This conversation was so powerful that it had both of us welling up. Joining me in the booth was former Fire Chief and lifelong first responder, Rich Gasaway. It’s so fascinating to think about individuals in those roles that we often take for granted until we need them, and it was so beautiful to hear Rich describe the work that he does, how he got into it, and how he stays in it. I will routinely return to a quote he shared – “don’t ever judge the people by the chapter of their life that you happen to stumble into when you respond to a call.” This is advice we can all take to heart. Rich has seen a lot in his time and is doing some incredible work with high-risk-decision-making and helping us identify our patterns. He’s a wealth of wisdom and you won’t want to miss this episode!

About the Guest: 

Rich Gasaway is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision-making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making. He has authored and 6 books and his training programs have been delivered to more than 90,000 students worldwide. In 2019, Rich sent six weeks walking 500+ miles on the Camino De Santiago.

Connect and learn more:

SAMatters.com

About the Host: 

Friends! Here's a somewhat stuffy bio of me:  

I am an author, professional speaker, coach, host, and entrepreneur. My first book, Leading Imperfectly: The value of being authentic for leaders, professionals, and human beings, is available wherever people buy books. I speak internationally to willing and unwilling attendees about authenticity, vulnerability, and leadership. My clients include American Express, General Electric (GE), Accenture, Yale University, The Ohio State University, and many others. As a speaker, I am doing the two things I loves the most: making people think and making people laugh! 

I host my own events multiple times a year. They are 2-day events called Living Imperfectly Live (and sometimes they are 1-day virtual events). They are a space where humans from every walk of life can come together to be part of a community on the pursuit of badassery. The goal is to help attendees start living the life we say we want to live.

Alas, you're here because of an idea I had a number of years ago and didn't think I was good enough to pull it off. I finally acted on it and alas Diner Talks with James was born! As you can see from what I do in my professional life, Diner Talks is alligned with everything I believe in and teach.  If this wasn't dry enough, and you would like to know more info about my speaking, events, or coaching feel free to check out my website: JamesTRobo.com.

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Welcome to diner talks with James, slide into the booth and let's have conversations we never want to end with friends. We never want to leave over food we probably shouldn't be eatingmy friends,

Welcome to another episode of diner talks with James. I'm James and I'm super pumped to be here with you all. Thank you so much for kicking it with me. Y'all slide into the booth. I'm excited to have you. Friends. I think we're gonna switch some stuff up here and diner talks in the next few weeks that we're going to take a little bit of a break potentially, I got to talk to my podcast, people see what's happening. Because we just got a lot of things happening in our lives right now. We're really excited. We're going to expand our business, trying to expand our family. We got it, we got some things popping right now. And so but don't you worry won't be going too far. And as always, I want to hear your thoughts about what kind of episodes you want to hear what kind of guests you want to hear you enjoy and the format that we've been exploring. So feel free to always let me know. I'm James at James T. robo.com. That's the email address. I would love to hear from you. But enough about that. Let's talk about today and who we got here in the diner, both right now, my boy rich Gassaway what's going on my man Rich is widely considered the trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high risk decision making processes used in high stress, high consequence work environments. He's served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT, paramedic company officer training officer fire chief, emergency incident commander, he's done a couple of things his skin has been in a few risky places. his doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high risk decision making. In other words, this guy knows why you chose how much peanut butter you put on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Okay, I'm just saying he's about the high risk stuff, the big the heated things. Now He's authored six books, and his training programs have been delivered to more than 90,000 students worldwide. He is a great man and I am super excited that he and I have recently become friends because I just love talking to him and I'm excited for you to hang out with us in the diner. Let's bring him out. My man Dr.Rich Gasaway How you doing sir?

James? I was expecting you to You disappointed me. I was expecting you to say let's get ready to rumble that's just Jesus. Just where my mind went when you first start the house and it's like okay, we're getting in the ring.

We got to get in the ring. I'm holding up the number one I'm walking around in a bikini. I look great.

Oh, some things you can't unsee

you all right, and you are welcome.

It's nice to be here with you.

I'm excited to have you man. I'm excited to have you. You know Rich this this show is called diner talks with James. I believe that the best conversations we have in life are the ones that happened late at night that we didn't expect with the friends we never want to leave over the food that we probably shouldn't be eating. And so I'm wondering if you and I were hanging out late at night what would be what would be your late night moves if you had if you had to choose something What would you get laid in it

well it's a toss up between a couple of things one would either be a big old fat juicy cheeseburger if the place was right yeah and and and otherwise it was like a greasy diner I might get I might get like a full on breakfast even at midnight you know and just get the pancakes and bacon and eggs and just have my breakfast before I go to bed.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's called efficiency I think

right? could sleep in because I won't be hungry

I'm exactly exactly set your alarm back another 45 minutes

what do you what are you going to eat? way we have to do you have to pair our meals is that when dudes

we're gonna lady in the tramp to deal sphere both of our hamburgers. You know, it's funny. I'm just telling you before we before we hit the recording button that I moved to Minnesota recently, and just in the last couple of years and I was surprised most places that I own our burgers around here do the Smash patties. And I love a good smash patty burger but I mean back in New York smash patties were very rare to get but they're the norm out here. And so it's caused me to grow my butt burger my burger knowledge do you like more of like the what they call a steak burger with a little bit thicker? Or do you like to smash patties?

Yeah, no, I like the steak burger.

Yeah. Yeah, me too. I like knowing I'm biting into something. Yeah, right. For sure. It's easier to cook the temperature that way also. Yeah, right. Yeah. But I also love this breakfast. I love this breakfast for late night meal option to the pancakes. That's usually where I'm going. I'm going pancakes, maybe eggs scrambled with cheese. But here's here's here's what I want you I want you to let people in a little little secret about you. And I'll share mine if you share yours now but now when you when you put a little syrup on your pancakes is some of that syrup getting on to the sausage or on to the eggs or you know separate

it's getting it's getting on to the meat. It doesn't get onto the eggs but it gets it gets onto the bacon or the sausage.

