Chapter Blue

Balancing the Badge with Stan Partlow

• Tyra Valeriano • Episode 2

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This week on Chapter Blue, Tyra welcomes Stan Partlow, a retired police commander and corporate security leader, for a candid conversation about leadership, mental health, and life after law enforcement. With 25 years in law enforcement and another 15 years in corporate security, Stan has a wealth of experience and wisdom to share. He opens up about the challenges of transitioning from policing to the private sector and how he has used those lessons to help others through his book, Leading Relentlessly.

The episode focuses on the importance of mental health support for officers, the shortcomings of traditional leadership styles, and the need for modern leaders to adapt to changing times. Stan also shares valuable perspectives on balancing personal relationships with the demands of a high-stress career. His reflections on work-life balance, family dynamics, and the evolving nature of law enforcement leadership resonate deeply with the realities officers face every day.

Whether you’re a new officer, a seasoned leader, or someone interested in the intersection of leadership and mental health, this episode offers something for everyone. Join Tyra and Stan as they discuss the challenges and triumphs of a life dedicated to service—and the steps we can take to ensure the next generation of officers is better supported and equipped to thrive.

Books Mentioned: 

  1. "Ego is the Enemy" by Ryan Holiday
  2. "Leading Relentlessly" by Stan Partlow (the guest's book)
  3. Simon Sinek's Work on Leadership - While not a book title, the podcast references Simon Sinek’s teachings, particularly his concept of finding your "why." Sinek's popular books include "Start with Why" and "Leaders Eat Last."

Resources: 
Firstrespondersbridge.org

Contact:
Stan Partlow (LinkedIn)
sepjr505@gmail.com

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Tyra Valeriano:

Welcome to Chapter Blue, the podcast where we discuss the world of law enforcement through an honest conversation on tough or controversial topics, real stories, perspectives and experience from officers all around the world. Whether you're here for insights on mental health, self-care, work-life balance, getting into law enforcement, getting out of law enforcement, or just trying to learn about personal and professional challenges officers face every day, you've come to the right place. I'm your host, tyra Valeriano, and whether I'm going solo or speaking with a guest, each episode will discuss different aspects of life behind the badge. Let's turn the page and step into Chapter Blue. Hey, everyone, welcome back to Chapter Blue.

Tyra Valeriano:

I'm excited about today's episode because we have a very special guest joining us. But before I introduce my guests, I wanted to give you guys a huge thank you to everybody who supported my first episode, whether you tuned in, shared a post, shared the podcast, or even to those who provided a review. I am truly grateful for each and every single one of you. The support does not go unnoticed. I also wanted to thank my first sponsor, tafco Windows out of El Paso, texas. Tafco Windows has served the customers of El Paso and the surrounding area for over 50 years, so please reach out to them if you have any windowed needs and you are in the area. Now for today's episode, I wanted to welcome Stan Partlow, who is out of Ohio. He has served 25 years in law enforcement and he transitioned into the corporate security world for an additional 15 years, and he even published a book. So, without further ado, good morning, stan. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm really happy to have you on the podcast. How are you?

Stan Partlow:

I'm great, tyra, thank you for having me and thank you for your leadership and putting this together to try to share a message out there to our first responder community that they probably need to hear.

Tyra Valeriano:

I agree. Will you give our listeners a brief introduction about who you are and what your background is in law enforcement?

Stan Partlow:

Sure, I'm an old guy, started in law enforcement in 1980 and retired in 2005. Spent 21 years with the city of Columbus in Ohio and retired as a commander, and I also, during my career, spent four years as a special agent with the FBI. I left law enforcement in 2005 and went to the private sector and became a security director and then ultimately a vice president, chief security officer for one of the largest electric utility companies in the United States, and retired about four years ago. So after 40 years I decided that that was enough, so I went ahead and retired. So I am the middle of three generations of Columbus police officers. My dad started in 1961 and retired in 1986. And my oldest daughter and her husband are both currently serving. So I think I added it up last night we're about 79 years of combined service in the law enforcement community. So I'm very proud of them and was very proud to follow in my dad's footsteps as well.

Tyra Valeriano:

Wow, that's great. That's a lot of history in the family and that's definitely something to keep going. Is there any more kids in the family that want to be police officers?

Stan Partlow:

Nope. I don't know about the grandchildren. We'll see. I have five grandchildren. We'll see if we get a fourth generation out of that. But my other two daughters have no interest in that. My middle daughter is a teacher and she's serving in that way, and my youngest daughter has Down syndrome and she is the queen of the family. All you have to do is ask her and she'll tell you she's in charge. So we ought to pretty much follow what she says, and then everything else seems to work itself out.

Tyra Valeriano:

I appreciate you sharing that with us. I actually wanted to ask you how has it been since you've been retired I mean that's a long time having a history in law enforcement and then switching sectors. How has it been since you've been out of work?

