On this episode we have the man behind the hit show Hotel Impossible – Anthony Melchiorri. We get some insight what goes on behind the scenes during the production of a show of that caliber. Anthony lets us know how he got in managing in the first place along with the moments that changed his life forever.
Episode: 40
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Anthony Melchiorri, a Hospitality Expert, Business Fixer, Creator and Host of Hotel Impossible and Five Stars Secrets on the Travel Channel
Subtitle: Passion changes everything
Final Show Link: https://iknowthisguy.com/episodes/ep-40-hotel-impossible-behind-the-scenes-w-anthony-melchiorri/
In this episode of I Know this Guy…, Norman Farrar introduces Anthony Melchiorri, a hospitality expert, business fixer, creator and host of Hotel Impossible and Five stars secrets on the Travel Channel
He founded his own hotel management and consultancy. In this episode we get some insight on what goes on behind the scenes during the production of Hotel Impossible.
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Anthony 0:00
Because I took that moment, I took that opportunity, that would have gone and I wouldn’t be here today, everything would have been done. Everything in my life would have been 100% different if I didn’t take that moment.
Norman 0:19
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of I Know This Guy, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of some of the most interesting people I know. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to I Know This Guy, wherever you get your podcasts. By the way, like kids want me to say something about ringing a bell. What the hell’s a bell?
Hayden 0:51
Alright. So Dad, who do you have lined up for the podcast?
Norman 0:54
Alright. So Larry Broughton, a friend of the podcast referred us to Anthony Melchiorri. So Anthony is the host and producer, executive producer of Hotel Impossible.
Hayden 1:06
Very cool.
Norman 1:07
I’m really looking forward to this. Well, maybe I don’t know. Maybe you’ll start criticizing what I do. But anyways, you know what? I can’t wait to talk to him. Alright, Anthony. Welcome to the podcast.
Anthony 1:20
Thanks for having me Norm, I appreciate it.
Norman 1:22
Hey, no problem. So you were referred by Larry Broughton and he was saying that you were one of the most interesting people that he knew.
Anthony 1:33
Well, that’s coming from the most interesting person that I know. So that’s interesting.
Norman 1:39
How do you know Larry?
Anthony 1:41
Larry, I did a show called Hotel Impossible and we needed a consultant out in California and somehow I found him through a friend or online or producer found him and I looked at his resume and I was like, I want this guy on the show and anybody who knows me knows I do everything impromptu. So he just shows up. I go, Hey, nice to meet you. Action. Hey, I need your help with this and we just went live and he was great and then I met him and just became very good friends and here we are today.
Norman 2:09
Oh, fantastic. I’m glad you met them.
Anthony 2:11
Yeah, I’m glad I met him. He’s a guy you want your foxhole.
Norman 2:15
Yeah, absolutely. So I do want to talk about your background. Everybody that knows you, knows you as a hotel year. Can you tell us a little bit about what makes Anthony, Anthony and let’s get into some detail.
Anthony 2:27
Just an absolute need to achieve since I was a kid. I’ve always felt like the underdog and people say, I’m only 5’7 so people say you have a Napoleon complex. Napoleon complex, I just have a bad attitude and I also have a good attitude and when I was a kid I just my dad died when I was two. My mom did a good job raising three boys by herself and I grew up in Brooklyn. If you didn’t know the inside story, the outside story looks pretty good. We’re always well dressed. We always had a nice car. But inside, there was a lot going on and so I had a lot of internal struggle and then I went in the military and learned if I fold my underwear better than anybody else, I get a pat on the back and so that little achievement just grew into just wanting to be I guess I was always an overachiever, and never really hyper competitive. So I never really tried to beat anyone. I just tried to do my best and I’m one of those guys that will kill you. I will do everything I can to win, as long as it’s legal and moral. But if I lose, I’ll shake your hand and wish you the best. So just always been hyper competitive. Because as I grew up, I didn’t have a dad and just knew the only person who’s going to feed me is me.
Norman 3:36
Now, I was in the service over in Canada for a brief period of time with the artillery. You were in the Air Force, correct?
Anthony 3:43
I was in the United States Air Force. Correct.
Norman 3:44
So what was that like going from Brooklyn, into the Air Force?
Anthony 3:49
Well the day I shipped out, I don’t remember the flight. But I do remember the bus ride. I was in San Antonio, Texas going to Lackland Air Force Base and I remember feeling very ill and I just remember light. So you remember, like we’re going down, I guess, the strip in San Antonio and I just remember a lot of light, a lot of glare and we’d get off the bus and there was GIs there and as you would know and now we got to eat. So we went into the chow hall and I got mashed potatoes. I got some roast beef and I got some gravy and the gravy just made me nauseous because I was already nauseous because I was nervous. I was a nervous wreck. I had none in the conference I have now and so I just remember spinning or spinning, my head was spinning and I was just about to fall and my whole tray actually fell right in the garbage. It just happened to be there and somebody caught me and then I sat down for 10 minutes and then they began yelling at me again and that night I went into the bunks and everything and they bang the pipes to wake you up and that started my day. I just remember looking at the squad leaders who were just like me, they just joined and they were picked out and let the first couple days as the leaders of the squadron and it was amazing to me. I couldn’t even put my pants on straight. I was scared of my own shadow and here these guys are stepping up and being leaders in the squadron and I remember admiring them and saying what would that feel like, like to be able to deal with this chaos and stress but also leave the platoon or the squadron that you just joined yourself. So that’s kind of when I started, like realizing if I just, I guess, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and all this will work out. So it was quite overwhelming and I never use that word because I never feel overwhelmed. But that was very, very overwhelming and I knew if I went back, I was going back to Brooklyn, I was going to find the highest truth to jump off that. Not that I love Brooklyn, but I had nothing to go back to.
Norman 5:40
Now I’m just kind of curious, are you and I think I know the answer. But are you an introvert or an extrovert?
Anthony 5:47
You don’t know the answer because you think I’m an extrovert. I’m actually an introvert.
Norman 5:51
Interesting.
Anthony 5:52
What did you think? Extrovert?
Norman 5:54
You know what, I was thinking absolutely extrovert, but I just had a feeling that you could have been an introvert.
Anthony 6:01
Yeah, I’m an introvert and I’m writing a book about personal branding, and one of the things in writing a book is I realized, I always say I don’t like people and I like being by myself and it’s not true. I’m not a big people person, like I met a guy at a cocktail party in the corner. Like if I go there, and I’m being paid to be there, or you like your friend of mine, and you say, Hey Anthony, can you come? It’s a big deal if you come and I want to introduce some people, then I’m the guy. I’m a guy that everybody’s talking to and I’m talking but typically left to my own devices. I’m sitting in a corner, having a glass of wine or scotch looking at everyone. But one thing through this book I realized is I don’t like people, but I like taking care of people. So in the hospitality business, I’ve never had a bad comment in my life. I love taking care of people. I love making sure I take their problem and fix it. It doesn’t mean I want to take you out for a coffee and that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with you. But I do want to fix your problem. I want to put a smile on your face. So that’s kind of what has inspired me. But yeah, by definition I’m an introvert, maybe other people say I’m an extrovert, but I like being alone. I like eating alone. I like traveling alone. My wife said to me about 10 years ago, she looked at me, she was like, You know you’re a loner, right? I’m not a loner. Are you crazy? She goes, you’re a loner and I said, Okay, so now I own that tag. I’m a loner. You know what? I have so much going on in my life. My three kids, my wife, my businesses, which shows that if I’m being called a loner through all that, okay.
Norman 7:24
So be it. So when you got out of the Air Force, what did you do?
