An interview hosted by Bailey Richardson with Adam Bedoian, the Community GM at Latitude Margaritaville in Daytona Beach. It’s one of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville-themed retirement communities. We talked with Adam about how the beloved song comes to life, and how to build a thriving community of neighbors.
“I tell all my staff to have your hearts, your minds and your ears open to new ideas. It doesn't have to come from you to be a great idea.” - Adam Bedoian
Margaritaville isn’t just a state of mind, it’s a real place. Seniors can live out their Buffett-inspired retirement dreams at the three Latitude Margaritaville retirement communities in Daytona Beach and Watersound, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina.
When moving into a retirement community, people care greatly about what their community will be like. The Margaritaville theme communicates a clear identity of fun, food, music and escapism. The theme has resonated. People camped out overnight to be the first to secure spots the Margaritaville development in Daytona Beach.
In this interview, Bailey chats with Adam Bedoian whose team is responsible for bringing the Margaritaville lifestyle to life. Each week they host 10 hours of live music, pickleball games, and a number of programs at their restaurants, fitness centers, amphitheater shell, and pool. Residents have stepped up officially and unofficially to support the community as resident advisors, hostess, and even with behind the scenes aspects of running the community, like accounting.
We were delighted to see how clear Adam and his team took a “build with” approach to establishing the community at Margaritaville and hope you enjoy the story.
Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:
👋🏻Say hi to Adam and learn more about Latitude Margaritaville.
📄See the full transcript
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Note: This transcript is automatically generated and there may be some errors. Timestamps may vary slightly based on episode announcement & commercial placement.
Bailey (00:01):
Welcome to Get Together! It's our show about ordinary people building extraordinary communities. I'm your host, Bailey Richardson. I'm a partner at people and company and a co-author of get together how to build a community with your people. In each episode of our podcast, we interview everyday people who have built extraordinary communities about just how they did it. How did they get those first people to show up? How did they grow to hundreds, maybe thousands, more members. This week, we are going into new territory for the get together podcast, retirement communities, and not just any retirement community, the Jimmy buffet, Margaritaville retirement communities, latitude Margaritaville is a real actual place. Well, technically it's three places. There are locations in Florida's Daytona, beach and water sound and Hilton head, South Carolina, where seniors flock to live out their buffet inspired retirement dreams. The Margaritaville theme offers future home buyers and community members.
Bailey (01:13):
What they say is built-in recognition like you'd expect when moving into a retirement community, people care greatly about what a community will be like. The Margaritaville name communicates that expectation, and it's a lifestyle that's resonated. People camped out overnight to be the first to buy into the Margaritaville development in Daytona beach. Today, I'm talking to Adam, the doyen the community GM at latitude Margaritaville in Daytona beach. His job is to bring that Margaritaville lifestyle promise to life. His team has pegged it down to four pillars, fun food, music, and escapism. Now, to be Frank with you, I went into this conversation feeling like a new, I know very little about retirement communities. And I was wondering how much of our people in company and get together philosophies about building community would transfer. I'm a say, I was delighted to see how clear it was that Adam and his team took a build with approach to establishing the community at Margaritaville, even though the community members there are paying homeowners, they know that the community will flounder. If members aren't participating and actively shaping it. As you listened to this podcast, keep your ear to the ground for the ways Adam is building with. Oh, and one more thing. My apologies for the sound quality. We had some technical difficulties getting Adam sound and I hope you can still bear with us. All right. You ready? Let's hear it. Let's jump in.
Bailey (02:50):
Adam, Welcome to the podcast. We are really excited to have you here and to learn more about your work. So thanks for taking the time today.
Adam (02:56):
Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Bailey (02:58):
Yeah. One of the things I want to jump into right away is when we first met, when we first talked, you told me about how you'd worked in hospitality in the past and how that work was different from your experience at latitude Margaritaville and the work you're doing there. So can you, can you tell us a little bit about your past life and what motivated you to start doing work with Margaritaville and kind of think about a community instead of that past hospitality work?
Adam (03:24):
Absolutely. Um, so it's kind of unique in the way that it's different, but it's also very the same and the skillsets are transferrable. Um, so yeah, I've been in hospitality pretty much since I was out of high school, um, went into restaurants and then hotels and was working in resorts. And it was really unique that, you know, I love meeting people, talking to people, getting to know people, but in a hotel or resort, you meet someone for a day, two days, maybe a week. If you're lucky, you get to know them, but then they leave and most likely you'll never see him again. Um, and so it was, it was always a struggle because, you know, if someone had a rough experience or something like that, you know, you could do what you could to make it, try to make it right, but you, there's a, there's a small timeframe to make that work.
