Episode 16 / Matthew Upchurch
How Absolutely Anyone Can Be a Servant Leader: Matthew Upchurch’s Guide to Human Connection
This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered:
The strategies Matthew used to lead the travel and hospitality industry through its toughest times
The importance of servant leadership and fostering trust in pursuing collective organizational goals
Insights into Matthew’s personal journey towards combating impostor syndrome and uncertainty
The role of human connection in travel and its impact on personal growth and overcoming the loneliness epidemic
About Matthew Upchurch
As CEO of the industry’s leading luxury travel network, Matthew Upchurch oversees the company’s marketing, sales, and operational systems with a focus on keeping the organization ahead of the pack and the trends. He was the first recipient of the Luxury Travel Expo’s “Leaders in Luxury” Award and was named among the 25 Most Influential Executives in the Travel Industry by Leisure Travel News. Travel Agent Magazine labeled him one of its 100 Rising Stars in 1997 and Person of the Year (Retailer) in 1998. He has served as chairman of the Institute of Certified Travel Agents, is a lifetime member of the American Society of Travel Agents, and is a member of the Corporate Advisory Council of Cunard Line, Ltd., the Advisory Board of Ritz-Carlton Hotels & Resorts and Seabourn Cruise Line.
“One of my favorite definitions of leadership is actually the ability to get people to set aside some small amount of self interest to do something together they couldn't do alone.”
Matthew Upchurch
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Lindsey Epperly [00:00:02]:
Matthew, I am so excited to interview you today. Thank you for being.
Matthew Upchurch [00:00:07]:
Oh, it's a pleasure. And, you know, one of the reasons I'm so excited is I knew you right the very, very beginning. And I just have to say, know, we happen to be in the travel industry, but as you know, you know, in our industry and in our ethos and my personal ethos of both virtuoso and myself, it's all about human connection, which we started talking about that decades ago. It's really interesting to see the augmentation of that, but to see people like you come into our industry and not only do well in travel, but do what I think travel does so well, which is bring people together, go deeper, greater understanding. So I couldn't wait to do this because to me, it's so apropos and so wonderful to see.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:59]:
Yes, the layers that we are going to be able to get into today are really cool. And you're right. I remember exactly when we met because it was my very first travel week, and I recall how you connected the dots with what the keynote speaker said that year and what I was getting to do for a living now. And this guy had gotten on stage that I hadn't heard of at the time named Simon Sinek, talked about his why and our why, and then you got up and talked about yours. And I thought, I think Matthew's why might align with what my why is going to be. And so it was so neat to get to know you even that night. And here we are 1015 years later, and to know and to see the leadership that you have had and the influence you've had, not just on my life, but on so many of my colleagues and peers lives. And I know that all of our listeners are going to benefit from learning from you, not just within the travel industry, but well outside of it.
Lindsey Epperly [00:01:52]:
So let's just dive in there. I mean, we talk about the defining moments of our lives on this show. It's called who made you the boss? Because oftentimes there are those moments where you have to kind of look yourself in the mirror and say, oh, God, it's me. I made me the boss. What's happening when I take control over my own life, personally and professionally? And you, of course, have the story of coming into what is now virtuoso that your father had founded. And so I'm curious, what did that journey look like for you? What were your defining moments where you realized, I get to be a leader and I get to steward these individuals.
Matthew Upchurch [00:02:25]:
It's interesting because actually what virtuoso is today. So my father was an amazing person who did a lot of the industry, but he actually was a founder of the United States tour Upper association. So the reality is, when I was 22, I did agency sales for about a year before I left and did software for a couple of years and realized that I like people way too much. So I came back and it doesn't mean there aren't wonderful people in software. Please, I love technology, but I did agency sales. I apologize in advance, but the reality was after I did that for a year back then, so we're talking about the early 80s, was like, if somebody would have said, you're going to hang out with travel agents the rest of your life, I think I would have run out the door or whatever. And I don't mean to be disrespectful in any means, but it just wasn't the profession it is today. Right? And so what happened was I came back in and we ended up buying a travel agency that was a member of this organization that was started in 1940.
Matthew Upchurch [00:03:27]:
Well, the ideation was in 1949 and it began in 1950. That was put together by a bunch of mostly, by the way, european expats live in the United States who had these little boutique agencies, whatever, and they were absolutely amazing people like their knowledge, their knowledge of the destinations, their ability to bespoke travel. But also what grabbed me was how they had come together in 1949 and said, we've got these things that we can't compete, we can't do whatever, let's come together. And one of my favorite definitions of leadership is actually the ability to get people to set aside some small amount of self interest to do something together they couldn't do alone. And when I turned 60 almost two years ago, the first thing I said on stage, because I happened to be at one of our, at our symposium, and I literally turned 60. And then the next day I had to do my opening talk. And I literally said, I first want to say that I am incredibly grateful that when I was 26 years old, I just happened to meet a group of amazing entrepreneurs who just not only blew me away with how professional with their craftsmanship, but their whole idea of coming together and doing something. And it changed the trajectory of my life.
