Ep. 52: Dena Ali, Battalion Chief - Mental Wellness & Modeling Vulnerability

Summary

Episode Summary: Ep. 52: Dena Ali, Battalion Chief - Mental Wellness & Modeling Vulnerability

Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table is a podcast hosted by Captain Berlin Maza and Deputy Fire Chief Bill Mack, dedicated to exploring leadership across various professions and industries. In Episode 52, released on September 5, 2024, Battalion Chief Adina Ali joins the hosts to discuss critical topics surrounding mental wellness, vulnerability in leadership, peer support programs, and psychological safety within emergency services.

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1. Personal Journey and Transition

Chief Adina Ali begins by sharing her personal experiences with leadership and the inevitable struggles that come with it. She emphasizes that no leader is perfect and underscores the importance of acknowledging personal challenges.

"I haven't yet met a leader who has never faced struggle...if our leaders could be more open to modeling, like, hey, you know what? I need help or even admit I go to counseling, that right there, boom, destigmatizes it."
— Chief Adina Ali [00:01]

Chief Ali recounts her career transition from aspiring police officer to firefighter, influenced by media representation and mentorship. She highlights how seeing women in firefighting roles on television inspired her to join a more inclusive fire service.

"If it wasn't for Rescue Me having a female on season two, I don't know that I would have considered the fire service until, like, years later when Chicago Fire came out."
— Chief Adina Ali [07:42]

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2. Establishing Peer Support Programs

Chief Ali delves into the creation and expansion of peer support networks within the fire department. She discusses the challenges of encouraging firefighters to seek help and the stigma associated with mental health issues.

"When we formalized a peer support team, we wanted to make sure there were options for people to talk to other people outside of the department because we were afraid that that would be a barrier to people reaching out."
— Chief Adina Ali [10:35]

She explains the transition from the Triangle Peer Support Network to the statewide Responders Assistance Initiative, highlighting the significant increase in trained peer supporters and the ongoing efforts to cover all regions.

"We've trained over 500 people in the state of North Carolina... If they live 30 minutes away and you won't come, that's not my fault. It means it's not that important to you."
— Chief Adina Ali [14:11]

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3. Destigmatizing Mental Health and Modeling Vulnerability

A central theme of the episode is the importance of leaders modeling vulnerability to destigmatize mental health struggles. Chief Ali stresses that leaders should engage with their teams by being open about their own challenges.

"I have never met a perfect person. I have never met a leader who hasn't made a mistake in the course of their career... if our leaders could be more open to modeling, like, hey, you know what? I need help or even admit I go to counseling, that right there, boom, destigmatizes it."
— Chief Adina Ali [00:01 & 18:12]

She criticizes the current assessment practices that reward referring individuals to Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) instead of fostering in-house support.

"...the right thing to do as leader, when somebody comes in and says, my wife left me or, you know, I, I'm drinking too much, is hey, do you want to talk?"
— Chief Adina Ali [18:11]

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4. Understanding Psychological Safety

Chief Ali introduces the concept of psychological safety, linking it to the performance and well-being of teams. She explains how environments lacking psychological safety can lead to increased stress and decreased cognitive function.

"Psychological safety is getting us out of that fight or flight and keeping us in the parasympathetic nervous system... if there's not trust and connection when you're struggling, you're going to feel alienated and isolated."
— Chief Adina Ali [32:17]

She references Amy Edmondson and Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code to illustrate how psychological safety fosters high-performing teams by encouraging open communication and belonging cues.

"In those environments, the performance of the team was much better... psychological safety is the secret sauce."
— Chief Adina Ali [35:50]

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5. Coping Skills and Building Resilience

The discussion shifts to practical coping mechanisms and resilience training for firefighters. Chief Ali highlights the importance of activities that activate the parasympathetic nervous system to increase heart rate variability (HRV), a key indicator of resilience.

"To increase resiliency, you've gotta find anything that's gonna activate the vagus nerve in the direction of rest and digest, which if you're looking for a biomarker, it's heart rate variability."
— Chief Adina Ali [52:19]

She advocates for simple practices like breathing exercises, journaling, and expressing gratitude to manage stress effectively.

"One thing you can do right now, and you start today, is two or three minutes of breathing exercises... try to exhale more than you inhale."
— Chief Adina Ali [56:06]

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6. Leadership Tips and Continuous Growth

Chief Ali offers actionable advice for leaders aiming to foster a supportive and high-performing environment. She emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, active listening, and expressing genuine appreciation.

"The best thing you can do is, yeah, listen to these podcasts, listen to the book recommendations, and take time to read."
— Chief Adina Ali [62:57]

She shares personal strategies, such as recognizing and appreciating team members' efforts, which significantly boosts morale and performance.

"People... when they try to do a good job, it means a lot when you notice it."
— Chief Adina Ali [31:11]

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7. Recommended Readings

Chief Ali recommends several books that have influenced her leadership philosophy:

1. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
2. Think Again by Adam Grant
3. 30 Fires by Chief Chikara Goldfeather

"These books are required reading for anybody. Even, you know, new officers... And, for example, we talked about the culture code, talked about the book. Think Again is by Adam Grant. Required reading for anybody."
— Chief Adina Ali [63:07]

She also introduces her forthcoming book, Hope Out of Darkness: A Guide to First Responder Mental Wellness, set to release in October, which expands on the topics discussed in the podcast.

"The whole first part of the book is going to just talk about the science behind suicide, trauma, PTSD... the third part of the book is helping others."
— Chief Adina Ali [65:43]

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8. Importance of Open Conversations

Concluding the episode, Chief Ali shares a story illustrating the transformative power of informal conversations around the kitchen table. She emphasizes that both formal and informal discussions are vital in maintaining a psychologically safe and connected team environment.

"We were all sitting there and we're just having relaxed conversation... It reminded me just how important that was."
— Chief Adina Ali [71:37]

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Notable Quotes

• Chief Adina Ali [00:01]:
  "I have never met a leader who hasn't made a mistake in the course of their career."

• Chief Adina Ali [18:12]:
  "If our company officers... teach them if a member admits having a problem... the right thing to do as leader... is, hey, do you want to talk?"

• Chief Adina Ali [32:17]:
  "Psychological safety is the most basic level of safety that we need as human beings."

• Chief Adina Ali [52:19]:
  "To increase resiliency, you've gotta find anything that's gonna activate the vagus nerve in the direction of rest and digest."

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Conclusion

Episode 52 of Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table provides invaluable insights into the intersection of leadership, mental wellness, and psychological safety within the fire service. Battalion Chief Adina Ali's experiences and expertise offer actionable strategies for leaders at all levels to foster supportive, resilient, and high-performing teams. Her emphasis on continuous learning, modeling vulnerability, and prioritizing mental health serves as a blueprint for effective leadership in high-stress environments.

For listeners seeking to enhance their leadership skills and promote mental wellness within their organizations, this episode is a must-listen.

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Connect with Chief Adina Ali:

• LinkedIn: Adina Ali
• Instagram: @chiefadinaali

Stay tuned to Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table for more inspiring discussions on leadership and professional development.

Transcript

[Chief Adina Ali]

I haven't yet met a leader who has never faced struggle. I have never met a perfect person. I have never met a leader who hasn't made a mistake in the course of their career. And granted, we haven't all had significant traumas. We all, we haven't all dealt with addiction or major losses. But through the course of our lives, especially people in formal leadership positions who generally have several years on the job, we have faced issues, we have had pain, we have had struggles. And if our leaders could be more open to modeling, like, hey, you know what? I need help or even admit I go to counseling, that right there, boom, destigmatizes it. And then if our company officers, instead of when they do the assessment center and the right answer is refer to eap, that's the worst thing we do to our upcoming company officers because we teach them if a member admits having a problem or admits to an addiction or relationship issues, we get full points for referring them outside when in fact the right thing to do as leader, when somebody comes in and says, my wife left me or you know, I, I'm drinking too much, is hey, do you want to talk? Let's talk.

[Unknown Host]

From a three story apartment building.

[Chief Adina Ali]

What's your emergency?

