Welcome to Mic’d Up with Raise the Bar, where we bring you inspiring conversations with motivational speakers who redefine resilience and success.
In this episode we’re joined by Rob Hosking, international TEDx motivational speaker and former front-line Police Officer, renowned for his ability to inspire teams and leaders to adapt in fast-changing, high-pressure environments.
Flexibility, fluidity, resillience and psychological safety feature heavily into this change driven podcast. Tune in to hear how Rob, once dubbed the ‘Mighty Motivator’ derives practical tips and takeaways from his time on the beat and find out if you’re an oak tree or a palm tree when it comes to working flexibly. Rob’s debut book, ‘Lessons from the Front Line’ is available in all good stockists now.
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Mic'd Up with Raise the Bar: Balance & Business Resilience with Rob Hosking
Kate
Hello and welcome to Mic’d up with Raise the Bar, a podcast series where leading voices in motivation and leadership share what really drives success. On today’s episode, we’re talking all things beats, balance and business resilience. Our guest was dubbed the Mighty Motivator by none other than DJ and host Chris Evans. He’s an international TEDx speaker and former frontline police officer. So from making split second decisions in life or death situations to facing trauma head on, buckle up people and welcome Rob Hosking. Rob, it’s lovely to have you on the podcast.
Rob
Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to it.
Kate
Now, listen, we’ve got to dive straight in to it. Chris Evans dubbing anybody anything was going to be a bit of a story behind it. Right? So tell us about the Mighty Motivator and how that came about.
Rob
Yeah. Not bad is it? That was good marketing when he called me that. But yeah, it was it was one of those ones. It was complete and utter, uh, full circle moment because I remember being in the car, going to work, listening to the Chris Evans show and you know what Chris Evans was like? He’s always giving you these nuggets of wellbeing tips and inspiration and things like that. I remember just driving to work, always listening to him in the mornings, taking away some form of nugget with me for the rest of the day. And then when I left the police and I started doing what I do now as motivational speaker, I decided I wanted to reach out to give a talk at his festival Carfest.
So thankfully they accepted me and they were like, yes, we really want you to be part of this. Your story is incredible and we really want this. And then a couple of months later, I just got an email from them to say, by the way, we we’ve actually got you on The Chris Evans Show to talk about what you do, your story, and also, you know, to promote your appearance at Carfest. And then that was it. You know, I was on the on the show with him talking about my story and giving nuggets to other people who would have been driving the work at the time, which is, as I say, a full circle moment. And that’s when he dubbed me, the mighty motivator.
Kate
So he clearly did something right to motivate his audience in some form or another! What a moniker. And as you’ve said there, to go from frontline policing into the hot seat on a live radio show across the country. It’s quite a difference from the day job.
So your frontline policing career demanded split second decisions when it comes to literally being at the forefront of unravelling chaos. What can organisations learn from that level of pressure about making clearer and faster choices?
Rob
Yeah, I think this is the thing. When we talk about split second decisions we connect it with this ability to adapt because change happens all the time for organisations, for what I used to do as a police officer. Change is the only constant in life, whether we like it or not. It is the only constant. And I’ve learnt in my time in the police that it’s not just about adapting to change, it’s about how we adapt to change. So there’s ways that we can adapt better to change. And the biggest tip in regards to how we adapt better to change is about how do we do we adapt faster to it? Because if we adapt faster to change, then all of a sudden we’re adapting better. So when change happens, we’ve all been there. We’ve all, every single one of us have been there where we asked ourselves the question, do I have to? And we always ask ourselves; do I have to do this change? But I’ve realized, you know, making these split-second decisions on the front line, that the quicker that we ask ourselves the question, what do I need to know now? What do I need to do now? When you ask yourself those questions, you then come up with solutions faster. So basically, when change happens, don’t ask yourself, don’t hesitate. And that question comes up where we say, do we have to ask yourself, what do I need to know now? What do I need to do? And the quicker you ask yourself that question, everything starts to unravel. Where you adapted better to any situation that you’re faced with. By just reframing that question when change hits.