Matthew Upchurch [00:04:58]:
So what's interesting is in that storyline, now that I've been doing it so many years, somewhere along the line, I actually did one of my talks where I said, you know, when I look back and I realized my basic stick hasn't changed since I ran for class president in the 8th grade. And that was, I will serve you, and I will work as hard as I possibly can as long as we're in this together. And when I think about it, the core of that has been at the heart of what, you know, we've all heard of servant leadership and all that kind of stuff, whatever. And whether it's Simon who's now become, I jokingly call him the godfather of virtuoso. And he gave such amazing language to a lot of things that we intuitively know. And I think that's the brilliance of people like Simon or other people like that. It's not that they really invented anything, is that they gave us a construct, and they gave us language that makes it easier to absorb, understand, and apply. And so for me, when I love who made you the boss, I love the title, because it's like, well, really, I never thought of myself as the boss.
Matthew Upchurch [00:06:17]:
I felt myself as a custodian. I felt myself as somebody who is responsible. And I'm incredibly grateful that I met a group of then 60 year old plus entrepreneurs who were even willing to collaborate with some 26 year old who had all these crazy ideas. I remember 1987, one of my first real serious meetings, like a year and a half after we had merged the companies. And I remember wanting making a presentation, asking all of our members if they were willing to install Ku satellite dishes at all their agencies, which today we would call DirecTV or Dish network, whatever, so that we could beam in professional development. Of course, that went over like a lead balloon, right? So funny you say that. I had a lady that actually had worked for our family, with our family, even before virtual. So she was this amazing british lady, and she heard that speech, and then ten years later, like, 90, whatever, I showed her the first early streaming video, and I show this, and she goes, oh, you never do let go of an idea, do you? And I'm like, what are you talking about, Pat? Her name was Pat Battersby.
Matthew Upchurch [00:07:37]:
She goes, this is basically the same thing you talked about ten years ago with satellite dishes. And I hadn't even thought about that. Right. It hadn't even occurred to me that actually she's right. Right. It was like the general thing. But for me, this whole idea of leadership and all that has always been about. And by the way, you're not a leader because you say you're a leader.
Matthew Upchurch [00:08:01]:
You're a leader because people trust you and they entrust you with them and that you're able to communicate and develop something together.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:13]:
Yes. It's funny. I named the show who made you the boss? Because it was a bit tongue in cheek. I feel like that is such an overused word these days. And then it's such an intimidating word oftentimes, too, because you kind of think of that like old stodgy man in a suit. Right? And it looks so different to be a leader of anything these days. And I want to encourage today's leaders to stick in the game when the going gets tough. And that's why we're having conversations like this.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:39]:
You mentioned individuals like Simon who are able to give you the words to process right around an experience. And I was listening to a talk that you gave recently, and you had talked a little bit about how the human desire for certainty can amplify our fears and make us question our own strengths. And that line made me think a lot about the very hot topic, a topic we talk a lot on this show about, of impostor syndrome. Right. We as individuals desire a certainty in what we're doing, in our output, in our value, and when we don't have it, because you can never truly have it. Right. When you don't have it, it makes you start questioning everything. Who made me the boss? What is this that I'm doing? Why am I even doing this? And so I would just love to kind of talk a little bit about that topic alone.
Lindsey Epperly [00:09:27]:
How do we combat that desire for certainty and what it does to us when it creates those fears?
Matthew Upchurch [00:09:33]:
Well, first of all, believe me, I have battled that my whole life. Right. As well. And what happens is it kind of sneaks up on you because it kind of goes in phases, right. And you accomplish something, whatever. And then all of a sudden, you wake up and people are asking, what do we do? Et cetera, et cetera. That really is to go back to that. I just want to frame that again.
Matthew Upchurch [00:10:00]:
Is that our need and our desire, our human desire for one to have certainty. Right. It does absolutely accentuate and magnify fears. In fact, I'm actually considering, I mean, I met for the listeners, somebody that I think has got a really great handle on. This is April Rennie. So she wrote the book flux, and she's amazing. Her whole story was that she was at Oxford, I believe, university, about to graduate. She gets a call from her sister that both her parents died in a car crash instantly and how her whole life changed.
Matthew Upchurch [00:10:41]:
And she talks about all this and how do you deal with a world where the speed of change is overwhelming, right. But I do think that it's very helpful. A lot of times for me, it's very helpful to have a balancing word. So for me, certainty, I try to balance it with clarity. So it's like one of the ways that I try to get away from the need for certainty is just to constantly be trying to improve clarity. And that clarity imbued in the word clarity is that it's not certain, it's not exact, but if you can keep it, kind of reminds you when you go to the optometrist, does this look better? Does that look better? Does this look better? But what does that take? It takes active processing. It takes reading and thinking and discussing and questioning. And know I do a lot of professional stuff.
