055. You're Off Probation, What Now?

In this episode, we explore the crucial steps that firefighters should take once they complete their probation period. Listeners will learn about:

• embracing continuous learning
• maintaining physical fitness
• fostering mental readiness
• and much more 

Host TJ reflects on his own journey, sharing lessons and insights aimed at helping new firefighters navigate their careers effectively. Tune in for practical advice, personal anecdotes, and strategies to become a well-rounded, resilient firefighter.

00:30 Reflecting on the Rookie Years
01:34 Embracing Continuous Learning
03:46 Importance of Physical Fitness
06:50 Mental Readiness and Resilience
10:19 Community and Mentorship
14:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

TJ: The other day, I was talking to one of my good friends that I went through the fire academy with, and it got me thinking about. Those beginning years in the fire service. And the fear, the excitement. And all of those feelings that came along with being not just a rookie, but what happens after coming off of probation. That's why the title of this podcast is. You're off probation now, what? 

And it's. Talks about the journey to becoming a resilient and well-rounded firefighter. And I just remember feeling when that year was over that I could just. Breathe a sigh relief and get excited to do all of the things that I couldn't do as a rookie. Not realizing that probably the biggest part of the journey was just beginning. It was a massive milestone. 

Don't get me wrong. 

But. If I could talk to myself. Back then. 

I would tell myself to do a couple of things differently. And that is what this podcast is going to be today. This is the letter to my younger self, the podcast to my younger self. Me talking to TJ back in 2013. And hopefully. Getting him to understand a couple of the things that are important. Number one. It's to embrace continuous learning. Being a rookie is awesome. 

You are a sponge. You're absorbing so much information. And most importantly, everybody's coming to you and teaching you now, granted you have to take into account who is teaching you and who you can trust and who you probably should vet their ideas. But overall. A combination of people teaching you a combination of the rookie book and the training plan that you have makes sure that. You're always engaged and you're always learning new things. And as soon as you walk away from that rookie year or two years, depending on which department you're at, as soon as you walk away from that rookie status. That's over. 

It is entirely up to you. That is you get to that fork in the road where you can say, Hey, I am going to go out and advance my career and I'm going to keep learning and improving or. I'm just going to coast for the next. 20 25, 30 years. Listen, if that's your thing, go forth. But if you're listening to this, I have a feeling it's not for you. 

So. Talking to my younger self. I would have told myself. To yes, embrace that continuous learning because I did, I jumped into all the special ops classes, all the crazy hazmat stuff, whatever I could get my hands on. But. To make it a consistent. Marathon, not a sprint. There were times that it would be taking. Classes, every single off going shift and detailed to classes while I was on shift. And while I was able to get that certificate at the end. It was just a whirlwind and we all know that we sometimes don't learn as best when we are completely booked. So I would have told myself to just kind of pump the brakes a bit and spread that out over a longer period of time. And most importantly, To set my own personal goals and to track them. Because yes, these classes had syllabi. Plus syllabis syllabuses, whatever the word is. 

It had a syllabus for each class. But. It would be so wonderful to have my own little journal of my progress to look back on today and say, oh, this is what I was doing in 20 14, 15 and so on and so forth. So, yeah. Number one can embrace that continuous learning and make a plan to continue learning. I stick to it. Write it down. And keep it for posterity and keep it because it's going to help somebody else. 

Number two. Do not neglect physical fitness because it's a cornerstone of resilience. We all know this. This is what keep the promises of all about. Resilient well-rounded firefighters. And we know it's a critical component of firefighting, but it is so easy for us to let go. Of that habit and find ourselves. In a less than ideal position. 

I have a picture. 

That's super embarrassing. That is. I kid you not less than six months after I graduated the academy. And when I tell you, it's disgusting to look at, I. Went from being in the best shape of my life. When I left the fire academy. Too in this picture, having multiple chairs, massive round face. I was winded after this fire. It was all around. 

Awful. And that was that sorta like gut punch that told me. Hey man. This job is demanding and it requires a lot out of you. And just because you made it through the academy, doesn't mean you're Superman. Like now you have to prove who you really are and really stick. To a fitness routine. 