Yeah, just approach it I love it. I love it. I miss the I miss late night diners living here in the Twin Cities there. I mean, there's a couple Mickey's is open late. And obviously there's Perkins and a couple places like that. But there's there's nothing I mean, you've been to you've been in New York, you showed me a great picture behind you of you working with FDNY Nam so, so you know what a great New York Diner is more mirrors than you knew existed and an open 24 hours. So I missed those experiences.

Yeah, you're not gonna find you're not going to find that. Too many places in the Twin Cities. Well, you might somewhere maybe in Minneapolis, but you know, St. Paul pretty much rules the streets up at 9pm.

It's the Capitol, only only for 18 hours a day or 12 hours a day. Yeah. That's awesome. Now are you born and raised out here in Minnesota? Where

are you from? No, I grew up in northern West Virginia, about 25 minutes from Pittsburgh. Okay, there's a little little piece of West Virginia that kind of juts straight up. If you're looking at it on a map and I'm, I lived in that city that within five minutes, you could go from Ohio to West Virginia to Pennsylvania in out about about a five minute span of time. And so yeah, I started out in Pittsburgh in the Pittsburgh area and lived there till I was 20 Until I was 28.

Okay, so you spent some time in that area for sure. Yeah. Did you move from from small town or West Virginia? Did you move towards towards Pittsburgh? You actually live in Pittsburgh?

No, no, I live the I lived in the town that I that I grew up in until until I until I moved to Ohio.

Yeah, I guess some friends on the on the other corner I would say on the southern border over in Morganton in West Virginia. So work in town. Morgan.

Morgan Town. That's where I went down. Thank you. Yeah, that's where I went to school. Okay, you

went to WVU Nice. Yeah. Great school. Terrible sports. And partying consistently ranked top five consistently

freshman year best three years of my life.

Take let's let's go even back further past freshman year, tell me, you know, growing up now, when you were younger, growing up in West Virginia, what what did you want to be when you grew up? Because, I mean, you obviously went on to be a fire chief and a first responder. And that's what a lot of five year olds put on the hat and they pretend like they want you know, they want to be a fireman, because that's a career that they know when they're gonna be sweet trucks. And, you know, they're rolling down the street, and they're their local heroes, right? And so it's, it is a, it's something that a lot of young kids want to do. But it isn't necessarily something that everybody continues on to actually then become, obviously, so. So for you. What was that journey? Like?

Yeah, that wasn't my story at all. I had really, really no interest of being a firefighter until January of my senior year of high school. We had a fire at my house. And the fire department responded and they did such an amazing job and made my family feel so good. That I knew right then, because at that point, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to go to college, but I didn't know really what I wanted to do. But I knew right then that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to serve people, the way they had served my family. And I didn't even know at the time that it was a volunteer fire department because I didn't really have an interest in it. So when I went and joined I thought I was going there to get a job if they would hire me but actually it was volunteer and and so I joined the volunteer Frank's have that fire department and was there. That's where I spent my first 10 years. Then I well, I, when I went to college at WVU, Morgantown, I joined the fire department that was in the city of joining Morgantown, and I was volunteer there for the whole time I was in college too. So I was actually serving on two fire departments. But the complicate that in both cities, both my hometown and where I went to school, the EMS service was separate. So I became an EMT. And then I went to night school. And while I was going to de school at WVU in the night school, and became a paramedic. So then I joined the EMS service and both my hometown, and in well, it was Monongalia County, which is where Morgantown is, so I was serving two fire departments to EMS services, and occasionally even go into class and trying to learn something formally while I was in college, but it was, it was a lot of fun, I was learning a lot, if you look back, you know, you think about that time, that was kind of like your defining moments of, you know, just find a known that these were some of the best times of my life, I might, uh, might have appreciated a more in the moment, I don't know if we really do that or not. Yeah, it sounds good when you get older. But they really were some of the best times in my life. And I was learning a lot and really, really having a lot of fun. It's, even though it's risky work. And it sometimes can really, it can really suck to see the worst of humanity. Under certain circumstances, it really is very rewarding. And a lot of fun. And really, some of the best people that I've ever met were police officers and firefighters and EMS responders, it's, it's really been a blessing of life to, to start that early. And so that's essentially what I've done for my entire adult life. Yeah, I have to stretch call myself adult.

I can edit that part out.

I don't believe anything else. Any other word you want to say is fine. But I'll

believe that adult word

that is incredible. So you were a volunteer, paramedic at at home and in this county, and you're a volunteer firefighter at home and in this county. I mean, we really got to work on your selfishness. You know, I just, you know, this is really, this is getting mad, because I didn't think we were gonna have to call you out here. But no, that's, that's incredible. So it's fascinating that you know that it wasn't till this moment where you had no idea what you wanted to be when you grew up. I mean, I'm sure you had some fun ideas here and there that bounced around with fleeting fleeting ideas. But but then it wasn't until this this pinnacle moment where your family's house catches on fire and the way that the responders came and showed up for you and your family. Mostly and physically I'm sure not really was transcendent for you. Yep. Before then as as a as a younger kid. Were you like, Were you playing sports? Were you like, what were you? What were you? What were you doing? Yep.

My I had a brother who was just two years older than me. So pretty much everything we did growing up we did together but with other friends. And we I played what we'd call a little league, baseball, basketball. When I got in high school, I was on the golf team, the tennis team and those those were the main sports that I did. Yeah. Through through youth.

You did? You did all the things. And yeah, which is great, right? Yeah. I also played a little high school golf and I tried out for the basketball team every year never made it I want to talk about it. But because it's jumpers silky, okay, rich, silky jumper. And but I may think it's funny, I made the cut every time but then when actually the second cut the one who actually made the team. Every time I just I just didn't get I was always it was always wonderful. It was always like five or whatever. They just didn't get it in but anyway, we don't have to talk about that's not about my trauma. Let's talk about yours. No.

