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Transcript
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In this episode of The North Idaho Experience Podcast, host Seth Horst welcomes military veterans Jim Holder and Matt Breitbach for a lighthearted yet insightful discussion on mentorship and leadership. Both guests, with storied careers as a Green Beret and a police officer, share poignant tales from the field, reflecting on how their military service shaped their commitment to community. The banter is as rich as their experiences, from humorous anecdotes to heartfelt lessons on guiding the next generation, all set against the backdrop of North Idaho’s rugged charm.
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Transcript
In today’s episode, I sit down with a retired Green Beret and retired 30 year cop to talk about mentorship, leadership, and the lessons learned along the way in their respective fields plus share a few cool stories. North Idaho is a throwback to a better time in American history, the time when values and character still mattered. From homeschool moms, hunters and homesteaders, business owners, veterans and first responders. We are a unique community held together by a common thread, a love of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are the stories of those who choose to call North Idaho home. Welcome to the north Idaho experience. Love it. Welcome to the north Idaho experience. I got two of my friends here today and I’m pretty excited about this conversation. I’ll do a quick intro. I’ll start with Jim. So Jim holder, he’s a retired 30 years 29 called 30. I’ll round up for that. patrol sergeant scarred and Grove PD. And Matt Breitbach he is a Oh, I’m gonna I’m gonna give you the full West Point graduate. 22 years. 20 years in the army 20 years in the Army, retired Greenbrae Lieutenant Colonel. So y’all rank everybody in the room. I’m just a lowly public servant on this side of the thing to feels good to be out ranked. So today we’re going to talk about mentorship. I thought this would be a good conversation with these two guys, because they both come from different fields did full careers. Were in leadership positions. And I think the power of having a good mentor goes a really long way. In whatever career you choose so and really, it’s not like, obviously parents can be a mentor, but I didn’t want to go down that road. We’re talking specifically work mentors, in whatever field that you’re in. So I kind of wanted to dive into that a little bit. And I’ll start out so you guys have time to process and stuff. Because I know you’re old and you think slow. Mo TBAs. Jim, I mean look at his face. You might not be watching on video if you’re just listening. Jim has a black guy today from jujitsu. He’s even at an advanced he still trains jujitsu, which is impressive stage. Yeah, yeah. Shocking. I can argue that it’s an advanced age, unfortunately. I’d like to say otherwise. That’s alright. You know what? Not many people. Even my age go train jiu jitsu. So it’s a it’s impressive. Very impressive. Right. What he’s done. Yeah. Last year. Very Yes. Yeah. Unfortunately, the young guys no bigger guys. They take care of me. Yeah. Well, yeah. Elder abuse is a thing. So I don’t want to get arrested. And this just happens to be a case of police brutality. Oh, that’s true. Yeah. One of the other. One of the officers that changed the gym happened to well, did you do it yourself? No, he did it to me. He went for the the neck tie basically or the he went up there and my head moved just at the time his hand was coming up and he popped me right in the eye. Sounds like a domestic violence call. He probably handled it. It was my phone. I put my head into his fist. I fell down. So So back on track to the mentor side. Oh, by the way, maybe I should pause for a second. You brought what did you bring here for us? Jim Victor’s mixers, I’ve never had that. And I’ve never had that. So we’ve got mixers, bourbon, and then Glenlivet say that right? Yes, Caribbean reserve. Yeah, the mixers I’ve actually never had but I’ve heard good things about it. The Glenlivet Caribbean reserve aged and rum casks I’ve had that I was at the Glenlivet distillery a few years ago. 2019 and I, that’s one of one of my favorite whiskies, but it’s a good one. I do enjoy it. The Caribbean rum cask has a little bit of a sweeter flavor. So I’m gonna have to I’m just gonna have to do it. You guys that are listening you don’t know what time it is here so I’ll just leave it at that. Let’s see seems completely reasonable to have a little bit of bourbon and must be nice to have a job like six in the morning you can crack a bottle open the retired guy can’t figure it out open it I’m getting there. Yeah, boy Hey, Matt. There’s a glass behind you if you want to. Oh no, thanks. It’s six. I don’t I don’t start at six it’s not that early. It is prior to noon I’ll give you that I’m gonna go for this Caribbean just a little bit not some gym. I’ll take a little bit seems appropriate. I mean a product and we got quite the selection. I mean, the the we’re going to need a bigger shelf is what I’m getting at because I keep telling Just a few people keep reading in urban forests and go well. Oh, that’s good. It does have I can I can I’m getting into the room cask. Yeah, you definitely get some of the room out of that. I like to. Okay, so back to mentorship, let me try to keep myself on track here. So I’ll talk about one of my work mentors. And, you know, the value that I got from that, and, you know, from the police world, you know, there have been plenty of mentors over my time, but you know, I’ll just dive into one specifically. And really, like, honestly, I attribute my survival to some of these mentors, right. Like, they taught me that the important lessons, and maybe that’s your FTO, you know, your braking or whatever, and you’re just learning the job, you know, I’ve had mentors there. And then, for me, this was like, specialized teams. So I was on a warrant service team, and we served high risk warrants, you know, a dangerous job, for sure. And also on a special response team, and we did natural disasters and civil disturbance. So my buddy Chuck, he was just like, an older guy on the team. You know, I come on, I’m a bhoot, basically, I don’t know shit. And Chuck takes me under his wing, and, you know, teaches me how to do the job, and not get shot. And so huge value in that, right. And like having that, that leadership role where you can kind of rely on those guys, I mean, you can’t understate the value of that. So Chuck, unfortunately, passed away last year. So sad day for that, for sure. Great man. You know, sadly, very typical in that field, you know, these guys retire, and then just a few years later passed away from, you know, for him as hard tech, super common in our world. But, you know, the vet the lessons that he taught me, and just like having that example, you know, in the job, and in those dangerous experiences, to have the older guy be like, Whoa, you know, whether it’s grabbing the back of your vest and pulling you back, like, because you’re going too far. Or just, you know, hey, you should pay attention to this thing, or just giving you shit, there’s that value to write and keep your ego in check. That’s a huge part of it, too. So he was a good, good mentor for me, in that world. And I think, you know, I’d love to hear you guys experience on that. And how that ties in. I had a couple of really good mentors, really, the one that comes to mind the most was my academy, buddy. He’s a couple years older than I am. And when I started the Academy, I think I was 22. And as I said, a couple years older, he was a Marine artillery officer that was just getting out. And he had a much better grasp on leadership and how to handle yourself with people. So he helped me a lot. And that was consistent throughout my career, I took over his sergeant spot when he retired, he retired a few years earlier, also bought some military time. So he was just he helped me a lot with learning how to navigate the leadership issues that inevitably come up, because I just hadn’t really dealt with that, you know, I had another really good mentor, in more streetwise type of thing. He was great street cop, and I worked well with him. But he didn’t wasn’t able to pass on the leadership lessons. So I kind of had the best of both worlds there. Yeah, I think Do you think like guys coming out of the military, I’ve noticed that too. Like, we had guys in our academy that had, you know, prior military experience, and they seem to be a notch above like, you know, of course, you come on, you know, like maturity. I I went into the academy late. I was 27 when I went to the academy. So I had life experience, but I didn’t have I want to look back and like I matured so much in the academy. Like I feel like I really became a best when I became a man Matt would probably tell you different but still. I look back on that one of these days. I had there were times when I wished I’d had the military experience to like kind of grow up earlier right I screw you know, with college, I screwed around a lot. And I was a functional human being but still like I didn’t fully hit my maturity I think until like that experience. And I feel like the guys coming in the military already had that. I think you’ve I’ve seen it both ways. We had some people come out of the military and come in law enforcement. And I was shocked at how nonfunctioning of a human being they were because I just my experience is the military. You can go one of two ways. Either you can develop that leadership potential and the initiative or you can just kind of slide through and yes, somebody’s going to tell me how to put my pants on they’re going to tell me when to put my hands on they’re going to tell me where to be when to be err, and you don’t have to think you don’t have to do anything. So I really think you can have the two extremes. That’s just my experience. Yeah, obviously, you’re much more