I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps on the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.
SPEAKER_02Firehouse Vigilance presents the weekly scrap, a podcast dedicated to the never-ending fight against complacency. Coleymar, Firehouse Vigilance. It is weekly scrap number 365. My guest tonight is known on the scrap as the Doctor Chief. It is Candace Ashby. She is back once again, career firefighter with over 34 years of fire service experience and is a battalion chief with the Indianapolis Fire Department. Her educational background includes a doctorate of management and organizational leadership. She is a president of Key Fire Investigations and Elite Public Safety Consulting. Dr. Chief Candace Ashby enjoys making a positive impact in the fire service through coaching, mentoring, and leading positive change. Chief Ashby, welcome back to the scrap. Once more, 365.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I'm excited. My second time on the scrap, if we don't count the scrap solo.
SPEAKER_02Right on.
SPEAKER_00Pretty excited to be back.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back. Welcome back. And I 365. I just realized there's now enough. When we wrap up today, there will be enough for someone to watch one scrap a day for an entire year.
SPEAKER_00There you go. So exactly right.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Is there anything I missed in the intro? Anything I got wrong? Uh any anything you want to add or correct?
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's not about me.
SPEAKER_02Fair enough. Audience, get your questions primed and ready because the Dr. Chief is in the house, ready to field the questions. Uh, Sam is watching the YouTube chat. He will pull the questions from there. We will throw them at Candace. So let's get to those beautiful sponsors so we can get right to the scrap. UL Research Institutes, Fire Safety Research Institute offers free fire service training through their Fire Safety Academy platform. Built with firefighters, for firefighters, they have hundreds of resources to help you deliver evidence-based training, document, track, and report training hours, and so much more. From classroom to hands-on, you can access it all for free. Anytime, anywhere, head to fsri.org slash weekly scrap to get started. One of the best free resources out there. All data driven, all with firefighters by firefighters. Go check it out. Fsri.org weekly scrap. Everything in the fire service gets tested. Training, instincts, equipment. That's why Snaptight designs and builds its fire hose to perform no matter the challenge. Durability, packability, kink resistance. Every single line is tested before it leaves the factory. So you know you can count on it. Snaptight is American-made, firefighter trusted. Visit Snaptighthose.com to learn more or find a distributor near you. Firefighter safety and accountability starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground. Identifier safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours, no switches, no batteries, which means being able to rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions. All specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job. Use code VIGILENS on your order. Use code VIGILINGS when you check out at Identifier Safety and save 10%. Be seen on scene.com. And the last thing I want to talk about is, of course, the thing we've been hyping. It is the Ramagus Papers. They are coming, and the date is soon. Soon. They are so close to being complete. And as soon as we get the final date, believe me, we'll be blasting it out everywhere. People are hyped about the Ramagus papers, and they are coming soon. So there you go. Sponsors are done. Announcements are done. Let's focus in on the guest. Chief, welcome back.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02I'm excited because as you know, well, I don't know if you know, but from the analytics, you have one of the most watched scraps of all time. The topic of toxicity is what we covered the first time you came on, and we beat it up pretty good. And then so much so that we said, hey, let's do a solo and dig into it even more. And I'm sure it will come up and there will be questions asked as people uh who have really enjoyed your first episode come back with even wanting more clarification. But right now, I want to lead it off by talking to you about one of your current projects. This this what I don't know the actual name. I call it the 3X Leadership, the 3XL leadership, the the Triple Threat. Uh, talk to me about what you got going on with this thing. Because I'm getting ready to be able to attend it uh in a couple days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'll be on a plane tomorrow to Oklahoma. Uh, we're going down to Midwest uh city. Brian Brush has invited us down there. But when I started teaching across the country, I figured out and very blessed to be given the opportunities I'm given. But I felt like the power is more this is so much bigger than what one person could ever hope to do to try to really truly impact the fire service and create positive change. So we are a team sport. That's what the fire service is. It's a team sport. We act like a bunch of individuals and we don't act like a team. So we're all out here saying the same thing, beating the bandwagon about leadership and how to be better and how to make teams. But I wanted to put that into action. So with that, I wanted to throw out a net and capture other like-minded individuals such as yourself, such as Dr. Ben Martin, who was on last week, Mark Van Oppenhaw fully involved. And I called him up and I said, Hey, you guys want to do a class together? And they're like, Hell yeah, we're in. So I was like, great, let's do it. I also have other people in waiting, like I said, such as yourself. I got uh Johnny Torgeson out of California, got a couple of guys out of DC that do conflict management, I got Rob Backer that does smoke reading. And I think the power is when we all come together because two heads are always going to be better than one. And if I can go into a room, I try to, I want to impact everybody, but I may not impact the entire audience. But if I bring a team with me that and we're all on the same page and we're and we're doing our own thing, but we're together, maybe if I don't impact this person, maybe one of the other two guys will. And then every single person will leave that seminar or that conference with something that that resonates with them. And now we're winning, right? Because that's the whole reason people come in. But I'm not, you know, some people get, and it's not very many, but it's some a few get offended by the way that I speak or that I cuss too much or whatever, and and they get offended by that. Where, you know, Ben and Mark, they're actually changing me, they're softening me up to where they're saying, you don't have to say so many F-bombs, and you can still get your message across to show your passion. So they're actually uh helping me kind of with the message so that I I don't offend people as we travel across the country. But yeah, those guys are great. It and that just goes to show you that when you surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, it actually lifts you up. And that's what I feel about Mark and Ben is they're just awesome. They're uh, you know, they've been they've been doing it a long time. And for us to come together and just play off of each other, it just makes that much more magic. And I can't wait to do that with other people.
SPEAKER_02Right on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and just say, hey, let's let's do this and let's rock it out and uh really go out here and make an impact in the fire service.
SPEAKER_02No doubt. Uh that's I I'm excited to see it this weekend or this Thursday, Friday. And so I as soon as I heard you were coming, I went and got my tickets just so I could attend. I'll be taking notes. So and the uh almost honestly, as an instructor, I of course people who see my classes, I'm very structured. I don't know how I would how I would do ad-libbing off the cuff. How has that been?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's been great. Uh, you know, we've done this is our fourth time together. The first time we were in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and the second time we were in Evansville, Indiana, and then we went to Ohio, and now we're going to Oklahoma, and then we have a gig booked in New York as well uh after the first of the year. But we're we're still refining it, you know, we're still trying to work out the kinks and and make sure that we constantly grow and make it better and better and better so that that delivery and the impact that we have on the students can just continue to go up and up and up. And we want this to be something that continues on. Um, I actually haven't talked to the guys, I will tomorrow, but I'm ready to take it and and knock on the door of the private side as well. Okay and uh and go out here and make an impact in other industries because I believe we can we can certainly do that. And it's getting everybody going, uh, you know, and that's that's the one piece that I think a lot of people at F not everybody, but when I look at FDIC in the past, and I've been going there for years. I was I went when it was back in Cincinnati when it first started, uh back, I know I'm kind of showing my age now. But one thing I sit and I watched is there's so many instructors, and and they mean well, don't get me wrong, but they hold everything close to vest uh because it's their idea or their thing, and they, you know, and they want the popularity, they want this, they want that. But that and then they start when they want that, they start losing sight of what they're really intending to do, which is to make a positive impact. So it's why where it's not about us, it's about what we can do for other people, right? And then I watch, I sit back and I watch Mike Dugan and Frank Leib, and and I just watch all these people, and everybody's starting to gravitate together. I mean, look at the mid-rise mayhem guys. You know, now you got Clyde, you got Steve, you got Todd, and they're all banding together. And now look what they're showing as a force. Mike Galeano did the same thing. He's got the Air Coalition, and he's and he's bringing all these great people together and putting on conferences. And I'm like, that's it. That's where the power is, is when we can become one team, and then we can push not only making that individual better, but we can start tackling these organizational issues and making the organization better. Because the long-term game of what I want is I want ongoing officer development training from the day that these people get their promotion for the rest of their career. I want to come in once a quarter or send a different instructor once a quarter, and we're gonna start doing this leadership development and officer development training the right way, and it's never ever gonna end. It's just gonna continue on for the rest of your career because where we lose is when those officers start drifting, whether that's two months, two years, five years down the road, they will start drifting, and then we're all gonna suffer as a because of that. And I think every one of us in the fire service has worked for bad officers.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, by golly, when are we gonna rise up and put a stop to this shit and say we're gonna make it better? And we've got to at some point, and that's where I'm at with it. And I want to continue on and say, I want to be the cattle prod that when an officer starts going to drift, like, uh-uh-uh, get your ass back over here and let's go. You ain't got time to sit back because you're the one that's making the culture. And what culture are you making? You know, and is it strong enough to withstand the negativity and the adversity? Or are you gonna throw up your hands and give up?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00No, we all do.
