Ep: 73: Flipping a Coin with Guest Rob Paterson

Is flipping a coin a logical way to make a decision? Well, when Rob Patterson was the CEO of a major hotel brand during Covid, he did just that - and his decision helped thousands of people in crisis. 

He wrote about his experience in "Flip and Decide with Confidence", and tells the entire story in this episode of Leadership School. 

About Rob:

Rob is the former CEO of a major hotel brand turned motivational speaker and executive coach.

After more than 25 years in the hotel industry, Rob chose to step away from full-time hospitality in 2021 to help others with their journey of leadership and personal development. He consults and speaks all over the world on a range of business-related topics including leadership, high performance, and decision-making. Visit the Grind Academy website to find out more.

Rob is also the author of Flip and Decide with Confidence, a book aimed at solving indecision and building unstoppable confidence.

Chapters

• 20:15 The Coin Flip Method
• 22:18 Making a Wrong Decision Right
• 29:06 Mental Scales

Transcript

Kyla Cofer: 0:05

Welcome to the Leadership School podcast. I'm your host, leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal teach you how to be an extraordinary leader. Welcome back leaders. I am pleased to introduce to you today Rob Paterson. Rob is a former CEO of a major hotel brand in the uk. He's now a motivational speaker and executive coach. He's written a book called "Flip and Decide with Confidence." So he tells us a little bit about his book, but really what we talk about is decision making. So he has a really unique method of making decision, and that's just as simple as flipping a coin. So he is gonna walk us through a little bit about what does it look like to make decisions in trying times. And he talks us a lot about how he made a really big decision for his hotel during Covid and how that affected thousands and thousands of people in a really positive way. So thanks so much for listening and tuning in, and please welcome Rob Paterson. Rob, thanks for coming on. And why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us about you and what brought you here, a little bit about your journey and, and then what we'll do is we'll just ask you, I've got like a ton of questions

Rob Paterson: 1:28

for you. Well, in a previous life, I used to be a CEO of a large hotel chain that most people would know of in, in Great Britain, but I think it reflect in moments like Covid and, and think, you know what, what's, what's life all about? And what am I here for? And I think I had this sort of, this, uh, epiphany one day that, that I had kind of lived my uncle's life and it, it sort of started at a really young age. I was always compared to my uncle, you look like him and you play sport like him and, and you're very entrepreneurial minded like him and, and you know, you kind of just hear that from. As long as I can remember, probably the ages five or six far back as I can remember. That becomes your story and your life. And it kind of became my story. He was very succesful at busisness and went into politics later on in life. I kind of followed in that business path as well. And then I got to the top and sort of thought "hang on, this isn't everything I thought it was gonna be. And so each role that I progressed, I thought, you know, something's gonna change and next one's gonna be the one I'm gonna feel fulfilled. And I, got to the CEO of the CEO role and I just, just didn't feel that. So, uh, it was, Covid that forced the reflection and. And I talked with my, uh, chairman of the, the company at that time, and we set out a plan, a six month plan to transition and I left. I left the UK moved to the US. I wrote a book, and started fresh. And here I am now, I'm early in that journey. I'm eighteen months into The full journey. It took me a long time to get the visa, but here I am.

Kyla Cofer: 3:34

Wow. Okay. So there's a lot to unpack there. So you felt like for most of your life you kinda living in your uncle's story, like somebody else's story, you were just following along kind of a path that you thought was precarved out for you.

Rob Paterson: 3:53

And I think a lot of people fall into that trap, right. It's very easy to, if you're, if you're kinda, people have expectations on you. I dunno if anyone had the expectation that I had to be like him, but. I just constantly had it reinforced, you know, started with my grandmother and my parents and, and then everyone in the family. Wow. You look like him. And you know, he's a wonderful guy. I really like him, but he's not me.

Kyla Cofer: 4:16

Well, they also had a lot of pride in his accomplishments, and so the pride that you saw other people having in his accomplishments, you might have wanted some of that pride in you and your accomplishments. So it made sense to kind of follow in those paths then. So you did and then found out like this really wasn't who you were and what you wanted.