Adam (04:06):
Um, but you know, when I started looking at country clubs and communities and kind of looking at making a change in direction in my career, I got really excited when I moved it into, uh, my first job in a community. And a lot of my colleagues kind of gave me a hard time about it. You know, it's the wrong trajectory, you know, there's no career growth there. Um, but it was so exciting to be able to meet people and know that you were going to be in their lives for a while and be able to develop and build strategies to enhance their experience. Um, but also, you know, you have time to fix things. So if someone has a bad experience, you're going to see them again tomorrow and the day after that day after that. So you can build those relationships to, you know, accomplish something different than you could at a hotel or a resort where, you know, sometimes you try the best we can, but in three days you're not going to be able to make it right.
Bailey (05:00):
Hmm. Could you tell us a little bit about, you know, why does latitude Margaritaville exists? I'm so interested in this sort of extra layer of purpose and personality that, that the community has. And so I'm just curious, can you tell us a little bit about why it exists and what was missing in the world before it sort of came along?
Adam (05:21):
Yeah. Um, well, you know, as, as my now favorite musician, Jimmy Buffett's says, you know, all of this came from one song. I tell that to tell all my friends. I said, you know, I used to like Jimmy buffet, Manila, he's my man, but he's a really humble guy. And he, he said it many times and I've heard him talk at some of his business meetings. And he said, you know, all of this from just one song, Margaritaville obviously is the one he's referring to. And I think that that song spoke to, uh, a generation specifically, but the American dream and the kind of the counterculture to the American dream, you know, you know, in the sixties and seventies, uh, you know, people were working, you know, you work your nine to five job. You have a little bit of time off, you get the big house you live in the burbs, but Jimmy buffet came along and started speaking to that, that there's more than that.
Adam (06:15):
Maybe not having all that stuff, but maybe just being able to pull up a chair and put your toes in the sand and have, have a drink and relaxing is a good life. And it resounded with so many people, um, that it developed a brand out of it. You know, the first, first thing that Jimmy ever did was he at a t-shirt shop down in key West. And the reason he opened it was because people were making their own t-shirts with his name on it, but they were spelling it wrong. They were spelling it, Jimmy buffet, instead of Jimmy Buffett.
Adam (06:45):
Well, we need to fix that. So he had a friend that they, and they started their, their t-shirt shop. Um, and then he met some other partners and they, they grew into restaurants and from restaurants, they grew into hotels and resorts all these different experiences. And they have, you know, you know, you have your little Margaritaville makers that you can bring home. You know, there's all sorts of gear. But the neat thing about Margaritaville as a brand is it's much more than a brand. It's a state of mind, you know, if everybody closes their eyes, it's even if you're not a drinker or you don't like the beach. If, if everybody, if you close your eyes and you say so much as Margaritaville, you conjure up an image and that image might be a little different from person to person, but there's a reality of it's it's somewhere you get away, relax. There's no stress in that. And up until latitude Margaritaville, that experience was a one-off experience. That was an experience that you could have for a couple hours at dinner, or you could have for a weekend at a resort, but you could not, not really live in Margaritaville. So the powers that be my bosses with my company got together with Margaritaville and said, why don't we make a community?
Adam (08:03):
And it went over like gangbusters. They said, well, let's leave, I'll send out some test emails to the pair of heads. And then that, and the response back was everybody said, well, ma'am why didn't we think of this sooner. We need to make this happen. Um, that was, I think about five years ago that it kind of started moving into fruition. And, uh, our first house was built March of 2018. Um, and it's been going like gangbusters ever since.
Bailey (08:31):
I, I didn't realize that there was a test email to the parrot heads. That's really interesting. So there was sort of an instinct to run it by the people who were almost like the foundational layer of support for something like this, is that right?
Adam (08:44):
Yeah. You know, even if, you know, you're building a new community somewhere, you want to make sure that there's people that aren't interested in. So with the brand Margaritaville, they said, well, Hey, we've already got these people. So I said, Hey, you know, are you, would you be interested in retiring? And if it's five plus communities like this, and there's a lot of syndications and publications that target, you know, 55 and over communities and people that are looking to retire. Um, and of course, so when they set our marketing sent out to those things, they send it out to the pair of head fan base as well. And I think we might be the first community in history that we actually had people camping out and tailgating at the sales opening.