SPEAKER_02No, absolutely. And one of the things that that we touched on before is the lack of development for officers in that position just to have the confidence to know that they can put their foot down and say, hey, knock that shit off. Enough's enough.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right. That's why the company officer is more powerful than any fire chief. Because they have the power to walk into the firehouse and tell somebody, shut the hell up. And they don't do it. They want somebody else to do it. Well, no, you know what? You're the one that signed up for the big boy job. Get your ass on up there, do what you signed up to do and earn the money that you get. It's called be a parent. Stop being an asshole. It's be a parent. Love your people, take care of your people. How about that? When are you gonna start having each other's backs and be in a real brotherhood out here and sisterhood and stop ad-limiting it? You know, that's all it is. It's lip service. And no, but now we're seeing this trend go across the country with all these conferences. The one last week, firemanship. And we're seeing this trend where this brotherhood is alive and well, but it's attracting these people to the conferences. When do we take it and bring it back into the organization and start making that organization great and turning it around?
SPEAKER_02No, it's phenomenal. And and uh confrontation and I that's the uh I'm so excited for what you've got going on. Uh, I've got questions already stacking up. So are you ready for the questions coming up? I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00I'm ready.
SPEAKER_02Right out the gate, there's one I wanted to get to. This one actually was uh asked and then upvoted by somebody named Christy Hamblin. So but Chief, this one comes from Fernando M23. He says, Chief, you've mentioned how you never wanted to serve in a division/slash admin staff role. But if you did, what would be the one thing you'd want to change at that level if you got appointed to that level? So you can thank Christy for me kicking that one up to the top.
SPEAKER_00Well, the first thing I'd do is make a damn decision because it seems like people that gravitate to the top can't make a damn decision because they're scared to death that they're not going to be liked or they're gonna make somebody mad. It's like, oh Lee, could you make a damn decision so we can get better and move on? And if it's the wrong decision, then admit you made the wrong decision and correct it. How about that? You know, there's so yes, if I was in an admin position, I would um I would do things a lot differently uh from what I would do 20 years ago. But it would be, you know, it would be take care of my freaking people and engage in the relationships, build those relationships with the guys, know that they're you know you're there for them, and in the decisions that you make and things like that. And if sometimes you gotta make tough decisions that are gonna make people happy, but can you withstand it and do it for the betterment of the organization and or all operationally and just say, hey, we've we've got a we've got a role and we've got to constantly improve and grow, and and we just get we get like weak sometimes when we face that adversity and then everybody wants to throw their hands up and give up. And it's like, no, you've got to be strong enough to go through it. So yeah, there's a lot of things I would do um if I was in the admin role, if I was in an admin role that probably wouldn't go over really well um with other people that are negative or jealous or insecure. But if you want to do this job the right way and take care of other people, then then let's do this together because it's gonna take an entire army to do it, more than more than one person.
SPEAKER_02No, I love that I love the attitude towards it, the decisiveness, first of all. Leading off with the decisiveness is just so powerful. But another thing that I want to pull on this thread, because you brought it up, which is uh there you're gonna make some people angry as you as you start doing you're gonna ruffle some feathers. Let's put that's probably the easier way to say it. But how do you how do you deal with that target? How do you what what what have you learned in your experiences? How do you deal with the and it's not necessarily the people that come at you from the front, like like absolutely against you, it's the it's the back biting, the the snake, the snakes. I think you like to call them snakes sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, they're snakes in the grass.
SPEAKER_02What uh what what's some of your tips and tricks for those listening of how to deal with with staying the course even when that is going on?
SPEAKER_00All right. So I'm gonna unpack a couple of things here.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00The first one is is I think the best leaders are the ones that's that's went through storms of adversity and negativity because they've been there, done that, and they understand it. And that actually humbles you, and that's why they become really good people that we start to lead, because they become authentic, they become humble, they they admit when they're wrong, they give credit to other people where credit's due and not hold it you know to themselves. It's not one way. The second thing I'm gonna say is this leadership is not easy. Um, and I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm a leader. I try to do the best that I can, and I want to do that, but that ultimately is not up to me. It's up to the people. And if they view me as that, do I have that trust? Do I have that relationship? Do I have that influence with them? So I try to work to be the best person that I could be. But I also know that when that happens and you're out here fighting the good fight and you're doing what's supposed to be done, you're gonna have critics, you're gonna have negativity, you're gonna have jealousy, you're gonna have all these things come against you where it may put a target on your back. And now you got to figure out how are you gonna navigate that when you become uh labeled over here as the problem child, which I hear a lot of. I get it. I've been there, done that, I still am. Uh, you know, I'm in trouble most of the time. But I know that I'm doing right because I have the backs of my people and I'll go forward and I don't, I'm not afraid to speak up, speak my mind. I do it respectfully, but there's people that can't handle in certain positions that can't handle being questioned. But we have got to bring those questions forward if we're ever going to grow and develop and get better. And even if I get smacked down, I know when I lay my head down at night that I did everything I could for my people. And even if I don't get my way, I get up and I fight again. But I think it's a mindset, it's an attitude, and it's a perspective. But this is one thing we got to look at. And I read this, and it's not something that I came up with. I read it, I latched onto it, and I was like, oh my gosh. And it was a John Gordon book on positivity, and he said, Listen, he said, There was once a man that walked the earth that transformed everything because he fed the hungry, he he he he he loved the unlovable, he did everything right to make it better, and he was crucified for it. Where the hell do you think you're not gonna you're gonna walk through and just think we're not gonna come into the storms and things? Are you kidding me? When you got a guy that feeds the hungry and cures the sick and does all that and he's crucified for it, where do you think we're gonna get off at? Right. So here it is, you gotta go through those storms of adversity and stuff. You're not gonna have it that bad, you know. Of course, that's there's sometimes I feel like there, if there was certain people that I work with that would certainly want to hang me up and do the things, but it's not that way. So anything else is nothing, you know, and it's just when I come across adversity and I do a lot. Hell, I had somebody go complain on me not too long ago, they're complaining that I'm abusing the trade time policy because I'm out here training all the time. That is a jealous, insecure person. But this is what I said tell me who my complainer is. Well, I'm not gonna tell you, why not? Because this person can't have an adult conversation. How completely sad is that? And if it's a person with rank, that's even worse. Yeah, you know, because you little coward, you want to run around me, run to headquarters, and complain instead of having a conversation with me. Like, where's that at? Man up. How about that? You know, woman up. If you don't want to do the man up, woman up. Hey, you're an adult. What'd you freaking start acting like it?
SPEAKER_02I love it. I love it when you get fired up, Chief.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's do it.
SPEAKER_02One of the things I absolutely love that you said was I can lay my head down at night knowing that I had my people's backs. And I think that that is I I hope people heard that because that is that North Star that you can kind of just latch on to when everything's going to shit around you, the naysayers, the complainers going around you, and all that stuff, man. If you can hang it on that, then you can make it through a lot. And that that's a powerful statement.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and I and I absolutely believe that through and through, but I also wouldn't be where I'm at today if I didn't have such awesome rock stars that I was around. And and one where I and I always say it, she's the famous exo of the entire country, which is Christy, my exo, because she runs the entire battalion. She her number one job is to take care of every single person in our command. And she does an absolute awesome job at doing that. She understood it and she carries that out every single day. She has a relationship so close to those guys that they go to her, and then I can be the bad guy when I need to be the bad guy and free her up of that. But if I didn't have somebody strong like that, I couldn't do the things that I wanted to do. So her and I are a team that that run in it, she's getting ready to get promoted. She was supposed to get promoted a year ago, but some you know reversals of uh retirements kind of stalled that. But she'll get promoted eventually. And then I don't know what the hell I'll do then when I lose her, right? But it's we got a phenomenal uh battalion of 60 people, 15 officers. I honestly believe, and I've said it before my job every day that I walk through the doors is to work for those 15 officers. Their job is to work for their people, and their people's Job is to serve the customer on the street. And I absolutely believe that. We also create an environment where our guys can fail and learn from it. It's not going to be a punishment type of culture. It's a learning culture. And we can't grow and get better if we don't fail. But we have created overall in the fire service that, oh my gosh, if you if you fail, you're going to get somebody hurt or killed. Yeah, that is possible in a high-risk environment. But we're literally paralyzing these young officers because they're scared to death to make a damn decision. And we need to allow them to make that decision. And if it's a wrong decision, then we correct it together and we move on.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. And since we're on the topic of your XO, Christy Hamlin, then I am booked until Chief Lasky does the year-in show on December, I think it's 27th. I could be wrong on that. But whatever the last Tuesday of the year is. And I am currently going to uh since she's in the chat, I'm going to ask Christy Hamlin if she will come on the scrap for the first episode of 2027. And if that Tuesday isn't available, I've got the 5th, the 12th, the 19th, or the 26th. So say in the chat, you'll be I don't I don't know if I've invited somebody. I think I'm there's been too many. 365 is too many episodes for me to remember if I've invited anybody live on the show. But we'll get the actual dirt on the Doctor Chief from the XO. See, that's the plan.
