Weekly Scrap #294 - Chris Scott, into the Dragon's Den

Corley: Here we go. It's almost time for the show, but I want to take a few seconds here to talk about Vigilantes. If you are not right there, man. If you are not a vigilante, why not? It's five bucks a month. It is less than the cost of a cup of coffee. And there is so many benefits The biggest benefit being you get to connect to like-minded individuals who think the same way that you think. And it's a powerful, powerful place to be. The Discord is where all of the interaction is going on. There is so much going on in there it's hard to explain. And the only way to be a part of it is to get on the Patreon so that you can get access to the Discord channel. It is a good, good time. Go become a part. There's new stuff we're working on. Last week we had a vigilante meetup in Louisiana at the Lyft conference. It was a phenomenal time. And the vigilantes and I got to sit there and discuss, hey, how can we make these even better? How can we make these even better? And we did. We decided a way to give the Viceroy solid rules and ways to host the meeting. How to how to have the open with the toast and close with the creed and to what to do with the coins and the numbered coins and the challenges involved, it was a good time man to make it even better. They're doing stuff like working on building the V drive, putting together this all this knowledge and files that they're building together. Currently their project of they're collecting blueprints and plans to work for the for the the work of search, which is the supplement, the drill supplement for the book of search, it's going to be coming out soon. They're working on putting that together. It's just phenomenal what they got going on. Not to mention, you get swag discounts, access to the vigilante-only shop, access to the after parties, and of course the vigilante meetups It's amazing. If you're not a part, why not? I have to ask you that. If you're still only on the Facebook, man, get with the times, get on the Patreon so you can be in the Discord. Do it. Quit Baffing about patreon. com slash the vigilantes.

Corley: Go join so you can get in the discord. Right now we're currently doing a v50. There's like 35 of us doing a v50 together We're on day two today and we got 48 days to go, but already it's challenging me and the accountability is amazing. So if you want to find like-minded souls, patreon. com slash the vigilantes. I'll see you on the Discord. Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance. It is weekly scrap number 294. My guest tonight is Chris. Scott, he is a captain down in Louisiana. He's got 17 years on, has been a trading officer and a trading coordinator with different departments. He owns and operates Dragon's Den Training. With a podcast by the same name. He's the treasurer for the Cajun Fools, teaches the recruit search school at his department, and is a volunteer search and rescue diver for the sheriff's office. He's been lucky enough to teach and volunteer at various conferences. He looks forward to retiring with his family somewhere in Florida. He also has a great head of hair, but chooses to shave it. My brother, Chris Scott, I have been looking forward to having you on the show. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you on the scrap for episode number 294. Welcome, my brother.

Chris Scott: thank you, Corley. It's obviously it's obviously a very humbling experience. And as everybody says, nobody from nowhere. I know everybody says it, but I truly feel that way. But but I'm looking forward to this conversation also. Thank you. Corley: There's a lot of dragon hype going on in the chat right now. Quite a few green dragons flying by. a little bit let's go dragons yeah so matt burkin said omge it's happening here we go everybody stay calm It's awesome. Jacob McVay with Three Dragons, Steve Mouch, Three Dragons, Three Fire. Yeah, there's a lot going on. People are excited to have you here. Anything I missed? Anything you want to add to the intro? No, you're fine, Corley. You're fine. Okay, I have to mention this right out the gate. let me see if I can get up there where I can see it. Yeah. Get it up there in there. This this came in the mail today, which is someone noticed that I had no place to keep all of my pins and whatnot. So I've got this awesome pin holder cup to hold my pins. I'm pretty excited about it. I wanted to put that in there. But let's get to the sponsors We'll talk about those beautiful sponsors that make the scrap happen and then we'll get to the actual scrap. So here we go. Woo! Yeah, got through it. Thank you, sponsors. I love ya. Now we can get to scrapping. And let me see if I what I've missed from the from the chat here. Yeah, they're talking. Oh yeah, they're talking about the intro music, which if you listen to the intro music, everyone. That is the one and only Sam playing on his the the ghost guitar, his new guitar, his fender, laying out those licks. So anyway, enjoy it. all right, Chris, let's talk about it. One of the the biggest mysteries on social media. Who is Chris Dragon Sky? Which is Yeah, so

Chris Scott: Yeah, it I get it. So I got it all the time. that has been so long story short on that, it was It was basically a bet. And I went through I went through the recruit academy with a guy named Mike Olivier. And we didn't like each other very much in the academy, probably mostly because we were both hard-headed, know-it-alls. So we we just kind of kept our distance, two two young guys and kind of at odds with each other. But once about a year and a half into and getting out to the line, I ended up picking into his station. He was already there. And people were like, oh man, you gonna go work over there? You know Mike's over there, huh? And I'm like, yeah, I want to work over there. So so I ended up going. And it turned out that we actually really liked each other. And we actually cutting up. I like the sense of humor. We had a great time. And so if you remember Stepbrothers, that was kind of the thing. They came into, you know, they came into each other's house and And they, you know, they ended up love you know, did we just become best friends? That was kind of what happened. And so Mike said one day, well, you know, you gotta call me Nighthawk And I said, well, you gotta call me Dragon. So this was 13, 14 years ago, we changed our Facebook names as a joke. So if you look up Michael Nighthawk Olivier, that's who he is on Facebook. And then about, I don't know, eight, ten months in, I said, all right, dude, it's kind of stupid. Are we going to change this back? And he goes, you're going to change it before I change it. And I was like, oh yeah. So now the bet is whoever changes it first owes the other a steak dinner I said, well, I'm never buying you a steak dinner. So it's been dragging. I'm not changing it. He's not changing it. So I feel like we're gonna have to go to We're gonna have to we're gonna have to go to the grave on that.

Corley: Yeah, you have to be in rocking chairs on a porch somewhere. Chris Scott: But we're both too remember like both hard-headed still at to this day, still hard-headed. We're not gonna we're not gonna move it. So that's That's what it's been. It's been that way for the entire time. That's this that's why it's dragon. Corley: Because it was a bet. Chris Scott: You just refused to change it. Corley: I knew you through social media first. So Chris, Dragon Scott is what I knew you as. So when I first met you, I said, oh You're Dragon. Yeah. And I've called you Dragon ever since. Chris Scott: And that and that goes real quick. We'll hit like why is the podcast and the cadre called Dragon's Den? It it's literally because nobody calls me dragon. It was just you. And so whenever a whenever a firefighter, whenever the the whenever that we'll we'll probably get into the story of the cadre, but like whenever it came time to name this thing I was like, well if you know if Corley Moore is calling you Dragon, you lean into that, you just go ahead and you just go all in on that. And so you know, I didn't have any other great names, so we we just kind of leaned into it, branded it, and said, you know, let's roll with it, let's have a good time. So yeah, that's

Corley: That's the story. So sure. Chris Scott: Well, it's easy because like it's in quotations. You probably know what you know about a billion people. It's hard to remember from the other Corley: 58 Chris is that no that one definitely stuck out it stuck out. I mean it did. I was like, oh you're dragon. And you've been dragon ever since to me. In fact, that's if you weren't, I would I would I don't know what I do. So you gotta take it. Like you said, you'll never buy a steak dinner. Michael Olivier actually checked in and said Nighthawk here. Yeah, that's him. Nighthawk and Dragon are in the chat. I love it so let's talk about your journey. I do. I want to kick it off. Let's talk about your journey because it's it's similar to a lot of people but also it's yours. And so I'll I want to hear it's yeah, it has a lot of value. Chris Scott: So yeah, so I started out with a volunteer department, a little small volunteer department. Population of the city was probably around a thousand people. I when I was probably 19, still living at home, I wanted to I tried to volunteer in my city is a population of about a hundred, hundred and ten thousand. I knew so little about the fire department that I called. I called them. I was like, hey, can I volunteer? They were like, we haven't had volunteers since like 1950. We're all we're all paid. I was like, well, how do you do that? Well, you gotta live outside the city. Well, that that wasn't me. So I I kind of gave up on it. And the inspiration for joining the fire department, the people say it's a calling. I truly felt like there was something pulling me in that direction. I I can't quite put my finger on it, but I was being pulled in that direction. But I had to kind of give up on the volunteer thing because I was in college. Got to do the college thing, right? And so married my wife, moved out to to to the small town of Dusan, and we just so happened to live really close to the to the fire station And so once again, it kept driving by that fire station going like, man, I I I feel like I need to go see what this is about.

