Leading When It's All on Fire: The Abyss, Your Alpha, Real Freedom

With Special Guest Rob Hays

Rob Hays sits down with Nick Madden to break down what it takes to lead when everything is on fire. Rob took over as CEO of the publicly traded Ashford Hospitality Trust in April 2020 — and within a weekend furloughed 93% of nearly 13,000 associates, ran 700-room hotels with three people, watched revenue fall almost 100% in two months, and defaulted on $4.5B of mortgages across roughly 130 hotels. His father's response: "welcome to your abyss." What he did next is the point: Rob kept the company out of bankruptcy, worked his way through the debt, and led it for five more years before stepping away on his own terms — proof that the principles in this conversation actually hold up under fire.

For Catholic business owners, Rob gets practical: the daily-to-quarterly planning cadence that kept him sane, why "all you can control are your inputs," the quality of attention as a near-virtue, unreasonable hospitality as a real edge, hiring the person instead of the need, and the founder filter he built to decide who to back. He closes on the line that reframes everything — "your priorities are how you spend your time" — and the freedom of seeing the four walls of your office as the material of your sanctity.

Chapters, links, and the downloadable Leader Guide are below. If this was useful, like and subscribe to help more Catholic entrepreneurs break the barrier between faith and work.

ABOUT ROB HAYS
Rob Hays is the former President and CEO of Ashford Hospitality Trust, where he spent nearly 20 years leading one of the nation's largest publicly traded hotel ownership companies. Today, he serves as an investor, board member, and leader in several faith-based and nonprofit organizations, including as chairman of the Aquinas Institute for Catholic Life at Princeton University and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. A Princeton graduate who also studied philosophy in Rome, Rob and his wife, Alicia, have been married for more than 20 years and have seven children.