Bailey (09:28):
Yeah. And one thing about, you know, that I want to get really clear too, with the listeners is as we talk about communities that might not be living near each other on this podcast, you know, people in Facebook groups together, or maybe there a chapter network around a cause, um, or people who use the same platform and share information on that platform. Um, and one interesting thing I think about Margaritaville is when you say community, you mean a physical community here. And I want to make that really clear. These are people who are living next to each other, they share restaurants, they share fitness centers. So can you really also break down, you know, you say you build homes and you build them with a lifestyle perspective, but can you share a little bit more about, about how, what Margaritaville is, you know, what kind of community it is and what you have there on site, for sure.
Adam (10:18):
Sure. Um, so, you know, we, we build tones and it's a community like that, that you said, you said it really well. It's not just, you know, the where it's a theology community, but it really is too because people have all come together with this mindset of they they're looking to have. They're very nice from here on out. So, um, we've got people from Alaska, we've got people from South America, a lot of new Yorkers all over the coast and people that maybe they were never big Jimmy Buffett fans, but they saw them. They said, that's what I've been looking for. Now. They, we really try and make that the whole community revolve around that. So our entire town center and main area of the community is built around a band shell. So there's a huge band shell that, you know, you could put any performing artists, we can fit 500, 600 people in there comfortably. And then we've got a full bar and grill and a restaurant in a paradise pool. That's quite frankly better than any resort pool I've ever been to in my life. So a lot of times, instead of sitting in my office, I'll take my laptop out and go sit by the pool and take a picture. Everybody thinks I'm down in Jamaica or something.
Bailey (11:33):
That's amazing. And your team, Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Keep going.
Adam (11:36):
Yeah. We've also got a full fitness center. Um, you know, health and wellness is a big part of it. You know, if you're gonna, if you're going to market, uh, drinking and having a good time, you got to make sure that you can, you can run it off and exercise it off as well. So pickle balls are really huge here. Um,
Bailey (11:52):
Parents are gonna be so happy that pickleball finally, as mentioned on this podcast.
Adam (11:56):
Yeah. Margaritaville sponsor of the U S pickleball open. Um, and you know, I had heard about it, but I didn't realize how avid certain people were until like I started running this community. I said, okay, I need to learn about pickleball army.
Bailey (12:18):
That's awesome.
Adam (12:19):
We've also got like a lifestyle coordinator. So we, we bought bands. We've got music seven days a week. We do all sorts of events. We just got through heading out October festival. It's different in this time. We find ourselves as the new normal, but we still want to be able to offer everybody the experience to get out and meet their neighbors safely and do things. So we try to have themed events, get people out, enjoying the community, trying new things. And, um, you know, we're in Daytona beach and we also partner with the local area too, and really bringing the greater Daytona community to these new residents that have relocated here.
Bailey (12:53):
Yeah. I, you described to me the, the, the way that your, your, your role as the community GM and you work for sort of the developer. So it's someone who actually builds houses for people that folks come in and buy. But your role on your team, uh, is in charge of making sure that the Margaritaville lifestyle continues after the purchase. So it's not just a house there's actual programming and kind of the structure to support that programming on site. Is that right?
Adam (13:24):
That's absolutely right. Um, we are what you would consider a lifestyle community. People don't here, come here because they're, they're coming because they want to relocate to this specific, uh, geographical area. People don't come here because they want to buy that exact type of house. They come here for the lifestyle. So I tell my, my lifestyle manager and marketing guy, I said, you know, you're the guy who sells houses in reality. It's what we do. It's all that programming that like, that gets like-minded people to try new things and see what other things are out there that expands and enhances their life and the community as a whole. Um, and that's, that's my favorite thing to see as, as people that have never tried something again, pickleball, for example, we'll help people that have never played it, but Hey, the people that they met at the bar last night said, Oh yeah, we get up every morning at seven o'clock and go play pickleball, come on, you should come out and try it with us. So we create this whole new environment of people that are, have made those friends, made those connections, made those ties, and now they're developing and evolving themselves as a people because they're, they're in a group of like-minded individuals that are showing them new things.
