I’ve decided to reprint it here because he and his whole family (wife, four adult kids and a grandchild) came to my 65th birthday party as did Vivian Quach who I profiled in my 2010 TED talk. She’s also worked with me for 39 years. Here’s the post from eight years ago:
Life can be so transactional in the 21st century. That’s why gifts offered with no purpose other than loyalty and love are so valuable today. Who works for the same employer for 30 years (now 39 years)? I’m lucky enough to have dos compañeros who’ve been working with me for three long decades, back to the Reagan era. I want to show my appreciation to one of the people who’ve worked with me for decades.
Martin Cabello has been a maintenance supervisor since the start of my first hotel, The Phoenix. He also worked at our Hotel Bijou and now works at the Wild Palms hotel in Sunnyvale. He has offered me the gift of his loyalty, his ingenuity, his positive spirit, and his friendship for all these years.
I taught Martin to drive a stick shift on the hills of San Francisco when he was 21 years old, he taught me some Spanish, I celebrated the birth of his first baby, and toasted him when he got his citizenship. He brought his kids to our Joie de Vivre Bowl-a-Rama nights as well as to Great America when 300 of us JdVers took buses from San Francisco down to the amusement park. Martin and I have grown up together as adults.
To say thank you to Martin, I invited him, his wife, and four kids to join me for five days, all expenses paid, in my home in El Pescadero, Baja Sur California in Martin and Maria’s native Mexico. This was the first time the family had taken a vacation on a plane with all of them together. It was heart-warming to spend a few days deepening my connection with the family and working on my Spanish as this is the primary language they speak at home in Redwood City.
Sharing my love for my new home as a gringo in their country of origin and seeing how much they appreciated the combination of ocean, desert, farms, tropics, and mountains (and the amazing food in this particular region) burst open all of our hearts. I hope they are my neighbors some day as they love it here.
The boys went bike riding with me, the girls did a sunrise shamanic cleanse on an ocean cliff with Saul, I did the Rancho Pescadero running loop with Maria (Martin’s wife) and daughters, we all did a beach horseback ride, and Martin and I got to reminisce about how Joie de Vivre evolved from one funky motel in the Tenderloin to 52 boutique hotels over 24 years (while I was founder/CEO).
Our last full day, we traversed an hour to La Paz, venturing out on the Sea of Cortez on a private boat to experience Isla Espiritu Santo, a breathtaking nature refuge. We capped it off by swimming with one of the largest sea lion colonies in the world. How can you stuff so many memories in one head over such a short period of time? On their last night, after a delicious BBQ at home, Maria took Martin by the hand and they went for a walk on the beach at sunset while the kids and I watched and swooned from a perch at my home. Martin returned saying, “I’ve never seen my wife so happy!”
Love and loyalty can’t be calculated, but they can be appreciated. You can offer a radiant smile, a genuine compliment, some fresh-made marmalade, or a few of your SF Giants season tickets that you aren’t using. We all have gifts we can offer. But, this trip was one more reminder that the greatest gift in life doesn’t come in a box with expensive wrapping. It is shared…one corazón at a time. I couldn’t have done this without my hospitality sidekick Saul Kuperstein to whom I dedicate this final wise thought from Rabindranath Tagore. I also dedicate this sentiment to my Joie de Vivre sidekick, and “Modern Elder” even before Airbnb coined the term, Jack Kenny (who introduced me at my b’day party this past Friday night), who reminded me that we’re nothing without our people…
I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
Martin with his two sons this past Friday night at my b’day party
Vivian at my b’day party
-Chip