Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Life, Leadership, and Leaps of Faith

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Returning to the Flames: A 40-year-old husband and father recounts his journey from being a wildland firefighter to working in the non-profit sector, and now, the opportunity to return to his fire-fighting roots. He seeks advice on effective leadership styles, particularly when leading volunteers in high-stress environments. How do you inspire and guide a team with no formal obligation to follow? Skydiving Dreams and Realities: A newly licensed skydiver, transitioning from an iFly instructor to the world of skydiving asks for advice on making a career in the sport. Tips on favorite jump spots, breaking into the professional scene, finding mentors, and exploring advanced disciplines like wingsuiting. Supporting Friends in Crisis: A listener shares a complex situation involving close friends facing a potential divorce, compounded by the husband's traumatic experiences as a police officer. Torn between offering support and advice, the listener questions how to navigate this delicate situation. How do you provide comfort and guidance to both parties, especially when mental health and stability are concerns? The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

Well, hello everybody. We're back. Regularly scheduled programming this Friday. Before I get into it, yeah, I know. I look like shit. I've lost a ton of weight. It's almost like they cut me open and pulled all my intestines out. And now I can't do shit and I can't eat very much. So yeah, everybody's telling me that. I already know. I'm going to come back better. I'm not sure how. I'm going to be stronger. I don't know. But it's going to be okay. And we're still here for our regularly scheduled programming. So let's just get into it and leave all that other shit for what it actually is. Three questions today. Very different topics. away we go. To the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. All right, everybody, I'm going to try to keep this as short and sweet as possible because it is Friday, which means the next days are Saturday and Sunday, which should be hopefully your day off. So let's get you into your day off, maybe with a little bit of food for thought. Email number one.

I'm a 40-year-old husband and father. Years ago, I worked as a wild and firefighter on a shot crew, which is a type 1 crew. I don't know what that is, with some of the best friends you could ask for. I left that occupation and the state to marry my wife. Against all my teenage thoughts, I now live in the same town where I grew up. I tried to put Wilden Fire behind me and found a meaningful job in the nonprofit sector. Fast forward, 14 years. And I have the opportunity to go back into Wildland Fire locally.

The family is on board and I'm pumped. That's awesome for you, returning back to something you're passionate about. My question is this. When you were in your 20s, what leadership style and actions were most? likely to result in cooperation, following, obeying. You have talked about your parents allowing you to rub against the garb rails of failure, and you've talked about your peers,

but I can't recall you talking about your early years in the military. Unlike the military, I will be interacting with volunteers under no obligation to follow me. Glad your wife is smarter than you, so the rest of us can continue to be entertained. That is a very good point. My wife is smarter than me. She tricked me into going to the hospital, and it probably saved me from getting a colostomy bag. So yeah, she's smarter than me. I appreciate her more than you do, which is fair. All right. So you'll be interacting with volunteers under no obligation to follow you. I don't

necessarily understand how that is the case, given the environment that you are going to be operating in. I think you're talking about maybe from a training perspective. Like if you get together and you're training with these people, because they're volunteers, they don't have an obligation to comply to use one of your words or follow or obey? I would probably get rid of the obey. Just not a great term. They're not dogs. And I don't think you meant it in a negative fashion. But be careful with the words that you choose to use and be careful with the way that you talk to yourself. Even if you don't say these things to other people, just be cautious with that terminology. But if they're volunteering for the Wilden Fire Department, I'm going to assume they have

some level of buy-in. They want to be there for a reason. I'm going to assume it's a hierarchical system with a rank structure of some kind. I mean, there has to be some way that somebody is in charge of a Wilden Fire scene and other people know where they fall into the rank and order of it all. I know nothing about the fire service, let alone Wildland Fire, but I have to assume that is the case. I can't think everybody would be out there just making decisions on their own. So, yeah, they're volunteer, but let's look at the environment you might be operating in. It could be lethal at times. There's a chance of risks to life limit eyesight, the three things that we were always protecting against in military training and operations. So there's a reason for them to follow good leadership. The fact that they're a volunteer and not contractually obligated like you are in the military,

is a difference for sure. But what I think will have the largest impact is the leadership style that you choose, because leadership is the single most impactful and powerful weapon that human beings have access to. And executed properly, it wouldn't really matter if there was this hierarchical structure if there wasn't. People will follow good leadership. Specifically, what I needed, though, when I was in my 20s, You mentioned when I was growing up, you know, my parents did provide for me the opportunity to make mistakes. That doesn't mean they were ignoring my behavior. And I think most parents would agree with this.