Corley: And it was calling your name. Chris Scott: It was definitely calling my name. It felt like I was physically, it's weird and it sounds stupid, but it fell like I was physically being pulled to the building. Like just go in, go talk. And so so anyway, I did. And And and this is a long story, but I keep it super short as I fell in love with it. That's essentially what happened. I love making calls. You know, they they you know, how does this thing work? Well you get come to the drill nights every Monday night or whatever it was, and after three drill nights we'll we'll vote on whether we want you here or not. I was panicked because I'm like a city boy. I you know, I grew up in the middle of the middle of concrete jungle and it was like It's like all these all these country guys, they got farmers and machine shop, you know, machinists and you know, diesel mechanics, and not me. I didn't have none of that. Corley: I was like, man, are they gonna accept me? Chris Scott: And man, they David Bruitt had kind of said it where it felt like family. They didn't look at any of that stuff and they took me in as one of their own. I was kind of like I felt like You know, I felt like a a sheep that was being adopted by a bunch of dogs. Like, no, you're you're you're part of the family now. We're gonna raise you up. And fell absolutely fell in love with it. And then I was like, okay, how does this Yeah, you're one of us and didn't didn't bat and I just super good guys in Tucson. That that's a that's a longer story. But anyway, they give you a pager and they say All right, when this thing goes off, you know, show up, show up to the station. Like, do what? It's almost like when you have a baby and they, you know, they you're at the hospital for a couple days and they hand you your kid and they're like, all right, go home. And you're like, there's no manual. Like, shouldn't I be reading something or something. But they send you out. fall in love with it. I was in college and I decided To get out of college very quickly, because I said, well, why don't I just, I love doing this.

Chris Scott: I love showing up to the calls. I just genuinely enjoyed it. And I said, why don't I just go get paid to do it? So went over to Laf to Lafayette and I was extremely dedicated in the in the in the recruit academy. If you wanted me to study I was a C student all throughout high school, all throughout college, just Right. You could tell that the passion just I was just getting through. Corley: And once it came to firefighting. Chris Scott: Sure. Corley: Let me hit you. You said you were a C student. Was it just disinterest or were you struggling to make the C's? In other words, did you have more potential and just settled or disinterest by far? Chris Scott: I just Yeah, yeah. Disinterest by far. Umce we got into the academy It's I put everything into it and then ended up I ended up graduating not at the top of the class because we had two guys that came in with Firefighter one already that automatically got put at the top, but great GPA-wise. it I graduated at the top and I was putting in a lot of extra time. If you wanted me to know, you know, the seven safety steps of of winching activities, then I was going to give you all seven. And extremely dedicated and just really loved it. And at what age were you at this point? it's probably about so I I probably joined the fire at probably joined DuSon at about 21 ish, 21 and some change. And then I moved to the full-time department at 23, just fixing to make 24. Okay. So I was only I was only with the volunteer department for a for about two years before we moved into the city and then I couldn't I really couldn't volunteer anymore. I was too far out of the out of the response range. So yeah sou super dedicated super into it and And continuing on with that, like as I moved through, as I moved through the years, you know, I was I was at some some decently rolling stations. I did a little bit of time as a training officer for my paid department, from a full-time department, went back to the line. as the years went on, and this is speeding it up considerably. I fell into complacency. And that's why that's one of the big reasons that we're talking today with this journey.

Chris Scott: fell into complacency. I was not doing the things that I needed to do to be good at the job. I was not taking care of understanding the job like I should have, and and it it it just is what it is. So It wasn't until continue to fast forward. I was trying to get a part-time job. I was trying to get a part-time job at a different department Just on the line, just hey, go, you know, ride the couch at this other department. And the guy, the the chief at the time said, Well, I don't have a firefighting job for you, but what I have is I'm creating a new position, a training coordinator position. And I was like, well, I wasn't really looking for a training coordinator position. Like that was, I was more just looking to, you know, make some money on the on the firefighting side. But you know what? Sure. I was a training core. I was a training officer before. Let's give that a shot. And I get into the position. It's brand new. They've never had one before. So it's a little bit of bumps and bruises. But what he does, the big changeover point was he said, hey, we're going to send you to County Fire Tactics Conference. I was like, I don't even what is that? I don't even know what a conference is. This is 20, like I said, early February of 2022. And but it made so I looked it up, made sense. Conference, you learn stuff and the training coordinator. So like Okay, I'll go learn some stuff, bring it back, I guess, but I've never I've never been to one of these. I have no idea what's going on. So that that department, Bruce Art Fire Department, sends guys to CFT all the time, but six, eight guys at a time year after year in and year out, pretty consistently. So anyway, I go up with a buddy, Zach Tevenay, and man, you've not only have you been there, Corley, you've taught there. We're gonna get to that. But I'm sitting in that I'm sitting in the big room and hearing the number of guys that hearing the different guys that had come through, not knowing, I'm telling you when I didn't know a single name at that place, not a single one.

Chris Scott: I had no idea who you were. Chief Ike, Basil, Stonebroth, nobody, zero, zero people I knew. And That conference really flipped the switch in in multiple ways, but the main one, just to shout them out, the one that really the light bulb lit up was with Basil's class. Yeah. Corley: Was that when he was in the vest in the big room? Chris Scott: That was in the vest. Yeah, that was in the vest. The the vest in the big room. I felt like you got he's talking to 300 guys, right? I mean, however big the big room is, it's it's there's a lot of firemen in there, but when he was talking about standards and expectations and excellence. Man, I felt like he was talking to me. I felt like there was nobody in there and he was talking to me, almost like he was looking at me going, hey, Get your shit together. Like you really screw it up. And I'll and and and obviously he wasn't, but like that's what it felt like. That was a real that his his lecture was a real light bulb moment, but not to take away from any of the other guys because you had once again you had the Stone Brothers and you had and you had Kurt Ike and you had Tide Edwards, you have all these guys. I don't leave anybody out, but Kyle Ramagus, you had all these guys, didn't know who they were that were also doing their their awesome classes. And I remember And I've told you this before. I remember being so fired up coming out of that conference that I said, man, I want to, I don't know any of these guys. I want to I want to look them up. Like I want to see what like I want to see what else Shannon Stone has to say. Look them up and it led back to the scrap. I don't know what I don't know what I didn't know what the scrap was. I had no idea what a firefighting podcast was. I was like, oh, cool. He's been on this thing. I get to hear, I'm get to listen to like more of what he's doing. And then you and then it goes down the list. Well, I'm listening to Chief Riley. Well, Chief Riley was already on, and this guy was already Basil was already, all these.

Chris Scott: And it almost like I was doing a lot of running at the time. I still do run a lot, but I would plug in the headphones, put on the scrap, and listen to all these guys that I had just heard live. And it was like a I don't want to call it like a mini conference, but that's kind of what it was. You got you got to hear them not in teaching mode, but just in regular people mode. And it got me, it got me really fired up. I just kept coming back to the scrap. Whether it was those guys or whether it was all the other guys that you had on. Corley: Right. Chris Scott: And and that was that was really part of the wake-up moment of, you know, you really gotta you really gotta be better at the job. There's no There's no going back on this. There's no like now that you know I've had you I I wrote an article, I didn't publish it, and I know you're gonna fuss at me, but you reviewed it, but it was the Pandora's box of the fire service. And it's like once you open up that box, once you see, once you see the other side of how good you could be, how good you should be. what the citizens expect, what they deserve. There is no closing that box back up. Everything is out, the good and the bad. It's all out. And we we can't shut it anymore. And That's that's kind of what led me down this path. But I do want to mention two more things about CFT. Eric Wheaton's class and con can confidence.

Corley: It was basil, man. Chris Scott: Yeah. It was basil for the classroom side. And then I went out to Eric Wheaton's class and When he did I'd only ever learn the boot search. I'd only ever learned grab the wall, hang on, and then the human centipede. The human centipede and then when he and his cadre member split rooms I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Corley: What just happened? You just blew my mind. Chris Scott: Yeah, could somebody arrest him. That's not allowed. Eric, Eric, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do that. And then that was my visceral gut reaction. Like, what is he doing? You can't do that. And then You know, once you calm down and you start to go down the rabbit hole of what an actual search looks like, you realize, oh, there's a there's a whole nother world out there that I'm just I'm just completely oblivious to it. I was ignorant. I was completely ignorant. And the other thing was door forcing. You know, I'm the training officer, I'm the training coordinator for this program, supposed to know stuff. And then you go through these hot courses and then you go to force this door, which I hadn't done in a while and then you bumble it up. You bumble it and you go, oh my God, like I am not we've got to fix like we gotta fix this. This is embarrassing. It's embarrassing how bad it was. And it was one of those between between all the speakers, Basil, Eric doing a split, it was a gut punch to We cannot continue down this path. We just can't. We have to make a we have to make a changeover.

Corley: So thanks for thanks for coming out tonight. Chris Scott: I appreciate y'all. We got this will be a very short scrap. Corley: Literally you went from Mr. Complacent, like checked, I don't want to say checked out, but checked out and and checking boxes to one conference later saying I'm never looking back. The box is open. And brother, you've been on a tear because through the podcast of Cadre teaching teaching the yeah. Yeah, what happened with being complacent? Chris Scott: Like I was with I have been at busy stations. I was on I was with the captain for four years. They called him the black cat, Troy Morton. I did a podcast with him. He was seemed to be at every fire that ever existed. within our city. So I I was with him as a fireman for a couple years. I was with him as a driver for a couple years. but then I went out to a slow station that's right within my own district, right next to my house. Slowest station in the city, probably a 300 call a year city. station, excuse me. So this thing is just, this is the retirement home. And that it's a long story of how I got there, but I got there. And then once you get there and you've got enough seniority, I just, I just got too comfortable. I I didn't want to go back to the busy side, houses two minutes down the road, you know, we're sleeping most nights, we're we're doing okay and that put me in a bad spot. I got really, really good at video games and I should not have been really, really good at video games. I should have been good at my job. And that's you know, it's all hindsight. Like you don't know that you're you don't know that you're in that that you know, you almost in your marriage clash, talk about the the tornado and the spiral. Like you almost kind of don't know that you're in it until until you you step back and you go, shh, that's me? Oh my god, that's that's Dude, that's the insidious part of complacency.