I need to lay down.

Let me start this music, the soothing music for you. So that's awesome. You had you read an older brother. And are you still Are you still close with your older brother?

You know, not not not all that much. I mean, we we talk fairly often, like texting back and forth, but we don't really get together and do things. You know, he still lives backward in the town that we grew up in as, as everybody does, you know, I'm, I'm the black sheep, I moved away. I love as they would say, I left the valley. You know, nobody does that. But I did. So yeah, he's, he's still there. And we, we, you know, we chat fairly regularly. But we don't really get together too much, you know? Yeah. Like, yeah, our lives kind of just grew apart.

Sure. Yeah. For sure. So, you know, take me back to your, your, your at. You're at WVU, your first year didn't know what you wanted to do. You you found a passion in, in in first responder life. And is that is that was at that time? Did it feel like was it a hobby and you were majoring in finance? Or were you or were you starting to kind of go that even direction with some of your schooling like, what were you studying at that point?

Yeah, that's that's pretty impressive. James, because I majored in finance. did. Yeah. Well, yeah. Because that was all volunteer work. I knew I'd have to do something to pay the bill, so to speak. So at that time, I really strangely didn't have an ambition. To have the fire service be a career. I was very content, being a volunteer. So I majored in finance. And when I graduated from WVU, I actually went to work in banking, and worked my first six years of my full time work. postgraduation was in banking. Yeah. But then, as time went on, I would be sitting there in the bank, and I'd hear a fire truck down the street. And I think to myself, I'm supposed to be out there, not in here. Yeah. And so at the age of 28, I started applying for fire chief's jobs, because I've been in the business for 10 years and throw under that, that the bank so generously paid for me to get an MBA, thinking that I was going to stick around. Sorry. So with the NBA in the 10 years experience, I started applying for fire chief's jobs, and I landed one in Ohio. And I quit the bank and started that started. That was 1989. Okay, and I started my full time service in 1989, at the department just outside of Akron, Ohio.

Wow. So prior to that point, part of that point, you were only volunteering? Yep. was only volunteer? Yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. You know, we, in my hometown, we had, we definitely had some volunteer firefighters. And then we also I believe we had some full time firefighters as well, it was kind of it was a mixture in our in our hometown, and I believe, but for you, I guess if you could, if you could just teach us a little bit about that. You know, what is what is the life of a volunteer firefighter look like? Is it no matter what you're doing? If the pager goes off the beeper? If the phone goes off? Are you like, I gotta leave my teller job and get out on the road? Or is it? Do you have shifts that you're sitting at the house? Or like, you know, what, what is what does that world look like?

Yeah, there's? That's a great question. Because there's a lot of variation as to what it looks like, there are basically three classifications, when it comes to those who do it less than full time, there's the true volunteer, you do it for no pay, you carry a pager, and if you're able to respond when there's a call, you know, like, if you're at work and you're in your company allows you to leave the well, you know, then you can leave but if your company doesn't allow you to leave, oh, then you just don't leave during work. That's a true volunteer, then there's what's called paid paid on call or paid for call. So you're not paid anything. Usually, like for training, you're not paid. But if there's a call and you respond, you get pay, usually not very much. You know, at the time, it had been like, you know, $2 an hour and it may be your pay, basically was to cover gas and incidentals and things like that. And then there's true part time where you would work like a shift on duty, but they're part time hours so you're not really The it's not really your career, it's just a part time work that you do. So, depending on which variation of that you have, and I'd say probably all three of them would carry pagers and then beyond call, so it was you never knew when, because I was a true volunteer, you never knew when the call was going to come in and you tried to remain, you kind of get the point where you've almost fashion your life around being available for fires, you know, I was always said, I never wished I never wished a tragedy on anybody. I only wished that if the fire was going to occur, that I'd be available to respond and help out. You know, that was that was my wish, just just to be able to be there and, and to contribute. And so I would be remiss if I didn't say this, James. In fact, if she heard it, she probably scold me for it. So when I joined with the my hometown Fire Department, that is where I, that's where I met my wife of now 38 years. So she was she was already on the fire department when I joined. Oh, wow, incredible. Yeah. So I say she immediately and madly fell in love with me. And she has a different rendition. And I always tell mine, and she always rolls her eyes.

While she's out on this podcast, your stories, right? As far as I'm concerned, yeah. She wants to get guests Oh, let

me No, no, no, no. That's entirely unnecessary. So, so as we would, you know, do things together, we'd go out to eat, we both, you know, carried the pagers. And we both had our gear. And if there was a call, we really both wanted to go. So it was really not, it was not a rub, or an inconvenience, or it never made either of us angry to have to get up from dinner, or leave a movie, or leave a family event that we were there together, we you know, we both kind of pretty well, bit by the bug of service. And it was not, it was not anything that, you know, we never looked at each other and said, should we go or should we didn't go, you know, it was just the matter of, of fact that we were going to that we were going to respond. Yeah. So she was also a member of the EMS service. So I serve two agencies in the hometown, she served the same, she gives me two agencies in the hometown. So we were both very, very committed to it. And and I think that's probably helped me through my whole career. Because then when I became full time, and you know, she, she stepped away from it, we started having the family. And but that made it made for her to be very understanding of the hours and the commitment and the up in the middle of the night. And, you know, and never got the, you know, do you really have to go kind of lecture on my way out the door or anything like that. She really, she really did. She really did understand. You know, it's, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one of the things that I that I tell folks that I personally, if you're a responder you find humor in and if you're not, I don't know if you would, but when I when I first you know, I say when I first joined, you know that, and I got married that that when the pager would go off in the middle of the night in my if I went my wife didn't you know she'd say you know, do you have to go? I gotta go then, you know, after five years of marriage, when the pager would go off in the middle of night she'd say be very careful and come back you know, your kids and our kids are depending upon you. And then after 20 years of doing it and the pager go off in the middle of the night she'd say turn that damn thing down and then when I'm going out the door and she'd say bring home a gallon of milk the passion for it wanes