experienced there. Yeah. I mean, you kind of have Matt, you kind of have both both worlds because you went to West Point, right. That’s like a double whammy. I would imagine what, eight years old you start that? Yeah, I think that’s what it was. And it was, you know what I was doing it at? Probably nothing sitting on the couch, smoking weed and drinking for two years and being a dumbass. Yeah, yeah, no, I started West Point, like, three weeks, maybe four weeks after I graduated high school. Yeah. And skated by on the skin of my teeth. I’m still amazed at this day that I made it through. Because I imagined it. Like, for me, the police academy in our academy is EGB Academy is pretty hard. Like, it’s a state, you know, you stay there. It’s a living Academy. So it’s like a combination of bootcamp and college. In one, I imagine what’s what’s the same thing? Yeah. You know, they’re they, they grade you on three things, your physical fitness, your academic performance, and then they give you a military grade. The military and the physical side of the house, no issues, the academics for me was difficult. You know, I went from a small school, there’s 52, I think of my graduating class to there. And at the time, you know, they always tell you that it’s about 15,000 people apply each year 1500 will get in, that’s 15,000 People make it through the application process, not just start it but make it through. And then of that 1500 We’ll get in. And then of course, you’re gonna drop at least a third of your class through the four years. For me, it was it was difficult. It was that big. So the freshman classes 15 1500 Crap, and then you’ll graduate me the 909 50. So there’s 1000s of cadets is cadets. Yeah, there’s there’s roughly about 4000 cadets there at any one time. total crap. That’s big deal. Yeah, but you got to think about it, they got to produce the vast majority of the officers, I think they produce 25 or 50% of the officers for the Army every year. So that is less a lot officers are going to produce. But is there a component of leadership being taught there as well? Oh, yeah. That’s gonna be that’s part of your that get rolled up into your military grade. So when you hit so you clear that? I mean, you go fully into this, but I’m curious now. So like, you clear, the Academy. And then whatever you call it, whatever, tweet or graduate? Yeah. Now you’re out in the field, you go to boot camp after so basically, you become a an officer in the Army. After you graduate? Do you still have to go to like a normal boot camp? Oh, yeah, you’re gonna get into your training pipeline. And for me as an infantry officer, my training pipeline was almost a year long before I was ever sent out into the field, you know, to be a real army officer. Did you feel like you’re ready for that? Are you gonna do Massa postures? Yeah, no, of course, you have a big ego when you’re getting in, you bet you’ve spent for me, roughly five years, you know, going through the academy and then through the training pipeline to get to your first platoon to become a real army officer. You think you know what you’re doing, but you’re a a rookie with a lot of responsibility, a lot of responsibility. And so you’re going to rely on mentors and people with experience and wisdom to one help you help keep other people out of harm’s way to put bad guys into harm’s way. And it’s it’s it’s a tricky situation. So when you’re at West Point, like for our academy, we had the we call them staff officers. And they’re, you know, the they’re in charge of the cadets at the academy, like making sure we don’t isn’t doing shit. Is that like, same thing there? Oh, yeah, you’ve got lots of people in, everybody’s in charge you everybody’s giving your requirements putting taxes on you to do this, do that trying to mold and develop you because, one, they’re still in the army. The vast majority of the teachers, instructors, supervisors are still in the army. And they’re gonna go back to the regular armory after they’re done with their West Point tour. So they want you to become the best officer that you can. So it’s always one upping the game. Be better, be better be better. Yeah, so you get lots of advice. Okay. Yeah. Lots of mentorship. Lots of character development. Good and bad, I imagine right? Yeah, for the most part there though. It’s it’s, it’s good because they probably don’t keep people around that are Yeah, they turn out good. Yeah, they want to influence you too. Be the best for the army. Yeah. Because I noticed, like, you know, as a cop, like, there are examples of bad people to re imagine same thing there. And hopefully you don’t fall into the trap of following that person because they can tend to create really toxic environments. And it’s like, you know, complaining all the time. Like, that’s pretty rampant in law enforcement. I imagine any kind of career really. But I noticed that there are a lot is like that, that toxic mentality, it’s very easy to latch onto that because for some reason people enjoy drama and negativity. But it’s super important to like find those that are not. Thankfully, there’s lots of examples of that, too. Like, Jim, as you became a sergeant, I mean, when did you promote it? I promoted late in my career, I think I actually got promoted in 2014, and retired in 2018. Okay, I tested once before, but for the longest time, I just saw myself I don’t want to test and worst thing I ever did was not really commit to testing earlier, because I’ll tell you what being a patrol sergeant was the best job ever. And then I transitioned after a year into our Youth Services Unit, and was in charge of the school officers and that sort of thing. And that was still interesting. But I was it was nowhere near as much fun as work in the streets, especially as a new sergeant, you end up working with all the young guys. And they’re out there just one to do their job and hustle. So it was just a lot of fun. You know, they’d call me and go Hey, Sarge, can we go down to Santa Ana and go try and arrest this guy in a warrant? I’m like, Yeah, as long as I can go with you know, let’s go. That’s a good surgeon. So yeah, I mean, I love that stuff. Yeah. Like, did you find it easy to slip, because you had a lot of years on, you know, the Highway Patrol were were notorious for promoting people to Sergeant with like, three years on, and they only have aspirations of an admin position, get off the road, you know, avoid the actual job. So the guys that didn’t there, but there are plenty of guys that I worked with that that did retire after, you know, 25 years work in the road, I’m sorry, promote 25 years after work in the road. And those were the best sergeants. Because like, they knew how to do the job. You know, they did it for they usually promote for for good intentions. There are some out there that did it just to bump the pay, of course, before retirement, but a lot of those guys were passionate about, you know, being the barrier between admin and the road officers. Those are the ones that like people loved. Did you have like an example of that kind of leadership before he popped into that role? Yeah, I really did. I mean, in fact, I also had, as you were talking about that leadership and mentorship, I also saw it from both sides, there were certainly some sergeants that I worked for, that I looked at and went, Okay, I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be that guy that is only showing up to do an eval, or is that three years sergeant who wants to spend all his time writing the guys, and not necessarily in a bad way? Exactly. Not. They’re not doing their job, but he doesn’t want to make a decision. He’s constantly there. And it’s okay. I don’t want to trust the guys to make a decision. But I don’t want to make the decision. I’m going to call the lieutenant to make the decision. And that drove me crazy. Yeah. If, you know, obviously, there’s things you need to push up your chain of command and say, Okay, this is above my paygrade, I need to get the next level involved. But you need to make that decision if it’s within your wheelhouse. And I worked with quite a few people that just didn’t want to do that. Because they were afraid that they could make a bad decision, and then they’d be held to answer for it. And, of course, that’s part of the job. If you’re not willing to do that, then you shouldn’t be there. Yeah. And when I was a sergeant, I’d have officers come to me and say, hey, well, what should I do? Sorry, I’m like, You know what to do? Go do it. You’re not going to make the decision for you. Right? That’s, that’s perfect example, leadership. Yeah, like one of my, one of my FTO is, I think it was like, third phase FTO. She was, you know, pretty much but like a tough ass woman. She was about to retire when I came on. So she was one of those women that like, worked to the Highway Patrol. And she was like, one of the first female officers ever on how it feels like they had to be tough. As she told me one time when I was an FTO, she’s like, just make a decision. Whether it right or wrong, just make make a freaking decision like, and that stuck with me. It’s like, you’re right. You’re on the side of the road, you’re dealing with chaos and a traffic crash or whatever. It’s like, you got to do something, you might not make the right decision. But if you sit there and you’re just like, paralyzed with will and that’s something that stuck with me. And I think I really think it was my partner Bob that my academy buddy I mentioned who kind of pushed it out to me. He’s like if your mate if you make the wrong decision, but you made it for the right reasons. Okay, we can deal with that. That’s fine. On the other hand, if you made the wrong decision, but you were trying to shortcut it, you made it for the wrong reasons. Now we’ve got a problem. And that’s what I when I was a sergeant That’s what I told the officers that worked for me I said if you screw Were things up, but you had a good rationale for everything you did. I’ll stand behind you 100%. I have no problem