Stan Partlow:

switching sectors. How has it been since you've been out of work? I'm very proud of both of my careers. I was very blessed in that I had a chance to lead in two very different environments and, you know, one of the messages that I would share with your listeners is that, for those of you that are in law enforcement leadership, you know one of the things you really need to think about is whether that leadership is number one, the most effective in your current job, and number two, if you decide to do something later, will it really translate to that next move? And I would submit to you that what I learned over my 40 years 27 of that was in a formal leadership role was that?

Stan Partlow:

The answer to that is no of that was in a formal leadership role. Was that? The answer to that is no. If you focus solely on command and control when number one, it will not be very effective for you in your current job. And I say that because I think the game has changed. Law enforcement officers of today are much different than the ones of 1980, certainly much different than the ones of 1961. The ones of 1980, certainly much different than the ones of 1961. And as I watched my dad's generation, my generation and now my kids. I recognize that that old command and control idea of I've got more stuff up here than you do and you're just going to blindly follow what I say really doesn't work, and I think that's one of the reasons why we're seeing a lot of people leave mid-career because of the leadership or lack thereof that is at those agencies.

Stan Partlow:

So I would say to those law enforcement leaders out there that are currently leading think about the way you're leading and think about getting into a much more collaborative style and get away from that command and control Again. As police leaders you're always going to have to use some command and control.

Stan Partlow:

When you go out to a hostage barricade, you're in charge. You're going to set the rules for engagement, if you will, for that event. You go out to a crime scene a major traffic crash that's your job. But most of the decisions that you make as a leader don't fall in that category. You go out to a crime scene a major traffic crash that's your job. But most of the decisions that you make as a leader don't fall in that category. Most of them, you could collaborate, you could get opinions, you could help people understand why you need to do this, instead of just saying you're going to do it because I told you so, so let's circle that all the way around.

Stan Partlow:

In my career, I went through the private sector for 15 years and I can tell you emphatically that that command and control style would not have worked, for I would not have lasted six months or a year if I had tried to use that style in a major corporation. My company was about a Fortune 150 company, 25,000 employees spread across 11 states. That style would not have made it so. One thing I would share with your listeners, those of you that are in leadership roles think about the way you're doing it and thinking about how you can be the most effective today, but also prepare yourself for tomorrow, because you may want to leave that career either mid-career or at the end after service retirement and you're, you know, in your early 50s and you say, wow, I've got another 10 years of work left before I want to really retire. I'm like, what am I going to do? And so you know you're best to prepare yourself for that.

Tyra Valeriano:

You know. I want to go back to what you were talking about. When it comes to leadership, I think that this is something that's controversial and it's because of the way things are in today's society. So, for example, we have social media, we have access to the internet, and it's putting a lot of information out there. That is kind of making leadership. I don't know if it's changing with the times and the generations, but you also still have leadership that's in agencies that are very old school, right, so they're still stuck in those ways and they're not willing to adapt. I want to know what your opinion is. Do you think that those leaders need to adapt so that leadership can change down the line, or do you think that it's just too far gone, that leadership is just going to have to start from the bottom?

Stan Partlow:

No, I think leaders are capable of adapting. I really do. I think you. You know number one you have to get out of your own way. I'm a big proponent of stoicism and there's a gentleman out there named, named Ryan Holiday, who wrote a book called Ego is the Enemy, and I really believe that. You know, most of the decisions that we make that get us in trouble are because of our own ego, and one of the my favorite quotes is Albert Einstein once said that the true measure of a man is his ability to subjugate his own ego. So, as a law enforcement leader, if you can put your ego in your back pocket, read Ryan Holiday's Ego is the Enemy, figure out how to do that. You recognize pretty quickly that there are people out there that know how to do their work. You really just need to get out of their way. You need to support them. You need to explain things to them differently than again in my era or my father's era and there's nothing wrong with that.

Stan Partlow:

It could still be effective. Like I said, if I looked over my 25-year law enforcement career and over half of that was spent in formal leadership roles the amount of decisions that I had to make that were what I would call emergency decisions, where I had to take command and be in control were minuscule compared to the overall number of decisions that I had to make. So I'm very proud of the fact that I can honestly say this. In my whole law enforcement supervisory career, I gave one direct order one and that was a situation where I was a lieutenant. I had a sergeant reporting to me. The deputy chief wanted some information. This guy didn't believe that he needed to give the information. We went around and around.

Stan Partlow:

I asked him a couple of times. He drug his feet and finally I gave him an order and I said if you don't do this, I'm going to charge you with insubordination. I'm going to charge you with insubordination. I looked at that as a leadership failure on my part. I hated that. We ended up talking a lot about it after the fact and we came to an understanding. But I would much rather go to you and say hey, tyra, would you mind doing this, or would you please do that? I don't need to give you an order and I don't need to tell you who I am. You know who I am If I'm the sergeant, the lieutenant, the commander, the chief, whatever. It's not a mystery to you that I'm asking you to do something.

