1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,680 But how do we empower people to be ready before the event happens? 2 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:12,320 Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship podcast where we give you real tools to 3 00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:18,320 train ultimate humor performance both on and off the emergency scene. I'm your host Kevin Housley, 4 00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:24,400 let's get to it. 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So bruteforce training.com 11 00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:59,840 and enter the code firefightercraftsmanship for 10% off your entire cart. 12 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:05,200 Hey everybody, Kevin Housley here excited for another episode of the Firefighter Craftsmanship 13 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:10,400 podcast. Today we're going to talk about building resilience before you need it. 14 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:15,280 If we look at a historical perspective of the fire service at least since I've been involved in 15 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:21,760 fire service or emergency services starting in 2005, the narrative around resiliency, mental health, 16 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:29,920 things like PTSD, recovery, mental fitness is all pretty new. And if I already think back to when 17 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:35,360 I was a probie sitting at the firehouse kitchen table, there was really no conversations happening 18 00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:40,720 around resilience or mental fitness other than, yeah, and you just got to suck it up. Like we're 19 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:46,000 going to see some bad stuff sometimes and you need to figure out what ways to deal with that. I remember 20 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,040 the interview process had a question specifically about how are you going to deal with tough days 21 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:56,880 at work, but it was all call based and related to the calls. And from even having that question in 22 00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:02,480 the interview process, it really started to give permission to us as emergency services personnel 23 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:09,360 or firefighters specifically. It allowed us to start kind of considering that and realizing, hey, 24 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:14,640 this might be kind of an important thing. And over the last 18 years, that's really kind of grown 25 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:20,800 into a much healthier conversation, but we still honestly have a long ways to go. And a lot of 26 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:25,040 organizations when we talk about resilience or the organizations that we're fortunate enough to work 27 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:30,320 with with firefighter craftsmanship, they do have tools and processes in place, or at least they're 28 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:36,800 starting to work towards that things like peer support teams, professional organizations that 29 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:42,560 they're working with psychologists that are maybe not necessarily on staff, but on retainer where 30 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:48,400 people can use it, EAP programs through their health insurance, all really, really positive stuff. 31 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:55,200 But when we look at most emergency services organizations or any organizations, mental 32 00:02:55,200 --> 00:03:02,880 health programs and processes, almost all of them are built on a reactionary state, 33 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:08,080 other than physical fitness. But physical fitness for a lot of our organizations is just something 34 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:14,320 that we're either mandated or encouraged to do. And some of you, what we've seen across the country 35 00:03:14,320 --> 00:03:20,240 teaching classes, you literally have $0 of budget for physical fitness equipment, you have to bring 36 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:25,440 it in from your house or round up some dollars from everybody at the firehouse and buy your own 37 00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:31,840 equipment. And you do you figure out how to make do. But that that's really what it's about is 38 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:37,600 like, Hey, you guys should work out fitness is really, really important. It's, you know, cancer 39 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:42,560 is certainly in the conversation now, but still a lot of departments site cardiac is being the 40 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:47,120 number one killer of firefighters, and we really need to be physically fit. And that's where that 41 00:03:47,120 --> 00:03:52,480 conversation starts. So or stops. So today, we're going to talk about building resilience, 42 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:59,200 both physical and mental resilience, but not in a state where like, Oh, man, I hope I can deal with 43 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:04,560 whatever the traumas are that I'm going to experience or see along the way. But how do we empower 44 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:11,120 people to be ready before the event happens? And there's some pretty good stuff out there right 45 00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:16,720 now that Hey, maybe the biggest stressor on our people and on ourselves isn't actually the trauma 46 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:22,800 that we see based on 911 response. Maybe it's the things that are happening from organizational 47 00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:34,480 culture, firehouse culture, culture off the job standards and unforeseen or unprecedented 48 00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:40,000 requirements that we place upon ourselves and the chronic stress that's associated with that. 49 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:45,280 So let's dive into resilience and what does that actually mean and how can we build resilience 50 00:04:45,280 --> 00:04:53,280 before we actually need it? So the definition of resilience from Webster is capable of withstanding 51 00:04:53,280 --> 00:05:01,040 shock without permanent deformation or rupture, or tending to recover from or adjust easily to 52 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:09,600 misfortune or change. So basically, can it bend and not break and spring back to form? And that's 53 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:13,920 a pretty good place for us to start. But I'd encourage you to think about what is resilience 54 00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:20,160 or being resilient actually