Anthony 7:30
I was in Honduras, I was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, which is a missile base. 150 intercontinental ballistic missiles were in charge of launching, taking care of, and I was a protocol officer. So basically, I had the most dangerous job in the military. I poured coffee with the generals and colonels and that coffee was hot. So it was very dangerous. Nothing like what Larry did. He jumped out of planes and took the hill. I poured coffee, much more dangerous and so I was gonna stay in because my Colonel asked me to become an officer. I was an NCO at the time, noncommissioned officer and I said, Yes, if I take the test, it’s going to be a while before I know. So I need to extend six months because I’m getting out soon and I don’t want to re-up just to see if I did well on the test. So he sent me down to Honduras, I knew I didn’t do great on the test and I knew I kind of just wanted to get out. So I started calling a guy named Bruce Schlesinger, which I didn’t know his name at the time, Embassy Suites in Times Square, saying, Hey, I guess I want to work in a hotel. I worked part time in a hotel on the weekends in Overland Park when I was in the military and long story short, after many, many calls and my brother knew her and anyway, there was a connection. He gets on the phone and he goes, Man, you’re a pain in my ass. I’ll give you the Night Manager job. So I got to Embassy Suites in Time Square and I became the Night Manager of Embassy Suites and that’s how I started my hotel career.
Norman 8:49
Was that at that job you started to get the systems in place?
Anthony 8:51
No, it was at that job, I was petrified and I should have been wearing a diaper because I was gonna pee myself. It was more about learning that when you’re in charge, you gotta take responsibility. So I was very insecure, I was a nasty person to be around probably. I remember one guy after I fired him and changed my life. I fired him and he’s standing in the corner, or actually in the doorway, he went downstairs to get changed because he was supposed to leave the hotel and he comes into my office in the doorway and the big guy and he looks at me and he said, What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be gone and he said, I want to tell you something very common. I’ll explain to you. I didn’t do my job and I agree with you. I probably don’t belong here. I probably deserve to be terminated. I agree with that. But you don’t own my spirit, and you’re not allowed to take my spirit. He said probably a couple of curse words and he walked out. I never forgot that as long as I live because he’s right. What I didn’t learn in the military was Yes, your super ways of doing things by your rank or by trying to convince people you that the team has a better way or you have a better way. So that really taught me that I was in charge of taking care of people and moving the ball forward. But I have no right to let my insecurity get the best of me. So that changed everything. But the military really did teach me systems and it taught me, if you go a little further, you do a little more, you go a lot further, I worked for the guy who eventually became the general in charge of nuclear assurance for America. I worked for the guy who became director leadership at West Point. So I worked for some badass people, some really, really great leaders. So I learned systems, and I learned how it seems to work. But I was still very insecure.
Norman 10:39
One of the things that I loved about your shows, and I love systems, I have a five page SOP on how to make a good cup of coffee. That’s what I love is you go in, you observe, you can make the changes, make the decisions. How do you do that? How do you go into a hotel? Now, some are obvious, right? But how do you get the employees to do the buy in?
Anthony 11:03
You don’t get the employee to do the buy in, you buy in and once you buy in to the culture, the better good. You buy into it, you’re like, Okay, this culture sucks. So we as a team are going to fix it and then we’re going to create a buy in. By fixing it, sometimes you have to give people their opinion and whether they like it or not, you don’t ask for their opinion, give it to them. When you buy into the bad culture and so by buying into the bad culture, you realize, there’s a bad culture, nobody wants to sit here. So you’re going to be the guy that’s going to be the person that’s going to make some changes. So you start getting rid of people and bringing in I always say, Good people bothered me more than average people, because you were so close to being great, but you stopped. I read that quote somewhere and I think that is one of the best quotes I’ve ever read. So I’m annoyed by good people. I like great people, I like being surrounded by the best people and I learned long though I’m surrounded by the best people, I’ll look even smarter. Because I’m not that good. But if I hire smarter people and better people, I’ll look that good. So I go in, I try to understand the culture, buy into that culture, better good. So I change it to what the team wants and once you get undeniable people, you just get out of their way and say thank you very much. You need a cup of coffee.
Norman 12:18
Wow. Okay. So when you walk in, again, I’m just looking at it from what I see on the show, but are there people that you can target that the second that you walk in, that shouldn’t be there? They’re gonna be gone and you said it, they could be good people, not great people, but they could be bringing down the hotel.
Anthony 12:40
You know what a good person is compared to a great person? I mean, a great person doesn’t care about me, a good person is worried about me. A good person is worried if he’s going to get promoted. A good person is worried if I’m going to like them. Great people are too busy being great and too busy with the task. They can give crap less if I exist. They know I’m the guy, they know they gotta respect me but I gotta earn that respect. But they’re interested in the mission and if I’m the guy that can bring them to the mission and explain the mission to them, they love me and they’ll back me up. Or if I’m not digging there eventually either leave or just push me out of the way and get me fired. So they can go and do what they’re supposed to do. So that;s what great people do. Good people, I’m not saying that all good people. But I typically when I come in, and the people that I’m dealing with are average, best, and usually below, usually executives never the employees, employees I’ve always found to be they’ll go which way you go. So typically, 99% of employees I keep, they’re fine. They love me, I love them eventually. But it’s usually the executives and that team that I got to just move out because I’ve never seen a hotel or business go out of business because of an employee. If you’re in charge of a business, I never understood this. If you’re in charge of a business, and obviously your business is out of business. Okay and that might tell you now, I’m talking typically, Well, there’s a couple things going on, right? Maybe you just made a bad decision, financial decision or maybe your employees really suck and you didn’t do anything about it, you didn’t do anything to hold them to a standard. So I always go after the leadership and if you’re good, and you step up, I get out of your way. If you’re not, I’m like glue, you’re not going anywhere. I mean, you and I are gonna be very good friends and the key is if I’m talking to you a lot, you’re in trouble. If I’m not talking to you, you’re pretty good. Until I talked to you a lot and then I stopped talking. If I stopped talking, then you’re in trouble because I don’t get mad, I don’t yell and scream anymore. I just kept very quiet inside the exit strategy for that person in order to do it in a very humble and respectful way because you don’t want to hurt anybody. I mean, I will not hold on to mediocre people.
Norman 14:53
I hope you keep talking then. So what common denominators do you find in a good hotel, or even just in people in general, and or a bad hotel?
Anthony 15:08
If you are in a hotel, and you live in Hawaii, and your hotel is in New York, and I caught my first good step. You take a good step in the morning and your housekeepers take a good step. What does that mean? That means you understand the mission statement, you’re a positive person, you understand what you want the hotel to generate, not only money, but in feelings. So your mission statement, and the hotel’s mission statement are the same. So if I go to you, and I go, Hey, mister hotel guy, what’s the mission statement of your business in your hotel and you tell me and then I go to the housekeeper I go, Hey Miss housekeeper, Mr. housekeeper, what is the mission statement hotel and they tell me. If they both know the mission statement, that hotel runs? Well, if the hotel owner and the housekeeper have two different mission statements, it’s over and so that’s the common denominator. The person at the top and the person cleaning the toilets have to be family, and they have to be bonded, not maybe emotionally, but by a common denominator. The common denominator of what is my mission every day. If the mission of the owner is just to make a lot more money, and the mission of the housekeeper’s just to pay the bills, that’s not going to cut it. The mission has got to be, we want to do better, so we can all do better and we can all grow and that’s the common denominator for success and the common denominator of failure is the opposite of that.
Norman 16:28
So let’s go back to the Embassy hotel and let’s talk about how you grew from that. So you came out as a Night Manager. Where did you go from there?