Kate
Sticking with with high pressure environment, just talking about this is making me like uncomfortable. Oh, God. Do I have to? Do I have to ask you these questions? Hahaha. What does motivation look like in a high-pressure environment? You know when. Oh, jeez. You know when it just feels like it’s relentless. You know, there’s always something on. There’s always a deadline. You’re always chasing something when you feel like you’ve got nothing left to give. What does motivation look like there?
Rob
It’s one of those things that we probably hear often, isn’t it, that when we don’t have motivation, that’s when discipline takes over? So, for me, as a police officer, the discipline was obviously, I have to protect people. I can’t get away from this. I have to protect people. But guess what? I wasn’t always motivated, I was drained, I was emotionally exhausted, mentally exhausted, and sometimes the motivation just wasn’t there. But the discipline has to come in. And what I’ve learned to help with that discipline slash motivation in that moment is about the importance of focusing on the next thing. Because see, when we’re focusing on, let’s say the end of a project or whatever it may be, it can be overwhelming, especially when you don’t have the motivation at that split second. So, for me, it’s just focus on the next step. What I always tell organisations is control the controllables. I can’t control my motivation all the time. I can’t control my exhaustion all the time, but I can control my decision. The next thing you know, the next step, the next step, the next step. Just by breaking it down into those little steps.
You know any runners who are listening, you have to complete the first mile before you complete the marathon. It’s about just breaking it down. And then all of a sudden, that motivation that you may lack, it’s been made to feel a lot more simple. And that discipline will come over because you’re just breaking it down into the little, small steps.
Kate
Something that’s been hugely popular with your talks and your presentations is how openly you talk about PTSD and depression like you’ve just mentioned there. You know, we’re not always energised or motivated, to get through our daily tasks or push ourselves to achieve something new. So, what helped you move then from the silence to the strength? And how can workplaces create the safety that people need to do the same?
Rob
You know, it was hard. It was hard, especially as a man in society. We have that stigma, especially in this kind of culture where if you’re in the military policing, just these macho cultures in particular, where men are told to be stoic, they have to man up. They don’t show their emotions. They don’t want to tell people what they’ve seen. They don’t want to admit that they’re stressed. Right. And we put that into the corporate world, too. No matter what gender it is, we don’t want to admit that we’re stressed out when we are in a high pressure role, because then we admit to ourselves that we can’t do it, which is completely wrong. But that’s what the stigma believes. And for me, it was hard to get to that point. But the thing that helped me get there is becoming a leader, because I realized as a leader in the police helping the new recruits, that how could I help the new recruits if I wasn’t helping myself? How could I help the recruits thrive mentally when I wasn’t thriving mentally? So I had to do things for myself, and I had to create a culture of psychological safety. And psychological safety and high performance go hand in hand. And if we can create a psychologically safe cultures for not just ourselves, but for our teams, then all of a sudden high performance will come with it because trust and open communication come with it.
So one of the things I did was the importance of debriefs. And with anybody listening, they’re like they may think, oh I do debriefs. Yes. But do you do them often enough and do you do them in the right way? So debriefs two things you need to know about debriefs. The first one is don’t just do debriefs when things go wrong. It’s also when things go right. We can always learn from when things go right. If you only do it when things go wrong and there’s mistakes, all of a sudden that doesn’t create that trust that we want. And the second one is always look at the person in the mirror first, because it’s easy to point fingers, it’s easy to say to everybody else, what could you have done better? But actually ask yourself, what could I have done better? First and foremost, as a leader, as a colleague, or just, you know, as a decision maker? What could I have done better and share that with your team? Because that creates a culture of trust. With trust comes psychological safety. So again, I think psychological safety and high performance, It’s just intertwined and they’re both so key.
Kate
I love hearing you talk about your frontline experience, specifically when you talk about new recruits coming through and leadership in its very visual form. You’ve mentioned before about resilience and how it’s a skill, not necessarily a personality trait. How do you build resilience? What does that actually look like in day to day life?