mean to you personally? And for me, I think resilience is not an avoidance 55 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:25,840 of pain or necessarily necessarily seeking it out either. Yes, we need to put ourselves in 56 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:32,880 compromised situations in places like the gym and or a cold bath or maybe even heat exposure, 57 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:38,000 things like that, where we're intentionally stressing our body. And we can control those 58 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:42,480 those factors, we definitely need to be stressing our body and basic skills training as well, 59 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:48,400 but not 100% of the time. So not an avoidance of pain or necessarily seeking it out either of just 60 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:54,960 how can I suffer better longer? But instead really resilience me as the ability to bend morph adapt 61 00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:01,920 to various situations both on the job and off the job, meaning in the firehouse, at home, 62 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:06,800 at the kitchen table trying to help a kid with homework, or even out in the community, right? 63 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:11,440 When you're driving down the road and somebody cuts you off, are you being resilient and how you 64 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:18,000 react to that? Does that resilience change? Is it the morning after shift change? Is it a couple 65 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:24,320 days after? Are you getting mandoed every third fourth day and working way over your 56 hour 66 00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:29,520 work week? Are you working 80 hour work weeks? How does that impact your resilience? The reality 67 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:33,520 is things are going to sting on this job. We're going to run some nasty calls and that's what 68 00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:38,960 we've raised our hand and said that we would do. And we need to be prepared in our physical fitness, 69 00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:44,240 our mental fitness, and our basic skills to be prepared to figure out those situations, 70 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:49,600 overcome them, and try to do the best good that we possibly can for the customer. So we know that 71 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:54,160 things are going to sting. But we also know things are going to sting in relationships. We know that 72 00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:59,040 as a leader, as you work your way up as a leader, whether you're promoted or not, if you're a leader 73 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:04,800 in the firehouse or in the police department or an EMS division, you're going to have to have 74 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:09,760 rough conversations and you're going to have to have resilience to have those things. You're going 75 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:15,680 to experience feedback that's maybe negative, maybe undue criticism. You're going to have to 76 00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:22,640 have resilience on how to overcome some of those things. So it really also empowers us by really 77 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:26,880 when we start to dive into what does resilience mean to me. It empowers us to be okay asking for 78 00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:34,400 help. We can use things like physical fitness, mindfulness, sauna, cold exposure, yoga, nidra, 79 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:41,200 sleep replacement. And then certainly we can use professional help with psychologists, EAP, 80 00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:47,600 peer support teams. And we can also use those relationships that we have both at work. So 81 00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:52,080 your crew, hopefully you have healthy positive relationships or you're working towards positive 82 00:07:52,080 --> 00:08:00,160 relationships with your crew, your shift, and also off the job. And so are those relationships off 83 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:04,960 the job, a positive force for you that are helping you build resilience or they taken out of that 84 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:11,760 resiliency pot. We really need to make sure that we're, you know, including dumping the bad stuff 85 00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:17,200 so we become tougher and more pliable along the way. And when I talk about tougher, it doesn't 86 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:26,400 mean that I'm tougher in being able to bend even further and not be able to have anything bother 87 00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:34,240 me and to lose all empathy, to have less humility, be standoffish or disengage with the job. That's 88 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:38,240 not what I'm talking about. So we don't want to be so tough that we're actually really, 89 00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:43,200 really brittle. We want to become tougher that it's like, Hey, I start to identify those internal 90 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:48,560 cues of, All right, it's time to go talk to my, my psychologists that I can work with or my peer 91 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:54,320 support team or my counselor, or I need to make sure I take a rest day to day because I'm feeling 92 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:59,600 really rough and I don't need to get after it in the gym so much. I'm going to go actually 93 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:05,440 take a nap instead. Or the vice versa, right? Like I'm taking tons and tons of naps. I can't 94 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:11,200 ever figure out how to get unsleepy. I'm really apathetic. We need to figure out how to get 95 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:17,920 tougher there too. So when we're, we're overly parasympathetic, when we're in apathetic or depression, 96 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:22,720 we figure out ways to get a little bit tougher where we can kind of write the ship and get back 97 00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:27,120 into that good level playing field within that window of tolerance, like we talked about in 98 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:33,200 episode one. So how can individuals, how can we as individuals build resilience before we need it? 99 00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:37,360 I think the biggest thing it starts is exactly what we're talking about is what's a healthy 100 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:43,840 perspective of what resilience means to me? How do I define resilience? How do I track if I'm being 101 