Your kids think they're Jason born, but they're more along the lines of Jason Bumblehead. So even with my own kids, I know when they're trying to pull the wool over my eyes. And sometimes I'll let them think that they are. So they have to suffer the consequences of their actions. But not in a catastrophic manner. So they have to feel and suffer consequences of their actions. their own actions and learn that lesson, they need to experience that because if you shield them from everything, then what you're going to develop is a child that is not resilient to anything.

And I don't think anybody wants that. And the real world would not reward that anyway. So that was my parents and the route that they took. Mentorship was the most effective tool that was used on me and probably every junior individual making it to a SEAL team. You know, on your first day, you have a lot of book knowledge and absolutely no experience, which is probably the most dangerous place you could ever arrive in any career. But you're still tasked with the job. I was like a secondary or tertiary rep in the comms department. And I didn't know anything about the radios.

I hadn't been to comm school yet. So I wasn't really able to do a whole lot. I mean, I could count things and do an inventory, but so could a monkey. I mean, and I really, I wasn't, I wasn't truly an asset to the platoon. I had a pulse. I had motivation. I had desire. I had the willingness to do anything that was asked of me.

I just didn't know my whole, my hole. I didn't know my head from a hole in the wall. That came out weird, but we're going to leave that in there. Mentorship. Having somebody teach me. And then instead of doing it for me, allowing me inside of a, similar bracketed parameters. I mean, you're not going to let me destroy a radio, but they might allow me to interact

with the radio or interface with the radio or learn how to put into the frequencies or learn to load crypto or erase crypto or how to handle crypto, all those things that we use in that particular super small segment in the comms world. Before even going to comm school, I had the person who was the subject matter expert teach me multiple times, show me with oversight until I understood the system. and then allow me to operate it with their guidance, but they were probably 80% of the time looking up and out and checking out other things and 20% of the time checking in on me.

When people are in that phase where they have little experience, but a lot of book knowledge, you need to be a little bit more involved from a leadership approach because they are at a very dangerous place. It's the walking Dunning Kruger effect. They think they know a ton, but their experience is actually incredibly limited. So it's okay that they are volunteers.

If you can mentor the people, and one of the things outside of the mentorship, I'm going to say this, you have to set the example for these young men and women. If what comes out of your mouth is different than what you are actually doing every single time that happens, you are eroding your leadership capital. So you need to not only explain what the standard is, you need to hold the standard and set the standard yourself for everybody else. else around you because outside of that, nobody's going to want to be mentored from you. Take an active involvement in what it is that they are doing. Be present at the training evolutions. Don't do the role for them, and especially in a training environment. Create situations where failure is possible, and as long as it's in a training environment,

and as long as that failure has a lesson that can be learned from it, and that's a critical part when it comes to training to failure. There's no value in training to failure for the sake of failing. It's so easy to set up scenarios where that's the case. It doesn't help your people. It'll develop a level of frustration and probably disdain, actually, for the training. But if you can create a scenario or a training environment where failure is possible, and maybe they fail in a certain situation because they didn't forward plan or think to bring a piece of equipment

and you can introduce it in the next iteration, or they're not using a piece of equipment to its full capability, and you can highlight that by them being unable to achieve a goal or an end state in an evolution. Those are valuable training tools. Being there as the person that walks them through that, but also recognizes when they are about to fail, stop them at that point, highlight why the failure occurred, reload them and have them be successful underneath your guidance.

Again, you're not doing it for them. it's incredibly powerful from a leadership capital perspective. 20-year-olds have a lot of motivation, a lot of physical capability, and not a lot of street smarts. And that's okay. It's not their fault. But 20 years old, I remember being there. So they need you and your experience and your street smarts and your wisdom. And the biggest thing I'll say is this.