Corley: And and and I know the term gets thrown around a lot, but firehouse vigilance and the never-ending fight against complacency is because Complacently doesn't give a shit who you are. It will it will wrap its comfortable little tentacles around you and you won't even notice it, man. You just wake if you ever wake up, if you're lucky enough to wake up, you wake up and go Holy crap, it's me. How did I get here? How did I get here? Chris Scott: Because especially coming out of the academy, being like really into the job, love it. And I've always loved the job. I've never not loved the job. I've always said this is a great job but I just got caught up in complacency and that's and and that's really all there is to it. And that's kind of what attracted me to not only the the weekly scrap was getting to listen to all these guys over, but it was also your message of complacency. And I want to mention I talked to Devin Craig about this, but that's kind of what I like about there's other guys out there. Let me say this. I would love to be, I would love to have been the guy that was locked in. all the time for his whole career. And I don't wanna I don't want to put these words into Baz's mouth because I don't know that he was always dialed in, but you when you look at a guy like Baz, you go, man, there's no way that he could have been complacent. There's there are guys in the fire service that lock in early and just stay locked in. And what I liked about you, what I liked about Devin Craig. Is that y'all are y'all openly say there was a time where we were where we were 10 toes up. There was a time where when we were not doing anything, we felt like we were winning. why you know we say it gets said over and over, you know, you get paid the same whether you get on the north side going to fires or not. Not my emergency. Yeah. Yeah, not my oh my not my emergency multiple times and and believed it. And That that was what I felt. That's why once again I was kind of drawn to drawn to your message in the group because you're like you put your hand up, hand up for accountability and said Hey, this was us and we're not we're not doing that anymore.

Chris Scott: We refuse to go back to what we were doing because for me, I don't know how I'm assuming I know how you feel. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. For me, I can't. I can't go back to I can't go back to who I was. It's just not despite the negative or despite the hate that comes along with it, I just refuse to go back. So yep. There's that. Corley: I love it. People are timestamping you. You're getting timestamps, my brother. Oh shoot. Steve Steve Maus said, bro, is speaking to my soul right now. And Tyler Scoonover said, timestamp. shouldn't have been good at video games. I should have been good at my job with two rocker horns and three flames. All right, I'm throwing we got lots to talk about, but I'm throwing some audience questions at you Pulling them up here. If they're hard, I'm gonna phone a friend. That's gonna be you, Corley. Absolutely. I'm McGin coming at you, what triggered you to start focusing on your physical fitness? Chris Scott: that was, yeah, so I've got a long fitness journey. We're not going to go down the whole thing, but in 2018, I basically decided that I was too fat. I normally hold about 165. And then in 2018, I remember looking at myself and going, why can't I make abs anymore? Normally when I flex I can make abs and I Got on the scale and it was like 177, 178. I was starting to push 180 and I was like, well, we got to make a change. so I started down the process of, hey, let's go start running. And it was miserable, miserable times, felt miserable And I just kind of stuck with it. In 2019, January 5th of 2019, I was off social media. You can go back and check. I didn't have a social media presence at the time. committed to working out every single day for 365 days. I wanted to see if I could do it. Because I'd I in mid-2018 I'd worked out for like a month straight. I was like, okay, cool, a month. Wonder if I can do like two months and then I or three months and and then finally I was like, you know what? I did it for three months. I'm gonna do it for the whole year.

Chris Scott: So anyway, I just started on a tangent. just started working out constantly, but it was purely because of looks. I want to clarify that. It was clearly because of looks. And and then real quick, I'll say I have a whole YouTube video on this that I put out. I documented every day. I documented what I did, but then COVID hit and I got lazy. and my why for working out was fitness and I felt like, hey, I got there. And I would there were times where I'd go out and run 14, 17 miles for I wasn't running a marathon. I wasn't preparing for anything. I could just do it. And I was like, okay, I got it. And then COVID hit and I got lazy. And then The same exact cycle happened again around mid-20 of 21. So about a year and a half out of not doing much of anything, it happened again. And then I had to change my why. My why, I know there's not a fitness podcast, but my why switched from I said, okay, you got to have a why that's going to last some period of time. And if if you know if looking good is gonna hold you into discipline, that's great. But for me, it didn't, because once I achieved it, the goal was done And so I switched the Y to the citizens, being increasing my work capacity to the best that I could do it, you know, longevity, all the things that It as long as I'm in the job, I have to stay fit. If I'm breathing, then I'm working out. And that has held me extremely consistent from mid-21 to now. I still do it today. I w I get something in every single day. But that that's the answer for fitness. Awesome. Hey. Very passionate about it.

Corley: No, and I I love talking fitness. So we can I mean and and people love hearing about it. But the When you say get it in every day, what's your minimum? Like what like Chris Dragon Scott talking to himself when you have that when you have that conversation of oh that counts for today or Great question. Chris Scott: Fantastic question. I've said this online. I've said this on, I got a little fitness page that I've been running for the last, you know, two and a half, almost three years. But anyway. I've posted the the floor ceiling approach. There's a guy based out of Louisiana that talks about the floor and the ceiling. And he said, like, you know, your ceiling, that the best, your best workout for the day might be two and a half hours with stretching and all that just but he said you gotta pick a floor and for him he said my floor I can bust out a hundred and fifty a hundred hundred and fifty pushups in a couple of minutes and I can do meditation for a couple of minutes and that's my minimum so for me the minimum For running, it's like I gotta do about 30 minutes of either some decent exercise, like maybe a 30-minute run, whatever that entails, or if I'm gonna walk. Like if I'm just not feeling it, I will walk for an extended period of time, like an hour and a half. It's extremely rare that it's something like just a walk. but it's usually a run or a gear where get on a bottle, burn a bottle. I've been trying to Josh Bork got me on that. That's one of my cadre members. recently came out of Mississippi, Mississippi smoke diver program. And he prepped by just burning bottles. And I wasn't really on that program. but in the last, I'd say three months, every shift we put on we put on gear. And we burn a bottle down. That might be the only thing that I do for the day. So 26, 27 minutes of work. But that's kind of the bottom. Now if I can get a lift session in or do other stuff. Sure, sure.

Corley: That's my own that's my own personal struggle, is does it count? And am I lying to myself? You know what I'm saying? That that personal the personal mirror accountability Chris Scott: Try not to put the floor too high, right? Try to like get it get it to where I kind of know for a fact I can achieve this and then and then make that make that your standard. And that's the thing. I cannot lie to myself. We and none of us, none of us should be able to lie to ourselves. We know what we know what's going on up here. We can't tell ourselves, I'm gonna run 10 miles a day. Like if you can't, you can't, and you know you can't. So figure out what you actually can manage And then and then set that course. Corley: Well, where the lies get tricky is when it's not that we can run we don't lie and say we ran 10 miles. It's we we lie to ourselves why we didn't that day. And that we could have if we would have or should have. You know, that's where it gets, that's where the complacency really starts getting on there. Matt Berkins coming at you. Chris, I think many can relate to your story. How can someone well into their career start their own journey if they are in the same place and want to make a change?

Chris Scott: How how can they do it later in their career? is that the question? Corley: How can they do it? How can they start start down the journey of rejecting complacency? Chris Scott: That's tough. For me, it was the light bulb moment. For me, it was a bunch of killers beating me over the head in a room of 300 guys. That's, I mean, it took, you know, it wasn't, I think that one personal conversation I would hope maybe it would have changed me. Maybe it would have. I can't say that it wouldn't have, but for me, it was just the drumbeat saying, You know, go be better, go be better. Because that's another thing with CFT, and not to not to rabbit hole, but you had all these different speakers, which I've listed a bunch of them already. But you know what that you know you had one a truck guy and then you had one expert on leadership and then you had this guy on engine work but they were all saying the you know what their message was? They all had the same message Train. Go train. They were all doing different stuff. One was the Stone Brothers doing anatomy of a rescue. Well, that wasn't what Kyle Ramikus was doing when he was doing his hosework, but they all said the same thing at the end. Training is the key to all of these things. Now, having one person tell you that, will that change it? I don't know. I I don't know the answer. I just know what it, I know what it was for me. How do you change it later? Excuse me, how do you change it later in your career? I I wish I really wish I had a great answer for that. I wish I had some nugget to get I was I was it's gonna have to have somebody's gonna have to have a wake-up moment. They're either gonna have to have a conversation with somebody, they're gonna have to go to a conference. They're gonna have to hear the right message from the right person. That maybe that's a possibility. for me, you gotta figure out, and I don't know the answer, you gotta figure out how to get that Pandora's box to open for that individual. And it may be like different learning styles. Some people learn this way and different learning.