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:50,320 resilient? How do I give my, my self permission to not always be completely resilient? Like some 102 00:09:50,320 --> 00:09:55,600 stuff that we do on this job should bother you, right? But it shouldn't bother you for long, 103 00:09:55,600 --> 00:10:00,320 long periods of time. And there are tools and resources out there to help you get rid of that 104 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:06,720 stuff. But if nothing bothers you on this job, that's also a serious indicator that you probably 105 00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:10,400 need to go talk to somebody and use some of these resources that we're talking about, 106 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:15,920 or potentially even look for a career change. I think we also need to have a healthy perspective 107 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:20,400 of what this job actually entails. We know that this job is going to try us. There's going to be 108 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:25,840 days that are really, really, really hard. And there is a time to suck it up, pull up your boots 109 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:30,880 and get after it. And then once that event is over, all right, now let's use our healthy 110 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:36,160 things to get rid of that trauma and get rid of that stress, which doesn't necessarily include 111 00:10:36,160 --> 00:10:42,160 the whiskey bottle. Okay. So what are those things healthy perspective of what this job is, is what 112 00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:47,120 it's going to entail and what the possibilities are. The emergency services are tasked with doing 113 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:53,760 lots and lots of stuff. And if we look at, you know, 2023, compared to 2005, there's a whole new 114 00:10:53,760 --> 00:10:58,720 risk that we have to deal with out in the community on multiple different factors. 115 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:05,200 So really building resilience before we need it starts with awareness and awareness is foundational. 116 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:10,480 Where am I today? What are maybe some of those hot points that I need to address? What are some 117 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:15,760 things that I'm pretty concerned about? And how do I address them? What's that conversation? Once 118 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:21,440 I start having awareness about where, where am I actually at today? Where is that conversation in my 119 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:27,440 head? And is that a positive or negative conversation? We need to have sounding boards, we need to have 120 00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:32,720 quality relationships, both at work and at home. And so build those things. And if you don't have 121 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:37,760 those, call an academy mate that you went through or call somebody that you know from another fire 122 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:42,720 department, right? Reach out to us. We'll try to connect you with people in your area that, 123 00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:46,480 that are doing positive things. Hit us up on social media. We'll build a community of people 124 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:51,280 that are doing positive stuff in the human performance space. And you'll have plenty of 125 00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:56,720 people to use as sounding board and to fact check you and give you good tools and resources along 126 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:03,600 the way. Building routines that are healthy with sleep, nutrition, hydration, also including 127 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:10,480 quiet time rest days, which and quiet time specifically without your phone. And so we've 128 00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:15,280 talked a little bit already about the impact of social media that data is out there. We know that 129 00:12:15,280 --> 00:12:21,280 there are thousands of the smartest PhDs and MDs that are working for these major social media 130 00:12:21,280 --> 00:12:26,400 companies. And they're trying to figure out how to make their platforms even more irresistible, 131 00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:31,360 because your eyeballs are the commodity that they're selling to advertisers. So that's a really 132 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:36,400 hard battle to win by ourselves. So just realize like you need to make sure you put the phone down, 133 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:42,080 you put the computer down, you turn the TV off and you have some good quiet time without that. 134 00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:48,400 Things like mindfulness practices, sitting in a cold tub, working on a breath routine, 135 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:52,960 just going outside, going for a 30 minute walk, all those things are really, really good. So what 136 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:58,400 are your routines that are healthy? And as soon as you start to deviate from those routines, 137 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:04,160 do you realize that that's happening? And can instantly recognize that of, hey, I don't, 138 00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:09,920 I used to take a walk every single day. And now I don't, I haven't taken one in two weeks. 139 00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:15,040 That's probably a good red flag for you to tie into of, hey, something's off and I need to figure 140 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:20,400 out what it is and how to get rid of it, and then get back into a good coherent state. 141 00:13:22,560 --> 00:13:26,720 Take a day off every once in a while, not necessarily calling in sick or but definitely 142 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:33,120 use your paid time off. So take a day off, take a rest day from the gym, just enjoy it, 143 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:38,320 spend some time with your family, go on a hike, go skiing, go to a hockey game, whatever it is 144 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:43,680 that you really enjoy doing, just take a day off. Focused physical fitness training that 145 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:50,640 balances how you are actually feeling. And so meaning if I get off work and we worked at 48 and 146 00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:55,120 didn't get any sleep, I probably shouldn't go to the gym and get after it on the air bike. 147 00:13:55,120 --> 00:14:01,200 That's not going to be a good choice. And so yes, that's going to help in some circumstances to get 148 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:06,080 rid of stress, getting after it on an air bike. But in that situation there with sleep deprivation 149 