with that. On the other hand, if you are shortcutting things, if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do, then now we’ve got a problem. Yeah. So yeah, I saw that a lot. And I thought that was really helpful. So I tried to stick with that. Yeah. And that you came up. I mean, so when you started, what’s the first rank as an officer? Like, where do you start? So you started as a second lieutenant, okay. Write out a write out. And then it’s usually, you know, a year and a half, maybe two years, I don’t remember they can get promoted first lieutenant, you just start making them ranks up for the most part. And granted, my time was a little bit different, right, because we’re at the height of G What almost immediately after I graduated, so things, things kind of started amping up, but as a second lieutenant for us, Army for us infantry officers, were basically in another pipeline at our basic course learning how to be infantry officers for almost the first year, you’ll have your basic course some guys have to go to Airborne School, and then you have Ranger School. And that can be anywhere from, like 6468 days to yours. Like, you may never get out of that. That place, right. You know, there’s cases where it takes guys three years to get through Ranger School. Some guys, I got lucky, I made it through, you know, straight through which 64 days, right? So then, and I didn’t have to go to Airborne School because I’d already done that as a kid. So then boom, I go off after it was about a year from the time I graduated till I made it out to the army to be a platoon leader. And that’s like your first chance at the real army of being a leader? How many people are in charge on 35? Guys? Okay. Yeah, you know, and that was, you know, 2001, I made it there. And then I was there for a few months as a platoon leader, then I got moved to a special platoon with Scout Sniper teams, right, then I only had 18, guys, but they’re a little bit, they’re trained a little bit different, their missions a little bit different. So you have smaller teams. But the requirements are up. As far as physical fitness intelligence levels, requirements, things like that. So becomes a little bit more specialized than just a regular infantry company, or infantry platoon. And then for us, when I was a scout platoon leader, our world changed when 911 happened. And so then I ended up going to the Special Forces Qualification Course. And that’s another year and a half in training, just learn how to be a Special Forces officer. Then after that, you know, there’s a couple of small schools, but by and large, what you’re being trained to do is to go to a special forces team. And so I’ve gone from, when I hit my team, I’ve gone from being in charge of 35, guys, to being in charge of 18, guys, and now I’m in charge of a special forces team. And there’s 12 on a team, but much different mission set. requirements are different. Everything about the job is 100%. Different, easier to manage or not easier to manage some ways much, much easier, some ways, way more difficult to manage, you know, what’s what’s interesting about special forces, that I think kind of sets us apart is the NCOs, the guys that actually do all of the work, their experience level is so much different than anywhere else. Like when I first got to my team, it was 2004. And these guys already had two, three trips to Afghanistan, in 2004. You know, and even before 911, these guys have gone to many different countries, trained with helped out on deployments all across the world. So you may walk into a team room and guys have, you know, 2004 time period, guys already have two three trips to Afghanistan. And to them, it’s no big deal because they’ve been in 15 different other countries throughout their career, doing a myriad of different tasks. How do you earn the respect of those that crew as a brand new officer? Hopefully I was able to respect like you don’t ever know. Right? They have to, by law, Uniform Code of Military Justice, like you’re in charge of them, right? As long as the orders aren’t illegal, immoral, unethical, like they’re going to do. But there will become a time usually where you you have finally figured out okay, I’ve earned the trust, they will tell you they will do something that let you know, okay. Like, I’ve finally I’m in the team now on the team. And, you know, I’ll never forget you wanted to talk about leadership and mentorship. So that’s the first person that I’ve thought of outside of family friends growing up who molded you? Right? First day in the team room, it’s difficult as an officer walking in, because you’re the black sheep right there. They’re not gonna like you, they don’t want you, they don’t need you, but you’re getting forced upon them. And so I walk in and, you know, a lot of times in Special Forces take people think that we’re relaxed, more relaxed than the military, the rest of the army are not as HUD, HUD, hud hud, as the conventional army. And a lot of a lot of the conventional army will get mad at us, because they will hear us calling each other by first names or something like that, right. And so that’s not a normal military customs and courtesies, like the conventional army. They’re not, they’re not calling the soldier by his first name, generally speaking. And I’ll never forget, walked into the team room, and you gotta you gotta get the picture. When you walk in, it’s a big double door. And when you open up the door, and you step in, it’s two storeys high. And there’s a balcony up there. And the first time your answer, you’re trying to get your bearings on what’s going on. And then all of a sudden, they introduce you and a, you got a new captain. And of course, you’re fresh meat, right? So you walk in, you’re like, Hey, how’s it going? And everybody stands up around the balcony, and you’re just trying to get snapshots of everybody’s faces. How am I gonna get the beat down right now? Or is it coming later? And for me, what was never forget, you know, you walk in and you shake couple hands? Hey, I am at Breitbach. And I don’t even know who’s in charge of the team who’s the team started like, the man, you know? And because they all look, you know, from 26 to maybe 35, you don’t know who’s in charge. And so, check a couple hands. I met Breitbach they introduce themselves, and then a welcome beverage Shake what looks like a young man, probably 30 years old, go to shake his hand and hey, I’m at Breitbach. He’s like, No, your name is Captain or sir. That’s what you’ll be known by. And I’m like, well, he’s like, your any introduced, he gave me his his name, you know? And he’s like, you can sit down right here. Here’s your chair. And I’m like, Okay, this has not gone very good, you know. So I sit down, and I’m just sitting there, and everybody just goes to work, and they just continue doing what they’re doing. Am I supposed to be doing you know, I should do something to try to fit in and I just sit there for two hours. Nobody’s saying a word to me. And then all sudden, the guy stands up that I’m getting a good feelings to the team. Certainly. He’s like, alright. Everybody, if you’re not doing something, don’t do it here. And everybody leaves. And I’m like, Oh, wow. And I’ll never forget this to the dad, I look over. And you know, he’s sitting there. He’s got a shirt off, you know, because they’re in their team room. He’s wearing what we call Ranger panties, a little black shorts. And all sudden, boom, he pulls out an IV and starts getting himself an IV in the foot. And I’m like, Aces. Really weird. What’s going on here? And so when the last guy kind of leaves, I was like, how was I supposed to leave to like, I don’t know. And so I’m kind of sitting there. It’s awkward silence. He’s like, Hey, sir, here’s the deal. He’s like, your name is Captain or sir. I’m in charge. When we’re back here in the rear. You’re in charge when we’re forward deployed. I kind of looked at him. I’m like I said, give himself an IV. And he’s like, probably wondering why I give myself an IV. I just ran an ultra marathon over the weekend, and I’m trying to recharge my fluids. And I’m like, oh, boy, like, I just got out of school house, right. I’m not in the best shape. I just got done with sere school. And if you know anything about sere school, you’re not staying in shape there. So I’m like, okay, cool. He’s like, here’s the deal. You’re not doing anything here. You need to go home. PT starts tomorrow morning at 630. Oh, wow. This is going to be interested in some of my bookings, like, but I still get a couple of questions. I’m like, Yeah, what’s up? He’s like, where did you go to school? And that’s a loaded question for Wes. Right now, like, I went to West Point. He’s like, okay, he’s like, are you an Eagle Scout? Oh, my God. Yep. And that’s a loaded question. You know, he’s like, good. He’s like, I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 630. I’m like, Oh, okay. So you’re driving home. And I’m thinking about this the whole time. I’m like, Man, this is gonna be rough. And that first morning, 30 miles, boom, right off the bat. I’m like, damn, and then we get the pyramid from 100 Pull Ups down. I’m like, Who and I just got out of school house like I’m weak, and I’m trying not to die. Nobody on the team is going to talk to me for at least two weeks. That’s what ended up happening. And finally he pulls me off to the side and he’s like, alright, you can stay in the team room now. We’ll do some more development. I’ll counsel you later. And I’m like, I’m supposed to be the man counseling you right. But, you know, I know he’s a strong personality and so he sits down and he counts As me right off the bat on paper, and everything and, and in that counseling, that’s where I really grew a lot of respect for the man, right? Because he said, he said, here’s the deal. There’s the rest of your SF career, everybody’s going to ask you Who is your first team sergeant. My job is not to train you to be a team leader, I don’t need you, I can do that job by myself. You