Stan Partlow:

So when I would send people notes, I would never sign my rank on them. I got in trouble with my boss one time because I would just put my initials on there or I would just say it was from Stan. He's like you can't do that. You know that that doesn't follow the military protocol. And I said well, number one, we're not in the military, we're paramilitary, so we'll, we'll take that with a grain of salt. Number two when I send you a note. You know who I am.

Stan Partlow:

Why do I need to tell you that I'm stan, first and foremost, but secondly, I might be commander part lowlo. That's true, but I don't need to rub your nose in that. I just need to tell you. Hey, would you mind doing this? I appreciate it, and so my compromise with him was I would just use my initials, because he didn't like me using my first name, so I would just put SCP at the end of the thing and be done with it. The bottom again. For me, your question is critical. I think the number one thing that we can do as leaders in the business, if you will, in law enforcement, to stem the flow of people leaving mid-career is to do a better job of being leaders.

Stan Partlow:

do a better job of being leaders, you know in my era from 1980 to 2005, no one left the career at 10 years 5 years, 15 years.

Stan Partlow:

Nobody did that. If you did that, you only did it for a couple reasons. One, you got hurt and you couldn't do the job anymore. Or two, you probably got fired. People at least stayed to get their 20, 25 years. Whatever their pension number was, they stayed that long. So I think law enforcement leaders are foolish if they don't take stock of their own agencies and say why do I have really good people that are getting out of this profession before that service retirement date? There has to be a reason for that, because I could tell you over my history, over my dad's history, so we go back 50 plus years. That didn't happen. So something is different today.

Stan Partlow:

Certainly, to your point, social media contributes to this. The viewpoint of the public for us communicates to it or contributes to it. But I will tell you that happened in my dad's career. My dad lived through the civil rights era, the vietnam war protest. I lived through rodney king. There's been times throughout history that the citizenry that we serve has not been happy with us. That's, that's constant in this job, right? But I think the difference to your very point is that the leadership has not figured out how to effectively lead the officers of the day and if they don't figure that out, their departments are not going to flourish and people are going to consistently leave and they're going to have a hard time recruiting people to come in and fill those roles. So I believe that leaders have to really take stock of themselves, figure out what they need to do to change and then go change it.

Tyra Valeriano:

Right, you know there's a lot of really good topics that I want to get into on this and I hope we have enough time. But one of the things that leaders or agencies tend to do is they promote new hires. They're not focused on retention, they're focused on bringing people in and a lot of the good officers or the people who have experience are leaving because they're not getting any kind of incentive to stay with the agency and they kind of feel ran over, they don't feel appreciated, and you know that's part of okay. Is this the leadership aspect or is this out of desperation? And at what point are you going to separate? You know, hey, we still have to resolve the issue of leadership. So you know, the retention issue is a completely separate issue, but it also ties into how are we going to keep our people, and you know you can keep giving people pay raises. They might want to stay for a little bit, but there are so many other factors that are going to cause them to leave, because money doesn't fix what's going on in the agency.

Stan Partlow:

Amen. I mean. There's a lot of research out there that money is an interesting dynamic. It's actually a the social scientists call it a hygiene factor. Money will cause you to leave a profession, but very rarely will it cause you to stay in one. And, as you said, it's very temporary, right? Because if you get a raise, when is it ever enough?

Stan Partlow:

So you get that dollar an hour raise and you think, wow, you know, I got this big raise. And then six months later, you know the groceries and the gasoline have gone up and eaten away at that money and you're like, well, I'm no further ahead. People stay in jobs because of something they want to do. They stay in jobs because of the people that they work with and the people that they work for and, to your point, that's where you got to focus your energy and that's what you have to fix. Just throwing money at people is really not going to make them stay. Now there are some golden handcuffs out there where there are people in their career that are close enough to retirement that they're like I can't leave until I get that date. But what I think you're seeing is people that get five or six years on are saying you know what? This is not what I thought it was going to be, and if I'm going to get out now is the time to get out.

Stan Partlow:

Not when I have 18 years on and I'm a couple of years away from securing a pension, or 22 years on or whatever, depending upon where you live, what your pension date is. But I think you're absolutely right. You know, we need to figure that out pretty quickly and we need to go become better leaders. Become better leaders. One of the things that I've done since I retired was I actually followed a challenge. I lost my wife four years ago and one of the things that she always challenged me to do when she was healthy was, you know, to write a book. Because she said, all you ever do is talk about leadership, you think about leadership, you read all the books about leadership. We would go on vacation and I'd load three or four books on my.

Stan Partlow:

Kindle that were you know, leadership.