00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:12,000 and all that stuff, that is not what my body needs is another acute nasty stressor. It needs 150 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:17,760 rest and recovery. And then maybe on day two, day three, I can get back into how that goes. So 151 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:23,600 what is your focus physical fitness training look like? And are you intentionally using things like 152 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:30,880 period, periodization that really, really can help you be focused and stay on tasks. So you're not 153 00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:37,600 just always lifting one muscle group overuse injuries, things like that. Use the resources that 154 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:43,040 you have before you need them. This is a huge one. So hopefully most of your departments out there 155 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:48,560 have peer support teams, peer support groups. And they also have professionals that you can 156 00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:53,200 that you can use. So use those people and go talk to them and figure out what other resources 157 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:57,840 of talk therapy isn't for you. That's great. Figure out something that is but use the resources 158 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:02,560 that you have available. And if they aren't available to you, then do the hard work and create 159 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:07,120 them because there are not only do you need them, but other people on your fire department need them 160 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:10,800 and your communities that you serve both internally and externally need that. 161 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:15,680 Breathing and we're going to talk about breathing a whole lot on this podcast 162 00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:20,240 and making sure that you're breathing right all the time. Okay. So we talked a little bit about 163 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:24,160 that on the window of tolerance and gave you a little bit of breath protocol. So check out episode 164 00:15:24,160 --> 00:15:30,000 one window of tolerance. So give you a good breath protocol to just down regulate. But how are you 165 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:33,040 breathing? How are you breathing when you're sitting there watching a football game? How are 166 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:37,680 you breathing when you're watching TV? How are you breathing when you're warming up working out? 167 00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:42,960 How are you breathing when you're having that tough conversation at home or at work and start to be 168 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:48,000 tie it back to awareness is foundational and figure out, Oh man, I start to hyperventilate 169 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:54,560 when I get in those situations. Okay. Be aware of the conversation that's happening in your head. 170 00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:58,960 So the most important conversation that happens is within that six inches between your ears. 171 00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:04,880 And really, are you talking to yourself or are you listening to yourself? And we really want 172 00:16:04,880 --> 00:16:09,440 to make sure that we're talking to ourself that we're controlling that inner voice. I like to 173 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:14,160 call it the drunk roommate that lives between our ears. So are we controlling that voice or 174 00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:18,960 we just listening to that voice and that voice more often than not as negative. So if we can 175 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:24,720 control that voice, now we can spin that into a positive situation and positive outlook on things 176 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:31,280 and a positive internal narrative builds resilience by itself. Now, if you're in a position as a 177 00:16:31,280 --> 00:16:37,520 formal leader and you're promoted, or all of you are informal leaders, so everybody here is a leader 178 00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:43,680 for sure. So how can we as leaders build cultural or team resilience at our level of influence? 179 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:48,880 And I don't care if you're a probie with one day on the job, or you're a fire chief with 40 years 180 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:55,280 on the job, you both have tremendous amounts of influence. One of you has more impact than influence. 181 00:16:56,400 --> 00:17:02,160 As Chief Brush talks about, you know, if a fire chief makes a decision and puts it out to the 182 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:07,760 members, like that has tremendous impact, but it doesn't necessarily have influence. They're 183 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:12,880 going to do it because they were told to do it. Where a junior member who's really getting after 184 00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:17,680 it and has has a good positive outlook on things and is building programs and providing tools 185 00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:23,200 and doing the hard lonely work and including other people, they have a ton of influence. They might 186 00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:29,040 actually have the most influences depending on the size of an organization. So as leaders, I think 187 00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:35,920 if we can establish the culture of where we are as a as a as people first, and then where are we as a 188 00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:41,840 crew, as a shift, as a station, however your department works, we create a culture where it's 189 00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:46,880 okay to talk about mental fitness, talk about mental health, to use each other to build positive 190 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:52,400 relationships to make these as as good as we possibly can be. So are you building a culture 191 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:57,760 where it's okay to talk about this stuff? How about your fire department is okay to talk about 192 00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:04,320 mental health, mental fitness, resiliency, or are you met instantly with negative connotation of, 193 00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:09,760 hey, you just need to suck it up. So that's probably a culture that we really need to work hard on 194 00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:16,560 changing. Realize that frustration is a normal human emotion. And it typically means that people 195 00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:21,200 actually care, which is a really good thing. Frustration over really long periods