said, I need you to be developed to become a company commander, one level up. That’s what I’m gonna do for you. While you’re here, I’m in charge in the rear, you’re in charge forward is like, by all means you can sit and tell me, you know, we can talk but I’m in charge of training the boys. You’re in charge of employing the boys when we’re forward. And from that day, like when he sat down, counseled me on paper, which typically is the opposite way you’re counseling him? Yeah. was eye opening to me on mentorship? And there have been numerous times throughout my career for the next 18 years where guys like, who’s your first team started? And you give them the name? And that’s like, okay, bonus. VDS is met. This guy’s good. Like that guy has the respect of Yeah, yeah, it was, it was amazing. And that guy developed me, mentored me and changed, like, made my career what it was the rest of the time. That’s friggin awesome. So you hit you found mentorship and a guy that you outranked by quite a bit. Yeah. That’s wild. And I mean, that’s pretty cool. Now, how would that have gone? If you just did not wanted to go with the program? Yeah, no, I’m in charge. My way it would have been legally, I was in the right. Right. As far as team building and leadership, like it’s it’s truly a team effort between you as the platoon leader or the SF team leader and the team sergeant. Right. But oftentimes, there can be head butting. And there can be leadership issues. But the man had the respect of every person I’ve ever met, and continues to have molded people that have gone on to do great things for our country. Is that a rarity to find a guy like that? Like, how did he come up? How does he have that? He’s outworked everybody? Well, this this individual, I think, one had a strong family background. And two was brought up in some great organizations. And three, I mean, you’ll see people that have good strong bet. Families, you’ll see him in good organizations. There’s a lot of people like that in SF, but there are diamonds in the rough, you know that? That are they’re better than everybody else. Yeah. They make a different type of impression on people. This man was not a people rarely ever heard. heard him talk. You know, he’s he’s a quiet, John Wayne out there. But when he did, it was all business. And he wasn’t like, sometimes you’ll see on people on podcasts like this or on social media, you know, SF guys out there showing you that they did great things this guy would would never be on a podcast, I would never be on social media. He made a difference in a different way. The, the example of a quiet professional, yeah, like, unreal, unreal, quiet, professional lighting. Like I had a goal of mine, you know, as I, you know, I’m in my mid 40s. But I feel like I’m still constantly learning and growing up, like a goal of mine is to be able to walk into any room and like, own my own space and have the confidence to do that. But like, for you going into that room, like how do you how do you own that space? Right? Well, for me, it’s time you know, it’s it’s easy, because by Uniform Code of Military Justice, I’m in charge. Yeah. But you know, like, there’s that but you don’t you don’t have like, you just said it. You didn’t have you had to earn that respect. And in that environment, you can, you can be in charge, but it doesn’t mean you get the respect, right. It’s like how do you like reshoot your pants when you walk? Oh, yeah. 100%, of course, like you. If somebody tells you, they’re not like, You’re a liar, you’re a liar. You don’t know how that’s going to go. It’s human interaction. It can go 1000 different ways. But you got to be able to be self aware and confident enough in yourself and understanding the process. And knowing that it’s interesting since we start talking about this leadership. You know, one of the other things that he told me is that things will always work out the way they’re supposed to you But at that time, that was the first time I’d ever heard that through him from him because you know, growing up, it’s like, Hey, I gotta be better I’m gonna be your keep aren’t trying hard to change the situation, right? And then with him a couple times as we do our counseling sessions and mentorships sessions, and you get in some sticky situations be like, things are gonna work out the way they’re supposed to. And I’m like, No, we got it. He’s like, things will work out the way they’re supposed to. Right? You know that one thing that comes to mind, as you’re talking about that is, yeah, you can talk about being in charge. But one of the ways that I in my experience, you kind of earn that respect is being able to put your ego aside and lean on somebody else, you know, go Okay, in this my situation here, I didn’t go through, I was not a SWAT guy. But if something came up, I’m like, okay, one of the guys that works for me, he’s a SWAT guy, I can pull him in and go, Okay, what do you think, what are we going to do here? And yeah, as the sergeant, I’m still the one making the ultimate decision. But pulling in that information. And getting input from people I think, is really helpful, because they will look at that. And when I was a young officer, when I was able to provide some useful input, and they will go, all right, okay, I can see where you’re coming from, maybe they would take that maybe they wouldn’t, but the simple fact that they were willing to listen, okay, I appreciate that. They gained respect in my eyes. Yeah, that’s what made my job. Like, so easy. As a team leader, especially forces, you guys was awesome experience. guys that worked for Fortune 500 companies that came into SF because of 911. Right? Gotten freedom, they, that’s why they were there. You had guys that were in SF 10 years before 911 had been doing it for years, all the way up through, you have some of the best trained soldiers that the US can build on your team. Like, I don’t have to be perfect all the time. But I have to be able to find the right answer, know who to go to what’s their background, oh, we got issues with engineering, or building or whatever, go to this guy. Somebody’s all the holes in the chest, you’re obviously gonna go to your medic, but he’s also trained everybody else to be able to do his job. So that’s, that’s an easy job. Being around those cows, that caliber of people, but the problem sets that you run into, are, are extremely difficult. Yeah. So I’m seeing a common thread here of like, keeping your ego in check, and then being able to like rely on on the people under you that have the experience that you might not have? And then you don’t need to have all the answers. Right. Like, and it empowers, you know, having been, you know, the guy that the sergeant might come to, because, you know, being used force expert, or whatever it was that I had, you know, to have the sergeant come to me like, oh, shit, like, that’s cool. Like, that gives me more respect for them. And then it kind of empowers the guys under you to like, okay, I can do my job like, I do you know what I’m doing? That’s pretty cool. And I think it helps because the other people, other officers will look and see, okay, the sergeant doesn’t think he knows at all. I’ve worked for people that think they know it all. And obviously they don’t, none of us do. But being able to like, say, keep that ego in check. And I wish I had been able to do that more when I was young. As I think you were just saying something about learning more as I get older. And I have learned so much more in recent years that I like, I wish I had known that 30 years ago fact not just I wish I’d known it the wish I would have listened. Because it’s the information was out there. I just didn’t. I wasn’t willing to accept it. Yeah, yeah. I like constantly have that thought of like, I wish I could go back to this point in my life, because the skills and knowledge that I have now would have made me that much better. And it’s yeah, it’s like, damn it. But you’re right, that information was there. I just wasn’t willing to listen to it. By the time I’m 90, I’m really I’m much I guess you figured out I’m gonna die. One more year. No, that’s me. I think I might be the oldest one here. But hopefully, this also takes me back to some of the other discussions that we’ve been having the academy and everywhere else about some of the books we’re reading and things like that. Different mentors, trying to help you improve your life, you know, some of the books that we’re reading now are making us question, things that maybe we hadn’t questioned in the past. And it’s, it’s, it’s good. It was funny. When were you first approached about doing this? I was like, Man, that person you need to have on his, you know, big gem from the Academy from, from all the stuff that we’ve been talking about lately with leadership and attitudes and stuff like that. But he invited him on Yeah, I Well, you know, both you guys like we have a lot of these discussions at the Patriot board, but we never really get to hash them out because there’s distractions and time limit That’s why I figured both you guys together on here would be a good discussion that I think people can find value in whether you’re 80 years old or 20. And you’re just starting out in life, like, it’s important to listen to the experience and like, actually listen to the experience out there and like, try to embody that. And embody those lessons. Because like I said, dammit, I wish I could go back, I’d make a lot of different choices. I think a lot of it too, is just not taking yourself too seriously. I mean, you take the mission seriously, you take what you need to do seriously, but not taking yourself too seriously, is really important. Because, yeah, and how does the person do that? Not take yourself in the situation? Seriously, I mean, we’re all a plus type people, we’re always trying to make things better. And so you’re internalizing that and, and spinning it in your own head and trying to make your life better. Like that’s something difficult to do not take