Stan Partlow:

Biographies of you know leaders that I respected, so so I actually did it, and about a year ago I published a book called Leading Relentlessly, and I tried to take the messages that I learned in my law enforcement career and my private sector career and create something that people could look at and say, wow, maybe there's a different way that I could learn to lead. I don't pretend that I have all the answers, but what I hope the book does for people that decide to read it is that it forces them to ask themselves some questions around their leadership style and whether it's as effective as it could be.

Tyra Valeriano:

Right. Another issue that obviously we're seeing is mental health, and I'm curious if this issue back in the day, when you were a police officer, was this as big of as an issue that it is today. Was it something that was swept under the rug back then, or was this not as common as it is today?

Stan Partlow:

No, I think it absolutely existed. And, again, I grew up in a police family. My dad started when I was three years old, so I used to see these guys come to the house all the time and, you know, knew their families because we did things together. Um, I would say that the way um law enforcement officers dealt with the issue was much different than the way they deal with it today. Um, they used choir practice, bud light therapy, whatever you want to call it. Um, I think our our alcoholism rate, back in my dad's era especially, was huge.

Stan Partlow:

You had a lot of people coming back to vietnam who had a lot of stress, um, that they didn't get any support at all from the military. Then they became police officers. They were thrown back into the fire, if you you will, with even more stress and trauma. I think you see the same thing today, with many of our folks coming out of the military. You know they, although there is more support for them than there was 40, 50 years ago. But I think the problem has existed. I think we're doing a better job of recognizing it today. But again.

Stan Partlow:

I think it comes down to leadership. If you are a chief or you're a captain or you're a commander or a lieutenant or whatever it is, you are on your agency. The shadow that you cast is more important than any words that ever come out of your mouth. So if you have a policy that says you know we're going to support officers, mental health issues and we're going to have counseling or this or that, but you don't actually do it, then you might as well not have the policy at all. So I think it's another one of those scenarios where, in my era, many times the older leaders that we had would just say look, suck it up. You know, you signed up for this, you knew it was going to be this, you knew it was going to be bad, you knew it was going to be nasty. You just need to suck it up and move on. I think a leader today saying that same thing is irresponsible, and I believe that you know that they in fact have to fix themselves first.

Stan Partlow:

The one other comment that I would make on this whole mental health idea is that make sure that you are dealing with your trauma as you think about leaving the environment. If you believe that getting away from your job is going to stop the trauma, in my humble opinion you're wrong. The trauma is there. In my humble opinion, you're wrong. The trauma is there and you can talk to anyone that's experienced trauma and is as old as I can manage it, but it's still there. Anyone that served in the military would tell you the same thing. It's there until they don't breathe anymore.

Stan Partlow:

So if you think that you're going to run away, if you will, from that trauma by leaving the profession, you're wrong. You've got to deal with it. I'm not saying you shouldn't get away from the profession. That's not what I'm saying and I don't want anybody to mishear that. But as you leave, you have to recognize a couple of things. Number one the trauma follows. You doesn't go away. And number two, and one that I think people don't think about, is when you remove yourself from the profession, either through resignation or retirement, you just cut off one of your very important support networks.

Stan Partlow:

So you think about that run, that you went on when you were a police officer and it was ugly, whatever it was traffic crash, firing out, you know, shooting, whatever it was.

Stan Partlow:

You went back to the station and you sat around the table with people that had been through that same kind of experience and you talked about it or you called your buddy on the way home or your old partner, your fto or whoever it was, and you had that instant connection with people who understood what you had been through and you leaned on each other and that's a beautiful thing.

Stan Partlow:

But here's the reality when you leave, you don't have that same connection, even if you still have friends left on the department. It's never going to be the same. It's never going to be the same as going back, turning your car keys in, you know, taking your, your gear off and sitting down and decompressing with your friends, or maybe literally going out and having a beer, whatever it takes to make that happen. It's never going to be the same. And I can tell you from personal experience that if I gone into my private sector world and sat down at the lunchroom table at american electric power, where I work, and talked about an incident that happened in my police career, people would have looked at me like I had three heads, because they don't understand that and that's not being demeaning to them, just they've never lived it.

Stan Partlow:

And so you know, we have a way of talking with each other, supporting each other communicating with each other and once you decide to leave to one degree or another, you lose that. So the two messages that I would say for people that are thinking about leaving are one make sure you keep working on your trauma. Don't think that just because you walked out the door it'll go away. And number two, if you can try to stay connected with people that understand you. But if you can't do that, make sure you find somebody out there that does understand you. Maybe that's a therapist, maybe it's another peer counselor, it's somebody else who can help you navigate through that process.