SPEAKER_00There you go. She needs to come on. She has she has she's got to stand up at some point and start using that voice because she's seen she's seen it now from so many different angles. And that you know, when we pulled the curtain back, and she got to see the wizard that was controlling the control fence of it. So she got to see a little different different things, and she has so much value to add, especially in running scenes. I mean, she's an absolute rock star. She's running around that scene, running inside, coming in, coming out, grabbing a pike full, pulling ceilings down. Now, if you throw the line down, she'll grab it and go put the freaking fire out. And if you don't get your ass in there, she'll go in there and make the freaking grab.
SPEAKER_02Right on, right on. No, and and people who know me, Sam knows me better than anybody. Within, yeah, but uh that my squirrel brain is I've wanted to invite Christy on quite a few times, and so but it has to be I that's why I did it right now, so I wouldn't forget. So pick one of those dates 5th, 12th, 19th, or 26th. She said, Yep, I'll do it. I got dirt. So we got the dirt coming. So let me know which one, and I'll I'll lock it in. Okay, coming back at you, Jeremy Humphrey coming at you from Missouri. Chief, have you ever been invited into a department? And I want to say this before I moved on. Fantastic question, Fernando. Thank you for sending it. That led to all this discussion. Okay, uh back to Hump. Chief, have you ever been invited into a department during a time of internal turmoil just to improve communication? What was that experience like? And did you help the department move toward a resolution?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's about every department that I walk into. I was gonna say, well, that's why they called me to come in to begin with. And some places, the majority of which make it mandatory when I come in. When they when they bring me in and they make it mandatory and they pay the overtime and they bring the people in there, and then I come in and start talking, and I do my pyramid, and I do the 90-10 where I talk about the negative and the negative naysayers and the 10 percenters that you know are are checked out, and there's 10 percenters in the room, and it will piss them off the way that I talk, but I don't care. They need to hear it, they're the ones that need to hear it because they need to figure out it's their attitude and things, but I don't blame them because I was a 10 percenter, so I was there and I know it, and I want to get down in the hole with them and say there's a way up out of this hole because I come up out of it, you can too, but you have to save yourself, and I think we can help transform these 10. In the meantime, I'm telling the 90% to take away the audience. Now, where that specific question is on communication, is I'm grabbing headquarters, the administration, and I'm grabbing the guys on the street and I'm saying, knock your stupid shit off, both of you, and you start getting together and talk like adults are supposed to talk because it doesn't matter if you're the top guy or if you're the proby, we all want the same damn thing, and that's a that's a better fire department. We just waiting on each other to make that happen, and we've got to come together as one team if we're ever going to push that organization forward. But typically, what I find is the administration is not listening to the boots on the ground, so I go in and listen to the boots on the ground and I become a voice for the people. And I sit down with the fire chief and I say, now listen, I just listened to your people, and you got five main issues, but here's 20 solutions to those five issues, and I try to bridge the gap between the admin and the operations division to push that entire organization forward. But before I leave, every single person, including the fire chief, is backhanded by me and saying, You have got to do better, and you got to hear the truth. Now, one thing that I give the fire chiefs free of charge is if I'm with their people long enough that I sense what the perception of the fire chief is, I will say that to the fire chief. I'm with your people long enough that I can tell you what their perception of you is. Do you want to hear it? And a hundred percent I want to hear it. And then I say, okay, do I need to sugarcoat it or can I tell you the truth? And a hundred percent I want the truth. And when I tell them, a hundred percent I'm gonna get butthurt when I was gonna say, I was gonna say, what's that reaction like?
SPEAKER_02I can only imagine.
SPEAKER_00If they're ever gonna grow and improve, and it's great that we all want positive feedback, every single person listening online, whatever, we all want to hear the good stuff, but when do we hear the other side that's gonna make us better, that's gonna challenge us and say, hey, I don't like this? This is what Christy's job is to me, is she will tell me when I do something that she doesn't like, she has that freedom to roam, and it may make me mad, but in the moment, I mean, I mean, you know, have that reaction just like everybody else has.
SPEAKER_02Like, oh, those defenses, those defenses are there, they're firing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but then once everything pulls off, it's like, oh shit, she's right, you know, and if I never heard that part of it, then I'm gonna be walking in a fallacy that, oh, I'm great, I'm doing everything right, I don't do anything wrong. No, I step in shit every day. I'm human, I make mistakes, and when I do make a mistake, the only thing that I can do is step up and own that mistake. And that's what I expect out of my officers as well. None of us are perfect, and that's what we got to think about the fire chief. We put people up in the fire chief's position, and if you're, you know, and I'm not saying every fire chief is great, but now what? Not every firefighter is great, not every officer is great either. It's not just the fire chief's position, it's throughout the entire organization. But we put our focus on that one person at the top, and they're supposed to save the organization, and it does not work that way. The organization has to be saved from the bottom. We have to have everybody step up and take ownership on what's really wrong with the fire service. And you said it, it's when we throw each other under the bus and we and we fight with each other. And until you correct that bullshit, the people at the top come from the people at the bottom. So if you don't like the people at the top, take ownership because they're in the product of the environment that you have allowed to happen. And when are you gonna stop it and say, no, we're gonna do better? Because I guarantee you, people that go to the top showed their hand early. Early in their career, they showed the path they were going down. And nobody put their foot right square in their ass and said, You're going down the wrong road, honey. You need to change it over here. We don't act like that. And if we had more officers that stood up and became better bosses and be parents, not of love, out of absolutely at 100% out of love, then we can change the entire fire department and the fire service. And I think we are. I think we're actually winning today because we have more people, more podcasts, more classes, more conferences, more readings than we've ever had before. And we've got more people going to this stuff and coming together, and we're making out here making a difference. It's a we've got to get that small-mindedness of the stations of saying, Oh, just wait till the next fire chief comes in. Well, if you're waiting on that, you're gonna be waiting your entire career because nobody's coming to save your ass. Nobody's coming, guys. You got to step up and you gotta do your part to save yourself, whether you're a proby, whether you're a senior guy, whether you're an engineer, lieutenant, captain, chief. But where I usually find the problems is the chiefs. That's a whole nother class.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. People are saying timestamp, timestam, boom, boom. Yes, absolutely. Uh, whiskey mike, on that same topic, basically, he says, question. This comes from Whiskey Mike up in Wisconsin. I believe. Whiskey, correct me if I'm wrong. But Chief, what are some positive ways to deflect firefighters away from someone who regularly has negative conversations in the fire station?
SPEAKER_00Get up and walk away. How about that? When somebody's spewing shit around the table, get up with your coffee cup and walk out in the damn bay. Take the audience away from the negative because they have to have an audience. And if we start recognizing that we're the audience and we shield ourselves to that. So I want to call these people out and say, listen, I love you. You're my brother, you're my sister, I'd do anything in the world for you. But when you start talking like that, I got no capacity for it up here any longer. I don't want to hear it. Call it out. And but people don't like human confrontation. So get up and walk away. That's the most positive thing that you can do because you are not only gonna help yourself from shielding that stupid shit from getting in your mind and clouding your judgment, you're gonna actually help that person because now they're not gonna have an audience, and that's gonna impact them in such a way that they're gonna start to conform because they want to be around other people and they're gonna learn very quickly. We don't want to hear that stupid shit. You want to be part of us? We need to create a culture where the negative feel uncomfortable, and we need to control the culture, not the fire chief. We do.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. No, I love I love the answer. And uh, the more that the message gets spread, the more people that see this on the scrap and and on the can and on on just anywhere and everywhere that you can see it. Uh, not just your message, but the others like you who are spreading the positivity and the take the all of it. Man, it is like you said, I think we're winning. I really do think that the battleship is turning, the silos are getting eliminated. As and there's a rising tide, and so it's a lot of work to do. Do not get me wrong. And and if you're stuck in a in a negative department, it doesn't do you much good if the rest of the fire service is getting better, but yours is still there.