Anthony 16:37
Well, first of all, let’s go back up and tell you how that changed my life and I never ever ever talked about it or anything. It’s in my book. I had three months into working there, a young lady committed suicide in front of us, she jumped off the roof. She was 16 years old and she just felt she wasn’t living up to the standards of people around her. I’ll just say that and she literally jumped off the roof in Time Square right in front of me. She got on the roof, the alarms went off, we went up there and she is at the edge of the roof that moves about four feet. She’s probably like maybe four feet nine. She climbs up and as I’m going to get a radio for my engineer, I turn around and she jumps, and before she jumped, I said what are you doing up here? She said she was taking pictures and I said No you’re not, because you won’t understand and she jumped in so hard jumping off that roof took my mind an hour and a half for her to jump before her to hit bottom. But she hit the roof of the Palace Theater steps and then she bounced off and felt like forever. I go into an absolute shock. My engineer slaps me. I actually just had this conversation. I haven’t spoken to him for 30 years, and I just happened to find him and we were talking and he goes I remember you slapping me. I said Dude, I still have the scars, you slapped me really hard and he slapped me out of my days. I went down in the elevator which seemed like forever and as soon as I hit their lobby, I did what I had to do to make sure everybody’s notified, the police were notified, get everything I could. I was a suspect because I was up there with her. But then they found three page suicide note and so I learned a lot about you got to shut it off in order to go forward. So I had to shut off my pain to take over the situation. I took over the situation and then I was able to be in pain and I went swimming every day after that to kind of get it out of my head and it’s the worst thing I ever did because now I can’t swim across the pool without thinking about it. So that changed my life because I understand what safety and security is all about in a hotel. So one thing you’ll see in Hotel Impossible is I’m a safety crazy person and people like your service guy. So you don’t want a safety guy and at the end of the day safety and service equal money. But I’m a safety security guy and it’s all because of that. So I take what I do real seriously. Matter of fact, I was shocked by traveling around this world and seeing how horrifying some of the fire codes and security codes are in some jurisdiction. In New York City man, you can’t move. Safety and security and fire safety is so critical and that’s when I was at the Embassy Suites. I don’t want to jump over that because that was critical for my overview of the hotel business and then I went on to work at my dream, was to work at the Plaza Hotel and my dream person to work for at the time was the owner of the Plaza Hotel, and no longer when I went to work for that individual. I’ll just tell you that it was 1990 Plaza Hotel. You can Google who the owner was and it was my dream to work at the Plaza. I was there for two years and then I went on to the Macklow then I went out to a company, turned that around and then went off to Lucerne Hotel, The Algonquin Hotel and then I was the Vice President and First Vice President of Tishman running assets in New York City and then one day I put my hands in my face and my wife said, What are you? What are you doing and I was like, I take my hands away from my friends and say I don’t want to make rich people richer anymore. I want to do a TV show but a television show how great this industry is and boom everything just kind took off from there.
Norman 20:01
How long did it take you to go from that thought to getting the first one into production?
Anthony 20:06
Two years.
Norman 20:07
Two years. Yeah.
Anthony 20:08
Yeah and you probably know, I mean, getting a TV show done. I mean, as you go through the process, listen, if you follow TV, you know that it’ll just hand out TV shows. So every step of the way, they were saying it’s a million to 1 and as I got closer and closer, like, Hey dude, now we’re 7:1 and what do you mean 7:1? I go, yeah, they got rid of everything else and they have seven pilots and they’re only going to Greenway, like one season. It’s like, really? I’m one in seven? I’m never going to get the show and like, and now you went to seven, you’re okay and we got greenlit, and I was very fortunate. But it was a lot easier for some reason, with timing, or whatever it was, it was a lot easier for me. But it still took maybe less than two years. But it was pretty much a straight path. Me and my partners, Leo and Lynn Rossi. We said, Hey, we want to do this and we put a little outline together, we pitched a production company and several one in it. When we pitched in the production company went to an agent and the agent pitched it to a TV network and they bought it. It was pretty, pretty quick for TV.
Norman 21:19
How did you find all these hotels?
Anthony 21:22
Oh, that’s easy, man. There’s a lot of that. That’s easy. That’s the easiest thing in the world. There’s a lot of bad hotels out there.
Norman 21:35
Oh well, I kind of assumed that. The things I saw on TV and watched your show, I watched your show quite a bit and it just amazed me either about the people, the processes, or the hotel itself and what you’re able to do. Now, I’m kind of curious. So we were just talking about Larry Broughton, and you brought him in as a consultant, he had no idea that you’re going to give him a call and you’ve done that on other than every one of your Hotels Impossible, you just pick up the phone and call somebody?
Anthony 22:06
What I say to him, matter of fact, you can ask him. I said to him, I go, he picks up the phone and go idiot, you pick up the phone again. Like you see my number, you’re still picking up the damn phone, pack a bag, go to Alaska. When? Now. Pack a bag, we’re going. So that’s how it works. So let me tell you kind of how the process is. So there’s a production company, right? We created the show, we work in a production company, we sold the Travel Channel, Travel Channel gives us a budget, we produce the show. So we have a location manager. The location manager puts out some ads, say Hey, we’re coming to your community, would you like us to help or a lot of people find us. So that’s how it works. I never know what’s going on. I don’t get involved. They do what we call a dossier show. They’re like, Hey Anthony, we flew out to this hotel in Wyoming. It’s got three kids, the mother is crazy. The father wants to keep it, the kids want to sell it or vice versa and they need your help. That’s all I know. I don’t see the hotel. I don’t see the people, I know the name of the hotel, I know where it’s located and I know some of the premise of what’s going on. Meaning again, it’s a bad hotel, and somebody wants to tell somebody does it. That’s it. That’s all I know. I don’t look at P&L. I don’t look at cash flows. Typically, once in a while when I get real, real, real nervous I’ll say, Hey, let me see. I wanna see if I can help this hotel and then and then we get there and now the producers have been there and so they go back with me with my crew and they put me in a car. They drive me across the street or into the parking lot of the hotel, they mic me up. My back is to the hotel, which rise the production company crazy because I just looked at the damn hotel. I said, No, I was like, when you guys are ready to call action, turn me around, I turn me around and look at the hotel, we do what we got to do, they may say, Hey, go to housekeeping, somebody wants to talk to you, somebody go there only one function, right? So there’s that. But a lot of it is just me running around figuring it out and they also at the end of semester, last five seasons, they really knew me. So they knew what I was going to say or what they needed to prepare. So a lot of times when I say Hey, I need something, it’s already there, because they know how my brain works. Renovations are as you see them, they’re done in two or three days, they have a little prep time. But they’re done in two or three days, so when you see me seeing the lobby or the front desk, and then we got it I mean, that’s happening in real time and then I don’t see anybody on camera and Larry will tell you it’s the real show on television. I see nobody on camera. I don’t talk to anybody. I’ll talk to Bellman, doorman, owners. When they say cut, I go to my room, I come back out. I don’t stay at the hotel so I don’t get close to anybody and what I always tell people that say Why do you do that? Because I’m a nice guy. So if somebody I find out God forbid has cancer or somebody’s going through a serious problem that they don’t want to talk about on air and I don’t want to disclose that because I’m not going to be that guy. I don’t want to know about it. I just don’t want to know about it. Like I’m there to tell you your business problem and to solve your business problem. I’m not there to feel bad for you. I’m not there to be soft, because if I’m soft, I’m not doing you any good. So if I give you the mess you need to take and you listen to me, it will make everything better, you’ll be able to handle it your circumstances, hopefully a little bit more, a little better and a little more efficiently. So it’s hard for production and for producers to deal with that, because we went through a lot of producers, because I just won’t compromise that and then once I got my team, and we clicked, it was the greatest team in the world and Oh my God, the last five Seasons Hotel Impossible we’re a dream. The first five were a nightmare. I love the people, I worked with the first five seasons, but it was a lot more complicated than it needs to be because of one individual that I’m still friends with but it was just complicated. Once we figured it out, and I figured out that, Hey, I need people that are just going to put the camera up and say go, and we’re all on the same team. It just was great and if you’re really a fan of the show, you’ll see from Season 5, 4, from Season 4, Season 5 is a different field. In the beginning, we were making it more like though the lighting was better and things were better and then in Season 5, we didn’t give a crap about angles. We didn’t give a crap about lighting. It was just a better show.