Rob Paterson: 4:31

Exactly. I'm kind of blessed in one way because. We could have been told, I was like, uh, I don't have a bad uncle, but if there was a bad uncle, you could have been said, you're like this person. And you can start to understand how people end up sort of emulating people, their, the role models around them and the people around them. So luckily I had a good positive role model there.

Kyla Cofer: 4:50

So you ended up as the CEO of a, of a large hotel chain in the uk Are you from the uk?

Rob Paterson: 4:55

From Australia originally. So, uh, and hospitality took me all over the world and, uh, ended up in the uk. My grandmother was born there so it was easy for me to get a visa.

Kyla Cofer: 5:08

so you've kind of been all over Australian, born, lived in the UK and now you're in the us You've just spent a lot of time in a lot of different places kind of developing and growing and all over the world.

Rob Paterson: 5:18

Yeah, I would say right now I'm kinda trying to figure out my place in, in the world and doing it in a place where nobody knows and starting from scratch and, and that's a lot of fun. But it also comes with a lot of challenges as well.

Kyla Cofer: 5:32

Yeah, what, what made you decide the us, you left your job as a ceo, and I wanna talk a little bit about your job as a ceo, but I'm really interested in this story because moving to another country is no small task, and you moved to the US and you didn't know a soul.

Rob Paterson: 5:54

but not like I had in the uk And it always looked up growing up in Australia, and I tell this to a lot of my friends here in the US now, growing up in Australia, we kinda looked up to the us you know, it was, uh, for me, I was growing up in the eighties and the nineties, and there was like Carl Lewis and there was, you know, Michael Jordan. And, and sports plays a big role in the, in Australian lifestyle. And we just looked up to the US all the, all the artists, like the musical artists. And it's just one of those places that. You kind of aspire to live, and I think most people in the town where I came from don't leave the town where I came and I was like "yah someday I'm gonna go there.". I knew I would end up here at some stage or another. I just didn't realize how difficult it might be.

Kyla Cofer: 6:48

Interesting. So you kind of had that mindset or you visualization of always, always having this plan out here and then you decided to make that happen. Tell me about making that decision. Because that just to me is a really courageous decision to be, to say, I don't know anybody. I'm gonna starting over, I'm leaving my job. I have no finances, no resources, and I'm gonna pack up and move to another country. Uh, was it just like this? It was just the timing you had to do it, and I mean, it was not an easy task. So tell me about making that decision and how you made that decision and then how you handled all the hurdles through it.

Rob Paterson: 7:21

How it did start was I just wasn't satisfied in the role that I was in. There's a great book Fire, an Australian nurse, uh, called Broing Wear, and, and it's, she tracked, she worked in palliative care and she tracked the top five regrets of the dying. I think that's the name of the book actually. And one of them was the, the top one is that you live a life that's true to yourself and not true to somebody else. And I could, I could sense that I wasn't really happy in the role and things were starting to, I was starting to find them niggly and annoying, and it just wasn't right for me, you know? I was successful and I did well at it, but it wasn't fulfilling. It wasn't my purpose, so I was kinda like, well, I need to find. What's my purpose? So I, I had initially planned to take six months and I had budgeted to take six months to, uh, to, to up from the UK and move to the US and settle and find a job. And, and that was my, my plan was to come over and find something else and, and work. And I must have applied for hundreds of jobs. And I literally had one interview. Uh, it was really tough. It didn't matter. My background or my profile in the uk it was all countered for nothing. It's very humbling in some senses. I went from CEO to ZERO, I say CEO to zero. Wow. And then six months down the line I'm like, Hey, I'm nowhere further six months except for my bank balance is nowhere near was six months ago. So, um,

Kyla Cofer: 8:46

I bet.

Rob Paterson: 8:47

So that was sort of the first major period of, of inflection to see, well I need to really. Sit back and decide what am I gonna do? And that, that kind of caused me to go down the roots of entrepreneurialism. It was something that sort of always sat in the back of my mind and what I wanted to do, and it forced me to, I guess, humble myself a little bit and, and, and decide to start again. That was really where the big change happened for me.