I've said it already a little bit, but teach them how to do their job. mentor them through that phase where they're still getting an understanding of it. And at all costs, fight the desire to do their job for them. And you will be surprised at the leadership capital that you will have and how easy it is to lead people who are 20 years old. They're looking for guidance. They're looking for leadership. They're looking for mentorship. Provide that for them and you'll do amazing things with your team.

Question two. Boom. Here we go. Scott-diving related. One of my favorite activities. I started out as an instructor at I Fly. And for those of you who don't know what that is, that is an indoor wind tunnel.

And it is a great exposure to what skydiving actually feels like without having to ride into an airplane. Put a parachute on. Know how to pack a parachute. There's no risk of malfunctions. It's a very fast brief. Most of it is done by video. They teach you the hand signals and how you should respond

if you are given those hand signals by an instructor so they can critique and kind of dial in your flight. You throw a helmet on in a flight. and boom, you're into the wind tunnel. It's not the cheapest evolution in the world, but I think if you looked at it at a cost per hour basis or even a cost per minute basis because that's about how long it takes in freefall per skydive,

I'd say it's about equal, and I think you can actually learn faster in the wind tunnel because you're in an enclosed environment, and if you're moving left or right or forward or back or up or down at all, you can visually see that. In the air, when you're jumping by yourself, you really don't know if you're creeping to the left or the right or forward. You do over time because you can feel the wind on your body and how it's interacting with your flight surfaces or falling surfaces, I should say.

But the wind tunnel is an excellent training tool, and I actually think it has leveled skydiving in general up multiple orders of magnitude because of how fast you can learn in that environment. So that's what I Fly is. This person worked as an instructor at I Fly for a small time and just got their license and their first rig, which is a parachute system. I appreciate that you highlighted the more realistic side of skydiving in your latest podcast. I think I watched Friday freakouts for a year before I even jumped out of a plane solo. I don't know what that is, but I'm going to check it out for sure. My questions are probably the most basic, and there are four of them. Where are some of your favorite places to jump?

And why is it the jump over the pyramids? So the pyramid's jump was super unique, but it is not something that they don't do relatively often. I mean, they, we were not the first people to jump there. It is a templated and structured thing that happens multiple times per year. As far as a visual aesthetic, the coolest place I've ever jumped. Because I don't know of anywhere else you can jump over pyramids like that. I mean, you could see all of Cairo. That was just insane.

But for most people, that's not even going to be an option. So for me, jumping and what I like most about jumping is the scenery. Like I really enjoy jumping out at Scott of San Diego. They're just east of the Otai Reservoir, but you can see down into Tijuana. You can see the ocean. The climbed altitude actually goes out towards the west and comes back. You can see on a clear day, downtown San Diego, the Coronado Bridge, the island of Coronado itself, the ocean. It's really cool, and I like that type of aesthetic.

I also like jumping in mountainous areas. Colorado has some really cool disease, and it's really tough to beat jumping out. Like, holy cow, this topography and geography is absolutely. absolutely amazing. Another really cool place to jump is islands. I've done a boogie, which you asked about a little bit later on, and I'll explain to people what that is. I forget where it was. Was it in Panama? No, it wasn't in Panama. God, I can't even remember where it was. But jumping over very small islands, landing on the beach, landing on different beaches, landing on uninhabited islands, being picked up by boats. That stuff is amazing. So I would say seek out really cool.