[Unknown Host]

The First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to you the Kitchen Table podcast. Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe. From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to CEOs, our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders. Good morning and welcome everybody to the Kitchen Table. The Kitchen Table is brought to you by the First Responder Liaison Network. The network is organized for the development, implementation and ongoing support of mentorship and professional development programs inspiring our youth and young adults to mature into engaged civic leaders and resilient community sentinels. Music and graphics are brought to you by Kai Elephant Productions on the 52nd episode of the Kitchen Table. Today we're talking peer support, destigmatizing mental health and modeling vulnerability. We're also talking psychological safety and how it's directly correlated to the performance of organizations. Our guest today is a battalion chief with the Raleigh Fire Department in North Carolina, where she's worked her way up the ranks. She also serves as a Program Manager, Program Behavioral Health for the First Responder center for Excellence. She holds a degree from North Carolina State University and an MPA from the University of North Carolina Pembroke, where her research focused on firefighter suicide. Our guest is an Executive Fire Officer program graduate through the National Fire Academy. Her passion for mental health awareness stems from her personal and professional experiences which have led her to become a vocal advocate for the mental health and resilience of firefighters and other emergency personnel. Our guest has conducted extensive research on the mental health challenges faced by first responders, including the impact of trauma and stress. She has also served as a subject matter expert at the National Fire Academy, where she assisted in reviewing the health and wellness curriculum. Additionally, she is the founder and director of North Carolina Peer Support, where she played a key role in developing their statewide curriculum. On the 52nd episode. Today, I welcome Battalion Chief Adina Ali to the kitchen table. Good afternoon, Chief. How are you? Hey.

[Chief Adina Ali]

I'm good. I'm good. How are you doing?

[Unknown Host]

I'm doing well. So good morning here, but obviously good afternoon there. I understand that you just got off shift this morning.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yes, yes.

[Unknown Host]

Busy night, busy evening. Hopefully not too busy.

[Chief Adina Ali]

So I'm going to, like, be really honest right now, which I hate to do. So one of the things when I promoted from captain to battalion chief, one of the selling points, because everybody's like, aren't you going to miss, like, fighting fire? Aren't you going to miss fires? And I was like, yes. But one of the selling points was I'm not going to miss getting up every 90 minutes for, like, all the other stuff that comes along with fighting fires, like lift assists. And my favorite is, like, subject has chest pain for last 30 days, you know, and feels it at 3 in the morning.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, right.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, man, it's gonna be awesome when I make battalion Chief because I'm gonna get to sleep more at night, which is going to prolong my life, and that's important. So let's go. And I really thought that that would be the case, but it's just really funny how I might not be getting up every 90 minutes for calls, but I end up staying up really late, finishing out work, doing stuff. I'm always the first one up because I have to look over reports and something that I've noticed and I don't know. Well, I think there is some science too, because I. I've done a lot of research on sleep. And, you know, for example, the first night that you sleep outside of your house, like, if. If you travel, sleep in a hotel, usually the first night's a poor night of sleep. Well, some of the research that I was looking into basically said that, like, half your brain stays awake, the protective half, because, you know, it's an. It's an unfamiliar environment, so that. That, you know, protection side of you is awake. And that started to make a little bit of sense and When I think about work, I might get five hours uninterrupted at the firehouse, but like the next morning I don't feel rested at all. Right, so I know where you're leading because we talked about this before we hit record. I admitted that I took a nap this morning. Yes. So. So sometimes I get home from work and even if I didn't run all night, even if I only got up once and I got five hours and sometimes I still feel like crap and I'll take a 90 minute nap right off the bat.

[Unknown Host]

And that's, that's necessary. Right. Because based on what you said, what if it's compared to the five hours that you get, say in your own bed at home? Completely different. Five hours? Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Like the quality is, the quality at the firehouse isn't, isn't as strong as it is at my house, at least for me.

[Unknown Host]

Absolutely.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. I also think there's a part of me that's, that is always like ready and prepared. So I don't know.

[Unknown Host]

So we'll talk about that. We're going to dive into some of the hyper awareness, Talk about hyper vigilance. There's a lot that I want to unpack with you here today. But before we just dive into to this conversation on leadership and mental health awareness, behavioral health, all that share a little bit about Battalion Chief Idina Ali. I understand you came from law enforcement and then became a firefighter, is that correct?

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. No. We all make mistakes in life and mine was a police officer. Oh, I guess early on and admit now and look back and say, I'm.

[Unknown Host]

Glad we could laugh about it.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah, no, yeah, let's laugh. There's never a wrong time to stop and change course if you're not happy. Like they make a change. And I, I always wanted to be a police officer. I grew up watching cops. Every time I'd see police officers, like, man, it's so cool I want to do that. I think that shows swat. Like, you know, there's just this excitement and obsession with like the law enforcement side of things. So immediately after college I, I got hired and went through the academy. And the first couple years it was so much fun. And then around year three, it just, the fun started to go away. And then by year five, I didn't enjoy it at all. And fortunately right around that time the television show Rescue Me came out and season two, they had the female firefighters.

[Unknown Host]

Yes, that's right.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And that was, yeah, that was the first time that I realized that the fire Service was not just a male dominated. Because I swear up until that point, I didn't think women belonged in the fire service. I'd never seen a female firefighter, so I didn't think women could be firefighters or should be firefighters because I knew that they lived together and they work 24 hour shifts. So I thought it would be inappropriate for a woman to like, disrupt that. But then season two of Rescue Me, there was a female firefighter. I started to like, look up stuff and I saw like, Raleigh Fire Department had women already. And I was like, wait a minute, this is an option for me. And I never looked back.

[Unknown Host]

Wow. Well, let me say that for a minute. How important is that? Is that. Was that in terms of. You saw a woman on a TV show, Firefighters. Okay, just realist. It's not real. Oh, that's, that's cool. And then you saw a local fire department that had women in the fire. Like, wait, there's women here?

[Chief Adina Ali]

That's.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, so how important is being able to see something like that? Now I say in general terms, like, say for the community, for example, is it important for exposure for people to be able to see something, to say, you know what, maybe I can do that.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. In my eyes and in my experience, it's absolutely important. And I know where you're going with it because, you know, a lot of times when we try to recruit, we try to like, make our recruitment diverse to show the diversity of the fire service. And you know, I, I hear the comments sometimes where, you know, there's a poster and there's one female, one minority. And you know, people are like, man, why do they have to do that? Like, that's, that's ridiculous. Why can't they just take a normal picture? But there are just like me, there are populations who don't realize that the fire service is for them. You know, you watch certain television shows or you see things and it just looks so high level and like, man, there's no way I could do that. Just like, you know, Navy seals and what, what not. When I was in my, you know, younger 20s, I would have never tried anything that would be remotely like that. Now, you know, older in life, I realize that, man, I can do anything. You just have to, you know, set your mind to it. For me, the fire service, I, I could do it. I. There needed to be a little bit of mentoring to help me pass the cpap. But yeah, I had to see if I, if it wasn't for Rescue Me having a female on season two, I don't know that I would have considered the fire service until, like, years later when Chicago Fire came out. And by then I was much older, so I'm glad I went. The fire service is not an older person's job.

[Unknown Host]

Sure. As. As my knees are telling me now. So you study and teach on mental health, suicide, suicide prevention, resiliency, stress, trauma, all that? Yes, yes, I understand you earlier. North Carolina, peer support. That's for the state.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

Tell me about that. Like, how does one start up a peer support program for an entire state? Tell me about that.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Again, back to mistakes and regrets. But so truly, one of the things, when we went to create a peer support team for our department, the Rally Fire Department, one of the things that we knew and understood was a lot of people struggling and going through a hard time. They really don't want to open up to people close to them. Right. You either want to open. Like, if you're going to reach out to a peer support network, it's because you're not comfortable reaching out to the people closest to you. So if you're going to reach out, rarely. And we know how the fire service is, you know, rumors start, somebody admits weakness, you know, people might latch onto that. So we knew that when we formalized a peer support team, we wanted to make sure there were options for people to talk to other people outside of the department because we were afraid that that would be a barrier to people reaching out. Yeah, especially, you know, just that fear of all their business being public because, you know the old saying like telephone telegraph. Telephone. Telephone.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

It spreads like wildfire. So it actually initially started with what we call the Triangle Peer Support Network. And then I can't remember who told me, but one of my friends said, man, why don't you just make it statewide? And Illinois, the state of Illinois, had already done it. They had. They had the Illinois firefighter peer support, and their director came down to North Carolina and taught our first stake peer support training or taught our first class. And so he kind of guided me a lot and was like, man, just go statewide. Do it before somebody else does it, because you have good intents and you don't want the wrong person to try to lead it. So really and truly the reason we went ahead and did it and got our nonprofit and got the name was just to make sure that we had a bit of ownership over it and it didn't fall into the wrong hands. Interesting.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. And overall, it. It actually became pretty successful, and it was definitely something to be really proud of like, we, we grew slowly and initially we wanted to be there for everybody and make sure that anybody in the state could call and have, you know, somebody nearby. But as time went on and as we slowly built the team, like, we. Anybody could call and somebody was going to answer the line and somebody was going to talk to him. But there are parts of the states where we didn't have peers. And initially that made us feel like we weren't doing a good job. But we had to take that burden off our shoulders and recognize that we were already doing a lot and to be patient. Like, as we keep advertising classes, people from each region hopefully will end up coming. And then unfortunately, like, a decision we made because there were times where it was like, man, we don't have hardly any peers in this part of the state. We're letting these people down. But we realized we were doing a lot and we couldn't put that burden on our shoulders. That if the people in that part of the state wanted peer support, we had the training available. They just had to step up and come take the class. And slowly, we eventually, I mean, we've trained over 500 people in the state of North Carolina. There are still pockets of areas that like, for example, we've had multiple classes in New Hanover County. It's by the beach. So that is an easy sale to come to class. I've probably unfairly had most of my classes in New Hanover. My first peer support, when I took the IAFF peer support training, I went all the way to Wisconsin to take. And so the way I see it is if I have a class in New Hanover county and you live 30 minutes away and you won't come, that's not my fault. It means it's not that important to you.

