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"Built for More: Real World Skills That Drive Success Anywhere"...What's Your Elevator Pitch? · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music Podcast.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Aaron, I'm your host, and thank you guys so much for coming back.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am so blessed to have listeners every single week that want to tune in, be educated, entertained, or just find some kind of value in whatever it is that I'm putting out.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Last week's show was a great show because we spoke about the things I learned since leaving law enforcement.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the focus of that show was on the negative things about law enforcement or the way law enforcement affected you or affected me or affects its people because of the nature of the beast.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're in law enforcement or any other career, you know, and let me just start off by by telling you this.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Since I came out of law enforcement three plus years ago, I have been struggling.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I've brought it up on the show a couple of times, but I have been struggling with something.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that something is feeling that I am, well, as effective in life as maybe I once was.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I when I went from doing whatever it was that I knew, and I knew it really well.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And for me it was law enforcement detective homicide stuff.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But for you, maybe it's being a truck driver, maybe it is being an administrative assistant, maybe it's being a doctor or a plumber.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever world you're in, is it possible that in that world you feel like this is all I've ever known?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what else I would do.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: All those people around me are so blessed because they have had exits or they've been able to do other things or convert their skills.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's the excuse, I'm too old.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants a 48-year-old dude or chick to start over in a new career.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: They say you can't teach an old dogmatrick.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna look at me and they're gonna think, man, if we pick up this person, they're only with us a couple of years and then they're gonna retire, and it's a waste of our time and energy.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go find the young buck.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe the young person doesn't have the skills or doesn't bring those aptitudes to the table they're looking for.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's possible that you are selling yourself short just like I did.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: For years and years and years, I thought, man, God, just give me a job that pays similar, similar vacation.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can take care of my family, but I don't have the stress of X, Y, or Z.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever said that or thought that?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know anybody?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're an employer listening to this right now and you're trying to hire your next person, and you are thinking to yourself, you know, I I want to hire somebody, but what skills does a truck driver have that can offer to me?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: What skills?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not hiring a homicide detective.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have, I don't, we don't have homicides.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're a plumbing manufacturer rep company.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do homicides.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's this guy gonna bring to the table?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the trap I got into.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I got into the trap of believing that all I knew was X.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe like you're in the trap of all you know is X.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there are reasons why I needed to get out of my job, and maybe there are reasons why you need to get out of your job.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So last week's show spoke about the downside and the way that my career field affected me.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: This week I want to talk about the things that I learned in my career field.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: The top 10 things that I learned in my career field, and some of these are gonna be relatable to you as well.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And those skills translate powerfully into a corporate world or a new job.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I put some thought into this.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the reason why.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because this week I was talking to my buddy, and he's like, Aaron, he's like, I went out of what I'm doing, but who's gonna hire me?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all I know is this skill, and you know, you're so blessed to be where you are.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And while I love him and I truly appreciate those words, I got it got me to thinking, how many other people feel like they're in that same position?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I did a show six and a year ago, year and a half ago, about being stuck in your career.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this show is a little bit different because between that show and this show, I have recognized and learned that I can be just as productive in my current role as I ever was in my last role.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now that looks different.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look the same.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing the same things, I'm not moving the same needles, I'm not saving the same lives, but I can still be a productive, influential, impactful person in this new role.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me about two and a half years for me to get out of my own way.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because up until the last six, seven months, and through a lot of therapy, I was comparing everything that I used to do to what I'm doing today.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, it felt like I was letting myself down.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't until I realized that I did my part in my previous life, whatever that was.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And now there's a new chapter, a new page, and a new beginning.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's embracing that new beginning with love, personal grace to yourself, and understanding.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to talk about tonight.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get in to the things that I learned in law enforcement that translate into my corporate America job.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, number one, in law enforcement, we have an investigative thinking and problem-solving process.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean in law enforcement?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It means that as a detective, I am trained to solve complex problems, piecing together clues that might or might not be apparent, identifying motives, connecting patterns that aren't obvious.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's about logic, it's about patience, it's about understanding, it's about looking at things from a 30,000-foot view.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those skills come in very handy in law enforcement when I'm solving a murder.