← Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table 
Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 92: Mike Gagliano, Captain (ret.) - Remember Your Mission
01:18:47
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- [00:01]
A
When you hang your coat on the hook for the last time like I have, it's going to be tough. At least it was for me. Is it one of the most emotional moments of my life to leave the firehouse for the last time? Thank God that I did not give the fire service everything that I was and that I took care of my wife and my children as a first priority. Because when I went home, I didn't go home to an empty house. I went home to the. The love of my life. 40 plus years of writing a love story together that's going to go on until we die. And she wrapped her arms around me and she told me how proud of me she was. And we're excited about what the next chapters are. Now that, and I say it respectfully, now that Seattle Fire is done with me, I mean, when it, when, when I, when I signed off of that rig, one of my friends took over my crew. Seattle Fire is done. Done with you. It's over. And you'll. If you didn't already know it, you'll find out that the great big machine moves on without you. And it does just fine without you. If you give everything to that. It's going to be a devastating moment to know that you sacrificed your marriage, your kids, your friends, your health along the way. So give it. Make, make your, make your spouse, make your children, make your family a priority and then develop out of that a real commitment to your love of the job that doesn't supersede it. 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.
- [02:09]
B
All right, well, this is episode 92 and today we are back in my hometown of Seattle. So we have Mike Galliano on the show today who has 33 years of fire crash and rescue experience with the Seattle Fire Department and the United States Air Force. Mike teaches across the country on fire ground tactics, decision making, air management leadership, and company officer development. He's currently the president of the Firefighter Air Coalition. Air coalition.org Captain Galliano has written numerous fire service articles and is co author of the best selling books Air Management for the Fire Service as well as Challenges of the Firefighter Marriage. He is a member of the Fire Engineering FDIC Advisory Board and the Emeritus board of the Firefighter Safety Research Institutes. Mike co hosts the popular Fire Engineering Fire Engineering Radio webcast, the Mikey G and Mikey D Show and partners with his wife Ann, to teach strategies for developing and maintaining a strong marriage and family. Good afternoon, Mike. Thanks for being a guest today. How are you?
- [03:14]
A
Yeah, man, I'm doing good. Honored. Honored to be on your program. And just so you know, emeritus, what that means is it's a word for being really important slash old and no longer on the main board.
- [03:27]
B
Oh, man. Well, I was just gonna say, like, someone not smart enough. That's why I didn't know, but emeritus. Okay. We learned something new every day. I'm sure we're going to talk about learning, constant learning and. And merit. This is something I'm learning here today.
- [03:40]
A
Awesome, man. My job is done here. It's been. Your job is done.
- [03:42]
B
Thank you very much, Mike.
- [03:44]
A
And you have a great day.
- [03:45]
B
So I'm going to start off with this, Mike. So there's a. There's an ongoing. How would you say it? A joke on this show. Our guests are challenges, if you will, by other guests. So previous guests will say, yeah, will you bring on this next person on the show? And the funny thing is, is obviously you and I from the Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest, the most guests on this show are from either Florida or Arizona. And so, yeah, so you're helping us bring it back home here. So I appreciate it because, you know, it's.
- [04:16]
A
It's always a blessing to do things in your local region. I'm really. And, you know, and this isn't just like, I'm not just fluffing everybody up here in my region. I'm really proud of the quality of firefighters and the quality of service that is done not only with my own organization, Seattle Fire, which obviously I'm very proud of, but I've had the. The ability, especially being in the training division and being in the area for so many years, to network and liaison with lots of different departments and. And train in different departments and teach classes. And I'm telling you, the. The pulse and the heartbeat of Washington State firefighters, and. Incredible. And I meet good guys everywhere I go, so that, you know, that ain't no. That ain't no thing. Right? But I'm. I'm distinctly proud of what it is that we're accomplishing in this region in. You know, candidly, we live in, at times, a very challenging area. You know, I mean, challenging area, challenging run loads, the whole nine yards. And I think some of the brightest and the best are coming right out of this Puget Sound region, this western Washington region. There's. There's firefighters and officers and chiefs making not only differences in their Local jurisdictions, which is amazing, but also regionally, you know, across the area of the Puget Sound, across our state, and more and more people that are making an impact on the national level and instructing the national level. And I just want you to very proud to just be a small part of that and nice to be on your show, man. And it. I actually am just hopeful I can hold up my end of the bargain and say a few things that make sense. That'd be great.
- [05:57]
B
Well, you will. And the reason I know you will is because you are, you contribute so much all across the country and obviously around still up here in the Pacific Northwest, we host a, you heard me say this off show here, but a colleague of mine and I, we host this get together, if you will, is to bring fire service leaders together in the Pacific Northwest just to kind of host conversations, build relationships and do some, you know, activities where we're just really talking about leadership and how to better ourselves. And my colleague, who's obviously not with us right now, we were texting just before the show and it was him, he kicked us off on one of the meetings. We kind of go back and forth on who's going to kind of kick off the day. And he literally played your keynote from 2008. And you heard me say this before and it was the remember who you are portion. And so I think like we do in know any, whether it be a sporting event or seminar that we, you know, we like to be inspired. You want to inspire the audience before we go. And so he pulled up a clip, he put it on, you know, on the big screen. And you know, we had a group of what, 55 individuals from across King county. And he literally played your 2008 remember who you are. And it was, he played a three minute clip that you talked about toward the end there. But it was so inspiring, if you will. And then the keynote. Remind me, Mike, it was, it was a 2008. Yeah, it was 2008.
- [07:10]
A
So here's back in the olden days, man, it's almost 20 years ago.
- [07:14]
B
Well, and how, how cool is that, right? Because at this point, this was 20, 25. So 17 years later, we still had individuals that will, will go back to that and say, hey, check this out with all the, the new stuff that's out there with podcasting, with YouTube videos, with people that, you know, going around on the circuit. So I just want to start there with talking about, you know, when we talk about, remember who you are, we're talking about present and past and obviously going into the future. And so I know we're going back to your keynote, which was many years ago, but very applicable to this day, so can you share maybe just a little bit about that concept on how it related to you back then? But even as you reflect on something like that 17 years later and being asked to say, hey, Mike, reflect back 17 years and talk about that.
- [08:00]
A
Well, I appreciate it. Obviously, everything you said there was really nice, and it warms my heart. And it's the reason that most of us are doing what we're doing, you know, is. Is to try to, you know, somewhere, somehow reach out to somebody, somewhere with either, you know, knowledge or information that's going to help them be better at their job or, you know, maybe something that'll. That'll put some wind under their wings and motivate them or, you know, provide comfort when you're feeling down. I mean, that's really what you're trying to do. And the, the keynote, being asked to do the keynote came as a total shock to me. I had only been teaching on the national level for just a few years, not very long. Not a recognizable name, I don't believe, you know, even to this day, not recognizable of a name in comparison to, like, the people I see doing the keynotes, you know, the, the John Normans and the John Mittendorfs and the Alan Brunasinis and the, you know, I mean, it's like, wow, you know, and, you know, and I. I think I said it to one of the guys asked me because I think I almost kind of had like, the same question I had. He said, why do they pick you? And I said, you know, I think. I think what they were after, Bobby and Diane, what they were after is they were after just a normal guy, an average guy, you know, somebody that might be harder to relate to, you know, John Norman, who is an icon, you know, and. And I think for that day they wanted just a normal guy from the streets who's showing up and doing the stuff. And, And I was so honored. And whether it looks like it or not on the webcast or on the keynote, when you watch it, it's on YouTube, I think, or on one of these things. Yeah. However it looks, I was terrified. I was scared out of my mind. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I have spoken now a lot, you know, a lot. And I normally don't get all that afraid anymore. And even back then when I taught, I really wasn't all that nervous or afraid. Man, dude, that was white hot fear. I wanted so badly to honor the faith that Bobby and Diane and the FDIC board had put in me. And whatever it looks like from that stage, from the camera, looking out at, you know, thousands and thousands of the brightest and the best and the smartest and the most well trained, and the folks who've heard all the bs, you know, they. You know, you can't just phone it in up there. You know, you can't. Yeah, I was. You know, and. And a backstory to it, if you want a backstory of how terrified I was. I don't think I've. I don't know if I. If I've told this or not. You're sitting in the backstage, and it's. It's like. It was like a production back there. I didn't know what to expect. I never. I'd never been. I've been in the green room, but I'd never been back there. It's like this production going on, people with headsets and all this different stuff, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I'm sitting back there and. And I'm. I'm quaking in my boots, and I actually tucked off to the side and, you know, had some prayer time to get myself kind of, you know, calmed down. And it's not about me, you know, it's about them. And let's. You know, and. And Chuck and Ray Downey were back there, and they were gonna give the award for their father, the Ray Downey Courage and Valor Award. And so I'm back there with them, and one of the. One of the little presentations they did before I spoke was just this old man and his wife. And you can see it on the back screen. It's playing for everybody. And it's this beautiful old man, his beautiful wife, and they're just. He's this cute old couple, and they're sitting in the front row. And Bobby Halton, who's, you know, one of the greatest orators in the history of the first fire service, gets up there and he starts talking about this man, and he's a retired Indianapolis Fire captain, and he's one of the last living survivors of the USS Indianapolis. And the way he did it, and it was epic, man. It was. It was every single thing proud of our country, saluting someone who's fire and military and survived this horrific thing. And this beautiful guy and his beautiful wife stand up and it's a standing ovation. And, you know, we're in the back. The Downies. I mean, we're in the Back we have tears in our eyes. And then again, it dawns on me again, guess who's next? Guess who's up next? Of course, you know, here's this iconic, heroic guy. And, oh, and now we have, you know, Mike from Stanwood, Mike from Seattle Fire. You know, it's like, oh, my gosh, that's awesome. I love it. It was funny. I, I, I, I told my wife how afraid it was. She says, oh, you're gonna do great. And I have the best cheerleader in the world. And, you know, a few different times this has happened to me where I've followed somebody who's just off the charts.