visuals. There's nothing wrong with jumping in Pancake, Black, Texas, if that's where you live, but I'm here to tell you if you travel around a little bit and you jump in these different areas, the visuals that come from that are amazing. The video that can come from that is amazing. So, seek those things out. What advice would you give an A licensed skydiver that wants to work in this field in the future? Take your time. A license, I think at this point is 50 jumps. You're not able to wear a GoPro. You, I think, are very limited in what you can do when jumping with other people. And I am not sure on these things because they have changed these regulations since I was in the place that you are at. And once you get a certain amount of experience in all of your licenses

and ratings, you kind of stop paying attention a little bit to these things. Not that you're ignoring safety regulations, but I don't, you don't care anymore what it takes to get an A license when you had one for 15, 20 years. Take your time. People who work in the sport, oftentimes times have thousands, if not tens of thousands of jumps. And the only way to get that amount of jumps is to dedicate the time, energy, and effort to do so. It's an expensive hobby. I don't think anybody's making a down payment on a Ferrari by working at a drop zone, either as a tandem master or a videographer or an AFF instructor. And that is okay. Because not everybody wants those things. If I had the money for a Ferrari, I would not buy one. It's just not my thing. So understand the

economics of what the job is probably going to be able to provide for you. And if it's something that you're passionate about, that's awesome. Enjoy the ride and take the time needed to gain the experience to do these other things safely. You'll probably get your coach rating first, maybe tandem rating after that, or actually you probably start shooting, you know, video for tandem or AFF somewhere in that pipeline. You become an AFF instructor or a tandem instructor. They're all opportunities, but they all have a minimum jump number and there's no way to short circuit or shortcut that experience. So take your time.

Enjoy the jumps. Try to learn lessons and make mistakes slowly, as opposed to rapidly combining them all into one or two jumps. Number three, have you ever been to a boogie? I keep hearing about them and want to know which ones to keep my eyes on. So a boogie is an event, essentially. You know, most drop zones will have an aircraft or two, and maybe they'll bring out the bigger aircraft on the weekend. A boogie is kind of like a party, essentially. And there actually

generally is a party associated with it for the non-jumpers or in your after-jumping hours. But a lot of the times, they will bring in helicopters. Sometimes they'll bring in a hot air balloon. They'll bring in multiple aircraft. Maybe they'll bring in a twin otter if you've only been jumping out of a caravan or a sky van or something. It's a cool way for people. It's a celebration. You're like, hey, we're going to do this cool event. We'll get together. And I've had good experiences at bookies and I've had bad experiences, boogies. And what you need to do is just kind of pay attention to the environment

that you are in. Some bookies are more about the party and some boogies are more about the jumping and some are an equal mix of both. There is pretty much always going to be, I would say for the most part. Kind of a party scene at the boogie, like the beer light, the beer lamp is lit,

the beer light is on. And people go pretty hard in the paint. You go hard in the paint at night and it can really impact your decision-making ability in the morning. So be cautious with your consumption of alcohol, let alone the other things that I'm sure are present at boogies as well. And be objective and honest with yourself about your ability to perform in a high-consequence environment the next day and other people's ability to do so. Be careful. They host a boogie up here in Montana called the Lost Prairie Boogie. I was only up there as a spectator last year because we were selling coffee on site.

It seemed pretty cool. I actually probably consider going this year. I've seen boogies in San Diego. I've seen them at a variety of DZs from Virginia to San Diego, Northern California, Arizona, Texas. They're kind of all over the place. And go online and take some time on the old Google machine and find one that suits your fancy. Go there. And again, you don't have that many jumps right now.

realistic expectations about what you can get from the boogie and who you should be jumping with in every possible turn. Please be considering safety. Not only your safety, but the safety of others. And number four, how would you recommend to find a good mentor for different principles in the sport? I'd like to try wing suiting in the future since I like tracking. Again, you could point yourself towards the Google machine on this one and you can look at people who are at the apex of what it is that you want to do, the variety of disciplines inside of skydiving. Another good way would be to talk to staff at your local drop zone. Talk to the drop zone safety officer.