It's funny how things are still work right? Yeah, job no matter what you're doing, it's still work. But that is it's beautiful. You said you know that your wife was in the the department for you joined even? Yeah, because there is that immediate values lock. Like we both have very similar values. And it's almost no doubt around it. I mean, it's not to say that everybody who gets into that line of work is in it for the exact right reasons. Some people like power and glory and want to be seen as someone who is a savior and but that's not most of the individuals that are in that are in the work most of the people are, are, as you said, doing the right thing for the right reasons, for whomever may need it. And so that's that's a beautiful place to meet someone and be like, well, I already know you're a good person. So we're halfway there right now, and me and again

I will tell you how long I had to do the dance to get to see my worth, but

as far as I'm concerned, it happened right away. That's how it worked for me at least, so far. Sure. You know, the, the work of a first responder is is, is, is one that so many people are grateful for in theory. And, and but as far as the in the moment, in the moment is a lot of gratitude and like, thank you so much for what you did. And it's beautiful. And it is a it is it's it's a fascinating role, because in many ways, it is a thankful job. It is a job that is thanked, but it's also a thankless job because people don't understand what you've seen, and what you've been through. And, and, you know, as you joined and started responding to your first emergencies, whether it was as an EMT, or as a as a firefighter, you know, I would assume the attrition rate that drops off pretty quickly after the first couple of things, depending on what people have seen. And or maybe it doesn't, I'm not entirely sure. Because some people realize that, Oh, I'm not cut out for this. And other individuals realized I am cut out for this. What was it for you in the beginning? How did you know Oh, this is something that I that I really, that I really want to keep doing?

Yeah, when, when I took one of my first what I would call intense firefighting training courses knew that they were going to, they were gonna like some hot fires. And we were going to have to go in and do simulated searches, and they have mannequins in there to find and pull out and such and, and fight the fire. And I remember, I remember the instructor telling the students because we're all really quite new with new at it. Yeah. And we'd all taken classroom lessons for probably a month or two before we got to do this crucible type capstone event, when he said this is he says, This is where the rubber meets the road. He says after today, he said, You'll either love this and want to do it for the rest of your life. Or you'll gently try to find your way to bow out and go do something else, you know, you either it is either in you, or it's not. And if it's not, you'll leave or you'll just learn to tolerate that level of danger and risk. And if you're if it's if it's with if it's in, you know if it's in you, because not, you know, I would say that most people miss you know, kind of like a joke within the industry. Most people when a building catches on fire, they run away from the fire or the building on fire. Yep, we run toward it like police officers. Well, most people are running away from the danger of police officers run toward the danger. Yeah, and there's just something inherent Lee I'm going to talk about them not myself, something inherently heroic about the people who choose to run toward danger. And I think there's, there's just a special gift that those people have, that just allow them to be you know, the, the, you know, the service above self kind of thing that you were just so willing to give of yourself. And after that day, cuz you don't know because he tells you, we won't know to the end of the day, you know, and I always I at the beginning of the day I remember thinking is this is this gonna be where I bail out or where I go all in. And then it was I mean, it would only took the first first fire to come out from having, you know, knocked that fire down, we found the victim and pulled the victim out and it was just like, This is it. I mean, this is this is my calling. And, and I never thought twice about it for the rest of my life. You know, Never Never did I think geez, I might have made a bad decision. Oh,

that's beautiful. That's beautiful. One of my, one of my friends here in in the cities now lives a few doors down and he's a neighborhood we've we've taken a kin to each other and we'll smoke cigars and each other's garages and just just a good man. And he's, he's an EMT of majestic 12 or 13 years here in the city's first responder. Great man and I was talking to fascinated by the work that he does. And I've had a few other EMTs in my life as we talked about off off beforehand as well, a number of police officers in my family, and, and so but it's not a life I live. So I hear stories. And one thing he was talking about, that I wanted to ask you about was he said, another thing that determines how long someone often stays in the business is their ability to not take work home with them. And now in other fields, taking work home with you means like, well, I got the company laptop, you know, I gotta go crunch some emails after the kids go to bed. But in your line of work, and those heroes line of work that you were talking about taking work home with them is the faces, the stories, the emotions, the what is the if onlys, the all of those kinds of things. And those are some really hard things to carry. And he made the joke, and I don't believe that this is true for anybody, but it's it's probably his way of coping. I'm sure it's a coping mechanism. He's like, Well, I got a black heart. So I don't really you know, he's like, I'm fine. I don't think about anybody after I leave. It's like, clearly you don't have a black heart, you're doing this incredible role. And so that's that was clearly a coping sentence that he has come up with for himself. And but I wanted to talk to you about that. Because this is a field where I would find it impossible as someone who oozes empathy, you're welcome. But as someone who's has empathy, to not take some of that stuff home, how do you have conversations with folks? Or how was that for you, as you as you talk and work with first responders?