Norman 26:14
Now, did you ever go to a hotel you walk in and you would think why am I here and it wasn’t that bad?
Anthony 26:22
Yes and no. But my team knows that there’s not a real reason for me to be there. I’m done. I’m gonna quit the show. I’m just gonna walk off and never go back. So I trust them after a while to know when I work. I’ll give you a perfect example. My first show before I trusted anybody, it was Gurney’s Inn in Long Island. I walked around and I saw this place is just not great and I walked into a spa, it’s a five star spa. So that was good, I walked in and I thought this was in bad shape and but then I was like, Oh my god, they really know what they’re doing. But there’s some miscommunication. So I’ve learned to trust the system. I’ve learned to trust the people around me to just go do what you do, and it will reveal itself, good or bad and there will be a story. 108 shows and we never didn’t get a show. We never didn’t get the story. People have scripts, people have outlines. We don’t. We don’t do it. A lot of people compare me to one show. I won’t mention the show or the host and it turns my stomach because I know that that’s a scripted show and I was like how can you get that me and him or that show alike? It’s not even the same atmosphere, same stratosphere. I will tell you about Restaurant Impossible, Mark Summers and Robert Irvine. That’s a real show. I’ve been on who said that’s a real show. There’s no script. There’s no script going on there.
Norman 27:41
Yeah, it doesn’t look at and it looks very similar to what you’re doing as well. So what about on the other side? So you’ve got these rooms that get done and you completely revamp these hotels. On the show I’ve seen people that just don’t want your advice. Doesn’t that just infuriate you? How do you walk away from that? Because there’s been times on that show that people just want to go back to what they had.
Anthony 28:07
This is what infuriates me. Well, I said nothing infuriates me. When you see me get upset, or you see me square up on somebody who I get pretty aggressive. It’s because I think you care and I think you’re able to change. You’ve seen probably four times I’ve walked out and when people say why do you walk out? I said because you can’t manage crazy. That’s the definition of crazy and when I know if I’m going to lose a fight, I’m not going to fight. If I think I’m going to be able to teach you something in that fight, then I’m going to fight. But if I have nothing to teach you and you think you’re smarter than me, what am I gonna fight? I don’t care. So why am I gonna fight for you, if you don’t want to fight for yourself. So if you want to fight with me, and you’re willing to give me a good argument, I’m loving you and we eventually get to hugs and kisses and all that. But if you’re like just me like that, you just don’t make sense to me and you’re like you’re fighting me when I’m not even fighting you then Goodbye, God bless you and that’s when my producers get upset. Because then you usually get a moment, but you’ll get a long show. But every time I walked out, we’ve always been able to cut it together and also I’m smart enough from a production standpoint to know if I’m about to go, there’s a couple of things I’m probably going to take care of before I walk out. So I’ll make sure like if I know we have some design component, because once we do design, there’s some trade outs that we’re doing because we don’t have a big budget. So I know that that design’s got to be done because it’s trade outs that gotta be talking about, I spoke about at the end of the show. So I’ll make sure that we take care of that. So we’ll give them the design, but I’m still leaving. So on one show, we actually walked out and my producers Hey, dude, we can’t walk away from design. We’re gonna owe hundreds of 1000s of dollars in buy back. I said fine, you go deal with the design. If she wants to stay, she can stay but I’m leaving and she stayed and it was controversial and they went back and forth with the owner and she was very tough with the owner. But we got to show, at the end of the day we stay true to who we are, which they weren’t that thick and we’ve always gotten the show
Norman 30:07
When you’re dealing with these designers, they’ve got to be special people. How are they compensated because they come in and they have to take a look at just an inferior room, I’ll be nice and they’ve got to come up with a concept, get contractors and get something done within a period of two days.
Anthony 30:26
Well, there’s a little fronting on that when it comes to the producers, and they work they work together a little bit. So they have a little bit of an understanding but that space is completely gutted when I’m there. They may know what color paint they’re going to use and stuff like that and have some supplies but then a lot of times I walk in I’m like What did you think you’re gonna do? No, we’re not doing love, we’re doing the bedroom and I will tell you this. One, they are not compensated well. Your mascot next to you gets paid more than they did and it’s a non forgiving job because I get all the credit. They cut most of your scenes out which is horrific and I go to dinner with my team at six o’clock, the designers there with her assistant until seven o’clock in the morning sometimes. So the designer I mean, without them, there is no show, without Blanche Garcia who’s the first OG designer, there is no show. She was amazing, insane and everybody fell in love with our chemistry. The way we went back and forth with each other and if it wasn’t for her, there wouldn’t be the show and then other designers that took the mantle forward. Without those designers, there’s no Anthony’s show. It was much more of their show than it was my show in a lot of ways.
Norman 31:37
I want to talk about the way that you come in, assess and then, like what’s their formula for you that it was tough love, then you built them up and it always looks like you’re pretty tough on the people at the beginning.