Matthew Upchurch [00:11:39]:
I also do a lot of personal stuff because at the end of the day, if you're a professional, you may be a professional. But as Simon and Brene Brown, a lot of people remind us, we're humans first, professionals second, right? So I do think that having some sort of an active practice, and I think that's another really important word in life and in business and in everything, is that is having some sort of a practice that you improve on, that you build on. Recently I read a lot of different things, both professionally and whatever you want to call it, spiritual or life coaching or whatever you have. And it was very interesting because I've been reading a lot of these different authors, and this young man, well, you know, Carlos Correeda, who I mentored and became very good like you, he was one of those people that I met really early on. I said, you watch this person, right? He just watched this person. And I had given him a recommendation of some things to read during the pandemic. And then he told me about somebody else, and I read this author, and it was just blew me away. And then when we met in Montreal, he said, yeah, don't you think this particular author, don't you think he's a whole nother level? And I said, you know, I intuitively thought you were going to ask me that question.
Matthew Upchurch [00:13:03]:
And I might surprise you to say, I don't think so.
Lindsey Epperly [00:13:07]:
Really?
Matthew Upchurch [00:13:07]:
Why? And I said, you know why? Because actually what I actually think that process is, is almost like a game of tetris. Like you read different things and it's all these pieces of the puzzle, and then all of a sudden, for you and I, it could be completely different, right? Different sequence, different, whatever. But all of a sudden, you read somebody new, they're really saying a lot of the same things, but for some reason, that person's language, that framing, that whatever, not only makes sense by itself. But all of a sudden, it's the whole puzzle, right? And so, you know how tetris, you put in the right piece and boom, all that stress, all that stuff just goes down. And that was kind of what came to me.
Lindsey Epperly [00:13:58]:
That all makes a lot of sense, that it's a very personal experience, your practice that you're talking about, and I think it was April that you were quoting in the speech that I heard you talking, where one of the things that we can do is instead of being certain of one future, it's being open to the possibilities of multiple futures. I'm curious to go back to your word practice to kind of hear a little bit more, what is Matthew Upchurch's practice? Are you meditating? Is it reading? What does that look like for.
Matthew Upchurch [00:14:28]:
I do, first of all, one thing that I've always been a huge believer in, and I don't actually understand, look, maybe it's financial, maybe it's this, maybe it's whatever, but I've always been a believer in building up resources. And as I got older and had more means, I've had executive coaches, live coaches, storytelling coaches. I've never understood why more people don't. And there's wonderful means today, right, where you can do this. So I've always believed in trying to have people in my life that I could rely on, that could be sounding words that can teach me something. So part of my practice has always been trying to make sure that I have those types of people or resources in my life. Reading is. It's funny, I read a lot to be totally vulnerable and real.
Matthew Upchurch [00:15:29]:
I was not a good academic. My kids are so much better. They're off the charts better than I was. I was a bit add and a little bit like. But I love that old adage about, don't confuse your learning with your education, or something like one of the two. Right. So it's like learning something that you need to learn to love. So I read a lot of pieces.
Matthew Upchurch [00:15:55]:
I very rarely read an entire book, right. But I read a lot of excerpts. I read a lot of stuff. And I just think that that practice, now, one of the things that I think is very real, and at least it's been for me, is I have this theory that the more you open yourself up to love or the more you open yourself up to creativity, it's a duality issue. So to the greater extent that I can open up my mind to creativity is also to the degree that I could be an absolute master catastrophizer.
Lindsey Epperly [00:16:37]:
Yeah, right.
Matthew Upchurch [00:16:39]:
I mean, the ability of my mind to just invent the most ridiculous catastrophes, right, or what's going to go wrong. I literally have come to realize that it's the price you pay. So the more open minded, the more you are on the positive side. It's like it automatically pushes both boundaries.
Lindsey Epperly [00:17:08]:
Well, speaking of being a catastrophizer, I think that we have had our fair share of catastrophe in this industry over the years and years and years. And we talk on the show a lot about this concept of the monsters that save us, right? So it's this idea that our greatest obstacles, our greatest fears, that manifest as reality. When you're in the middle of those seasons of life, you feel like you're swallowed by a whale, right? Like you are in the belly of the beast, and you think, this is going to destroy me. And ultimately, it's those seasons that actually refine us and ultimately make us who we are supposed to be and how we're supposed to show up. And most of the time, they're not even the catastrophes we imagined in our head anyway, right? Like, they are totally what fresh new hell awaits us today? But I would love to talk, because you led not just your company and not just your network, but really an industry through its greatest crisis, right? Like the travel and hospitality industry during the pandemic had never seen darker days, and you were responsible for showing up and communicating and leading individuals who just were beside themselves with despair, with grief, with negativity, with what is next. What was that like and what did you learn?