Tyra Valeriano:

Yeah, that's great advice. I actually can relate to that. I know my retirement is not the same as everyone else's, but that is something that, even to this day, I struggle with. And a part of that is also identity, because a lot of us become our job. We identify as a police officer. You know, this is who I am, this is what I'm proud to be and, regardless of what society may be thinking about law enforcement or police officers in general, you're still proud of what you've accomplished and what you've done. And to pull away from that and know that you're trying to make new friends or you're trying to connect back with your family if you haven't done that already, it's very difficult to do and sometimes that dark humor lingers. So when somebody that I don't know, who's never been a police officer, is asking me hey, tell me some of the stories that you know you went to it's, it's kind of uncomfortable because you know they're going to look at you like you're crazy and you might still find something funny that they they're not going to think is funny. So now you're just the weirdo that nobody wants to talk to, and I definitely can relate to that.

Tyra Valeriano:

Touching on dealing with your trauma in law enforcement and tying that into leadership. One of the things that I noticed as a patrol sergeant is I had a couple guys who had some issues that were not work related. They were dealing with a lot of stuff and I didn't have any resources to give them. You have the EAP program, which everybody's familiar with, and after what three sessions you got to pay. So even as a leader, you know they have to go in there and figure out what kind of resources are we going to make available, readily available for officers where they don't have to go searching for somebody to help them. And now that the conversation has come up, we're trying to find and build those resources so that officers don't have to go looking for it. What do you think new leaders in the field should consider when it comes to finding those resources or providing that to their officers?

Stan Partlow:

So that's a great point, tyra, because police officers by their very nature are paranoid. Most of them are not going to avail themselves of the EAP program that their department has and in some cases I would submit that the EAP program is really not a good fit for them, because these folks that staff that phone line are not trauma counselors that understand first responder or military trauma, which is its own animal right as you described it. You know, you've seen and done things that the average person hasn't done with, hasn't done when you think about what he might do for an employee.

Stan Partlow:

It may be. I've got an elderly parent I'm caring for. Okay, that's a form of trauma. Maybe my spouse is sick, that's a form of trauma. Maybe I have an addiction issue. Those are all legitimate forms of trauma that need to be dealt with. That's not the kind of trauma that first responders go through. The sad stress is has no real background of PTSD.

Stan Partlow:

So one of the things I think police leaders really need to think about is and I find in my community some people that understand the first responder and military mindset and there are people out there now that are specializing in that field and but you're going to have to look for them to your point, you know, and just say, well, the city has an EAP program, it's not going to get it because, think about it, the city is bigger than the police department, right, it's bigger than the fire department, it's the whole city, however many employees, that is, they're going to pick an EAP program, probably through some insurance carrier, that's designed to deal with the masses, not designed to deal with the trauma that you might have experienced on the job or a firefighter might have experienced on the job or might have experienced on the job. So I think it's incumbent upon the leaders to go out and try to find those people.

Stan Partlow:

There are definitely peer support people that are not licensed therapists that are out there, and you may even consider, if you're a leader in your agency, if we start a peer support team within our department or for a small agency. Could we partner up with a community with maybe several smaller agencies and create this peer support program? Because oftentimes that's really what first responders want, right? They really don't want to go talk to the licensed therapist, they want to talk to somebody who's going to tell them exactly what you just said to me. It's okay to feel that way, you're not crazy. That's what they want to hear, right?

Stan Partlow:

They want to hear Look, I'm feeling this weird thing right now, where, you know, I walked into this room and I smelled something that took me back to a house fire that I had to go in and I had to pull somebody out and somebody died there. Maybe it was a child Normal people don't put up with that, they don't deal with that. Maybe it was a child Normal people don't put up with that, they don't deal with that. That's something that's going to be in your psyche for the rest of your life and you were triggered by whatever that stimulus was and you just want to look at somebody across the table and say, man, I'm really feeling horrible about this. And that person says to you okay, you're not crazy, I've been the same, been in the same place.

Stan Partlow:

So I think your point's well taken that, as leaders, if we're really going to embrace this idea of mental health, it's more than just saying well, the city has an EAP program. I need to go out there and find, and you know, start with the Google search, start with peer support programs, and there are some national programs out there that, um, uh, you know that, help people out there's, um, you know, save a warrior. Um, and I am actually sit on the board of directors of a group called the first responders bridge. Uh, that's here in ohio, but we serve uh people nationwide, and one of the things that I really feel very proud of is that the bridge offers weekend seminars for first responders and their significant others, because we recognize the impact that this career can have on a family so what?

Stan Partlow:

we do. We invite you and your significant other. The only thing you have to pay for is your travel expenses. Once you get here, we put you up in a marriott, we have speakers, we feed you. Uh, you're there from friday afternoon until sunday afternoon and we have had many, many people tell us that you know, this experience saved their marriages, it saved their career. In some cases it may have saved their lives. So there are programs out there like that and we've had um.

