So you're gonna go to the Cowboys Dolphins game?
Yes, yeah on Christmas Eve on Christmas
Actually what I'm doing has this is this is a whore but I am gonna relocate to Miami or to the to the Fort Lauderdale
I for a month because the Dolphins schedule just happens to have all the home games
In December, so instead of flying back and forth
I'm just gonna stay and I'll just work from down there and do that thing
But and then and then I was gonna come home on Christmas Day, but if you have dolphin season tickets
They offer you other things and the Orange Bowl is the next week. So I'm gonna stick with the Orange Bowl
So we'll see who's playing in that. It'll be fun. Well as a Cowboys fan, we know for a fact
We're gonna kick your butt. But as a Cowboys realist, I hope y'all don't beat us by 70
I took a buddy of mine that was a Broncos fan and I will be on all right
Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame. I'm your show host
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there
Hey, hey and welcome into vision pros live everybody I've got Dave Nordell Dave I made an amateur mistake
I'm gonna pull you to the background real quick so I can do a proper
Introduction for you. So I I'm learning to run this studio by myself without my trusty sidekick. Hi me
We're getting Cynthia trained up as well on helping me and it's her first moment to help out
And so she's she's learning and mirroring what I do
Hopefully I can make this great for all of you guys vision pros
So I am the founder and CEO of first-class business show host for vision pros and I'm excited to introduce a couple of sponsors
I'm gonna be quick about the sponsors today
because we've got a subject that
It's just it's so important. It's so relevant for communities for children as you see
We're gonna be talking today about his vision of safety in schools in our community
But real quick first I come maker live calm
I wouldn't share this if it didn't matter if it wasn't something that was a great resource
especially for those who are just getting started in the process of either wanting to launch a podcast or also
wanting to build a seven-figure business
Tom Cheryl Daniella all have tremendous experience in business. They've been around the block for a long time
I highly recommend working with learning from people who have
Several decades of experience in business. I'm constantly looking for more and more mentors like that
It takes a tribe to raise a child
Well, it also takes a tribe and a great tribe to coach and train an entrepreneur on how to how to win and how to build
So I recommend checking out I can make a live comm they've got their next conference coming up in March
But of course in between now and then you have plenty of time to be able to get help reach out to them and see
What they can do for you cap show comm ca P s H o ca P s H o comm is the number one ranked
Copywriting AI system for as ranked by digitalmarketer.com
We use this for our show notes and what you do is you upload a couple of video or audio clips
to cap show they even give you a free trial to do this and
Then you just I just say upload the clips and then click as fast as you can on all the AI generating options because they are
They come in the package and so you're gonna get your LinkedIn content your Twitter Facebook
Instagram your blog articles all the content that takes so long to produce and even though you've already talked about the subject
Like you can still sit there and say well now, how do I write about it?
Don't worry about it. Let the AI do it then go back after you've clicked on everything. You've made your sound bites
You've pulled uh important promotional clips from the from the system
Then you can go back and read it and now all I have to do is edit it
And then share it um, if you like what you see, um, so I recommend checking that out and then lastly the water project
If you have the opportunity to give back mirror position to give even just a dollar
We're talking about bringing filtered water
Good clean drinking water to villages in Africa that do not have access to and we're also talking about a program that does
A program that transparently shows you where where every dollar goes
You get to see the transformation of the community you get to see what it looks like beforehand
You get to see the social proof afterwards of them having built their own sand dam
Or them having built these borehole wells that they build
You get to see how many community members are affected by it and how much is being raised
But one of the coolest things is being able to see pictures like this one
That's on your screen right now where they're celebrating the water that they now have
Um, and just imagine the impact that makes when what if it was your children and they had to instead of going to school
Uh walk several miles to go get wild
You could go get water that wasn't even clean or safe and bring it back to the community just so that people could survive
This is a life-changing impact. Um, and so while you don't get to physically be there and see it happen
You get to know that you were part of the process of helping out and if you have something else that you'd rather donate to
That's fine. Do that and feel free to share the link in the comments and encourage others to give back as well
So i'm going to share um, thank you cynthia, by the way
She did an excellent job of showcasing those it's hard to do while we're running a show. Um, i'm going to go ahead and share
Dave's background because it's extensive. It's important and there's a lot of reasons why his topic is near and dear to his heart
So as the founder of max fab consulting dave is a retired united states
Air force command chief master sergeant with over 30 years of service
He holds a bachelor's degree in registered nursing specializing in emergency medicine and a master's degree in disaster and emergency management
Dave's a bronestar combat decorated medic and the recipient of the legion of merit our nation's sixth highest military decoration
They operate in saudi arabia somalia south america iraq korea japan and hungary
Dave grew up in rural north carolina in a dairy farming family
Dave left home at 19 to join the air force and ascended through the enlisted ranks to culminate as a senior enlisted leader for all
nuclear missile forces in the united states
He has a vast experience leading small groups and large organizations has led city government activities and large organizations as an emergency manager for multiple communities
Through covid and other disaster situations. He's the author
Of the international best-selling book giving back
Life and leadership from the farm to the combat zone and beyond dave is the founder and owner of max fab consulting
Providing keynote leadership organizational growth and strategic guidance and he is actively involved and using his journey with ptsd
To help transitioning veterans and other victims of trauma deal with the condition in a healthy manner
He's an active mentor and speaks to young leaders to aid the development of future successes and he continues to give back
The gifts he has collected along the way
now
One of the other things that I want to mention is all that background in emergency and disaster
Um, you know what we're going to talk about today is an extremely sensitive subject
And we want to talk about it with as much reverence and respect as possible
There's also going to be some passion that comes out of both of us in relation to this because we believe and know that we can do more
Our best requires that we look at life from the scope of what else can we do?