Kyla Cofer: 9:12

Wow. So you've had to make a lot of decisions. You had to make a lot of decisions in making that leap across the pond and make a lot of decisions into starting entrepreneurial. A lot of decisions on how to just go about your next steps, but that's not the first time you've had to make decisions. You've made a lot, I mean, leading up to a C E O role, you don't get to a C E O role without making a lot of decisions. And this is the topic of your book is about making some decisions. So tell me a little bit about your decision making process, because it's very unique.

Rob Paterson: 9:45

Yeah, so it started back in high school actually, and I dunno if you have the same here in the US but in around 10th grade, when you're about 15 in, in Australia, you get to choose the classes that you finished school with. They're called electives. And I was kinda sitting down looking at the list going, I'm 15 years old, I just love playing sport. I don't really have a clue what I wanna do beyond that. So I was like, well how am I gonna do this? And, and I did play sport and I. Played at a pretty high level and on the sporting field, you know, we were coached to act on, on instinct and to never second guess. Just just to go for it. And if it doesn't work out, at least we learn something. But if you hesitate, you screw the play up the field, you damage the side by hesitation, so didn't have that same system. In life. And I was like, well, what am I gonna do? And actually I was pretty, I guess I was so focused on sport, it didn't really, wasn't a high priority for me. So I took a coin and I flipped it and I chose it. My classes that way, my electives that way. And it sort of stuck with me for the rest of my career and rest of my life was like, Hey, this is a great way to, to decide. I never thought about it again. I literally flipped my coin. Took the class and didn't look back, and I gave everything to the class. And actually that class happened to be, uh, what's called home economics. And that sort of set the path for my hospitality career, ironically. So, um, maybe it right, wrong.

Kyla Cofer: 11:08

So you put your future in the hands of a coin. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So your coin flip in high school led you to home ec and that ended up leading you into the career of hospitality where you ended up as a C E O. You don't know that when you were 15 and flipping that coin. So tell me about this process of flipping a coin. Like when I hear flipping a coin, I mean, I have my own stories of, of when I've done similar types of things and. Um, and, and, and I've also used to tell people to do that, to flip a coin because if you're not sure which way to go pick A or B, used to do it with like movies, right? What movies should we watch? I dunno, like, let's flip a coin. And, um, when you flip, you'll always know which one it is. Because if you flip tails and then you're like, uh, actually I don't really want that. I want the other one. You know what you're gonna do either way, but you don't really take that approach. You say you have to commit to whatever you decide or whatever the coin flips. And so I'm just really curious about this process because for me it was kind of always a, a laid back thing, but you've really take taken it seriously and have used this. That seems a little bit scary to take like a C E O role or a high position of leadership role and say, well, I'm gonna make a decision by flipping a coin.

Rob Paterson: 12:17

It does sound quite flippant and, um, and a little bit irresponsible, but it's, it's much more complicated. It's much more detailed than that. Flipping of a coin for me only comes in where I'm torn between two options. And at that point, once you've gone through logical process in your mind of are the pro and cons on process, your process is bill conscious decision making. And you can't find, reach an outcome. You pretty much torn between perhaps two options or three options. It might be. That's the moment that I pull out a coin and say " " you know, let's flip a coin . You know, I think it did Change the course of the company I was working for. right at the start of Covid, I was sitting at home on a Sunday morning. There's a very. Powerful, uh, political show every Sunday morning, uh, hosted by, uh, Andrew Maher and a guy called Andrew Maher. And I was watching the program and the health minister was on TV talking about, well, how are you gonna deal with the situation when the beds run out at hospitals? And had a absolutely genius communications director, and he messaged me on the Sunday mornings, Hey, got this idea. Why don't we throw all our bedrooms out to the government to turn them into hospitals? And that's a pretty big decision, right? To go on national television, the biggest political show of the week and, and say, Hey, you can have all of our bedrooms, you know, we're talking 20, 20,000 bedrooms across the uk. Uh, and typically, wow, that's a decision that would go to the board and it would be a discuss at the boardroom level before it was made. And there was no time for that. Right? It was, it was very. It was a very unique circumstance for everyone, and literally I sat at home and I was like, wow. Instant. Okay. I can see the pros of this and I can see the cons of this. Staff could be concerned if they think we're opening hotels and there's no protection for them from Covid. There was all sort of things, but actually I couldn't reach a decision and it was split second, took a coin, I flipped it, and we decided to run with it and within about 30 minutes we were on every national, uh, press outlet in the country offering our rooms. In fact, it went around the world offering our rooms to be turned into hospitals. And about two and a half weeks later, we actually opened our first hotel as a hospital to, um, to transfer noncritical patients to, so it, it changed the course of Covid for our entire company, uh, on the flip of a coin.