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I find that in my current role, this is root cause analysis.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a sales role.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why are the sales down?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: What is the problem?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is the process that got us to this deficiency?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or why are the sales up?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we having a boost in this certain area?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at it from a large perspective, root cause analysis, process improvement, strategic problem solving.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Companies out there constantly face issues.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a drop in performance.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's customer dissatisfaction or efficiencies.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is a boost in revenue or sales that was unexpected.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: COVID hit and they thought the world was going to shut down.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yet our sensor products that we sell for like, you know, go into the bathroom and you wash your hands, you know, and you go to the bathroom and it flushes by itself, those things went through the roof.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we didn't expect that.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason they went through the roof is because nobody wants to touch anything.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, everybody was converting from manual to sensor products, and it took that root cause analysis to understand why that was happening.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Officers will dig deeper.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Police officers, detectives will dig deeper because we want to understand the why.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Telling us that it is because it is.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we do it because we do, that is not good enough for us.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Never in our careers have we been able to justify an outcome or a process.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, that's just because that's the way we do it.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not when lives matter.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, you don't just see crimes, you see the cause of the crimes.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: In business, I try to approach problems the same way.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not just how do we fix this or how did we get here, what are we going to do about it?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: How are we going to turn this negative into a positive?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of solving a case, we're turning somebody's day around or their situation around, and we're being able to bring ideas and concepts that are outside of the proverbial box.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, communication skills and interviewing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: In policing, we talk to everybody.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I got interviewed, and I'll use that term loosely for this job, one of the things the gentleman asked me was, Well, what do you do?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I talk to victims, I talk to suspects, I talk to Superior Court judges, I talk to local judges, I talk to witnesses, I talk to parents, I talk to the parents of the deceased, I run entire investigations.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I talk and I interview.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I read body language, I read tone, I read emotion, and I put all of those things together, all of the nonverbal, all of the verbal.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm able to analyze those things, put them together, and come up with more times than not a correct analysis.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that is translates to influencing, to leadership, to customer relationships.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I currently am in a relationship business.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is what I do.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: In order to do that, I need to be able to walk in and read a room and meetings.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be able to understand who the biggest ego is.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the game that they're playing with their ego is not hard.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I just have to understand the rules.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Reminds me of some of the supervisors I used to work for.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is a very quick way to build trust.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: As a police officer, I built trust every single day in an interview room or on the street with complete strangers.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: In this role, I find that it is very useful to have those skills to be able to read the room.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who are the decision makers, who are the blowhards, who are the ones I need to be in front of, and how can I make their lives better.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: The emotional intelligence that come with a law enforcement role in my situation, or whatever role you may be in, is something that many professionals lack.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: When I would go into calls and have to calm just domestic violence situations at 3 a.m.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: or tell a grieving parent that her child was murdered, or whatever that may be, those skills and learning how to communicate and deliver those messages under tension or tumultuous situations, it's that same skill that helped me currently in my everyday role with keeping people calm, keeping them focused, redirecting them when they believe there's a crisis at hand and there's really not.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when the stakes are high for my current professional role, I'm able to sift through that, break it down, and sell that to somebody, deliver that message to somebody in a way that is palatable, understanding, and can wrap their mind around.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of those same skills.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever role that you're in, I want you to take what I'm telling you and think outside of the box to my friend who I know will listen to this, to the other people out there, to law enforcement who feel maybe you're stuck in this role and there's nothing else you can do, to the retired law enforcement that, God forbid, you go out and get a security job somewhere because you think that's all you know.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much more.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you want to do that.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's your passion in life, then go for it, you know, knock it out of the park.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to change, there's a change available for you.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: What about decision making under pressure?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Number three.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: In policing, we often have seconds to make a decision that will lead to huge consequences.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: That could be as simple as a use of force: shooting somebody, stabbing somebody, throwing somebody to the ground, or even seeing a situation unfold in front of us that we don't know what we're looking at.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, man, the hair on the back of my neck is standing up.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is, I can't quite put my finger on it, but it doesn't look right, so I need to investigate it.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is what we do.