- [12:47]
B
Yeah.
- [12:47]
A
And every once in a while, you know, because I'll say, oh, great, it's gonna be me. Follow him. Usually she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it came out this time, and she just kind of went, good luck.
- [12:55]
B
Yeah, go for it.
- [12:56]
A
Your turns.
- [12:57]
B
I'll be waiting for you.
- [12:58]
A
No, it was, I'll tell you the, the reason for the, the keynote, why I did it the way I did it, because I sought counsel from everybody, you know, of what, you know, to be good, to do a good job. And one of the things they said was a lot of the keynote speakers just almost like, sell their stuff. They sell their program, or they talk about their program, and it's almost like an advertorial for their classes. So, you know, I could have got up there and done a bunch of air management stuff and leadership stuff and that kind of stuff. And I tell you, the ones that really resonated with me, the, the guys said this is about motivating the FDIC crowd to take advantage of this great opportunity that's in front of them. And this is about speaking into their hearts that what they do is valuable and matters. And so really, the bulk of it was centered around that, of wanting in some way to reach out to, you know, I didn't even really think about it. Reaching out to people. Yeah, you know, 20, 17 years from now, whatever. I didn't even think about that. I was really concentrated, locked in on this group of people paid a bunch of money to be here. They're getting their butts kicked at their fire department. They're trying stuff, they're getting knocked down. They're, you know, and I just want to, if I can, I want to try to build into them and light them up. And I'll tell you, that's all I prayed about. Well, number one, that I wouldn't vomit. Number two, you know, that I, that the message would Come out that way. And if it did, I'm really grateful.
- [14:24]
B
Well, and it did, right? Because as we mentioned 17 years later, and we're talking about it here, 18 years later, but you said something so important because, I mean, first of all, you got to give yourself a little bit more credit there. But you said, like, you felt like you were just an average guy, like, so the rest of us, we'll say we'll even the listener base here today. Most, if not all of us, are that average guy.
- [14:43]
A
Yeah.
- [14:44]
B
And where I, where I want to go here, Mike, is if we can be that average person, that average firefighter, we'll say average company officer. And we could make not just the most of it, but we could inspire a. A generation, if you will. And so as did you, you know, what you're doing, even years and years down the road after being asked to be the keynote. And so for the listener base here today, I mean, talk about, you know, that concept of you don't need to have all the accolades. You don't need to have had, you know, been in the fire service for 30 years, you don't need to have been on the busiest, you know, company for the last 20 to make something of yourself and your career, to inspire others. You mentioned the challenges of the fire service here in the Pacific Northwest or across the country. Like, we had 50 of the fire service across the American fire service is brand new, and that's a challenge all within itself. So a lot of us can be that person that's newer and be average, but we can inspire a group in a generation because. Please talk about that.
- [15:45]
A
Well, you know, like, one of the things we talked about when what we were going to talk about is what, you know, what's your mission? You know, what, what. What is your mission? And I do think it's important to know what you want to be about and, and why you're here. You know, I mean, my buddy Mike Dugan, his keynote was why are you here? You know, so it's a follow on to remember who you are. And then, you know, the next thing is, why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you here? Because it's going to go a long way towards where you put your time, effort, and your energy. I don't, I don't think you should ascribe to national popularity. That was never my. Never mind. To be candid, it's not my interest now. And it actually, in the, it's difficult because in the social media world with, with that being the way things get out now you almost are required to, like, develop a brand and there's all this different stuff. And I've been running from that for my entire life. I'm interested in the message. I really am. It's all. It always has been a message focused approach for me because I believe every single firefighter who comes into an organization, this is where the mission comes in. Every single one of you brings some stuff that we need to fulfill our mission. You don't bring everything. You don't have all the answers. You're not going to have all of the answers because it's too complex of a. You, you're not cutting out paper dolls. When you put on a badge, man, you've taken on a serious deal. You've taken on, you know, when everybody else is running away, you've put our badge on your chest and you've made a declaration that you're going to prepare yourself to be ready at people's very worst day to provide answers and to bring, you know, a honed skill set that it can at least give them the best shot that they've got. And the variety of those. Those problems are breathtaking. It's Pandora's box of everything in the world you can imagine and a bunch of stuff. You ain't going to imagine it until you experience it. And you're required to prepare yourself to be ready to help people at their worst day when nobody else can. If you understand the mission, I think it helps clarify a lot of the crap that gets us sideways. You know what? What ego should be involved in preparing for people's worst day. That's such an overwhelming task. I don't even know how you can be egotistical about it, because I'm telling you, gang, 33 years of getting on fire trucks and going to fires. The last night I worked in the firehouse, the last I. I lose sleep over the things I don't know because I know there's things I don't know. I know there's skill sets that I've let decline trying to be up on other skill sets. I know that I have this group of men and women in my firehouse that I, as the captain, as the leader of the rig and the leader of the station, I'm responsible for those individuals. I'm not sure how a ton of the ego and a ton of the bluster and blow or let me go the opposite way. It's totally unclear to me how so many of you have just become lackadaisical and don't give a damn. I Don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't know how you. It's not that I don't understand that there aren't significant pressures. There are. I get that there's demoralizing people in your firehouse. I understand that some of your leadership has lost its passion. I fully understand that life is stressful and you have family stuff to go with trying to be a firefighter and health issues. And, you know, it's hard to, you know, we live in. We live in Western Washington, man. It's an expensive place to live. It's hard to pay the bills, gang. I. Gosh, all of that stuff. I fully understand it. And let's face it, there are just times when the citizens are overwhelmingly a pain in the butt.
- [19:29]
B
They're.
- [19:30]
A
They're demoralizing with their. The entitlement that. That our citizens feel and the. The routine waste of services that now our political structure and has just decided, you know, that's just the way it goes. You know, we're going to go to the same person four times that isn't sick, and that rig's going to be out of service five times after midnight. We're not going to do anything about it. I understand that that stuff's demoralizing. The reason why the mission's important is because if you center back to here's why I'm here, all the rest of this stuff is true. And, you know, I'm going to have some high times and low times. I'm talking about not dipping down so low that you lose your heart. You just turn into a turd or a blemish on the thing. I also understand that at times you can get to feeling so good about yourself that you think more highly of yourself than you are. I'm talking about staying in that middle range where you're trucking. And, you know, there's good days and there's bad days. There's days at the firehouse that were the best days of my life. And there's a few of them that were. You know, I was so glad when the shift was over. I couldn't wait for the shift to get over. That's just reality.