your, your situation serious. It wouldn’t be a situation if it wasn’t serious, right? You know, and so that’s why I think that this whole thing about leadership, and mentorship is so important. To have an outlet to talk to somebody on a one on one basis to on one, you know, whatever that basis is. And oftentimes, I see people get wrapped up in their situation, and somebody will try to give them advice or be scared to give advice. Because they’re afraid of the consequences later. And being afraid of consequences, whether you’re giving advice or receiving the advice is, you know, don’t worry about the future because 85% of it doesn’t come true, right? You know, so you have to tell yourself that over and over and over when you get in these situations. And that’s one thing that I I personally have really struggled with is people come in asking for advice, right? How do you know that you’re giving them the right advice? Don’t you don’t, you know? So a person came to me wanting advice on retirement and next jobs and stuff like that. And I gave them the advice to, to follow their dream, what they wanted to go do. And the person at time didn’t think that they were good enough to go do what they wanted to go do. Well, then I was basically like, you need to put your resume and, and the person ends up going and doing it makes it doing good. And then all of a sudden the person was, was killed on the job. And so that’s one of the burdens that, you know, that I carry is did I give them the right advice? You know, and it’s for that for that person individually? I think, yeah, I gave them the right advice, because that’s what they wanted to go do. Yeah. But then it’s also hard to look that person’s wife, kids in the eye 510 2030 years later, knowing that, that I changed the course of history. So there is struggle, not just for the person receiving advice, there’s also struggle for the person giving the advice. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t right, like you wouldn’t. Would you take that back? I mean, honestly, some level you might but yeah, but that’s what you struggle with, like I did, did I make a mistake by giving this person advice to follow their dream to do what they wanted to go do? That person made the decision to go do it. But there’s consequences. The reality is you were going to change the course of history, no matter what advice you gave i Well, assuming you took that advice. So you could give him as yes, you could give advice to No, don’t do that. And things could have worked out horribly in the other direction as well. So second guessing something like that is yes, we all want to do it. And this kind of leads into what you wanted to talk about a little bit is that you second guessed, what could I have done differently? And the reality is we just don’t know. We can’t change the past and we can’t change those decisions. We just have to live with them. You know, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just the way it is. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But that that may segue into that story that I want you to tell Jim if you don’t mind, because I think it does apply right. And it’s interesting because Swan one of your recent podcasts you were talking about critical incidents and things like that and When you were talking about the fire that you went through in Paradise, and I could hear in your voice, the stress still coming up, and how many years has that been five years? Okay. This for me was 1993. And I still feel that little bit of stress. And I’ve talked about it quite a bit. But basically what had happened was this was 1993. I’d been an officer for four years, I was still, I was still new, still a boot. But the way their turnover is I was kind of one of the senior guys on the shift. And another officer had just come back from a regional narcotics Task Force, he’s back to the street. And he wasn’t really familiar because he’d been off the street for three or four years with some of the local people that had developed since then. So there’s one guy that he was a deaf mute, and he always fought with us. So he and another officer got sent to that I went over to just make sure they were aware of who this guy is, and we got it handled. And then we’re standing there in a parking lot having a chat. And this was graveyard. So it was probably it was three o’clock in the morning at about that point. And he said, Hey, I’m gonna go check a car and said, What street he was on to say, Do you want me to go with you? And he’s like, No, I’m good. Don’t worry about it. So I stood talking to the other officer for a while. And 10 minutes later, a citizen came on the radio and said, hey, you’ve got an officer down. And of course, that gets everybody amped up, as well. And actually, I should back up before the citizen came on the radio, there was they dispatched me and the officer that had left to go, his name was Howard dallies, that he left to check the car. He they dispatched us to a shots heard in the area call. And if you’re not a police officer, the shots are in the area, those things go off all the time. And pretty much what you do, unless there’s some witness that saw something as you drive past the calling party’s house two or three times, and then you keep on going, you go back to business. So I didn’t immediately leave. And then the citizen came on the radio. And you can tell still, after what 30 Some years, I’ve getting a little amped up. But I hauled but there was the first one there, he was down in the street in front of his car. And he had taken four rounds, one penetrated just under his vest. And that’s the one that ultimately killed him. But I was there in the street with him, went to the hospital with him was in the emergency room in the operating room with him. And I really thought he was going to survive, and then he ended up dying as a result of that. And yeah, that put me in a real bad place for a while. And that’s one of the things that I’ve heard and I kind of interested in your thoughts on this is the department psychologist that helped me a lot. His name was Larry Blum. And we call him Dr. deadlift, because he was this big buffed out guy. But he said that what causes problems for a lot of police officers, particularly as it’s not just the incident, the trauma, it’s the surprise of something. So I’m kind of curious with your experience. Do you you know, is it can be cumulative trauma, things that will build up over time, but it’s the getting set back on your heels like whoa, I didn’t expect that. Where did that come from? And that’s kind of what I got in this. Although we kind of train for we need to be aware and expect certain things. This was still he was just talking to the guy and now all of a sudden he’s dead in the street, the heck and I went down a path where because we were talking about you want to second guess things. I kind of knew what to do. This was before the whole T Triple C and all of this. I was like, Okay, what do I do? So I didn’t realize so after that I was in the mode, okay, I need to get certified as a paramedic, I need to do all this stuff. And finally, one of the afterward one of the ER Doc’s called me, and he said, I couldn’t have saved him. If he had gotten shot in the emergency room, then I couldn’t have done it. Damage was just too great. You could have done nothing. And I don’t know if that was true or not really sure help. Right. Yeah, this this is like, this is the inherent challenge in law enforcement. And I’m curious about Matt’s viewpoint in this too, because the inherent challenge in law enforcement is that like, you’re always going to be surprised you can’t physically and I’ve tried I’ve done it and it’s awful to be in like, condition, you know, whatever you call it yellow or whatever, like all the time where you’re always ready. It’s not healthy, like it will eat you away. It’ll ruin your family life. It’ll ruin yourself to be in that condition where you’re like, always ready. But you know, the job is I might make 1000 traffic stops and they’re completely normal. And then it’s that one that’s not and it’s like, oh shit now I need to perform but I’m already a step behind. That’s the freakin problem. And I’m assuming I’ve always assumed and Matt might tell me different that the military like especially what you did Matt like you guys are going out and you have an intention. And you put yourself in that condition because you know shits gonna go down. You know, is it different? So that was gross. You know, and um, My thoughts are going a million miles an hour. But what I’ll tell you is some smoke coffee and Sun are blown will do and, and special operations is like that, like, we, we go out with an intent and a purpose to accomplish that mission. And, you know, say it’s like some sort of RAID or something like that, you know, there’s bad guys in the house, you know, we’re gonna go do X, Y, and Z, and we’re going to make it happen. And you’re not surprised by what happens on the target. But then, you know, the vast majority of my time during Giwa wasn’t like that. There’s other organizations that do that stuff. But what I did on an SF team wasn’t like that. It was more of a we know this area is bad over here, let’s just go figure it out. And so you’re, you’re rolling in not having a clue what’s going on. I don’t want to say not having a clue, because we had a clue about what would happen. But it wasn’t going to be five minutes on target. And we’re pulling off. It’s like, hey, we know there’s a bad area, we’re gonna go in there, we’re gonna fix it. Yeah, we’re probably gonna get shot up. But we’re gonna fix whatever the problem was, but maybe not get shot out, too, right? Like, yeah, when I picture a raid, I’m like, You guys are going in. And it’s like, a serving a warrant or something, you know, you’ve got an armed individual, like, maybe not for us, but like, maybe a few man, you guys are going in hitting a target, and they’re armed and like, yeah, we’re probably gonna get into shooting, like, even serving