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then we make that decision to investigate it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're balancing the law, ethics, safety, our observations, and our emotions simultaneously to effectively do our job.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we may do that 50 times in a 10-hour shift.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there may be, out of that 10-hour shift, 50 of these decisions, there may be seven of them, 10 of them that relate to taking somebody else's life.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to make a split-second decision when we are pointed out, pointed in at somebody, pressing the trigger, and we have to make that split-second decision to pull the trigger or to release and go to another option.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: In business, how does that relate?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron, I'm not gonna be shooting anybody in business, I don't think.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: In my corporate world, people crave others who can make sound decisions without freezing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we see these people come and go, and I've only been in it three years, but there's been a rotating door of folks, and they can't make decisions, or they make poor decisions, or they throw money at a problem to make it go away without solving the root cause and having a root cause analysis and just dealing with it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's in a crisis or a client or a time-sensitive project, your ability, my ability, our ability to bring composure, clarity, and logic to that when everybody else panics.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many times people get on the phone and call and they're in a panic because their plumbing project is going sideways and they need it now, they need it yesterday.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, is the wolf, as my partner Tom says, is the wolf really at the door?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, okay, what are the real circumstances?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do we really need it today or can it wait till tomorrow, figuratively speaking?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, there's no there's no crisis in my current world.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think our ability to decipher and discern crisis from excited utterances is is pretty impactful and amazing in a corporate world.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure doesn't rattle us.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: After years of being in a uniform, corporate America pressure doesn't rattle us.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And because it doesn't rattle us, when we are seen by others in corporate America or in my current role, or whatever role you may be looking at, again, if you're not law enforcement, plug in your own career here.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that translates to calm leadership.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're not reacting to people's problems or reacting to a situation, you are proactively responding to those situations with grace, poise, and confidence.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number four situational awareness and risk assessment in law enforcement.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: We are constantly scanning our environment, whether it's driving down the road, whether you're a truck driver driving down the road, trying to get to your next place, scanning for other vehicles, deer, whatever it may be.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're not just scanning for threats, but we're scanning for opportunities to prevent things from happening or to make things happen before God has put the parts into play.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: If we are scanning the environment and we see a situation going sideways, we don't know what it is, but we get out and we do that building check because something doesn't look right.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have seen this scenario a hundred times, and tonight it looks different.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we get out and check, and then we find the burglars that are getting ready to break in or whatever it may be.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's our situational awareness that has got us to that point in our career.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And how does that in business, that's strategic awareness?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that is scanning the environment, scanning the market for me in my current sales role, because that's what I know now.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's scanning the environment, scanning the market, and being able to predict trends or predict actions before they happen.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: If then thinking, in law enforcement, if then thinking kept me alive.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this happens, then I'm going to respond this way.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: In business, if this happens, then we could expect a rise or a fall.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or if we approach somebody this way, we can expect them to react this way, and we need to respond this way.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a giant game of chess, and we're trying to look ahead and foresee what our opponent is going to do.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: In business, being able to read the market and assessing the risk before decisions have been made, noticing shifts in tone or performance in our business partners and others, or whatever that may be, great managers have foresight.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't noticed yet, especially if you're in law enforcement, I've spoken a lot about managing.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: We all have great managing skills, although maybe we were never a line-level supervisor.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we were never a sergeant or a lieutenant, or maybe you were never an operations manager at your current company.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if you possess some of these skills, which I think we do after years of working, no matter what environment you're in, unless you're completely tone deaf and blind to the world around you, then if you are, maybe you should stay where you're at.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not, we we all possess managerial skills to some level, but it's up to us to decide how much and where those skills might be the most effective.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I tell you this because when you're looking through LinkedIn for the next job and it comes up with a manager, you don't think, well, I've never been a manager, I don't have any managerial skills, you know, you you do.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as cops, we have that stuff built in because that's what we do.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have to manage each other, we have to manage people on the streets, strangers.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: As a cop sees the problem, I see the problem before it becomes a call.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: In business, we need to see those operational risks and deal with them before they hit the bottom line or before they tear us down.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, report writing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: In policing, obviously, if it's not written down, it didn't happen.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we heard that?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Reports must be factual, defensible, and detailed.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's no room for sloppy writing or vague statements in our reports, and there's no room for us to not close the loophole that some defense attorney is going to try to punch in our report.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because we did or did not do something, words are important.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you hear nothing else, words are important.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that you say something or the words that you choose to use can change the meaning.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: A misplaced comma can mean the world of a difference.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Stop clubbing baby seals means different than stop clubbing baby seals.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Know what I mean?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of them, you got some seals out in the club and they're and they're up on their little tails and they're the other one is some jackass with a friggin' baseball bat clubbing a baby seal, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the misplaced comma.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Words are important.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Documentation is important.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that becomes accountability and clarity in your communication.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's an email, whether it's an invoice, whether it's a statement, whether it is a managerial report, whether it's a work order plan for your subordinate, whatever that may be, it's accountability and clarity in those communications.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: As police officers, we're the people who can summarize a project, a proposal, and do it in a very short, succinct, bullet point, tactical talk manner.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that comes out so useful and effective in business.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: An analysis that is clearly articulated can really help to support, in my case, the bottom line and not lose money because people understand how we got from A to Z.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Police work taught me to write reports with precision, to write reports so clearly that someone who knew nothing about what I'm talking about could act on my report without me being there.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what good corporate communication should do.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Emails and communication that are so clear and succinct and synopsized that people can take them and run with them.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Leadership and coordination.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: In policing, obviously, we lead people through uncertainty, through fatigue, through danger, through emotion.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're often talking people out of life and death situations.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: We are talking people out of killing themselves.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are helping people, we are helping the person on the street that's drug affected.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting them into rehabs.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're offering them solutions that are outside of their box.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're giving them a different way or a different perspective to look at a situation.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we're doing it without any kind of formal authority.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not every, like it's like being a parent.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not every situation that you have to deal with being a parent is written down in the parent's guide to how to parent.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't buy that book anywhere, I don't think.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is probably as close as it gets.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in law enforcement, it's the same way.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not every scenario, you have a mental health subject beating his head against the wall on the side of Dick's sporting goods, and he's yelling and screaming and causing a disturbance.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, nothing tells us how to deal with that.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do we go up and arrest him and put hands on him and fight him because he's mentally ill and he's banging his head and causing a disturbance?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, because when we do and he starts to fight us back and we end up having to shoot him or kill him or use force against him, now we look bad, at least in the area that I work, we look bad for putting our hands on the mentally ill when there's no governmental interest, right?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that is not spelled out in a book anywhere how to deal with that situation.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: How to get the dead dog off of the street in the middle of the freeway before he causes another crash, that is actually not spelled out in the academy curriculum.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have to think on our feet.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that is where leadership comes in.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Being able to lead and inspire people and have them follow through, not just compliance, but have them want to work for you and with you and find the end goal.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, we have to understand the chain of command.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a chain of command in the corporate world as well.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it's more of the human side.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, it is very strict and rigid.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Captain, lieutenant, sergeant, line, and everybody, and it's paramilitary.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the corporate world, while there's still that hierarchy, it's definitely more of a human side, and there's a teamwork approach to that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we work well as teams.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: We save each other's lives on teams every single time we go out on the road.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: We know how to motivate people when their morale is low.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: We know how to motivate people when the stakes are high.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know how to de-escalate when we need to, when we know how to ramp things up when we need to.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That are is all skills that you can utilize in the corporate world.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: So again, no matter what role you are in, you have skills.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: It just takes you stepping outside of the I do X idea mentality.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't care what the X is that you do, what is the A through F, the skills they get you to be able to do X.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is what people are hiring.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, leadership isn't a title, it's a behavior.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've had supervisors with Sergeant Stripes or Lieutenant Bars or Captain Bars that couldn't lead a group to the lunchroom.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: They were pathetic.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, you learn to lead from the front.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: You learn to set the tone, you learn to take responsibility when things go wrong, and that resonates with everybody within your organization.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Business is no different.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Business is looking for leaders, looking for people who can come in, who can learn quickly, analyze a room, read a situation, lead from the front, get others on board, take responsibility, and execute.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think this one number seven might be the most important.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's ethics, integrity, and accountability.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: In policing, our reputation is everything.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Our integrity isn't just an expectation.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is literally our license to serve.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: We are sworn to uphold an oath.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Any violation of that oath will end our career.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lying in court, falsifying a record, taking some of the money when we seize thousands of dollars and there's nobody else around, stealing pills from the pill drop-off because we're addicted Doxy Cotton or Codone because we hurt our back on the job, and we justify it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is the ethics, integrity, and accountability that we are expected to have in law enforcement.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody that falls short should be penalized and punished for that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are held to a higher standard.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: In business, organizations are desperate for ethical leaders.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: In today's world, finding somebody with ethics, morals, and values, you're not hiring them for their skills of selling a widget.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're hiring them for their ethics, their morals, and their values and their trustability.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Having that moral foundation means that we can make decisions based on values, not just profit to the company.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It means that people know they can depend on our word.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, we learn early that our integrity isn't negotiable.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: In the corporate world, that's a superpower.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you have integrity, if you have loyalty, if you have stay power, if you have accountability, it makes people trust you faster and it makes you more productive and more valuable to any team that you are on.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Adaptability.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, or maybe in your world, the rules change, the bosses change.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: A new boss comes in and changes everything around.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Used to sit on the left side of the room and now you sit on the right side, and there's no reason for it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take the water cooler out of the break room and put it between the bathrooms because that makes more sense.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's little things like this that can upset our worlds and can send us into a tailspin, especially if we're one of those people, like I spoke about last week, that wraps your identity around the job.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you wrap your identity around what happens within the four walls of your business or your world, because that is what you know and you own it and we're proud of it.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when somebody comes in and makes a little change, man, it can set us all into this upheaval.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in law enforcement, we have to be adaptable.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: The laws are constantly changing, technology changes, the way we do things, the scrutiny that is upon us, the community changes.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have to adapt daily.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: We have to adapt in that scenario I spoke about a moment ago where I'm pressing the trigger, getting ready to kill somebody, and then all of a sudden the circumstances change, and I have to divert, go a different direction, and adapt to the new set of circumstances.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm holstering and fighting with somebody.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have to adapt and overcome things all the time, and we constantly have to be learning about the way the world is shifting around us.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that translates to the agility in fast-changing markets, learning new systems quickly, not resisting change.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: As police officers, we thrive in dynamic environments because that's what we're built for.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are built for the unpredictability of minute to minute.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no different in a corporate world.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have the skills available to you to change what you're doing now and to get out and do something different.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: No matter, again, who you are or what your current role is.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm only talking about law enforcement because that's what I know best.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: As I think back, every shift taught me about adaptability.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You never knew what was coming.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whether I was on patrol, every time you make that traffic stop, the world could literally blow up in your face.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you work in an office, imagine going to that copy machine every single day to make copies.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that one of these times, it is more likely than not that copy machine, when you push start, is going to explode in your face, and you may or may not die.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine where that stress level would be.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the world that law enforcement lives in.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what's coming.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what is around the next bin, and that's exactly what makes me and you valuable in a business world that's constantly changing.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our ability to adapt, overcome, reanalyze the situation, execute with leadership, bring People to the front and make things happen is why we are so valuable.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when we're out there doing our thing, number nine, there's going to be conflict, and we have to be able to resolve that in negotiation.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I told the, I told a snapshot a while back about a neighbor dispute, and it's been ongoing for weeks.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally go over, and the complaining neighbor who's been the can't calm him down, we can't do anything with him.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: He won't reason for weeks and weeks.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: He hasn't reasoned with the police.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when I looked at him, I'm like, this guy is just sad and lonely.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you need a hug?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, yeah.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I gave him a huge hug.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: That solved our problem forever.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: We never went back.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, being able to resolve conflict and negotiate people is what we do as cops.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: We mediate fights, we talk down armed suspects, we navigate emotional crises, we navigate people and their problems every single day.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you work in a town of 300 people or you work in a town of 3 million people, people are people.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when they have problems, they deal with them a certain way.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people are okay dealing with their problems, other times they go ballistic.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: No matter if you work in 300 or 3 million, they add alcohol and drugs into that.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when they do, they no longer make rational decisions.