And one of the challenges that we face is as um
The internet has certain censorship
And I think people try to do that with the best of intentions, but this subject should not ultimately be censored
But we're going to be avoiding certain words to make sure that as we talk about
The the horrendous acts of violence that can occur on school campuses
And the the scary and dangerous situations that can come up we we don't want this message to get blocked
Um, so we're gonna do our best to make sure to curate down
But if you have kids that are in school, um, you know
Or you have community influence then I highly recommend tuning in and making sure to listen to what dave has to say and
Dave, I just want to thank you for coming on the show and for sharing your vision with us
You bet you got a gold star for reading all that. I appreciate that. That's that's pretty cool
Um, you know jackson, we're gonna we're gonna probably jump jump right into this and you know disaster management is an odd beast
because
We spend a lot of time to I the tyranny of being a disaster manager is you have to compel people to be
Uh, you know the five facets of disaster management are plan mitigate and prepare and then the the second two are respond and recover
And the goal is to do the first three so well that you never have to do the second two and you need to be ready
To do the second two
And I think we're I think where we're going to go with this is as we dissect, uh these these
um these occurrences in schools
When you walk them back we get very reactionary and very emotional and very proactive
Only in a post-mortem state and when I say post-mortem, I mean post-mortem of the event whatever the event is even if it's just a scare
Uh, and and so you get you get reactionary to that and then you have this call to action and school boards come together and parents
Come together and money starts to flow through communities and those type of things and a guy like me when he walks in, you know
uh, you know
unfortunately on the on the on the
On the post side of it you walk in and you go
Remember when we talked about this plan prepare and mitigate thing and for some reason
Something overwrote it or over prioritize these things and we decided to take risk and not do that
And so i'm kind of reverse engineering that but I mean for for the discussion
This is where um people in my profession and people that are really passionate about not wanting this to happen at all ever
Tried to give guidance in this in this fashion and unfortunately
You know money drives almost everything and people decide to take certain risk and at times I think we're we're uh,
Pennywise and pound foolish
Hmm. I got you on that and that makes sense. Um, I mean anytime we're in a situation where
Our emotions get tampered with
um, and naturally when loss has been experienced and and grief has entered the picture and and
Trauma, um, you know has occurred
Uh, we we aren't going to be in our best mindset. Um, you know, we we are going to have a very hard time
um thinking emotionally as well as thinking logically
Um, because everything's just so intense around us. We're also not used to being in that situation
Um, so being being aware up front that the plan prepare
Um and mitigate, um, we know is important was important
um, but also
Having an outsider come in
You know somebody who?
Of course, they feel it. I mean, it's it's human life. We're talking about um, but bringing somebody in
Who is not as close to the picture. It's kind of like bringing in a marriage counselor
When you're facing the reality of a divorce or an intermediary when you're trying to
Navigate that divorce. It's somebody who can still feel the pain of the reality of what's going on
But they're they're a little bit more
Centered in the logic and the emotion. Um, so real quick before we go go too much further though
I define part of the audience, but i'd like to know from your perspective dave
Um, who should be listening in today?
Why should they listen to you specifically? I we've heard your accolades. We've heard what you've done. We know the the
on paper version
Um, right, but i'd love to hear that in your own words
Why why should they be listening to you and what are they going to get out of today's show? Do you think?