SPEAKER_00Well, and that's that's what a lot of guys say to me. They call, like, oh, we're in turmoil, we're in this one. I'm sure you are, I'm sure you got a bunch of idiots in charge. You know, like it is what it is. At some point, you have to you have to face that music. And if that is your case in in your department, what are you gonna do about it? You could have the worst people up above you. There ain't a damn thing you're gonna do about that. But now, every single day you walk through the doors, you're mentoring the future lieutenants, the future captains, the future chiefs. And what are you mentoring them to do? Don't be like that idiot up there. We're gonna do this better, we're gonna start taking care of each other. Where's that at? We can still make a positive impact. You may not be able, you know. I don't worry about the people that are there. What I worry about is the ones that are gonna replace them because those it those some of them are great people, don't get me wrong. I think it's a fundamental training issue if you listen to the way that I talk. I don't think it's all bad people, they just don't know any better. So they're doing the only thing that they have been taught to do, which is screw everything up, micromanage, do stupid shit, draw the rule book, you know. It's like you can't learn everything out of a damn book. You know, like sometimes you gotta go out there and you just gotta jump in and do it. How did we learn how to fight fire out of a book? No, you had to put your damn gear on, put your air pack on, and get your ass in there and do it and pull ceilings, right?
SPEAKER_02Right on, right on.
SPEAKER_00So it's like it just amazes me that it's so simple, but yet we want to hide behind excuses. Well, well, my my place sucks, my fire chief sucks, my battalion chief sucks, my captain sucks, my lieutenant. Well, guess what? Welcome to the wonderful world of the fire service. It's called internal politics. Did you miss that the day that you signed up? But what are you gonna do to change that shit? Because I'm out to change it, I'm out to make an impact, and I don't know if I'm impacting my battalion or not, but this is one thing that I figured out. I set the culture for my battalion, and it is gonna be a battalion where we have each other's backs and we take care of each other and we respect each other, and we can agree to disagree and still be friends. How about that? You know, everything shattering thing. Let people fail, let them make mistakes and learn from it. Let's have each other, you know, and let's learn and let's grow. And it's it's not cutthroat bullshit. That's for those other guys, you know. And if you've anybody that's seen my classes, see that I do what leaders are and what the fire department assholes look like, the traits. And every single one of us that walk in the doors of the firehouse every single day have to decide what side of that line we're gonna be on. And there's only one side that that brotherhood can happen, because there's only one that the trust can, and that's being a decent freaking human being. If you're down here being a fire department asshole, well, I hate to say it, but excuse my French, but you're a buddy fucker. So which one are you gonna be? You know what? I don't want to work around a bunch of buddy fuckers. I want to work around brothers and sisters that actually get this job and they love it, and let's go. Let's go put these fires out, let's be aggressive, let's run and get on those trucks, not be like some sloth walking to the truck when the tones go off because you don't want to make a damn run. Get that shit out of here. That tone goes off. We freak we believe me, I gotta get to that. Christian, leave my ass if I don't get in that truck. I should she is gone. I mean, I'm done. I got it whiplash and everything else. I'm like too many Christmas, I gotta hold on for dear freaking life because we're gonna get there. That's for damn sure.
SPEAKER_02Right on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, hell yeah.
SPEAKER_02Get me fired up, getting everybody fired up, I think. You got it, you got it going. Uh, I love this question. It's a follow-up. Kyle McNeil coming at you. He says, from a rookie. So I like this because it's from a rookie. How do you stand up and walk out of a negative atmosphere without being disrespectful to the ranking officers?
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't think anybody getting up and walking away is disrespectful to me. I guess if you turned around and threw your finger up at them on your way out the door, that might be considered disrespectful if you said F you. But I don't I don't think, you know, the rookies today, they're told to sit over there and shut up. Keep your ears open and your mouth shut. And to a point, that does need to happen. But to another point, they are a valued person. At what point do we tell these rookies, hey, you got a voice now? We don't. We never do. They're just told to sit over here and shut up and learn, but we don't listen to them. So now we have a disconnect between the young people and the old people because the old people can't freaking change. Like everything's about change, but they're stuck in how it was done in yesteryear. Well, it's a different freaking year, it's a different fire we fight today. It's just go look at fire behavior. You can't do the same shit you did 30 years ago, you know. And these young kids, I've never seen a greater group that is so hungry and thirsty for knowledge and training, and nobody, and there's you get this big disconnect between them. And that's just happening at the firehouse label. But even if the young rookie has to sit there, and I would have done it when I was young, I would have sit there, I would have got up and walked out. You know what's right and wrong. You know what's going to creep up in your head, you know when somebody's full of shit. We know it within five minutes of an instructor getting up there and talking if they're there for the money, if they're there to make a positive difference. And you can you you make up your mind, but you've got to continue to do what's right. And you don't let that that negative and that stuff bring you down, and know that you know every little bit is gonna make you stronger as long as you can get through it, and that you can't let that fear hold you back, the adversity hold you back. At some point, you're gonna step up, you are a valued member, and that's what things we got to tell our fire department today is every single person is a critical piece of that overall puzzle, and it's an organizational puzzle, that's all it is. All an organization is is a group of people. So when are we gonna start dealing with people? And and when is it a systems failure and not a people problem? And we're not looking at the systems failures. And an example I'll give of that is when the system is designed to take somebody that's young and throw them in the office and they get all the rank in the office. That's not that person's fault, right? That's a systems failure. Yes, because they didn't earn their way up, you know, and they weren't asked to come back, and highly predictable.
SPEAKER_02Highly predictable the outcome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they go in the office as a private, they come out of chief.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And is that right? You know, there's something in this business called street cred, and and that's the ones that kind of are misguided, and they and it's it's a fundamental training issue, and it's a systems failure. So, when are we gonna start designing the processes and things that alleviate some of this stupid shit that happens? Because all we do is repeat Groundhog Day every single day. And it'll be the same fire department the day we leave as it was the day we walk in, unless enough of us step up and say, I'm gonna do what I can to leave a positive impact and hopefully a legacy. And but I'm realist enough to know that the day my gear comes out of that locker, somebody else's gear is gonna be in it the next day, and that department's not gonna miss a beat. Right. And I'm tired, I'm sick and tired of watching all my brothers or sisters retire out of the fire service that still have a lot of life to give because they're sick and tired of dealing with the bullshit, right? And they don't want to take it anymore. And that breaks my heart because you still have a lot of life to give to the fire service and a positive impact to make.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I absolutely love it, man. That was that was one of your one of my favorite rants from Candace.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of admin people I'd like to go in and just smack the holy hell right out of their dumb ass and say, now sit down, shut up, and listen. And that's normally what I do to the admins.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like a fun job if you're wired for that.
SPEAKER_00I'm so blessed.
SPEAKER_02No doubt about it. Now, there's are there are some things on the on the scrap that they're kind of like if you know you know, like the front row gang. They know most of these things, like Dr. Chief. There's there's one Dr. Chief, there is uh Brian Crush, of course. Uh that's that's one of the OG things. And then then, of course, there's number five, Rob Effen Fisher. And he showed up and he has a question coming at you, which is Dr. Chief, how do we convince our best officers to become leaders when the leadership above them is exactly what they don't want to become? And you've already hit on this a little bit, but I wanted to get this question right up to you.