Kyla Cofer: 14:45

Wow. So the flip of coin from the CEO turned a hotel into a hospital, several. Wow. How did that play out? Was it really effective and did it, was it really helpful? I mean, did you fill like up the rooms, the beds? Like tell me how those logistics played out.

Rob Paterson: 15:00

It was really quite incredible. at the way the community came around. Weren't local community would. Covid patients coming into to our area, but actually the local community got behind it. And, and you know, it was a time when altruism was strong, you know, people really wanted to help the country out and help. In the UK it was the nhs. That's how we tried to position it. We wanna be at the front when things mattered. We wanted to be there to help and that's how we position it and that's how it was received in the media. And it was, um, and we got a lot of support from government as well. Cause typically, I mean, to change a hotel to a hospital, You have to do a lot of things, jump through a lot of hoops, and first one is planning. So you've gotta repurpose the building legally to be able to be a hospital. And that would typically take months, even years. And we had help from politicians and that was done in the space of two weeks. And that was completely unheard of. We needed things like fire regulations are completely different for a hos hospital than they're for a hotel, and we needed all this equipment. Well, local schools ca came together for us. Local businesses brought around things that we needed that we didn't have to make it, uh, fire compliant. Then we had, uh, things like we had to store medicines. There was all these things that were completely uncomfortable to us and outta our. Way out of our reach. Normally that all happened in the space of two weeks, and it was actually when the first ambulance brought patient to the, uh, to the hotel, all the local neighborhood lined the streets and, and had signs for them, you know, welcome, get well soon. they had an opera singer come and sing outside the hotel to the, uh, these were a recovering patients. They weren't actually patients who were, um, at the peak of Covid. It was about freeing up beds. So it was a phenomenal project to be a part of and to see the community come together was amazing.

Kyla Cofer: 17:01

that's incredible. And did you end up with just one hotel turning into a hospital or did you have multiple hotels?

Rob Paterson: 17:06

Yeah, multiple. There were several up and down the country. Uh, but we also became the go to brand for not just hospitals, but course durring that timer there was people who needed housing, whether they had, you know, maybe they, a house caught fire, you know, emergency accommodation. Maybe they were homeless for some reason or another. Domestic violence, abuse victims, all sorts of things like that. Ended up, um, staying in our hotels, even asylum seekers. So it was a, it sort of set the course for the entire crisis and actually we came outta that crisis. You don't ever wanna go through a crisis, but it was what I'd say was a good crisis for us.

Kyla Cofer: 17:49

Sure. And how did your board feel about you making that decision so quickly on the fly? What was their reaction when you told 'em? You made it with the flip of a coin.

Rob Paterson: 17:57

I wrote, I wrote about it in my book. So they, they, they know now, but after the fact,

Kyla Cofer: 18:03

better to ask for forgiveness than permission sometimes.

Rob Paterson: 18:06

That was the theory. I was like, you know, what's, uh, cause normally it's was quite laborious process to make decisions in that company and for good reason , I'm not criticizing that was, that was the, the culture of the company. So it came as a shock, I think, at first. But I was already there for a good three years and they sort of , understood How I operated. So the surprise was it was still there, but I think they kind of knew my style.

Kyla Cofer: 18:35

So they didn't have time to be surprised. There was work to be done. Right,

Rob Paterson: 18:38

exactly. And, and it played out so well that there was no feelings towards the end of it.