Sure, um, you know the people that should be listening is anybody that is is truly involved in their community
I mean when they go outside if you know if there's too much traffic or they think there needs to be more walking space
Or they have kids in school or they don't have kids in school or they live near a school
Those times this these are these are people anybody that has any any emotion towards improving their community
Improving their space and and they truly value safety which is you know on the on the you know
The entry level hierarchy of needs as human beings it truly it truly uh have a passion for safety
And community safety they should they should hear this out because
Some of the things that lead to what we're going to talk about are also outside in the community
Long before they ever get into a school or any place else
So those are the type of people that should be listening and quite frankly that should be the majority of people that live in any community
Uh, you know, why should why should they listen to me?
I have been involved in a lot of that plan to pair mitigate and i've been involved in a lot of the response and recovery things
And I will tell you jackson far too often, uh, and I you know, and i've written about some of this stuff far too often
We sit in rooms and we go gosh. I wish we should have
and the reason
You know the the person that that I feel has the most subject matter expertise is usually the guy with a scar on his face
You know the the figurative scar on his face the one that's kind of been through that and felt the pain
And i've been on the negative side of this where where you know i've sat in rooms and most recently in my community here
You know we had an intersection that we knew was dangerous and we decided to take risk at that intersection
To the tune of a 200 000 stoplight that needed to be put there and unfortunately two years ago
We had a 16 year old girl that had her driver's license for two weeks get killed there
And now there's a beautiful stoplight at the intersection and this is the type of thing and
And and quite frankly i've stood in front of my city government and use this example time and time again
Uh as a call to action for for more things on the front end so that you know, it's that's painful
I mean, I I take that personally i'm an emergency room nurse
I know what the back end of this looks like when you don't get it right on the front end and it's not pretty
And then what are we going to get out of the show today? I hope some people take some notes and understand how individually
They can actually affect the things that we're going to talk about and to affect real change
Because people think that well it's too big for me or government's too big or money's limited or I don't fully understand the process
And you would be surprised in the things, you know
The direction that we're going to go with the subject that we're going to talk about you'd be surprised how one or two people if they do
Their proper homework starting with today they do their proper homework and they really have their stuff together if they present in the right way they can be
Extremely compelling to change people's minds regardless of the politics regardless of the finances
Uh, so there's a call to action
Wow, i'm i'm going to circle back regarding the traffic light because I have a I have a turnaround on a highway that is
Right before a massive hill
Where you can't see and they're coming down that that road
80 90 miles per hour because it's right outside the city and that's the turnaround we have to take
To fight traffic to get back towards the city and I have no idea what to do
So i'm excited to hear that because it's that's very close to home for me
in a very real way so
interesting the the uh, let's go into
What your vision is for those that you serve?
And 30 seconds and we'll expand beyond it. So we know it's about safety. We know it's about being able to take action now
Um, and let's let's dive in. Uh, just one more time on that. So
Um, what are you hoping to help these individuals that you serve accomplish?
Well, I want them to have a uh, a strategy
Far too often things are kind of I'll use a word that's common to me nilly-willy, right? And it's kind of a pickup game
And really what I want people to do is is in their in their large priorities of things as they move forward to address things
I want them to have a strategy
And when you can get people to take the next step that say that to have them say
This is online with with all of the other things that we find important and add it in
At that level of importance and give it that same amount of of due diligence
Once you have a strategy then you're always moving forward to to to keep it going
Always moving forward to to to keep your eye on the ball and not miss those those subtleties that you know
Like your turnaround that's been there forever and people just take it for granted until they have the big collision
Okay, i'm also going to dive into what um school administrators could do because who knows who who's listening to this and who's connected to who?
But if they get the chance to at least hear another perspective it could help them understand that they have options
Um when it comes to exploring how to how to prepare how to plan how to mitigate and how to deal with these types of situations
It could just be helpful to have your name
You know in their hands for instance before I do that to make matters a little bit light
You talked about strategy
So when I think of strategy and safety the first thing that came to mind was was a meme that I saw that said
That we were taught so well to stop drop and roll
We thought we'd for sure be on fire more often in life
I was like right um so that stop drop and roll though that that's a strategy right?
