's harsh because you're drawing this firm line, like take these next steps or else we're not going to be friends anymore. There's a lot at stake. And, oh my gosh, I mean that's one of the most powerful things you can do for a loved one when that loved one can't see the problem. I don't want to downplay substance abuse, but I think about other areas in life in which an intervention could be really useful. I think business is one. Especially as entrepreneurs. We work solo, we work in little echo chambers, we don't have anyone telling us No. Sometimes we have partners or friends who are able to provide contrasting viewpoints, but very rarely are we actually like, is something at stake and are we forced to re-evaluate? I think that's where a creative intervention can be a useful way of thinking about this issue here.

Heather Bayer
How do you know when something's at stake? Because just as I said before, I think many people are going along, they've got their heads in the sand. They don't want to see what's going on above. We'll just keep our heads down and we'll weather this. How do we know that the time is right to do something? Do they do it themselves or are they going to wait for somebody to come in and say, Hey, it's time you really re-evaluated where you are and where you're going with this?

Matt Landau
I don't know. I have no idea. But I do know that if it's an individual who is curious enough and is honest enough with themselves, I know that those two things put together will lead them to the next steps, to a conclusion like, I need to do something. I want to change something. And if they're not there yet, then maybe they don't need the intervention, and maybe they are just going to try to tough it out for the rest of eternity. That's up to them. But I like to think that the people that we work with, at least entrepreneurial-minded, eventually Eventually, you have to accept that there might be another way and be really open and vulnerable and honest and be like, Look, I would actually like to be spending much more time with my kids, or I haven't been sleeping as a result of this. Something needs to change. I'm not downplaying how terrifying whatever those next steps might be, but I firmly believe that it is recognizing that you want a change or at least openly being honest about whether you need a change. I think those are the first steps.

Heather Bayer
Do you know of anybody that has gone through this? I'm sure you have, because you did the Keystone Retreats for so long. I think there were times when people had that Aha moment, from what I've heard from people during those retreats. Without mentioning names, what can you tell about a person who actually went through this, what would you call it, Aha moment is too minimal? A radical change, a new acceptance.

Matt Landau
Yeah, it's accepting something new about yourself that you hadn't gone there before. And there's a spectrum of levels of that. But it is finding out something new about yourself that you hadn't known before and truly accepting it. And oftentimes, the only way that that happens is with other people in the room helping, whether it's strangers who are participating in an exercise with you or a facilitator. But it's going someone new with yourself that always shifts the outer reality, always enhances the bigger understanding. And even a tiny little acceptance like, whoa, I actually need to start exercising again. This has been something I'm putting off forever. There's a history of heart disease in my family, and I want to check off some bucket list items with my grandkids. That kind of acceptance, just new level of acceptance I find shifts priorities suddenly because you leave. And how are you then going to be complaining about what dynamic pricing tool is not working for you? That is just like, so much more real and human and personal. And it's just not something that business people do, especially entrepreneurs. We never do this discovery work. I think to an extent, We're craving it.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, you're right. These really good business leaders and property managers are the ones that take away their staff on retreats, but they're not  dealing with themselves. They're not helping themselves. They're giving their team this wonderful experience, but maybe not experiencing it themselves.

Matt Landau
Yeah. The energy of the leader just oozes, permeates, whether you're physically there or not. If you're not feeling good at high energy, it affects people and vice versa.

Heather Bayer
I just wanted to touch on something because to go back a bit and maybe bring out something really practical here. Just talking about the way business is changing, because this is what is impacting people. There was a post on LinkedIn by Chris Maughan from I-PRAC, and I don't know whether you read that. I won't read it all out, but it started by, Here is why relying on Airbnb could be the death of your business. We've heard this a lot. But he said, A mystery shopping firm, who I can't mention who that is, starting September 2024, will book properties as a guest to see how you as a host manage that guest and how you communicate with them. The moment you communicate the fact that you can book direct, next time, don't pay Airbnb commission, etc. Your actions will be reported and your account will be blocked. So no more turning an Airbnb booking into a direct booking the unlawful way by approaching Airbnb customers. I mean, I don't know, there is no verification of this, but I do respect Chris enough that he's not going to be posting stuff that is perhaps unverified in some way.

