How To Review Your Year Like A Firefighter. The After Action Review Process.

Summary

In this episode of the Earn Your Title podcast, Danny Dumas discusses the importance of conducting an after action review, particularly as the year comes to a close. He emphasizes the need for reflection on past actions, decisions, and outcomes to foster personal growth and improvement. Dumas shares his own experiences and insights on evaluating goals, recognizing successes, and identifying areas for improvement. He encourages listeners to adopt a structured approach to self-assessment and planning for the future, highlighting the value of having a supportive partner or coach in this process.


Takeaways

• The after action review is a critical tool for reflection.
• It's important to assess what went well and what didn't.
• No judgment should be involved in the review process.
• Setting goals is essential for personal development.
• Evaluating progress helps in understanding successes and failures.
• Communication and teamwork are vital in high-pressure situations.
• Personal reflections can lead to better future planning.
• Having a support system can enhance the review process.
• It's okay to fail; the key is to learn from it.
• Planning for the future is crucial, especially at year-end.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to After Action Reviews
03:05 The Process of Reflection and Improvement
05:55 Setting Goals and Evaluating Progress

If you click on this link above I may make a commission, but it wont cost you anymore money, but it might be slightly harder for Jeff Bezoes to fill up his $500,000,000 yacht so if you want to help me and stick it to the man use the links above

Click Here To Reconnect With Your Family.