Rob
See, I thought I was a resilient person because as a police officer, I had to bounce back day in and day out. That was my job. And I would see trauma. I’d see stressful things deal with stressful things. But I kept going. But I realised after my last ever shift, like, I didn’t know this would be my last ever shift until it transpired that it was. I realized after my last ever shift that resilience looks very different. So on my last ever shift, I witnessed a twenty one year old male take his own life in front of me. It’s a very difficult thing to watch and to be there for. However, five hours later my colleague Dan had a heart attack and died. My colleague had twenty nine years service, one year left until retirement, and it really impacted me and I struggled to bounce back. And I realized that I bounced back for so many years, but I wasn’t bouncing back well, because that’s what resilience actually is.
Resilience is not just about the ability to bounce back, it’s about the ability to bounce back well, and there’s a significant difference. Many of us in stressful situations, we bounce back. But are we doing it well enough? Are we actually doing the things we processing our stress? Are we looking after ourselves? Are we making sure that we can do it well enough so that we can bounce back better? And many of us, we just think, well, I’ve showed up, that’s enough. But that’s not what resilience is.
Resilience isn’t just about showing up again. It’s about are you in the right place to show up again? So after that, I realized that resilience had different components and what I call the resilience square, which is what I call what I do in a lot of my talks. And one of the things that I’ll talk about today is just this idea of community. Because one thing I think everyone needs to get into their heads is that for some people in the workplace, that is their only community that exists. They may not have a community outside of work, we have no idea. So but one thing we can guarantee is that they have a community in the workplace. That is why community is so important, and research has been carried out where it tells us that we can become more resilient in the process of connecting with others in our most challenging of times. See, resilience is a team sport and this is why it’s one of the sides to resilience square. If we use each other, we use our colleagues. If we use our team members, if we use our staff in the right way, we can build a community where support is there, where then people can thrive, where people can share, you know, how they’re feeling and things like that. And with that, community helps build resilience to be able to keep going. So community is so important in the workplace.
Kate
Oh, resilience is a team sport. What a what a line. I think if I took anything away from that. It’s so true. I guess I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that sense of community. You know, like we have we talk about bringing your whole self to work, right? I love chatting with the rest of our team about what the kids are up to and birthdays. And this time of year, we’re all talking about Christmas prep and those type of things. But, you know, in terms of helping you cope with situations I don’t think I ever kind of looked at the value in that community at work as well. It’s so interesting. And it leads me straight on to our next question when we were talking about mental clarity. So in moments of chaos and I mean, just hearing about your experience there, I don’t think it can get more testing or more challenging, how can leaders help model actual adaptability in chaos like that?
Rob
Yeah. See, when you need to be adaptable, it means that change is happening. That’s that’s the main thing. So for me, when change is happening, it means it’s fluid. Fluid incidence changes in just that’s it’s always fluid. It’s always changing. It’s always evolving. So fluid things like change require fluid thinking. And we can only have fluid thinking if we are flexible. And one of the things I tell leaders all the time when it comes to adaptability is don’t be rigid, because if you’re rigid to change, then that will act only as a weakness. Because I always use this analogy of a palm tree, and I always tell people, be a palm tree and they always look at me, they’re like, did he just tell us to be a palm tree? I’m like, yes, be a palm tree. But it’s really empowering and powerful analogy because if we compare it a palm tree to an oak tree. An oak tree may be strong and impressive, but guess what? It’s rigid. And when a storm comes, that rigidness will act as its weakness. You know the branches will fall down and things like that. But what do palm trees do in a storm? They bend to the winds. They change to the changing environment. And for every leader out there, if you can be flexible in your approach to any incident that you deal with, to any decision making, any project, if you’re flexible, then only good things will come from that. Now, I’m not saying they need to change their goal, but be willing to change the path to that goal. That mindset is key.