Kyla Cofer: 18:44

So I started this podcast because I wanted to learn and grow in my leadership journey, and I have been so incredibly inspired by the guests and the conversations. So once the interview ends, I actually keep the conversation going, that sometimes part of the conversation is when we feel like the interviews over and we can just have a relaxed, more casual conversation. Also, if you've noticed, if you've been following this podcast for some time, I used to ask every guest two questions. What does integrity mean to them and what does balance look like to them? Well, I haven't stopped asking those questions. We're just putting those over on our Patreon page. So go check it out at patreon.com/leadership school, and for $6 and 50 cents a month, you can support this podcast. It takes a lot to produce every single episode and. Honestly, I could use a little bit of support. So anything that you're able to contribute would really mean a lot to me and would able to help me to continue to bring these high caliber guests in to have conversations on what does it look like to be an extraordinary leader, and how do we practically do that? So those conversations are continuing over at patreon.com/leadership school, where I'm asking guests some extra questions, some bonus questions, and you'll get some bonus content over there. So be sure to go check it out. Thanks so much for your support and thanks for so much for subscribing, listening and sharing this podcast. It really does mean a lot, and I'm so honored to show up here in your podcast feed. So let's break this coin flipping thing down a little bit because, uh, like you said, we don't wanna treat it like it's flippant, but it is, you talk about in your book how there's some psychological reasoning behind it, and it actually can be a sincere method of making a difficult decision. And you said just a minute ago, you know, you've narrowed down the choices, you've already done the research, and you've got a few choices in front of you. So is it a point where you're like, you realize that really either one of these decisions. Would be fine. I mean, in this case this was a pretty big decision, but thinking about some other decisions that might be along the way when you've really done the work and the research and everything, you've come down and, and really it could just be either of these decisions would be fine and we just have to pick one and go and see where it takes us.

Rob Paterson: 20:58

And that's one of the golden rules of the process is that when you flip that coin, you've gotta be committed to the one that comes out and, and really go for it. You can actually make a wrong decision right. By really committing to it 100% and gathering momentum. There's a thing called the rule of declining motivation, and what that rule says is that the longer you wait to do something, the less likely you are to do it. And that flip of the coin is like a form of metacognition and it and it, and it stops your limbic system, your fight or flight system from taking hold and telling you all the reasons why you shouldn't do it. So when you think about, you know, I wrote a book and I could have thought about all the reasons why not to write a book if I left it and said, oh, might write a book one day. Oh yeah. But no one will read it. And how would you do this and how would you do that? And you've never done that. And all the reasons not to write a book, but. You kind of just act on it straight away. And that's what the flip of a coin does in the brain is it, it stops your limbic system and its tracks from preventing you from doing something. And then once you started, you gather momentum. Have small success along the way and your confidence builds and it carries you. And that's the basis of the flip the coin.

Kyla Cofer: 22:19

So tell me about this though. Making a wrong decision, right, because that's, that's the first thing you said. You can always make a wrong decision, right? So walk me through that. What if you flip the coin and you're like, well that was definitely the wrong way to go.

Rob Paterson: 22:30

There is a point where and I talk about this in the book, where you do need to let go of that decision and walk away. The are situations where the brain comprehends information that it's available to it at that time. And then things change. And I think about buying a house, right? If you'd have bought a house just before the, uh, crisis, um, perhaps in Florida or somewhere like that, Southern, Southern or sunny state. That decision at that time might have been a 50 50 decision. But then of course when, when Covid hit, that became a really great decision, right? Because the prices of houses went up really, really quickly. And that's that moving data point could sometimes make your decision wrong in the past. So in that case, it makes it right, but sometimes make it wrong. And the dis information you have at that time might be 50 50, but then the next day, new information comes available and you think, actually, I've gone with an idea that was. 50 50 yesterday, and today it's 40 60. But at that point you're not looking back. You've made your decision, you've started your work on it, and you've got momentum and you just keep going. And that can, that can happen, you know, in everyday decisions. You might think about your takeaway situation and say, well, am I gonna have Thai or am I gonna have pizza? And then you turn up to the pizza place and there's a, a one hour wait for the, just to get served. So, so that decision's looking less likely. So, uh, you know, those. Moving pieces means that the odds can change in your decision. But if you live your life constantly looking in the mirror and thinking, well, hey, did I make the right one? Did I make the wrong one? You're not actually taking action against that decision. You're not moving forward. You're not creating momentum. So even sometimes you can have a decision where it might turn out, that was lesser percentage decision. Actually, you make it work cause you've got momentum, you got focus, and that's what Coin does is you commit to that decision one hundred percent.

