Nancy Patel, executive leader in the hotel industry, talks with Greg Aden about perspective after paralysis, discipline over motivation, and women in hospitality leadership.
In 1995 Nancy was driving heaters between two hotels with her 18 month old son in the car when a serious accident left her paralyzed. Two years in bed and a stretch of post operative depression, which she came through with her husband's encouragement, reset how she thinks about time and what she does with the days she has. She tells Greg that motivation is about one percent of success and discipline is the other 99, and that reflecting on those two years carried her through the downturns of 2001 to 2003 and 2008 to 2012.
She also names the qualities she looks for in a leader: listening, letting people try their ideas instead of shutting them down, and real communication. She describes starting the first women's platform in AAHOA in 2009 with two other women because women in the industry had no voice that counted, why she refused to take a designated female seat when she ran for her board position, and what she would tell a 22 year old entering hospitality today about open mindedness and communicating across generations.
Connect with Nancy Patel:
https://linkedin.com/in/nancypatel
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