[Unknown Host]

Right.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Because a lot of times, you know, people from departments like leadership will call and they'll say, hey, we had this really horrible call. We need peers, we need this, we need that. And we used to try to get people there and we were really making ourselves tired. And finally I was like, you know what? We're volunteers. This is a nonprofit. If they're not willing to take the training, we can't put that stress on our shoulders.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, as far as peer support, I've taken the, is it the two day, the three day IFF peer support behavioral health course. This was several years ago. I can't remember who was saying this. It was either Anthony Castros or so on. But it was, it was a good point. I heard it years ago. He said, every company officer is A peer or need be or is a peer support member. Right. Regardless if you're on the team or with that being said, every firefighter is a peer support member because we all have to be able to support, empathize, listen, to, communicate with our coworkers. But as we talk about formal peer support programs and training, obviously, how important is it that as this being a leadership podcast, as listeners here, either, company officers, those aspiring, even firefighters, how important is it that everybody put themselves out there to gain some sort of peer support training so they could better become better supporters of their peers?

[Chief Adina Ali]

I love that you went in this direction because I. I'm almost. I'm at the point. So in January, our North island peer support team is going to transition. There's a new organization in our state called the Responders Assistance Initiative. It is a funded, $4 million funded program that has clinicians and paid peers, and then they're also going to work with other peers. But it's an amazing resource. Free. Like, you have licensed clinicians and it's free. So we were like, why are we continuing to do this as complete volunteers with little funding other than begging people for donations? So we talked to them and said, hey, at the end of the year, we want to push all of the peer support to you. When, like, when somebody calls, we want them to funnel straight to you. And they were like, yeah, absolutely. That's what we're here for. We're underutilized. Let's go. But there's this huge relief in my heart with that, because one of the things that I have felt and noticed in the last three or four years is something has got to be really wrong in your firehouse and in your department. If somebody has to reach out to an anonymous organization to. To find support. And you could, yeah, people listening could disagree with me, but fundamentally, there has to be something wrong if somebody hurting, if somebody that just needs to talk, just needs help finding resources has. Can't do that within the firehouse. That. That means we're. We're not doing our job and we're failing our people. Because our leaders should model vulnerability. Because I haven't yet met a leader who has never faced struggle. I've never met a perfect person. I have never met a leader who hasn't made a mistake in the course of their career. And granted, we haven't all had significant traumas. We all. We haven't all dealt with addiction or major losses. But through the course of our lives, especially people in formal leadership positions who generally have several years on the job, we have faced issues, we have had pain, we have had struggles. And if our leaders could be more open to modeling, like, hey, you know what? I need help or even admit I go to counseling, that right there, boom, destigmatizes it. And then if our company officers, instead of when they do the assessment center, and the right answer is refer to eap, that's the worst thing we do to our upcoming company officers because we teach them, if a member admits having a problem or admits to an addiction or relationship issues, we get full points for referring them outside. When in fact the right thing to do as leader, when somebody comes in and says, my wife left me, or, you know, I, I'm drinking too much, is, hey, do you want to talk?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, let's talk.

[Chief Adina Ali]

I, you know, this is what I did when I went through this. Or, you know, this person kind of went through a similar divorce and found this. Here's the resources our department has. So. No, you're 100% correct. I tell people when I teach a lot now, and it's so funny because I did it once, and somebody in the class texted his friend who told him to come to my class, and he was like, she just said there shouldn't be any peer support. Why did you send me to this class? And it was so funny. But really and truly, like, my hope is that peer support gets put out of business.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

The more I've done it, the more I've answered our line, the more sad it makes me that people feel like they have to call a stranger for help. And it just. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it completely. I. I hate that people that we don't. We don't prioritize making it safe to ask for help, making it safe to struggle, making it safe to get through struggle, because I think a lot of us have been there.

[Unknown Host]

I think you're right. I totally. Yeah. I love what you said. Model vulnerability. I mean, that's a, you know, how to explain it or describe it? Like, that's. That's difficult. That's a difficult just to say, right? I got a model. I gotta, you know, to be vulnerable. I mean, it's. It's hard to say, but it's so necessary, right? I mean, if, If I'm not going to be vulnerable in front of my crew, like, why would they show vulnerability, right? Especially if I'm let alone saying, don't be vulnerable. Right? It's one thing to not model vulnerability, but it's another thing to say, hey, you can't be vulnerable. You can't show your weaknesses. You can't show that you're struggling because that's, that's weak. And so, yeah, why would somebody want to open up? And you know, so a question further on that is, I mean, it's difficult, right. As I like how you mentioned the promotional process. Right. It's. You hit full points if you refer out to eap and not enough is, let's talk, let's keep it here. What could I do to support you? How could, what can we do as a crew, as an organization? What can we do to support before you go out and call a stranger. But so what, what, what do we do? What, what can we do? What can company officers do? What can organizations do to equip? We'll say their officers or leaders. I will say this. Actually, let me, I'll back up even a little bit. Obviously, it's, it's every individual's responsibility. Right? Every leader's responsibility. Well, it's incumbent upon them to understand that you're also now going to become an individual that is the lead peer support member of that crew. Right. Just like all company officers are lead training officers, you're also lead peer support members. So. But what can company officers do or organizations do to equip their people to become better trained, to become better peer support members, to be able to model vulnerability.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. And of course it starts at the top, right? It starts with this knowledge that we have and that we're sharing and this, this information is shared at conferences, you know, nationally, worldwide. And I know my chiefs go to the conferences. I'm sure your chiefs go to conferences. So when you go to those conferences, don't go just for the free dinner and the social, you know, the social parties after 7pm I've been to conferences where I've seen, you know, chief officers from their departments there on the department's dime. And you don't see them going into any class. You see them on the sales floor and you see them at the free dinners. So first and foremost, like when you choose to be a leader, you are choosing to be responsible for your organization and for the people within your organization. So you owe it to them to try to be the best leader that you can be. And that means taking classes, learning from others without taking classes, without reading books. How are, like, yes, there's a lot that's intuitive out there, but there's a lot that requires learning. So of course, get out there and go to the trainings. But, you know, if I could give a little bit of advice to Anybody that wants to be a better listener, a better supporter, because we all do. A lot of us as new company officers, as new chiefs, as, you know, newer leaders, or just as decent people, we want to help the people around us. But one of the most difficult things of that is when you want to help somebody who's not ready for help or when you think helping somebody is fixing them. So one of the most relieving pieces of peer support for me, because when I first got trained in peer support, I really thought that, like, I was gonna be able to help people and that I was gonna be able to, oh, you're depressed. You get this counselor, talk to them, you're gonna be fixed. Boom, here's your algorithm to being fixed. And it took years to realize that, man, you have to meet people where they are. Sometimes people aren't ready. Taking the step to counseling is very scary. And sometimes people just need to be heard.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And what I've also learned is I'm never going to tell somebody, this is what you need. The best thing that I can do is get them to say, man, this is what I need. And sometimes that's just. Yeah, that's just through modeling or just saying, hey, you know, back when I was struggling, this is what I did. You know, here are some options, like, you know, let me know what you think. And if you're not ready now, it's all good. I'm here for you. If you need to talk, I'm here for you. My first experience to peer support was venting to somebody. Even before I even ever heard of peer support. Before the IFF created their two day class, it was me going through a really hard time and finally venting to a guy from my academy who I'm really close friends with. And I'll never forget his response or the way he made me feel because he immediately, in a very simple response, took all the weight off my shoulders. I. Man, one day, it was funny. I had been carrying this burden and I was ashamed of what I was going through, so I didn't talk about it. And the weight was just getting heavier and heavier. And he was a good friend. I think he noticed that I was going through something hard because every few days he'd reach out and just say, hey, partner, just calling to check in on you, how you doing? And a lot of times I might send him a voicemail or I'd be like, you know, hey, I'm good, real quick. I didn't want to talk because I just, I didn't want to talk I wasn't ready to talk. And finally one day, and I'm grateful he didn't give up on me because I think, and I never even asked him, I think he knew something was wrong. And one day he reached out. And that day I just, I was really in a bad way and I just let it all go. I like did the nasty cry, you know, told him exactly how I felt. And his response, Can I curse because he this?

