Christine Trippi

 This week’s interview is with Christine Trippi, the founder, and CEO of The Wise Pineapple.  The pineapple became the symbol of hospitality in the early American years.  Because the route from America to the Caribbean was slow, families would leave a pineapple on their porch as a symbol that they were a host home.  The Wise Pineapple logo is “Be a pineapple stand tall”.  It is all about empowering people and leading from the heart.

Christine has 35 years of experience working for hotels.  She started working at the age of 13 as a bus girl at one of her local restaurants.  In High School she joined the work program and started working.  At the age of 17 she was offered a position at the Hampton Inn near her residence as a van driver & laundry girl.  Christine has worked her way up the ladder and is a successful hospitality leader, solopreneur, and author of the book “Yes Is the Answer”.  It talks about Christine’s secret sauce to always say YES! In 2020 Christine started The Wise Pineapple. 

Christine loves watching individuals grow and succeed.  Along with empowering them.  The Wise Pineapple has 2 different divisions.  The Wise Pineapple – Consulting, Speaking, and Training and the Crown Society Hospitality Insider’s Club. This is a private club which provides the motivation, strategy, community, and fun accountability to reach your dreams and goals.  Even though, Christine loves what she does, she has had some obstacles that had to be overcome.  The first one and hardest one, has been her own mental mindset.  Her self-doubt has almost missed her out from great advancements and opportunities.  With her positive thinking and mindset, she has slowly been able to overcome this obstacle.  Although, she still finds it hard sometimes to overcome.  The second obstacle has been, that she does not have a college degree.  At the age of 18 she was promoted to assistant manager at a Hampton Inn.  Her first thought was, how am I going to manage people twice my age, am I too young to be an AGM? Are they going to take me seriously?  Christine’s favorite thing about this industry is that hospitality welcomes everyone, no matter your age, experience, education, gender, background, you name it—in hospitality you’re welcome, and will teach you as you go along.

She has been fortunate enough to have many mentors along the way.  One of her bosses would provide her with the most impactful feedback and would do it with clarity and kindness.  She was able to learn from her old boss what do and what not do just by observing.  You can have mentors who you don’t respect.  If you learn from their mistakes or their success, they can still be your select mentor.  Christine can not stress enough how there has never been a better time to join the hospitality industry even if you don’t have experience.  The compensation has never been higher, there are opportunities everywhere, growth is limitless, there has never been a bigger focus on creating a work/personal life balance, and it is a growing industry that isn’t going anywhere.

Having a positive attitude and mindset has continued to make Christine successful in her career.  She is a very positive person always looking at situations with the glass half full not half empty.  She is self-educated with continuing to learn from others, reading hundreds of books, and going to community college later for continuing education.  When she was a General Manger, she didn’t know how to schedule her work time from her personal time.  As she has grown in her role, she has learned to block her time and to work smarter not harder.  Time tracking and time blocking are huge for her.  She started tracking her time by writing down every 15 minutes what she spent her time doing.  Through this practice, she quickly realized where she could be more productive and eliminate wasted time. So, to help her with this Christine did her research to see how she could save some time.  And example she gave me was: Every time I sent an email, I would indicate my availability for meeting.  I have eliminated that time by adding a link to my schedule at the body of my signature.  One other productivity strategy she uses, instead of writing out a “To Do” list Christine will block times in her calendar for actives to work on.  This helps her keep on track and helps her prioritize her activities and tasks. 

To learn more about Christine and get your FREE Huddle Guide and Planner, visit her website, www.thewisepineapple.com .