Anthony 31:55
Zero formula, zero. It always fell into a formula because human nature is pretty simple, right? If you think about it, it’s where humans are basically the Maslow hierarchy of needs. In 1943, Abraham Maslow invented Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and he broke us down into basically seven components and those seven columns, every single one, whether you’re rich, poor, black, white, Irish, doesn’t matter. We’re all the same. We all have those needs. So the first few needs are safety, security, wanting to belong, food, shelter, sex. So we all have the same needs. So I go in with that understanding and it always falls back to that. It always falls back. Am I making them feel safe? Are they gonna have food at the end of the day? Are they going to be able to drink water? Are they going to be able to love their family? So we all fall down to that. So there is zero formula. Zero. I follow the person. So I’m able, I’m a chameleon. So I go where it goes. So you want to be soft and nice and sweet and talk to me like a business person. That’s the kind of shows I love. That’s the kind of shows I signed up for. You want to square up with me and think you’re smarter than me fine. Maybe you are smarter than me, but prove it and if you can’t prove it, and you’re just gonna yell at me, I’m gonna walk away. If you can prove it, and I’m not seeing it, we’re gonna battle and eventually we’re gonna come somewhere in the middle. So there is zero formula. I always say I left because as you’re in the beginning, I can understand people being hesitant. But as we went, I thought people would be smarter. But what they realized what they thought was, here’s the celebrity guy, he comes in and he sees things, he goes crazy. He teaches us how to do it right. He kisses me at the end and then he gives me stuff. That is completely not the case. It’s the furthest thing from the truth. We go in and we figure out and deal with what we have to deal with and you have to be a good producer to be on our show. Because there’s no script, we may walk away without a show. There is a real good chance that we’re not getting the show and we have to tell Travel Channel we just pissed all your money away. But you have to trust it. You have to trust it. Yeah, and the formula is there is no formula and that’s the God honest truth. I have a little bit of an outline outside knowing we’re gonna take breaks, knowing when we want to be done, knowing when airplanes land and when airplanes are leaving. So yeah, is the housekeeper on today? She’s gonna be on tomorrow. So we’ll shoot that scene tomorrow if I need to ask you. But that’s all behind the scenes, and I don’t get involved with that. But as far as I’m concerned, I will say that I’ve been with them, we’d shot the show for nine years and we’ve done two other shows with them. So we’ve done three shows, and I want to tell you this, and this is the God honest truth. It wasn’t perfect, but never once did Travel Channel, or the production company told me to do something. If a producer told me to do something, I just didn’t do it because it doesn’t matter because I outrank them. It was my show. I’m the executive producer and I’m the guy in front of the camera. So if a producer wants me to do something that is against what I want to do, I’m not doing it. But the Travel Channel which has a little bit more leverage on me, never asked me not once that I ever got a call, ever once. Matter of fact, Marine which was vice president of Nickelodeon and he said to me once when we were, we pitched the show. He came on later and Brian, Brian was his name and he said to me, after he asked me why I left the hotel business, 20 minutes after I came off the ceiling, he turned to the producer and said, put a camera on him and don’t shut it off and that’s what they did and it was the freest in some ways, the freest experience you’ve ever had in my life, never once they said I have to be more funny. I have to be more angry. I have to be less this less that and if it did, I would have quit. I threatened to quit every single show. So if there will be that situation, I would definitely quit. I was like, Yeah okay. I’m good today. So he said, I never needed it more than I needed to be to make sure the owner gets what they want. I don’t care about the Travel Channel, I don’t care. I care about I’m here for four days with my family, not making any calls, not doing anything for my business, abandoning my business, basically for nine years. I’m just all in and when I’m done, I’m done. I go home, and I forget about it. But I owe it to that owner. He’s allowing me to come in and I can do anything I want. He signs a contract that makes me basically do anything I want and I’m opening up his medicine chest and if I’m going to make fun of what’s in his medicine chest, shame on me. If I’m going to respect the message, I said, Hey man, you don’t need these pills. Why are you taking those? That’s different. You don’t say if I go in there, and I say, you gotta take this medicine, you’re taking the wrong medicine, you’re taking the medicine of everybody kissing your ass, because you’re the owner. I’m going to give you medicine of you’re an asshole and if you can’t get over that you’re an asshole, that’s not my problem.
Norman 36:39
Let’s talk about memorable moments, good or bad. A couple of ones that you’re really proud of with Hotel Impossible and some that are on the opposite spectrum.
Anthony 36:49
On TV or behind the scenes?
Norman 36:53
You know what, if you’ve got some behind the scenes, that would be great,
Anthony 36:57
Probably in the beginning, not understanding all the roles, and probably not having appreciation for how hard everybody was working. I mean, we have 18 people on the show when we’re there and then there’s a lot more in the office. I needed to get what I needed to get to do a good show and I don’t apologize for that. But I probably didn’t appreciate at the beginning how much they went into it and then when I got the team that I wanted, not the team I inherited, I had a lot more appreciation because they brought me in more and I brought them in more and we understood each and they told me to go screw myself and that’s what I needed sometimes. There was a producer, Maddie, who I talked about from time to time. One day, she’s on set and I was pissed off about something and I had a lot of respect for her. But she was talking to somebody and I go, given the high sound like Maddie, I need to talk to you and I did it maybe two or three times and she steps over to me, takes four steps, squares up on me and she’s probably half my size and I’m not that tall. She looks at me and she goes, could you please just go over there and just shut up for a minute? I got this and she had no idea what I was gonna ask her. So she finishes and goes, What do you want? I asked her and she goes, that’s what I was dealing with. I go, Oh you’re reading my mind now and that was it. That was it. I was like, Okay, I get it. I understand and now it’s no longer my show. It’s no longer me. It’s us and it was the greatest feeling of my life. Because now I realized I’m just another person and just, yeah, I got to get what I gotta get. But they got to get what they got to get and so that was that was important. I had great, great, great, great, great people making me look good. I’d say on the show, there’s just so many great, great moments. My all time favorite, I don’t have an all time favorite. So I’d be lying if I said my all time favorites. But I would say one of the great ones was there was an owner in California. He had two sons, and he came from his country in Austria, built a life for 40 years and basically he was getting in his own way at this point and his sons were very capable taking over the business with their wives and there was a moment in the show that once he decides, again, pretty what respect he decides I’m the guy that is finally convinced them so we tell his sons in the parking lot. We’re all crying and I’m crying. I’m behind the white van. I’m hysterical. I mean, it was such an emotional moment and one of his sons who again. He’s 18 feet tall and he looks at me and I go Why are you crying? He goes, because I knew the day would come when we would take over. I just thought it would come over looking in a coffin and that blew my brains out and I cried because my dad died when I was two so I completely got that and that was an incredible moment and also something happened that shows never happened. I don’t stay for dinner. Like I have till the show’s done. I don’t stay and commiserate with everybody. I’m gone. Like matter of fact, I’m like boom. Like you don’t even know when there’s white smoke coming on my butt. Because I want to get home to my family. So literally, they say cut and I’m gone. I mean, literally from the second they say cut to the second hour in the car, going to my hotel room to get myself to go to the airport or to go to sleep to get up early, is literally maybe two minutes, maybe less than that. So they asked me, and then my crew said, No, he wouldn’t do that and they asked me, Hey, would you stay? We would have dinner with the crew and with you and I was like, No, thank you. I appreciate it and then father looked at me and he goes, please stay. So I stayed and when we left at the end of the dinner, we had a couple of drinks and dinner, and we hugged each other and we were looking at each other, we’re like, bye, bye and that was like, he became my father, he became my family and that was a great moment and let’s say a moment, that was maybe a darker moment or boat moment that was just unfortunate. I would say anytime I had to walk out of a hotel, because you have a million dollar commercial, and you just made the audience want to stay at your hotel. Because the good thing about doing a show, and being authentic is the noise is there because they want to see they’re already thinking ahead of me. If you’ve watched five scenes, I mean, five shows you already know what I’m going to say or not say or any of these I can like that so. I’m the guy like the audience is coming from me and if you’re mean to me, the audience is gonna go after you and so on the other side of that, if you’re nice to me, they’ll fall in love with you and not care about me. They’ll say anything was a little rough on that guy and that guy didn’t deserve it. So when you’re being an idiot, and you’re not doing what you need to do to make yourself successful, your audience will turn on you.
Norman 41:39
Yeah, and I guess on social media, you just get beat up.
Anthony 41:43
Yeah. You’ll get beat up bad.
Norman 41:49
Wow. Let’s talk about you. You’ve done some traveling. You’re talking about safety issues. What are some of the worst things that you’ve seen in hotels when you’ve been traveling?
Anthony 42:00
Front doors that are made out of closet doors, no fire alarm systems at work. Nobody knows the fire alarm systems how they work. There was a young lady in Arizona who worked at 19 years. Her fire alarm system didn’t work. I go where’s your command station? She goes, I have no idea and she turns around, open that door. She goes, Oh that’s the command station? I said Yeah. I said it doesn’t work. She goes I don’t know. I don’t think so. I go, See that toggle switch? Put it on, see what happens. She put it on, the friggin fire alarm went off. For 19 or 18 years she ran a hotel, no idea where the fire command post was. That’s the first time I ever hit anything. I punched a mailbox, almost broke my hand. I was just like, are we out of our minds? You almost killed the entire hotel. For 19 years, you don’t know where the fire alarm is. The owner lives on the top floor and he was an invalid and if there’s a fire, she would never get out because she didn’t flip the switch. My line or not my line but what I said was, All you had to do is flip the switch from off to on and I walked out in disgust like that was shocking to me and again, I didn’t want to hurt her because I liked the woman. She’s a nice lady. But it was just like, what? So yeah, that was a moment where, and there were other hotels that walked out on one hotel, I actually stayed and I’m not going to mention the hotel. But I will just say this. There’s been three hotels on the show that didn’t listen to me and there’s been three deaths in their hotel. my opinion. That’s as much as I’ll say about that because I don’t want to get in trouble.