SPEAKER_00Gosh, it's almost like I live it every single day of my life, you know, and I can't name names. There's people that's in positions that shouldn't be in positions that don't have the backs of other people, and I can sit there and I sit and I watch it. But you know what? That doesn't impact how I deal with my officers. That doesn't deal, I don't impact how I have my officers' back. It doesn't matter whether anybody doesn't have my back that's above me. It has to start somewhere. Now I can go say, yeah, I got a bunch of idiots above me. And you know, I can't do this and I can't do that. No, you know what? I'm so laser focused every single day on what my job is to my 60 people, there ain't nothing gonna stand in my way. And when I hit that adversity, I back up and I find another way around it. That's all we can do is continue to fight the good fight and get these officers to stand up and understand you are making an impact every single day. If you don't make an impact above you, I guarantee you're making impact around you and below you. But the one thing is truth about the fire service, every single person has a boss. And when that boss allows bullshit to happen, it's all for naught. You know, then the whole layers that they start to crumble, and then we get into organizational chaos. But it's like all we do is fight. Everybody thinks they're the best crew and the best station, but yet you have people that are too damn lazy to go fill up the trucks on top off Tuesdays and fill up Fridays, and they want to skirt doing their house duties, they don't want to do the extra duties, they don't want to do the bay floors, they don't want to do the windows because they're lazy that day, they don't want to mow the grass on a perfectly sunny day. It's like walking into a dirty truck and there's not been a drop of rain for three freaking days. Really? And then you got the guys that make the cup of chocolate milk and they leave their glasses around because they're too damn lazy to pick them up and take them in the kitchen. And then you got another subset of guys that want to make lasagna and a brownie, and they want to leave one piece in the pan because they're too damn lazy to. Do the pan and they loosely cover it with aluminum foil and they throw it in the freaking refrigerator. And what we do is we battle with each other and we fight with each other, and then we fight with the admin, and we all blame each other. So it's a lot of finger pointing and not a lot of taking a look in the mirror and seeing what we can do better. And I say this jokingly, but it's also true when I take tours around the country of firehouses, every bunk room smells the same. And it doesn't matter if I'm in Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Indiana, California. Why is that? Why does every bunk room in this country smell the same? Oh, I know it's because it's freaking filth. You know, if you're bald, your head leaks. No shit. If you sleep with your mouth open, you're gonna drool. You ever seen somebody's firehouse pillow with yellow stains all over it? They sell that shit for three dollars at fucking Walmart. Get your ass down there and buy a new one, you nasty little ass. You know, start washing your bed clothes, and then we could change the aroma of every bunk room in this country. But instead, you walk in the bunk room if you don't believe me and take a big whip. And when it smells like Jiffy Lube, we're losing because your mom don't work there. So now you got to clean up after your damn self. But we got guys that don't clean up after the self. We got guys that don't want to train. This is the difference in the whole training. All you gotta do is look at the officer. And if a shift doesn't want to train, all you gotta do is is look at the battalion chief. I'd tell you everything that you need to know about that team, about that station, their attitude, their culture, how they carry themselves, how they view the fire service, and how they treat Mr. and Mrs. Smith when they go out at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_02I love, I love your mindset. I love I love your message. I love this question coming at you from Michael Goldstein. The can report himself on here, and it's right in line with what you're saying. Or it's it's I want to dig in behind it, is what I'm saying. So that's why I'm switching to this question. He says, Chief, when did you find your courage? What was the moment that you said enough?
SPEAKER_00I went through a lot of stuff in my career, but my turning point in the fire service happened when we consolidated with the Indianapolis Fire Department. So I was on a small department for those that don't know. I was on a township four station department in the suburbs. We consolidated into Indianapolis in 2009. I worked for a very toxic organization where we ate our own. We were all worried about stupid shit that we couldn't control. We were worried about who's doing who, who's doing that. It's like just stop. And when we consolidated and I got in the big city, I did not want to consolidate because I'd been through enough shit at that small department. I didn't need that on a larger scale.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00I eat my words now because it was the best thing that ever happened to me on the job. I got into IFD and I figured started going to these busy houses when I was working overtime and robing and figured out, hey Cap, you take care of us, we take care of you. I was like, what was that? You take care of us, we take care of you. That's how we roll in this firehouse. I'm like, holy shit, is that you know, I'm looking for a candid camera. I thought it was a joke. That's the first time I'd ever heard that. And that's how these guys do. So the example that I use normally is I was trained very young that if I was the last engine on the scene, you park in such a way that you don't get blocked in by the hose, so you could be the first ones to leave. Does that sound familiar?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Every we all tell each other that. I work in a department now that when I tell my guys, you guys got your stuff, you can go in service, they say, okay, chief, they go hit their in-service button and they come back to the scene and they don't leave until every inch of hose is off that ground. Not because they're told to, because they want to. Because they're there to help their brother. So if you see any picture of IFD engine and there's a hundred foot of hose, five-inch hose sitting behind it, and there's 50 people on that scene, all 50 people will have their hands on that five-inch hose. And that's the that was the turning point for me. And the other thing that I would say about Indianapolis, it didn't happen because I wasn't raised IFD. But the one thing that I I just it just floors me on how it's done is they do their own recruit classes. And now Indianapolis is such a large department, their recruit classes are 60, 65, 70 people.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00They hold those close to vest, they go on for six months, but these guys come out and they have respect for each other. Um, each class has respect for the other class, and all these guys are together. And to sit there and to see that and know that there's cultures within cultures, and every firehouse, and every shift, and every battalion has their own cultures, but there's some baseline stuff that's really, really cool and how it happens. And then I have an opportunity to jump in on that and can try to continue to carry that respect forward from a consolidated fire department now and say, uh-uh, you don't act like that, you act like this. So I look back at that today, and I got promoted very young, and I all I did was perpetuate the stupid shit by telling guys when we were told to go in service, we high-fived each other as we were rolling off the scene and blowing the exhaust on our brothers and sisters. And I was showing other young firefighters this is what we're supposed to do. And I look back at that now and it makes me want to throw up because man, I wish I'd have known what I know today. I wish I'd have known 35 years ago. It'd have been a total game changer. But that's how we have to learn and we have to go and grow and step in shit and learn the hard way through adversity and then look back at it and say, man, we didn't do it right. And I own it. And it's just like when I talk about the 10%, I say that I was a 10%. That's where I came up with that. And I've done my fair share of throwing people out of the bus and stabbing people on the back. I just choose not to do it anymore. And there's a lot of times I've been in the firehouse and saying shit, I tried to tell them and they wouldn't listen to me, blah, blah, blah. What good does that do to go out there and spread all that shit to the people around you besides bring them down and try to put the pinnacle spotlight on you that you have all the answers? And that's just not the right way to go about it. We have got to do better as human beings. Um, and when we understand that part, what Bruno Cena said it for 40 years, it's two words be nice. Be nice. Where in the hell did that go? And how about we start showing each other respect? I don't care if you're gay, straight, trans, doesn't matter. We got to be respectful to each other. I don't necessarily have to agree. I have my own value system just like you have yours, but we got to be respectful to each other. And that's one thing that I can bring to a battalion. It's like, uh-uh-uh, we're gonna treat each other with respect because I ain't gonna allow this stupid shit to pull us apart that what you know, and so that's one thing I won't allow in my battalion is the negativity and the negative naysayers and the 10 percenters. But I don't have to worry about it because my guys will take care of them. They're not gonna let somebody come in and obliterate their crew, and we we got too much of that going on in the fire service, and now I'm figuring out, man, we control a lot more. We have all of us have so much more power because we have the freedom of choice, and we've got to get to those young firefighters and tell them you have power, you have value, you bring it too. No matter that, you don't have rank at this point. We got to tell our senior firefighters. Um, but I at the same time, I think all of us in the fire service need a big smackdown. We all need a swift kick right in the ass because to get our heads out of our ass and act like we got some damn sense. We're all adults, and we've gotten really complacent in this job because we figured out how little we have to do and how much money we can make. And they pay us tens of thousands of dollars, they give us million-dollar fire trucks to ride on. We live in multi-million dollar firehouses and we can't even wash our bed sheets. We can't fill up the truck. We can't get, you know, we all have backers, right? We all have an SOG that says you gotta have a backer. Is any in fire up, you ever seen a fire apparatus have a backing accident where your spot is retarded? No, you know, no, because we don't have spotters and we get our asses jammed up, and then it's a it's a culture of punishment, and then we say, Oh no, there was 15 spotters behind that. You know, you're bullshit. You know, you're really good at covering stuff up instead of just owning it saying, you know what, I made a mistake.
SPEAKER_02I did you work? Did you work at my fire department? Is that right? How many times do you get no doubt about it? And this, I have the greatest job on earth where I get to have these conversations every week with the the most badass people, man. And and people I I I'm blown away, man. I'm loving the conversation. The uh how important to you and your your everything happens for a reason, but your impact now, I think, and and part of my own story is is part of this too, because I was very complacent firefighter very young, and I was part of the problem, you know. And how important is that to your story, I think, to actually have the experience on the other side to have the I don't want to say the empathy, but the understanding of how they got there, you know, like you understand you have a better understanding of why they're there.