It's a strategy for for teaching children and you know, maybe works. Maybe doesn't um, but it is a strategy
It's a it's an action plan that you can do. Uh, you know if you if you are on fire
and
And uh, it you know, it's it's nice when that strategy is something that's instantly triggered in your brain
To take action in the moment that you need it
um, and so we're we're hoping to get people close enough to that reality the administrators the people in charge the people with situations that
They can take the immediate action, but I also like this traffic light aspect because we're talking about
strategy for affecting a long-term change
but doing so
um on a shorter timeline because you actually know what to do to raise the concern rather than just
Ranting about it on facebook where the right people probably won't see that
All right. So let's let's go school administration aside first. Um, this is for a for a loved one actually
Um who might be able to make make some impact with this. I'm curious what what's currently?
um
Not being done that can be done
And and uh, you know like without pointing fingers, of course
But sure and what what actions could they be taking to make sure that you know, the school has confidence that they're doing the right things to
Plan and prepare mitigate sure and I missed phase two and three. It was pretty fast, but let's do that again
Yeah, phase two or phase four and five are respond and recover right? And so
Actually, your meme is a great segue to where to where we're at because
Everything is resource driven, right?
It's and you have resource constraints and time is a resource that we can't get more of right?
You've got 24 hours in a day. I'm gonna preface one of those things. I should have said this. You're um
There was somebody who brought it got into school and I should have said that word. Oh, but there was a there was an active
concern at a campus that
Some of my nephews and nieces were at sure and
I learned that they were then you know, they were they were worried about going back to school
You know, they were worried about what what could happen
You know, I I never really had to face that fear
Growing up and so again, there's there's a long term
There's difficult effects. There's there's trauma and stress associated and these are kids who love school
Um, you know not kids who don't um and who are looking for an excuse to get out. I don't think
And i'm gonna give my my nephew and nieces have benefited out on that
But those are those are concerns. Those are things that that we should be preparing for and helping people overcome
You know, even though in this circumstance there they thank god there was no
No disaster that occurred
But again, i'm just gonna frame that a little bit because I think I don't I think a lot of adults
May not be aware
Of what children are thinking about when they see the news so often
of
situations
Violent situations scary situations that could come to pass where where they're at
That's also something to deal with
Right now. Go ahead. David. No, no, there's no there's no
There's a pile there to unpack here's how here's how this here's how the school superintendent wins
And here's how the the whole institution of a community and children win even in that bad situation
First and you already alluded to this is you have got to invest the time to
Instill muscle memory. We talked a little bit about football when we started this. I mean you can't just
Create a new play and run it and expect it to work. You got to run it over and over and over again
Before you do it in the game and far too often we trade that off
So for your for you for you to survive the immediacy of the incident, right?
Physically have everybody okay
You have to have things that the muscle memory down and institutions that have gone through this and have been successful
It's because of that muscle memory the teachers the students all that type of thing
So you have to make a commitment to that but you also have to make a commitment to
You to strategically going through if this is a good thing
To you to strategically going through if this goes really bad
You know say say that say your your nation's nephew scenario plays out in a really poor way if this goes really bad
What do we do because it doesn't stop right there. You just don't shift to go into
You know post events that are not fun to be at
You have to decide how you're going to get the community back on its feet and quite frankly children and families are the foundation to the community
And as soon as you don't feel safe or stable in your community, then you start making decisions differently
So how do you recover and there is things that you can already have in place to immediately do things?
Which and you already talked about this which is bringing in the right people from the outside
That are a little lower on the emotional scale that can start interacting with those kids and start the reassurance piece of it
And really what that is is a counseling. It's a it's a it's a crisis
Incident you know management team that comes in does the preliminary things pulls the groups together?
Let's people kind of vocalize how they're feeling and then does the follow-up with them
It's not it's not an overnight thing
But if you have that in your plan and in your process and you've actually practiced it you can do it
You've actually practiced it
Then then when a guy like me is sitting there and something happens you run through these things instead of trying to to you know
Build the airplane while you're flying it
So there here's your phenomenon. So if you want to win as a school superintendent
You really need to shift your priorities to muscle memory
And process because process will save you on the day and then you have to fight for feedback
You have to get the appropriate data and then you have to shift to that data to handle
Each and every piece because really what it's going to get down to is some people will recover faster
Some individuals will be will have longer-term effects
And you have to stay engaged with those people because that's how you get the confidence
back in the community
so
Far too often I I see school superintendents who are really trying to do the right thing
But they won't go outside the walls of the institution
They want to try to solve all the problems within the school of the system of the district
Go to your city government and tell them what you want to do your law enforcement your fire
All those people and tell them what you want to do and how you want it shaped
And tell them that you want help and then make them help you build a muscle memory
And the recovery plan at the same time because
You know as well as I do no matter how well we do this things are going to happen
And the only way to recover as a community and get back on your feet is to have an appropriate recovery plan and good muscle memory on the front
Yes, one of my one of my favorite
industries
to draw examples from
Is the sports industry and here's why?