Matthew Upchurch [00:18:27]:
Well, I think part of it was also, when we talk about practice, it's like, I felt, because I had that both conscious and unconscious knowledge, to me, it was survival of myself as well. So for me, it's like, well, what can I do? What can I do? And to be vulnerable and open. When I did my. When I started my weekly video messages that we mount. And by the way, I have to say that it's blown me away. How many people have mentioned those in the last couple of years as I travel the world? Very moving. But I also want to be very real and say that became one of my practices to try to get out of my own head, to try to realize that, to not allow my negativity or my fear to just take over. So I would get up at roughly somewhere around four in the morning because the world was changing so fast that there was no point in writing or doing anything the day before, because who the heck? So literally, from the time I kind of synthesized everything I was trying to deal with, and what I was trying to do was contextualize.
Matthew Upchurch [00:19:53]:
Right. I wasn't a news reader. People could read what, they could read statistics and all that. All I was trying to do was provide some context. And the context was also a little bit of like, here's our reality, but look where we came from. Look at the things that were there, look at what's possible in the future. And just trying to maintain a thread. It's almost like that movie where the movie where the kids were rescued from that cave in Thailand, right.
Matthew Upchurch [00:20:26]:
And they were underwater and whatever, and they had this safety line. Right. But I was doing it for myself as much as our community. Right. To me, that was part of it. That was the ability to engage both my intellect but also the regulation of my own feelings, trying to be not Mr. Positive.
Lindsey Epperly [00:20:57]:
Right.
Matthew Upchurch [00:20:57]:
But how could I best describe at any given moment what I was feeling in a way that was hopeful but not Pollyanna?
Lindsey Epperly [00:21:10]:
Absolutely. It's so interesting to hear. I haven't actually processed this part of it for me, either, in that stepping into that leadership for you is also what you needed. That stepping into your calling and who you are supposed to be to kind of steward the direction of that group of people is ultimately something that gave you hope and clarity and the ability to move forward. That's really.
Matthew Upchurch [00:21:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. And a very practical framework. Right.
Lindsey Epperly [00:21:43]:
Yeah.
Matthew Upchurch [00:21:44]:
So I always joke about myself that I'm like the dog in the movie up, right, where it's like squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, right. I'm easily distracted because I love possibility and I love all this stuff, whatever. But I'm also a big believer in, and I've really become a big believer in frameworks. Frameworks for a lot of things. And I think that one of the biggest mistakes or misconceptions that people have is that frameworks limit your creativity. I actually think they do the opposite. And by the way, there are lots of wonderful frameworks out there. For example, we at Virtoso, we use Patrick Lencione's the advantage.
Matthew Upchurch [00:22:33]:
We use the playbook. We use the know defining objectives, the six critical questions, all that. And I remember when we first implemented, I said, look, the reality is that there'll be no framework that's perfect. And in fact. But what you need to do is you need to commit to it, right. Because if you pick a framework and then you abandon it when you don't agree with it, or it gets hard, because you're going to move on to the next one and you're going to run into the same thing. But I love frameworks from the perspective of, I think they make you more creative. I think they build common language for yourself.
Matthew Upchurch [00:23:16]:
They anchor you. So I can go on, on little expeditions of thought and whatever, blah, blah, blah, but come back to a framework and a framework that's both good for me personally, so that I don't feel lost, but also a framework that allows me to have a common language and processes and things like that with my team members and my colleagues and the people that I work with.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:44]:
Yeah, speaking of the people you work with, I want listeners to kind of understand the volume at which you speak to. Right. We are not just talking about your team at Virtuoso, but when you address a crowd, when you address those who follow you, it is agencies and advisors and suppliers, it is the worldwide travel network. At what point, how big is virtuoso these days? How many individuals essentially tune in?
Matthew Upchurch [00:24:12]:
I actually hadn't done the math because I don't even have the number on all the partners and all that. But if you think about it, at virtual travel week, we have 5000 people, we have nearly 20,000 advisors, and we have people all over the world. But you know, what's interesting is that. I don't know, one of the things I will say that you're giving me the opportunity to say, though, is it's interesting because as it's grown over the years, sometimes I hear people say, oh, I miss it when it was so much smaller and this and that, the other whatever. And, you know, when I want to sometimes just yell out, you don't think I miss it? For example, people think because of what I do. A lot of people have the misconception that I'm a great networker. I tend to be a horrible networker because if I'm at a cocktail party, I don't like superficial conversations, right. So I tend to find a couple of people, whatever, and I get into this in depth whatever, and then I look at my wife, it's like 20 minutes later and the cocktail party is only 45 minutes.
Lindsey Epperly [00:25:23]:
Stuff like that. The moment that other people get to form an opinion about your business, that you are like, well, I get it, this is my baby, and I also have an opinion about my business. People forget that the leaders of that company actually also feel some certain way.
Matthew Upchurch [00:25:40]:
Yeah, well, and the thing is that when you communicate like this, and by the way, I'm talking about process, somebody else that became a very dear friend is Dr. Ken Dyqual of age wave. And I met him. His company did a presentation to our network in 97 about how the boomer generation was going to change things. And eventually, of course, the millennials are the same, and da da da. But what was interesting is that many years later, I went to see him. He did this big speech. He's written many books and done tv specials.