Send me an email at danny@dannydumas.com

Take the 28 Day Earn Your Title Challenge

Transcript

0:00

Hey, welcome back my friends. My name is Danny Dumas and this is the Earn Your Title podcast. We are getting close to wrapping up the year and I want to give you the tools that I use as a firefighter to make myself a better, more safer, I don't know if that's the word, more safer, safer fireman and more productive and allows us to learn from our mistakes and that is the after action review. As we finish up this year, it's very similar to finishing up a house fire. Lots of things went on. It was very dynamic. What we thought was going to happen didn't happen. And I think it's important to look back and to have a process for doing that and see what you did, why you did it, and then what you want to do in the future to make it better, or maybe do it again because it worked out really well. When we have a house fire, anytime that it's significant, multiple companies are involved, or we would call it a big fire or maybe a dramatic fire, a rescue, we do what's called an after action review. And we all, uh the fires done, we're all, you know, clean, showered, rested. Sometimes it's even the next day. We come together and the first thing we do is we just go through each company. What did everybody do? What did you do? What did you see? What decisions did you make? Now this is zero judgment at all. There's no good, there's no bad. It's I did this, I did this, I did, okay, cool. Engine one. This is the seven, what'd do? and we get all the information out there. Again, no judgment, no right or wrong, just we are working. We had an assignment, we did this, we found this. Now, and then, so we have all the information. And then I always start with what I feel like I could have done better or maybe I missed or maybe I misunderstood. So I go through and I'm like, you know, I wasn't exactly sure. I lost track of where you guys went and I actually assigned two people for the same task because I was a little overwhelmed. The fire I thought was gonna go this way and it didn't. And I just expressed what I wanted to happen and then what actually happened. And then everybody goes on the list. This is what I could have done better. This is what I could have done better. We're taking notes. Then at the end, we go through it. Cool. All right. What did we do well? I think we worked. Communication was pretty good. Yeah, you're right. I knew what you were doing. The closed loop communication was good. We were pretty effective. We didn't waste a lot of time trying to decide. We had a decision. We made this decision. We executed. And it worked. Everybody went home safe. We saved some property, we saved some lives, know, the trucks got put back in service and we kept working. Awesome. We take what we did, we take what we learned, we take what we liked, we put it all together and then we change and adapt and we keep moving on. And I think it's really important as we get to the end of the year that you do that as well. You know, we have, if you wrote down your New Year's resolutions or your yearly goals, this is the time to go look back. what might that look like? It might be you open up your calendar and maybe at the beginning of the year said, I'm going have a date night once a month with my wife. I had something very similar. I want to have a date uh night with my wife. I didn't, looking back, I think we probably only went out just me and her maybe five times. And well, I feel like that's somewhat of a failure because it wasn't 12 times. What I realized is we actually had several days for many months where me and her spent the whole day together. And knowing my wife, that's actually probably what she wants more than like going out to eat. Me and her at the house together, you know, we clean the house together, we ate lunch and dinner together, maybe even breakfast. We just spent the whole day, we didn't go and do anything. But for us, that was the date night. It was, you know, my wife's, one of her love languages is quantity of time. And I was able to give that to her. So in my head, what did I do? We had five dates, but we also had these, you know, seven or eight other all day hangout sessions. What could I have done better? Maybe a few more dates would have been good, but what did I do good? We made time to be committed to being with each other and that was successful. Move on. You know, I look at, you know, my financial life. I can calculate my net worth on January 1st of 2025 and I can calculate it today in November. Is it, does it go up? If it did, then I'm doing better, right? I am moving the ball. Now, was it as fast I wanted? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was I didn't make a whole lot more money, but I paid off a ton of debt. That's awesome. How was my quality time with my family? Well, we went on a vacation of a lifetime. We went out west, saw every national park I can imagine between Michigan and Wyoming, and that was good. We're just going down the list and analyzing what we did. Was it good? Was it bad? And what would we do do different? And I think having this process, especially with the first of the year coming up and having these plans, you know, we all make plans and we all make resolutions. And sometimes it seems very unfruitful because we don't always fall through. But I truly believe to have these ideas in your head, even if it doesn't come true today. And what sparked all this, I mean, it's something I do in general right around this time of year, I start thinking back, but. I was cleaning the basement on one of these days with my wife and in a book, a piece of paper fell out and I opened it up and it said, things that I want. Now I really wish I would have put a date on it, but I think it was before I had kids. So at least 18 years ago, it was probably 25, 30 things of things that I wanted. And it went to, um I want to have a trip out West. I want to have flipped a house, which we kind of did. I sold a rental house. I want to be fluent in Spanish. I am close. I shouldn't say close. I can speak some Spanish. I want to live in Chile for six months. I wasn't able to do that, but my wife and family were able to for almost six months. I hit out of the 30, 20, 30 things on that list, I bet I hit 80 % of it. And I don't remember writing this list. You know, I put some funny things like, you know, I want to trade currency. I'm guessing I was reading a book on trading currency. So that thought that would be important, but I said I wanted to work 25 years. fire service. I'm at 25 years. I want to be battalion chief. I turned the job down, but I could have got it. Like I got what I wrote down. So I want that for you. I want you to go through this life and take notice. And if you failed, it's okay. You know, if you're looking back this year and go, man, I really wanted to lose weight and I'm five pounds heavier. It's okay. Right? You can't go back. You don't have any of that time back, but you can realize, okay, but why? Why did I gain five pounds? Well, maybe you had another goal of I need to get out of debt and maybe you paid off 30,$40,000 in debt and that required you to go to work a ton. Because you went to work a ton, you ate out a ton and that caused you to gain weight. Well, by having a non-emotional after action review, you can say, well, what did I do good? I got out of debt. What could I have done better? I probably could have packed my lunch. That way I wasn't tempted. But you have a plan and it's non-emotional. And now I think this can be very helpful to have someone help you do this, like a trusted friend, your wife, a coach. If you want me to help, I would love to help you. My email is danny at dannydumas.com. You need someone just to, hey, could you talk with me? I'm gonna tell you what I did and you give me your, maybe just listen and maybe ask a few questions. I just did an episode about AI. Ask AI. These were all my goals. This is where I fell short. This is what I did well. ask me some questions of why I think that I might've messed up and it will pull this out, it's good. But we need to have a plan to continually move forward. I think a life on purpose is an important life. It is really easy to just coast. Especially with the holidays coming up, you're like, I'm not gonna do anything, I'm gonna gain a little bit weight, but it's okay, it's the holidays. Well, I think this is a really good time, because we do have some free time. I live in Michigan, it's in the north, it's getting dark early. There's lots of time just to think, to write and plan. And I want you guys to have that plan. I want you to do an after action review of this year and then come up with a good plan for next year. I've got a few plans for this podcast coming up, things for the first of the year to kind of maybe give you some things to aim at the different areas of your life. But overall, I think it's really important that we plan. So use the after action review process, which is to tell us what you did, tell us what you did good, tell us what you did bad, tell us how you would change or what you wouldn't change and how it went well. how you can continue to make it go well, and then adapt and follow your plan again. And just keep doing that till you get to the point of where you want to go. ah I hope you've enjoyed this. My name is Danny Dumas and this is the Inner Title Podcast and I will talk to you later. Bye.