Well, the first thing I'd like to say about that is that a lot of a lot of responders find difficulty in bad coping and post traumatic stress. And first responders suicide is near epidemic, although you never hear about it unless, you know, someone than it has happened to it within the inner circles, we hear about it a lot. You know, we have feeds that send that information out, you know, widely when things happen. And I think there are some that, that cope with it really well. And some that, that really, really struggle. And so, you know, I'm not, I'm not here to, to preach my faith and my faith beliefs to your audience. But, you know, I grew up as a as a person of what I would call, strong faith. And I always looked at everything that I did is is up, it was all part of a plan of a greater being now, and if I was supposed to be there, and I was supposed to save them, then then it was to happen. But if I was supposed to be there, and I wasn't supposed to save them, then it wasn't really my choice. And it wasn't, it wasn't a result of my doing. So I never felt I never felt personally responsible for someone's bad outcome. Although I will say that I did feel a lot of elation for people's good outcomes that we were able to help to facilitate. But the you know, the the downside of this, why you get to get to do a lot of cool things. When, you know, in the fear in the business, a lot of fun things. There's a lot of there's a lot of not enjoyable things, you see a lot of tragedy, you see a lot of people that are really hurt, bad physically and emotionally. And you know, I don't want to go into the any of the detail of it. I, James, I was with, you know, we're both members of the National Speakers Association, and I was with a group of those speakers after we had one of our get togethers like you and I had just recently had, and we got together and had lunch and one of them said, Tell me about the worst call you ever went to. And I said, you don't want to know. And he's like, no, no, I really do. And I said, No, you don't. And he said, No, no, I really do. And I said, Well, when everybody leaves. I'll tell you what it is. If you've really feel like you have to know so but I don't want to ruin everybody else's lunch. By having that discussion. I said it's, I can't even believe you would ask a question based on such morbidity that you know because, you know, it's gonna be a tragic story, why would you even want to know that? And he, he insisted on it. So, you know, later after everybody left, we were having a parking lot. And I told him, and then he said, Well, I'm sorry that I asked. And it's like, I figured, oh, I figured I figured you would be Yeah. But you know, some, some really do. Carry it on their sleeve and take it home with them, and it affects them physically, and emotionally. I count my blessings, that I have never been one of those people. Now, I don't want to give the appearance that I've calloused. I've cared very much. In the moment, I even went to the funerals of some of the people who died in my hearts to pay respects to their family. Yeah, but, um, but I never, I never felt personally responsible for the outcome. You know, it's like I did the best that I could, with the resources that I had, and the circumstances that were dealt to us. And, you know, tomorrow be another day to make a difference. Yeah. And it's, some people are good at that. And some people really struggle with that. And, and, you know, I guess you never know whether you're gonna be good at it or not, you know, good at it. Yeah. Until you until you have to cope with it. Right?

Yeah. It doesn't make those people good or bad. People are just No, it is what it is. And you got to listen to your body and listen to your mind and know what you need and know what your limits are. Yeah. and enrich I don't think anybody listening this who or who, or who anybody who's ever spent even moments with you, whatever, hear you as callous, right? The shakiness in your voice? So you got other things that make you a dick, but there are that's the second half of the show. But, but no, I mean, honestly, right? Like, I mean, the emotion in your voice. And the way that you speak about your your, your your fellow heroes. And it's all it's, it's all aligned with the man that you are, and the work that you do and the calling that you answered. And so it's an item, I'm so grateful that you call the attention to the first responder suicide rate. That's something that my neighbor Dave and I were talking about, because you're right, and we're not we're not talking about it. And then so I'm really glad that you that you brought light to that. So, but yeah, I can I can only imagine the Oh, it's so it's so funny how different careers have these questions that people are just like, go to questions like, oh, you're a soldier, how many people do kill? It's like, it's like, what are we doing out here? It's like, Why? Why? Right? Like, oh, your fire was the worst fire ever. So oh, you're a police officer? What's the worst? What's the worst? What's the worst? So you don't? The way you said is beautiful. You don't want to know.

But you know, James, I think it's the same thing, that when somebody drives by a terrible traffic accident, that they turn and look like they want to see it, you know, they want to see, I can't explain why they would want to see it. You know, I I've seen enough of it that I turn away, I don't want to see it. But but I've seen plenty of people that slow down and what they want to know they're looking over, they want to see and it's like, you know, there's there's some things you don't you don't want to see. You don't want to see it. I mean, it's it's not like the movies. It's, you know, it's

you have more things that you can't, you cannot unsee than I would ever want to see. And yeah, for sure. And you also you brought up another another point you hinted at it, just in this last response, you talked about it earlier to where you, you know, you get to see the best and the worst in humanity. And, you know, especially in the work that you do, now you you have to respond to individuals who have who have been through some stuff who are going through some stuff, some individuals who have made choices that have led them to this exact moment, and some other individuals who have not made choices that got them to this moment, but just because of the systems or just because of lack of systems or you know, either way, that's got to be fascinating for you. As as you show up on the scene, and as you hear stories of some of these folks, you know, we're talking to homeless individuals when oftentimes they're overlooked or, you know, or just passed on, right. I mean, you've had you've had stories with folks who were In the middle of in the middle of not being cared about by society, and you have, you're also talking to individuals that have made a whole bunch of choices that, like I said, led them to where they are, that's got to the question in here that I'm eventually going to wind up at is, is, there are some fields that could really make you see the worst of humanity. And you have seen the worst of humanity on both sides play out on specific individuals. By the way, some individuals have just been forgotten about or never had policies that were written to take care of them, or were never given services or help. But then you've also seen the worst of humanity by people who make really mean cold hearted choices or really dumb choices, hurtful, selfish things. So as you think about humanity, and what you've seen, what what do you make of it? Are you are you are you hopeful? For humans? Do you still see like, Hey, we got a chance. But whereas a lot of this stuff jaded you to where you're like, you know, where sometimes you want to say, Well, if you really knew people, then you wouldn't think

X. Yeah. People you ask good questions. I, I'm not jaded, I do remain hopeful because of this every every sinister, mean spirited. Mau contented action that I have seen, has been more than amply offset by citizens displaying acts of compassion, and even heroism. You know, before we even get to the scene, the things that they do that you know, that they're trying to make a difference, even if they don't know what they're doing, they're trying to do something, you know, sometimes, sometimes, it doesn't really help the situation. But you can't replace the fact that in their heart, they're doing something that is trying to help their their fellow man. And the one thing that I you know, as you were kind of doing the setup for this, as I was thinking is, I, I learned really early on, and I don't remember who the teacher was, that told me this, but it was really, really golden. They said, rich, don't ever judge the people by the chapter, their life you happen to stumble into when you respond to a call. Because there's a lot of backstory, you know, be that somebody who's a heroin addict, or somebody who's homeless, or somebody who's, you know, the living situation that they're in is, is, you know, really rundown, it's, you know, there, there was a time when they weren't where they are now. And through choices, maybe they made consciously, or maybe they made circumstantially they are where they are now, but they didn't start, they didn't start here, this is where they are today. And show them the compassion that you can, that you can be professional and care for them. And for that little bit of time, that'll make a difference for them. And, you know, you probably won't change their circumstance. Substantially, you know, if they're drug addicted, but you can still be kind. Yeah, you can still hold their hand.