Kyla Cofer: 24:25

so it's really just taking the pressure out of the decision to understand that it's just a decision that it's not taking you one way or the other. It's not destroying or making your life. You can do something with the result regardless. You know, most of us don't make. Big decisions every day, right? Are, we're making little decisions like, do I make my bed today? Do I eat cereal or eggs for breakfast? You know, you're making these little decisions all day long and you don't really think about it. But then we do come along these big ones, and in that we feel a lot of pressure with them. My decision's gonna affect a lot of people and I'm going to really struggle through this, or this could really make or break me and, and it feels like. This might be the end in this moment, right? This might be the end of my life as I know it. And maybe some of those decisions are if you work in the emergency room or some in some of these places where some of these decisions really, really are critical. But what you're saying is when you've done the research, you've put all the pieces together and you've got, you're faced with a few decisions. That really you just have to make one and go with it. And by flipping a coin, you're kinda giving the power to the coin, right? You're giving the power to the coin to say, it's like you pulling your tarot cards or whatever. I'm giving this power to the coin. I'm just gonna go with them and commit to it. We're gonna make this decision and go. If you're really feeling stuck, like this is a little tactic, little tool for when those moments, you're really feeling stuck and you're just need some support in making that. Making the leap, like taking that step forward.

Rob Paterson: 25:52

That's exactly what it is. And we make 30,000 decisions a day is what, what research suggests. So by the way, I didn't know any of this before. I wrote the book I researched while reading, but also interviewing neuroscience psychologists. I Had no idea. We make up to 35,000 decisions a day, actually, the majority of the decisions are made subconsciously, and that's really where the book focuses is. Um, yes, there's coin flip when you come to a split decision. we also gotta really focus on those subconscious decisions that we make, the ones that we make just autonomously. And whether brush your teeth, whether things like that's a foundation that you need that is really critical from a physiological neuroscience perspective, from a psych ological perspective to make sure that they are as accurate as possible and they, and that, that you move in the right direction. So that's a big focus of the book, is the, the flip of the coin is great and it's Aon and it's, it's really good for committing to a decision when you're uncertain about it, big decision. But it's also focusing on those other probably 34,950 decisions that you make every day that are subconscious.

Kyla Cofer: 27:07

Wow, you don't think about them. I mean, I just thought about my, my husband peeked his head around the corner, didn't realize I was in a call and I just ignored him completely. And like, that's a decision, right? I, I didn't really have to think about it cause I'm still in the middle of this conversation. I ignored him completely and now he's probably gonna be wondering what I'm doing, you know, and he'll figure it out. And it's just these little decisions that I didn't have to flip a coin for that I just was able to make a decision. But I'm thinking a little bit more about, do I buy this house or do I not buy this house? Do you do the research and. With the information that the best information you have in front of you, and sometimes ultimately you just have to pick. Yes. You just have to pick and go, and there is the psychology behind that that we tend to just get so afraid of sometimes ourselves. We don't have that confidence in security when the stakes are high. Because we don't wanna mess up. We have that fear of, uh, of it going badly.

Rob Paterson: 27:56

Yeah. And that's, that's the fight or flight system kicking in, right? That's it's designed to protect you from changing circumstances. So when you have to think about hey I'm going to change something in my life, I'm going to change my career, i'm going to buy a new house or I'm going to buy a new car those big decisions that you make in life, or I'm gonna commit to this relationship, or I'm. Heaven forbid on this relationship isn't right for me. Whatever it is, those big decisions, that's, that's when the fight or flight system really takes over and it's fear at the end of the day that's driving it. So that flip of a coin, once you have sat down and logically gone through it, and I'm not suggesting you've just put it all to chance. Once you've gone through that process and you're kind of down to the, that is a fantastic form of metacognition that can really bypass and, and get you through the fear.

Kyla Cofer: 28:55

Wow. Yeah. Awesome. So Rob, you've got tons of experience, you've written this great book. Tell us what are some other pieces of advice that you might have for somebody who is looking to really grow in their leadership experiences? Cause we've talked so far about, you know, knowing yourself, knowing your own purpose and not following in the footsteps of somebody else, just because you think that's your path, but also being willing to make decisions when the stakes are high. Uh, what else would you think would be really valuable for people to know as they're growing?