warrants. I never gotten a shooting doing that many times. But the potential was there. And it was easier to get myself into that mindset. Right? So yeah, yeah. And like, I’m not saying that we don’t go out on missions, and don’t have the mindset that we’re gonna get shot out. But you don’t know. Like, you gotta remember, it was a different time during my heyday, from like, 2004 to 2007. On a team, it was more of a, we know, we have problems on this village, let’s go out and fix it. Yeah, there’s a couple bad influencers, there may be 10, or 20. Bad guys there. But who knows, let’s just go out and see what the problems are. And we’ll try to fix it. And maybe like, hey, we need to go out and drop up medical supplies. And that’s what we go OUT out there to do or to build a school or a waterwell, or any of those types of things. But that’s one side of what we did in special forces. And then you have the other side, where you’re doing the rates, the rage, you don’t get as surprised like the, where you get surprised when you gear up for, hey, we’re gonna go off and drop off some medical supplies, and you go out there. And next thing, you know, there’s 50, bad news there. And it turns into a three day gunfight and people get hurt. You know, those types of things are surprised. But what I always tried to what was impressed by my mentor upon me, was to try to keep things stick to the basics, like the basics, we only had four things that we did on our team, attack to the right, protect to the left withdrawal to the right, withdrawal to the left, we didn’t get wrapped up around the little intricacies of every individual movements, it was stick to the basics, and that’s about as basic as you can get. That’s what we practice all the time. And so, and then, with us, the way we train Special Operations is we work on the basics, and then we throw the wazoo things into the training missions to try to surprise people to keep situational awareness and things like that. But yeah, you know, you’re talking to me about mental health type stuff, like just a dumb knuckle dragger. Right. That’s, that’s why I got married to the psychologist. And that’s what she does. You know, and I don’t necessarily understand that world, I just know that every individual is different. And they process things differently. But through my career would has helped align myself but a lot of my friends is having a trusted agent that you can sit down and talk to. Yeah, like, it’s huge. And like, I used to tell my guys all the time, like, because a lot of times in the army, the mental health side of the house has a stigma to it. And I’m like, obviously, I’m married to the military psychologist. I don’t want that stigma to be out there. But really what I was concerned about my guys with was, if you have a problem, like, go get the help that you need, but I wanted all of our guys to go talk to somebody and mentor. You know, whether that was in the team room outside of the team room, whether it’s talking to a psychologist for improving their life overall. Don’t just worry about the one little problem that you have, like, worry about improving your life. Go talk to other experts, other key individuals find that mentor or that you can sit down and have those deep dark discussions with and work on improving your life. And if you’re not getting that out of the mentor, go find a different one. Yeah, there’s a lot of value in that, because I can think of experiences where, you know, I’ve been to therapy as well. But also, sometimes it’s just having that conversation with somebody that you trust that you can talk to you that you look up to, you know, because there’s been times in my career where I was like, man, it’s like my coward, like, African denial and all that well. And then you go talk to like, you know, my buddy chuck or something. And yeah, he’ll, he’ll be like, Yeah, your policy, but, but no, not really, like, No, I went through that too, or I feel like that too. And then to hear it from somebody that you respect like that. You’re like, okay, like, that’s normal. I’m not a coward. That’s the things that people on, you know, fire law enforcement, military do. It’s not normal stuff. In this day and age, it was when we were all cavemen go out and beat each other up, like, but that’s not how society is supposed to run in a civilized manner. Right? Our job in those roles is to insulate society from that short, right. That’s how I look at it. And obviously, Jamie, like, you must have found you went through that, right, with your experience. Did that drive you into a dark place? Oh, yeah, it absolutely did. My wife and I were fairly newly married. And I ended up deciding and the psychologist ended up kind of working me through this and that I decided I wasn’t in love with her anymore and needed to get divorced. And ultimately, the he pointed out that really what was going on is I was basically trying to protect her and myself in case I got killed. And my brain was just, it was damaged. I was broken. So and we worked through that. And you know, she’s a saint. We’re still together. We just had our 34th wedding anniversary. So, but yeah, there’s those things talking to somebody else. And the reality is they pushed me to talk to a psychologist the morning that I came in, and there were some failures, as far as I say, failures of leadership, but things that should have been done differently, of course, and some of that has changed over the years. We’re now 30 years down the road and departments have recognized, okay, we need to not do things that way. But I one of the things was they ended up bringing me back from the hospital, and I was still in scrubs, because I hadn’t go into the operating room. And I wanted to change back into my uniform, but they’re like, oh, no, just wear the scrubs. And of course, I come walking into the apartment wearing scrubs. Like some weird bug or something. No, I wanted to walk in the worst way I walked out. And I understand why they did it. And it wasn’t there was nothing malicious. They just didn’t understand. But I didn’t want to talk to the psychologist because my assumption was okay, if I say anything, it doesn’t sound good. So my answer was, I’m okay. Fine. Classic. And then what did we do? We went out drinking, and on their way to the whole bunch of drinking. I mean, situation worse. Yep. There’s some interesting dynamics. I say this a lot. And things are getting better, right. But they’re, in my 14 years, I went to one critical incident debrief from a shooting and like, what all the other traumatic incidents and all the crashes, dead kids, dead people, whatever fires, floods, like all this shit, never again, and I was like, it’s kind of a failure. You know, luckily, I had some people that could rely on that, you know, shared those experiences with me, and we could talk about it. But that that is a problem. It’s getting better. But there’s a lot of value in that. And yes, like, everybody goes into those things. Like, I’m good. I’m good. And and then you sit there and you’re talking like, actually, they kind of needed the like, the things that are difficult to deal with to that cumulative stuff. It’s difficult for the department or the agency to identify, you know, if you’re involved in a critical incident, a specific domain, okay, you might not talk to somebody right now. On the other hand, those things that just start building up, they won’t necessarily identify. And one of the things that kind of comes to mind is we had an officer who she was one of my trainees, but after that, she gave CPR three times, and none of them were successful. And a sergeant at the time start referred to her in briefing as depth, breadth. And yeah, and I mean, this was earlier, some of its team room banter, but it is, but it can take a toll. Yes, but inappropriate in that context. It’s certainly hard on her. And but people didn’t think about that at the time. So I think it’s good that we see some adjustment to that where people are starting to recognize, hey, we need to deal with these things. And people are able to talk to somebody else, talk to a partner and say, Hey, this is what’s going on. And yeah, we’re hard on each other. We call each other names and yeah, you’re a coward. You deal with it? Yeah. But then hopefully we follow that up with case but you can be better and this is what I can do for you. I’m looking I’m actually man, your wife’s She would come on the podcast and talk, I’m looking forward to like diving into, you know, like the more technical side of PTSD and like talking to her about that, I think it’s very words due to a lot of that I know, I know, I know, very cool stuff off the ground, I know, I’m gonna have to, I’m gonna, I’m gonna bring my partner Eric, and now he’s pretty smart. guy, he’s still in the job. So I think that’ll be a good conversation. But, but like, it’s important to talk about this stuff, because there’s probably somebody out there listening that like my work for department where it’s still, you know, taboo to talk about it, because it’s still like that some places, and they might need to hear it might save somebody’s life. So yeah, absolutely. Oh, one, like, I’ll never forget, when I’d been a group for a long time, and I’d gotten promoted. And, you know, every time somebody gets promoted, people come up and talk about all the great things you’ve done, and try to make you look good. You know, and, and, you know, none of that’s on you as an individual. And you’re standing up there thanking people and you know, people, especially I was a black sheep, I went from one group to a different group. And so I was an outcast start off with you build your repertoire, you get in and, and then eventually, you can start making some changes, doing some good, you know, and I gotten promoted. And I remember standing up there looking at all these people that were, like, congratulating me, and I’m, like, you know, what’s crazy is, and I had to thank my wife, because it was, for me, it was very sincere, because like, you