- [20:30]
B
Yeah.
- [20:30]
A
But if you understand why you're here. I remember I got tasked to be the captain representative for the Seattle Fires strategic plan, which was a tremendous honor to be the voice from the streets, hanging out with the fire chief and the assistant chief and all the other people that I normally don't hang out with and trying to craft a vision for a five year Plan for Seattle Fire. And we got to a mission statement. Let's do the mission statement for Seattle Fire. And so we all wrote on post it notes or on little things what we wanted. The mission statement. I thought really hard about it. I want the mission to be succinct and clear. I don't want the mission to be elaborate and exorbitant and you know, a book to get through the mission. And so my mission statement was, and I believe this. You call, we respond, problem solved. That's what I submitted as my mission statement. And it was the first one torn off the board. You know, it was. And so we ended up, I don't, you know, I don't remember. I mean we had a, our mission statement ended up being, you know, committee mission statement like Seattle Fire exists to solve world hunger and affect climate change and oh, and by the way, we will respond to your emergency and take care of business. Right. Okay. Not a, not a single person in Seattle Fire that wasn't studying for a promotional board could have told you what that mission was. If our mission statement was, you call, we respond, problem solved. That covers everybody. The, the, the cat that's laboring away in the fire investigation unit. You call the person in fire prevention who's going to their 18th building inspection and feeling their soul sucked out of them. But you call, we respond. My mission is I'm going to try to keep the fire from happening before the, the folks get. All of a sudden your mission starts to gain clarity, you know, a simple way to describe it. I hope this makes sense to everybody. You get three things when you sign on to the fire department. So I, in my keynote, I, I mentioned, you know, remembering back to when you got asked to be part of the job and what a great day that was and the dreams you had and whatever, and then everything happens to us along the way and all of a sudden we forget about all that stuff, right? It's like, ah, damn. I just, I just talked, I just talked to a guy, 26 years on the job. I literally call before you, big fire department. I won't share the name of the fire department in a different state from ours. Influential guy. And his comment to me was, yeah, you know, boy, I can't wait for this to be over. And I'm like, man, it's like, ah.
- [23:07]
B
That, that, that hurts.
- [23:10]
A
That it's, yeah, it's. The soul is stolen. And if, if you can discipline yourself to go back to what it is that you wanted to accomplish and what you wanted to be, you get three Things. On the day you, you. You get signed up for the fire department, number one, at your ceremony to become a firefighter, you get a badge and they pin that badge on your chest. Once you take on that responsibility of accepting that badge, nobody's got a gun to your head. Nobody's saying you have to do it. Once you take that on, please recognize that badge means something. And it matters. And it's been fought for, and people have died for that badge. And it. It has been so well represented through the years that when people across the spectrum, in our nation, in our world, see the fire service badge, they recognize that it's somebody of authority, somebody of quality. And every single time you put it on, whatever else is going on, just for that day, let's just go a day at a time. For some of you, just for that hour.
- [24:14]
B
Yep.
- [24:15]
A
Look in the mirror, look at that badge on your chest and say, I'm going to earn that badge. I'm going to be found worthy of that badge. I'm going to conduct myself as a human being worthy of that badge. I'm going to train to a standard of excellence worthy of that badge. And when people see me in that badge, I will represent everybody with that. What I do with that badge. Because remember this, when they see the badge, the actions, your actions represent us all. What you do impacts us all. The second thing you get is there's a patch on your shoulder. And it narrows it down a little bit. Now, you're talking about your team, right? You're east side Fire, right?
- [24:54]
B
I am, yes.
- [24:55]
A
Okay. East side, Eastside Fire on your shoulder. Are you proud of that patch? Absolutely.
- [24:59]
B
Absolutely.
- [25:00]
A
Okay. You should be. Because listen here. And here's the thing. We'll talk about gratitude down the road if we have time. That patch to your community represents the hopes and dreams of your community. It does. And again, it was fought for. The badge is all of us. That's the Fire Service badge. Now, your patch, that's not Seattle Fire anymore. That's not Miami Dade Fire or New York Fire or LA Fire. That's Eastside Fire and Rescue and Gang. People in that organization that you don't even know have paid a significant price to have what you have. And to have that patch, that mean what it means when people see it now, you're doing so as well. You're adding to that legacy for good or for bad. But, man, when you see the patch, recognize we got it pretty good.
- [25:49]
B
Yes.
- [25:49]
A
I mean, the first folks who listen, the first cats who jumped on a old cart in Seattle Fire. They bought their own. Whatever gear, clothing they wore, they bought it. They paid for their own food. They. They bought their own equipment. There was nothing. There was no bunking gear that was provided to them. There were no health and safety standards. There was no health care. Nobody. There was no pension or stipend. Remember, always try to make it better. I think that's great. We should always be working, you know, great to get a pay raise once in a while. Great to have better equipment, great to have updated facilities. But in the middle of it all, look at that patch and remember the price that was paid so you could have what you have. And remember, you represent your team, you represent your tribe, you represent your clan, your group. However you determine it, you represent that fire department. And here's how I know it's true. And you know, and please hear me on this. There have been numerous individuals in Seattle Fire through the years that have demeaned and denigrated and shamed and stained the badge and the patch. Numerous. And when they do it on a significant level. And you guys have watched this. I know a lot of the surrounding departments to. Seattle Fire guys have told me, oh, we just watch to see what Seattle Fire screws up and then we change that. We don't do that, gang. When. When we. When we have members who have brought shame and dishonor to the badge and they do something criminal or they do something horrible and it's going to make the front page of the Seattle Times or the Post Intelligencer back in the day. Do you know what the headline says? It doesn't even. It doesn't mention. It doesn't mention Galliano or Berlin, you know, doesn't mention the name. Do you know what it says in.
- [27:30]
B
General, the fire service, the fire department.
- [27:32]
A
Seattle firefighter. Seattle Firefighter caught in child porn sting. Seattle Firefighter assaults homeless person. Seattle Firefighter in line of duty or in drunken DUI Death accident. It's Seattle firefighters. So just remember how you treat your fellow brothers and sisters, how you treat the citizens, how you perform when seconds count. It has a direct impact on the reputation and the history and the legacy of the patch. And don't let that intimidate you. Don't let that be overwhelming. Let it motivate you to be good. Let it motivate you to wanna. To want to live up to that. And it can be a daily reminder, the final thing, and then, you know, we can move on. The third thing you get, listen to your listeners. You can hide behind the badge because the badge is awesome. That's firefighters all over the world doing amazing stuff, and you can phone it in and you could be a turd, and you can kind of get behind that, just ride in the wave of all the great stuff that the fire service stands for. And you can oftentimes hide behind the patch because you have so many good firefighters in your department that are doing good work. Folks can just kind of get in and say, I'm going to do the bare minimum. I just want to get through. I want to get my pension.
- [28:44]
B
I want to go.
- [28:45]
A
You know, it's up to you. Here's the last thing that we give you, and there's nowhere to hide. You can't hide from it. The last thing we do is we stitch your name across the front of your uniform. And if you don't hear me on anything else, hear this. Your name, when it's spoken, amongst the people in the community, members that know you or know of you, when it's spoken, it tells a story. You want that story to be the best story it can be. And it's going to go to, is that a firefighter that I want on the rig with me? Is that somebody. I want me to lead me at the worst fire of my life? Who do I want at my side? If this was my kid that was wrapped up in twisted metal on i5, would I want this firefighter to be the one with the tools or the one making the call if I have to spend 24 or 48 or. God help you guys, 72 hours now, you know, in the firehouse if I have to do that. When your name is spoken, are you somebody that your fellow brothers and sisters would love having at their side in the firehouse during that 72 hours when all the stuff about the fire service that isn't related to putting out a fire, it's all the other stuff. It's a personnel stuff. It's the, you know, what are we having for dinner? It's the, oh, here's what the chief said, or here's the cuts that are coming, or you're detailed for today when all that stuff is going on, would they want you by there? I want to encourage you, your actions, write a story, think about the story that's being told when your name's spoken, and if you can concentrate on writing a story that you're going to be proud of, one that you can be proud that your family knows. You know, we. There was a time in our history where we used to care what our name meant, and we actually, it was important to us that we upheld the reputation of our name. That you're your father's son and your grandfather's daughter and your, you know, that, that name, that legacy means something. I want us to get back to that where when your name's spoken, it's something that you can be proud of. And here's the cool thing. I'll close with this. The cool thing is you picked a calling where living your dreams is right at your feet. Our calling has so many different things that you can do to live an incredible professional experience and write an epic professional story. You're without excuse.