Second part of that physical fitness. It's proper nutrition again. I thought I was Mr. Hot stuff. And I thought that, you know, in my early twenties, I could eat whatever I could do, whatever, like no big deal. Yeah, no, that's not how it works, because if I'm eating a ton and not exercising as much as before we know what's going to happen, there was no balanced nutrition. 

There was no balanced diet. And I reaped the rewards of that, which was not being a hundred percent for myself and for the crew and for the citizens. 

Hydration also. And not the one at the bar. Hydration is key. And, uh, on the topic of drinking, look, it's fun. I did it. I drank a handful of bars, completely dry, many times in my life. But. With the crappy schedules that we have with the lack of sleep with the nutrition that we sometimes let go, adding so much booze to it. He's just taking years of our lives. I'm not criticizing. 

Like I said, I have my history. And that was fun and it was crazy. And one day we can sit down and tell some of those stories. But understand that every single one of those drinks. It's going to affect your performance on the fire ground and off of it. And it's going to affect your mental health. 

Also one thing that I wish I had paid attention to within this physical fitness realm is recovery, because I had that mindset of I'll sleep when I'm dead, I'm going to do all these things. 

Like I mentioned, taking all of those classes back to back to back. Was worth it. But it crushed my sleep. I worked on three to four hours of sleep for decades. And. It adds up. It adds up to that mental fog. To that like cognitive. Almost like. 

Sluggishness. And not to mention the fact that. You're not going to see all the gains of the gym and you're not going to see the progress. And maybe the weight's not going to go away, even though you're eating well. And you're consistently exercising. So recovery is that hidden weapon that, that secret weapon. That I honestly wish I had paid more attention to. Back in the day, because with that extra cognitive power, what else could I have learned? 

Number three. His mental readiness. 

So we know how much of a high stress profession this is, and we know the mental. We know the toll that it takes on a mental health. And I wish I had started early on developing strategies for managing stress. I mean stuff other than drinking and. Other than just bottling things up. Things like meditation, things like deep breathing exercises and some sort of muscle relaxation technique. To reduce that stress. Probably the, one of the peak times of my career. Was when I was consistently getting up ridiculously early. Now grant that I should have been sleeping more, but getting up ridiculously early, doing a 15 minute meditation driving to work, working out for an hour before shift. And then hitting the shift hard. And eating well and trying to get to bed early. While on shift. It was awesome. 

Obviously not sustainable because like I mentioned before, I didn't have the rest of my shit under control. But. That was a glimpse of what life could have been like. So again, talking to my younger self. ATJ. Start with this earlier and stick to it. Also important. Is. Finding that support system. And sometimes that includes professional help. 

I will tell you this, the smartest thing I ever did. Was fighting a therapist. Before the bad stuff happened. Because by the time we lost Nate and by the time that I got home realizing, oh my God, I just went through line of duty death. What's going to happen next. I had been talking to a therapist for about four years at that point. And I was able to pick up the phone, call her and say, Hey, the worst thing that happened that that could have happened just did. Can I talk to you? 

And I was able to. Jumpstart. 

That recovery the day off. I was able to start processing those things and to start understanding myself better the day off instead of scrambling. Trying to build trust with a therapist, trying to find one. Of all things. So, yes, that's one thing I did correctly in my mind. And that's something I would encourage you to do as early on, as you can in your career. Find that one person who's going to be able to help you unravel. 

All of those deep, complex thoughts. 

The other thing that's important within the mental readiness is that stamina, the mental stamina, and the one where I failed at was that positive self-talk and visualization setting those realistic goals because. My goals were always lofty and kind of unrealistic. And when I didn't meet them, because there were lofty and unrealistic. The self-talk was just heinous and still is to this day. 

So while it's important to challenge ourselves mentally. Quite often. Also give ourselves grace to be like, Hey, this is something new that I have never done before. Maybe it's okay. That I failed. 

And also within mental readiness. Is maintaining those relationships with friends and family and. I mean that family within the firehouse and outside of the firehouse. Because building and maintaining these relationships does take a lot of effort. But it is that support system that we come to rely on the most. Now word of advice. From somebody who's been there, not every single colleague, not every single friend, not every single relationship is going to be worth it. And as you grow and progress in your career and in life, realize when it's important to just kind of prune those branches to just kind of let certain people go. 