[Unknown Host]

Yes, you can. Yes, yes, absolutely.

[Chief Adina Ali]

His response was, man, that sucks, partner. I'm so sorry you're going through this. You don't deserve this. And the way he said it, I felt the pain in his voice that through my pain he felt pain because he cared about me that much. And I know like that sucks sounds simple and dismissive, but the way he said it, like I was like, yes, it does. And it was the first time, you know, it was like, yes, this does suck. Like, this is why, like, it sucks. I have no control over this. I. And this sucks. And just adding to it, like, you don't deserve that. Because up until that point I thought that I deserved it. I thought that I was a bad person. I thought this and that. So now, just through that very simple response, his pain for my pain, I was no longer alone. And I knew that I didn't deserve it. And that just little bit right there was enough to just give me a little bit of hope and let me hold my chin up high. So I think back a lot of that to that a lot. With peer support, with teaching, peer support, with helping. I don't teach people to say that effing sucks. Right?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Right, Right. You gotta say this.

[Chief Adina Ali]

I do. I do share that story because it's so important, but it's also a reminder that you don't have to have the answers. You don't have to fix somebody. Sometimes it's all about connection. And there's this really cool video because you mentioned Brene Brown earlier. I love it. If you YouTube Empathy versus Sympathy by Brene Bound Brown. It's a three minute video and I love it. I'm sure you've seen it. And at the very end of it she says, you know, you don't have to solve anybody's problem. You don't have to have the answers. What matters is connection.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And that video does such a good job just demonstrating. They give all these examples at the very end, like they hug and a little heart pops up.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about connection here in a minute. I just want to capitalize on A couple things. Number one, my hope is that the listeners are googling it either right this second, hit pause on. On the Spotify here go. Or after that. But I want to just capitalize on a couple things to recap what you said. I mean, listening is key. You don't have to fix people. Sometimes they just are there to vent and you're there to listen. Get them to say what help they might need instead of you saying, hey, you might need this. One key thing you said is meet them where they're at. Right. Meet people where they're at. Seek to understand and build a connection. I mean, that is. That's just. That's huge. I have a piece on connection. That's exactly. I think it was a quote from your look. Oh, here it is. It's not the calls. Firefighter, mental health and organizational leadership. Something that you talked about heavily in there is relationships, the need for trust and connection and organizational stress. So you mentioned connection a minute ago. You mentioned the importance of having relationships. We talk about that quite a bit on the show as well. Can you talk about that? Not concept, but that need for building trust and connection amongst your peers? When we talk about peer support and as we talk about mental health.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah, I think it goes right back to what we were just talking about. If there's not trust and connection when you're struggling, you're going to feel alienated and isolated. A common feeling is like that feeling of defective or flawed. And when you need help, you're not gonna be able to reach out. And what we just said is, it's such a shame. It's not the individual's fault that they can't trust anybody in the organization. It's organizational's fault, the organization's fault. When somebody has to reach outside the organization for support, Trust and connection is so utterly important. And it's so simple as well. Yeah, it takes time to build, but it's. There's nothing complex about it. And I've read so many books on leadership. It's funny because we were talking earlier about, you know, leaders. What do they need to do? Well, I always felt like I was inept or, you know, not a great leader. And so I was constantly, like, seeking ways to improve and get better. So I've read so much on leadership and I'm grateful for it because it's given me tools and skills to go out there and be a better leader. And some of the stuff that I've put into practice, I've seen. I've seen just how impactful it is small things like saying thank you and saying it regularly and often when people deserve a thank you. I've seen just how much. Even, you know, I'm a battalion chief now. And when I first got promoted, the battalion I inherited had a lot of senior officers. In fact, half of my captains had been on the department for almost 10 years longer than me. We joke because they all came from the class of 99. And so I'm a female newer CAP or battalion chief, leading men with 10 years experience on me. So I already knew from the get go that there was going to be a challenge to earn their respect and to do a good job. But I, I still have several of them in my battalion. And one of the cool things is like, two of the most senior ones. You know, they relate to me just how much they appreciate that. I recognize their knowledge, I appreciate their knowledge, and I show gratitude for what they do. Like, they have sat down a couple times and said, hey, I just want to take a moment to thank you for trusting me and respecting me and conveying that respect to me. Like, it's not enough to trust and respect people. Sometimes you have to verbally convey it to them. You have to point out, like, hey, I see this, I see what you do. I appreciate this knowledge. Or simple things like, you know, the captain on my ladder, we, you know, paperwork, nobody likes paperwork. And if you go to like a fire alarm and you find that there was a small fire, rarely will somebody make the report, a fire report, because who wants to do that long fire report when you could just say fire alarm, got rid of smoke out of the house, burnt toast, or something like that. Well, I was, I was reading through some reports and I noticed that he went on a fire alarm and coded it as a structure fire, and it was a structure fire. But he very easily could have made it just a fire alarm. But he took time to recognize, like, well, number one, it was a fire, something caught on fire, the suppression system put it out really quickly. They just had to put some fans in, not a big deal. But he coded it correctly, wrote the fire report. And for us as a department, when we document the number of fires we respond to and the property saved, that helps us in the long run, you know, with funding, getting newer apparatus, with getting more personnel. So properly coding reports can really benefit us as a department. So, you know, I saw that and I just shot him an email and I said, hey, I saw that you coded this as a fire. Thank you for doing that. Really appreciate it. And something that small, like, he later on, said, hey, thanks for shooting that email. You know, I try to do a good job and thanks for noticing. Like, people, I mean, when they try to do a good job, it means a lot when you notice it.

[Unknown Host]

Yes. It's funny you say that. This morning, Frank Viscuso, I'm sure, you know, was doing a webinar webcast, and he said, tell people. Sometimes people just want to hear that they're doing some, you know, things right. Catch people doing things right, I guess is the point. Right? You don't always have to just reach out, hey, come to my office. You did something wrong. Like, people need to know sometimes that, hey, what they're doing is appreciated and it goes a long way. And it goes to the whole thing of small things do matter. Right. That email probably meant, like, wow, it's probably going to motivate that individual to do it again next time. Like, oh, wow, that's. You know what? I'm not gonna. I'm definitely gonna do that again next time because people will appreciate it and it was the right thing to do. Psychological safety. I heard you write this or say this. At some point you wrote or said, if there was one factor to be blamed for the poor mental health outcomes of our responders, it would be a lack of psychological safety. So I've learned a little bit of psychological safety more recently. But can you talk about what psychological safety is and why that's important and what happens if you don't have it in your crew, at your station, or at the organizational level?

[Chief Adina Ali]

And it really, truly goes back to everything we just mentioned, because psychological safety sounds really complex. And sometimes when you say psychological safety, people are thinking, like, psychological, like getting in people's minds and deep understanding of psychology. But really and truly, psychological safety is the most basic level, level of safety that we need as human beings. We, as human beings, evolved to trust our instincts. And, you know, you've got your limbic brain that detects threat and activates to keep you protected. Just like I mentioned earlier with sleep, when you're not sleeping in a familiar environment, like, half your brain will stay awake to protect you. Like, we consistently go into, you know, that protection mode. So psychological safety is the opposite. It's getting us out of that fight or flight and keeping us in the parasympathetic nervous system, which, if you study fight or flight and then you study parasympathetic or, you know, psychological safety is based on polyvagal theory, which is super complicated but very simple. Polyvagal is the vagus nerve and bidirection of the vagus nerve. And so the vagus nerve activates both your fight orf flight and then your rest and digest. That's what the vagus nerve does. And what we recognize today in society is we are a lot more. We find ourselves a lot more in fight orf flight than we should, especially when we're not threatened. We. We find ourselves having that cortisol being released. For example, when you get a notification or a ding on your phone, you get a little drip of cortisol every time. But another thing that puts us in that sympathetic nervous system that we don't realize is when we work in environments where we don't feel safe. And Amy Edmondson, she's kind of the founder of, like, our knowledge of psychological safety. And I see it. Sorry.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, I thought you were pointing at the books behind you. I'm right back.

[Chief Adina Ali]

This guy jumped up behind me again. He likes to make an appearance every. Every podcast. I do.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But no, those books are there too. Sorry.

[Unknown Host]

Yes, yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Right there behind me is Adam Grant's Think Again.