- [31:13]
B
Yeah.
- [31:13]
A
Our fire departments offer you a plethora of whatever your skill sets are. You know, not everybody's going to be able to get up and, you know, talk like this, you know, and they don't like to talk. They don't want to. They don't want to get up and teach and talk. Awesome. Not everybody can do pump panel operations. Like they were. Like there was a pump panel in their crib. You know, try to go out to a typical higher high rescue drill and watch people tie knots. You know, some people can do it in their sleep and behind their back. You know, guys like me, I gotta Tie it like 20 times, man, before I know how to do it right. That different skill sets coming together. What God has given you in your skill set base to bring to this, this organization that you've accepted membership in to make us the best fire department we can be. That's the mission.
- [31:58]
B
That's the mission. Wow. Thank you for that. Meeka. Mic drop right there. I mean, the, the, the, the badge, the patch, the name, I mean, there's so much to, to lean on that if we, you know, unpacked every single one even further, you know, we'd have a 17 hour episode. But that was so inspiring. One thing that I want to lean on a little bit is we forget sometimes. Meaning, you know, we're all. When we first get the, you know, we first get the job, when we first get the promotion, it's like there's a sudden newness of like inspiration, you know, naturally, but it can dwindle down. And I, I hope it doesn't for anyone in the fire service, but naturally it can. But I'm gonna throw this out there, you know, I'm going to assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you and your crews, like you are very inspiring individual that can get your crews to get up and want to be better. Naturally, you'll go out and train and get, you know, the crews to want to do things. But then not everybody will say will have such an engaging, inspiring leader such as yourself or someone alike. Because there's crews out there that say, and I know you mentioned this as far as when we talk about the mission, we talk about like mediocrity and comfort, loves company. So it's hard to have every crew, every individual to be self. Like I'm going to go out there and best myself every single day. So I don't spend, settle for mediocrity and I don't settle for being comfortable where I'm at. How do we get individuals or, you know, our company officers, our leaders to constantly push that and remind that our mission is to push our boundaries a little bit, to make sure we're prepared for everything. We're always getting better because some individuals and some leaders will naturally be there for their crews and some won't. We need to bridge that gap.
- [33:46]
A
You know, I hope this isn't, I hope this isn't discouraging. In fact, one of the things we were going to talk about is, you know, don't quit and expect challenges. Right?
- [33:57]
B
Yes.
- [33:59]
A
Not every answer uniquely applies to every situation. So if we were just like, if we were just having a podcast on let's talk about the disengaged officer. Well, that's a whole conversation about, you know, some things you can do and, and all that. Or let's talk about the firefighter who is obviously only in it for their paycheck and doing the bare minimum. Right. We could have that conversation, which is a bigger conversation. Here's the advice I'd give you and I'm going to jump script here because you asked at the end. You know, what's a few pieces of advice you can give to firefighters? I'm going to jump to one of those and I think it's important, it may surprise you. I have. There's two leadership quotes that I are my favorite leadership quotes. And I'm a quote guy. I love quotes.
- [34:44]
B
Motivating.
- [34:45]
A
Yeah. And so, and again, this came from when we were doing the, the strategic plan because the person who was doing it, their task was to get go, go do five quotes that we might be able to intersperse throughout the. The thing which I thought was nice and I'm telling you, 90% of them were the ones you would expect about, you know, don't give up. And it was all this uplifting and you know, you could be all you could be and all this kind of stuff, which is great. You know, I know no issues with that. I'll tell you one of my two favorite leadership quotes. They. They didn't use it because it's. It's, I guess, esoteric in a sense. It's not esoteric to me. It's attributed to multiple sources. And so I don't know who actually said it. It's, you know, I've heard it's from a play called Cato. I've heard, you know, John Adams and George Washington, both of them, in their letters to different people, used it in different versions. So it comes in different versions. But I want you to remember something. You're going to be placed. Your mission is going to change various times throughout what you're doing. The mission really doesn't change, but your position in the mission is going to change. If you're a firefighter on a crew of older folks that's tired and boring and dead, and they don't want to do anything, they've already done it, their back hurts or whatever, it isn't like you're necessarily going to change everything about that crew. You might, who knows? But if. If your happiness on the job depends upon successfully transforming an old, dead crew, you're going to be miserable. That's not your mission. What's your mission? Your mission is to prepare yourself, to be available at people's worst day, to provide the best. If you keep your mission in focus, it's about them, but it isn't about them. I want to try to motivate the new members. I want to show them respect and try to get the knowledge that they have invested in me. But I don't control all that. Right? I don't. You know, I don't control. I never gave a whole lot of thought to who the fire chief was in Seattle Fire, because I don't control that. You know, this might surprise you. Never once did the mayor of the city council of Seattle ever come to my firehouse and say, hey, Mike, what do you think about who the chief should be right?
- [36:57]
B
Right now?
- [36:58]
A
The mayor. The mayor gets elected by the people. Elections have consequences. As we see all around us, the mayor and the city council, they pick the fire chief, and that's who we get. Why spend any time worrying about that? You don't. You don't control an ounce of that. What I did control every step of the way was I controlled my attitude, my energy focus towards being prepared for this mission. Whatever support around me I was getting sometimes I got epic support. I was with dynamic people who. Brilliant at the job and not so egotistical that they weren't willing to invest in me as a kid. And sometimes I was surrounded by people who either weren't very good at the job or they were good at the job, but they were incapable of being able to transmit it, you know, without just being, you know, jerks and, you know, and you had to, like, force it out of them kind of thing. If. If you want to be successful, man, put the responsibility back on yourself. I never approached Seattle Fire expecting that they were going to train me in all areas of the job. Listen, number one, take this in the right way. Seattle Fire and its members and its leadership are not capable of giving me everything I need because they don't know everything I need. There is a whole bunch of incredible stuff that was going on in the fire departments next to me and down the road at Eastside Fire and across the pond at Bellevue and over in Spokane and, oh, by the way, in fire departments big and small across this country in the world, there's amazing stuff going on. There's incredible insights and leadership. And I disciplined myself to go and try when I could to learn from the brightest and the best. Now, I learned a ton from Seattle Fire. I pretty much. Everything I have professionally, pretty much, is because of my time as a firefighter in the United States Air Force on a crash rig. Couple good mentors there. And the stuff that I got from the iconic, iconic Seattle Fire Department. And I colored around the edges with everything else that was going on. What Bruno Ceni was talking about and John Norman was talking about, gang, the responsibility falls to you. The minute you take the responsibility off of yourself for your career, you're walking in mucky waters. This doesn't matter. This is everything, actually. Fire service, you're walking in mucky waters. I mean, there's generational changes. You know, my. My generation. And, you know, I remember the Vietnam vets. When I came into the fire department, I was young. They were bound and determined that we were going to destroy the fire service. Right. You know, these kids that are coming in, you know, now I'm hearing the same thing with the generations.
- [39:36]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [39:36]
A
But I can tell you there is within our country a growing idea that it's everybody else's fault. And I just want you to know it's your fault.
- [39:45]
B
Yep.
- [39:46]
A
Period.
- [39:46]
B
Great.