SPEAKER_00I think it's extremely important because people need to relate. So even though I go out and teach, I want people to hear what I say and I want them to have the message at the end of the time, but more than that, I want them to feel it. Because if they feel what I'm saying, they're gonna remember it. And in order to get them to feel it, I've got to reach the hearts and minds of the people. And doing that, I think, is where the authenticity comes in. That and I say it lightly, but you know, I do cuss a lot because I speak firefighter. I speak just like we're sitting around a firehouse table. Not everybody can handle it. And I'm like, really? If you can't listen to an old woman say a cuss word or two and you want to know what's wrong with the fire service, you know, like yeah, you know, what happened to your grandparents when you back talked them if you're old enough? Oh, that's right, you got backhanded and you saw your feet when you got went backwards in that chair. You know what you didn't do? You didn't back talk your grandparents anymore after that because you knew that there were consequences. Where in the hell is there consequences today? There isn't any. Everybody wants to run and bury their heads in the sand because this is where the leadership movement today has led to the pussification of the American Fire Service because it's got everybody wanting to handle people with kid gloves. Oh, just go be a servant leader, go treat everybody uh right, make sure they want to show up to work and they're happy so for their mental health and all this shit, and blah, blah, blah. And you don't want to make them upset or anything. And oh, good heavens, really. And we're we're missing the point that we need management 101, but we've got a social media-driven world that says we don't want managers, we want leaders. Like, shut the hell up. You gotta have management 101 too. It's called being a boss, being a parent. So some of your people need to be loved and hugged. There's another subset that need a freaking paddle. So get your paddle out and get your ass in there to work and do what you signed up to do, and we'll start fixing the fire service. It may take a few years, depending on how big or small your organization is. But eventually, you know, if it was me and I had a piece of shit above me as a fire chief, which I don't, we have a really great fire chief. I'd come in with a paddle every day and say, You're gonna turn out like that. I'll be right here to show you're not gonna turn out like that. I'm gonna fix it, we're gonna fix it today. Where's that at?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's like it's not that hard. It's called having candid conversations. You can't really paddle people, that's metaphorically speaking. But I still believe in taking somebody behind a firehouse and burying my foot right square up their ass. But I have that relationship with the people in my battalion because I use communication to build a relationship of trust so that I have the influence over them. So I can go tell somebody pull their head out of their ass. But if I went to another battalion and said, pull your head out of your ass, they're gonna run to headquarters so freaking fast into HR. Oh my god, Chief Ash be cussed at me. You know, like it all comes down to relationships, guys, and where you're taking care of people, and that's why we all love our parents, even though our parents had to correct us.
SPEAKER_02At least the good ones.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Right on, no doubt about it. Man, uh, there's about 50 questions here. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go 30,000-foot view here. I'm gonna kill, I'm gonna go to Chief Wessels. Chris Wessels wants to know, and this is just kind of like a backing up a little bit. Uh, Chief, what is the most prevalent issue or problem you see in fire departments across the board? So there's a nice broad pitch to you. You can take it anywhere, any direction you want.
SPEAKER_00Communication. We don't know how to communicate with each other. We don't communicate at all, let alone communicate to connect and to build trust and to build the brotherhood. So, uh, accountability. There's another issue. There isn't any accountability because we are a culture of blame and punishment, and we don't understand the difference between punishment and discipline. And that's one thing I'm doing with Mark and Ben. It's like, when do you coach? When do you counsel? When do you lay a piece of paper to change an unwanted behavior? Where's that training at? Where's the training in customer service? There isn't any. So the overwhelming majority, we have no organizational leadership training, but we have no basic training on communication. Where's the training on the chain of command? The one thing that we all screw up the most. How many classes on the chain of command is there? There isn't. How many classes on project team management? There isn't. This is aka committees. You want to get on a committee and then you're young and dumb, and you go get on the committee and you find out very quickly that's all smoke and mirrors, yeah, and then the highest ranking person gets what they want. How much training have you had in how to work on a committee? Zero. So not only is the communication a big overarching problem, it's the leadership development for our company officers. Because what I'm seeing myself personally, and you can disagree with me, is across this country, if you want to be a lieutenant, go take fire officer one. You want to be a captain, go take fire officer two. How much fire officer one and two and three and four taught your ass how to be an officer? Oh, that's right. It didn't, did it? And now we have a bunch of uneducated people out here getting ranked that don't have the first damn clue what they're doing, and then they become narcissistic and they hold everything, you know, it's all about them. It's not about taking care of other people, let alone building a damn team out of your people. And then we start going our drift, and then we start working for bad officers that should have never got promoted. And when that happens, we start losing our love of the job, and then we get down in a rut, and then we become the negative naysayers because we're tired of it, we're tired of seeing it, we're tired of the bullshit, we're tired of the internal politics and all that, and then we start losing our people, and then they become toxic to other people because they need that audience. And the number one thing that's contagious in this business is behavior. It is behavior, and you know what? We can we can choose to spread the toxicity and the negativity, or we can choose to spread the passion. That's a choice that we make every single day. I choose to spread the passion.
SPEAKER_02Boom, boom. Hey, great question from Chris. Great answer from Candy. Yeah, that was great. I man, there are uh there are probably still more uh 15 questions or so here. I'm looking, I'm I'm scrolling through. I like this. I'm uh yeah, Rob Fisher threw this one out here, so I'm throwing I'm grabbing it. Question. This might be too personal, so I always like it when it leads off with that.
SPEAKER_00That's all get me in trouble, Rob. It's okay. I'm always in trouble.
SPEAKER_02But why don't you promote up and help change the leadership above? I think everyone in here would lead with someone like you. So I don't know, I don't know if that's uh say that again.
SPEAKER_00Say that again.
SPEAKER_02Why don't you promote up and help change the leadership above?
SPEAKER_00One they couldn't handle me promoting up because they can't handle the truth. Because I would, you know, if you're a piece of shit, I tell you you're a piece of shit and correct that bullshit. Um two, I had the opportunity to go above where I'm at now, but I saw the writing on the wall that in order for me to be a for our next level a shift commander, I would have to put my foot up seven battalion chief asses to get them on the same page. And when that happens, they're gonna all go run into headquarters and squall and whine and cry, oh my gosh, that they they shouldn't be able to do this. And when that I don't feel that somebody has my back in order for me to do my job, I might as well just walk over to a wall and beat my head against it until it freaking bleeds. So I see that, and there's not a whole lot that I can do that I understand what's in my control and what's not in my control. And for me, I have much more impact at a battalion level than going above that. Do I want to go above it? And do I want to impact not 6300 or 1300? You bet your ass I do. But I have to have the backing in order to do it because I know what it would take to try to stir that around, and it's gonna stir the pot, and it the roads are gonna get rocky, and the waves are gonna start crashing. And who's gonna be there with me when that happens? And if I'm sailed down the river, what good is it going to be to try to fight the fight alone? I can't, but I have that in my battalion where I do control that environment now. Um, I will say if I had the opportunity, and not that I would, because I'm kind of unfortunately looked at as a problem child now because I'm so outspoken, even though it's respectful, but I would probably consider taking a higher level position just to try to make positive change because people need to make, you know, they need to make the tough decisions and they we need to progress forward and we need to operationally get better on these scenes and things. And I just I see a lot of deficits, deficits in the fire service, but I'm only one person. So um I do what I can to make the biggest impact that I can from from where I'm at that I feel like I can make the biggest impact. So um, but I'm not um, I don't play politics. And I think at certain levels, there is politics that come into play on that, and that's one reason why I've stayed out of the office. Um, I say that, and I also say when people ask me to to take positions, you know, because they have openings, they're like, hey, will you apply? I'm like, thanks for thinking I could do something like that. I said, but here's my other piece of it is why would I want to go in there and bust my ass day in and day out to make the organization better for every one of you, for every one of you to say what a piece of shit I am because I'm in the administration. And that's what we do to our people in the admin. It's an us for system mentality, and it don't matter who's there, we're gonna take our slingshots and our rocks and we're gonna pelt them. But somebody has to be there if we're gonna get paychecks and trucks and t-shirts and all that stuff, but it doesn't matter who's there, we're gonna blame them because we are a culture of blame. So we've got to start turning that culture around. And I think we have seen that at other organizations. And I'll I'll bring up Scott Thompson and the colony. I think he had a tremendous impact on that organization. Um, I think Rick Lasky has tremendous impact on the organizations that he leads. So I think we do see this from very predominant chiefs that have that impact to inflict that culture and try to turn things around. But it's got to take, man, it's gotta take rolling up your sleeves and grabbing a hold of those officers and making them decide whether they want to do this job or they don't, and start holding other asses accountable and not from a punishment standpoint, from you know, for me, accountability is where expectation and action come together. That's the accountable part. So you got to have those expectations. I have mine in my battalion and watch to see what happens. I think I'm one of the most laid-back battalions to work for, but when one of my guys out oversteps those bounds and my expectation, watch what mama does. I'm gonna go smack their ass right back in it because I take that personal. Don't make it look like I don't have control of my battalion. I'm not a control freak, it's not about that kind of power. I want it to be a good power, right? But when you act like an idiot, I take that personal because that's a reflection of my leadership. And you ain't gotta worry about headquarters because I'm gonna be the one that smacks you right in the mouth.
SPEAKER_02Right on. I love it, I absolutely love it. Great questions from everybody. Uh, I'm looking here, I'm looking here, I'm gonna go one more. Um I got that one. All right, here we go. Relentless rescue. They asked this one a while back, so I'm trying to get to different ones and include people. But Dr. Chief, what tips do you have for doing high performer things and having underachievers put a target on their back? Admin is pushing the right direction, so that's good news. Admin is pushing in the right direction, but the line doesn't want accountability.