Bailey (14:32):
I'd love to dig into that. You know, I think a lot of people out there either who have worked in a physical space or in building a community physically, or also even online, you know, are trying to figure out what, what programs, what sort of prompts do they offer members to really kind of activate them to get them connected to each other? And I'm sure you've had just so much experience with so many different types of programs and so many different types of ways to connect members. Is there anything that stands out to you as something that you really learned about how to do that? Well, or what not to do to kind of provide engaging programs to members?
Adam (15:12):
Uh, we always do. We will. We'll, we'll something we'll, we'll throw something out there that we, think's a great idea. And only 10 people shovels there. Well, that didn't work. So I'm a big fan of you, you don't know until you try. So the biggest thing for us, I think to answer that would be really, you know, getting that community involvement. I feel like I'm saying community way too much, but it's a community podcast.
Bailey (15:35):
It's great. Bring it on,
Adam (15:38):
You know, so it's really getting the community involved. You know, if we come in and we say, this is what we're doing, and we don't get that community, buy-in, there's no point of us really doing as though, um, you know, I tell all my staff is, you know, have, have your hearts and your minds and your ears open to new ideas. It doesn't have to come from you to be a great idea. It just wait, someone might have an idea and let's, let's refine that. Let's make that something amazing. I love that we surveyed everything before we started building the amenities. So we surveyed, what do you want, what on your, your dinner menu? What do you want to know? What are your favorite drinks? Wow. What kind of fitness is your, what do you want to see on a, if you, if you, if you could spend $50 on an outing, what would that be?
Adam (16:21):
If you could spend $200 on and having, what would that be? You know, so we really surveyed all of that to kind of develop an initial shell, but now being, having the amenity open for about a year and a half now and having, we just closed on our thousands home, actually. So that's about 1700 people, you know, it evolves. So we have to retool what we're thinking, just because something worked a year and a half ago, doesn't mean it's the right thing for right now. So, you know, we listened to them, we have open conversations, we've got a website that's just for our residents. They can log on there. They can see what's going on. They can email any of the managers and say, Hey, we should try this. We should try that. And I make sure that we, in our management meetings and teams, the focus is on the communities, the resident, it's not about, you know, cutting costs or saving money or operation overseas, what can we do to, to satisfy the residents? What can we do to build this community and to make people truly happy to live here? And, you know, quite frankly, in, in my two years of being here, it's changed. And sometimes it's been one thing for six months and then we do something else. And then we end up going back to that because that's them and the business.
Bailey (17:32):
I love to hear, you know, our, our big, our big theme with community building from all the research we've done is that you build a community with people, not for them. And, you know, I think there's, sometimes we can get in a real creative block when we think we have to come up with all the ideas as maybe a leader of a community or an organizer of a community. And your story reminds me of, uh, I was speaking to a woman who ran a coworking space in Europe, and she was talking about all these programs that they tried to come up with to engage the community. And then someone from the coworking space told the them as organizers, that they really wanted to do a ping pong tournament. And it seemed like an idea out of left field, but because the community was so passionate about it, they helped it come to life and realize it. And it's just been a huge hit like people fly back to this co-working space from different countries, even who have moved away just to participate in the ping pong tournament, because it was so community sort of like, you know, it was more like the community had a seed already. And your job is just to water it instead of to try to come up with the seed from the outset.
Adam (18:33):
Well, you know, I've always said work smarter, not harder. So if someone's got a good idea that I don't have to think of, that makes my job so much easier.
Bailey (18:41):
What, what have you learned about a lifestyle community where people kind of come in with maybe certain expectations, some of which will be on point and some of us, so which will be wrong? Like how, how do you work to manage those expectations? People come in with,
Adam (18:54):
You know, that's, that's a unique thing. And when I have that figured out and I'll let you know, it's constantly evolving. Um, you know, one of the funniest things that I ever heard was Jimmy buffet. Music is a big part of our community, obviously. And so he's got a special,
Bailey (19:14):
You were saying it's seven nights a week, sometimes. So
Adam (19:18):
Seven days, and then Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, we have it twice a day. So there's actually 10 hours a week. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So we partner with the Margaritaville brand and they've actually got a entertainment and atmosphere person, and that's all he does to make sure that the music's on point, he helps program Margaritaville radio and do all that meeting with him. Initially. He said, you know, he's like everybody is going to want to play all of the top 10 Jimmy Buffett songs. And he goes, Jimmy buffet always says, there's such a thing as too much. To me, that's the thing is, you know, we're not selling. If, if all we did here was just played Margaritaville again and themed the entire community off of the pieces of those songs we would, if we want to be successful, because there's probably a handful of people out there, that'd be okay with it. But we want to speak to a larger audience to your original question. So sometimes people come in here and they didn't, they don't know anything about Jimmy Buffett. And they really just did move here because it was the best house to buy in the area. So, and then some people move here because they, they liked that the pool was where it was.