Yeah, kindness is always a choice. I want to say this one more time with the people in the back of the watch. I want to make sure I got it right to But you just said you said that your teacher told you don't ever judge the people by the chapter of their life. You happen to stumble in on that right? Yep. Wow. Ain't that the truth with everything? I can think of times where I've certainly judge people in the moment and some of that some of that's human instinct, right. Some of that's attached to our fight, flight and freeze, fear or fear. Freeze that thing. Why sometimes why we judge right? We do it at a safety now, but the next level of it is yeah, this is that's, that's gold man. Thank you for sharing that with us. So you went ahead and got your doctorate work in this space, not your average firefighters journey. But you said hold my beer. And what we talked about earlier when I was reading your introduction is that your doctoral research is about the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaws, situational awareness, situational awareness, and high impact risk decision making. And here's what I need you to do I need you to put that in and simple, simple persons terms. Right? What what what did you study? And why did you study it?

Yeah, let's start with the why I was seeing a lot of first responders getting hurt and killed, making bad decisions. And these, they were not dumb people, they were really smart, well trained, talented people. But in the moment, under stress, time compression, changing conditions, things were going off the rails, and I wanted to understand why. And how can we fix it. So that's what, that's what compelled me toward the journey of of that, that field of study. And over those five years, what I was able to be introduced to was situational awareness, mostly a term from medicine, aviation in the military, and it really wasn't a term used very much in the fire service at that time. And try to, you know, what I studied was the barriers to floss situational awareness. So there's over 100 of these barriers, that can floss situational awareness. And some of it depends on the environment that a person's working in, or the type of work that they're doing. And, you know, situational awareness in a factory is different than maybe somebody that's a highway worker, or working in a surgical suite or on an on a flight deck. And but I, you know, I focused on the different aspects of first responder, situational awareness and how it's used as the foundation for high risk decisions. And those barriers are what I uncovered or create, you know, created a list of and research those. And so that was the that was the big finding. And when I presented it to the fire service, it people responded well to it and said, this is this is important. This is this is stuff we've never been taught. And you'd think in the business that we're in, that it would be among the first things that were taught, but even firefighter training programs to this day, don't teach much about situational awareness, and how it's used to make high risk decisions. And it it it disappoints me, but it also gives me hope that I can, that I think I can make a difference there. So I'm driven, you know, it's, I, I tell folks that I put content out there, and I put content out there in every way except sticking a note in a bottle cork in it up and sticking it down the river. And if I thought if I thought somebody would read the note in the bottle and learn something, I do that to every possible way to reach somebody, I think just about every possible way I have out there. And most of them are completely free. So you know, if somebody doesn't even have to spend money to get my message, it's all out there for free. I don't want their money. I just want their time. Yeah. And if they'll just give me a gift of time, I'll teach them everything they need to know about this.

Yeah, yeah. You know, when I hear about this, this message, you know, having never been a first responder, I'll apply to something, I'll apply it to something that is not comparable, but it's the closest thing I got right now, besides back when I was an RA in college, and I actually I did, I did deal with a couple of tragedies when I was an RA and I saw some I saw some really tough stuff. And there were there was a there was a homicide on my floor. And suicide was a thing that happened a number of times and it's so I was unfortunately but also Fortunately, the leader of a community that went through a couple of really tough things now and so, but it's still completely different compared to you what the police were dealing with in that moment compared to what I as the RA was dealing with. So, so I'm not even going to try to compare that moment to what we're talking about, I want to bring it back to something I'm bringing to something I'm dealing with a little more currently, now, which is, as a new parent,

well, hold on, I want to say that that situation is harder on you than it is on me. If I respond to that, you're dealing with somebody that, you know, I'm dealing with a stranger. And that makes it harder and more stressful on you. Because you who know the person are going to say, you know, where their signs where their indicators were the things that I should have seen, and you start, you know, all this second guess I don't do that guy show up. And I, you know, I, I don't feel any responsibility for what happened unless I know the person, it's the people who are closest to that, like you as the RA and something like that happening on your floor, that I think the whole situation is a lot more stressful on somebody like you, who is intimate to that situation than somebody like me who just comes in from the outside, and I'm just dealing with the facts of the situation, you know, we can either take, you know, life saving efforts, or we can't and you know, it's it's very, very mechanical, but it's not, you know, we're not emotionally connected to it. I mean, we'd like to feel empathy and compassion, but nothing like the people like you, who, you know, maybe had lunch with that person last week. So I just wanted to clarify, put that clarity point on it. So we can we can go on talk about parenting now. No.

And I appreciate that. I don't think I don't think until this moment. I thought about that difference. I think it was always the fact that the police and the paramedics had to go into the room and see what they saw and etc, etc. Because I was I was the era of the person who, who had who had murdered another resident on our floor. So I knew both of them well, and yeah, I guess I never, I never really thought of it in that way. Now, I kind of just saw myself as someone who was on the team, the first responders, but yeah, they I can see the difference. And that is that's a powerful, that is a powerful difference. And so I appreciate you, you highlighting that that made me well up a little bit. So thank you. Got you in the field.