Norman 43:35
Yeah, I’m kind of interested because what you’re preaching, what you’re talking about, and you’re seeing these rapid improvements and people working together, building a performance based culture, working with systems. Are there any steps or any advice that you could give to entrepreneurs or small business owners that might be watching?
Anthony 44:00
Listen to the person that nobody listens to. If you go to Disney World, Disney World, the people that sweep the floor are the people that know everything. They put a lot of training into those people. So listen to the people that nobody listens to. That to me, if there’s any common denominator, that’s the common denominator. You want success? Listen to your housekeepers. Listen to your Bellman, listen to your doorman, and don’t listen to them. Like I’m not a guy who walks in and goes, Hey, how’s the football game? How’s your kids? How’s your wife? How’s this? I’m not that guy. I’m not that guy. I know when your birthday is, because my system tells me I know your name. I love you. I take care of you. But I don’t give a damn about the football game. I don’t come in after a Sunday. I’ll come in on a Sunday and on a Monday morning and also spend an hour and a half talking about the football game. But when you need me, I’m there. When the boss is in your way, I get them out of your way. When you say a policy sucks, I agree with you probably. If you need a raise and we didn’t give you one and like we should have so I’ll fix that. So I’m the guy that is completely there for you but I’m not your best friend hanging out and patting you on the back every five seconds.
Norman 45:07
Now, we’ve talked about your backstory, let’s talk about a quote. What’s the quote that you live by?
Anthony 45:16
Passion changes everything. Period.
Norman 45:20
You live that quote.
Anthony 45:22
Listen, I’ll do things I’m not passionate about and I’ll be honest with you. The only reason we’re doing this podcast is because Larry asked me to, and I just don’t do things that I don’t know about or about I’m not interested in and Larry said do it. I didn’t know anything about you. I love doing it. I’m glad I’m doing it. I think you’re an unbelievable interviewer. But I owe Larry a lot like Larry answers my phone call when he shouldn’t, and he does things that he shouldn’t do, and puts himself in a very uncomfortable position on TV and I’m a loyal guy and if Larry told me I needed to walk to your office to do it, I’ll do it. It hasn’t changed everything. I’m passionate. I’m passionate about my friend. I’m passionate about the people that are good to me. I’m passionate about what I do for a living. Also my favorite, one of my other new favorite quotes, I have two of them. I was sitting in a room somewhere. I don’t know where the hell I was. I was traveling somewhere in the world and Norman Lear, the great producer, who just wrote a book, and somebody asked him, what’s the secret? He goes, I get asked that question all the time and he goes, I don’t know, there’s no secret. Because the only thing I can tell you is to put your dreams out in the atmosphere in the world and conspire for your success. I jumped out of bed, wrote that down and I said, that is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. Think about that. The dreams you dream, put it out there and the world somehow will conspire to make sure you’re successful. Brilliant quote. I just heard another one that I really like, and I can’t remember it, but it’s really good. It will come to me in a second. I know I had another one. It will come to me, but those are the two quotes that I really like.
Norman 47:02
I really liked that one from Norman Lear.
Anthony 47:04
It’s beautiful. It’s unbelievable and it’s everything. It’s everything.
Norman 47:10
You guys, and I’m talking about people in the hotel industry right now are going through hell. Is there any news? Is there anything that you’re seeing right now that is going to help the hospitality industry come back?
Anthony 47:23
Well, the hotel industry will come back, it will be bigger and better. It will be the roaring 20s. But we gotta get there and unfortunately, there’s gonna be more pain and less pain. Because what’s happening now with the virus going up. Vaccines here, that’s good news, there are going to be some major changes, politically. Whatever aisle you fall on, it doesn’t matter. It’s not about Trump or not Trump Republican, Non republican, democrat doesn’t matter. What matters is hopefully we can stop talking about the election and get to the business of the people and anytime there’s an election year, we all know everything goes on pause. So hopefully we can get more stimulus. Hopefully the restaurant workers in New York City will survive, but it is bad. 800 people just got laid off from Marriott in Times Square, just today. It’s insane. It will get better, it will come back. But like Larry, who was a green beret, he was special forces. There’s bad days and all you want to do is get to lunch, right? There are bad days and you gotta put one foot in front of the other. You have to make sure you save your pennies. You got to make sure you’re good to your family and you got to make sure that you’re thinking and you’re creative and you’re taking these opportunities. There’s a lot of millionaires and billionaires and millionaires being made today. Okay, because they’re figuring it out. So right now, every single person should be getting a PhD and figuring it out. That’s it. If you want a PhD, get it and figure it out. You gotta figure it out. The reason you do your show, the reason you’ve had success, because you figure it out, you’re not waiting for somebody. I always say success doesn’t come in and bow with a package. It doesn’t show up at your doorstep in a box with a ribbon around it and so when the UPS man hands it to you and you open them, Oh is this success? It doesn’t work that way. You got to find out where the corners are, where the curves are, where the cracks are, where the crevices are. You got to go under the wall, over the wall, through the wall and that’s just not a mindset that my butt pays the check that my mouth writes. Right? So if I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it and if I can’t do it, I probably didn’t tell you Hey man, I thought I was gonna be able to do it. I can’t do it. I can’t remember that really happening too often. But say you can do it just you’ll figure it out. But nobody get it, I tell my kids all the time. I have twins that are 21. Every single thing, my headphones just went out. Every single thing that they thought was going to look like 2020 is it. My senior graduated from home, my other senior in college, my Senior High School in college is graduating Thursday from the basement. My other daughter, a lot of opportunities, so many things, proms were missed. So many things everybody missed. Our dearest friend who lives literally is 50 feet away from me, died of COVID. So it’s just been an upside down year, I knew he was like a grandfather to my children, and everything got turned upside down. Okay, this sucks, man. But when you’re born, you make a deal once you understand what life’s about. The deal is just gonna be great days and there’s gonna be this sucks days and you’ve got to learn in those this sucks days, you got to put a foot in front of the other and that’s what our military does. That’s what hard work and people do every single day. Housekeepers, I love them because they get up at five o’clock in the morning. They feed their kids, they get the kids off to school, they go and clean 18 toilets a day. They come home, they make dinner, they help their kids with their homework. They spend some time maybe they pray, maybe they have family time, they fall asleep at 10 o’clock at night and they do it all over again and again and again and they never get maybe where they want to be but they put one foot in front of the other and eventually, hopefully they get there. But every single day they have pride themselves. They have pride in their family and they do it. So that’s that’s how I live my life.
Norman 51:26
When I’m talking to entrepreneurs, the one thing that is in common with everybody, first is resilience. But the second thing is they take advantage of opportunity and they take action and I think that’s what you’re saying like if you can see it or spot it or take action, then you’re going to achieve something.