- [39:47]
A
If you. If you are not moving forward, sometimes slowly, because that's all you can do. You know, those of you that are in a crap firehouse, nobody in that firehouse is stopping you from going and put that pump into gear and learning what to do and how to get the pump up and modulate the pressures and be better at connecting the hose. Nobody in that fire company can stop you from taking a ladder off that rig and going and throwing ladders. Nobody in the company can stop you from investing in your own. In your own career and going to classes and listening to podcasts and getting fire engineering and reading articles and all those. Nobody can stop you from doing that but you. So you're. You're treading water. You're walking in the mud. Some of that may be a reality because your officer's more interested in their real estate business than they are in training the company. Okay. That's the card you've pulled. I've pulled that card a couple times. Never stopped me. Never. So I'll tell you what I was always interested in. I always wanted to go find a. I wanted to find the individual with the lights on that knew more than I did and hook up with that person. And then along the way, drag some people with you. And all of a sudden, in a crap firehouse, if you drag somebody along or you get somebody fired up who maybe was. Was in the mud, now there's two of you. Yeah.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [41:03]
A
The two of you go try to get another one, and then all of a sudden it's three. And the cool thing. And I've watched this happen, Berlin. I've watched it happen where you bring some people along on the ride and get excited, and all of a sudden they realized all that time they spent cutting wood in the. In their days as a logger resulted in them having chainsaw skills that were off the charts. And when we give them that. That credibility to run the chainsaw drill and teach the rest of us dummies how to do it, all of a sudden they perk up, and it's like I'm contributing. Yeah. You bring 2, 3, 4 along. Those dirt bags in the firehouse that are. Are the blemishes, they're going to start to feel lonely.
- [41:42]
B
Yeah.
- [41:42]
A
Because now there's not three or four people saying, oh, yeah, the fire department sucks and our chief's horrible. Now all of a sudden, it's three or four guys in the firehouse. They're excited about coming to work. They're excited about drilling in the. The one or two over in the corner in the lounge chair. Yeah, fine. If you're going to sit over there, if the officer allows that, sit over there. We're going to go rock and roll. So, you know, the. The quote. The quote that matters to me. That was a long way around. It I love it.
- [42:06]
B
I love it.
- [42:07]
A
The quote that really matters is, you may not win, but you can deserve to win. You may not succeed, but you can pay the price to deserve to succeed. Winning and succeeding isn't always up to you. It just doesn't work that way. You can. You can work your hardest and try your best towards a goal, and. And that goal may not be accomplished, but what you want to know at the end of it is it didn't work out. Factors because of factors I could not control. I had a, you know, one quick situation, then we can move on. I was a training captain for. For all of Seattle fire at one point. Again, breathtaking to be the person running the training for this big thousand member department. Unbelievable. You know, And I spent about 20 seconds going, this is unbelievable. What the hell am I doing here? And it's like, you know what? I'm here.
- [42:59]
B
Yep, let's go.
- [43:00]
A
I'm a rock on. You know, I might screw this all up, but by God, I'm not gonna. I'm gonna screw it up energetically.
- [43:06]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [43:07]
A
We were working on a lot of different things, and I give credit to the fire chief. The fire chief was really supportive. I felt like, really supportive. We had a lot of things going on. And then an opportunity came up where we could have. It was base housing in Discovery park, and they were going to tear that stuff down. And it was a once in a lifetime opportunity in the city of Seattle to have live fire training that was organized, with consistent structures where we could show shift after shift after crew after crew, a consistent set of fire principles in the same types of building. Breathtaking opportunity. And the fire chief said no, because we had already had way too much committed. I had already gotten a lot of things going. He said, I've already committed money to this, this, and this. That's a massive undertaking. And. And he said no. And I was furious. I was devastated. I mean, everything else to me took a back seat to this one. We could do everything else when we don't have houses to burn, man. You know, And I made the case. I made an awesome case for the answer was no at the end of it, gang. I was really disappointed, but I deserve to win. Everything that I said. If I had shown that to in most others, everybody would go, yeah. Gosh, everything.
- [44:23]
B
Yeah.
- [44:24]
A
So I walked. I moved on. It's like every. You know, the. Ultimately, what it comes down to is the fire chief gets the final say. I've put forth the effort. There's not one more thing I could have said that would have changed the opinion. The fire chief said, no. I deserve to win. Move on. Sometimes that's the way it's going to be. Yeah. I no more let that stop me. I was just on to the next thing. That's okay. This sucks. I hate this. I wish I was the fire chief right now to make this decision.
- [44:50]
B
Yeah.
- [44:51]
A
But I'm going to go back to the things we were doing and go in a direction that I am able to impact things. So just remember that your career, whether like me, when you hang your coat on the hook for the last time, which I have done, at least I think I have, you want at the very end of that gang, you want to walk out feeling like you left it all on the field and you gave this amazing calling what it deserved.
- [45:16]
B
Yeah. It takes a special person to. To do what you just said. Meaning it's a special. It's a special trait to have all this work build up energy into. We'll say a project. And then to have an upper. You know, a superior say, no, for whatever reason. Can't. Don't want to. No budget, bad idea, whatever. But then for someone like yourself to say, all right, I'm going to move on and I'm going to put my energy elsewhere. A lot of individuals will dwell on it to the point where it might deter them from ever taking on another project later. Right.
- [45:55]
A
Well, so remember, what we're talking about is keeping the mission in mind. We're not talking about it not being demoralizing.
- [46:02]
B
Yeah.
- [46:03]
A
And we're not talking about a superstar individual who just blushed it off. Believe me, any amount of profanity and dark thoughts that you can think, I said and thought when that went down. So I'm. I, you know, all transparency. I was angry, I was frustrated. And then I shifted back to. At this moment in time, I have been given the awesome responsibility of being the training captain for Seattle Fire. I can't do this, but there's a whole bunch of other things I can do. And then you shift to. That doesn't mean it's not a blow. It was a big blow. Obviously, I'm still talking about it. You know, whatever. Fifteen years later, I'm still talking about. I still feel the. I still am am bummed about what that could have done for our members. It was a. A skill set developing. Awesome. You know, but you're. Here's your choices.
- [46:57]
B
Yeah.
- [46:57]
A
You get to do this career for a little bit of time. You know, you get whatever you get. You know, if you don't get hurt or whatever. You know, you get 20 years or you get 25 years or 33 years, whatever you get. And then it's done. How much of it are you going to spend crying in your soup over the things you didn't get versus all the other things that you could have done to live an epic career? I'm. I'm not in any way indicating that it's easy to just slough things off. I'm saying it's essential if you want to be successful and you want to have a fun career. I mean, it's up to you. Like I said, you get to write your own story. You know, your name gets to say the story that you're writing if you want that name when it's mentioned to be, yeah, this was an individual that had some good ideas and tried some things and got shot down and then became a turd for the rest of their career because they were so demoralized. You certainly can write that story, and many have if you want the story to be that. Well, yeah, that's the firehouse malcontent. You know, good guy, talented guy, but, you know, that's the one that's always bitching and complaining about everything and what's wrong. You certainly are able to write that story. And I could attach names to that individual in most every place that I've been. Or you can determine with the skill set that you've been given and what you wanted to do when you first put your badge, our badge, on your chest, what you wanted to be true. And you can get over that bump and that hurdle or that bang or that downtime, and. And then start making some good times. And I promise you, if you stay at it, you will have some really good times, some times that you will think about and be glad about for the rest of your life.
- [48:33]
B
Absolutely. And no doubt about it, this transitions us right into one of the talking points of be grateful. Yeah, right. So be grateful. I mean, it. Expand on, you know, just remembering that, yes, we're all going to hit bumps on the road. We're all going to get the nose many, many times. In fact, we'll likely get more no's than yeses on our projects and our ideas in life and in the fire service, but remain just remaining grateful because of what you said. We got the badge, we got the patch, our name's on the uniform, and we're here to serve the greater purpose, if you will, to serve the community and serve others. But being grateful is something that we must always have and be day in and day out. So why is being grateful so important?