Adam (20:30):
Yeah, exactly. In coming to that, they might meet their neighbor that tells them something else, you know, learn different things. You know, one of the funniest complaints I've had since I've been here was I got an email from a resident who wanted me to do something because his neighbors were drinking and too much, and that's not what he bought into. And maybe that is what you bought very carefully of how I was going to answer that because we're pretty truthful in our advertising, almost all of our marketing pictures. So someone at a party with a drink in their hands. Um, so I don't know how you conceive that, but you know, there's always going to be those kinds of things. And I, and another one of my favorite sayings is I can take care of everything except for who your neighbors are. You've gotta, you've gotta figure out how to make your neighbors work.
Adam (21:25):
You know, just like any other community, family, or, or group, there's going to be people that they just don't click. And that's okay. Because when you, like I said, when you've got 1700 people, as long as you can get along, as long as you can agree to disagree, you can have a good experience, right? Not everybody has to come to the bar every night and not everybody has to go to the fitness center every morning. Not everybody's going to like the movie we play on Monday nights. And that's okay, because we're going to give you a chance to try something else. Um, it's funny because I don't want to get political, but in 2020, it seems like everything is polarized. Theories are this way or that way. There's no in between. And so when you're in a community and you're shut down and you're isolated, it seems like that's even more of a thing.
Adam (22:03):
So I've seen neighbors, you know, start picking fights and stuff. They were, they were drinking buddies. They were exercised buddies. And now because someone put a certain flag up now they're not, they're not talking to each other anymore. You know, my thing is you didn't move here because of your political beliefs. You didn't move here because of what you thought religiously or anything. You moved here because you wanted to enjoy that state of mind. So putting everything else to the side, when you open your door and become part of the community, let that be your guiding light. Let that be your thing. Escapism your years here at latitude together as a latitude members behind closed doors, it'd be whatever else you want to be. But here that's, the biggest thing is really trying to focus on that is, you know, there's always a bigger project. There's always a bigger goal that brought you here that made you happy to be here. If that's your main focus, everything else will fall in line.
Bailey (22:54):
Hmm. I want to ask you too, just a little bit more to bring the life, the people that are coming to Margaritaville. Cause you know, I'm 33, I'm not thinking much about sort of the senior living community ecosystem, but there are a couple of different variations. There's maybe a continuing care retirement community, which you told me is, you know, something like 70, 75, um, there's sort of nursing home, which is not independent housing anymore. Um, and then there's sort of this target area that Margaritaville serves, which I think you described as the active living adult community. So it may be 55 plus something like a median age of like 62. Yeah. Everyone can take care of themselves. There's no medical side to it. Um, and I, I, I loved how you described this time in someone's life as almost going back to college. It's like freedom.
Adam (23:46):
Yeah.
Bailey (23:47):
Well, can you tell me a little bit about just, you know, what time in someone's life is it that someone comes to, to Margaritaville?
Adam (23:55):
Yeah. I said we are a 55 plus community. So what that means is at least one person that is in the home has to be at least 55. So, um, you know, a 30 year old guy who cares if it's, you know, someone,
Bailey (24:10):
I like that you said six year old woman and 30 year old guy. I appreciate that.
Adam (24:16):
I remember being 30 in second, man. If I could find a lady to take care of me and live in a place like this.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yeah.
Adam (24:23):
So that, that's kind of the only rule that we have for, for age restriction, how we titled the active adult community there, they're moving here because it's their first retired. They just are newly retired or they're looking to retire very soon. I would say about 60% of our residents are full-time retired and about 40% of them work in some capacity or work from home where they still consult or one of them works full time. And the other one doesn't, so it's kind of a unique blend, but it is that very first, it's kind of like when you, your, your freshman year of college, you just got out of your parents' house, you don't have rules anymore. You don't have any curfew and you can do whatever you want for a little while for dinner. That's a major request for us.