Chris Scott: You got to figure out what is it that is going to get that person to be able to flip that switch. Corley: And I think it's going to be different for each person. Nice, nice. Thank you, Matt. Coming at you with Yeah, hold on one second. There we go. Boom. How can you change the culture of your department? Which is a question we get quite often, okay? But the Joshua Baroque Wilson, how can you change the culture of your department, especially when you haven't always been locked into the fire service Chris Scott: Yeah, that's Josh Borg. That's one of my cadre members. How do you change the culture department, especially when you haven't always been locked into the fire service? Yeah, this is This is that million dollar question, right? This is the one that you all you've said, well, if we could figure if we could fix this one, like we'd be millionaires. on look, if Corley can't answer that for you. Corley: Stay up into the night discussing this this very question. Chris Scott: And if you could solve it, you'd be a billionaire. I think it I you know, this might be a fantasy land. This might be this might be rainbows and unicorns that that I'm that I'm talking about here, but I think It has to start somewhere with someone with a group. And it's just gonna have to take a really long time. And how big is your ship? If you've got a big giant ship, then it's going to take a lot of work. You're going to take a lot of beatings throughout that throughout that time period. but it's going to take constantly selling the message, talking about what you believe in, talking about why you believe it, and getting a group of guys around you that also supports that same message and then it just has to stay relentless. similar press a preston lines, relentless rejects like It has to be a non-stop. You can't give up. Once you give up, the culture goes back to whatever it was. So I talked with Jimmy Gregory with the Cobb County search program on the podcast and he said you know we're when he talks about the search culture we're one he said we're you know we're one generation away from one class away from losing our search culture so it has to be a non-stop You can't just give it up.

Chris Scott: I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they talk about, you know, you were one we're one generation away from losing our our freedom, right? That's a that's a constant thing for for the United States. And so that's what he he uses that same mantra of we're one class away from losing our search culture. So how to build the how to somebody's gotta start the culture, somebody's got to start somewhere, and hopefully you got enough guys. that are gonna create a bigger rudder to help you turn the ship a little bit. I love the analogies. And the S boat And on the case, but hard to aircraft aircraft carrier. Corley: A lot bigger rudder. It takes a lot more people bought in. And a lot more time to get them bought in. But on that same mantra of one class, you know, it takes one class to lose a search culture Operation Trojan horse. You know. No, absolutely. Let's talk about that. Yeah. One class can change the future direction of a department too, or multiple classes especially. You know, yeah, so that's a nice segue. Chris Scott: I can tell you've done this multiple times. Corley, very good job. when it comes to the when it yeah, so the way that how did the how did the cadres start? It started through that exact process. I remember coming back from CFT And seeing what I believed was a big discrepancy in how we searched versus how good we could be searching. And, you know, I learned a lot of stuff, but I felt like that was where a big gap was. And I was complaining to a bunch of firemen at the training center. And it just so happened that the second in charge of training, who is now retired, heard me complaining, like, man, why don't we do the tripod method? And we can do the walk the wall and we He could do blah blah blah blah blah complain, complain, complain. And then he looks at me after instead of defending it like, well, we don't do it because he literally at the very end said, do you want to teach the next recruit academy? And I was and I of course I was thinking in my in my heart, I was going, oh God, no, I don't, I don't like I wait, I didn't want to fix any of these problems.

Chris Scott: I just wanted to complain about it, but that's not what I said. What I said was absolutely. I gave him one word, absolutely. He said, okay, I'll get it on the dates. Tell me what time you need. I didn't have any PowerPoint. I had nothing. And I talked about this with Jimmy on the podcast. And so I was listening to your podcast in this room, tearing up floors, and you had on Dustin Martinez. And Dustin Martinez talking about Cobb County Search, blah, blah, blah. And he said, look, I'm a good plagiarizer. If you want what I have, just literally just reach out to me. And I'm like, boom. Shit, you're not, I can't just reach out to you. And I did, and he gave me everything he had. He said, Here's all here's all the stuff. Corley: Oh, he's he's he's as real as it gets, right? Chris Scott: He absolutely, and I've experienced that. He said, here, here's all the stuff, go, go be great. And I was like, Holy crap! So over the last several that we've done four now. We and I've done four recruit academies. the first three, I was just kind of pulling guys, whoever was in my kind of my orbit to kind of help me out. And we'd been piecing and kind of cutting up that program to make it more to make it more ours and less cob. But that led to talking about pro yeah let's stick with project chosen horse. The idea Was that the guys above you, especially if it's a big department, may not believe in what you're talking about. They might think you're an absolute idiot. They think it's stupid. They think it's they they hate everything about what you stand for. and what you're teaching. They hate you to the core. So you ignore those guys for now. At least for now. Do not do not bash your head against a wall. You're wasting your time. So what I said is what I'm going to do is teach the recruits and let them know very clearly This is the Jones and Bartlett way. You have to know this way for the test. And then we're going to teach you some other stuff. I think this other stuff is better. Now, if you're when you go out to the line, Your captain is gonna you're gonna go to a captain, you say, Chris Scott talked about blah blah blah blah blah and they're gonna go, hey, Chris Scott's an idiot.

Chris Scott: He doesn't know what he's talking about. Yeah, we're gonna do it this way. Corley: Don't mention that name in here again Chris Scott: Yeah, don't ever say it. And hey, and I said, guess what? That's what you're gonna hear. I said, but one day in 15 years when they pin a gold badge on you, you're gonna get to decide how you make that search. You're gonna get to decide some priorities. You're gonna get to decide how you move through that building with your crew and you get to figure out, do you want to hold on to each other's boot or do you want to do you want to do it different? Because for 14 years I didn't know anything else. I only knew to do one way. I'd never been taught anything else. So I'm saying, hey, I'm at least giving it to you. And then in 15 years. We can send out 15 years worth of recruits that hopefully now everybody that's at the captain level and down has an understanding of what's going on and they can't say they can still do the old stuff but they can't say well I didn't know any better that you you liar because I taught you this stuff, so I know that you know better. And so that's and I completely stole it from Dustin Martinez. Project Trojan Horse is what he calls it. So I would love to get buy-in from the top, like the very top, and have like a you know full department thing. But once again, when you got a big ship and I'm I'm just not I am not willing to beat my head against the wall If it has to happen over 15 some odd years, which is what Jimmy Gregory said. He goes, we started small. It was you know, Pickett and oh shoot, I can't remember the other name. It's killing me that I can't. And if Jimmy, you're watching this, I apologize. There's another guy who started it. Oh, that's gonna kill me that started the cop count.

Corley: You can actually see the gears in your brain locking up as you can't let it go. I know. I do it all the time. I do it all the time. Chris Scott: I've showed the video a thousand times. It'll it'll come to me. But anyway They went out to a conference, they pulled it back and he goes, that's where we started, and now we have a five-day program. Right now, I started out with eight and now I'm up to 16. I've got 16 hours of time to work with them. So We're in those that infancy stage of trying to produce, trying to produce the best product that we can produce for the citizens that we serve. That is the overriding goal of this thing. Corley: I love it, man. So many qu dude, there's questions are stacking up, so I'm just gonna keep coming at you. Sure. Brian LaFleur coming at you. Chris, does what keeps you engaged change as you've progressed through your career? Chris Scott: So I have only been at this, I've only been at Project you know, Dustin calls one of his classes search reformation. I'm I've only been on Project Chris Reformation for the last three years. So Has it changed? I would say no. The thing that is the things that motivated me previously are still kind of motivating me in the sense of now there is a switch similar to this goes back to working out. There is a switch I'm not staying motivated to do all these things. I do not want to train at my station every day. I don't want to do that. I would rather be really good at video games. It is the discipline of we must do this. It is a requirement. It is my requirement that we will do these things every day. And that comes from a place of discipline. What keeps me motivated is it's still the podcast. I would say to a bigger degree, it used to be just a podcast because I didn't know Corley. I didn't I wasn't able to reach out to anybody because I didn't know anybody. So I just listen and go, man, that guy's cool. And then as things progress, and Preston's talked about this too, you start to reach out to guys and have conversations with cool people that I don't deserve to talk to at all.

Chris Scott: And that helps that helps keep that keep the I don't want to say keep the juices flowing, but keep that motivation there. I have been beat up in the department, in my department, quite a bit. I get discouraged and like Not understand why you know not understand why I get beat up and then I reach out, have a phone call with cool people, and they get me back on track and they're like, hey man, ignore it like Sam Sparacello, Chief Sparacello at a Hammond Great individual. I do consider him a mentor, but they can kind of bring you back. I might not have known Sam three years ago to be able to have that conversation. So Yeah, it started out with things like things like the scrap and and and and other f other fire podcasts for sure, but there have been some personal connections as of late. that have helped helped push me and not to say allow me to continue down the path, but say, hey man, you're fine. You're fine. Keep going. You're like, okay, I'm good. We keep going. Corley: Right on. Mark Alone, coming at you. I keep saying coming at you. That's my saying for the night, coming at you. I think a lot of people are scared to reinvent themselves because they don't want to lose their circle. What has been your experience with others in your department, good or bad, when you re-engaged? Say that one more time, Corley. Re-engaging, becoming passionate again. how did how did that go down with like people you worked with?