Now that I'm really gonna cry, it's hard. But still, you know, when it does come, now, when it does come to parenting, I think of instincts, right, like you can read all the books you want to read, you can do all the things that you want to do you watch all the movies, you can get all the advice from everybody loves to give you advice about what you should be doing with your kid. And but in the moment, there's instincts that pop up, there's things that you were taught that you don't really didn't realize you were taught by your parents, there's just evolution that has happened that is inside these pretty incredible bodies of ours and passed down through our genes, and etc, etc. And so, you know, when I hear about you trying to encourage individuals to shape their decision making process in the moment, we're in the moment is with instincts that fire now. And that is that is that sounds almost impossible to me. But at the same time, I noticed that I'm doing it in a way lower risk situation of like my instincts telling me this, but I know I should probably do this, or I should slow down and do this. But going against someone's natural instincts, especially in the heat of an emergency, especially in the heat of life or death, especially for themselves and whoever they are serving at that moment. That has got to be a hell of an uphill battle, to get individuals to work through.

as well.

And feel free to

hearing I don't, I don't try to talk them into countering their instincts. And I try to talk them into following their instincts and following their intuition and using the collective of their unconscious knowledge. Because the unconscious knowledge database is a whole lot bigger than the conscious knowledge database. And the unconscious is all of all of evolution and everything that we've learned our upbringing and the that subconscious information can be can trigger intuition, which can give somebody you know, the gut feeling or the hair stand up on the back of their neck or maybe even that little internal voice in their head. they'd start talking to him like, hey, you know, this doesn't seem like a good idea kind of thing. And I think where most people get in trouble, especially first responders, because I've interviewed a lot of them on my show, is they don't trust their gut. They don't trust their intuition. They don't trust their instinct, because they don't understand where it comes from. And they don't understand why they're getting all knotted up. And where, in fact, that getting knotted up as a connection of subconscious stores of knowledge that say, this is a dangerous situation. And it might be based on an article that they read 10 years ago, or a video that they watched 10 years ago, or a class that they took 10 years ago, they don't even have a memory of the class. But the lesson is still buried there, and their knowledge stores and it can come to the surface and guide them toward an action. And I think most of our most of our instinct drives us toward doing things geared towards self preservation. Although, and this is where this is where firefighters and police officers run counter to the average person, you know, I think the average person you know, it, anthropologists would say that we were in during the course of evolution, wired to really focus on four things, I call them the four F's fighting, feeding, fleeing, and reproduce reproduction. And I think that, that the brain is exquisitely designed to help us to make decisions based on survival. You know, if, if, if, if, first and foremost do nothing else, but survive, so that we can live long enough to pass our genes on to another generation that's it's genetically ingrained in us to do things for preservation and survival. So I think the average person if they'll follow their instincts, and their intuition, it'll guide them toward doing things to preserve their, their, their survivability. And this is where police officers and firefighters run counter to that which means we're often trudging right over our instincts and trudging right over our intuition. And going toward danger, when our instincts and intuition would be saying, you know, run, run, run away, and there we are running toward, which kind of puts us in a weird dichotomy of not knowing which instincts to trust in which not to because we trudge over them so often, that then then it transitions to everyday life. And we find ourselves it's well known that first responders tend to engage in much more riskier behaviors in their off time. partly driven by the adrenaline, you know, we become adrenaline junkies, we become dopamine addicted. And, and we, you know, we tend to drive, you know, fast cars and motorcycles and repel off cliffs and do these crazy things that most people would say are crazy things. And we just do it just for fun, because it's, you know, it's it's risky, and we're cheating the devil and, you know, that's what we do at work. And we kind of enjoy being in that kind of in that flow of, of, of doing risky things and winning, you know, when we hope we'll win, and sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't, but yeah. Lot of first responders live life to the fullest. And I think it's a I think it's a a callback to the, to the type of environments that they work in, day in and day out, that that lead them to be more risk averse, or more risk tolerant. Yes,

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating to think about. And yeah, you said first responders are are out here, you know, getting that high elsewhere, as well after their after their their shifts are done. Or before them. Yeah. The the idea of it one thing that struck me when you and I first met when we were you know, a cliche question that speakers always ask each other is, you know, what are you talking about right there and what's what's your topic area? And and you said, you said something to me where your effect I forget exactly how you put it. You'll correct me here in a second. But you said if someone's not at risk of dying there are not my clients. Right? And so, you know, you talk about how you work with police officers, and you work with fire departments and even its EMTs. And you've sure you've done some stuff with the military. Right?

Even industry, you know, there's lots of industries where workers are at risk.

Oh, sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You were talking about working with people on the lines, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so giving back to that community is incredible. I'm wondering how often do you go into these places and blow people's minds because your research is so unique? Because it is so like, not a lot of people are talking about it, as you said, I want to give this away to everybody. Now, but are you have you found that most most individuals are? Do they? What what happens after they see you speak because rich came in and did this, I now has someone who is in these super risky situations, or potentially facing death or dealing with death. I now know that I can blank or that I should blank because of my time with you.

Yeah. So as I'm teaching about the barriers to awareness, I've developed some exercises that demonstrate these things that can happen because, you know, if I, if I, if I'm in front of a group of people, and some of them can be quite skeptical, especially, you know, the blue collar people that are no nonsense, no BS kind of folks. So you know, when I tell them, you know, under under the right stressful circumstances, you can go deaf, and you can go blind, and you can tell lies and not even realize you're telling lies. And, and I think a lot of them think, yeah, you know, that's a good theory. That's good. That's good, good neuro theory. But that had never happened to me, I'd never do that. I've never done that. And I would never do that. And then I do my What, oh, my exercise. And there they are going deaf blind and telling me lies. And then when I'm done, they're like, Oh, crap, I'd never, ever thought that would happen to me. And then I say, it's happened to you a lot. I just brought it to, I just brought it to the conscious level. Yeah, here. And when in when they experienced that firsthand, and then understand the backstory and the back lesson, you know, here's, you know, it's one thing to demonstrate. It's not hard to trick someone's brain. magicians do it all the time. You know, they're not really song their system and half on stage, they're not doing that. There are laws, there are laws against