Adam (25:12):
Like I said, there's always that one guy that didn't know that he moved to a partying community, but almost all of them, they come, there's a lot of them, like I said, they've never tried the COBOL. They've never been to a concert before, or they've never done it. They'd been stuck in their, their routine. So this is really telling me what's an open mind to try new things, be a part of something, you know, in our, so our median age is 62, you know, our average first time moving. And it is the first time. And so you figure, as you know, someone's living here for 10, 15 years, they're going to hit that, you know, 75 ish range. Um, and then there might, there might start looking and saying, Hey, you know, I'm not as surprised as I used to be at my want to look at coming into a community.
Adam (25:52):
That's got a little bit of different care and that's when the continuing care comes in and you've got independent living, but you're also guaranteed spots with, you know, nursing assistance and whatnot. Um, and then you go to the full-time nursing home when you can no longer take care of yourself and kind of graduate up. Um, one of our residents, we had a Margaritaville came out about a year ago and just wanted to pull residency how they were liking it, what other opportunities they could offer. And one of them said, Hey, you guys need to buy a plot of land. We need to have a great drive. We came here and we're going to die here and we want to call it instead of having fins up fins down and we all have, so he was dead serious.
Bailey (26:37):
You know, one thing that we see in really thriving communities is members sort of go from maybe being more passive and to maybe more active role. So they almost become like little leaders, themselves, individuals who get really involved or really passionate about the community. And I'm curious, have you seen it in any of that in Margaritaville? You know, I think y'all have some staff on hand, a reasonably extensive staff on hand to help facilitate things. So I'm wondering, do you still see that, um, from members of the community who get really involved?
Adam (27:04):
We do. So there's a couple of different ways that we've really seen that grow and evolve. Um, we have our own, you know, um, Facebook page that's for residents only, but the residents, and again, coming, coming back to the tailgate, when everybody was camping out to pick their lawns, um, you know, they all made friends out there and one of the guys said, no, I'm going to start Facebook page. So they have a, they actually have a member run Facebook page, that's open to new owners and owners. So he's kind of looked at as like this unofficial mayor of the challenges. If Glen says it's a good, then it's good. And so that's one of the ways, another way we've got it is actually a lot of our staff, our residents, we've probably got six or seven residents actually that are challenging for us. One person that helps with the lifestyle.
Adam (27:57):
We've got a couple of hostesses, um, fitness center workers. So they get a tie in and they say, you know, I don't want to sit at home all the time or, you know, do things. And one, one of the ones who actually work only one resident's a full-time job, but she started as part-time. And then we found out we just needed her so much that we said, are you sure? What can we do? We'll work around your schedule, but she'll, she'll come in and she'll do the books for us. And then she'll say, okay, it's four 45. You guys have got about 10 minutes before I put my drinking hat on. So let's, let's get anything you need to be getting, get in here. Oh, I love that. And then we also have other people that they lived in communities before. And a lot of people that move from the Midwest or up North, they, they, they're not familiar with how a community like this or an HOA works.
Adam (28:43):
Um, so we have people that are local or have lived in big communities that will help them kind of with the guidelines and the rules. They'll ask a question. So we have this kind of unofficial resident advisory board of people that, you know, before, before you ask a question and then the HOA has to tell you, no, you can't do it. They'll go and ask daddy, what do you think about this? And say, if you want to get a, yes, you're going to want to phrase it like this and do that. Um, so they're kind of like, you know, there's these little bubbles of people that they know when you go to Dave, if you've got it, but HOA regulations, you'll go to Glen. If you want help promoting something, you'll go to June. If you want to know what the good lifestyle is. And then on top of that, we've also got clubs in the community. So we run our own lifestyle programming, but like coming back to what we said earlier, it's really important that it's a resident driven experience here. So residents can get their own charter clubs and create their own events. So we've got, you know, different card clubs, module, book, readers, clubs, poker club. We just had, we have our first ever Margaritaville band. They're called the Coral Reefers, all kind of gotten together. And we actually have one of the drives that people live on is smelling they're over in that neighborhood.
