The most important thing that I have ever learned in my career is that it is all about having the right attitude and giving your best every day and at every turn – nothing can replace that.

Frankly you can be the most talented, skilled and knowledgeable professional, but if you are not willing to leave your sweat, blood and tears on the floor for it, you will not succeed… and even if you are the hardest working person in the industry, you might still not succeed. The secret ingredient to success is, to not only work hard but also to believe that anything is possible and to make everyone else around you believe that as well.

I started as an assistant housekeeping manager back in New York in 2009, and remember that I always used to work a lot of hours and tried to be at my best. The hotel did well overall as being the flagship of the brand and company, but performance and service started to slip and decrease slowly over the years. I guess many of us tried to blame unfortunate circumstances for it, or even better, the union (always an available and easy excuse to make for managers in an union environment). We learned later than none of that was true – it was the lack of effective leadership that let all of us to accept what we should not have accepted. I guess that we grew to telling ourselves that we were powerless to make a change and that we need some sort of miracle to happen.

I believed in the hotel and most importantly in its people, and kept at trying to do my best for the next four years. In 2013 a major renovation of the St. Regis New York was about to be completed and our new hotel manager arrived, Mr. Manuel Martinez.

He took his time to understand how the hotel runs, to appreciate the people who made it the flagship and the accomplishments of the past, and then… then he started to turn the hotel around.

He broke down barriers amongst departments, between management and union employees, changed people and processes that we have tried to change so many times unsuccessfully in the past, and that we almost gave up on after failing so many times – he accomplished what all senior leaders over the past years gave up on telling themselves and us that it could not be done, and he did so by not accepting anything but the best from him and his team. I never asked him where he got his endless energy and passion (and sometimes stubbornness) from to overcome so many obstacles and people telling him that it cannot be done.

I am not going to tell you that everything was smooth and easy, it really wasn’t, it was painful and hard work, but as Mr. Martinez used to tell us , ‘success does not come without efforts and suffering, success comes with sweat, blood and tears – victory tastes so much better’. He was right but it’s not just a nice quote. He acted on it from his core believe and he amplified this in his leadership role. He kept his promise for everyone who was willing to go the extra mile with him and who did not give up along the way (and some did give up). He ultimately lighted the fire and passion in all employees again, managers and union member alike, and lead us to make the St. Regis New York number one again achieving the highest Forbes five-star rating in North America (after almost losing the fifth star the years before).

He changed my journey, and I now know, that you can do the unthinkable, you can do the things that everyone else is telling you are impossible, as long as you keep striving to be at your best and push yourself and your teams further everyday, if you do that and don’t give up, then success is inevitable.

If you want to be successful in your career, you need to know that there are no short cuts to success.

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