that. Laws. I'm pretty sure in

the books is the law there that says you can't saw somebody into even if you think you can put them back together. So if you understand how the brain can be tricked by illusion, it's not hard to trick some one. Actually, you know, it's really the magician isn't tricking your your brain is tricking you. They're just setting up the environment for that to happen. But once these things happen in the brain is tricked. Then there, it's important to teach them why and then give them tips about how to keep it from happening, how, you know, some ideas, some best practices. And I yeah, I think they many of them are pretty amazed that their own vulnerability as humans, because it no one's really ever pointed it out. I mean, like we talked about mind drift. James, have you ever gotten a car driven two hours somewhere and part of that trip you don't remember? Yes, then you've experienced mind drift. And you're doing highly risky work traveling down the highway at 70 miles an hour, and your mind drifts away, you're not really paying attention to driving. So with that, I would explain what is happening, how it happens, why it happens, how you continue to drive the car without getting into an accident, where you're not even paying attention to driving, then related to what happens on at work when your mind drifts and then what you can do, that are tips and best practices about how to manage that situation awareness barrier of, of mind drift. So it's, it's a combination of teaching, and then a exercise that puts them in awe, and then brings them back down and comforts them with here's some things you can do to not have bad outcomes, you know, so it's kind of like a recipe for for, you know, build them up. Let them experience it. They fall to their deepest depths of Holy crap, did that really just happen to me and then bring them back by saying but here's some things you can do at work to not let you know to help keep these things from from happening to you. One of the funniest things that somebody ever said to me was, after programming, he says, you know, if this, if you did that final exercise to build my confidence, you did a really crappy job because they didn't do so good on the exercise, you know, it's like, well, yeah, I understand that. But I said, just, you know, keep the best practices in mind. And, you know, that's your takeaway. And yeah, it's tough, because I think people think they could take one class on situation awareness, and all of a sudden be ninja skilled at it. And that's not how it works. It's not a situation awareness is a mindset, not a class you take. Yeah, you know, in people that want the quick fix the easy, it doesn't come, it doesn't come with, you know, there's no magic elixir for situational awareness. It's, I mean, there's a process for it, but it's a process that you have to develop and practice to continually Hone over time, and you'll get you'll you'll get, you can get really good at it, you know, and in Ninja skill level with it, and, and when you do, you know, and I don't want, I don't want anybody to think that that means that they're, they're, you know, they got on the street, and they're paranoid. Because that's, that's not the level of, that's not the level of fear that we want somebody to have in any circumstance, you know, but we do want them to be vigilant, and how you develop that vigilance and maintain it, and how the vigilance goes up and down, depending on the circumstances that you're in, and the risks that surround you and things like that are all it's all teachable for, for the person who wants to learn it. And, you know, I'd like to think that helps them make better decisions. That's, you know, the foundation of good decisions is understanding the situation that you're going to be making the decision around. Yep. Dog.

An accurate description of the problem is often 80% of its solution. Right. Yeah.

Right. Right. Really understand it, and then that, you know, oftentimes guide you to a better decision.

Yeah, yeah. That's incredible. Richard, yeah, I love the way that you put that our brains are brilliant. They are brilliant pattern generating machines. And some of those patterns serve us and some of those patterns do not. And all those patterns have the capability of being disrupted. And that's let's sounds like a lot of the work that you are doing. And some of these cases you're reinforcing. Some that are are there and you're also trying to disrupt others just cause cause attention to it, and call attention to it, excuse me. And the work that you're doing with the humans that you were doing it for is beautiful, brother, and I'm glad this, this little world brought us together. And you know, I know that you mentioned that a lot of your stuff is available and free out there. And, you know, my audience isn't all first responders. I know we have some first responders that listen to it for sure. And one of my former guests, Becky, smoke her, her her husband is a as a chief down in, in Iowa City area. And and so I know he's a great man. And she listened to this as well, but but still it is. It is still valuable the information that you share for people who aren't coming across some of these things. So I would love for you to just let people know where can they find some of this information? And where can they do a little bit more digging for themselves to realize some of the things that they're facing? Or some of the patterns that they don't recognize there? Yeah,

thanks. Thanks for asking. I it's really easy to have a website. That's the name of the website is situational awareness matters. The URL is SA for situational awareness, sa matters.com. And once somebody will notice quick when they go there, they first choose Am I in business and industry? Or am I first responder, and it kind of takes them down to different pathways depending on you know, what were their interests lays, but the most recent book that I wrote was for people in business and industry. It's not a first responder book. It's for the not it non responder, it's It's called How smart workers use situational awareness to improve safety. And it's designed for workers. And of course, you know, I do have books for first responders as well. But anybody that goes to that website, and if they go to the blog, there's over 400 articles that I've written on the topic of situational awareness, so they won't, they won't run out of things to read. If you have insomnia, that's a really good place to go. When you're when you're laying in bed looking up at your phone, you find yourself with your phone smacking in the face as you're falling asleep, read it reading it, and so there for over 400 articles in about 390 episodes of the situation awareness matters show as well. And again, all free for someone to consume. And I mean, there's a store there, there's some books and videos in the store, you know, but there's a, I have an online academy, if somebody really wants to take, you know, the deep dive, it's about 20 hours to really get to that ninja level of understanding of situational awareness. And that's not for everyone. There's some shorter courses on the learning management system, some 90 minute programs and things like that as well. But that's all it's all that one portal. That one, it's a one stop place for all of it.

Sa matters.com. That's awesome. Yeah, Rich, thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for the man that you are, you know, before, earlier, when you were describing some of the situations that you have been in, and the men and women that you've had the opportunity to serve next to you describe them as heroes, because it's weird. Describe yourself as a hero. So allow me to do you the favor that you did to them. And thank you for being a hero brother. as uncomfortable as it makes you I don't give a shit. And but I really appreciate you and I'm excited to. I'd love to grab lunch with you some time, brother. I just like you as a man, and I'm excited. You're in the world. Thanks for coming to the diner today.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. And I look forward to when we can go to the real diner.