Adam (30:11):
So they started a band and they said, Hey, we want to perform. And we said, well, you know, but if you happen to be all residents and you want to start a club, that's a music club. They're not great by any means, but they are constantly getting better. I will say that in case, there we go. Then none of them are accomplished musicians except for one guy. The rest are, you know, I'm 55, I'm retired now. I've always wanted to pick up the guitar and I to pick up the drums. So they've created this band and I'll tell you what we can bring Jimmy buffet in here. And I think he would have a hard time getting as many people to come out as they do, because everybody didn't see their local band here. There are still, people will say, Hey, we want you guys to really learn this song. And that's the song they're going to practice for three weeks. And then they have another song. So yeah, the community kind of has these unofficial people. And then each little street and block has their champion for things as well. You know, it seems like October is a big time of giving.
Adam (31:09):
We just raised $20,000 from the residents for breast cancer. Wow. Before that we raised 8,000 for ovarian cancer, three weeks beforehand, just through doing from bingo and donations and partnering up. And then we actually have a resident who is, they're raising money for children with special needs. And she's, she's been in the local market for a while. And she's always been very passionate about, I want to open this up to the community. I think we could do a lot more than just me doing it. I said, sure. So we put in our Facebook, we did something. And so they got basically what they did was each street or block or pull the staff person that they were donating for. And it's called over the head. So basically they're going to go up to one day toner, which is the racetrack, and they're going to scale the wall and repel over it for every thousand.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
And there's
Adam (32:04):
Now like about 20 different people that have signed up and are trying to get all their neighbors involved. And in the last week there's already been seven people that have made enough money to go to see people come together like that. And one lady, she said, you know, everybody in my neighborhood is a little bit older and they don't really get on Facebook. They don't do social media. So she's old school and she gets go starting knocking door to door and say, Hey, talk for 10 minutes. Explain to each person when she was doing and said, you know, you've got to represent attitude Avenue. So come on, guys, we gotta, we gotta do better than those guys over there.
Adam (32:39):
It sparks that kind of fun competition. Old school works. What's on your mind right now, you know, you talked about and maybe the pandemic and how I'm sure that's made living near each other complicated. And you've also talked a little bit about just the political situation and how tense it is right now and how that shows up between neighbors. But is there anything else, you know, what, what is on your mind right now what's weighing on you? Or what are you thinking about? It's a deep question. I don't know if anybody's got, gotten that deep with me before.
Adam (33:13):
I just think, yeah, I think it's a, it's a weird time for everybody. And I think that everybody needs to be conscientious of that as everybody thinks that they're going through stuff, you know? So are you, so is your neighbors or the people in your group, we need to not forget that we're in this together. Right? So, you know, I think that's the one big thing is, you know, with the pandemic and everything, everybody's got their different views. I get emails I'm doing too much, or I'm not doing enough. Who am I to be doing anything at all? And the reality is, is, you know, when we're stuck in a worse, especially early in the spring, when everybody's stuck in their homes for two months, all your outside work, you get out of your yard. You're always going to find something wrong. You're always going to want to make improvements.
Adam (33:58):
So it was interesting to see how the restlessness affected people and how much people really needed to be out and socialize with their own mental wellbeing. So, you know, it was, for me, even, it was one of those things to where I was starting to get the, I was working from home a lot. I was starting to Iceland for the first time in my life being like, Oh, I'm so excited. I get to go to work, like getting out of the house, trying to find that way. It kind of opened my eyes. And I'm actually doing something for 40 hours a week. On top of that. You don't know these people that have moved here to be out of balance. Are they struggling? So in a sense of saying, you know, my struggles, if they're my own, they're not, they're not, they're not for me to put on anybody else, but I'm here to help someone else with whatever I can. And I think if all of us out there had that view, the world would just be a much better place instead of worrying about me. Let me worry about you. I think that would be a great, great world to live in. And that's the kind of community I'm striving to create here, Adam, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.
Bailey (35:11):
Yeah. If you want to connect with latitude Margaritaville, head over to latitude, margaritaville.com. Thank you to our team, Greg David, for his design work and Katie O'Connell from marketing. It, you can find out more about the work we do as people in company, helping organizations get clearer on who their most important communities are and how to build something with those people by heading our website, people and.company. Also, if you want to start your own community or supercharge one, you're already a part of our handbook is here for you. Visit get together book.com to grab a coffee. It's short, sweet, and to the point full of stories and learnings from our conversations with community leaders like this one with Adam. Oh, final thing. If you don't mind, please review us in the podcast store or click subscribe. If you haven't yet, it helps get the podcast out to more folks. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
[inaudible].