of time that 196 00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:26,160 never goes away is toxic. It's toxic for you. If you're frustrated all the time, that's toxic 197 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:31,760 emotion for you. It's toxic for the people around you, and it's only going to get worse. So use the 198 00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:37,680 tools that are available to you. And those tools can be free, like a breathing practice, in and 199 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:42,080 out through your nose, you can work on box breathing, you can work on cadence breathing, 200 00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:45,680 anything like that. And again, lots more resources coming on how to use breathing 201 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:53,760 for human performance. Got to establish healthy parameters around conflict and define what conflict 202 00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:58,960 means for each member. Some people don't shy away from conflict, but they have bad delivery. 203 00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:03,200 Some people don't shy away from conflict, they have great delivery. And some people really 204 00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:08,160 shirk from conflict and they just let stuff fester until it blows up, or they just remove 205 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:13,280 themselves completely and either leave that shift leave that crew, maybe even leave the fire 206 00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:18,960 department because conflict is not welcome. So how are you addressing conflict? How do you 207 00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:23,840 deal with conflict? Do you look at conflict as a positive or negative right when I say that word? 208 00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:30,800 What is that emotional attachment to that word conflict? And as a crew, as a team figure out 209 00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:35,920 how are you going to address conflict? How you know, who's who's allowed to initiate conflict? 210 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:40,880 Can the most junior member initiate conflict with the chief or department if they don't agree with 211 00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:45,920 something in a positive and respectful way, but say, Hey, chief, I don't I have some concerns 212 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:50,160 with this and they are boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, how is that going to be received? I'm not 213 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:54,400 sure very many fire departments, that's going to be received very well. And that's an opportunity 214 00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:57,520 for us just at the crew level to really kind of start to change that narrative. 215 00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:06,320 As a group, come up with a clear cut why you exist as a company, as a team, as a crew, why are you in 216 00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:10,880 the job that you're in? And this will this is a little bit easier when you do this as a group 217 00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:15,040 exercise, but you also should do it as an individual exercise. And there's a whole section on this 218 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:19,600 and our presiliance for the emergency scene class. And all that information is going to be in the 219 00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:24,960 show notes. But look at how why are you there? Why do you get up and go to work every single day? 220 00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:29,280 And what are those identifying principles that actually define who you are as a human, 221 00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:35,520 not who you are as an emergency service as a cop, as an EMT as a paramedic as a firefighter, 222 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:40,960 or as a sport coach, whatever, whatever you are, what are the actual things that identify you? 223 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:45,840 Really important that we understand that. And we can go back to those things. So that way, 224 00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:51,280 when we experience struggle, and we do have to have resilience, we can rest on those identifying 225 00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:56,800 principles, and we really know who we are, more to come on identity for sure, in relation to sport 226 00:20:56,800 --> 00:21:01,840 psychology. When we talk about identity as a group, really allow those people around you to kind of 227 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:07,920 drive that conversation and figure out who do we want to be as a crew. And just listen, you know, 228 00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:11,600 really, what do we want to be what what identifies us and how are we going to attract if we're meeting 229 00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:15,280 those metrics or those marks. And I think you're going to be really surprised at the positive 230 00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:20,640 conversations that come out of that. And the reasons why people show up every day. And once we can 231 00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:24,400 make that connection, and we understand what the identifying principles are of each person on our 232 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:28,960 crew. And then we also understand what the identifying principles are us as a company. 233 00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:35,120 We can really start to grow leaps and bounds, which builds greater resist resilience before 234 00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:42,640 we're ever going to need it. Clear cut expectations is a huge one. So ambiguity creates a lot of 235 00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:47,680 strife and pain and stress in people's lives. So when things aren't very clear as to what's 236 00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:52,480 expected, who's doing what role clarity, things like that, you're going to have people that are 237 00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:58,880 very, very stressed out, which leads to lower overall resilience. So talk about expectations 238 00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,760 from from every rank level, if you can only control that at your crew level, that's fine. 239 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:09,360 What's expected of the most junior member, all the way up to the officer in charge, 240 00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:12,880 and then hold each other accountable to that hold yourself accountable to that. 241 00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:17,920 These need to be able to grow, change, and progress along the way. So these things that we're going 242 00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,800 