- [49:21]
A
Well, you know, I want to be careful because everybody has. Everybody has their own personal belief set and their opinions, right? And so I'll salute. God bless you. Rock on. So do I. And I don't necessarily believe. I. I believe the United States of America is the greatest country in the history of mankind. I believe this experiment that began with a bunch of normal folks is the most epic thing in the world. And we are all blessed to be a citizen of the United States of America, really and truly. The what? This is the place that protects freedom around the world. We fall. Freedom falls. It's that simple. And we get. We get. We get to be blessed by that. We get to live in this. I think in. In conditions that the rest of the. The civilized world in history would just be in awe of, you know, with what we have available to us and the opportunities that we have available to us. And I translate that also down to the fire service. I feel like, again, going back to the badge and the patch, I feel like we should continually remind ourselves of the price that was paid for what we get to enjoy. And I'm not talking about trying to fix things or trying to make things better or, you know, evolve and as people. And none of that. That's all great. I just want you just as a. As an operative lifestyle. Just be grateful that you get to live in a free country where, to be honest, whoever you are, whatever your situation is, you have the ability and the opportunity to make that situation better. You may not be the President of the United States and, you know, you may not be the chief of a fire department. You may not. There's a thousand things you may not. But there is opportunity, both in this country and we're speaking about the fire service in particular. There is opportunity to live your dreams in the fire service. You have to commit yourself to going forward with the skill sets that you have. And, and remember this. We need you. Our mission needs you. There's too much. Listen, there's too much stuff to do. There's too many things that need attention for the 10 or the 20 or the 30, depending on the size of your department, the 10 or the 15 or the 20 or the really motivated people can't do it all. And I don't want them to do it all because the 10 to 20% don't have all the skill sets that we need. I mean, just take a. If you want to do a fun thing just one day, just put all the names of your. Your firefighters down in your fire department and just go ask like, 20 or 30 of them, get 10 minutes with them, and just talk to them about what they've done in their life. And by the time you're done, you're probably not going to be as negative about the men and women in your department as you may be right now. They've accomplished amazing things. They've. They've built businesses, they've had academic accomplishments that are incredible. I mean, you. You throw a rock in Seattle, fire. You hit a Super bowl ring, you know, or a. Or. Or an Olympic gold medal, or, you know, you. You hit somebody who graduated from Harvard or, you know, you. You know, the. The charitable things that people have done on behalf of others, you know, going in and saving villages and just epic, amazing stuff. Gang. That's part of the story, too. You know, that's part of the story as well as the. The frustrating things that people do and they're gruffy, their grumpy days and whatever else. I'm just telling you to tell a real story, you know, make. Make it real and be grateful that you get to be around this group of people, understanding. There's always going to be things that irritate you and whatever. And trust me, every single one of you listening, you do things that irritate the hell out of everybody else. So no reason to feel overly special about it. You know, we all got our quirks and our stuff and we all got to live together. I think, I think gratitude, number one, it's really healthy.
- [53:17]
B
Yes.
- [53:17]
A
And, you know, I don't have the scientific data to study to. To give you, but I have read in numerous articles and books where people who have an attitude of gratitude or this thankfulness, they're healthier, they feel longer, their spirits better. Yeah. They live longer, they have better sex, you know, all this other stuff. And so, number one, there's a. There's a reason to do it. Number two, I think what gratitude does, and this is a big bugaboo of mine, I hate entitlement. I can't stand it. If you want to. If you want to irritate me or cause me to question your character, come to me with some kind of sense of entitlement that for whatever reason, what happened to you in your childhood, what kind of parents you had, what is going on in your firehouse, what your, you know, the history of you or your people or your, you know, your whatever, come with a sense of entitlement to me, and you immediately drop in my estimation. I want you to look at where you are right now at this time in history and as a member of east side Fire, or of Tacoma Fire, or of Camp Fire or Spokane Fire, and recognize, man, it's all there for me. This, this place and this calling will allow me to live my professional dreams. And please hear me, gang. This calling will allow me to live my professional and dreams that isn't necessarily available to everybody else because not everybody can do what we do. And no disrespect to other professions. I have respect and honor for every profession out there. From the Carl car salesmen, to the ditch diggers, to the roofers, to the builders, to the teachers, to the people working in corporate, etc. You chose your path. Rock on. I hope it's awesome. I know what I have here and I can speak to it honestly. At the end of 33 years, I literally, as an average intelligent kid from poor family without a pot to piss in with, nobody really to back me up, nobody in, in my corner, if you will, was able to live my professional dreams in the fire service. I was able to work with some of the finest people in the world and a few nitwits. I was able to go on incredible runs, incredible experiences you can't pay to go on. I had the privilege and the ability to be in the middle of people's very worst day when nobody but me and my crew could help them with the day of their life that they'll talk about for the rest of their life. I was privileged to be in that position and be trained by my organization and, and the men and women around me to be good at that job. And I was able to support my family doing it. When you look at it that way, it's easy to say it ain't all great. I've scrubbed a lot of toilets, I've walked through a lot of vomit and seen a lot of horrible stuff. But at the end of that 33 years, I am filled with gratitude at what I was able to do professionally. When you do that, it eliminates your entitlement. It starts to eliminate your. I'm owed this or I'm owed that. I don't believe you're old. Squat. Yeah, you know, I mean, you're owed a. You're owed, you're owed the idea of being able to come into a place and, and have a fair shake. I agree with that. I want things to be fair for people. You know, I don't want people to, to act like jerks and all that other stuff. I don't think you should be, be being harmed you know, and all this other stuff. But as far as professionally what you put into it, that's on you, you, you. We hired you to bring your skills and your energy to the job. That's what we're paying you for. It's not somebody else's job to motivate you to do that. Now I hope you're surrounded by a ton of motivating people and we want to cultivate that.
- [57:19]
B
Yes.
- [57:19]
A
But I go right back to the mission. You, your mission. Yeah. Is to be prepared to do this incredible thing whatever the circumstances are around you. That's what gratitude does. It eliminates the entitlement. It eliminates the poor me, poor me. And I think it eliminates a lot of the, the demo demoralizing and demo demotivating aspects of the job and of life that make you not want to get up and give your best. It's hard. You know, think about it when you're feeling great grateful and gratitude and whatever. It's really hard to want to be a turd.
- [57:54]
B
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And you're, you're, you're infectious at that point. When you're the person that is showing all this gratitude, expressing it outwardly, people want to be around you.
- [58:05]
A
Yep.
- [58:05]
B
At least like minded individuals that are.
- [58:07]
A
Saying gives authentic, it gives authenticity to your message and your passion, Right?
- [58:12]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's wind it down with this here, Mike. How not forget to have fun. Having fun is very key in all this, right?
- [58:20]
A
Oh, I think so. I think, I think we forget that along the way because we get all serious about everything, you know, and there's lives to save and there's, you know. Yeah, I, I guess the easiest way to say it is it isn't all going to be fun. You have to, I think, commit yourself to having a blast along the way and doing your best to enjoy the people that are around you. And you know what? It's okay to celebrate. It's okay to reward people. It's okay to, to you know, do things that are fun. You know, we, we crack on each other and we joke on each other and we bust chops. And I think that's great. That's, you know what, doing that stuff is part of surviving the horrors of this job. You know, our gallows humor and then just, you know, censor yourself and limit yourself to not taking that type of stuff to the point where you're actually digging into people's souls and damaging their heart, you know, and, and I don't believe we can be a bunch of tender, sensitive, snowflakes that are offended by everything. I don't. Matter of fact, if you bring that to me again, you drop. In my estimation, we're actually adults. Or you should be.
- [59:23]
B
Yeah.
- [59:24]
A
You should be like an adult. Not a child anymore. I'm an adult. Right. You know, behave like an adult, you know, and have fun and all those types of things. Celebrate each other. When people do a good job, elevate it. And it may sound like a funny thing to have to say, but in our culture, the bad stuff tends to get all the notoriety.
- [59:43]
B
Yes.
- [59:43]
A
Right. Oh, did you hear about that dipshit Galliano, what he did over there the other day at that fire? And all of a sudden, you know, it's a big, huge thing. Well, how about we discipline ourselves? And that's fine. You know, that's normal. You're going to talk about what's going on and stupid things that happen. But how about if we discipline ourselves to actually elevate the good?
- [60:02]
B
Yes.