Chris Scott: Re-engaging if it's so it really depends on who it was. when when I re-engaged, there were definitely some there were definitely Some guys that just weren't believing in the system that I was running. They were, they just didn't the biggest one of the the overall biggest complaint that people have against me is that because I was complacent for those five years, roughly five years that I spent at 13, is that the conversion just so happened to have happened at the same time that I would got promoted to captain. So when it they look at it and they go, okay, well he had this conversion and it's because he got a gold badge now that he wants to be a hero. Or just like, oh, now he wants to be a hero. And that is unbelievably that is not even remotely close to the truth. The good news is that there is a tribe of guys around me there's a guy there's there's there's guys that understand where I came from. They understand why the conversion happens. And if we have these conversations, they also they they they I don't want to say rally around me, but they they get it. So it when you say like how did the other how did the guys around me kind of handle the the the conversion so to speak it just depends on who you're talking about it it's it some good some bad right on right on

Corley: sorry, get there. All right. Mark Alone, thank you for the question and great answer, brother. Matt Wallace. No. How do you make a horse drink? You can't, but you can drink and show the horse what he is supposed to be doing. Sorry. But yeah, that's a good point. Not a question, but good point. Ben Jones, what do you think is the best way to convince someone that a conference will change their world? That their Pandora box is waiting for them when they don't know there is more to the fire service. How do you convince them? The position you were in where you didn't even know conferences existed. What do you think the best way to do is a conference? Chris Scott: Yeah, so that's a yeah, that's a tough one. there are guys that have not been to conferences in my department that clown conferences, like they talk trash about them that I don't think have been to them. And so how do you convince them? How do you yeah, that's a that's a tough, tough question. Like how do you convince somebody of something that they haven't seen on the other side? I guess you continue to have the conversation. I think it's all personal experience. It's like you're saying if If I tell you that it didn't exist and then I went to it and that it changed everything from my mentality and how I think, then having those conversations might get them to understand like wait I know Chris I know that he was complacent before and he went and he must have changed not everybody's gonna believe in that message but at least you can at least you can try it but Also leading them to guys like Preston Lyons. When when Preston came onto your podcast, I did not know who he was. And I was listening to Preston speak and I'm going, oh my goodness. Like he's He's saying my story. Like had this were we at the same conference? So it let me know guys like Preston. It let me know like the I knew my own experience, but if you hear multiple guys say the same thing, if you hear multiple guys go Man, I went to a conference and it opened up my eyes completely and I got outside of that bubble, then it might, they might be more, excuse me, they might be more accepting to actually try to go to one.

Chris Scott: So just keep, I would say keep sharing the story. keep ch keep telling your story and and keep trying to point them in that direction of of podcasts and other guys that have had those similar experiences. Corley: I love it. I love the answer. And Matt Birkins also clued in or chimed in and said, CFT is a good starting point. Sell them on a beach vacation and the conference is just a bonus. So it's kinda like it's kind of like when you feed your dog medication. You gotta put it inside the cheese. The tricky part is I went in February. Chris Scott: There was not a lot of enjoyable. I went dive in the ocean just to see how cold it was and that was absolutely that was absolutely miserable. Corley: It was cold. Chris Scott: It was not exactly the beach vacation, but yeah. Corley: No, I love that. And and you and and and to a great point, and I I want to say it was Plato, but I could be getting my o ancient philosophers mixed up. But the cave, the cave And if you look up the cave with Plato, and it's where the people are are are tied to the stakes, and all they can see is the wall of the cave, and there's fire behind them, and all they can see is the shadows on the wall. And then one of the people breaks free from the the stake and gets away and leaves the cave and goes outside. It's like, oh, there's a whole world out here. It's trees and there's a sky. And he comes back and he tries to tell the people on the stakes and they just won't listen because all they can see is the wall and all he could see before. And you can you can I I I bastard I I butchered that pretty good. But you can go YouTube it and it's there's some there's a bunch of depictions. I think it's Play Doh. It could be a different one. all right. onward and forward. Okay, thank you, Ben Jones, for another excellent question, by the way. Derek, eight. When you were building your cadre, how did you decide on who you were going to have as members and what were your non-negotiables for those members? Good question.

Chris Scott: So the whole I like Rob. See, I think I saw Rob earlier in the chat. Rob says something that it resonates with me when he says All of this stuff was organic. You know, Rob's been at Made A Mindset. I think he had it since 2012 or something. So he's been a lot of years at this That the cadre is something that came just like the podcast was an organic thing. I was not pushing to teach outside. I wasn't really pushing to teach inside my organization either. And then I certainly wasn't pushing to teach outside for with a cadre. I was not pushing for a podcast. but the way that cadre ended up popping up is after doing the Rookie Academy a few times, we hold a small conference here in Central Louisiana, Central Academy of Fire Symposium. And I got called by a buddy Holden Leon who said, hey man, do you want to come teach search? I was like, absolutely not. Like you got like just pay somebody else. Like, do you do you know the other people that they have? And he's plugged in. He knows, he knows all the search people I'm like, call Sean Duffy, call somebody else that does search and it'll be fine. He goes, nah, nah, man. I think you'll be fine. So I thought I was just gonna do like a little basically like a cut up version of basically what I give the rookies. And he said, how much time do you need for your your hands-on training? The hot I was like, oh crap, you wanted hands-on? Well, we do hands-on with the rookies. I was like, well, I wasn't expecting that. But when you do hot and you expect multiple people to show up, you generally break them into groups. You're aware of that. So I said, Well let me get some guys. Let me bring some guys with me. So what was the criteria for picking them? I basically have three. I basically have three You have to be a person of good character. So you gotta be a good dude. Yeah, you're talking trash behind people's backs and talking trash at the the kitchen table about guys, then that's not the type of people that I want. you are, you know, are you are you faithful to your wife? That kind of stuff.

Chris Scott: Just be a good person. I need you to be plugged into the job. I need you to take the job seriously. So these are the I'm looking around the orbit and saying, who understands what I'm talking about when I talk about this passion stuff? Who else is bought into the who else is bought into the system of understanding what a search looks like and commitment to the job and that type of thing? And then the last one is physical fitness. The guys have got to be plugged into physical fitness. I don't want anybody around me that does not look professional. So if they're you know, way overweight or that type of thing. Like you could be a good care you could be a person of good character. You could do a lot of training. You could be plugged in, but if you're not taking care of the physical fitness side, it's it's just not gonna work. So I picked so I grabbed some guys, look from look for some guys around me, pulled them all together, and they said, yeah, we'll come help you out. Well I thought that was gonna be like a one-time thing. Show up. Teach at this small microconference and be done. And then Josh Bork says, hey man, it'd be cool if we had shirts when we go. I was like, shirts. Like, brother, we're teaching at a it's a there can be 30 dudes at the conference in total. Like I gotta make I have no logo. I have no name. It's going to be hundreds of dollars to build to make a shirt. Yeah, exclusive. It's going to be hundreds of bucks to make a shirt. So we can go teach at one microconference? This is crazy. And after I argued with him about not wanting to make shirts, he goes. Yeah, but I think we need some shirts. I was like, God dang it. So I was like, you know what? I was like, whatever. Let's do it. What's it gonna be called? So I called up So that to that to answers that question. Who am how did I select my guys? But I do want to mention, I do want to shout out Sean Ryan. When you pull together a cadre, which you did not expect to ever have. it literally never on my radar.

Chris Scott: I didn't know how to build it. And previous the previous year at CAFS, Sean Ryan runs Animal House and he's got like 30 killers with him. And I saw what he had with his cadre. And I'm like, damn, they're doing some cool stuff. So I reached out to him. Like, hey man, I got this thing going on. It's probably starting up a cadre. at you know, best case, best case, it explodes. And we're teaching it at FDIC. Worst case, we never teach anywhere else again. And we remain tight within our organization. But I said, how did you build it? What would what were the parameters, all this other stuff? And he was super cool with his time. And he goes, Well, this is how we this is he gave me the blueprint. I was like, Did you have a blueprint? He goes, No, I made all this like I just kind of did all this, but he gave me his blueprint and said Here, recreate it. So animal house, I was like, well, it's animal house. Like, okay, it's an animal, and then where things live. Dragon, Corley calls me Dragon, Dragon's Den. I'm like, yeah, let's send it. And so that's how that's how Dragon's Den ended up popping up. And that's the and that's the cadre. So those are those are the guys that are with me. And they're killers. Yeah, they're killers. I got, like I said, Josh, Zach, Cole, and and Alex Detline, who's who's at a different he's at a different department, but those guys are plugged in and I wouldn't have called them in. I wouldn't have called them in if they weren't plugged in.

Corley: So No and he said that the Malch I will go with you because Mount Ch and Eddie Jobs absolutely when he said Good dudes, they gotta be good dudes. I instantly thought of the no good dudes thing, yeah. Chris Scott: Yeah, no good dudes. Yeah, it's a I agree, I agree because it's not related, like you don't, yeah, not related. You don't want good dudes like well, he sucks at his job, but he's a good dude. Like, we don't want those But they're just good overall. They're yeah. Which way are you gonna which way are you gonna view? Corley: No, it went down in the chat and I was tracking it and I was like, yeah, I thought the same thing, but I know what we mean. And everybody does, but it was great. McGinn, what made you realize you were a leader in the fire department? And how did that change your day-to-day activities? Chris Scott: I never realized it. I never realized it. that is that is Yeah, I don't think I ever really realized it. What I decided was a what I decided was personally I was gonna change. What I decided was personally I had to change. I didn't have a choice. And then I operated in a way that tried to reflect that change. So like it started out in physical fitness. Once again, I think that was good for being able to continue to maintain the discipline of the training every day. even though it's something small, which we might be able to get into later. And I I like I said I don't know that I ever that I ever realized it. Maybe somebody maybe there's guys that were kind of starting to buy into the system there there were there are some instances where when guys would trash talk or I'd catch the, you know, you'd hear about it, which which does happen. you hear stories of guys defending you, like said they kind of stepped up and and took your back. So when those guys will do that publicly, And kind of fight off some of that stuff. You go, okay, well, I didn't ask them to do that. They're just defending, they must be defending me for a reason. They must believe the things that I'm saying. Maybe there's to some degree there's that, but it's just me trying to live out the mission of what I know that I personally need to do, which is once again.