Stan Partlow:

We've served over 1,600 people now since we started this program, from 33 different states. So you know there are people from all over the country that are coming. If you put in firstrespondersbridgeorg in your search engine, you'll see it. We run four seminars a year here in Columbus and you know we would love to invite anyone who wants to attend. We would love to invite anyone who wants to attend. It's amazing the amount of people that are desperate to try to get into a program like that. It's all confidential. We never tell your agency that you came. So my point to sharing that story is number one if any of your listeners want to come to.

Tyra Valeriano:

Dublin.

Stan Partlow:

Ohio, which is a suburb of Columbus. To come to the bridge, you're welcome. But number two, I've got to believe there are other programs out there like that and the leaders on this call that are listening to this podcast need to take the initiative to go out and find that stuff for their folks. So to your point, when someone does come to you, sure you're going to refer them to the AP because that's what your agency's told you to do, but you can also say, hey, here's some other places you should think about going.

Tyra Valeriano:

Yeah, I agree with that and that's great that you you're taking part in that.

Stan Partlow:

How often do you guys?

Tyra Valeriano:

host that seminar Four times a year.

Stan Partlow:

Awesome, okay, I'll be sure to check that out. Yeah, please do.

Tyra Valeriano:

So you mentioned that it's for spouses, and I think this is a really good topic to talk about, because when we think about law enforcement today, I don't know how much different it is today from the time that you served. But you know, people are struggling at home because they're working mandatory overtime, their days off are for appearances and training and call-ins and they just have no more time for their family. So what was the work-life balance for you back when you were a police officer?

Stan Partlow:

You know, I grew up in that environment, my dad. When I was a little kid, my dad rotated every 90 days and I'll have to tell this story about the longest day in recorded history. So imagine my brother and I. My brother two years younger than me. Well, I'm about eight years old, my brother's six. We come running out of the bedroom into the living room where the Christmas tree was on Christmas Day, and we find our mother standing in front of the Christmas tree like this. It's about quarter to seven in the morning. My mom says your dad's working 7A to 3P today. We're not opening any presents till he gets home.

Stan Partlow:

I'm telling you that was the longest day to record a district so the punchline of the story was that my mother said I'll let you boys open one package each. So I remember my brother and I laying on the floor feeling the packages, praying that we didn't get the socks and underwear right, because we knew there were socks and underwear under that tree somewhere. But please don't let us open that box. Let us at least get a game or a toy or whatever. So I don't think that's really changed. The job is what it is. It's going to be a ship work. You're going to have holidays that you're going to have to work, um, you're not going to be able to live like a normal human being. That, I don't think has changed. So what I think has changed, though, is I think people have different expectations of what the job should be, and a lot of times they don't want to wait. They're not very patient, recognizing that, hey, I've got to. You know, I've got to do this in order to get to the next stop.

Stan Partlow:

In my department, one of the challenges that we had was every time you got promoted, you went to the bottom of the seniority list. So if you were an officer and you had a great job and you got promoted to sergeant, you were back to second or third shift, with Tuesday or Wednesday off. Then you work your way up, you get a decent shift, you get a decent day's off, you get promoted to lieutenant same thing. So when you got promoted to commander, it didn't matter, because you were in charge of the bureaus to be able to work whatever hours you wanted. So that to me, that was my goal to get that far so that.

Stan Partlow:

I could say like I'm going to be in charge of my own destiny. But I remember telling my wife you know, hey, honey, guess what? I know I'm a sergeant out of the training academy now, but I'm number one on the lieutenant's list. I'm going to get promoted, they're going to send me back to third shift and I'm going to have Thursday and Friday off. And so you know I was blessed that I had an incredible partner for 42 years who, you know, supported me at every turn. I know not everyone has that supported me at every turn. I know not everyone has that.

Stan Partlow:

So the dynamic with your children, you know, with your significant other, is very difficult at times for a lot of people, and I don't have any magic words of advice other than to say that in many ways the job is what it is and you didn't know that when you signed up. So you know we all have to be honest with ourselves and recognize that. You know, nobody thought they were going to walk out of the academy and go to first shift Saturdays and Sundays. So you find other ways to deal with it. Right, you find other ways to deal with it. The one thing that I always suggest to people is that you don't lose your other friends, and that sometimes is difficult, as you know, because you're the only person working second or third shift, with tuesday and wednesday off.

Stan Partlow:

everybody else wants to go out on friday night, have nice dinner and you know, whatever, and you're the only odd person out, and so what ends up happening a lot of times is that you end up collapsing your circle and the only people in your circle are fellow first responders who are living in the same dream you are, but I think I don't think that's healthy, because I think when you're around first responders all the time you get a very uh slanted view of the world and a very slanted view of human beings, and you forget they're actually good people out there.