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's our job to go in and rationalize with the irrational.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that is pure gold for leadership and customer service, human resources, team management, all of those things come into play.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Most people fear confrontation.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: As law enforcement, we are trained to face confrontation with calmness and resolve it effectively and efficiently.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Negotiation isn't about winning.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about winning the next bid.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about winning the next street fight.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's about understanding.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's about understanding where people are coming from.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: What got them to this place?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: My thoughts and beliefs on negotiation, not about winning.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: That came from working on the street.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: It came from being a cop and a detective, but it applies perfectly into my office environment.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now finally, number 10.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Attention to detail and evidence-based thinking, believing, digging.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every detail matters.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: When I went to the police academy and they would have our room inspections, and I did a show on it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Black Monday.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: When we would do our room inspections, and they would walk the three by five cart around the outside of our bed and it had to be perfect.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: If it was more than three inches away from the edge of the bed on the two sides, they would destroy our room.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: If they couldn't bounce a quarter off of our bed sheets, they would destroy our room.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: If any of our buttons or snaps were unbuttoned or unsnapped or velcroed unvelcroed with the clothes hanging in our closet, they would destroy us.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: If the hangers were less than two inches or more than two inches apart on the rack, they would destroy us.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not because that stuff matters, but because every detail matters.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they were showing us an attention to detail in law enforcement, a shuper and a timeline, uh inconsistency in somebody's statement, all of that stuff matters, and you have to be in tune with it and be willing to confront, pursue that inconsistency or that issue.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: We build cases on facts, not on assumptions or opinions.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to fill in the holes.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to think, well, this happened, so this must have happened.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, you have fact A, you have fact C.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened at fact B, and maybe you'll never know it, or maybe you'll figure it out through your investigation, but we don't get to assume what the letter B might have been in that scenario.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: In business, that mindset comes important in data-driven concepts, data-driven decision making, auditing, precision and execution.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to jump to conclusions.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have to verify our findings.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: That makes us the kind of employee or leader that catches on to what others miss.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Detective work taught me not to assume but to verify everything.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: In corporate life, that's how we can avoid multimillion dollar mistakes.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: When I left law enforcement, I thought my identity was gone.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I thought all I was ever capable of was being a cop, solving a murder, putting somebody in jail, interviewing in an interview room.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: In preparing for tonight's episode, and typically I don't list things out, but tonight I did.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: In preparing for tonight's episode, I really had to go through and do a gut check on everything that translates that I can think of and how it's translated, and try to think of an example just in my short three years, how I have utilized these skills in my corporate world.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I said it last week.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your job does not define you.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is not your identity.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can get out, you can do something else.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel God tugging on it, if you feel uh some weight that I gotta get out of this because of X, Y, or Z, I gotta get out of this, I can't be a good husband or father as a result.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta get out of this because, you know, whatever.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: I those things, all you have to do is put a plan into place, really critically analyze your skill sets that you do, and you can find something else out there in the world.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I encourage other first responders that are considering transitioning out of law enforcement or fire or EMT or paramedics, because I know it affects us all equally.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Reframe your experiences.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it through a different lens, and I think you will find that you have assets that are valuable to the world and not a limitation to the world.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, that is ten things that I have found to translate from my law enforcement world into my corporate world.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not a cop, but no matter what you do, you have those skills.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to analyze what you do day in and day out.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Think back about your career, have your elevator pitch.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: If your next boss were to walk in the room tomorrow and you didn't know this person, new company, new world, new everything.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're at dinner, you meet some guy at the bar, and he says, Tell me what you do.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Have that elevator pitch of your five things, bullet points you're gonna get out, five bullet points that are going to explain you to a T.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now you have some ideas as to what those points might look like and how they might work in your world.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, because I want this episode and I want this podcast to be educational, entertaining, provide value.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I hope we provide some value for you today.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know at all.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm brand new into this, I'm only three years out, but I can tell you three things.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: One, I believe I was only good for law enforcement.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Two, I had to get out of my own way to see the value that I bring to the table.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And three, this new world is pretty freaking amazing.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is a Murders to Music Podcast.