Talk to the drop zone owner and solicit for advice and opinions for those that jump in your area. Because if the mentor you want to work with is in Virginia and you live in San Diego, that's problematic. So hopefully you can find somebody close to where you live, the people that will have the best suggestions for you are the ones who are established and have experience at your drop zone. They are going to have their fingers on the pulse of the skydiving scene in the area and we'll be able to give you the best feedback for this question. And since I don't know exactly where you are, I can't even necessarily point you in the right direction other than the internet, which could

help you identify world champions and people who have coaching and mentoring programs, but not all those may work for you based on your geography. So I would start by talking to the local expertise. And that's it. Question number two. Question number three, final question for the day. Let's get the hell out of here. Andy, I have a two-part question, all rolled up into the same situation. Recently, a friend of mine and my husband came to tell us that her and her husband, who is also a friend of ours, are most likely getting a divorce. He told her that he hasn't loved her for years, among other things. She was blindsided, even though something similar, but perhaps less nasty, happened years before. She has devastated on a one hand thinks they're done, but on the other hand still seems like she's clinging to the hope that he won't file for a divorce.

I have no experience in this field and would like some guides on how to support her. She has asked for my opinion and I don't know how much to give. Personally, I don't think he understands his own feelings or how to communicate them. I think that he is lost. She told us they had been trying to get pregnant recently and then now this. That's one hell of a swing in the opposite direction. I understand they have been together for 10 years and she feels like she can't just walk away. I want to tell her that her time and her love is valuable and she deserves someone who thinks so.

Do I tell her my two feelings on this situation? I don't want to hurt her any more than she is hurting or push her away. I was actually tempted to answer this first part to begin with, but I think it's important to roll in the second part because my answer is going to encapsulate both of these. So part two. He, the husband, is a police officer in a small town next to our small town and a few months ago witnessed an incredibly tragic event. We'll leave the details out in case he happens to listen to this, but he tried to speak to a professional, but it didn't work out for whatever reason. He doesn't want to go to the PD for fear of how they will look at him. According to her, he doesn't

get more than a few hours of sleep. He works to late shift and has been more anxious. He's expressing wanting to run away, and she is worried about his stability. On the very periphery, I have noticed one anxious behavior that started years ago. You didn't add that, so I have no idea necessarily what that means. We don't have any more information, and I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks. Should we reach out to him and let him know he's not alone? Are we stepping over her to do so? I don't know if a life is in the balance here. He is also a friend of ours, although less close than her, he has never talked to us about anything. I'm lost, and I don't know what to do, and my heart breaks for their situations. Apologies for being so long. It is a heartbreaking

situation. And like I said, I was tempted to answer the first part individually, but I think it's important to address the second part. He said something in the first section. That's one hell of a swing in the opposite direction because they had been trying to get pregnant recently and then he swung to wanting to get a divorce. I don't know much about this relationship other than what you told me. I obviously don't know the backstory, but I agree with you. This is a wild swing. He goes from wanting to try to have a kid to telling her, he's a little bit. He goes from wanting to try to have a kid to telling her, doesn't love her anymore. Those are two very far ends of a spectrum. And the pendulum effect of bouncing back and forth or bouncing from one to the other is concerning to me. And I would say,

knowing almost nothing about this person or their situation, that that gives me a little bit of cause for concern about his stability, which you mentioned. Now, he obviously was involved in something that was horrific. And that has left a... mark on him and that it is still having an impact on him. You know, he went to, uh, he tries, twice tried to speak with a professional. Okay. Sometimes twice isn't enough. Sometimes a half a dozen times isn't enough. I obviously can't speak to this person because I don't know who he is, but for anybody in a situation like this who has tried therapy once or twice, and they're like, you know what? Fuck this therapy stuff. Andy's always talking about it and it didn't do anything for me.

okay maybe twice isn't enough maybe you keep going until you find somebody that you have a connection with and you can deal with the trauma before it deals with you because in this situation right here this is kind of what it looks like and of course I have to speak broadly because again I don't know this person in their specifics but this is what it looks like when you are moved from your normal emotional logical objective station in life you go from hey we should bring another child into this world to i'm fucking out of here because i haven't loved you for years not sleeping doing shift work exhibiting uh behaviors of anxiousness these are all warning signs no there's individual data points and then there's trends you can look at these other data points and see the direction