Kate
Yes, it makes absolute perfect sense to me. I could be a palm tree. Just made me think of somewhere much warmer swaying away to the breeze. But the analogy fits right. The flexibility. I love those leader messages, less kind of rigid thinking, more fluidity. And especially we keep saying this at this time of year as well. You know, we’re talking early December at the time of recording and making those Christmas plans and essentially what twenty twenty six looks like. I appreciate it’s not the start of the financial year for many, but it is the start of goal setting. And wanting to come back renewed with teams really focused and ready to hit the ground in January!
Your new keynote explores performing better under pressure. So for everybody listening today if there’s one message that people can take back to their teams, what would that be?
Rob
Habits are key. You know habits make up forty percent of the behaviors that we do every single day. That’s all to do with our habits rather than conscious decisions. So we need to make sure that our habits are the correct ones. And one of the things that I’ll say for people today is make sure that you have positive self-talk. Because see, when we have this negative self-talk, when we get bogged down by a mistake or a failure, which we will all have in our professional and personal lives, whenever we get bogged down by that, that can unfortunately lead to us having decision fatigue, because we’re so caught up with that mistake we’ve made, it can lead us to getting overwhelmed or whatever it may be. But if we do not apply that mistake or failure to impact our mind, if we think to ourselves, no, wait a minute, I need to remember my strengths. I need to remember what I’m good at. If we have that positive self-talk, we make better decisions. Because if you only have negativity in your mind, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, that’s not a toxic positivity kind of thing, where it’s like, make sure you’re always positive because I know that’s not how life works. But when you’re making decisions, when something hasn’t went right, it will do you. You have to. Yes, learn from it, move on, and then have the positive self-talk of remembering and reminding yourself, what am I good at? What am I good at? What are my strengths? Because that will lead to better decisions and high performance.
Kate
It’s so timely. Positive self-talk hitting those goals. Ready for January? I’m talking about post-Christmas already. I’ve written it off. I’m ready. I’m in the mindset to go again. And something that could give you all listening, a bit of a bit of a push in the right direction. Rob’s latest book, Lessons from the Front Line was published just a couple of months ago. Rob, tell us a little bit about it.
Rob
Yeah. You know what? I never thought that I would ever write a book. Yeah, I it was never on my to do list. But it’s one of those things where I was approached to write one and I started to look at this idea. And, you know, I’ve had a a crazy story from the front lines of policing. You know, I’ve went from policing and I worked for the government as an investigator for ten years worth of investigative experience dealing with high pressure environments. And I’ve learned a lot from those ten years in regards to happiness and putting myself first. Mental health and all these different things. And I decided, you know what? I want to write a self-help book. Not just a story with, you know, a linear story of this is my story. I wanted to write a self-help book where people can, whenever they’re struggling, can look at the different chapters and be like, okay, I’m struggling with, you know, mistakes or failure. And there’s a chapter just about mistakes and failure where they can go to and they can help them change their mindset to that failure. So it’s broken down into so many different parts where it’s not just this Rob story, chapter one to chapter twenty. It’s all different things from resilience to, um, you know, change and positive self-talk, all these different things and, um, psychological safety, things like that, where you can just go down the list and be like, I need this right now. Yeah. And then you read that chapter and remind yourself of it, you know? And it really helps people. And, you know, the feedback has been really good. So, it’s as I said, I never thought I’d write it, but I’m very glad I did. And it’s just something there for people to always take with them. Yeah. Whether it’s going to help with their happiness and their life, their mental health or even performance at work. It’s there’s something there for everybody.
Kate
So timely as well. You touched on it briefly just before as well, you know, November being International Men’s Day and men’s mental health awareness as well. We’ve had so many conversations over the last few weeks to really highlight the importance of men talking. And again, as you’ve touched on, you know, the safety in that community at work as well. From a resilience point of view, it all ties in so perfectly.
No doubt you can get that from all of your reputable publishers ahead of Christmas. And we’ll catch up with you again. Thank you so much for your time, Rob. Hope you have a fantastic Christmas and a busy New Year, and I’ll catch you again for the next episode of Mix Up with Raise the Bar.