Rob Paterson: 29:20

I mean, I'll bring it back to decisions, but a great leader will be defined by the decisions they make or they don't make. In the book, I talk about six dimensions of what I call mental scales and how you make decisions every day, whether that's how you work with the person that's really difficult to work with. Direct report, whether that's managing up to a board that's challenging, whatever it might be, decisions that we make and these mental scales. There are three foundational mental scales and then there are three maintenance mental scales and pretty probably unsurprising, but. It's incredible how many people today I do executive coaching and, and one of the first things that I do with when I'm doing executive coaching is, is define values and, and what the purpose is in life or what's somebody's purpose in life. And it's incredible how a few people really, if you say to them, what are your values? How many could sit there and just say, these are my values. Second nature. And that's the process that really one of the foundational tools of any leader that's sets the sales for all your decision making. It's the compass for, for your, for your, for your ship. If you're running a business, it's your business. It's also the compass for your staff because staff confronted with the situation and say, these are the values of the organization. Well, does this behavior align to the values of the organization and your values? And that helps you with the decision making, both subconscious and conscious. So number one is values. And that's, that's probably the highest priority on for any leader is to really define what their individual values are. And the second part of that is, does that align to the company I'm working for? And doesn't apply to. just leaders. That applies to anyone. You set your values. Does that align to the company that you're working for? Cause. If you've got a renegade company that you're working for and perhaps their environmental thing is, is one of your values, and they're out there tearing up the oceans, you're probably not gonna be engaged and committed and loving your job. No, you're not gonna really enjoy that job. So values is, is the number one foundational thing to focus on for decision making and for leadership.

Kyla Cofer: 31:29

Well, I think that sounds to me like your values were in line a little bit more than you realized when you made that decision to bring the hotel chains into hospitals because you, that did affect a lot of people and you had staff that you had to care for and who now were running a hospital and, and had to rearrange and make thousands of decisions and, and people had to support that and the value system really would've come into play. In that role,

Rob Paterson: 31:51

and it certainly did, thinking about that decision, it could have backfired and it could have been that people, customers might say, well, hey, this hotel, hotel chain has had covid patients in the hotel. I'm never going to their hotel brand. So it could have majorly, majorly backfired on us. So there was a lot of, a lot at stake with this decision, and fortunately it didn't. The community got behind it and we were lucky that we read the room. But the question there was, When I sat on the, the couch there, I was literally sitting on my couch at home. I sat on the couch there that day. One of the first things I said is, what's the right thing to do here? What, what commercial impact this could have in the future? What's the right thing to do in this situation? And it was a really dire situation. You know, all of the hotel company staff were sitting at home. Not sure where the next paycheck was gonna come from. So not just not sure if their, they were gonna get sick or their family was gonna get sick. It was a, a global crisis as, as everyone knows. So that really played a big part of, am I gonna go for this or not gonna go for this? Let's flip a coin because if lands on that, I'm a hundred percent committed cuz it's the right thing to do. So values did play a big role in that.

Kyla Cofer: 33:02

Wow. Okay. So what was the second thing? First thing was the values. And then the second thing, the second thing

Rob Paterson: 33:07

really plays to wish I knew this many, many years ago is, is what's your purpose? What's your meaning in life? And I, I think there's, there's no probably no, no silver bullet defining a purpose, but I think a parent. Might define finding their purpose as, as raising their children and keeping them safe and protecting them. And what is it that will get you outta bed and, and will, will drive you to do something when the chips are down, or even when your own safety or your own, um, Your own credibility or future or whatever it might be, is that jeopardy? What, what is it that will drive you to do that? And that's the second one of the foundational mentions. And then the third one is having goals. And I know that sounds very cliched, but for a company it's KPIs, it's sort os or whatever format you use and your company. It's having a clear set of goals and then tracking those goals regularly and, and, and getting, moving towards them, taking steps towards them. They're three maintenance, uh, dimensions. Unsurprising. I think a lot of people finish school and then so of That's it. I done for school, working education is important. I. And I tell, I tell this story a little bit. Cause since I moved to the US we develop in our brains what something's, what's called, uh, heuristics. And we develop, uh, they're like mental shortcuts, right? So they help us make quick decisions, our thinking and what they're as a neural pathways in the brain. And I've developed one, which is that when you approach an intersection, the short corner, so here in the US it's the right hand turned. The short corner I associate with left. So whenever we're coming up to an intersection and I'm in the passenger seat directing, I always look at the short corner and I say, I'll turn left here. And the person starts going to cross the traffic. And I'm like, no, no, no, not that way. Cause my brain has developed a neural pathway that's, that makes that association, makes that connection. So those heuristics is what they called as the technical term. But those shortcuts can become, they can let you down way. So education is the way to. To continually stay on top of changing circumstances, and they're particularly dangerous in changing circumstances. You can think about things like the Titanic sinking and airplane accidents. All of these come down to mental shortcuts that we've taken, that we think the right time, but in a crisis have led to the wrong, wrong decision. So heuristics and, and constantly updating your education and your process and continuous learning is, is something that we all should. Do for the rest of our lives and never stop. But it's interesting how we leave school and kinda think, well, that's it. My schooling days are behind me. But I think Mark Twain said that he never let school get in the way of his education. So the education is number four,