If they are not helping you achieve your goals. Because then you can give the rest of your energy to the people who are helping you achieve those goals and who are making you a better person and better firefighter. And you're just going to be better off because of it. 

And we were at what? That was number three. 

So number four. 

It's the community aspect and the mentorship. 

Firefighting is a brotherhood. It is a community. And we know that mentorship plays a huge role in our development as firefighters and as people outside of the firehouse. 

So find a mentor that can give you guidance and share experiences and offer support. As you navigate this career. I was lucky that a handful of them just kind of fell on my lap. Younger dudes. Older dudes. Aggressive firefighters. People who had been there and had done that. And for some reason, took a liking to me and would just explain things. I could bounce ideas off of them to this day. 

I can still call them and say, Hey, I have this half cocked idea or, Hey, I'm going through kind of crappy time. Let's chat about whatever. These people who have been where you are. Who exemplify the qualities that you aspire to develop are going to be. Ki for your growth and your development. 

And as a somebody who's being mentored, take the time to thank them. And to let them know how important it is. And one of the biggest ways that you can do that is to learn as much as you can from them. To be ready to mentor those people who come after you, because yes, we're talking about. What happens after rookie year? 

And that is you start becoming a full fledged firefighter. And now you have start thinking about, Hey, pretty soon, there's going to be a rookie that comes in behind me. And we're probably going to be speaking the same language or we're going to have the pretty similar shared experiences. So I can be a mentor to that rookie. And be able to pass on the things that I've learned. Also fun fact, something that I did whenever I had to deal with new people. His. Be that mentor and be that role model that other people were not. Like I mentioned before some of the people we encounter maybe don't have the best intentions. Maybe they're not the best mentors, but just because of the time and tenure or whatever. They have the most say. So it's just as important to take those people. And thank them because now they're teaching you how not to be. So take their actions, their words. And do the opposite, right? 

If they're an absolute insufferable prick. Just do the opposite and you are not going to be insufferable and you're not going to be a prick. Boom. It's mathematics. 

Firefighting is a community that also extends beyond the firefighting and. 

It, that community involvement is. Going to give us those experiences. There's opportunities for personal growth and fulfillment. It's it's something greater than ourselves. And by that, I mean, 

Take advantage of this. 

Brotherhood of firefighting and find those people outside of those four walls in your firehouse and make friends with them. I've talked about in the handful of episodes and I've had friends over who have harped on it to no end. Barrett on episode 11 and I want to say it was 52 and 54. 

Talking about how we met in some hazmat class in middle of nowhere, Colorado eight years ago. 

And. The group of like six of us who we came best friends that week, still talk to this day, we still hang out. No, everything about each other and each other's families. And that applies to so many other experiences that I've had. And it's just, it's wonderful. We have similar shared experiences, but also enough of a distance in a. Enough of a different perspective. That we can learn so much from each other. 

Right? One of them are good. Friends is Gabe. He is in New Mexico. Barrett is in Louisiana. Josh is in Virginia. So we can all learn so much from one another and from our departments. In how to become that resilient, that well-rounded firefighter. So that will be the last thing that I would tell my younger self is. 

Hey. Do not underestimate the value of community and of mentorship. And most importantly, Thank the good mentors for what they teach you and the bad ones. For what they teach you not to do. 

Quick and easy podcast. This is a journey. Once you come off probation that is going to continue for the rest of your career and you should treat it as such. You should treat it as every day being an opportunity to learn and to improve and to become a better firefighter. It's a significant milestone to come off of probation. But it's just that beginning. So embrace that continuous learning, maintain your physical fitness. Build mental readiness and foster that community and mentorship because that's how you can become a resilient, any well-rounded firefighter. 

As we always talk about. Remember that the path to greatness is a lifelong journey that requires quite a lot of dedication. A ton of effort. And an unwavering commitment to excellence. So if you like this, Let me know. Be it on social media. Be it on email, whatever you want to do post it. Tag me. I love doing these little things. 

These little blurbs, mostly as waste for me too. Again, talk to that younger self who I was, and I know that if you get value from it, you will let me know. So if you enjoyed awesome rate review, do the usual stuff. Let me know if not, then. Don't and then I just will not do these things anymore until next time be good. Be safe. I'll catch you around.