Anthony 51:46
I really thought when I was younger somebody was going to hand me that opportunity. I thought somebody was gonna say Hey Anthony, here’s your opportunity and I got plenty for myself. With that said, you got to take those moments. In my book, I call them moments. He’s in my hotel, no idea who he is. I’ve always wanted to do a movie about my life. I don’t know anything about movies. I see Leo. He looks like a nice guy. He drops his script all over the lobby of the Lucerne Hotel. He’s laughing and joking about it. He’s like a comedian and he’s picking it up and I was running up the stairs to go. I’m a very intense guy. So I was running upstairs to go to this meeting. I can’t miss, I can’t miss, I can’t miss and I said to myself, Self? Yes Anthony. There’s an actor, you’ll know who he is. He’s in Hollywood. Maybe he can help you with your movie down the road and I wasn’t really wanting to take advantage of him. But I think maybe he’s a guy. Anyway, I missed my meeting. I talked to Leo, we became good friends. One day, we’re talking in the office and he said, Man, your life story is great. We should do a movie about it. I said, that’s a good thought. Boom. Next thing I know, he’s my best friend. He’s 74 years old and I spoke to him I think this morning and he lives in California and because I took that moment, I took that opportunity. That would have gone and I wouldn’t be here today. Everything would have been done, everything in my life would have been 100% different if I didn’t take that moment. My entire life, professional life is different because of Leo and that was a moment that wasn’t handed to me. I took that opportunity and then we created other things and it’s been phenomenal, it was one of the greatest moments in my life and every day, I tell him that. Every day, there’s not a time after goodbye and I say I love you and I appreciate you and I said to him one day because you’ll be a character actor in Hollywood and when you look up his resume, you’ll see he’s been everything from the accused. He’s just an amazing actor and he has ups and downs like so maybe 10 years ago, it was a down and I said how do you get through it? He’s an actor. He’s a writer, he’s a producer and he said, Anthony, I’ll never be a victim. Words that I live by. Anthony, I’ll never be a victim and in Hollywood, there’s a lot of victims.
Norman 54:08
Yeah, and just business in general. There’s a lot of victims, a lot of people that put the emphasis on what people say instead of working through it. It’s tough being, let’s say, in Hollywood, or being a small business owner or being an entrepreneur. I deal with a lot of eCommerce, Amazon sellers and man, the game can change overnight, and who you are connected to or the network that you get involved with. They can make it or break it for you.
Anthony 54:38
I think that’s true. Like I have LinkedIn live and I couldn’t get LinkedIn Live because it’s difficult. I happen to do something, I’ll just say for a fan of mine. They wanted to pay me to show up to a birthday party as like I don’t get paid to go show up at a birthday party. You’re a fan of mine. I’ll do a video for you and I did a video for his wife for free and not knowing who this gentleman was long story short, he was able to help me in something I was working on. I had no idea he could help me with that. I was just being a nice person and taking my moment of trying to pay back my fans and like, I don’t look for fame and fortune. I look for opportunities to have access. I love access. A lot more than power or money. I love access and so if my daughter wants a job that can make a phone call, if my friend says, Hey, I’m looking to buy a hotel, can you bring capital? Can you find capital? Like, so my job is to ensure that my Rolodex has everybody’s name. I’ll give you an example. I said, Well, I’ll find out about the vaccine. I’ll ask a friend of mine, she goes, Who do you know about vaccines and asking people as well, the guy that’s on Joe Biden’s staff, who’s going to be his guru, who’s on my podcast, and him and I connected and we became friends and now he’s like the number one guy. He knows what’s going on. I’m gonna call him and ask him next time on my podcast, and she just looked at me, she was like, you do know everybody. I don’t know everybody, it’s just like, I make sure that I take the opportunity and I make sure I don’t waste my time with people that have tried to screw me.
Norman 56:08
So just think, if you didn’t take the opportunity to go and take that split second decision, and go meet Leo Rossi.
Anthony 56:18
It scares the shit out of me.
Norman 56:19
Where would you be right now?
Anthony 56:21
I’d be winning hotels for rich people, making really good money, or maybe being happy and maybe not being happy. I was never gonna not be okay. I would tell you I wouldn’t have been living my life. I can’t imagine when this is all said and done, and I take my last breath. I mean, I don’t know what ulterior of universe I’m living in. I just don’t because it’s crazy. I mean, I remember walking across, they were doing all these commercials for the show, and show and show and before I had a TV show that night, the first night it was going to air which I thought that was the night next morning I was gonna be famous. Well, I didn’t realize that these commercials made me famous before I was famous. So I’m walking across Radio City Music Hall across Sixth Avenue and this young lady looks at me as I’m about to cross and she points her finger on my chest and she goes, I know you and I said, I know you, just kidding around and I remember taking two or three steps and feeling horrifically nauseous and like sick to my stomach because I’m like, Oh my God. Like, I don’t know what it’s like that somebody knows me and they didn’t go to high school with me, is not my friend or not my family. It was the weirdest sensation of my life. It was the strangest weirdest, craziest thing. I could never explain it. So anyway, I can never bear for it. I can never thought about it and the time I was across Sixth Avenue. I was 100% comfortable with being on the street. It took five seconds for me to get comfortable and every single person that comes up to me to this day, I just got notes in the bank, I take pictures with them. If they’re wearing a mask, I make sure I take a picture with them. If they’re not, I won’t. But before that, I mean I was hugging and kissing. There’s not a person on earth that will say I did not spend a lot of time with them and did not make sure that I lived up to my authenticity of I am appreciative and respectful of people who spend time watching my show who the hell might be too busy to take a picture with you. I’m living in a crazy universe in my head. You don’t make a lot of money. People think you’d make a lot of money doing reality shows unless you’re Gordon Ramsay, you’ll make a lot of money. So it’s not about money and it’s not about fame. It’s about appreciation for somebody’s craft. Like I appreciate the lighting in your studio. I appreciate your soundproofing. I appreciate your mic. I appreciate the way you show up. I mean, this is a real podcast and with a great logo and you just worked right and you put a lot of thought and effort into the details. You’re obsessive compulsive, probably you’re very detailed, you can see it and I respect that. In my business I am still because everybody filled up my house. I don’t have my own office. So I basically don’t set up my lighting everyday and sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad and that’s mediocre. That’s not acceptable. But I said, you know what, if I’m going to do this it is what it is. I’m not going to spend an hour and a half every single day setting up lighting and I don’t have a permanent space to do that and I’m not willing to go outside my house to do it. So my long story short is you focus on what matters and you take your opportunity and you make sure you do it well.
Norman 59:30
What happens with that very small majority that are jerks or just don’t like you? How does your mind work with that?
Anthony 59:40
It’s none of my business who likes me.
Norman 59:43
Well, let’s say that it might be on social media. It might be in the streets. Has anybody ever approached you and just kind of harassed you for a bit?
Anthony 59:51
Never.
Norman 59:53
No?
Anthony 59:54
No, never once. Very fortunate if you go on amazon prime and you look at the ratings of the show. Yeah, I couldn’t say we have The highest ratings of any reality show on Amazon, but I think we do. I think we’re in the 97 percentile, and it’s unheard of, and we’re authentic. You don’t have to like me that you have to have coffee with me. But you know that what I’m doing, I’m doing because I’m doing it for the common good of the owner not for myself. So no and a few times I have been harassed online, I just delete them and block them and move on with my life. I listened to Joe Rogan and he says, I post and ghost and I like that. I don’t post on Twitter, but he tweeted, he posts and ghosts. He posted and he moves on and I don’t post anything on Twitter, and I don’t post anything political. Listen, if you can read through, if you know my political views by reading my Instagram or my social media, or even watch my podcast, Good luck and God bless you because I can’t imagine how you could? Well, people have tried to put me in a box and say, Well, you’re this or you’re that, like you have no idea my thoughts and I have very strong opinions. But you have no idea because you’re not important to what I do for my career and when they are and I need to speak up like I did a video for Congress, I will speak up.
Norman 1:01:12
Post and ghost. Love it. Alright, so let’s talk about you moving forward in the future. What are some of your goals?