[Unknown Host]

That's what I was.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah, yeah, and Think Again. He really explained psychological safety in the most basic way possible and really helped me understand it. But basically, Amy Edmondson wanted to study errors in healthcare systems. And what she wanted to find out was teams that felt safe to. To admit mistakes, felt safe to ask for help if they actually had reduced errors. And her initial study found the opposite. It found that in those teams that had what she defined as psychological safety, found that they had more errors than the teams that didn't have that safety. And so initially she thought her research had failed. She was super bummed out. But then they redid the study, and the second time they did it, they had an anonymous observer observing the teams. And with this anonymous observer, what they found was the teams that reported more errors made fewer errors, whereas the teams that didn't report errors made more errors. What the research found was psychologically safe teams. And in those like teams of psychological safety, it's basically an environment where you are free to be your authentic self, ask for help, admit what you don't know, not worry about having your head chopped off or not worrying about your career being threatened, but actually learn, utilize what you don't know to get better.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

So they found in those environments, performance of the team was much better. Yes. And then years later, the book the Culture Code. Have you read that?

[Unknown Host]

Daniel Coyle, Is that right?

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah, man. Such a great book. I've read it so many times, and I try to actually Listen to audiobook maybe once every other year just to reinforce the teachings. Because that book is so valuable because basically what he did was study psychologically safe teams. He didn't know that when he went into the research, he was looking at high performing teams to see what their secret sauce was.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But what he found was the secret sauce was psychological safety. You know, there's, you can find a lot of different definitions of psychological safety, but he did something really cool in that what he found with these teams was what he called belonging cues. And the belonging cues were what signaled psychological safety. And if you go back to polyvagal theory in the vagus nerve, humans rely on safety cues for the vagus nerve to relax and for us to shift out of fight or flight. And those safety cues are all the same things that Daniel Cole found in his research and those high performing teams and what he defined as belonging cues.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And you know, you had Chief Lieb on the show and I don't know how much you followed him or if you've ever been around him, but he is just to me like the epitome of a great leader. And what was really fascinating was in, in the book, Daniel Cole's book, the Culture Code, he defined, you know, these, you know, these three requirements of the belonging cues where like for leaders they have to have energy, they have to convey, you know, that you belong in this team. And then they have to convey that, you know, that there's a, that this relationship is going to continue. It's just these really three simple things like the, the energy, communicating that you're a part of the team and communicating that the relationship will continue. And then he took it one step further and he found that whole list of belonging cues where it was few interruptions, high levels of mixing, attentive, active listening. Small courtesies was a big piece of it. You know, the small courtesies, like the thank yous. But what was really fascinating was I think I was reading that book around the time I visited New York City and I toured the fire academy of Chief Leap. And it was kind of crazy because he exhibited all of what I read in that book.

[Unknown Host]

Wow. Wow.

[Chief Adina Ali]

He exhibited that energy. The way he communicated with me. He made me feel like I belong. And then through his communication, he also communicated that this relationship would continue or that he had belief in my abilities in the future. And I thought it was so cool that like he was like a case study for this book. But also in the culture code, like they studied high performing organizations to find these things. They studied the Navy SEALs, they studied the San Antonio Spurs, Gramercy Tavern, Disney Pixar. And they found in each one of these teams, these cues were present.

[Unknown Host]

I believe it. I mean, it's funny you mentioned Frank Leave, because I have a quote right here, which I'll read in a second. But as we talk about psychological safety, I think you wrote it, but it's a requirement for high performing organizations, high performing teams is to have a learning culture. And I think that was huge. Like we're, you know, it goes with growth, mindset, open mind, continuously learning. And here's a, a quote that I, frankly, I had to write it here. And he mentioned his name. He says, firefighters don't need another friend. They need an officer who's going to lead them, train them and keep them safe. Firefighters have plenty of friends. So I thought that was so key because, yes, leading, training and keeping people safe is just so key. And so now this is going to have a rhetorical question, but I'm going to ask it. So we always hear, you know, at least from my day one in the fire service, safety is our number one priority, right? Safety is how we operate. Safety is everything we do. So the question is, are they also referring to psychological safety?

[Chief Adina Ali]

I think you know the answer to that.

[Unknown Host]

I do, I do. And it's just, it's so interesting, right, because even before I started studying, learning about psychological safety, it was always safety. We're talking physical safety, right? We operate. And so in everything that we do is we are to be physically safe, so none of us get injured or, you know, are prone to physical harm. But then as we continue to talk about, you know, vulnerability, talk about being psychologically safe, I mean, we're talking about being able to bring our whole selves to the table when we're talking, when we're learning, when we're teaching. And so I think that's a rhetorical question. I know, but I wanted to stir something out of you. So I think you answered the question.

[Chief Adina Ali]

I answer without answering it, but. And I know you know the direction that we're continue to talk. And this kind of bleeds into that because, you know, you mentioned earlier that you wanted to talk about increasing bandwidth. And you know what, all that. And what we know is when your, your body is in fight or flight and you don't feel safe. And Amy Edmondson, what she found in her research that was that there's a little piece in the back of our mind that not only worries about what others think, but that worries about what our leaders think about Us so you can be at work and have, you know, your brothers and sisters there and then have your leader. And there's just a little more weight on the opinion of that leader. And I think that goes back to our safety and knowing that like if, if we're fired, we lose our livelihood, right? So I think that's why there's that little bit more emphasis in our leaders, because our job is a big part of our livelihood. So with that, with that little piece in the back of your head wondering what our leaders think, that's why it's like incumbent on our leaders to make sure people do feel safe. And it goes into like, if you don't feel safe, if you worry consistently that you're gonna have your head chopped off, or you worry that you're gonna make a mistake and you're gonna get demoted or suspended, you're not safe and you're steady drip of cortisol, which we know when you go into fight or flight, your cognition turns off. You can't make good decisions. But also something people don't realize, and I didn't realize until I did this research. That's why, you know, research is very helpful. But there's something else that happens when you're in that fight or flight. Your digestion shuts down that rest and digest off. And oxytocin is, is not released anymore. Oxytocin is only released when you are in the parasympathetic nervous system. And that's the hormone that drives connection, that drives working together with other people. So when you're in fight or flight, you're self focused, you're not working with other people. And what kind of leader wants a crew of people who, number one, their cognition isn't functioning and number two, they don't work together. No leader wants that. So as a leader, it might sound soft. And I heard, you know, you hear snowflake all the time. It might sound like snowflake leadership. But the truth is if I want to maximize human performance and I want to maximize human capital, I've got to do that through making my people feel safe and connected and the ability to work together and think together. And you mentioned learning earlier and a learning culture. And that was one of the coolest things about NASA and what they discovered as they learned more about psychological safety, because NASA discovered that what was causing them to lose astronauts and to have those tragedies in flight Columbia Challenger was that their organization was psychologically unsafe. And the reason it was psychologically unsafe is because they had a performance culture. Where they put emphasis on flights taking off on time, on flights being successful. And yeah, overall you think like, that's NASA. That's what the emphasis should be on, is flights taking off on time, you know, flights being successful. But in truth, and what they realized was they had to transition from that performance culture into a learning culture where. Yeah, where, yes, you want the flights to take off on time, but you want the flights to take off and be successful without killing people.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

So you want to encourage people to ask questions, encourage the person at the very bottom of the totem pole who feels like, you know, they're brand new and they can't speak up. You want them to be able to say, hey, I saw this o ring that might be an issue. You know, can we look at this? Or, you know, this is my responsibility. I, I'm not sure that I'm doing this right. Can somebody help me? So NASA completely transitioned into what they call a learning culture. And it was really neat reading about the new head of NASA as they were trying to make this transition. And one of the things she said that she did was she carried a 3 by 5 note card in her pocket and it had a couple questions to ask. Because what she wanted to do was be more curious and less judgmental. She wanted to ask more questions. She wanted to find out, you know, hey, what made you make this decision? Can, can you give me an idea about like the thinking process that led you to this conclusion? And through that, they were both learning and they were learning about the process and they became less results focused and more process focused. And when you're process focused, you end up with better results.

[Unknown Host]

There was so much there. I don't even know where to go because I just took a half a page of notes. But they're in like four different directions. But I'm just going to ask this question because this is at the top. So, Chief, we don't teach this stuff. Right. The fire service part of my taskbook to become a company officer or whatever, my next level. We're not teaching our individuals to understand the importance of human performance. We're not talking about psychological safety. We're not talking about building a learning culture in our environment. We're not teaching people to be more curious, less judgmental. So how do we do such again?

[Chief Adina Ali]

I mean, it starts at the top. Granted, I, I always say it starts at the top because I always want to put responsibility on the formal leadership to recognize what's important. But it starts at all of our levels. Yeah, you know, it's Great that you have this podcast, because in this podcast, you talk to amazing people doing amazing things, and they share little tidbits. For example, you know, we talked about the culture code, talked about the book. Think again. So where does it start? Like, pick up those books, read them. I know, you know, there's like this idea like, oh, man, books. I hate books. Books. And this and that. But one of the things I've learned is reading helps you develop a mental model for decision making. Some of my better decision making today is the result of just reading other stories and reading about other leaders and learning about the mistakes they made. For example, you know, and I don't always remember where I read it, but actually now I do remember this. It just popped back in my head. So Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Such an awesome book. Like, it took me forever to read it because I thought it was about how to win friends. And I was like, that's stupid. It was about how to be a better person, how to be a better leader, how to be, you know, just like that quote that you had from Chief Leave. You know, they don't need another friend. They need somebody that's going to look out for them and help them be better. And that's what that. That Dale Carnegie book was all about. But in there, they told the story of Abraham Lincoln and how he would get so frustrated at, like, some of the poor decisions, some of the people. You know, like there was one story from, from the Civil War where one of the commanders didn't do what he was supposed to. And Abraham Lincoln got so angry, he wrote a letter to him and explained, you know, just how pissed off he was. And then he just put that letter in his drawer and never sent it. And the active writing that letter just helped him get it out without destroying their relationship. And so through reading stories like that, I now have learned, because sometimes I want to fire back. Like, somebody doesn't do what I tell them to do, or they continue. Like, I want to shoot them an email and tell them how much they piss me off and this and that. But now what I realize is, you know what? Write it down. Is it going to help to blow up at somebody? So gain that mental model through reading. So, of course, anybody here that wants to be a better leader, read, read.

[Unknown Host]

There you go, the mental, like the.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Mental model out of reading. Get the ideas, how to be a better leader. But of course, yeah, organizations understand this stuff is important, right? Just like the leader of NASA, she carried around that note Card. And. And instead of, you know, demanding information and saying, you know, proving like, she's in charge, and this is this, and this is that. She came up there and wanted to ask about the process. She wanted to learn, and she wanted to show the people that worked under. And sometimes when you're asked, at least this has been my experience. I've worked for a lot of leaders who ask rhetorical questions. They don't ask if they don't already know the answer. But I've come to appreciate it because a lot of times when they ask me questions, I actually realize the fault in what I'm doing as I'm answering. And before they even say anything, I say, you know what, man? Thanks for asking. I just realized I need to be doing this. So. No, definitely. Our leaders need to understand, like, it's really important to shift into a learning culture and to truly look at the processes and are the processes what you want? Don't focus so hard on the outcomes. Then understand you want leaders that are going to help people under them thrive, and you get that through having people in your organization who care about people. That's another piece of the culture code that I loved so much. You know, very early in the book, they broke down the definition of culture, and it was so simple. It's like the roots is from the Latin word to care. And if you want a strong culture, it starts with caring.

[Unknown Host]

That's powerful stuff. Thank you, chief. I'm gonna shift gears just a little bit. First responder suicide. Whether the first responder or firefighter suicide, is it on the rise?

[Chief Adina Ali]

Good question. We don't know. However, suicide nationally is on the rise. Okay, so we don't quite have the data that separates us from, you know, from national suicide data. If you look, some places, some places will say, yes, first responder suicide's on the rise. Some places will say no. But overall, and this is where I place my focus is, because we're humans and we're part of the general population, overall suicide rates in the United States are on the rise. And depressingly, since 2000, they've gone up by 37%. It's a leading cause of death. And it's tragic. It's. It's horrible.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

So, yeah, with that, you know, I can take, you know, if. If they're up by 37, then absolutely. I imagine first responder suicides are up by 37, too. Not because we're unique or different.

[Unknown Host]

Right.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But because we're humans like everybody else.

[Unknown Host]

Yes. Okay, so question I have on that is I know in your, your article or I heard it somewhere, but you talk about coping skills, right? Because you study this stuff. You study, you know, suicide prevention, mental health, resiliency, stress, trauma, all that. What are some of the things coping skills like quickly that we can do to not just, you know, reduce our suicide rates, but to improve our mental health and behavioral health? What are some things that are you, that you're recommending for your research and study?

[Chief Adina Ali]

So have you ever had a conversation in the firehouse or with people and.

[Unknown Host]

Talked about like your stress bucket in different contexts? But yes, more or less, especially recently.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah, yeah, we tend to talk about our buckets and how, man, you know, your puppets, your buckets keep filling, right?

[Unknown Host]

Oh yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And if we think about that, like the bad calls, the lack of sleep sometimes the micromanagement within our organizations, the poor leadership, financial stress, there's so many things that go in your bucket and we, you know, we consistently, and I hear it a lot like our buckets, you know, eventually just overflow. And I think I've even seen some drawings that, you know, show like the TikTok and the explosion. However, what we don't see enough is a bucket that has a spigot on it. And what we know is you can keep your bucket from overflowing by actively putting a spigot on your bucket. And just like you asked, you know, what are some things that you know, can make us more resilient and make us healthier? And if you want to like go high level scientific going back to that polyvagal theory and psychological safety, please, through understanding the polyvagal theory and how the vagus nerve has this bi directional activation where it either activates your sympathetic fight or flight, which makes us less resilient or activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest, which makes us more resilient. So to increase resiliency, you've gotta find anything that's gonna activate the vagus nerve in the, in the direction of rest and digest, which if you're looking for a biomarker, it's heart rate variability. Have you heard of that or have.

[Unknown Host]

You tracked only by famous author Dina Ali studying and reading your articles. So tell us a little bit more.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Right, So a lot of, you know, a lot of people are now looking at heart rate variability on like their wearables. You've got the whoop, the aura R. Especially athletes. Yeah, athletes really started to maximize and really started to capitalize on heart rate variability because what they found was on days where they had High heart rate variability, they had better performance. On days where they had low heart rate variability, they had poor performance. And in fact, coaches now utilize that. If. If the athlete has a high heart rate variability, they know, okay, this is a day that we can lift more, run faster, train harder. If the athlete comes in and their heart rate variability is low, it's like, okay, this I will get you injured if I try to push you hard today. So let's do some recovery exercises. But then they also learned how they could increase the heart rate variability. And there are things such as sleep. Yes, sleep is one of the best ways to increase heart rate variability. And it was really fascinating. Last week, the first Responders center for Excellence did a workshop in New York.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And we had a lot of. Yeah, we had a lot of the FDNY Health and wellness guys there. And a lot of them talked about, you know, wearing their wearables and tracking their heart rate variability. And one of the cool things was several of them said they stopped drinking because they noticed on nights where they drank the next morning, their heart rate variability was tanked consistently. Like, the alcohol was, like, destroying their recovery. And it was really cool to hear that, because if I go out there and I tell somebody like, hey, alcohol is bad, they're gonna look at me and laugh like, no, I don't like me. Yeah, but it was really neat how when they were able to see it on a wearable, it convinced them, like, man, this. This alcohol is destroying all of my hard work. Yeah, but so with the heart rate variability, it's understanding any activity that puts you in rest and digest increases your heart rate variability. So any activity that slows your heart rate in your breathing increases your heart rate variability. The higher your heart rate variability is, the more resilient you are. So back to your original question, like, what can we do? So think about any activity that slows you down and increases that. Or, I'm sorry, decreases your breathing, decreases your heart rate, and it starts psychological safety. So working in an environment of trust turns off that fight or flight sleep. Talked about good quality sleep. Sleep is the best way to increase heart rate variability. But it has to be high quality sleep, meaning if you take Ambien or you drink alcohol to sleep, you're not sleeping, you're sedated. So that's not gonna help. You actually have to have high quality sleep, which, you know, cool environment, regular. There's actually macros of sleep and I know I'm getting off on a tangent.

[Unknown Host]

I love it. I love it. We're Listening. And we're. This is, this is great stuff. You also mentioned other things, like journaling, expressing gratitude. Right. I mean, these are things that we can do, like right now, like, right. Like, as we have listeners here tuning in, it's not like, oh, sleep, okay, I'm gonna turn this off and go to sleep. But no, we could sit here and journal. Right? We could be sitting here on our couch, sitting in the sun, getting vitamin D and journal, expressing gratitude, being thankful, expressing just these emotions, sitting still by ourselves right now. These are things that, what you're talking about is going to increase our heart rate variability, which will in turn help us become more resilient, help us train better, you know, be higher performers. And I think that's what it's all about is we're not going to be able to control everything, but we can control some things. And what are we going to do to control that thing or that thing or that thing? Instead of using excuses like, well, we were up all night or I couldn't sleep. Sure, maybe you couldn't, but did you try these other six things to maybe counter some of that? And if the answer is no, I mean, it's a. It's a personal issue. It's not someone else's fault. Right.

[Chief Adina Ali]

One thing you can do right now, and you start today, is two or three minutes of breathing exercises. And Brian Munsey in his book master your mind, it actually has another title.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, got it.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Do you have it? What's the original title?

[Unknown Host]

Well, it's under those 57 books behind me.

[Chief Adina Ali]

So the title is F your feelings. I was trying to make you say, oh, that's not.

[Unknown Host]

No, that's not the one I have.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But yeah, Ryan Muncie, like, is an awesome writer, but one of the things he talked about in his original book, the master your mind, f your feelings book was all of the things that increase resilience. Yeah, it's a fantastic book. It's f. And then the at sign ck your feelings.

[Unknown Host]

Got it.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And there's a reason for that title. And it actually, when you read the book, you understand the title better. It's just hard to convince people of it when you say, like, you know the title. The title of the book.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But in it talks so much about bandwidth and increasing heart rate variability and one of the biohacks for it, which I appreciate, and I didn't quite understand it. And it's simple. Every time you breathe in, you activate fight or flight. Like, when you breathe in, your heart rate goes up. When you breathe out Your heart rate goes down. So an easy way to biohack heart rate variability is to try to exhale more than you inhale.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And you do that through breathing exercises. For example, the seals breathing technique, the box breathing. A lot of people know that breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. However, if you add a second to the exhalation, that's a simple way to biohack it. So you breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for five, hold for four.

[Unknown Host]

Love that.

[Chief Adina Ali]

You can do other ones. There's like the 4, 7, 8 breathing, where you breathe in for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8, tho. The reason that you have that longer exhalation is it's slowing everything down, which is increasing heart rate variability. So, yes. You know something you could do today?

[Unknown Host]

I love this.

[Chief Adina Ali]

In two minutes, just breathing. And try to focus on exhaling longer than you inhale.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

When you find yourself stressed or upset, just try to take some. Some slow, deep breaths. And with that, you know, you breathe in and then try to exhale a little longer, a little longer, a little.

[Unknown Host]

Slower, a little longer. I love that. See, that's what this is about. It's about I. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start doing this not just later today, just starting right now, like taking things slower. Breathing, exhaling more than inhaling. That's. And we teach that. It's, it's. It's talk about instant in play. Like in our recruit academies, we teach individuals and new recruits, new probationary firefighters, you know, we teach them the, you know, the grab lives method. We teach them about, you know, how to, you know, stay low in a mayday, you know, control your breathing. And we talk about box breathing. Like four in, four hold, four out. But hey, how about this? Four in, four hold, five out, or six out, or seven out, whatever it may be, right? And then talking about the why behind it, because I think that's. That's awesome. So thank you, chief, for all of this. These little tips and tricks about how to become better, become more resilient, how to become more aware of our own mental health, how to improve our mental health, how to create. Create a more psychologically safe environment, and all the above that I have did not mention. But in terms of talking to individuals, right, we're trying to create a more psychologically safe environment. We're trying to become more resilient individuals. We're trying to be high performers, create a learning culture. So if you were talking to a newer firefighter, we'll say, how would you. Or what would you encourage them to start doing today to basically improve, Improve around anything that we talked about today?

[Chief Adina Ali]

I think one of the things I pass on and I hope that they trust me with is be yourself. Don't try to be anything that's not you. Like, be your authentic self. If you don't know something, don't be afraid to say you don't know it. Don't be afraid to ask questions. You don't have to prove anything to anybody. And I. I truly hope that they trust and receive that, because I think that's so important is just the ability to be yourself and be able to ask questions. There's a really cool quote in the Pierce operating and maintenance manual. And I remember when I was first learning, like, driver operator, one of my captains had me, you know, open up that manual and look through it each day. Well, in the very beginning of it, it's really cool, and I'm going to misquote it, but it basically says, you are the only person that knows what you don't know. You must speak up about the things that you don't know before you get somebody injured or killed. And I really love that quote because it's saying, like, if you don't know something, learn it. Operating this apparatus is serious stuff, and nobody but yourself knows what you don't know. And so I think that's so important. Like, we are the only people that don't know what we don't know. And you know, as a company officer, if you don't know something and you're trying to lead a crew, take a minute to ask and research it. The same thing for a new firefighter. Don't feel like when you graduate the academy, you have to know everything because they threw a lot at you. And I, I forgot a lot in the academy. And I remember, you know, it was like three years on the job, and I realized, like, some of the skills from the academy I had, I was not good at it anymore. But I also remember thinking I should have been. I should be perfect. So I wouldn't ask for help. I wouldn't say, hey, can we go do some mass drills or can we go do a couple of search drills? Because I thought that was such basic stuff that I would be laughed at if I admitted that I. I was less skilled. But what I've learned over the years is every skill is perishable. No matter what you learn, if you don't practice it, you're not going to be great at it. And so looking Back. I wish that, you know, a couple months online, I would have asked, hey, can we practice some of these simple skills that we learned in the academy? You know, we only. We did window bailouts one day, and I really like to practice it because I don't feel confident with it. You know, we haven't done any quick drills, quick dress drills in over a year, and I feel like I'm slowing down. Can we do a couple, you know, competitions? So just don't be afraid to admit what you don't know and don't be afraid to ask questions, because, again, it goes back to modeling. And I've had people new on the job that modeled not knowing and gave me the confidence to model it. Just as much like, I'm always proud when a new person, you know, models humility and not knowing and has the courage to say, hey, can you help with this? And it reminds me, like, because every promotion I ever took, I felt the pressure to be perfect and prove that I was perfect. I didn't realize it would be better to show a little bit of vulnerability. I didn't have to come out strong. And, like, I was the expert, you know, if I was willing to say, hey, you know, I'm new in this role. I'm learning it, there's some areas that I might need to, you know, lean on you guys.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I love that.

[Chief Adina Ali]

That would sound over probably a lot better.

[Unknown Host]

Thank you. Well, everything you just said can be applied to every rank, to every tenure, to every individual in the fire service. But I'll ask the question anyway. If any different company officers are still continuing to grow, they need to be great leaders. They need to continue on the leadership journey. So if you were going to advise them or give a. Just some kind of point or a tip to continue to grow in any of the avenues we talked about today, what would you say to them?

[Chief Adina Ali]

We talked about. I think leaders are readers.

[Unknown Host]

Is your readers. There you go.

[Chief Adina Ali]

The best thing you can do is, yeah, listen to these podcasts, listen to the book recommendations, and take time to read.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Before I jump to the chief officers, because that is. The next question is, you've given a lot of books, you've given a lot of quotes. What recommended two readings would you offer to our listeners? And why. Why those two?

[Chief Adina Ali]

Can I give you three?

[Unknown Host]

Three. You got it. You got it.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Okay. All right. So the first two I've already mentioned, the Culture Code and Think Again.

[Unknown Host]

There you go.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Those, I think, are, like, required reading for and Think Again is by Adam Grant. Required reading for anybody. Not just leaders, but anybody. Fantastic books. The third book, because I just started reading and I just got it, and he's your former guest, is chiefly and cheap Goldfeather's new book, 30 Fires, you.

[Unknown Host]

Must know that's not out yet or. It is out.

[Chief Adina Ali]

It's out. It's out.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, I thought it was coming out.

[Chief Adina Ali]

It's out. And I got my copy Monday, and I was actually, when I got my copy, I was on the phone with. With one of the guys I work with, and I just, I read a little bit of it to him, and he got so excited that I was like, hey, I'll order you a copy real quick and bring it. And it literally, like, while we're on, while we're having this podcast, FedEx just dropped it on my porch.

[Unknown Host]

That's awesome.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But, yeah, I've read. I've read the first three fires. I read the intro, and I can already tell, like, this book is going to be incredible. It's going to be an incredible resource for all levels because at the very end of each chapter, Chief Lead gives some training tips based on the fire. And what I noticed in the training tips is, for me as a battalion chief, it gives me points to focus on and consider. But there's a lot of stuff for company officers to train on and focus on, and then there's a lot of considerations for newer firefighters. You know, what was powerful so far in the, like, the beginning of the book is they flat out said, you know, like, these fires are killing people, and they're no different than other fires that have killed people. The problem is we're not learning from these deaths and applying it. So the whole purpose of the book is to help us learn from those deaths. So that's why I want to make sure I threw that out there. I mean, anybody listening to this podcast needs to buy that book right now.

[Unknown Host]

There you go. Well, buy it for the fire station. So it was advertised to me a while back, but I thought it was coming out. Well, I guess it's already almost September, so. Because it probably released not too long ago, right?

[Chief Adina Ali]

It literally. I pre ordered and it literally shipped and arrived like, okay, there you go. That's why I joked it, because I sent a picture to Chief Lee Monday and I was like, I think I got copy one.

[Unknown Host]

There you go.

[Chief Adina Ali]

I got a fourth book.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, all right, do it.

[Chief Adina Ali]

My book. Like, I forgot about my book.

[Unknown Host]

Your book? I did. What book?

[Chief Adina Ali]

It's not released yet, but they're in. They're in. The final edits Right now, it's a fire engineering book. It's called Hope out of Darkness, A Guide to first responder. First responder Mental Wellness. And literally our conversation today.

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Is just expanded. And apparently it's almost 400 pages.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. I got an email. I got an email from the publisher, and they kind of apologized. They're like, hey, sorry it's taken so long. They're. They're in the final edits. They're like. The book is actually really long and awesome to the end, but they gave me some really positive feedback, so I'm extremely excited about it. The whole first part of the book is going to just talk about the science behind suicide, trauma, ptsd, you know, just. Just the science, the nerdy stuff. Then the middle part is. It opens up with a picture of the stress bucket. And the middle part is each chapter is dedicated to all the stuff you mentioned. There's a chapter on journaling, a chapter on gratitude, a chapter on play.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

All things. There's parts on organizational leadership. There's a chapter for company officers. And then the whole third part of the book is helping others. And so it breaks down. It's basically almost a consulting guide to starting a health and wellness program within your department. But it's also just the confidence to be a better active listener. There's a section on motivational interviewing, active listening. There's a whole chapter on how to find a therapist.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

So it's amazing. When does it drop?

[Chief Adina Ali]

So I'm hoping. I'm praying that by October.

[Unknown Host]

October. Okay, October.

[Chief Adina Ali]

So we're getting close. I'm praying that we make it. I used so for. I wanted it to be inclusive, and Sheep Lieb actually wrote my intro.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, did he? Okay, okay.

[Chief Adina Ali]

He read the whole book, and he wrote the intro. And I wanted to be inclusive. So areas that I was not an expert or had not experienced personally, that I knew people who did, I had them. Right. So a friend of mine, Brandon Triman, wrote the chapter on substance use disorders. Chief and Garner, they've done a really good job creating their peer support team. He wrote a chapter on peer support. So I have. There's about eight or nine chapters where other people kind of helped to share information. Yeah. Jay Betancourt from the Asheville Fire Department wrote a chapter on mindfulness. He was involved in a line of duty death. And his officer died. And he attributes his survival and his resilience today to his mindfulness practice. So he wrote the intro to that. Chief Chicorotis, who's Retired from Chicago Fire. He's also the writer for the television show Chicago Fire.

[Unknown Host]

I know. Okay.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Yeah. A lot of people don't know that. He's like, the guy who is their technical advisor was retired from Chicago Fire and a highly respected leader. Like, you need to get him on this show. He's incredible. He taught at the Academy. Episodes were based on his experiences.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Chief Adina Ali]

But he has a really powerful story of when he was a company officer on their rescue truck and just the power of connection.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Chief Adina Ali]

And he hears a really powerful story about, like, a really bad call where they missed a child that was hidden behind a bed, which, granted, they probably could have never done anything. That child was dead. But he missed the kid in the search, and he really had a hard time about it. But then he shares a story about, you know, just talking to. Actually in the story, talking to his officer and just how having that conversation helped tremendously. So I'm excited because I've got some really great people who helped to write parts of this book, and I think this book is going to be such an incredible resource. Resource.

[Unknown Host]

It will. It will. It sounds like I have. I obviously don't have it in front of me, but it sounds like it'll be a mandatory or required resource, I think, in a station library. I mean. I mean, why not?

[Chief Adina Ali]

I hope so. I really. I really hope so. I'm just so excited about it. I just can't wait to get my hands on it.

[Unknown Host]

Thank you. October. Well, October to next week is September. So we're talking weeks away. Weeks away. Not months away. We're talking weeks away, hopefully. All right. Importance of the kitchen table. So we talked about a lot of stuff today. We talked about informal discussions. We talked about formal discussions. How important is it to continue to have discussions about destigmatizing, you know, the conversation around mental health, suicide, even things like having a safe environment for us to thrive and ask questions to say, I don't know, something. So as we talk about the kitchen table, the name of this show, how important is it to us to continue have those types of conversations, even if it's informal?

[Chief Adina Ali]

Again, you know the answer to that question. Yeah, absolutely. Important. And I noticed something last night. We had a cool night at work. All day. Everybody was busy. One of the guys in my firehouse is kind of pushing back on a policy. And, you know, respectively, respectfully, we maybe have kind of disagreed on the enforcement of it. And it's really funny because during the day, I felt just a hair of, you know, tension between us because I Kind of had a. You know, and it's really tough sometimes enforcing policies that are silly or you don't understand the why behind or. There may not even be a why behind, but it's a policy. And my. My chief reminds me that when. The minute we start picking and choosing what policies we're in force, we really lose control and we give people. We give people the right to pick and choose. So I kind of, you know, put my foot down about this policy and this member, you know, he didn't like it, and he was. He was upset by it. And so we had, like, this weird, tense day. But then at about 8:00, I pulled a chair outside. My book. 30 fires, you must Nest was reading it, and they got back from a call, and a couple of guys came out, pulled up some chairs, sat down, and then the other person, you know, pulled up a chair, sat down, and then the officer came out and sat down. Next thing we know, we're all sitting there and we're just having relaxed conversation. And I remember thinking, like, you know, because all day things felt tense. And then now all of a sudden, like, the tension's gone. We're asking questions, we're asking about, like, one of the guys just got back from. He got married a year ago, never had a honeymoon, and he just got back. They had a weekend in Vegas. So we're talking about that weekend in Vegas, and somehow we started talking about cheesecake.

[Unknown Host]

Nice.

[Chief Adina Ali]

You know, I. I just. It felt good to realize, like. And just like, I think that quote from Chief Lieb about, you know, they don't need another friend. They need somebody that's gonna hold them accountable. So during the day, I think that individual recognized I was doing my job, and I appreciated that, you know, around the kitchen table, rank went out the door, and we're able to just sit down and be a family and have a conversation and ask each other questions. And it reminded me just how important that was. And I was really grateful. I was so grateful he brought a chair out and sat with us.

[Unknown Host]

Awesome.

[Chief Adina Ali]

That's awesome.

[Unknown Host]

It's a very important, formal and informal conversations. Okay. The leadership challenge. So today, Chief, this conversation was only possible because of Chief Frank Lee, who challenged you to be on the show. He said, you have to have Chief Denali on the show. Should be an amazing addition. As. As we. As we see here today, this conversation could probably go for four more hours, but I understand you're on the East Coast. It's probably almost dinner time over there. But the only way we can continue the conversation on leadership is to ask our guest of the day if there's someone else out there that they feel would add a tremendous message on leadership to the kitchen table.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Oh, I think I mentioned him without even planning. I already had somebody else in mind. But I mentioned Chief Chikarotis.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, that's right. Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

He would add tremendous value, but I do know that sometimes he's hard to nail down. Have you talked to Chief David Rhodes yet, by the way?

[Unknown Host]

I have. David Rhodes did a episode right before Thanksgiving last year.

[Chief Adina Ali]

About what? About Chief Shannon Stone.

[Unknown Host]

I know. I don't know the name.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Oh, yes, you got to interview him because he did. If you read Corey, or if you actually download Corley Moore's book, the Nine L's of Leadership.

[Unknown Host]

Got it? Yeah.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Oh, do you have it on audible?

[Unknown Host]

I have it on audible and I have a physical copy. Yes.

[Chief Adina Ali]

Okay, perfect. So on audible, Shannon Stone has a conversation, and that was one of the most powerful. I didn't expect it. It was powerful. It was incredible. Go listen to that and you'll see why I. I'm recommending Shannon Stone. He's not been on a lot of podcasts, so this is a selfish request. Every time I hear him talk, I learn something. And he is probably one of the most phenomenal leaders in the fire service, so you've got to get him. I was able to interview him for my EFO project. He just got promoted to fire chief. And, yeah, as he got promoted, he did a speech, and that speech went viral. So if you look him up on Facebook, I imagine you'll find that speech. I think it got shared like, 600 times.

[Unknown Host]

My gosh. Okay, I will. Well, I will reach out to both Chief Chikarettis and Chief Stone, let them know that they were leadership challenged by Chief Adina Ali to see if they'd be willing to share a message, a leadership message on the kitchen table. So we mentioned Hope out of Darkness. We talked about a couple of your articles. How do we find Chief Dina Ali in the future?

[Chief Adina Ali]

LinkedIn. Instagram.

[Unknown Host]

Instagram. There you go. All right, so thank you so much, Chief, for spending an hour and 25 minutes with us on the show today. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable. We hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Until next time, be safe, be intentional, and stay curious.