One they're constantly they track their records. They track their performance and their metrics better than almost any system in the world
Which leads to greater performance world records being broken over and over again, right?
There's something to the system that makes a lot of sense and that makes a lot of great
Results happen. Okay
Joe burrow is dealing with a calf injury right now. He's quarterback dealing with calf injuries trying to play through it and
He's got a medical staff one of the best in the world, right?
He's got an organization internally people who can help him on what he's doing. And what's he doing?
He calls Aaron Rodgers from the New York Jets who's dealt with calf injuries
To find out what did you do?
How did you do it? What are you up to?
What things have helped what things haven't it doesn't matter
I know I know exactly what they're doing with that because I do the same thing and I see great leaders do this all the time
They're constantly looking for people who can relate to them outside of the scope
It doesn't matter if they're enemies if they're competitors
That does not matter when it comes to preparedness
You also see the military do this where they do military drills with other countries, right?
Exchanging ideas exchanging how strategies implemented. So when we when we
Pull a bubble around us, right and exclude those outside perspectives. We created dangerous precedents
for isolating around a very limited set of truths
versus collaborating
With people who can challenge the status quo a little bit who can make sure we're thinking at higher levels
Who can make sure we don't accidentally overlook especially especially when it comes to
An expert because that type of crisis management
That does not come together by chance when it comes together
Well, it comes together because of great preparation great execution. I think that's the most important thing
I think that's the most important thing when it comes to the execution
I've seen that in dealing with crisis cleanup of floods
And helping people's houses recover and going with church organizations to help out
When we use systems of organization that goes really well when you don't you've got a whole lot of chaos
On your hands and that only creates further disasters when it comes to the emotions and when it comes to the ability to actually help people
People get hurt instead of helped
I guess we could talk about why they're the barriers for asking that for that help is even from seasoned leaders, right?
These people school superintendents don't aren't just born overnight. I mean they have got a portfolio
Of stuff before they get hired to to be a school superintendent
That's true, and they're gonna have a vendor's list of type
Types of people that they can they can turn to but yeah go into that but but what but what is the barrier to asking for the health?
Have you ever heard of an hro those these high resilience organizations they
It's it's a thing out there and the medical folks have kind of picked it up as kind of a mantra and it's really it
Sounds really cool and it's got a it's got an outline to it
I'm going to narrow down to one of the core tenants, which is called deference to expertise
And these high resilient organizations understand that deferring to expertise
Is key to uh to making um, uh the organization work
So if the plumber in an organization is the expert at the time we listen to the plumber to fix the plumbing problem
And we don't override with our authority and so I think this you know where we're talking about is uh is deferring to expertise
So what are the barriers to that?
um ego uh fear of uh of overall impression
um
Uh not being not not being schooled in the art of of of managing the narrative
I think that that is a core competency that school superintendents far lack
Is you've got to practice on managing the narrative and managing the people that are naysayers, right?
Because you're always going to have critics everybody
Everybody knows where the ball should have went from the 300 level seats
They all did every guy sitting in the 300 level seats goes. Why didn't he throw it to him?
He's wide open. Well when you got two 700 pound people laying on your back
It's hard to do right because you're not in the you're not in the game
And and and so you have to defer to expertise and I think there's it takes a little bit of courage a lot of courage
It actually takes a lot of courage and you got to have a level of self-confidence when you go into these jobs
That you can't care what everybody thinks you just have to care about doing the right thing
Absolutely, and and when you bring in an outsider you you got the pressure of that's your decision
Um, and so you also have to you know, take the blame so to speak
Um, if people you know, and whether there's something to blame or it's just an audience of people who want to blame you
Um, you know the any action you take uh, and unfortunately becomes a political matter
Um, you know more than about the the good but as leaders we have a responsibility to take the heat
You know, that's that's the point of being a leader. You don't you don't get to escape that
Um, you know, the lives are more important than my position. Um, you know, and maybe that's easier said than done
Um, it is but uh, I will say as entrepreneurs we have to face that on a regular basis
Um, so it's not something where i'm unfamiliar with
Let's dive into um, you know, normally we ask about worst case scenarios in business best case scenarios
Um in business, um, i'm going to change that up a little bit
What is your best experience? Um in terms of dealing with?
um
crisis management
um, but but more so I guess
getting getting
Helping somebody catch the vision of pulling you in to be involved
Um, you know with the process what what did that look like? How did that unfold?