love the man out there, right? You love the mission, anything that can help them make the mission go better, more successful, safer. And you know, how to recognize my wife didn’t have to, I wanted to recognize my wife, because of all the things that I did at 10th Group, like the best thing that I could have done, was helping my wife go from the military, because she worked at tensor, right, she left the military during the Public Health Service. And then she was basically a liaison for the Public Health Service working for tender. And that group of people that when they brought him on board to change the mental health there, really changed how the unit, kind of looked at and started handling mental health stuff. So this is 2010, right? We’ve gone through Jiwan, or surges, stuff like that, and the military was looking for a different way to handle some of the mental health challenges we had in that group there made a huge, huge impact on people. By bringing them in bringing more soldiers in sitting there, the way they handled the mental health situation there made more of an impact for me, than anything I did. And temporarily, you know, saving somebody’s life, by just sitting there listening to him, talking to him, is so important. Like, that’s huge. about changing the world, do you think I’ve wondered this before, like the guys that are in special operations as opposed to like, the regular army? Or is there a difference there? Are they? I mean, they’re, they’re probably experiencing similar trauma? Do they handle it differently? Or is it really the same? You would have to ask my wife, I will me, I would say yes. I think there’s studies out there, I’m fairly certain about cortisol levels and stuff like that, that people who are better trained, more properly trained, will handle those stressful situations differently. I would ask her about scientific evidence of it. But I wouldn’t say in my opinion, yes. I’m not educated. But I will also tell you that those types of people handle the situation. Good. But when they don’t handle the situation, it’s going to go bad and bad in a bad bad way, like the end. And so yeah, I would talk to her about that. I wonder if guys at that level are just more predisposed to being harder on themselves, right? That’s like maybe the motivation that gets them to where they’re at. So when it comes down to that, and they go to a dark place, they’re like, extra shitty on themselves. Well, I also, I would take it more as in their machines, and machines continue to go until they’re broke. And then once if they ever get heartbroke, it’s broke. But if you need to change the oil on your car, and you give a little bit of maintenance to it, it’s gonna go a lot longer. I mean, that’s why we do the physical stuff, right? So our bodies don’t break hard. That’s why we do all the mental preparation so but if you don’t continue to work on that and improve that and maintain it, and it goes broke. Like it’s heartbroken, it’s a lot more difficult to fix something that’s heartbroke than something that just changing oil and yeah. That’s a good example there the changing new oil versus like being heartbroken. I liked that and thought about in that context. Yeah, you see, you see that a lot, you know, can give a guy a little bit of help, a little bit of help, a little bit of help, they’re gonna continue running. But if you let that, that engine lock up or move, that’s costly, that’s costly. Not you’re gonna have to tell a horror story because there’s the people out there that are listening that are upset last time, you didn’t tell anything. I was upset last time, not the only one. I wasn’t prepared for that. Here. We’re talking about leadership and towards you? Well, that you might be you know what you’re good at. You’re good at looping things in it, but you can lose something. Oh, I could tell a quick story while you’re thinking about mentorship. I thought, Oh, by all means. That one out there. It’s hypothetical, right? Well, what I guess I’d ask your listeners viewers to do is understand that there’s a difference between Olympic runners running and somebody running for their life. And that’s that analogy is kind of hard. But I remember a day when, okay. After we’ve done some things that was like, Hey, sir, you know, this is this is one of the funniest things. He’s like, there’s a difference between somebody running and somebody running for their life. And I’m like, what’s he’s like, based off the scenario, I won’t get into that. But based off the scenario, this is somebody and you have your right now, Olympic runner running. And then he’s like, and this is the difference between Olympic runner and somebody running for their life. And, you know, he goes through the motions where his hands above his heads, and I can’t lift my arm, hands above his head, you know, he’s just, and based on what we had just gone through. You know, that was the perfect analogy. You know, that guy was running for his life. That’s really good, good guy or bad guy. Bad guy running for his life. But it wasn’t how that worked out for him. It didn’t end well. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it’s kind of hard to imagine. But let’s meet face to face some time. And I can tell you that. There you go. There’s the light. Yeah. Well, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s hard to tell some of these stories because thankfully, a lot of people that listen to this are from our world, so they understand right? But there’s like a there’s a darkness to it. And obviously, we use humor to mask that darkness. Right makes it okay, in our mind. So I am sensing an element of that right we’re at in the moment. It was like, yeah, yeah. It was the time one of the funniest things I’d seen and imagined in my life. Yeah. Yeah, there’s a difference between an Olympic runner running and somebody that running for their life. When you’re running for your life, you are flat running. Yeah, flat running matter of motivation. Yeah. Big motivation. Big big motivation coming your way. Yeah, help you out. Is that like the you’ll only die tired kind of thing? Yeah, yeah. One of those. Yeah. What’s up with your arm? I can can’t lift your arm. Well, I got all these big beasts at the academies that want to know. Yeah, for the viewers and listeners. I got a bad arm that set likes to make fun of old retired disabled vets. So if you’re doing if you’re rolling with mad at jujitsu? Yep, I recommend going for the Americana on that arm. If you can, which arm is that is I don’t want to say it out loud. Because you know he might have enemies out there. The Academy I’ll tell you if you can get it you can get it to tap a lot faster than you’re gonna get it. Yeah, yeah, no. Shoulder had a little bit trouble in high school. And then I was in the helicopter crash broken a couple spots. And then a few years later somebody made a mistake. Raising electronic electronic barrier underneath me as I was driving over it and basically wrecked motor vehicle accident ripped off or rotator cuff tendons off. I hadn’t heard that one before. Yeah, and then like, well take that back. Three of them were completely torn off. The fourth one was hanging on by a millimeter. And it took five reconstructions. Try to get it back together. And I still have limited range of motion so needs still out. Shoot me though. You’re a cop man did like speaking know that stress. So, Jim, for example, like having had that really stressful experience early on in your career, do you think that made you better at handling it down the road, or worse? Initially, of course, it was a problem. But once I got over that hill, I think it helped me a lot. And it also helped me to help people around me a lot. Because you help a lot of us. I don’t know how I help a lot of us here, but he does. But I think it helped me a lot in being able to help people navigate those things. You know, I had didn’t mention it earlier, when we were talking about it. I mentioned a patriot, or one time that soon after that, I mean, I was that guy with a gun barrel in my mouth. I was literally in an apartment, while my wife and I were separated, and I had the gun barrel in my mouth. The only reason I didn’t kill myself is because I lived in the city that I worked in. And I didn’t want my guys to find me that if I had lived in the neighboring city, I probably would have done it. And at the time, it made perfect sense to me. It just, I just did. And we had an officer years later who committed suicide. And in briefing the next day, I went up and told him I said, we’re all going to question why he was thinking this. And I’m like, even if we could talk to him, it he probably couldn’t make you understand. But it made perfect sense to him at the time. And that’s just the reality. We can’t necessarily understand why, how they’re going to justify that to themselves. And they call it a you know, they say it’s the ultimate selfish act, but I don’t really think it is. Most of the people when they do that, they are literally thinking their friends, their family will be better off without them. They’re not thinking of themselves. Most of the time, at least in my experience. I’m not an expert, so I shouldn’t speak in absolutes. But I think most people, they’re thinking the world and their friends and family will be better off without them. So if they’re not thinking of themselves unselfishly, necessarily that’s such a hard concept, but their point of view thing, though, right? They’re pointed down. Oh, yeah, absolutely. For us, the point of view is, it’s selfish. Yes. And I agree. But people look at it. And they think they were thinking they’re selfish. And yes, for everybody that’s left behind. Yeah, it’s a very difficult thing. And yes, it is, you know, selfish. You look at it as a selfish manner. We’re all going to pay the price for it. But blaming them saying they were selfish, I think is a mistake. I agree with you. I’m just trying to say that, like, there’s points of view. Yes, I agree on this. Yeah. That because it’s easy to go down that road. I wasn’t involved in this. But there was a chippy in Sacramento area that, like shot himself on duty in his patrol car, you know, and always been partners found him. You can I hear that story. I’m like, and I knew some of the guys that found it. I hear that story. I’m like, god dammit, like, fucker. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? So yeah, from from the outside point of view, it’s very easy to say that, like, you just put that in people’s heads forever. Yeah, down. So it’s so hard for me to wrap my brain around that thinking I just, you know, I mean, it’s so foreign. I think it’s foreign for most people, right? Unless you’re the guy or gal in that situation? Yeah, I think so too. I don’t think like I said, I look back on it now. And I can’t imagine being in that dark of a place that I couldn’t adjust for it. I couldn’t that I would be there. But I was there at that point 30 years ago, and it makes no sense to me now. But at the time, it made perfect sense. Yeah. But I also want to like, this also goes back to mentors and leaders, being able to reach down understand change the situation, right. And I like I’m big on people finding the right mentor, and leader to help them get to where they want to go. Whether that’s, you know, like, in my case, as soon as I got to a team, you know, I’ve also had mentors. Later on, that were outside of my chain of command outside of the military who have also greatly helped me out. And it’s, to me, it seems like when I when I go back and think about these people, it’s people that were willing to sit down, listen, not judge and be able to like say, provide wisdom and advice. Not necessarily about one particular incident or situation, but about life in general. Not just about one situation. Yeah, those are the types of men towards that I look for the wise people that are able to give you advice on life, and not just a particular problem. So, you know, and like, the older I get, the more I seek people out like that, and I want them to be in my life. I wish I had that mentality when I was younger, because I did not make and that’s probably a function of just being egotistical and young. But like, you know, I think of Jim, you like, Tim, at the Patriot bore, like, guys that are like, you know, I mean, like, I just feel more comfortable being around that. And it’s like, immediately, I feel like I can let my guard down this huge value. And I’m sure I had people at work like that when I was younger, but I guess I didn’t quite realize the value. And at that point, I don’t think any of us did when we were young. We were young, and we basically know it all. Yeah. So if you’re out there listening, like, find those people. And listen, shut your mouth. Sometimes you have to heed your own advice is true. Thanks. Yeah, so Well, gosh, guys, we are about an hour and 15 minutes. By the way, these conversations go quick. I give a little story about a failure of mentors, because it’ll also kind of, it’ll lighten the mood just a little bit. When I was a new sergeant, one of my mentor that I already mentioned, Bob, who was my academy, buddy, he was the sergeant on the shift that I worked on. And he was getting promoted, I was taking his stripes. So I was moving right into supervise the officers I had been working with, which is already a corporal so I was already in that semi leadership role. But I had to ride with him for a period of a couple of weeks. And we’re working one night and one of the young officers finds some armed robbery suspects. So Bob and I and I’m driving the car we’re hauling. But to get there, we get there. And it’s right underneath the freeway off ramp, I jump out of the car. And somehow as I’m closing the driver’s door of the car, I kind of turned my hand like this, and I closed the door, and I managed to slam my thumb in my car door. And I couldn’t pull it out immediately, I had to open the door in order to do it. And then I run around and there’s two suspects, I end up getting in a fight with one of them while they’re taking the other one into custody. And then while I’m still getting him wrapped up my partner, Bob comes over and helps me get him cuffed up. And once we’ve done that, like Oh, my thumb, and he said, guy broke your thumb. I’m like, No, I did it in the car door. Why didn’t you train me better. And it became a whole joke that still goes on to this day. In fact, I couldn’t even turn the keys to start the car, I had to reach through the steering wheel with my left hand to start the car. But I didn’t want to go to the doctor or anything. So I drove around like that and operated like a couple more weeks. And the reason I really bring this up now is I haven’t seen him in a couple of years. And he’s coming up to visit me in a week. So I’m going to have to point him wrap that some people don’t understand the risks of law enforcement and slam your hand twice. In my career. I did it one time, I was in the I was in the passenger seat. And I had my hand just like up on the door, the top of the door by doors open. I was working with a big old boy and he got in and the car rocked and the door slammed all my fingers and like stuck. Like I had to open the door to get my hand out. The other time. I had taken a patrol car home and I was like leaving early for deployment to civil disturbance. And my kids were like sleeping my son’s window was like really close. I’m like I’m gonna silently close the door and I fucking slammed my thumb in the door and it was my mute with my left hand and I can’t you know like operating the holsters. There’s the thumb gonna push the thumb thing I could not like open my holster. So I’m like, it’s probably a good thing for potentially like this, you know, civil disturbance and I’m like, Hey, Sarge, like I can get my gun holster. Like if shit goes down. I have to like reach over open the hood and then grab it with my left hand. I was terrible. Yeah, so kids law enforcement is a dangerous profession. Yes. Watch your fingers for sure. And if you can’t draw your sidearm Yeah, with your weekend and you’ve got an issue right you can get her in jail or get you guys had like you probably didn’t have any retention on your guns. Personally, we didn’t even walk around with them. We didn’t need them. You just You are the weapon. Yeah, the straight up here. Like the back to the mentorship like one more thing like obviously you’ll find mentors in whatever you do, right? Like even jujitsu like one of my first mentors when I I was 20 years old working on a bar was the guy that got me into like, mixed martial arts jujitsu, my buddy Jason, like, you know, he’s a few years older than me, he had been through like the MMA game and like, he was an excellent mentor for me in that world. You know, even me coaching jujitsu, you coach. And she’s like, I have guys in my class that are older than me, but like, you know, I might be a mentor in that role for them right there. They have a lot of other skills that I might, you know, be, they might be a mentor for me. So like, it kind of goes both ways, depending on on what activity you’re involved in. So like, you can find them everywhere. Well, I think another important point is identifying in what areas they can be a mentor, because I had mentors, one that was excellent as a street cop, not so much a great mentor as far as life skills. So he you could and not accepting everything that somebody gives you being able to weed out the okay, you’re really good at this. And then I’m not gonna follow you on that. You’re on your fourth, fourth marriage. Exactly. They won’t take miracle. Yeah, trying to it’s being receptive to mentorship, but also being willing to identify Okay, that’s maybe not the way I want to go and having a good reason for it. Yeah. Not just your ego getting involved, of course, yeah. 100%. Well, now we’re on our 20 Thank you guys. I think we’ll call it for today. I like these conversations are very important to me. I selfishly glean all of the information that I can out of people like you, and I just hold it. So thanks for that. And Jim, I, I need to say that I really respect the fact that you’re wearing a Killdozer t shirt. I was literally talking about that the other day. And like if you don’t know what Killdozer is, Google that shit and check it out. Because that’s like, an example of how you fight back right there. damn cool shirt. When you when you drive ordinary people to extraordinary lengths. Unfortunately, it does happen. Are you getting killed? Those are? That’s great. Yeah, check on your friends. They may need help welding. Yes. And I say this a lot. But like, if you’re out there, I don’t care who you are. And you help you want to talk to somebody. shoot me a message. You want to check with Jim. I’m sure he’d be done with it. Man, maybe he’s pretty reclusive. Just kidding. Or he didn’t even share a little bourbon with us. Oh, wow. Thank you guys really appreciate it. I think these conversations have a lot of value. And hopefully somebody out there got something out of it. Let’s do it again sometime. My pleasure. Cool. See, this podcast is brought to you by your North Idaho agent. We are a full service Real Estate Team serving all of North Idaho. Our team is comprised of former first responders and veterans and we have years of experience in all aspects of real estate purchase and sales from bare land to new builds condos, commercial and resell. We have your back. To ensure a safe, smooth and profitable transaction, be sure to subscribe to our real estate YouTube channel called the North Idaho experience and check out our website at your North Idaho agent.com. It’s an excellent resource to learn more about North Idaho. So if you’re looking to move right now, or 12 months from now, give us a call text or email. We don’t just sell homes. We sell the North Idaho experience. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, the greatest compliment you can pay us is to like, subscribe and share
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