Kyla Cofer: 35:48

right. Always be growing and learning and, and not leave it. Yeah. Leave it behind at any point. This is 2023. Technology is multiplying, but by the time you wake up in the morning, so, uh, you've got to keep learning and growing or you'll just be in the dust left behind, not not being able to keep up with anything and, and everything's constantly shifting and changing. No matter what industry you're in, everything is growing and shifting. Everybody's always looking for better ways to do things and learning from mistakes and learning from past bad decisions. And so we need to keep up with that to keep our own minds sharp and fresh and, uh, be able to continue to make better decisions the next day, you know, and not, not regretting the ones that we made yesterday. Because we made yesterday's decisions with the best information we had yesterday, but Absolutely. But taking that and making the best decision today and tomorrow, making better ones.

Rob Paterson: 36:39

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The fifth one is your environment. Again, people you choose to hang out with pretty, I had mentor stage in my career who said, show me your friends and I'll show you your character. And that's a hundred percent true. So there's a whole, whole chapter on that. In my book I won't go into now. And the last one is trauma. Uh, and that's, uh, that's a really big one for any leader or any decision maker. The company that I joined in the previously, whereas the CEO had gone through a lot of tough times and their whole processes and structure was set up around. Things going wrong, and that's held them back in a lot of ways. And, and it's the same. The story I use in a book is about a dog bite. You know, if you've, if you've met anyone who has been traumatized by a dog at a young age, they're unreasonably nervous and uncomfortable around dogs. And actually that serves against you when you later on in life, if you've been bitten by a dog as young. Young child, and then you come across a dog and immediately you start exhibiting fear. The dog picks up on that fear and, and it can then cause further problems. So going back and dealing with past traumas, uh, I write some own, personal traumas in the book, you will have fundamental flaws in your decision, fun in your leadership without dealing with, uh, trauma. So that's the six, six dimensions, uh, of the mental scales for decision making and for leaders for that matter.

Kyla Cofer: 38:06

You know, it's really working on yourself constantly in every area, like breaking down and always taking that step back. And, you know, there's, there's several themes for any listeners, this podcast of any time, length of time. The themes that we, that we get to, if you figured out this point, are emotional intelligence, personal development of the leader. That leaders have to be continually working on themselves and building up their own emotional intelligence in order to be successful. So this has been really valuable. Rob. Thank you. I just wanna see if there's anything, what's the name of your book? Did we get that? What's the name of your book?

Rob Paterson: 38:38

Yeah, it's Flip and Decide With Confidence. It's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. All the good Good stores. Good book stores.

Kyla Cofer: 38:45

Awesome. And that's gonna be a link to that I believe in our show. Should be in our show note. But Rob, this has been really a pleasure talking with you. And is there anything else you wanna make sure that our listeners hear before we head out?

Rob Paterson: 38:56

No, that's it. That sounds, that's been a pleasure to chat with you and, uh, thanks for having me on.

Kyla Cofer: 39:00

Yeah, thank you so much. This is great. Hey, thank you so much for listening. If you've liked what you heard and you want some more tools and resources to help you on your journey, go check out kyla cofer.com/free stuff.