Well, that's that's that's actually easy because it's most recent I could go all the way back to my military time
but most recently
Uh in my community here, um, there's not a lot of me
And so we were highly we were in high demand during covid
And and I had an instance I was working in an institution that didn't really value
Infectious disease doctors or emergency managers, even though we were kind of the people that were hired to handle it
So I decided to move on because I felt my skills could be utilized elsewhere and the people that hired me were our local our local
Universities and that not only did they hire me
But they made me the commander of covid and they made me the chancellor of covid
They actually said it out loud
You were the chancellor of covid and told everybody in its institution all covid things run through day
Now i'm going to make you really smile because we're both sports guys
I had to tell the track team that they couldn't compete because they weren't going to be safe where they were going
Now was I very popular?
Oh, I I highly doubt that I had I had hurdles and I have a feeling your action came out a few times
Oh, yeah, go ahead
No, absolutely
And I and I had I had actually very wonderful young people that were that were taking into their hands some action and wanted a
Further explanation and they got it
But I had a lot of a lot of shot put throwers and pole vaulters and you know
And you know 100 meter guys in my office going
What are you talking about now? I had to outline all this stuff for them. Did they bring the shot putt and did they bring the
well, they they they they brought all of the they brought all of the um, the uh,
Endocrine pieces that make up athletes they brought it all so
You could you could smell the power in the room and I totally appreciate it
you know, I've been to combat and I've led in combat and I understand the mentality and
Sometimes we don't have time to do the why but in this case I did have time to do the why and we kind of broke
That down and and we got and we got through that but I but I wasn't popular but the institution
Navigated covid for the 13 months that I kind of got them to a point where they could take it on their own
They navigated covid in a way that our professionals in the community said we were the safest place
In the community and it was because they took their hands off it and let me do it
And I and I was across the street from other institutions that that thought that the title on their chest
Anointed them to be experts in infectious disease and pandemic
Which quite frankly there was none in the whole world unless you were you know, you were 110 years old and you'd live through the spanish flu
And that deference to expertise changed everything
For that institution because they took their hands off it and was everybody comfortable with it
Was everybody comfortable with it? No, was ever did everybody fall in love with dave? No
Is there still people today that think that I did certain things wrong?
uh
Absolutely, but there was one leader
There's one later and I can tell you we didn't lose anybody nobody died from covid
Everybody kept we stayed in school and you know in the in the makeshift way that we did that we kept the school running
Uh, you know, we we managed the finances and we only missed one athletic event
You know, we built safety around the athletic events to do that stuff
So I think that uh, I think that we did a dog-gone-good job
But it's it's in a testament to the to the school to bring me in and let me do my work
So how did it how to go about in terms of them finding you hiring you?
um
Well, I don't you know, i'm in billings montana. So it's not a gigantic place
So those those of us that uh that are you know active in the community and those type of things
It's pretty easy to get networked. I mean, it's not you know, it's not
You know, I think the the mayor has me in his phone
And if he has a question he calls and and we have a disaster manager for our county is a wonderful guy
You know, we we work that way
um
And then you know some of its word of mouth, but people have to know your body of work, too
You know and I and I had a body I had a body of work
you need to know who you're bringing in and and what they bring in and
It's our responsibility to be a quick study on what makes whatever entity that we're going to work with
What makes them run because ultimately you can you can cripple an organization by making two decisions and taking away their economic drivers
and those type of things so
Entrepreneurs, you know people that run businesses when they when you have a guy like me in your life or school superintendents
You have to make clear up front what your um what your priorities are as far as your your basics, right?
What you know, yes, this is yeah, this is uh, this is a um
Um, but you know the this is when you're activating the plan on here are the core function
Here's the heart and lungs the brain and the central nervous system that we need to run the body
So please don't disrupt those but other than that
This is what our desired outcome is and you've got to learn how to move back and forth through that
So it helps you have been
Have led an executive at an executive level and to be as a disaster manager because you can have some level of empathy for the
Person that's that's got to keep the entity going
Absolutely. I love the analogy
Very appropriate and uh also helps it you have that medical experience as well as the military to understand that too at a very deep level
Um, let's go back to the traffic light
Right. You got something you got a local hazard
Maybe a series of speed bumps that you'd like to see put in to protect a neighborhood or it's a a stop sign
Um, you know, that's that's fallen over
Needs to get reported. Maybe that's a little bit simpler
Um, but even in that situation like i'd be like, oh cool california rule
Um, you know, like I won't I won't like I have my I want to get places too and things
So I don't always think about safety first
But if I now want to be a little more responsible and figure out what to do there. Do you just
uh
Call 211. Do you call 911? Do you post on twitter about it? What does it look like dave? What do we do as citizens?