SPEAKER_00Again, that starts with the company officers, right? It's not the admin, it's the what the company officers allow. So when you have a lieutenant or a captain that does not want to train or they do not want to get their ass to the truck and beat their people so their people get faster, where is their supervisor at? And why is that supervisor allowing that person to do that? So it's such layer upon layer upon layer of accountability where it all falls. This person, it's a great question, but again, we're separating admin versus line. Well, if the line doesn't want accountability, why don't they want accountability? If you work for me, you're gonna know what my expectations are. And it's Mark Van Oppen, uh, fully involved, did the first four because you can't say it any better than he said it. Do your job, treat people right, have an all-in attitude, get all out effort, and have fun. It's the fifth one that I added. Have fun because we're only in this life so long. You work for me, there's my five expectations. Um, you don't want to do that? Why don't you? I'm gonna have a conversation with you. If I'm not getting what I want out of my expectations, guess what? I'm taking that personal. So if the, you know, are we hiring for character anymore? Are we hiring good quality firefighters if they don't want to do anything? We're living in a world today that's like, oh, we want to get paid more and to do less. There's a there's a movement going across this country to the 2472. Nothing against that. Great, but I my point is this your fire chief could come in and say, you know what, we don't even want you to work a 42-hour work week. We want you to work 30-hour work weeks because we care about your mental health. And we think if you spend more time with your family, then you're gonna be happier when you come to work for those 30 hours a week. And my thing to that is this do you think the people that work 30 hours a week, all their organization problems are gone because they only work 30 hours a week and they're the happiest motherfuckers or uh happy MFs walking in the door? No, they still got the same issues. It's not it's not a scheduling thing, guys. It's a mindset, it's an attitude. That's where we're going wrong. It don't matter how many freaking hours you work. I work 56 hour work weeks, and guess what? I work 90 days a freaking year, and people want to know when I'm retired. I said, Are you shitting me? I work 90 days a year. You know, I'm a chief, I don't need EMS runs. Why the hell am I going anywhere? It's like, well, you're only making a percentage of your pay. Hey, I did this once for free, I'd do it again for free. Take the money away. My ass is still showing up at work tomorrow. I want to do it another 35 years. Where's that at in the greatest job in the entire world? How many people with over 20, 25 years on a job have you ever heard want to do another 20, 25? Not many.
SPEAKER_02Not many.
SPEAKER_00They're on their way out the door. Why is that? It's the best job in the entire world. Why don't we want to do it for life? Yeah, that's you know, that's what's crazy when you stop to think about it. So I back up and say, it's not just the admin, it's everywhere. But we've got to start doing better at our hiring. You know, when I was a probationary firefighter, if I showed up late, guess what? I was fired. I didn't call in sick during my probationary year either. And now look at these recruit classes. Oh, they could do everything out of the sun, go rob a freaking bank and then keep their damn job. What are we doing? We lowered our standards and our expectations, and then we want to know what's wrong with the fire service. It's not hard to figure out.
SPEAKER_02Boom. And that's a great I honestly, man. That that is a that's a phenomenal one for me to transition. So I I you gotta you got a stack of books behind you. You got shelves and shelves of books behind you. So I'm gonna transition a book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. It's one of my favorite questions I asked.
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh. Well, in the last couple of weeks, I've been on a positivity kick, believe it or not. So I've got some John Gordon stuff um on the positive teams and positive leadership and things, because I think we do need to be more grateful. Uh, I think that's the number one healthiest uh human emotion is gratefulness, and we don't practice it enough. That and I'm gonna say this we all love people with uh disabilities, and why do we? Because they don't know hate, and so we automatically love these people. Why don't we just love everybody? It's because that we allowed allow that hate to come in. So I'm trying to be more positive in my old age, um, especially with my grandchildren, because I'd like to beat their ass more than I do. But I couldn't tell you the last time I spanked one. Well, I did spank one on them the other day, but anyway, you know, they got it, they got they got it from guess what he don't do. He don't scream in my face anymore, you know what I'm saying? Because he knows now there's consequences. But anyway, um I think that we can't go wrong. Any we got to gear ourselves more toward the learning, and there's two things that everybody says. Brennan said it, Bruno Sini said it, everybody says it. I'm gonna go right on to it. There's two things we got to know if we're gonna be great firefighters, and that is we got to know building construction and we got to know fire behavior, and you have got to stay on top of this stuff. S FSRI does so much work and it's given to us all for free. Yes, and we can go right onto the internet and we can do it when we're at work, and we can make ourselves better by looking and seeing, hey, what are we doing with strip wall fires? What are we doing with low-grade fires, basements, and attic fires, and and uh it's just amazing the plethora of information that is out there in a building construction. I don't think if you practiced it eight hours a day, every day, you could even keep up with the building construction changes there is. And Chris Nom, uh, you know, great resource and things to to learn from. And it's just, I think anytime you can pick up, and I know that Ben Martin said last week uh when I listened to the scrap, um, you know, Norman's Handbook of Tactics. And right on anytime we get into things like that, that's going to make us better firefighters, and that we can critically think in in a way that we can even be more aggressive. So we're listening to Brian Brush Crush, and we're listening to this, you know, these surveys that are out there and what the data is telling us. And oh my gosh, we're a data-driven department, but yet we're people first. And that's one thing that Chief Malone said recently, and I absolutely believe it's true. But my other part, and this hasn't had anything to do with where I work, but what good is it to be an accredited fire department with an ISO rating of one if your people don't feel valued? You can put all those stickers and all them certifications all over the wall, but if your people don't feel valued, it means nothing.
SPEAKER_02Nothing. No, that is powerful. No, that is powerful. No, that no, and and uh it's yeah, right in the fields, right in the fields, but 100%. Uh you uh or no fsri.org slash weekly scrap. Use it free training that you can.
SPEAKER_00Buildings on fire.com. Every I mean it's all right there. Half the shit's free, guys. And if it's not, guess what? Pony up the money and get your ass into firemanship or get your ass into FDIC or whatever conference is going on that you can afford. Get your ass on a plane or put your ass in a car, put some gas in it, and get your ass there. It will absolutely make you better in your career and it'll pay off in the long run. And then grab a buddy and bring them with you the next time.
SPEAKER_02No, I love it. I absolutely love it. Which takes me to the five questions for firefighters. You've had them before, but you haven't had this, you have not had this batch. So here we go. Uh this is version 6.0. That's what we're currently up to. So no right answers. There's just your opinions, and the points are arbitrary, passed out by me with the help of the audience. So, Chief, Dr. Chief, Candace Ashby, are you ready for the five questions for firefighters version 6.0?
SPEAKER_00All right, all right, here we go.
SPEAKER_02You have a time machine, but it can only be used for one thing. You can go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice. What would it be?
SPEAKER_00I would say have those candid conversations a lot sooner. I I wanted it was funny, I wanted to say get an attorney earlier in my life. And I could have done that a long time ago, but I did. I didn't want to be that person, you know. Um setting the record straight. But no, it would be, you know what, slow down. Don't be, it's not a race. We're in this for a long time. And I I think we get in a hurry, and I would slow my ass down, and I would have more candid conversations and try to build a brotherhood and sisterhood, which I didn't do in the beginning because I was too inward focused on my resume and my classes and myself. And then when I figured out true leadership is what you could do to grow and develop other people, I wish I'd have started this a lot younger. Because when I stopped chasing the destination of being a leader and I just started focusing on my people, I got all the respect that I could want now. And I got my guys that we have that mutual accountability and respect with each other. And when my guys look at me in the eye and say, Don't stop fighting the good fight, that's that means the world to me because they know that I have their back. And I wish I'd have done that much younger.
SPEAKER_02No, that's powerful, very powerful. And it's right in line with what we talked about all evening. So it's the congruency is there 100%. Max points out the gate. So there we go. Pressure's off. Number two, it's Job Town. It's time. This question's been around a while, so you may have had it before, but it's Job Town, it's time. You gotta think of that uh scene from Backdraft where he's slapping that cassette tape into that cassette deck. What song are you playing while in route?
SPEAKER_00I told Christy to give me a song yesterday and she didn't do it, just in case you asked me this. You're gonna blame the expo? Failed me on this, but I would have to go with I I'm some I'm somebody upbeat. Like I would throw in Ozzie Osborne's freaking crazy train on the way there, like, oh aboard, let's go, MS, let's go, let's get this shit done and kick it in the ass. You know, I want to be hyped up, I want Bruno Mars, I want Usher, I want Ludacris, I want hell, you know, that's what's gonna pump me up to get there. And but at the end of the time, I would want uh we are family, because I I don't think we do that enough to have that song because we are family and we need to start acting like it.