Matthew Upchurch [00:26:18]:
And I went to see him at veterans Theater in San Francisco, do this huge speech for bank of America, Merrill lynch. And then he invited me to his debrief. And as I sat there, I listened to all the producers and whatever, they broke it down, et cetera, et cetera. And then as we were going to have lunch after that, as we walked to his office, he puts his arm around me. He goes, you know, I watch you speak in person, and I've watched your videos and whatever, and you really do a great job, but you could be better. And then, of course, I'm just enough of a pregnant pause. And then he starts laughing, and he goes, well, a real friend would never say that and then leave you hanging, right? And I said, okay. So he goes, did you see that guy at the end of the know? He was kind of there.
Matthew Upchurch [00:27:03]:
Didn't say much, whatever. But that guy's name is Jay golden, and he's been my storytelling coach for the last decade. And so he recommended. So I got together with Jay, and at first I was very resistant, but it's another example of having found a framework, right? So the amount of energy and quite frankly, sometimes the fear, because I've become very good friends with Simon. And sometimes, I know, I said, you know, sometimes I can't stand you. Why? What did I do? He goes, because you write a book, like start with y or leaders eat last, or the infinite game or whatever, and you get on stage and you get to basically do the relatively same subject matter 560 times.
Lindsey Epperly [00:27:53]:
Yeah.
Matthew Upchurch [00:27:54]:
Well, hell, yeah. I mean, I'm not taking away that you're fabulous. I said, you know what freaks me out? I have to face the most accomplished, amazing people in my industry two and three times a year and try to tell them something different.
Lindsey Epperly [00:28:12]:
Yes. That has to be such. You know what's interesting, too? I was even thinking, because you got a really cool opportunity where you interviewed Stephen Bartlett, had him come out to Vegas for travel week. I'm so sad I missed it this year. And he talked about how, like, a community owner's job, right? What is a community owner's job? It is to facilitate the bonds where we can add value to each other. And I thought about you and your position, especially because when you think about the number of stakeholders involved in your business processes and goings on, oftentimes at odds with what another wants. Right. Like, everyone wins in a different way.
Lindsey Epperly [00:28:49]:
How do you even begin to. And of course, you can't make everyone happy, but how do you make decisions around that when you have stakeholders with competing interests in such a know.
Matthew Upchurch [00:29:00]:
Well, first of all, since you brought Steven up, it was fabulous, because we never would have gotten Steven. It hadn't been for Simon. So, Simon, the way I found out about Steven was I was on British Airways flying back, and I didn't want to watch another movie, so I went to the tv thing, and then I saw the series diary of a CEO. Right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:18]:
Yeah.
Matthew Upchurch [00:29:19]:
And anytime I see somebody interviewing Simon, I'm always curious. And I thought that Stephen's interview of Simon, and by the way, Steven has interviewed Simon more than any other. It was so I thought he did such an amazing job. Right. And then just the chemistry, the questions, whatever, that's how he got on my radar. But what was interesting is what I am absolutely the most in the forum speech that I just had. He flew in, was there for literally not like, 24 hours. But what I was incredibly proud.
Matthew Upchurch [00:29:59]:
And when I say proud, I don't mean for myself, for who we are, right. For what we've been able to accomplish, and for Stephen Bartlett, who's hired by Apple and this and that. He's one of the most in demand people in the world right now for him to come. And my first question was, well, Steven, you've been here. Whatever. So what's your impression? And here's this guy who goes to how many all this stuff. He goes, well, you know, the energy in this room, and you can even feel the kindness in the hallways. I could not have scripted a better reaction because it was something you feel, right.
Matthew Upchurch [00:30:43]:
It was something that he felt it. So for our community to make an impact, and he wrote, I had him sign happy sexy millionaire because he literally got in a limo at 06:00 a.m. The next day and took off. I ran downstairs to get him to sign it, but I've forgotten. And he literally says, I just want you to know that your business really inspires me, et cetera. So the fact that we've done something right now, to answer your question about how you do that, it does get harder as the diversity gets greater. Right? I mean, when we started, that original group of members was, they were different, but they were not that different. In fact, the original group, they were, like, 85% european expats, right? And they're all boutique agencies or whatever.
Matthew Upchurch [00:31:40]:
And so I think for the first 30 years of our evolution, we were a little bit like, cooking good reduction sauce, right? And it was done very slowly, like, well, here are the cruise only people. Oh, my God, who are those people? Or here's the corporate agencies, but have great leisure. But what we have in common is they're high end whatever. Oh, no. But they're corporate. So I dealt with this throughout my whole life, which was always like, okay, are you really judging them by this cover? What are our non negotiable values? What are the simple rules of engagement? And then, really, that's where I've spent a lot of time, trying to get people to focus on what we have in common. But as you grow bigger and international, I mean, when we first started working outside the US, I had a bunch of people said, we got enough fish to fry here. Why are you going over there today? I'm so incredibly grateful that we are a truly global organization and trying to become even more global.