I I will tell you i've had the most successes just take away my expertise and just make me a citizen
I've had the most success
Every elected official has an email. They either have a staff that you can get to or you can get to them directly
And a lot of people think oh, they won't listen to me or it's not worth writing
If and and i Jackson, you know the little bit of time that we spent together
I think that because you're you're successful at what you do
You cannot get away without without wanting real
actionable and integral data
And it's all there. It's really all there
And if we get real actionable and integral data, don't be throwing variables in there and trying to swing elephants off of cliffs
But but have have real actionable data and you put that together
And then you can draw it to a negative outcome and say here's here's the risk
It is really I don't care what who the elected official is. I don't care. What's an r a d and l a u and i
I don't care what where they're affiliated
If they are truly founded in public health and safety, which is why we elect our official
That is the first number one thing all the way from the president down to the to the mayor of the smallest town
If they are truly founded in that and you can build a small coalition
To include all the people that live around this u-turn where you're at
If you build a small coalition people and you stay on message with good data and you take all the emotion out of it
You'd be surprised how fast things move
Show up show up at a city council meeting show up at a you know, like a county supervisors meeting
Uh with a with a few pictures in your hand and some data and your concern
And watch what happens stuff happens
Let's talk about that a little bit deeper now. Thank you. Those are good aspects and let's make sure people understand
Um, you know the the vernacular, um, so small coalition
You're referring to getting some friends family neighbors. Is that what you mean by that or yeah?
Yeah, and it it's pretty magical when uh when you can actually go how small how big
Um
As big as it needs to be to cover the area of concern. So if you have if you've got
400 people that are affected by this intersection that you that you described
All 400 people need to be given an opportunity to put their voice against it
Sign on to it be in an email group and and that's just knocking on the doors or doing a small mailer or store
You know, uh, just hanging stuff off the doorknobs and those type of things
Because even if you get 10 now you have 40 people
And when you have 40 people from an area that is represented by a person
They're they're automatically awake because in these small places right these small whatever here. We have uh, we have city councilmen
We have five
Five wards and buildings and I have I have two councilmen that represent my ward
And I know them both and one actually lives quite near me
If I come with 40 people in this ward and I say we're worried about that
It's going to go to the top of the list because that's actually that's actually enough of a constituency that can shift
Um that can shift votes because a few of these wards in town the last election
Some of those elections were won by two and three votes literally two and three votes
So
That's what usually moves the needle
That makes sense
Hey, um, and I appreciate that you went you went big enough to to make the needle move
Um, you know and and therefore your the good news is if you need to run a mile and you run three
Um, you know, you're without a shadow of a doubt
Um, you made it your mile even if you set a goal to run five
Um, you know, there's there's ways to to make sure that that
That you win now you mentioned uh gathering data in this type of uh situation
What do you do? Do you how do you gather the the data? What type of data would you gather?
Well, so we're gonna like we'll talk about intersections because we're talking about the intersection. Yeah
Actually, you don't have to gather the data. You just need to go get the data. That's mandatory to be gathered
Every year because you can't every every year your city gathers data on
traffic rates with some streets
Speed limits they gather all of that
and and Jackson the best thing in my job is making people live by their own rules because
everything comes
Everything comes to a screeching hall when you go it's not dave's idea
It's your rules and then they then everybody sits up straight what rule, you know
I know also they haven't really delved into it and you go. Yeah, look your your your metrics moved from here
To here in the last two years and based on your rules because your metrics are here
You have to do this you it requires a speed bump. It requires, um sprinkler system. It requires city lights
Far too often. How do you get that data though?
Ask also, everything is for you. All you got to do is ask your representative
Just go to go to your city or county office the clerks or the or the administrators and say
I want data on
On traffic rates in this intersection. I want data on you know, I want to I want the last 10 years of data
On the traffic rates on you know for your for your situation
Just ask for the last 10 years of data for that street
And then and then you know because you live there if any improvements have been done on that and ask for the accident rates
They have they have got they've got an overlay with dots and they can tell you exactly how many accidents minor
Minor intermediate and major accident major accidents usually classified with fatality
How many things have been there and i'll bet you bet in a small amount of time you can say hey listen
When we had this much traffic, we had this many accidents things have changed and you've changed nothing
And we're concerned about it
Because yeah, I mean, it's good. It's you're ultimately I mean, this is what being a lawyer is kind of like
You know and and so my question for you, you know my my empathetic question for those in my shoes
Is but dave like that sounds hard like how long you know if i'm at the city office, isn't it gonna take me?