Anthony 1:01:19
I really hate to say that I don’t have any. I’m in a place to be. My only goal is to have my children be successful, be happy. As long as they’re happy, as long as they’re moving forward, I’m going to be happy. Personally, my goal is what my goal is today. I don’t want to be told what to do and I want to do what gets me out of bed in the morning. I want to be happy and so right now, hopefully, I’m working on a big project in California, a hotel project that I really want to do. That’s one point in doing a TV show to me right now and all my clients that I work with and all the speaking I do and all the interviews I do and all the mentoring I do and all the teaching I do. I just want to keep doing that. I have no idea. I’ll tell you one thing I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be any more famous. If I get another TV show that we’re actually working on one. Great, but I don’t need it and what I need is I just need to be happy and listen, if I can retire, I would do exactly what I’m doing today.
Norman 1:02:19
I’m just kind of curious, the new show, we won’t get into it. But is it the same demographic you’re going after?
Anthony 1:02:24
I don’t know. I don’t think in those terms. I don’t think in demographics. I think we’re gonna be helping business people.
Norman 1:02:32
Alright. I know that you have tons of things going on. Podcasts, television production, I mean, the consulting, you’ve got tons going on. How do you balance your life?
Anthony 1:02:44
I rest a lot..
Norman 1:02:47
You rest a lot.
Anthony 1:02:48
Yeah, I don’t sleep much but I rest a lot. I’ll go to sleep sometimes, like this morning at five o’clock in the morning. Now because I was working, I was resting. I was playing UFC. I don’t know, I was looking at TikTok. I was just completely not working, but I just couldn’t sleep and you can’t sleep well. But I rest during the day like I’ll take an hour and ship my car and have a sandwich I’ll call a friend, I’ll walk on the beach, I’ll go work out. Working out to me, just give me an insane asylum. I mean, I have to work out every day or that every day, three, four days a week, sometimes five, and not to get bigger and stronger just because I don’t want to wind up in a crazy house. So for me, getting that sweat, getting that work out mostly I’m 55 getting older is everything.
Norman 1:03:38
On this podcast, one of the main things we like to do is talk to successful people and find out some of their hurdles, some of the struggles that they had to get them to where they are today and how they got around it and what did they learn from it?
Anthony 1:03:53
My dad died when I was two. Yeah, I didn’t know my ABCs because I was sick in the hospital, in Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn and I got left back in first grade. I went to my school yard and I thought I was going second grade. Apparently I wasn’t and I didn’t know that. So when you’re all your friends are going to second grade, and you’re going back to first grade that made an impact on me. I was like, Oh, I’m not gonna suck anymore. I’m gonna pay attention and that was in the hospital. So I didn’t know what I didn’t know and Mrs. Green left me back. So that changed my life. At that moment, I would imagine that that’s how much bigger that impact on me than I can even contemplate so that was a hurdle. My dad dying and me getting left back in first grade and then just kind of not knowing, like if somebody taught me to be a police officer, be a doctor. I didn’t go to college. I went to college upon University on a military base. I didn’t know the college experience until my kids started going to private college and I started living through them seeing my daughter get on the volleyball team with maybe Oh my god, I can’t tell you how crazy that was. My goal was just receiving the theater Award for her school. She’s graduating and she is receiving some kind of award and my other daughter is already having her LinkedIn page updated when she just got a new internship two days ago. Like it’s like, Wow, those are the things that I live for. Those are the things, those are the moments and again, my mom did a great job doing the best she could. But I wanted to make sure that my kids understood that they have to speak up and I’ll try to guide them. I’ll open the door, you have to walk through it. One of my daughters, she’s like I don’t want help, Okay, I won’t give you help. But everybody else is getting help. I’ll make a phone call for you. But once you get in the door, if I get a call say Hey, you’re not doing a good job, I should fire you. No, give her another chance, don’t fire her and so I just want to give my kids an opportunity and that’s kind of so I think came out of me being left back and kind of not having guidance in knowing what to do. I’ve only been in the hotel business because my mother’s friend had a hotel, a small hotel somewhere and I guess I said I guess we’ll never know. But he never taught me, never talked about it, never won’t be on the front desk and I just was just trying to find myself, just trying to find something to latch on to and I found a hotel business and people say why hotel business?Why did you fall in love with it? I said because I have a lot of different personalities and the hotel business has a lot of different personalities. I love flowers. I can be in the flower business. I love talking to people sometimes. Sometimes I don’t. I’ll go into accounting and hide for a while. So the hotel business allows me to be everything that my personality really is. So that was the biggest hurdle and then smaller hurdles, but I never really look at business hurdles as hurdles. I never look at losing a business deal or losing your show or not getting a show or getting a show, getting three shows. I don’t look at my life in terms of that. I just look at my life as I made a commitment that if I got a TV show, I was going to help younger people and I’ll let them do that and so I’d say the biggest struggle was getting left back in first grade and my dad died.
Norman 1:07:00
Well, let’s take it to the other side. 180 degrees the other way. Top successes and why?
Anthony 1:07:06
My kids, my family, my friends, putting myself in the position of access so I can help other people. Being pretty positioned to have access so I can help myself. I can do things that are fun. Who knew I would be in the Florida Bar at Southern Brooklyn playing with the Harlem Globetrotters. Well, who knew? My friend Howard, who actually I’m going to speak to tomorrow. Howard called me up and he goes, Hey, we need a celebrity guy to play it with the Harlem Globetrotters president at the time? I said, Sure. I’ll do it and I have my kids in the stands. I missed the shot and they made fun of me like so it’s just I just wanna have fun. If you ask me really what my goals are, I want to have fun. I want to help people and I want to support my family and that’s it. Outside of that, I don’t really, I don’t want to take over the world. I mean, I don’t know what that means .
Norman 1:07:57
Very good. So we’re running down to the end of the show right now, at the end of every podcast, I always like to ask the guests if they know a guy.
Anthony 1:08:08
I do. Leo Rossi, look him up.
Norman 1:08:10
We definitely will. I can’t wait to talk to him.
Anthony 1:08:13
So like you said, it’s going to be an hour and 45 minutes, so I must be boring because you get me up before an hour and 45 minutes. Leo would be three hours.
Norman 1:08:23
I said an hour to an hour and 45.
Anthony 1:08:27
When you ask him Hey, do you know a guy? I hope he offers up the guy I’m thinking about because that would be the most fascinating interview. It’s very, very, very a person you will know. But I don’t know if he’ll give up that guy. If he does, it will be a very interesting podcast and Leo will be a very interesting podcast.
Norman 1:08:45
Oh, that’s great. This has been a really interesting podcast. I mean, I’ve always wanted to talk to you about that show. I love Hotel Impossible and I love the way that you are just, you’re very systematic in the way that you approach things. But anyways, yeah, I’ve It was a pleasure speaking to you today.
Anthony 1:09:04
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me. You ask great questions. You give people time to speak, and I really appreciate it and if there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know and I will be sending you Leo Rossi’s phone number.
Norman 1:09:15
Oh, fantastic. Alright Anthony. Well, thank you so much for being on the show.
Anthony 1:09:21
It was a pleasure.
Hayden 1:09:22
Thanks for listening guys and gals. That concludes our interview with Anthony Melchiorri. Make sure to tune in next week for an interview with Julian Joseph. Julian is a world renowned jazz musician, piano player, composer, educator, and a host on BBC Radio. I certainly had a blast listening to him speak about being in Branford Marsalis’ band. We also touch on some music philosophy at some point. Anyway, you gotta check it out. As always, make sure to like and follow the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us out and keeps you up to date with all things with I Know This Guy. That’s enough for me and I’ll see you next time.