Chris Scott: Maintain my physical fitness and train and try to leave it better. Like it's so cliche, but it's just true. I think it might be cliche because it's true. Corley: You're just trying to leave it better, leave it better than you found it. Chris Scott: I I know what I walked into I know the kind of training that I had. If I feel like I can improve it somewhere, then I'm gonna do my best to improve it in that spot. I can't solve every like I'm not a guru at anything, nothing. I just saw a hole that I think I could probably fill. And I and I went down that down that path of trying to fill that thing. But I'm not, you know, the ladder guy, the water guy, the rescue, the rope tech guy. It's just I think there's a spot. I think I understand enough of it to try to this can be my contribution because I sure as hell can't fill it all. And then work towards work towards that mission. If you're on board with me, great. Like come along. I'd love to have you on board, but If you're not, you're not. So it's kind of is what it is.

Corley: No, it's a great answer. And the other and and and I think one of the things it ties back to your Pandora's box flaw, you know, analogy kind of is when you are in a leadership position, whether you realize it or not, once you do realize it and you realize the responsibility that comes with it, you almost have to consciously turn your back on it once you realize it. You know what I'm saying? To reject it. More more often, like once you realize it, then you have to step up and accept the responsibility that comes with it of your example, what you're gonna live every day, or If you're aware of it, then you have to consciously say, okay, I'm not doing that. And that's a that's a that's something that's the, you know, everybody's, like you said, personal choice. Chris Scott: Yeah, it it definitely once you start to, I don't want to say build followers, that's because not that's not what I'm here to do, but once you realize that there's some, there's a lot, there's more people on your team than maybe that you thought as that are kind of binding to your message, it does You do have to hold you have to have to continue to hold that standard of there's other guys looking at me saying, you know, whatever it is, we we like that, we like what he's talking about. We want to continue to try to do that. So You do have to like you have to do it for yourself, you have to do it for the citizens, but now you've got other people relying on you to keep that standard up. And so it it it does make it a little more difficult.

Corley: let's go to saying yes to opportunity. Saying yes to opportunities because you've had a lot come along in the last since you basically got fired up three years. Chris Scott: Yes, yeah, from zeto. Corley: Zero to quick very other than not publishing that article, which you know I just I know that's a shot too. Chris Scott: Yeah, I know. You'll you can fuss up me in the after party. I'll take it. So yes to opportunities. that starts out pretty early on. That starts out there was a situation like I used to teach OFL safety for a while. that started out as soon as I graduated. the fire academy, I got a call to teach a bunch of oil fill guys, and I'm not an oil fill guy, firefighter safety. And so a lot of guys might be like, well, I'm 23 years old, 24 years old Like I'm not teaching a bunch of oil field dudes firefighting, but I said yes to that. And then I went into that and started teaching. And then they said, Oh, well, you're a certified diver. Yeah, I'm a diver. Okay, we'll start teaching water survival. And then that led to you know, moving to this thing, to that thing. And even though you might not feel prepared for it, there's a thing out that's going around social media. It's a, you know, if you're gonna do it scared. Like it if just but just make sure that you do it. You might be scared, you might be unprepared, but just just launch the thing. And so you know, you start, you just say yes to these things that come about and it usually leads to something else. go and be a training officer with three years on the job. I had three years on the job, and then I started, I became a training officer of about a year and eight months or so. I did it for family, but saying yes to being a trainer, training your own department of guys that have had 30 years on the line. As a three-year guy, it's extremely intimidating. It's one of the hardest things that you're going to do. But I said yes to it. And it gave me some experiences that not a lot of the other people get an opportunity to. Boop. So that led to later down the line, much later down the line, it leads to a training coordinator position, right, for a different department Where I get into a conference that changes my entire mindset.

Chris Scott: But I had to say yes to the training coordinator position when that's not what I wanted. That's not what I called for. So that leads to saying yes to going teach at a conference where I did not want even though it's a micro conference, I did not want to teach at that conference. I was like, once again, find somebody else to do it because I'm not your guy. Corley: Well that's A conversation about that one too. Yeah. Chris Scott: Sam Sparicello sits through my class. He's teaching at CAS, but he sits through my class. And then Robert Meerhess had to cancel because he was on a USAR deployment. And he goes, and so Sam at that conference while I'm teaching On a break, he goes, hey man, I think I need you to step up and come teach at Small Town Search. And I was like, in Robspot? Like I don't do, I don't do Rit stuff. That's He's like, no, no. He goes, and it is country accent. He goes, I don't need you to be Rob Ramirez. I need you to be Chris Scott. I need you to do truck stuff and surge as truck stuff. So Way panicked on that. I called you. Actually, I think I texted you. I was like, whoa, this is this I didn't I didn't intend to do any of this stuff. I intended on just kind of staying in the recruiter cake. Recruit Academy, serious case of imposter syndrome. But I said yes to that too. You know, you had given given me some advice that that that said, you know, I as soon as I got I got the advice from you, it changed my mindset. And I said, sure, I'll I'll be there. buddy separate the podcast completely separate. Skippy Grisham calls me up and he said, hey, I got some podcasting equipment I got some podcasting equipment and I know how to run sound. There was a with the Facebook page, the fitness Facebook page, there were some buddies that got really into it. They were going to start a podcast. It fell through. Skippy had that equipment and he said, hey man, it fell through on their side. Do you want to start it? I said, once again, I know nothing about podcasting, but sure, let's let's get it going. Bumps, bruises, but It led to it all like saying yes to things usually leads to opportunities to do other things.

Chris Scott: And it that would be that would be the message that I would try to give you. If you're presented with something, don't try your best not to turn things down. Don't be over, don't overwhelm. Oh, don't overwhelm yourself. I have a ton people on the podcast that say, you know, I've given up a lot with my family in order to do this. my family has suffered because Excuse me, I got too involved in the job. So I'm not saying say yes to everything and and have your family life collapse, but if you say no to everything You're gonna end up, I think you end up stagnating and not being able to live out to the potential that you want, which is another topic that I want to just touch on real quick, which is I've always felt like even during that complacency time, during the time where I was just on cruise control, there was something that said like I can give more. Like there was There was a place within me that was like there's more to do, but I just don't know what it is. It was like I had an an anxiousness, but I didn't know how to place it. I don't know what to do with it. And that's kind of what CFT kind of opened up to say, like Hey, here's here's some stuff. Like here's a whole world that you didn't even know about. And it made me go, it it opened my eyes to, oh, there's there's other stuff to do, whether it's you know, trying to do smoke diver or you know, try to teach the rookies or it was like, wait, I can I can be useful. I can be useful. I didn't know that I could. But it it gave me an outlet. And saying yes to those opportunities gave me and you know this thing led to that thing to you know serve a more serve a better purpose in my life.

Corley: Do you feel like the the the pool or the yearning was the same pool of that firehouse building back when you were 19 years old Chris Scott: Yeah, that that's so nebulous of a question, but I think yes. Because it's so it there's no tangible feeling for that, right? But I would say Yes, the pool to fill a void, I think was, I think they were similar. I don't I don't know if they were the the same, but they were it was a it was a similar need. Corley: Yes. No no no no I could throw it just in the conversation and talking about it, it seems like the same kind of tide or at least tied. If it but I I don't know. I wanted to ask I love it, man. There's so much more to talk about, but I want to get to the stuff that I always do at the end of the podcast. We have to come back and do it again. That's fine. We'll have to put some time on it because we never even got to social media and and who's the police and all of that whole conversation, which but I want to get to book or books, one of my favorite questions to ask. Book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. so I wish I were the reader that you were.

Chris Scott: I know that that is a huge thing for you. there are there are a few that I think are pretty important. two of them I do not have copies of with me, one of them, it starts with being able to it's it's David Goggins can't hurt me and there and you've had it recommended already but for me It was all about being able to lead yourself and overcoming not adversity, but overcoming like pain and discipline through through struggle. And your body is capable of more than you think it is, that kind of stuff. And just just being able to get up and lead yourself. And I think if you are if they you know if they're gonna If you want any type of leadership role, if you're going to be given any type of leadership role, once again, cliche, but if you can't lead yourself, then I don't think that you can lead anybody else. So That was a that I was already down that path before I read his book, but it just kind of reaffirmed it. And then, you know, his other book can't finish. Never finish is also good. But that's one. Shameless plug for Corley. The nine L's I thought was fantastic because it was very common sense, very common sense leadership. I have the Listen to the audiobook, have the physical copy, but it's at work in case any guys want to pull it off the shelf. That's a good one. And this one I picked up because at some point, and I want to point you out on an inconsistency that Corley I think has. When you say what book Or you know if you if you said it before, one book, if I could only recommend one book, like I'm I'm gonna put you on the spot right now. If you one book, what would it be? What which one would you say?