- [60:02]
A
And let's talk about the epic jobs that are done, and let's talk about the person that goes the extra mile and, you know, let's. Let's reward and highlight, you know, the idea that citizens are coming by the firehouse and just being grateful for the fire truck that just out of the blue stopped at a birthday party when they were coming away from Iran, and there's a birthday party out in the yard, and the fire truck just stopped and. And sang Happy birthday to the kids and blew their minds.
- [60:29]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [60:30]
A
How about we elevate that stuff? You know, I'm not talking about being phony about it. And are we awesome all the time? I'm talking about purposefully and volitionally telling the true story. Yeah. And the true story is the men and women of your job are doing way more things good than they are ever doing bad. And if you want to be authentic about the story, the actual story that becomes a big part of the conversation, it's a lot more fun to be part of something that's cool and. And fun and having a good time. So figure out ways to create. You know, we. We always look for ways to make fun stuff going on in the firehouse. I had a. You know, last 10 years, I was in the. Probably the busiest truck and engine in the city. So we were rocking all the time. And. And candidly, we went to a lot of crap runs. You know, we. We didn't go to, you know, our. Our 9,000 runs a year out of that firehouse. It wasn't 8,000 fires. You know, it Was we went to, we went to Aurora Avenue north for bad stuff all the time. And the same person 30 minutes later outside of the hospital coming back for more of it. So, you know, it's not all awesome. It's not great. We would, we would do things like, like we would do a dishes game, you know, for. We'd have dinner, you know, somebody cook. And we used to always argue about who was going to cook because we didn't have a, you know, we, for the most time we didn't have a cook. The last year or two we did, but when he was gone, some of us had to cook. We all hated to cook. And so that was a big throwdown in the morning and it was hysterical, you know, trying to negotiate out of it. No, I've been screwed. We just had a blast with it. And we did a dishes game where, you know, the person who cooked, cooked the meal. They shopped for the meal, they cooked the meal, they were responsible for the meal. Then they didn't touch a dish after that. The dishes were our job to do. So we would assign two people that were responsible for the dishes and we kind of had that. We had to do that because we came and went so much. We went on runs all, you know, somebody had to be responsible to make sure it got done. So to pick those people. Every night we would do a game. The loser of the game would do the dishes. And the games were hysterical. I mean, you know, everything you can imagine from the stupid trivia questions which I always lost, I hated them. You know, pitching pennies, popping ping pong balls into cups, rotating quarters, you know, type of thing. We did like races with the chairs with the wheels on it. We tried that. We did that once and I killed that game because we were going to hurt people. We did paper airplane contests. You know, we did get one minute to make the paper airplane. We went out on the app bay and threw them the two shortest throws, did the dishes. We had an old, we had an old hook, you know, an old pike pole and we did lawn darts from the balcony down in the yard and did cut out rings in the lawn and did shocker bar launder. Also the, the medics cooked one time and they did. It was horrible. They did blood pressure checks, excuse me, blood sugar text. So the high and low blood sugar after this gut bomb of a meal, you know, didn't. The, the point wasn't who did the dishes, right? It really wasn't. It was the fun of the game and griping about the rules and yelling that we got screwed. And you know, the ones that were so close that. No, I want a measuring, you know, on it. That's the point of it all. Normally, during the course of the game, we spent so much time arguing with each other that guys would just get up and start doing some dishes. And pretty soon, yeah, the dishes are done. Right. You know, it isn't really about. It's about breaking it up and having fun. I mean, some of our most memorable laughs came out of that stupid dishes game, and we just had a blast. Try to find things like that. Try to find a way to reward your people. Try to elevate the good stuff, the awesome stuff.
- [64:10]
B
Yeah. Oh, that's. That's a great way to finish off this very inspiring discussion about, you know, all the. The good and the bad and the fire service talk about being grateful, then not forgetting to have fun at the end of the day is just don't forget to have fun. I mean, we gotta. We're here for a finite amount of time in our careers, hopefully longer than shorter for. For all of us, and, you know, just remembering to having fun as a part of it. So someone said this might have been Anthony Castros might have something, but he said, you can have fun, but we're not here to have fun. But make sure you have some fun while you're.
- [64:43]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [64:43]
B
Make sure.
- [64:43]
A
Yeah.
- [64:44]
B
I mean, just make sure you have fun.
- [64:45]
A
Yeah. And then, trust me, Andoni has as much fun as anybody. So. Yeah, he's a. He's actually a good friend of mine. That boy has a good time.
- [64:53]
B
Yes. Yeah. I want to offer this up. You write books, and I'm gonna. I'm mentioned at the beginning, but I'm gonna mention it here, and we didn't get much time to spend on it, but I'm gonna mention the book so the listeners can look for these. You know, it's. It's. And you're not asking me to do this. I. I know that. And for the listener base, Mike never asked me to say, hey, you know, this and that, but I want to throw it out there because you and I could have chatted on this show for another four hours. Yeah, but you did write two books. One of them is the air management for the fire service, and one that I specifically am going to pick up. And usually I read a book of the guest before our airing, and I did not get a chance to. But the book on challenges of the firefighter marriage. Yeah, I know you talk about a lot of stuff. I want to throw that out to the Listener base so they can continue to learn a little bit more about just another source and resource. But you are out there. Are you teaching anywhere in the Pacific Northwest here coming up that we can find you, or where else do we find Mike coming up?
- [65:47]
A
Yeah, I'm trying to think of where I'm going to be close. I just did a bunch of stuff here last year. I think the closest I'll be that I currently have on the books. I'm trying to regulate how much I do. I'm gonna be over in Portland doing the Portland airport. So that's a little bit of ways, but I'm gonna be over there. If I know some of you actually probably live down there. So.
- [66:12]
B
Yeah, people down south. We do.
- [66:14]
A
Yeah. So I'm going to be doing the Portland Fire Department for two days. Four different classes. I. I don't know if they're opening up. I think they are. And then I am going to be me and Paul Combs, the fire service cartoonist, illustrator. Paul and I just agreed to do a class for the Pacific Northwest Fire Conference.
- [66:35]
B
Okay.
- [66:36]
A
Coming up over across the pond over there and wherever it is, pools bow or whatever.
- [66:40]
B
Exactly.
- [66:40]
A
Yep.
- [66:41]
B
They were here back in October, so they're coming up again.
- [66:43]
A
Yep. So we're. We're going to be doing a class called actually lines up very well with what we're talking about. It's called Attack with Passion. And it. We built the class because Paul and I are very different guys were really good buds. Politically, we're different. I was on primarily on a truck. He was primarily on an engine. I was in a metro department. He was in a, you know, a smaller department in Ohio. I'm more of a talker teacher type of thing. Paul, obviously is a brilliant artist, not as much of a talker. And what we decided to do was put a class together called Attack with passionate about using the skill set that you have have to impact the craft. And so the way we design the class, I do most of the teaching of, you know, having passion, attacking with passion, finding your voice. He does talk some. But while the class is going on, he does a unique illustration on the overhead. So you can see Hill, his skill set on display. You can see my skill set on display. And both of those skill sets are geared towards improving the fire service, making the craft good. And our hope is it ends up being a motivation for people who they feel like, well, you know, I'm not the best at running a chainsaw or I'm not the best at tying knots or, I don't know that I want to be an officer and deal with personnel problems. But I'm a great apparatus operator. I can drive the rig like I was born to drive the rig. And it's like, awesome.
- [68:10]
B
We need you.
- [68:11]
A
Awesome. Yeah. Whatever, whatever role it is that you're awesome at, come bring it and make a scatter. That's what it is. So we'll be doing that. Pacific Northwest Conference. I can't remember the day, but they're their schedules coming out, so that's probably right now the closest. If you, if you check me on Facebook. That's usually where I post everything. Facebook and LinkedIn. I don't have a website or anything like that, those types of things. That's where you can find out where I'm going to be teaching and talking and, and you know, not for nothing, we'd love to come to your department.
- [68:40]
B
Yeah.
- [68:40]
A
So, you know, if you're interested in that, get me, get me there. Get me at my email. It's mikeyj@aol.com M I k e y j-a y@aol.com Glad to come hang out with you.