Matthew Upchurch [00:32:51]:
But what we're doing now with the speed of change and everything that's going on, really, the core of where we're trying to evolve would be caught within the concept of, how do you grow bigger and smaller at the same time? How do you. Well, part of it is, I'm a big believer that the vast majority of innovation is not invention. Very few things are really, truly new inventions. I think a lot of innovation is the ability to observe naturally occurring phenomena, behaviors, opportunities, and then resequence them, rename them, add new capabilities that weren't there before, and things like that. I mean, to give you an example, when I met the original Allied members, when they got together and opened up their office in New York in 1950, there were no credit cards in 1950. Used to have to pay by vouchers, which meant you had to have a one to one relationship, credit relationship, with every hotel, everything, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And if you were a small agency in 1950, you could only make payments by wire transfer. And wire transfers were insanely expensive.
Matthew Upchurch [00:34:23]:
And then the office in New York, all these entrepreneurs, they couldn't either find, like, you couldn't find somebody in 1950 in Atlanta that knew how to build itineraries in France, right? I mean, it's post World War II, so you couldn't find them. And if you did find the person with those talents, you couldn't afford them, so you got to give credit. So these guys got together. They opened up this office in midtown Manhattan. They hire all these people. They hire all this equipment and the one I love is, back in those days, you would pay your hotels every 90 days. So they would aggregate all of the vouchers that were sent to one hotel by all the agencies, all the members, and they would send one wire transfer and then a telex breaking down 100,000 pounds broken down by voucher number. So I told this story to.
Matthew Upchurch [00:35:16]:
And you remember earlier, I told you that I was not really the best academic in the world. So I was invited to be the dean's distinguished lecture series at Cornell Hospitality, which for me, was like the irony of all ironies, because that was not the dean's list. I was normally right, so. But I told these incredibly bright young people, right, I told them the story. And I said, and now that I've told you this story, do me a favor. Don't ever lose your humility, because now that I've told you this story for the record, your generation did not invent crowdsourcing or crowdfunding. The reality is, these people were doing it in 1950. They just didn't.
Matthew Upchurch [00:35:59]:
And what you guys is you named it something and you added technology to scale it. But at the end of the day, it's not that different. So a lot of what I say, how do you become smaller and bigger? So, for example, we call it community as a way of doing business. So what we're doing at Virtuoso is we're doing things where we have people that sell a lot of cruises. So the vision that I have is. And that we have as an organization is how do we develop an ecosystem that allows the naturally occurring communities that are there anyway? But how do you develop an infrastructure, almost like an operating system, that allows those communities to operate at a higher level than they would have without the operating system, but then benefit each other through the ecosystem, right? So that's kind of the vision. And then how do you make those people? So a lot of the success was always that another core ethos of ours, right, was always, in fact, in the absolute worst time trade magazine cover of all time was when I was on the COVID of luxury travel advisor for the third time, and it came out on April 2020.
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:20]:
April.
Matthew Upchurch [00:37:21]:
Not even March. April.
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:22]:
Oh, no.
Matthew Upchurch [00:37:23]:
Right? And, of course, you run to read the article to think, what the heck did I say that doesn't make me look like an idiot, right? Because the whole world changed. I mean, everything stops, whatever. But I will say that, you know, the one thing I remember the most from that article, I remember saying, takers need not apply. And what I meant by that is, I've always been, of the opinion, I never say to anybody, this goes back to April's quote, right? I am not saying there's the future. I believe in multiple. So the reality is, I'm not telling you you will or won't be successful. In fact, most of the time you'll be successful without us. But we are an ethos and an organization that basically believes that there's more to be gained by sharing than there is keeping good oneself.
Matthew Upchurch [00:38:27]:
And so that doesn't mean that we don't have people that have their skirmishes and this whatever, but in general, we really have nurtured and built an organization where people are literally willing to. I mean, there was a young, one of our young members from Switzerland in one of our meetings in Paris, was on a transfer to Paris and meets one of our wonderful older members, large agency in Washington, DC area. And they just happen to sit with each other, right? And they start talking to him. And Guido says to me when he sees me in Paris, he goes, Matthew, I was sitting next to Danny and I was asking him this. And the next thing I know, he has his iPhone out and he's showing me his financial statements and how he's doing. He goes, do you understand how that is not normal? Right. So the idea that everybody helps each other has always been a part of it. So that's kind of where we are.
Matthew Upchurch [00:39:37]:
And that's one of the things that I love about what.
Lindsey Epperly [00:39:42]:
Yeah, you know, changing gears a little bit, I want to talk about something that I've seen you do really well because my husband Jeremy and I have really had the privilege of getting to know you and your wife Jessica. And it's a really cool thing to see the inside glimpse of the way you two support each other personally and professionally. And I would love to learn a little bit about the mindset from partner to partner. Right. What this looks like when it comes to you've built this incredible company and your wife has this fire in her bones toward a mission. Right. She is all in for sustainability. Jessica Upchurch is phenomenally known for this, and you're able to bring these two passions together and support one another.
Lindsey Epperly [00:40:24]:
I want to talk a little bit about what it means to be a great partner personally and professionally, and how you go about supporting a very strong, independent female like your.
Matthew Upchurch [00:40:35]:
You know, first of all, it's so funny, I have a picture here of Jessica with a little heart, and it says, I love you because I always believe in you. And so I think one of the most incredible things when you're blessed. Look, and like any other couple, you have those moments of insecurity, right. And one of the best concepts I've ever, ever heard when it comes to human relationships is hartole. And he uses the word that every human being, there's two parts to us. There's our normal who we are, our soul, whatever you want to call it, and our pain body.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:21]:
Yeah, I've heard his word.
Matthew Upchurch [00:41:23]:
And so if you can get some sort of. Is that really me talking, or is that my pain body? Is that my fears, my insecurities, my whatever. And if you're blessed to be able to have a partner that is willing to stay on that path. Right. And also to maintain the whole idea that there's the two partners and then there's this third thing, the vessel. Right. Whether it's a marriage or a partnership or whatever it may be, right. And kind of understanding and understanding that you're both putting things in there, but you're not that vessel, right.
Matthew Upchurch [00:41:58]:
You're two independent entities. And this is some work that I did with a life coach that gave me that visual. But I think that's been one of the things that when you can get past your insecurities and past your pain body and past all this stuff, whatever, and be able to break it down. And sometimes it's just sometimes you have to back off, too. Right. Sometimes it's interval training. Anything where you put the gas down and you never lift it up is going to blow up.
Lindsey Epperly [00:42:34]:
Yeah.
Matthew Upchurch [00:42:35]:
So I think that's another thing about when do you back off? When do you learn? In sports, you would call it interval training. Right. And I think those are the things. But I do think that one of the magical things is that if you have two individuals that, you know, at their core are continuous learners, they want to keep evolving, they want to keep growing, and then it just takes time. We would be sitting here and tell you that, like any relationship, the beginning is hard, right. And then you get to know each other and you go through all those things. But I also think it's the. And then when you start seeing.
Matthew Upchurch [00:43:18]:
I'm a big believer even before a partnership or a marriage, whatever. But for some reason, at a very young age, I always kind of had this intuitive notion that the best way to get things done was to partner up with other people that had complementary skills.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:39]:
That's evidence in your surrounding yourself with coaches and with others who level you.
Matthew Upchurch [00:43:45]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:46]:
And that's what you and Jessica do, for one.
Matthew Upchurch [00:43:48]:
Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:49]:
It's a very beautiful.
Matthew Upchurch [00:43:54]:
Um, and then also, it's just the ability to have fun, right. And to hold up a beer and the number of times that we've had an intense exchange, and then we literally end up laughing so hard that we, like, where the hell did that come from? This is just ridiculous. And it's like a Venn diagram. Right? It also helps to have those things that bind you together that you. Whatever. But then the ability to also have the interest or the skills or the whatever that make you different.
Lindsey Epperly [00:44:41]:
Yeah. Well, you guys set a beautiful example for others of us who are looking to support our partners and what their dreams are. Whether you work together or not. You guys just do that really well. Before we go, I feel remiss if we don't talk about travel for just a second. This is what we do for a living. But one of the things that you've said over the years, and I found myself using it very frequently, is the idea that we're not just planning people's vacations and their cute little holidays. When you work with a travel advisor, you're working with someone who is stewarding the most precious asset.
Lindsey Epperly [00:45:17]:
It is their free leisure time. And I would love to hear an example of where someone did that for you and where that free leisure time, you saw an immediate return on an experience that you and your family had while you were traveling.
Matthew Upchurch [00:45:32]:
Well, for me, I love traveling the like, whether I go to somewhere like London, where I've literally been going there since, you know, seven years old, I've been there I don't know how many times. But then seeing it with my daughters or my sons and then even at different ages, I mean, that's what's so wild. So one of the things I've always loved about travel is that you could have gone back somewhere over and over again. But when you're with friends, when you're with family, whatever, it's just that you kind of re experience it, right? Or exploring something completely mean. I. I happened to grow up. My father was the chairman of the African Travel Association. Giraffe Manor in Nairobi was actually the home of my father's managing director.
Matthew Upchurch [00:46:17]:
I was there when Daisy Rochelle, the first giraffe, showed up. I was there when Walter, the warthog, was named after Walter Cronkite. So Africa was a big part of my life, but it's this whole idea of just disconnecting. And probably maybe one of the best ways to describe the power of travel is I bought my ticket a long time ago, but I'm a virgin galactic astronaut, founder and I'm now seat 47, so I'm waiting my turn. But years ago, when the mothership was being unveiled and e Branson was there before she passed away and all that, they asked me to be in the media pool. And then I ended up getting interviewed by ITV in the UK. And I'll never, ever forget this because typical to the reputation of british press, right, this reporter was being all sticky sweet to me, hey, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then the cameraman is sitting there and all of a sudden he goes, are you ready? Yeah.
Matthew Upchurch [00:47:18]:
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this is whatever. I can't remember his name. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here we are at Spaceport America, and I have Matthew Upchurch, who's a future astronaut. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Sir, isn't this about a bunch of rich people getting their jollies and literally sticks the microphone in my face right? Now, luckily, I've had a little bit of media training and a little bit of experience. So, I mean, what the hell do you do when somebody tries to take a potshot at you like that, right? So the first thing I start doing, I start giggling, right? I start laughing. And I said, well, I sure hope it'll be jolly, right? I'm expecting it to be quite jolly.
Lindsey Epperly [00:47:57]:
Desired outcome, quite fun.
Matthew Upchurch [00:47:59]:
And I said, but look, in all seriousness, I said, look, there are a lot of people that are buying these tickets, whatever, that maybe fly their own airplanes or adventures, whatever. I said, that's not me, right? I said, you happen to have chosen somebody that has spent their entire life in the travel industry. And the reason I want to do this is because everything I've ever read, there's actually a book called the overview Effect, right? Everything I've ever read about anybody that's been to space says that it's a life changing experience. And so for me, the reason that I want to do this is because it's exactly why I love travel. It gets you out of your comfort zone. It opens up your mind. The largest audience that I ever spoke to was almost 40,000 people at at and t the Cowboys stadium here. And I was asked to do a very short TED talk type thing of why the value of travel.
Matthew Upchurch [00:48:58]:
And it was about opening up your mind and what it does. But there literally is science. Like when the human brain, the human brain is always trying to conserve energy when it has too much information coming at it, it thinks in patterns. I don't know if you ever seen that series on that geotv, something about your mind or changing your mind or something like that, but basically, it tries to save energy by looking at patterns, right? And the other thing that the mind does is that when it's trying to deal with too much information, it also prioritizes in your amygdala that which is a threat, which is why in the news, if it leads, it bleeds and whatever, because that's why it happens. But when you travel, it literally does open your mind, because now, all of a sudden, your brain is not different, smells different. You're. You have less patterns to rely on. And so for know my ability to connect.
Matthew Upchurch [00:50:05]:
When Brene Brown spoke at virtual travel week, people asked me, you know, why would you bring a PhD in social work research to come talk to a bunch of travel people? That was whatever. And I said, because, you know what? We may say that we're in the travel business, but we're really in the human connection business. And that's what that was about. How do we connect better? So there's been a lot written about that. The number one thing that makes people suffer is when they feel separate from.
Lindsey Epperly [00:50:41]:
Yeah, the loneliness epidemic.
Matthew Upchurch [00:50:43]:
Right. And so, for me, travel is this thing that. It's food for the soul. It helps people connect. The old adage about it's a lot harder to hate people up close. All the different things I hear sometimes when I talk about this stuff, I feel like I'm, like, I just want world peace. But I do. But it sounds a little pitchy.
Matthew Upchurch [00:51:11]:
But the reality is, I am incredibly blessed to have been grown up in this industry, to have a father as a leader in this industry. And by the way, Tim's even seen my own children. Like, I will say officially right now on your podcast, I want to thank the virtuoso community for also helping raise my own children, because they have. I mean, I have children that have literally been to virtuoso travel week, seen all this stuff, and they've seen the glitzy part of it, and they've seen the back of house part of it. Right. But travel and this community has changed who they are as people. And so, for me, when it comes to the travelers that we serve, it's not about booking a trip. It's all that.
Matthew Upchurch [00:51:56]:
It's why the value of travel advisors has back to that thing about nothing's ever really, truly new. The people that are real, true, trusted advisors, they're the ones that are basically helping people add that sense of experiences and connection and things that makes the rest of their lives so much richer.
Lindsey Epperly [00:52:20]:
Yeah. I mean, when you think about it in terms of what is at stake here, when you joke about it sounds like world peace. It actually is real, though. What's at stake is that when we forget what it means to connect as humans and to honor one another's cultures and to go and be visitors and to be kind, gracious travel citizens, that is really important work. And so it has changed my life, I know, because I've been in this industry in and out. But it's really meaningful that we all have the ability to make that impact well beyond the front doors of a travel agency, that the clients get to feel it, and that, you know, that you're a small part of their experience as a human on this planet, learning and growing and opening their minds. So thank you for building what you have built, because it really has impacted millions globally. And thank you for your time today.
Lindsey Epperly [00:53:09]:
This has been a really meaningful conversation. It's been so fun for me to get to know you on this level.
Matthew Upchurch [00:53:13]:
Well, thank you so much. And as I said at the beginning, congratulations on your success and your inspiration of so many people. And I just love you are an example of literally what we just ended with, right. That we are taking the blessings that we have from our ability to make a living and be part of this industry, but to actually make sure that it impacts those even outside our industry, I feel it's both a blessing and a responsibility.
Lindsey Epperly [00:53:44]:
Yeah, it is. Well, thank you so much for stewarding that. So well, for so many thanks, Matthew, thank you.