that things are going. And for me, objectively, this look like a trend in a very, very bad direction. He probably did want to bring a child into the world. And he probably does in moments think that he doesn't love his wife anymore. But the reality of where he actually lands is probably somewhere in between the two. The issue is he's swinging back and forth because he is dealing with something that he has either been unable or unwilling to work through. Until he does that, these are the issues that are going to keep happening. Okay. So what can you do? Your first question, do I tell her my true feelings on the situation? Depends. Do you consider yourself to be a true friend? Friends tell each other the truth. And they tell each other what they need to hear, not what you think they may want to hear. Now, that doesn't

you need to come over the top with a battle axe and lop this person's head off. If you consider yourself to be a true and valuable friend to this person and what you have to say is coming from a piece of love and care and concern, spend some time thinking about how you want to deliver that message and then do so. And ask yourself, if the roles were reversed, would you want somebody to blow smoke up your ass or would you want somebody to tell you the truth. And if somebody told you the truth and you didn't like what they were hearing, does that mean that they're not your friend, that you shouldn't listen to what they're saying? Or should you sit with it? And as much as you are fucking choking on it, realize that they're

telling you that because they care about you. If they didn't care about you, they wouldn't say shit. So if you are this person's friend, act like it. Now, what to do with the husband? should we reach out to him and let him know he's not alone? I don't know if a life is in the balance here. How long do you want to wait to find out? You will find out almost immediately whether or not you are true friends to this couple and you can be there to support them or not. But if you were to wake up tomorrow to a phone call that this person had just decided to suck start their service revolver, how would you feel about that? I think I can answer that question for you. You'd feel like shit. You would regret the decision to not reach out. You would regret that you didn't tell this

person that they are not alone, far more than having to deal with somebody being angry at you because they potentially feel like you overstepped your bounds. We're talking about a matter of life and death, potentially. You don't know whether or not that's the case. What's the downside to finding out? Somebody's mad at you. They may not be your friend anymore. What's the upside if you're right. You know, that might save this person's life. What I might tell this woman, or what I would consider telling this woman, if I were in you in this situation, is that I don't know if her husband is capable of making a rational decision at this point. And until this person is willing to deal with their own demons and take the time to do so, it may be better

for her to not push back too hard, but also not hold on too hard. He, in these swings, and again, I am making this assessment off so little information. But as these statements come out of his mouth that are swinging in both direction, the farther they get to the fringe, the less, in my opinion, the less serious those statements. statements are. If this person can write their orbit and reestablish gravity and a foundation in their life, I feel like some of the wilder things of, hey, I don't love this person anymore and I haven't for a while. They're going to work their way through the filter. And then there's going to be, of course, working your way through the damage of the things that you may have said in this emotional

state because guess what? Being crazy for a little bit because you were unwilling to deal with some bullshit. So that bullshit started dealing with you is not an excuse to treat people like shit. So if you do treat people like shit and then you go and you get the help that you need and you and you do the work and you return to the person that you want to be, guess what? You don't get a fucking free pass. You have to go deal with that damage too. So there's a lot of work that's going to have to be done here. But I don't think any of that work, especially on the relationship, is actually going to be possible until this person can establish a baseline and find their way back to a foundation. So you might want to start with supporting, well, actually, you might

want to support with supporting him. I would talk to the wife. I'm speaking to the woman that wrote this. I would talk to the wife, and I would probably have your husband approach the husband and maybe provide equal levels of support, different types of support, but equal levels. So they both know that they are supported. Right now, it seems like they're, as a couple, they're on opposite ends of the spectrum. I feel like they can find their way back. But not until you get the crazy out. And it's okay to be crazy.

You're not responsible for the trauma that happens to you in life. But you are 100% responsible for what you do with it and how you deal with it. It is not an excuse to treat people like shit. And if you do, you better own that too. So hopefully this person has put their shovel away. and it hasn't dug much deeper, and can take the help when offered and come out of this in a better place

and hopefully recover that relationship with his spouse. But if I were you and your husband, I would absolutely reach out. There is downside, for sure, potential. But to me, especially when it comes to the police officer, the risk in not reaching outweighs at all. So those are my thoughts. Hope everybody has a great week.

and see you on Monday with a very special episode. I was able to talk my wife into coming on. So Monday's episode will be with my wife, Leah. See you then. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out.

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