- [68:52]
B
Yeah.
- [68:53]
A
Yeah. If you, if you haven't heard, March 17th through 19th in Colorado Springs, the Firefighter Air Coalition is doing another version of Fire in the sky, which is large structure fires, high rise, mid rise, big box fires. You may recognize a few of the names that will be there. Dave McGrail, Mike Dugan, Mike Champo writes the back page for fire engineering. Clark Lamping from, from Clark county doing big box. Chris Slayer doing mid rise. Jimmy Davis from Chicago doing stairwell ascent type of stuff. We have a robust awesome group of instructors. Two and a half days at the Polaris Hotel by the Air Force Training Academy. It's one of the coolest hotels I've been to that I've seen. And we, we have a cap of 200 students. That's all we could, that's all we could afford in this hotel.
- [69:48]
B
Absolutely.
- [69:49]
A
And we're down. We only have 25 seats left. So if you're interested in coming, there's, there's a few folks coming from your neck of the woods. I don't know if it's east side. I remember what's down there. It might have been Pierce.
- [69:59]
B
Okay.
- [69:59]
A
Snohomish is sending a few. Spokane sending a couple. But I would love to have 10 to 20 Washington state firefighters suck up some of those last registrations. So air coalition.org is where you can find the details on at the flyer and everything or if you just catch me on, ping me On Facebook or whatever. I'll. I'll get you that information.
- [70:20]
B
Perfect. Thank you. March 17th to 19th. Well, we're here and we can only continue the conversation in the show by the leadership Challenge. So I see a couple of names here. David Rhodes was a guest on the show a couple years back, but we can always go for a second.
- [70:34]
A
Was he horrible?
- [70:35]
B
He was brought to me when he did the show. Someone reached out specifically and said that was the best one. You know, he did like episode.
- [70:41]
A
That's not what I'm gonna tell him. I'm gonna tell him that Berlin, I brought your name up in Berlin, said I'm. We're never having that guy.
- [70:50]
B
Or, or he needs to significantly improve upon us, which is the reason he needs to do.
- [70:54]
A
Yeah. So he's gonna invite you back so you don't suck so bad this time.
- [70:59]
B
Paul Combs has been challenged on the show. I still have to circle back around to him. I sent him an email way back. I think Frank Viscuso, way back two years ago, challenged him. And I gotta circle back with him. But then your third.
- [71:12]
A
Remember, remember Paul, like I told you, he doesn't feel necessarily that speaking in that type of stuff is his skill set, but I can tell you he's obviously gotten better because two years ago he won the IFSFI Instructor of the Year award. So now, like I told him, I said, you might think you're not a very good instructor, but there's a whole bunch of people who disagree. Pretty damn good.
- [71:37]
B
There you go. So with that being said, Paul Combs will get another reach out today. And there's a third person on the list who you'd like to challenge. Who is that person?
- [71:44]
A
Mike Dugan. Mike Dugan now my teacher, my teaching partner, Mike Dugan. Mike and I built a class together called this House Rocks. Developing firehouse excellence and leading a firehouse that everybody wants to be a part of. And being. Yeah, there's not a whole lot Mike hasn't done in the fire service. He's a G. Gordon Bennett medal winner. He's Tom Brennan, lifetime achievement award winner. And, you know, interestingly, because you resonated with the keynote of, you know, remember who you are. Mike's keynote is one of the most popular ones that's ever been done. The. The. Why are you here? You have a natural kind of follow through with Mike to do his keynote and have him walk through what that means. And yeah, you'll. You. You won't meet a more accomplished individual in the fire service than my brother, Michael Dugan.
- [72:34]
B
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I will reach out to these individuals and seek their willingness to be our next guest on the show. So before we officially close, I'll give you this. What would you like to leave our listeners with before we close?
- [72:50]
A
Well, you asked me about advice and I told you there was two quotes. Yes, and this quote is said all the time. All I can tell you is this speaks to me in a way that really matters. And it's Teddy Roosevelt's the man in the arena quote. And it's. It's not the critic who counts. It's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man, woman, who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, and who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error, shortcoming. But who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends themselves in a worthy cause? And who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, going back to you, may not win. At the worst, if he, if he or she fails, at least they fail while daring greatly. So that place shall never be. Their place will never be with those cold and timid souls who never knew victory or defeat. I stand up for the man and woman in the arena. Those of you that are listening that obviously because you're listening to the podcast, you're trying to get better. You're engaged, you want to get better. You're looking for motivation and insight and knowledge. I just want to encourage you where you are to celebrate being in the arena. Be excited about being in the arena. And you may not win. There may be some battles that you just aren't. They aren't yours to win. But what you learn engaging in those battles is preparing you for the ones that you're going to win. The, the. The people that you meet along the way that you make connections with, that's going to be the brothers and sisters that will lock arms with you and help you get through the. The barricades and all that. So, man, be committed to being in the arena. Love, love the listen, love the job, and love the people that are doing it. As unlovable as both can be at times. Have a blast, don't grow weary and doing good, and just know there's a whole bunch of us out here that are rooting for you. You know, we want to see you succeed. We want Your departments. I. I want to see you on the front page of the department, kicking butt and taking names and just know it's worth it. At the very end, when your coat goes on the hook, I can tell you, the good times, the bad times, the whole thing, it was amazing. It was worth it. And I. I really am appreciative of you giving me a chance to say a few things. I hope some of it actually resonates.
- [75:26]
B
It absolutely will. I know that for a fact. And we always get people that reach out and say, thank you for having that individual on. And I will say this even further. Like, I don't get to pass on to the guests all the people that say, oh, what a great message, or thanks for having that person on.
- [75:42]
A
And.
- [75:42]
B
No, and I say that only in the sense that it will resonate with many individuals. And obviously, the stuff that you do is. It reaches. It reaches the audiences. And so thank you again for being a guest today. And.
- [75:56]
A
Well, let me. Let me. Let me give you one last thing.
- [75:58]
B
Yes.
- [75:58]
A
I didn't mention it before, and it is important to close with this. So you did hear that we did a book on firefighter marriage.
- [76:06]
B
Yes.
- [76:06]
A
I just. I just want to say this to everybody listening. Respectfully, obviously, I hope it's obvious that I love the job and I'm proud of the job and I care about the job. I just want to say this respectfully to every one of you. There's nothing going on at the fire department that's more important than what you have going on at home. And the commitments that you made to the people at. At your home came before and supersede the commitments that you're making to the fire department now. You can't make it an idol. You can't just be home all the time. You got to make a living, you know, you got to give the fire department. But what I'm talking about is, in your heart, don't let how compelling the job is, because it can be really compelling, and it can draw you in and suck up everything that you are. You want to make sure at the end of your career, you want to make sure when things are done. And I've experienced this, so I'm not just talking out of school. When you hang your coat on the hook for the last time like I have, it's going to be tough. At least it was for me. Is it one of the most emotional moments of my life to leave the firehouse for the last time? Thank God that I did not give the fire service everything that I was. And that I took care of my wife and my children as a first priority. Because when I went home, I didn't go home to an empty house. I went home to the. The love of my life. 40 plus years of writing a love story together that's going to go on until we die. And she wrapped her arms around me and she told me how proud of me she was. And we're excited about what the next chapters are. Now that. And I say it respectfully, now that Seattle Fire is. Is done with me. I mean, when it. When. When I. When I signed off of that rig, one of my friends took over my crew. Seattle Fire is done. Done with you. It's over. And you'll. If you didn't already know it, you'll find out that the great big machine moves on without you. And it does just fine without you. If you give everything to that, it's going to be a devastating moment to know that you sacrificed your marriage, your kids, your friends, your health along the way. So give it. Make. Make your. Make your spouse, make your children, make your family a priority, and then develop out of that a real commitment to your love of the job that doesn't supersede it. Thank you for. Thank you for allowing me a few more minutes, brother.
- [78:30]
B
Absolutely. No, I. Thank you. I'll. I'll just do a quick close and we'll chat a little bit more. Thanks for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable, and we hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Until next time, be safe, be intentional, stay curious.