SPEAKER_02So, what is the song? I I heard I heard it.
SPEAKER_00I'll do go crazy train with Donzi Osborne because I'm gonna go owl out, haul balls to the wall, crazy, on the way to a fire. I want to be pumped up, amped up, coming off that truck, ready to freaking go.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I love it. There you go. I, I, I, I love it. Nice points. One and two. Number three. Cold weekend at the station, rig checks are done, training is done, PT is done. In other words, it's a lazy day, but you're not being lazy. Okay, so I want to be clear on that. And you're sitting in the day room, you're clicking through the channels on the remote, and that movie is there. You've seen the movie dozens and dozens of times. It doesn't matter where it's at in the movie, you're gonna finish that movie. What is that movie for you?
SPEAKER_00A few good men. Oh, nice, nice. You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. I use words like honor, code, loyalty. I use those words as a backbone of a lifespan defending something. You use them as a punchline. Punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps on the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. Yeah, I'd watch that one all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_02Uh, I was gonna say that that I felt uh yeah, Colonel Jessup just stepped into the room. Okay, uh Max points, three for three. Um, number four, what is the one habit that you believe separates average firefighters from exceptional firefighters?
SPEAKER_00Attitude.
SPEAKER_02Attitude.
SPEAKER_00That's not a habit, but the positive thinking, the attitude, the adjustment, the words that come out of your mouth. Is it uh is it coming from a place of love or is it coming from disdain and hate, and you're gonna project everything else? I think that's a difference between because there's some people out there that are very, very highly talented, but they don't have any bedside manner, they don't have an attitude to to mentor the young people and to show them they want to grab the nozzle and they want to go running in instead of grabbing this new person, they want to go make fun of them because the new person don't know how to start a chainsaw instead of showing them because somebody had to show us, and it's our job to show the youth. Instead, we sit back and we blame each other. So I think the attitude will will project your behavior and your habits and everything else.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. Max points four for four. I expect you more or less. Number five, it's the question that's never changed. It is heavy fire, searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on a VES?
SPEAKER_00No, I'll have to do the nozzle because Christy has stepped on me to go in to get the grab. So I'll have to grab the nozzle and hold the flames back while she's getting the grab and bringing them out.
SPEAKER_02All right, there you go.
SPEAKER_00And I would say, I'll say this. I have had a grab, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And it is the most taxing thing I've I think I've ever been through in my life. Now, it's easy for me to say that now that I'm old. You know, that it's easier for me to take that nozzle now that we understand nozzle reaction and everything, and we can put it forward and we can do all kinds of stuff with it, and where to bank it and everything. But grabbing somebody that they don't have any clothes on and you're trying and they're limp, uh, that is that I I applaud these people that absolutely make these grabs and stuff. It's just absolutely amazing because you have to really dig into that inner strength to pull something out. And you gotta know, you gotta have your shit together when you do it. You can't just gonna send anybody in there, it's gonna grab somebody, they're gonna struggle.
SPEAKER_02Max points, uh, bonus max points on on number six. Uh, absolutely, and and for the the the dialogue, the the the beautiful few good men rant, Van. Extra, like I don't give out extra max points. I'm not sure that's a real thing, but you got extra max points for that beautiful uh breakdown.
SPEAKER_00A few times every time it's on, I stop. I don't, I can't, I gotta get to the end scene. I just love it. You're under arrest, you son of a bitch. You know how many people, how many fire chiefs and admin people I'd love to say that too.
SPEAKER_02Oh I use one of the clips from it. The whole uh when he's up against uh Kevin Bacon in the in the courtroom, of course he's up against me the whole time, but the when he's taking the the Marine Corps handbook and then Guantanamo and says, show me where the mess hall is. I I I do that whole bit for uh talk about expectations during one of my classes.
SPEAKER_00It's perfect, it's perfect for that, all the way up until even Demi Moore sitting in the office where she's all primed proper and by the book, and everything is she's OCD, and then Tom uh Cruz walks in there chewing and grabbing an apple and splintering it and stuffing everywhere there. She doesn't know how to handle it. She's grabbing the trash can. There's so much to be learned in that movie. It's it's absolutely phenomenal to sit back and and watch it with the two different sets of lenses. We could you could see everything in it. So they did a really good job with that.
SPEAKER_02We'll have to build a class called uh Tom Cruise Movies and the Leadership Lessons therein.
SPEAKER_00You good men, how about that? How you know and it is. I mean, but I think we have the majority of good people. We got a few little turds out here, but we need to take care of transform those turds. And if they're not transformable, see ya.
SPEAKER_02Like Steve Mauch came in and said, Dr. Colonel Chief Candice Jessup giving us the truth all night. We I'm not sure that would stick. It might, it might. Uh, we need that on a t-shirt. All there's also been a t-shirt created tonight of something I think where you're holding a paddle, so uh oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everybody's what you know, and I because I say that in my class, like, go get one of the aerodynamic holes and go in there and start wailing away on people and metaphorically, you know, and everybody's like, oh, they want to get these paddles and start passing them out, but that's what we need. Nobody's paddling anybody, and you know what's going on as you spoil rotten little brats out here throwing a freaking fit because they don't get their damn way. Let me come along and smack you right on the ass until you act like a damn adult, straighten your ass up. You know, where's that? I just uh it just amazes me that we act like a bunch of if you talk about girls that women that chitty chatty, they ain't got nothing on freaking firemen. I'm gonna tell you why. Absolutely not, but then it's like it's like going into elementary school. I was listening to my grandkids arguing today. I said, gosh damn, I felt like I'm at the firehouse, you know, like it's that's what it is. It's just like you did this or you did that. It's like just shut the hell up. How you know, act like you guys got some sense. How's that? Your siblings, what'd you start acting like? You know, and I use the same thing at the firehouse, and it's just like, oh, okay. So I think candid conversation takes care of most issues, not a piece of paper.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00So you know, why not?
SPEAKER_02And with those max points plus the bonus max points, you officially put you officially put 365 scraps in the books. That's one scrap for every day of the year. Chief, Dr. Chief, Candace Ashton. Thank you so much. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Appreciate it. I appreciate everybody that's listening and viewing and all that. We're winning. We are we got it, we gotta we got a work cut out for us. So roll up your sleeves and dig it in, and we got to fight the good fight.
SPEAKER_02If someone wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to do so? If they want to reach out to you and say they need you, they need you on that wall.
SPEAKER_00I know I always forget to put up my contact information in my classes, and people seem to still find me. But I got elite public safety Facebook page, I got Candace Key Ashby Facebook page is my personal one. I got C Ashby, my first initial last name at elitepublicsafety.com is my email. Um, Google, Google me. I'm sure you can find me. Don't call Indianapolis Fire Department looking for me. You know, try to get me outside of there because that is my full-time job. You don't hire, you know, I don't go through IFD to hire me. But uh, but yeah, and I and I I I tell you what, we are living in a great time and I'm absolutely having a blast. I can't imagine doing anything else, but I I wouldn't be able to do what I do without people like yourself and the people that are listening. So I'm very thankful for uh being around a bunch of rock stars. It just keeps me going. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_02That is awesome. All right, housekeeping from me. Go to patreon.com slash the vigilantes. If you're not one, why not? Be a part. The after party's coming up. Candace is gonna be in there. If you thought this was, yeah, well, we'll see. Uh, next week on the scrap, the return of one of my favorite people, Dan Shaw, one of the people I quote in so many classes. Uh, and it's gonna keep this run of leadership discussion going because we've been on a tear. Uh, then two weeks from today, just to stay on theme, uh, none other than Larry Conley coming on for his first scrap appearance. So you talk about an amazing lineup through the summer of 2026. It's been amazing. You don't want to miss it. All right. It is enough jabbering from me. We're gonna get to the after party. Candace Ashby, thank you for spending your evening with us, sharing your passion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's past my old ass bedtime, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_02The scrap is hard on the East Coasters. They really it does it, yeah. But it's worth it.
unknownIt's worth it.
SPEAKER_02Audience, thank you so much for tuning in live each and every week. You make the scrap magical. You you write, you send Sam the best questions. Sam finds your questions, sends them to me and the guest. Uh, thank you so much. Because without you, it'd just be me and Candace talking, which I would love, but you guys really do turn it into what it is. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tone stays silent. Unless it is burning, this job is not safe. So stay smart out there. Thanks for listening to the weekly scrap. Please subscribe and please share. We'll see you at the next episode.