You know a couple hours
for them to get that type of data and
I mean whether it does or not. I think that might all answer my own question
Is it important to affect the change?
Yeah, right, but go ahead dave what you tell me and and you know this because let's do the entrepreneur thing
I can throw two charts in front of you a Pareto chart and a scatter diagram
And you can already start thinking about the course of your business
And and whether or not the trajectory is right or if it's wrong
And and whether or not the trajectory is right or if it's wrong or you're going to stare really hard at it
And you're going to go
What is that variable out there and somebody has to explain that you're going to make them explain it to make sure that it's legitimate data
Once you're comfortable with all that
You know where you need to go, right?
And and so and so people that have to make these decisions to fix your turnaround by the way the people that have to make
These decisions
They can argue with you
They can say it's emotional they can tell you i've driven there a thousand times and i've never had a problem they can say that
But they can't argue with the data because inanimate objects you can't fight with
right
And so you have to give them an inanimate object that compels them because when you put the human in there
They'll just fight you up, you know, and that's that's when it gets ugly and it's there's division
Just take the emotion out of it and and and build the data
But the only the only thing is is sometimes you'll get the data and it's not very compelling and then you go
Oh, well, maybe I maybe I don't have an argument
But in your situation, I don't think you're gonna you're gonna find that. Yeah
Oh, that's really cool. Um, you know, I never I didn't know that you had that type of uh,
Of local power in your hands if you're willing to do the work
And so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say this is easy. This doesn't take time. But again, you have to weigh in your own life
Is it is it worth tolerating?
A potential accident or potential threat, um, you know to your family and to elsewhere or are you going to?
exercise your civic duty
Um and take action knowing knowing what you you know about the situation. So that was very powerful. Um, get your
You know explain the risk
Create a small coalition in my case. Somebody lives in an apartment. Um, I can also take this to the apartment
The complex those who run the apartment complex
I don't have to go distribute those flyers by myself and if I take them a flyer
Prepared I take them the data prepared. I take them the images or video
I guess a qr code to a video to watch of a near traffic incident there and stake out
You know for a couple hours during traffic bam, like that would be super easy to catch
Now they have all the emotional intelligence as well as the logical intelligence to say, you know what?
We'll run this for you. Um, you know, we'll send an email out to everybody at least right?
That's that's the type of things that i'm just one person giving one example
I'm the joe or the john i'm the john doe in this situation
Um, so anybody can take those types of actions
Um knowing what we now know so dave thank you for uh for preparing me for my own situation. That's right
Thank you for uh, just I don't know just uncovering
Great leadership, too
Honestly, i've never thought about um
Presidents of the united states and public officials in the terms of the their number one priority is public health and safety
Um, I grew up in a very sheltered world
I grew up with health and safety. Um, you know something that that uh, I think I get to take for granted
Um, you know more than other people have had the opportunity to so i've never looked at leadership
From that lens even though I think it's probably like first thing on it's obviously first thing on your mind
It's almost instinct for you at this point. So um, you've opened my eyes in a lot of great ways
I'm sure other people listening in have had the same same thing happen
So I just want to thank you for being here with us on vision pros for sharing your vision if people want to reach out to you
Um, they can reach out to you on linkedin
Um, and through your website, is there any other form of of outreach that you prefer?
No, if you're curious about the you know more about me or what I do the website's great
It's pretty comprehensive. It's all there
Uh, you can buzz through it pretty quick and you can reach out to me and and schedule some time
It's just it's just free time to have the same conversation that you and I've just had so that's great
All right. Well then in the comments i'm gonna put here reach out to dave
I'm gonna drop your linkedin link that way people can can have access to it on there guys if you have questions
Observations things that you'd like to discuss scenarios drop a comment. Uh, let us know. We'll make sure dave sees that
Um, and uh, if you also want to be on the show if you got a vision that's important to share
Most of the visionaries we host are entrepreneurs, but they're not the only exclusive access to visions in the world
Um, you may have a cause that matters
You may have something that that should be well known and and uh, you may have a hard time getting that vision out
And if you do feel free to use our website
This is all about creating change globally for good. This is about helping others. So vision pros
Thanks for always tuning in and we look forward to seeing you soon. We will see you on the next episode
Everybody have a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you for
Thank you for being here today
That's empty and I my bad Cynthia
Being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to vision pros live
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as we go through the show
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well
We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself