Join Diane Schroeder on a riveting exploration of leadership, love, and leaving a lifelong career behind in this episode of The Fire Inside Her. Diane recounts the pivotal moments of her last year in the fire service, including an emotional farewell and the significant life lessons learned from leading with love. This narrative is a treasure for anyone facing significant career changes or questioning their professional direction. Diane's story is a powerful reminder of the courage it takes to align one’s work life with personal values and needs. Ready to find out how love can lead the way in leadership? Tune in and get inspired to make your own courageous transitions.
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Diane Schroeder [:
Welcome to the Fire inside Her. A brave space to share stories of navigating life transitions with authenticity, using our inner fire to light the way, and self care as our loyal travel companion. I'm your host, Diane Schroeder, and I'm so grateful you are here.
Diane Schroeder [:
Hi, friend. I would like to offer you the self care tool of failure. Yes. You heard me correctly. Failure is a form of self care. We all fail. Sometimes, it's because we weren't prepared. Sometimes, because we are trying something new.
Diane Schroeder [:
And sometimes, we fail because we trusted someone and they let us down. Failing is part of life. And if you can learn to accept, embrace, and leverage failure to learn the lessons and move forward Inside of being swallowed up by shame, guilt, or regret, you, my friend, are taking care of yourself. Want more wisdom and self care tools? Be sure to subscribe to the Fire Inside Her podcast and share with 3 people who need to hear this. And if you are feeling a little extra today, feel free to leave a review. I am grateful and appreciate all of the love. Today is a special episode because I'm gonna share with you some of the highlights over the last year, or as I like to call it, the 1st year of no longer being employed by the fire service. A year ago this week, I was doing a staff ride with the US Forest Service at the Gettysburg Battlefield.
Diane Schroeder [:
I was invited to participate in the 3 day staff ride with leaders across the country who primarily work in the wildland fire world, and share my story and experience from the Marshall Fire. I will link to the Marshall Fire in the show notes, but the cliff notes version is that on December 30, 2021, a grass Fire and hurricane force winds destroyed over 1100 homes, tragically killed 2 people and lots of animals in the span of about 6 hours, followed up the next day by a snowstorm. Over half the homes were in the community I worked in at the time, and I had the privilege of sharing my story of arriving halfway into the event and working for the next two and a half days. Okay. Back to Gettysburg. Sharing my story was an honor and a privilege. I shared what I believe to be the foundation of leadership, love. To be a great leader, you have to love your people.
Diane Schroeder [:
You don't always have to like them or even agree with them, but you have to love them. When I returned back to Colorado, I worked my last 24 hour shift in the firehouse. I tried to hold it together my last day, but it was tough. My crew spoiled me with a heartfelt ax and plaque. We ate a meal together and my family joined us. It was the Fire and only time my son had dinner at the Fire, And to have my fire family and personal family together made for a perfect evening. After a beautiful send off by my crew, chief, coworkers, and my medical director and friend, doctor Colleen Foster, the following morning, Josh and I went to my favorite Cuban restaurant for food and a pitcher of mojitos. I read somewhere that you must prepare for at least 2 years when you retire from the fire service.
Diane Schroeder [:
I would agree. Breaking up with the career I spent over half of my life in has been much more challenging than I anticipated. For at least the last year before I left, whenever I would have a crew meeting, the guys would jokingly ask when I was leaving and where was I going. I always replied that if I left, it would be to work remotely for myself on my laptop with an Internet connection. The decision to leave was not easy. For over half of my life, I climbed the metaphorical and literal ladders to be a fire chief. I went through professional development. I got my master's degree, executive fire officer certification.
Diane Schroeder [:
I left my Fire department of almost 20 years towards obtaining my professional goals and continue my professional growth. I wasn't really ready to leave, but the stress of shift work, frustration with lack of leadership, and organizational decisions that did not align with my values helped me make the decision a little easier. Plus, my body was pissed off at me. I developed bursitis in my hip, which is no joke and very painful. I started to gain weight, and I couldn't lose it. My blood pressure was out of control, and I was so damn tired all of the time. I really didn't wanna start over at another department. I wanted to be available for my little man and my big man.
Diane Schroeder [:
My little guy is growing up so fast and entering The tween years. So I took a huge leap of faith and retired or quit. Without another job lined up, I decided to take a gap year and figure out what I wanted to do next, and here we are a year later. So what have I learned? The first thing I've learned is that breaking up is hard to do. As much as I distanced myself from the fire service mentally, it was always a lift to my ego when people asked me what I did, and I could answer. I'm a battalion chief in the fire service. Less than 1% of women are in executive leadership roles in the fire service, and I'm so proud to be part of that. Turns out, my identity was more wrapped up in the job than I thought.
Diane Schroeder [:
Now when people ask me what I do for a living, I'm still not sure how to answer. I tell them, well, I write a lot. I host a podcast. I speak across the country. I'm an entrepreneur, and really, this answer is still a work in progress. I'm learning to give myself grace. My therapist, Dave, pointed out that it's only been 1 year compared to the 24 years I spent in the fire service. Good point, Dave.
Diane Schroeder [:
While I'd love to say you shouldn't be identified by what you do, it is a significant part of where you spend your time. I'm still grieving the change. I miss my people, the camaraderie, the networking, and playing cards after dinner at the kitchen table. You know, grief is a sneaky bitch. But as I continue to stretch and push myself out of my comfort zone, I'm finding and building a new community. And it's not better or worse. It's new and exciting. The second lesson I learned is that I really have no idea how to slow down and function without structure.
Diane Schroeder [:
Shift work is crazy. I spent most of my career working 24 or 48 hour shifts, but that structure within those shifts, I don't have now. And because I'm my own boss and create my own schedule, I spend way too much time staying busy. For most of the last year, I was trying to figure out how I could contribute financially to the family and not enough time focusing on what I really wanted to do, which is write, grow my podcast, write some more, do a bunch of crafty shit, see live music, and be present with my family. Again, lots of grace and gentle encouragement from my family and close friends have reminded me that I'm in charge. The final straw for me was hiring a business coach who caught me in a weak moment. She was terrible and really didn't care about coaching me. She cared about collecting her money and offering shady business advice that felt more like snake oil.
Diane Schroeder [:
I realized that when I do my thing and focus on what brings me joy, opportunities present themselves, and they align with my values. I took an incredible online course about unlocking my creative genius, and I started to set boundaries and time to focus on the people who matter most, which includes me and practicing what I preach about self care. The idea of contribution has been a little bit of a mind fuck. I grew up believing I could do anything, and for so many years, I worked as the primary and only breadwinner. To let that go was another hard conversation with my ego. Damn you, Ginger. And probably its own solo episode to unpack with you guys. Learning to live on a smaller budget is possible.
Diane Schroeder [:
We still do and have everything we need. Finally, I realized how important sleep and continuing to do the work is. The 1st few months, I was only focused on sleeping consistently, following a schedule, and honoring my burned out and exhausted body. I think it took at least 4 months to get consistent sleep. And now that I'm a year into this consistent bedtime and wake up routine, I'm a new woman. I feel better mentally, spiritually, and physically. Sleep is a game changer. I still have occasional nights where I'm restless, but I can absorb them.
Diane Schroeder [:
I have that capacity now. The trauma processing in the work is always ongoing, but I found an incredible writing community that has changed my life. It turns out, I can create structure and fiercely protect my yoga, meditation, and writing time. It's been exciting to connect with the writer who has always been Inside, just quietly waiting to be heard. The lessons I've learned throughout my fire career are invaluable. I've been able to work with some amazing fire organizations and let go of opportunities that no longer serve me or align with my values. There's been a lot of releasing and creating space for future opportunities. Leaving a career that I thought would be my forever career was not easy, and the transition has been a little bumpy.
Diane Schroeder [:
But 24 years is a long time. I grew and changed. My priorities changed. My son said it best last summer. He told me it was really fun getting to know me, not the tired and stressed out mom who was always on the go. It brought a tear to my eye. And being able to make all of his important events, baseball games, and just being in his orbit when he needs me is priceless. Not to mention, it's done wonders for my marriage.
Diane Schroeder [:
We have quality time where we are present, awake, and take guilt free adventures, just the 2 of us. The world has changed a lot over the last 4 years. So if you're considering making a huge change in your professional life, you may not have all the dots connected, and you may not know what all of the steps will be. But the next steps appear when it's time. I promise. You know Her I mentioned that leadership is love and that you have to love your people. You also have to love yourself. I've learned to love myself enough to walk away from the known and step into the unknown.
Diane Schroeder [:
I have learned to love, trust, and lean into my intuition. I'm learning to love myself as being enough without fancy titles and learning to love myself and the value I have to offer. I'm learning to receive love and all the skills and qualities that made me successful in my fire career, I still have, and I am taking with me into the next chapter. Thank you for listening, and I can't wait to chat again next time.
Diane Schroeder [:
Thank you for giving the valuable gift of your time and listening to The Fire Inside Her podcast. Speaking of value, one of the most common potholes we fall into on the journey to authenticity is not recognizing our value. So I created a workbook. It's all about value. Head on over to the Fire inside her dot com slash value to get your free work book that will help you remember your value. Until next time, my friend.