Stan Partlow:

So, as much much as you can, you know, I would encourage you to hang on to your civilian friends, if you will, the people that you know, and that goes for your family too, and sometimes it takes some effort and you've got to make some effort to make sure you stay connected.

Tyra Valeriano:

So I know you said you don't have any magic words, but 42 years is a really great accomplishment, especially in law enforcement. So is there any advice that you have for those who have a marriage or family in law enforcement that you guys stuck through that many years?

Stan Partlow:

Yeah, I think the best advice I can give is communicate, communicate, communicate and communicate, which is probably what you would hear in any relationship, but I think in this field it requires even more. So if you thought you know this level of communication is okay in the rest of the world, you probably need this level in the law enforcement community, because it is a difficult job on a lot of levels and you know that from having done it. It's sometimes difficult to let your significant other in. Sometimes you don't want to do that because you really don't want to expose them to the things that you're dealing with. But you also have to be smart enough to recognize that you're different and they're going to wonder why. And sometimes they're going to immediately assume that it's something that they did or something that kids did, and it really has nothing to do with that. It's something you're dealing with at work. So you know you've got to, you've got to think about that.

Stan Partlow:

One of the stories that I often tell I actually speak as the last speaker at the bridge to kind of get people ready to go home, you know, from from this weekend and one of the stories that I tell is that you know, to me time is the ultimate currency. It's the only thing you can't make more of. You know you can make more money, you can get more stuff, but you cannot make more time. And I remember as a younger officer, you know I would literally take a week off around Christmas time and go work special duty at a big box store 12 hours a day, standing in uniform, making sure that nobody was stealing anything, dealing with all the knuckleheads of the universe, dealing with all the moms who would bring their little kids up to me and say, if you're not really good.

Stan Partlow:

That police officer is going to take you to jail and what I really wanted to do was take her to jail. You know you're standing on concrete with that gun belt cutting you in half. You can get that picture in your mind right? You've done it, and I did that for an entire week, Took a week vacation that I could have taken with my family. Why did I do that? I did it to make money Back in my day. We didn't get paid very much, so that was a way I could make money to get my kids the christmas that I thought they deserved. The biggest mistake that I ever made was I didn't talk to my wife about that, because I was a pain in the ass.

Stan Partlow:

That week I was exhausted and she'd want to go do something for christmas maybe go to a concert or go to visit friends or whatever and I'm like I'm not doing it, I'm beat, I'm I'm not doing it, I'm beat, I'm whipped, I'm physically, mentally tired and I'm beat.

Stan Partlow:

And I just took away a week of time that I could have spent doing fun stuff with her and my kids. And I did it for the right reason in my own mind, that I thought my kids deserved to have you know more Barbie dolls, I guess for Christmas, deserve to have you know more barbie dolls, I guess for christmas. But the biggest mistake that I made tire, honestly, if I could and my wife again passed away four years ago, but if I could have that time back, I would go back and say honey, what

Stan Partlow:

do you want me to do? You know, you know what the budget is. Can we do christmas the way we want to do it, without me doing this work? Or should I do half of the work or none of it at all? I never did that.

Stan Partlow:

So I thought I was doing the right thing, but in retrospect I don't think I did the right thing for her. I don't think I did the right thing for my kids. It wasn't I was, you know, trying to do anything bad or evil. The thought was good, but the execution was poor. And it was really because I never sat down and asked her what do you want? And honestly, if she were here today, I think she would look at me and say all I really wanted was for you to be with us. Right, we didn't need. The kids didn't need another toy, they didn't need another barbie doll, they didn't need whatever it was. I didn't need another piece of jewelry.

Stan Partlow:

So that money that I made, you know what purpose did it really serve? Now again, I'm looking at that through a 66-year-old guy's lens and not through a 28-year-old guy's lens or a 35-year-old guy's lens, when I thought that was really important. So I guess the lesson for me is that you know if you can communicate, you know you'll be far ahead of the game and don't be afraid to go get counseling. You know your marriage, your relationship with your significant other, your relationship with your kids, hopefully will last far longer than your career, and if you screw it up during your career you may end up being my age and not having it at all. You may not have a relationship with your kids or your grandkids or your significant other, or you may be married three or four times, whatever the case might be, because you didn't take care of business along the way. So if you need counseling, you know, man up, woman up and go get it.

Tyra Valeriano:

I'm 36 years old and everything you just said I 100% see that. Now ask me if I was in law enforcement, if I could understand what you're saying, and I probably wouldn't be able to. It's not until you get out that you realize how important it is, and I think this is just another addition to the podcast. And why I'm doing what I'm doing is because I am still young and I'm able to see things in a different light than most people are my age in law enforcement and I know a lot of them aren't going to take to it. But I think these conversations are important because it shows this is consistent. This is not just because I'm saying it or you know, the person after me is saying it. This has been going on for a long time and the message is time is important. Time is all you have and it's not forever. There's one question that I ask all of my guests what is one thing you would tell your rookie self?