Corley: For for what? Chris Scott: You gotta five one you only have one book that a firefighter should read. Corley: Oh man, God. You probably depends on the point. Chris Scott: See my point? Corley: It's not one book. Chris Scott: Yeah, you got me. So when I heard it from you, it was the functional fire company And I stole this one from the Bruce Art Fire Department. I checked it out and I started reading it. And the problem was, is that when I started reading it, you won't this won't show up on camera at all. No, it's all washed out. There's about a billion There's about a billion highlights throughout this thing. And so I absolutely tore this book up with a highlighter. So I had to call the chief and say, Chief, I can't give this one back to you. I'd defend it way, way too much. And so I sent him another copy so that they could replace it. I thought that book was ridiculously good. I will only caution, I will only caution people that That book made a lot more sense to me after the conversion of being an into the job fireman. There were a lot of things that resonated within it that I don't know that I would have had enough context. to understand it previously, if that made any sense. No, absolutely. So it unbelievable book. He that either either he should ship it with a highlighter or make all the pages yellow. because it's an unbelievably good book. But like I said, I would just I would just caution that your context may be a little off if you're just pulling it. If you're if you're compla if like a complacent Chris to pull it off the shelf and just start reading it. I might not have It might not have been as impactful, but those those three right out the right out the gates. That's what I got.

Corley: Preston also added in another inconsistency. He said, Courtly said the fire officers handbook of tactics on my podcast when I asked him to name one book. So it just depends on which mood you catch me in. What mood. Chris Scott: Yeah. But it was a good one. Well, you caught me with that one, and I thought that's a fan. I think that's a fantastic. Corley: I'm telling you, chapter two, I believe chapter two is developing the chosen culture. I think it's the greatest chapter in a fire service book. Like that one I think I'll unequivocally say. Of course, people can find me on recordings saying some other chapter somewhere else. But but it And again, to qualify, just to qualify, because you called me out, which is Pride and Ownership by Rick Lasky. That's the book that I read first that kind of tipped my scale a little bit and started getting me down this road. Because I've always loved to read, but not fire service books. So so sometimes I've said that one because it had such a profound impact. And like you said, functional fire company, if you're not there yet It's almost like you have to be in the right mindset for it to be as impactful as it can be. And then of course report from Engine Company 82. I think every firefighter should read it So handsome.

Chris Scott: I have it, but I have not read it. I I keep buying books and sticking them on the shelf. Corley: Believe me, brother, it's a it's an addiction that that never ends. And I I tell people all the time I read too slow The the list of books I plan to read, I will not make it through because I'll run out of life before I run out of books. So good. Oh, great discussion. I love it. It's time for the Five Questions for Firefighters version 4. 0. You know the rules. Of course. There's no right answers. There's no wrong answers. There's just your opinions. And the points are arbitrary, passed out with the help of all my beautiful friends here in the YouTube audience. So Chris, Dragon, Scott, are you ready for the five questions for firefighters? Chris Scott: Let's get it. Corley: Number one, you are the proby once more, and you have to cook the meal at the firehouse. What is your go-to meal? Chris Scott: Now correct me if I'm wrong. You had LaFleur on and he is a Louisianian, but he was but he's out of Texas now, right? I know he's Texas. Am I the first Louisiana Are you the first Cajun? I'm not just from Louisiana at all. Have you ever had another Louisiana department?

Corley: Real quick sidebar, because I was going to say this earlier because you mentioned I mentioned the the Project Turgon Horse and you mentioned Dustin Martinez. You got it from him. And I don't remember if I got it from him or you. I don't, because there's been 294 scraps. and 250 guests roughly. And so when you ask me that, there might be, and I'd feel terrible by not remembering it. Chris Scott: All right. So okay, that's a not not the point. South Louisiana. You're probably thinking like, oh, he's going to say, like, come on, nip. Jambalaya or Jambalaya. Nobody's nobody's eaten that on any consistent basis, especially within a firehouse. The jambalaya is a big pr a big time event. You cook for a lot of people. Like oh Crawfichet touffe, that's kind of a special, like we're not just eating that every day. so everything, all the Cajun meals that you're probably talking about, that ain't it. If I if I've got to cook the meal, very simple, it's a rice and gravy. Anybody in Cajun Country, you grew up on rice and gravy, and that's so simple to do. It's it's chicken, beef, or pork. You're brown in your meat. You know, you're making up your little gravy, rice, throw some vegetables on it. you talked about it being repeatable. Yeah, I could cook that, you could cook that blindfolded. With all the different meats, it doesn't even make a difference what meat you use. It's all going to come out to basically, it's going to be good, but it's what we grow up on, and that is mostly what gets cooked. inside of fire stations. Give me a rice and gravy all day. I cook it for the kids all the time. They love it.

Corley: I I there's a first here. Okay, a first coming from the chat, but it's Max Dragons. That's not from me. That's from Gary R 5252001. He said Max Dragons. But I think you got max points for that. And Jacob Johnson is claiming H his Louisiana heritage from Iota. And he was on. He was on back in the day. Chris Scott: Yeah, but once again, they keep leaving. Nobody wants to stick around. So I'm not giving him any I'm I can't give him credit. Yeah. Corley: No, he wasn't in Louisiana when I had him on. So that's my defense. He was He was not. Oh, he was not. Yeah. You see? I'm the only one who stuck around. I know him as a Texas boy. Chris Scott: Yeah. Corley: Okay. Right. I love it. Max points. Max points. Max dragons, depending on who you're asking. Number two, it's job town. It is time. You're in route and responding. Think of the scene. What song? What song are you playing in route? Chris Scott: This like every other guest, this one just absolutely killed me. I there's no there was no way to decide on this. Wife was like, oh you need to do like like a Zotico you know a Zotico song for you. I'm like nobody's it just Look, here's what I came up with. This might not be the best answer, but Metallica, you know, give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire. Ugh That's what I'm probably going with. Yeah.

Corley: Okay. I love it, man. I love it. I love it in the gym when it plays. Usually on usually on Volbeat Radio, that'll pop up there. Yeah. Sam instantly said max points for fuel. Chris Scott: Yeah, he loved it. He loved it. Loved Metallica. That's what we're going with. Corley: I think I think that's a that's a hack for Sam actually. If you just say any Metallica song, you're gonna get max points from it. He's like green hell, check, you know. Well played, max points for Mark Alone. That's heart pumper right there from again. okay, two for two. Yeah, I love it. Mark Alone said hit the cue with the. Number three, whose boots, past, present, or future, would you like to spend 24 hours in? Chris Scott: Once again, another absolutely impossible question. I thought about this one for weeks and I could not come up with a single answer. Quick shout out to John Velez for stealing the best possible answer that you will ever get for this, which is the, you know, my 20 years into the future, my children. That that is that really is the answer. And but sadly he took it from us, and that's unfortunate. I I don't know. I think you know what I think? I think I would like to be I think I would like to be in the boots of A fireman either in like like Skid Row or maybe up in New York during the And I want to be for 24 hours the fireman back step on the busiest company on the busiest day. Any of them. Just the nastiest day that they've got. up in New York. Like who find me the dude in the eighth year? Yeah, it could be it could be war years, but like give it that Yeah, no, no, it could be the it could be the yeah, we could go old, we can go old school. We go definitely go old school. Let's go war years. You know, the 30 run day, just the nastiest day. What was that like What was that whole experience like? I'd kind of I'd kind of like to see that, but once again, John Velez got the best answer. He already stole it. So it's fair. It's fair. Yeah. Busiest day, busiest company. Busiest truck back.

Corley: Mark Alone gave you max dragons, max points, and max jobs. Max jobs. Chris Scott: Yeah. Be miserable for one shift. What was that like? Corley: One 24-hour hell day. Just a tough day. Chris Scott: Yep. Corley: Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, number four. And three for three max points, just to be clear. Number four, you are retired. You're sitting on the beach, sipping on those my ties. What do you want to hear through the grapevine that the people you used to work with, how do they describe you to the new recruits? Chris Scott: thought about this one a lot. I I'm gonna be honest. This is completely honest. I I'm not under there's a lot of guys that have said things like, oh I want to I want people to say like he was a he was a great fireman or You know, he he really cared about his people. All those are great answers, but I'm not under any disillusion that in 50 years, especially 100 years, that nobody is remembering my name. Guarantee it. Most of and the truth is, unless you were just Off the charts, nobody's probably remembered any or any of our names in 100 years. What I would like to hear when I'm 80, 85, 90, we're pushing death on, you know, somewhere in Pensacola is that You you meet a guy out on the beach and he talks about how he's a how he's a fireman from your department and they've got a great search culture And they've got a stupid little they got a stupid little cadre, something about a dragon or something, but they're pulling people out of buildings. They're they're staffed up on their trucks. They got four or five guys on a truck that gets auto-assigned search. And they're just they're just absolutely killing it. That's that's what I want to hear. I don't it's not once again it the name is the name is all in a hundred years the name is all meaningless. What did what does that department look like, you know, 70, 80 years from now? Is it way better in the thing that I was really trying to push? If it's way better, Then that that once again, name is completely worthless to what what we're talking about. Are they staffed up? Are they killing it? Are they doing the things that they're supposed to do?