to write them down, we're going to post them, we're going to share them, we're going to give them to 243 00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:25,760 people that are working overtime or trades on our crew. We're going to create an environment that 244 00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:30,240 it's okay to kind of challenge. We're going to have a good positive mentality, we're going to know 245 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:34,240 who we exist, we're going to know how we measure why we exist, and we're going to know how we measure 246 00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,640 those metrics. And we're going to invite those people into that because they're the guests with 247 00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:44,320 us that day. And we're going to really establish that culture. So expectations are going to know 248 00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:49,280 what to expect of me, and then also what I expect of them, and we eliminate that ambiguity. And then 249 00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:53,760 that way on the emergency scene, we can get after it and do what we do because we've already had 250 00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:59,360 those conversations. And finally, I think, you know, as a company or as an organization, you know, 251 00:22:59,360 --> 00:23:05,520 sweat hard work within areas of competency. And for us as firefighters, or us as emergency 252 00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:10,720 responders, basic skills is really where we like to train. We really, really like to train in 253 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:14,800 competency because it's very, very important when that 901 call happens, we got to be ready for 254 00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:21,120 whatever that 901 call is. And we need to come up with a solution for the customer. And so sweat 255 00:23:21,120 --> 00:23:26,560 hard work doesn't only mean necessarily on the drill ground, but in this connotation, I'm going 256 00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:31,600 to say competency, we got to be competent in how we communicate, we got to be competent within our 257 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:36,640 roles. And we got to be competent for the customers, both internally and externally, so own your 258 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:41,840 position, and be competent. And if you're nervous about something, then ask for help. I think if 259 00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:46,880 we have some good humility, and we say, Hey, I'm really nervous about if I have to throw this 260 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:52,640 ladder by myself, can you come out and teach me something and help me? And if you meet resistance 261 00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:57,600 with that, well, they probably are in the same way. So have a good healthy conversation about, well, 262 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:03,600 why won't you come and help me? Maybe we can learn this together. Or I bet you're going to be surprised 263 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,920 by the that salty old dude is going to get out there and he's going to show you something that's 264 00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,760 pretty awesome. And maybe you're going to start to change that training mentality within your 265 00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:17,360 company right there, going to connect with those people. So in conclusion, resilience to me is 266 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:23,040 very, very important. And we need to keep tabs on this from when we start the job, all the way 267 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:29,520 until you retire, however long that is, or you decide to leave this career, firefighting specifically, 268 00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:36,000 resilience is a very, very foundational concept that you're going to have to play off of for your 269 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:41,440 entire career. But I don't want you to only think about resilience of, well, I'm going to see some 270 00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:47,840 bad stuff on 911 calls, we need to be resilient and all aspects of our life. So that way we can 271 00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:53,120 stay happy, healthy and strong and finish happy, healthy and strong and retire happy, healthy and 272 00:24:53,120 --> 00:24:57,840 strong. So thanks for spending a few minutes with us, please rate review, follow the show. 273 00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:05,840 The way that the social machines work is reviews and ratings really do help. So please share this 274 00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:10,240 with people you think would benefit from this, it certainly doesn't need to be limited to emergency 275 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:17,360 responders. Hit us up at firefightercraftsmanship.com with topic ideas or guest ideas. We'd love to hear 276 00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:21,760 from you. And we're more than happy for you to nominate yourself as well. 277 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:28,880 In celebration of this podcast finally becoming a reality, we're offering 25% off of our most 278 00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:35,040 popular self paced course titled Presilience for the emergency scene. So building resiliency 279 00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:39,840 before we actually need it. And this is a four module course that's going to walk you through 280 00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:45,200 all these parts and pieces with tons of take home resources that you can work on outside of the 281 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:51,040 course and really ebb and flow and develop over your career. So head over to firefightercraftsmanship.com 282 00:25:51,040 --> 00:26:00,240 backslash training and enter the code podcast 23 podcast 23 all one word that check out to get a 283 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:07,040 25% off discount on this class. Thank you for listening to the firefighter craftsmanship podcast, 284 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:11,360 where we give you real tools to train ultimate human performance both on and off the emergency 285 00:26:11,360 --> 00:26:17,040 scene. You can find more information on our web page at firefightercraftsmanship.com 286 00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:22,400 including all the classes that we offer. And there's plenty of free resources and training on the 287 00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:27,440 site as well. Reach out to us on social media including Instagram and Facebook. We'd love to 288 00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:43,360 have a conversation and figure out how we can help you achieve your goals. Stay smart.