Heather Bayer
But I'm just using that as an example that you put all your eggs in the Airbnb basket, and there is a ton of people still doing that, that if they do want to go into a direct booking mode by relying on that, it may not be there for them in the future. So this is where, as your realtor friend said, this is now the time to think outside the box with new business models.

Matt Landau
In the earliest days, Heather, of getting to know you, I was building the Listing Site Independence framework, and I just wanted to have four easy steps to listing site independence. I remember the question that I would ask people at the beginning is, what happens if your listing site of choice, or listing sites, disappear tomorrow? And in hindsight, it was a great challenge in terms of priorities. Because somebody who says, well, if they all disappear tomorrow, I would close down this entire business. Versus some other people who might respond, well, if they close down tomorrow, I would continue doing what I love here because I've been working on direct bookings or whatever.

Matt Landau
But it forces you to prioritize things about your business and in your life, the amount of work that goes into it, for instance, the amount of return or reward that you get. Is it even worth it anymore based on these new terms? It forces you to prioritize things. And I just think that's a really healthy exercise and recognizing that, Oh, my priorities have changed. It's not as much about the money for me anymore as much as it is about really amazing guests, for instance, or I want to be doing this much more than I was five years ago. Those are amazing. And you deserve to go through that discovery process, identify what are your new priorities. And if it's too much of a difference, you may need to rethink the business model.

Heather Bayer
That's all well and good saying you've got to rethink the business model, but what other business model is there? And don't come back and say, I don't know.

Matt Landau
No. I mean, this is funny because you want to say, Well, just buy my e-book!

Heather Bayer
Do my course!

Matt Landau
But unfortunately, the process of reimagining one's business is a very personal process, and it takes time. It's not going to happen overnight. So I think recognizing that you may want to re-imagine your business is a huge step in the right direction. That is huge. The process of actually exploring what those new values are or what those new priorities are, that is a much more nuanced, and frankly, that's an entire industry of vision boarding and creativity. But I like to think that it starts with getting closer to the core of what you want for yourself out of this moment in life. What makes you happiest? What are you clinging on to that may just be old baggage that needs to end? What is very, really important, like you need to pay your bills or you need this income stream versus what is driving you absolutely nuts? I really think that that little exercise, you have to write this stuff down, helps put out into the universe, at least, some of these truths.

Heather Bayer
You've been going through your own coaching recently, and that shows from the way you talk, that you have been doing these things. You've been doing these exercises. I've been fascinated by what you've been saying. You were talking about a meditation that you were doing about meeting your future self. Is that the thing that people should be doing? And if so, how do they get started on this type of thing for many who perhaps have never done this form of self-evaluation and inner work.

Matt Landau
That was me, by the way, up until about two and a half years ago. I happened to meet two innovation consultants named Jordan and Irwin. You met Jordan at VRMA Orlando. They accelerated my process completely. I attribute a lot of what I'm about to share with you to their company, which they call themselves Rocket Science. Shout out to Jordan and Erwin.

Matt Landau
What I think is really important in my own shift is recognizing that there are certain things that you do, like little exercises, or how do I do it? Well, here's a way you do it. I want to give you a quick example of that in just a second. Recognizing there are those plays or exercises, but also recognizing that discovering your real passions is a very big, wide world of possibilities. You don't have to do a meditation necessarily, if that's not your style. Frankly, that wasn't my style, but now it is. Now I'm totally sold. There's so many different kinds of ways to explore your style, your authentic voice, your story, what you really like, what really motivates you. There's a gazillion ways of doing that. But there's also some of these specific exercises.

Matt Landau
Here's a wonderful one. In addition to the meditation with the future self that you just mentioned, which is basically you go and you meet this future version of you who has been through it all before. And in the meditation, you ask them for counsel. At least that's the way that I've started doing it. And they, somewhere down within you, give you advice that you hadn't necessarily connected before. And for me, those bits of advice were so obvious now, I have no idea why I didn't see them.

Matt Landau
But another wonderful example of an exercise that can give you a taste of what the bigger transformative skillset is all about was this one that Jordan and Erwin walked me through in which you choose an area of your business that you want to basically bust the image of. So it could be your brand. You have to choose an area of business where you want to bust the image and build a new one. It could be your customer service. It could be the entire business. And you start by, you just do a brain dump. You just do full stream of consciousness, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. You then put it on the shelf and you do this distillation process over the course of the next few days that distills all of that down into one word.

Matt Landau
So that one word encapsulates everything that was going wrong within this particular business realm. And that one word needs to really just cut you like a dagger, right? Because that's the image that needs to die. So once you identify that word, which is the image of any given area of your business that needs to die, you choose a new word. And this new word is then the starting point to do the reverse of the exercise. So in the reverse of a distillation, simulation process, you expound what this new word is capable of all the way up until a full stream of possibilities out there. And you have just busted an old image and built a new image. And I'm grossly oversimplifying this exercise. But just simply knowing that there is an exercise that I can use to bust an old image and build a new one, knowing that I can self-generate that change for me is the entire thing.

Heather Bayer
That is brilliant. I have not... I was years as a psychotherapist and counselor and never came across that one.

Matt Landau
I find it fascinating. All of these things are just intellectually challenging you in ways that you don't challenge yourself. And when you go there, all kinds of new things appear on the other side.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. I just want to come back to these words. So you distill everything down to a single word. Where does that word come from? I mean, do you go to ChatGPT and say, look, I've got all this, and just give me the word, or do you go to the.....

Matt Landau
No, Heather. This is a non-ChatGPT exercise.

Heather Bayer
Does it come boiling out of you or just something comes into your head?

Matt Landau
I won't go into the entire exercise, but it is a very thoughtful process in which you're taking the big stream of consciousness down levels at a time. So it's not done all at once. And ultimately, the problem image becomes fairly clear. And you need to make sure it's one that is negative, because if you give yourself a positive slant on the negative word, it's not really doing the trick. So it needs to be negative. And you need to really just... It needs to hit you in a way that's like, yeah, that is exactly what was broken about that old system. And I think, again, this is a great example of a creative intervention.

Matt Landau
This is looking at something that was not working as well as we wanted it to, drawing a line saying it's time to make a change, putting our finger on exactly what it was that wasn't working, and arriving at this new understanding with ourselves that, yeah, I'm a new word now, or this division has a new word now. And you catch yourself from snapping back because now you're like, oh, no, I did this whole exercise. I've committed to this new ideas. I think that doesn't happen unless you are very deliberate about it like a intervention group would be.

Heather Bayer
So is this guided, or is this something that you did by yourself, or was it guided by Jordan that particular exercise?

Matt Landau
It was guided.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. So is it something that you could do by yourself? Somebody's listening in to this and goes, All right.

Matt Landau
I just told you. That was it. Go and do it. Go and do it. There's no magical formulas here. I think the real advice we take away here is like, yeah, that's a great exercise. And there's a gazillion others just like it. And reach out to innovation consultants like Jordan or Erwin, do your googling, but ultimately, accept that you have something that is broken that you want to fix, that needs to die. That, I think, is what really moves people towards action, as opposed to what we were talking about earlier, maybe it's just not really motivating enough. Maybe the nail hasn't really... What's that little story about the dog sitting on the nail?

Heather Bayer
Don't know.

Matt Landau
There's a dog sitting on a porch on a nail and he's moaning. And someone says to the owner, Why is your dog moaning? And the owner says, Because he's sitting on a nail. And the guy said, Why doesn't he move? And the owner says, I guess it's not painful enough yet.

Heather Bayer
Oh, yeah. That one really hits home.

Matt Landau
The pebble in the shoe, right?

Heather Bayer
Yeah. Where are we going from here?

Matt Landau
I think your question about how people in the industry recognize that they want to reassess and what they do next is a great takeaway for everybody listening. I'm curious, when you eventually arrived at a choice to sell your business, what was the tipping point or the sequence of events that ultimately led you to your choice?

Heather Bayer
I don't know. We'd taken years to plan it, and COVID got in the way of it. So we got to that decision beforehand. But it was, I was tired, tired of it, tired of dealing with people. And there were other paths to tread.

Matt Landau
What would you say was the hardest part of letting go?

Heather Bayer
I don't think there were any hard parts.

Matt Landau
You hear that, folks? It doesn't have to be hard.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, I don't think there is. No, it was ready, but we should have done it years ago. We should have done it a number of years before, and we didn't. And then deciding to do it, and then bang, 20... I mean, we were all set to go. And then, in fact, oh, yes, 2021. So we were already... No, it was 2022. Gosh, where did those years go, Matt? They just disappeared.

Matt Landau
I think it's also worth pointing out that we've given the examples of me selling my business, you selling your business. But this is also the sequence of events to innovate, to build your existing business to a new level. And it's the exact same echo chamber that we get stuck in. And if you're thinking to yourself, I want to grow to a new market or expand in some completely new and original direction that nobody can copy, it's the same sequence of, Oh, let's take a step back. Let's evaluate, maybe with some outside voices, what's actually happening here? And trying something new. And I firmly believe that incorporating, trying something new, thinking outside the box, whatever you want to call it, and an element of that in the vacation rental management skillset makes for the leaders.

Matt Landau
Back to our real estate trailblazer quote. I think the vacation rental leaders are the ones who have established a really strong foundation of operational complexity, but also have this new creative muscle that they're exercising, and their team is practicing the creativity, and they're each out in the field wielding it in their own unique way. That, I think, is the essence of creative leadership right now.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. And you're seeing the trailblazers out there right now that are making a difference. And it's not just because they're the most vocal on LinkedIn, or they're the ones that are standing up on stage at a VRMA conference. They're those that people are talking about. People are talking about Robin and Heather [Craigen] at Moving Mountains. They're talking about Lauren Madewell at Auntie Belham's Cabins. Gosh, I can't think of so many. Rachel Alday. Yeah, just a ton of people, I could start reeling off names. But these are the people that are out there doing this stuff, and they are innovating.

Matt Landau
You meet them and you feel like, whoa, they've got something really good going here. Valerie Gangas is another great example. You can just... Got the energy, got the vibes. You're like, whoa, this woman knows what she's doing. Her niche is so clear, and guests feel that, too. And I think just we've been so stuck in thinking about transactions or metrics or operations or something, that we forget that there's this whole world of feeling out there. Where when your guests interact with your business, they're going to feel one way or another, and you want it to be good. And you need to be feeling good in order to convey that through osmosis. You need to know what that experience is supposed to be like. And I think forever we just say, oh, I don't understand what experience is, so I'm not going to invest any time in getting to understand it. I think that's the mistake.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. So we've talked about thinking outside the box. How or where does that happen? It doesn't happen in a pokey little office in the company premises. Where can it happen? Or maybe it does happen in a pokey little office in the company premises. I don't know. But should people be thinking about going away somewhere and bringing somebody in from the outside, like you did with Erwin and Jordan.

Matt Landau
I think hiring experts is an amazing way to get there quickly, for sure. I think going somewhere, traveling outside of your comfort zone teaches me something new about myself, every time, without fail. So going somewhere, awesome. But to answer the question, where do we go? How do we do more of outside the box thinking? That is a question that I arrived at and, quite frankly, could not find any solution, any real answer. I attended this wonderful conference with Antonio [Bortolotti] in Tangier, Morocco, the House of Beautiful Business, for instance. That was one shining example of a place that you can go to think way more outside the box. And I am going next year. It completely blew my mind. But brought online and in real life, I have really found difficulty finding places where I can learn to think more outside the box.

Matt Landau
Hanging around artists, I did not consider myself a creative, but I do now, purely because I've started hanging around artists. Maybe not purely, but one big reason is because I go to art events and I've gotten to know some of these really cool artists, and they're so expressive and creative and just original, and I admire that so much. And I feel like it rubs off on me, to be honest. I feel like I started wearing my red glasses after I attended my first art event. So I think those types of spaces where you can see what is a more creative person look like, act like, think I think that's also really important.

Matt Landau
But back to a singular source, I was disappointed, to be honest, with the amount of noise and lack of actual signal. I have decided to create a new community around this problem. Okay? And this is the first time I'm actually saying this out loud here, but when I started the Vacation Rental Marketing Blog, it was because I felt like I had information that people could really run with, and it was just nonexistent online or too hard to find or whatever.

Matt Landau
I met you, I met other thought leaders, but I ultimately learned that this work is best in a community setting with people that we can get to know personally, share our best practices with, share our terrible failures with, and that a community around this subject matter of creative business leadership didn't exist online. It's something I am, you can hear it in my voice, supremely passionate about exploring more of, because I feel like I've just scratched the surface, only to learn that there are people that do this for a living. Experts, only to find that there's a gazillion other people who find this exercise interesting, which I never would have thought. It was putting those pieces together and realizing that my natural evolution as a community builder has a new calling. And that's the essence of the Here Goes Nothin' community. So I am going to begin researching this stuff more intentionally, sharing what I find more efficiently. Some may call it spewing stuff out on social media.

Heather Bayer
You called it that. I was much more polite.

Matt Landau
I'm going to try to make it as business professional as possible, but also fun. And I'm just going to start up this whole organic traction thing again, that is the only way I know how to build community, is gather really great information, give it away for free, use that value of generosity or whatever you want to call it to bring the best kinds of people to the table and then see where it goes next. That's where I'm at. I've literally decided to focus on this problem for probably the rest of my life of how can business leaders incorporate more creative outside the box thinking? How can they innovate? How do we learn this skillset of innovating? I think this is the most important professional skillset of the future. I don't know exactly what it is, but I am going to begin sharing what I find.

Heather Bayer
We're going to come back to Costa Rica in a minute. But before we do, our listeners always want actionable tips. They want something they can take away and do immediately. Now, they can do this exercise, of course, where they distill down and come up with the word and not on ChatGPT - it's my go-to, you can tell. But whatever, give me three more actionable tips that anybody listening to this can take away and act on immediately?

Matt Landau
I'm not going to. Okay? But I'm going to share why. It is the mindset shift that these are not going to be three easy tips like I'm used to. It's not going to be the same language or playbook that has gotten me here. It's merely accepting that the learning could be different. And in a way that you can't comprehend, I mean, this sounds like off in the universe, but to simply recognize that the learning is going to be very different than you are used to, than you have used to get where you are today. You have to trust me here, because you could just as easily say, This guy's full of shit, and take off. But you have to trust me, the learning is not... It's the shift in understanding what the learning is, that makes all the difference. So if I was to give you three easy tips, it would basically be going back to your old set of, Oh, yeah, this is the way I think. And then you would evaluate, Oh, those are good tips or those are bad tips. But no, I'm actually telling you, it's not three easy tips. It's 300 gazillion tips outside in the universe waiting for you.

Heather Bayer
Okay, so how do you find these 300,000? Start looking for them. Do you start? Okay. I had something in my head. I think it had something to do with ChatGPT. What has it to do with AI? Yeah.

Matt Landau
No, it's..... Can we just talk about AI real quick?

Heather Bayer
Sure.

Matt Landau
I think another way to accelerate this intervention process is to just envision your job or your business 5 years from now and then 10 years from now, using the exact same trajectories of disruption that AI and robotics will have on life as we knew it. If you very honestly plot what that will do to your industry in 5 years, much less 10 years, you may get a rude awakening. You may realize real quick that, whoa, what I'm doing here is not going to last. And you also may get inspired to say, now might be a really good time to start focusing on some stuff that really matters to me and focusing on some stuff that I'm personally really passionate by, again. And for some people, that might mean letting go of a particular job or relationship. That's what change is all about. So I think purely forecasting how these technologies are going to disrupt our lives, you can really start to envision how different things will be. I think it's just a bit of inspiration to be like, Oh, yeah, now would be a pretty good time to start thinking in a slightly new way.

Heather Bayer
So, okay, that's a great segue into talking about the to retreat, because that is from what I can tell, and I do intend to come in May if I'm not flying back to UK. But I know that it's going to force me or have me thinking outside the box and doing all those things. Tell us how this is going to come together.

Matt Landau
I'm kicking off the Here Goes Nothin' community with a retreat over New Year's. It'll be facilitated by the two innovation consultants I mentioned earlier, who have been doing this work for a really long time. It's designed to identify a creative blockage in your business and to accelerate the discovery process through that blockage to the point that you too, might be spewing in the best sense. Going somewhere new, detaching from your existing echo chamber, your noisy business life, going somewhere quiet, as we learned with the Keystone Retreats, is an amazing process unto itself. It's even better when you have facilitators who are guiding a kind of hero's journey of sorts, a discovery process.

Matt Landau
We decided to host the first one at this five-star retreat venue in Dominical. We're calling it a learning vacation, because it is over the holiday dates and it is at a gorgeous resort, and there are monkeys and sloths and waterfalls. But we're also sharing with folks Rocket Science, which is Jordan and Erwin's discovery methodology, in a new way. Instead of paying an arm and a leg, you can actually come and get your own version of it in person.

Matt Landau
We're testing this out with people that think more curiously and who are maybe listening to this and saying, Now might be a cool time to intervene, to do a self-intervention of sorts. I'm nervous about going, or I'm scared about this, or don't know what I might uncover. Those should be really good cues that you're stepping into something new. For me, having guides to do that in a peaceful way and accelerated way made all the difference. So I get to share that experience with guests. But it'll be very different. It'll be the most unusual business experience of your lives. And I say that very confidently. And I'm just more excited than ever about putting it together.

Matt Landau
And we'll host more. We already booked up our next slot of dates for for May 2025, and we'll host more of these. But I think the real underlying movement here is that there are other people in the business world who want to innovate want to build in a new way. They have already achieved a level of success, but they are ready to build in a new way that may seem different, or weird, or like you're not getting the answer that you want, but also might change everything. And that's the Here Goes Nothin' event.

Heather Bayer
It sounds perfect for anybody who is in that position that we talked about earlier on, this The time has come to - what did he say - think outside the box and do something different, try a different model.

Matt Landau
You've got to go outside the box to think outside the box. That's another thing I realized. You can't build a true innovation from within an existing framework.

Heather Bayer
Well, that's why I asked about, where do you do it? Do you do it in your pokey little office? Why am I saying pokey little office? Because I'm sure people have really nice offices. I'm not thinking about mine. Mine used to be like that.

Matt Landau
Yeah, for effect.

Heather Bayer
The broom cupboard. But no, that's why I asked about, where do you do this? Where do you think outside the box? And it sounds like... I mean, to me, to get outside not only of my physical location, but get outside of myself, that would be the perfect solution.

Matt Landau
Nature is always best. And every retreat that I host now...., I'm going to Montana next month to host a retreat with the Stay Montana folks, all outside. Because nature is where people like can actually connect again. And somewhere beautiful, I've always found that that makes a real difference. Not to put your office down, Heather.

Heather Bayer
That was then. That was then. This is now. Anyway, Matt, always such a complete pleasure to talk to you. I thought you were going to do this in November, and I was all set to come in November, but it will have to be May for me.

Matt Landau
Yeah, it will be amazing to have you? And always appreciative to get to share things with your listeners and follow one another's journeys.

Heather Bayer
Indeed.

Matt Landau
It's been epic.

Heather Bayer
Indeed, yeah. Haven't we come such a long way? Hey, I will talk to you again soon, I'm quite sure.

Heather Bayer
Wow! I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Always love spending time with Matt Landau. There was a post on LinkedIn this morning. I didn't mention it to Matt, but he talked about something in a LinkedIn post, and somebody came back to him and said, So for us mere mortals, can you explain that a little more? Sometimes I get to thinking that Matt is on a different plane. He's reaching so far, maybe inside himself, but also outside of himself in his learning journey. Sometimes I get a little bit lost, but this discussion that we just had, I think, is so super helpful. I hope it got you really thinking deeper than perhaps you have before.

Heather Bayer
So of course, if you're interested in the retreat in Costa Rica, and I have to tell you, it's probably one of the most beautiful locations I have ever seen. If you... Just go to the website [heregoesnothin.com]. And even if you're not interested at all, just go take a look at where this retreat is being held. It is quite gorgeous.

Heather Bayer
And of course, you can read... I'll put Matt's LinkedIn profile on there, so you can reach out to him if you have any questions at all. I think I'm getting my slot booked for May to make sure that I have that on the calendar. And if you're going to go in May then I shall probably see you there. Otherwise, go spend New Year in Costa Rica, in Dominical. I think that would be awesome.

Heather Bayer
Thank you again for listening. It's always a pleasure to have you here with me, and I look forward to being with you again next time.

Heather Bayer
It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the show notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you, and I look forward to being with you again next week.
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