Chris Scott: Are they doing the opposite of what I was doing at 13? Are they into the job? Are they taking care of the training? That's what I that's what I really want to know. As far as That once again, the name is just not important to me whatsoever. Corley: Because it won't matter. Chris Scott: Hundred years it won't matter. Corley: Love it. Max Dragons from Greg White. He gave you, I think one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven dragons, because he typed them in there. So apparently that's Max Dragons. So five times dragon jackpot. There you go. That might be the best answer to this question so far. It was a it was a it was definitely a damn good qu answer. Oh yeah, Steven Kaisers State Side. I'll see you in less than a week, my brother. Or probably in a week. welcome to the States. Number four for four max points. Number five, heavy fire, searchable space Would you rather? This is I'm asking the guy that teaches search, so I'm gonna I'm I'm I'm kind of waiting to see what the answer is. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on the VES?

Chris Scott: Yeah, that's that's gonna be an easy one. You know, yeah, I what's weird about you, Corley, is your attachment to this question. You said it's the question that'll never change. And it's such a simple, such simple, it's like a coin flip, you know. I obviously it's search for me that what I say this in the class, I tell the rookies this, you know Why are we here? What is the purpose of our existence? Why do they why do they put three, four, five guys on a truck? You know, if you're really well staffed, why do they put five guys on a truck? If it wasn't about human life. If it wasn't about human life and saving it, then I think they would have one-man trucks with like a airplane style big arm that would puncture a hole in the side of the building. It would spin around. put the whole house out. And if, oh, you get an exposure, well then we're gonna send a second truck that's got one person on it. We're gonna stab that we're gonna stab that building. But that's not what we that's not what we do. We put people inside of buildings and we staff up trucks And I believe that that is for the purpose of saving life. So yes, I I I would like to save life because I think that that is I think that's really our existence. It's why we are here. Putting out the virus secondary. I mean it's primary. You have to pull the line. I want to make sure we're very clear on that. 99. 9% of the times we're definitely going to pull the line when we're first in. But that is to support the job of to support the job of search so that we can rescue people.

Corley: I love it. I love it. And that's the reason I love the question because I I don't care about the answer. I care about why you chose the answer you chose. And that's the part that's the beautiful part of the question. The reason I love it. And the reason you just got max points five for five from Chris, Dragon Scott. Which it is not true that you always get Max points. That is not true. It's mostly true. Chris Scott: Yeah, you had a couple of guys that gave some rough answers. Corley: There's been some time. I remember this game It's happened. Chris Scott: And they were okay with it too. It's not an automatic. Corley: And there's been people who said, listen, I know I'm not going to get points for this question, but I'm answering this. I'm like, you're right, you're not. But you stop. You committed to not max points. You committed to it. Hey, you killed it, brother. Okay, that's officially 294 scraps in the books. Chris Scott, A, first of all, I'd love to say thank you for spending your evening with us. There's all sorts of things you could be doing. You spent your evening sharing knowledge and your passion with us, and I can't say thank you enough. I want to ask for your challenge to the audience. The challenge that they need to complete before next week's scrap, which it's a short week because Cody Testrel's coming on Saturday because of FDIC, we're coming early. So it's a short week. You got a challenge for them.

Chris Scott: yeah, let's do I would like you to train on something. Every single day that you're on shift until the next scrap. I'd like to see you do it every day. when we talked about at CFT, when they talked about Train, train, train. I heard guys, I wanted it could have been basil, I don't remember, but say like we throw ladders every shift. And I was like, whoa. You can do that. That's a and I wanna say same thing with Rob. I want to say Rob says his crew throws him every ship. I'm like, whoa, throw throw him every shift. That's And now on the other side of this thing, it turns out it's not super difficult to train on something every single day. So if you're not doing it. then I would say read an article. Lately our chains have been light within my company. It's been reading the book of the book of search, running through some articles. because I had to teach rookie academy. So I was doing a lot of PowerPoint. So I was like, hey guys, the training's gonna be a little bit shorter so that I can get this PowerPoint cleaned up and knocked out. But train on something. It doesn't matter what it is. Do something. That's the challenge.

Corley: Beautiful. Absolutely love it. And then the second part is I'm always looking for new people to have on the scrap. New blood. Because We all build our own silos and I have made a lot of friends and I just like talking to the same friends I have. Don't get me wrong. So I'm always trying. I have to be conscious about looking for new people to come on and who's passionate, who's young, who's new. So who should be on the scrap or who would you like to see come back on the scrap Chris Scott: I the my my the number one guy I got him on to I I got him in contact with Preston and Preston took him on is Sean Ryan of Animal House. Okay. Guys just super solid. Just a super solid brother. Just trying to spread the good word. He would be up there. Sam Sparicello out of Hammond. I think he's a good cat. I've interviewed him already on my podcast, but I think he's just a super good dude. Those those two names. That's another impossible question because if anybody that you you you leave out the the other 50 that are deserving, way more deserving than I am to be here. you end up leaving all those guys out and it's like that's a that's just an literally an impossible question. And what to ask you, I heard your your your to not to drag this on. Your podcast that you just did, you had talked about one of your mentors about how important he was and and more But I don't know if you had passed or not. I don't know if you're talking about a passance.

Corley: No, no, no, no, no, none of my none of my Scott Lance. Chris Scott: Scott Lance. Corley: Yeah, Scott Lance is probably my biggest mentor. Terry Scott also, anyway. Chris Scott: All right, Scott Lance, that's my third guy. Not into it. Okay. All right. Well, that's my third guy. That's who I'm putting. Corley: So I appreciate that. No, and and part of it is, hey, and this is the thing, and people But the scrap is not about me. So I always it's always and that's why, because it's not I'm yeah, anyway, in my head, that's not, yeah. no, but what now that you say that, that's a great idea. So it really is. although he knows all my He knows way more about me than most people, so I don't know. Great answer. Thank you for those. I'm gonna reach out. I'm gonna get I'm gonna get contact info from you. With that being said, if someone wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to do so? They want to find we We got to talk about Dragon's Den Podcast, Dragon's Den's cadre. I mean, we talked about them throughout the show, but Where can I find you?

Chris Scott: I'm perpetually online. you can unfortunately you know my phone's always in my hand. So if you want to if you want to grab me on all the socials, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram. You can literally just reach out, DM me, and I'm sure it'll go through. And yeah, love to talk to you about whatever you want to talk about. I like talking about fire service stuff. I've caught Corley into some pretty long conversations. It's like, God damn this. won't shut up. So feel free to feel free to give me a ring and yeah and let's connect about whatever you want to talk about. Corley: I love it. I love it, brother. And that's a perfect segue into the vigilantes because you are a very active vigilante. In fact, you got the shirt on. Got the shirt on. You're one of the most active on the Discord. No, it's great, man. I love it, man. If you want to find like-minded souls, become a vigilante. If you want to talk to Chris more, become a vigilante. It's it's phenomenal. And speaking of the vigilantes It's the only way to be part of the after party where we get to go roast Chris and there might actually be a roast tonight. I'm pretty excited I'm pretty excited. I'm not gonna lie.

Chris Scott: Big shoulders. I'll be all right. Corley: we're gonna talk about the vigilante meetup, which is This will be the third third year in a row? Yes. This will be the third year in a row at FDIC, the big meetup. We'll be getting together on Thursday night. Now listen. We planned the meetup. We booked the venue. We've got the we got modello, one keg of modello and one keg of I don't know what domestic Amanda chose. some I think you said modello modello, didn't you? But long story short, because Bill Gustin's memorial service is going to be on Thursday evening, they're gonna start it at 5. 30. I think 5:30 is 7:30. So we're going to keep the start time at 6. 30. So if people don't weren't planning to go to Bill's thing, they can still show up and be there. But we're going to extend it a little bit so that people who want to make it to Bill's thing aren't feeling like they're missing don't feel any pressure to get over there to the vigilante meetup. So all that being said, I wanted to announce that here. coming up next week on the scrap it is The person who has the most watched scrap of all time, according to the metrics, Cody Trestrel. Coming back on the scrap. He's going to be talking some firemanship. And of course it's Cody. So you know it's going to be passionate. You know he's going to bring the heat. followed by the return. And then we're doing it early because of FDIC. And then the week after. is going to be Benjamin Martin coming on. And man, I love having conversations with Benjamin Martin. So mark your calendars. You don't want to miss the next two. Enough jabbering from me. Let's get to the after party. Thank you once again, Chris. Dragon Scott for sharing your evening with us.

Chris Scott: Not a problem. Appreciate you having me. Corley: Audience, you know I say it each and every week, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Your questions absolutely make the scrap magical. Without you, it's just me and Chris talking, which I will do, don't get me wrong, but you guys really do Bring the best questions and really make it fun. And I appreciate you so much for being here for the live show. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tones stay silent unless it is burning. Everybody, stay safe out there.