Stan Partlow:

I think the big thing that I would tell my rookie self is don't forget why you took the job. There's a guy out there named Simon Sinek who I love. I talk about him in my book, actually, and he talks about this idea of why and he says that organizations and people understand what they do and how they do it, but most of us don't think about why we do it. So when you decided you wanted to become a police officer, you had a why. You might not have really thought about it in those terms, but if you really look at what it takes to become a police officer, no one goes through that process willingly, right? You know, sometimes it takes a year or more. You're going through you know background investigations and oral boards and polygraphs and physicals. It's not a normal job. And then once you get there to you know our point just a few minutes ago you're working shift work. You're seeing, you know the negatives out there. So what changed in you from the time you were bright, shiny, sitting in that classroom or sitting in that first roll call, to five years down the road and now you're this crusty. You know old-time police officer who's been through the battle. You know what changed and I would submit that for most of us it's because we forgot our why.

Stan Partlow:

So when you think about the dark days and they will come, no matter where you are you know, I used to think I worked in a big city right department at about 19, underscored, you know, 14th largest city in the united states, big city, big city problem I used to think, wow, you know, those folks in the suburbs, they don't really, they don't get this. That's not true anymore. You can work. It doesn't matter where you work in this country, whether you're on a five officer department or a 5 000 officer department, the problems are there, the active shooters are there, the school shootings are there, the bad things are happening everywhere. It's there's no mayberry left anymore.

Stan Partlow:

So, no matter where you are, you're going to experience that and you're going to experience those dark times. And what I would submit to you is that the way you can work your way out of that darkness is to start thinking about the light, and the light is why you took that job. Now, if you get to the place where you believe that you can't live that why anymore, then maybe it is time to leave, maybe it is time to take that early retirement. Maybe it is time to look for a different career. I understand that retirement.

Stan Partlow:

Maybe it is time to look for a different career I understand that, but for most of us, if we hold up that, why in front of us we could say okay, that's why I did this, all right, how do I get back to that? How do I get back to that?

Stan Partlow:

so hang on to your why, and your why is going to change over your career. You know it's going to. It's going to, it's going to morph, it's going to be modified a little bit and, particularly if you decide to take the leadership track, your why will definitely change as you move into those assignments and you're now responsible for other human beings. As you know, tyra, that sometimes is a daunting effort when you think about wow, life was easy when I was just responsible for me, or maybe my partner, and now I have a shift of people I'm responsible for.

Tyra Valeriano:

Holy cow.

Stan Partlow:

You know that's a bigger deal, but hang on to your why. And again, if you want to learn more about the why, look at Simon Sinek. He did a great YouTube video, only about nine minutes long, on Apple's why, and it's really interesting when you listen to it. There's nowhere in the why that they ever talk about making electronic devices. They talk about things like beautiful designs, force, disruption, things like that. So when you listen to that and you sort of sit back and really think about why did I really go through this, why did I take this job and that's what I think you can hang on to That'll take you back to the light and hopefully move you out of the darkness. And if you're trapped, don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Whether it's your supervisor, another police officer, a therapist, a peer support person, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Tyra Valeriano:

You just gave all kinds of great knowledge and experience today. I appreciate it so much. Is there any kind of contact information that you can share with the listeners if they want to make contact with you?

Stan Partlow:

Absolutely. I would love to hear from anyone who wants to talk about law enforcement. It is in my blood. It will be in my blood until I'm drawing my last breath. I will do anything that I can to help anybody in this profession, so please contact me on LinkedIn. You're welcome to look for me on LinkedIn Stan Parlow on LinkedIn and I also share my email address. It's sepjr505 at gmailcom. Drop me a note and I would love to chat with you and, if I can help guide you to a support network, either the bridge or another one like that, if you go on the bridge website.

Stan Partlow:

There are some other resources, so I didn't even think about that when you asked that question, tyra, but there's an easy place to start. If you put in firstrespondersbridgeorg. There's a list of resources there that your leaders might want to look at and say to you know their team, hey, here's some places that you might, you know, contact in order to get some help.

Stan Partlow:

So you know, Godspeed to all of you on your career. God bless you. Please be safe out there, and I would love to chat with any of you that that want to talk.

Tyra Valeriano:

Thank you so much, stan, and just to let you guys know, check out his book, check out the website. If you're interested in the seminar, please reach out to him. He has a lot of knowledge and experience and I'm sure you guys can have a great conversation just like the one we had today. I appreciate you joining me. You guys stay safe and I'll see you on the next one. Thank you for joining me on chapter blue. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow and tag me on social media and share with your friends and fellow officers. If you're interested in joining an episode, I'd love for you to be a part of the conversation. Until next time, stay safe, take care of yourself and remember you're never alone in this journey.