Weekly Scrap #305 - Rob Ramirez, Creating Stress and Excellence

Corley: Here we go. Almost time for the scrap. But I'm coming to you live to talk to you about a conference that is less than a month away. Less than a month away, it is Firemanship, one of the most anticipated conferences of 2024. Firemanship is back. And I'm gonna be there, and I'm gonna be teaching my new class. My new workshop, The Culture Forge. The Culture Forge. Now, I've built a lot of classes. I have built a lot of classes. It's something I do. I enjoy doing it. In fact, probably my biggest passion is teaching. and presenting, but I've never built a workshop. I've never built a workshop. So what do you do if you never built a workshop in your Corley Moore? Man, you start reading. You start reading, how do you build a workshop? And I started researching that. I said, what's the best books for building a workshop? And I studied them. And then I need the research. How to do the research. Gotta do the research. Here it's coming at you. This is what it's based on. This is the bulk of what it's based on right here. these books and understand. I said I just did searches for what are the best books What are the best books on culture? And I have been studying them and melting them down. It's more than just my experiential experience. It's more than just the things I've done that have worked at my levels. It is so much research into it Everybody that shows up, every everybody that shows up is gonna be put into a team and each team they're gonna have something like that. It looks like they're gonna get one of these. One of these right here. They have to pick one of these, boom. Right? You're like, what is that? I don't understand. What is yeah, great. Glad you asked. There's also gonna be some some of this going on, spaghetti. And you're like, what there's gonna be so many Group activities in this workshop that all have a point, that all make a point. I'm so excited. I hope that I can get Finn. I've been working on this thing. If you follow me and if you're in the individual anything, you know that I've been talking about it for the last three or four months as I've worked on it, worked on it, worked on it.

Corley: So much research has gotten into it. Now I'm getting down to the nitty-gritty of actually finalizing the presentation. There's gonna be interaction with Sam is gonna be there talking to the class and keeping track of things. I there's never been a class like this, never been a workshop like this And that's just mine. If you're going to firemanship, man, there's so many, there's the hands-on training, which I'm pretty sure is all still all sold out. You can't get into it unless you're just super lucky and get get a get to backdoor someone canceling. And The other workshops, there's gonna be Dina Ali, Kurt Eilecks and Shannon Stone. I'm leaving Sammy Hittle. I know I'm leaving people out, but so many other workshops if you don't come to mind. And that doesn't include the three days of lectures that are TED Talk types. So Sam will post a link to get registered for firemanship if you're not going. If you are going, please, please, please sign up and come to the Culture Forge. The culture forge, man. I'm super excited about this workshop. I've never built one before. That's what I wanted to talk about before the scrap because it's coming up less than a month away. Excited to see you there. There'll be a vigilanting meetup. We're also going to do some workouts. I'll see you there, and I'll see you on the scrap.

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Speaker 2: Experience cost-effectiveness, enhanced realistic training, versatile operations, easy multi-floor access and innovative solutions to age-old training challenges. Take your fire department's training to the next level with affordable drill towers. Reach out to Affordable Drill Towers to elevate your training capabilities today. Prz Corley: Corley Moore Firehouse Vigilance it is weekly scrap number three zero five My guest tonight is Rob Ramirez. He's a 24-year fire service veteran and he has been a technical rescue team manager for the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, USAR Task Force in Miami. Where he has served on dozens of high-profile national and international disaster deployments. In addition, Rob has been studying psychology, physiology, and the effects of stress on human performance For over a decade. His education and personal experiences have provided him with a variety of unique instructional strategies and methods that apply to firefighters of any rank or tenure. He is an international. He is international. He is a speaker. He is an instructor and author. He has held ranks from the bottom to almost the very top. Currently, he is the Division Chief of Training, Safety and Wellness for the Jupiter Fire Rescue Department. I'm always excited when I see Rob Welcome back to the scrap, my brother to represent the 305 on episode 305, Rob Ramirez.

Rob Ramirez: What's going on, brother? Thanks for having me on. I can't even tell you how exciting it is to get back on here with you guys. Corley: Dude, I love it. I love it each and every time. I love the scrap every week, but whenever, yeah, whenever me, Hermano, yeah, I won't even try. The what'd you say? Is it eight? I I what's saying? Rob Ramirez: What I how couldn't I hear you? Corley: How many? Oh, I I don't know. I think six or five. Okay. I think I think it's I was because I heard I think you were holding up 305 and I was like, is it but I thought you were holding 305. No, no, I thought you were holding up eight, and I was like, really? I've lost no shot. No shot Okay, okay, that makes way more sense. 305. man, people are fired up. People are already logged in to catch you and watch you. man They're they're already already kicking it off. anything I missed, anything you want to add to the intro? Absolutely not. That's ridiculous I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. Rob Ramirez: Like Yeah, at least 48 hours. Corley: Yeah, Rob was in town 48 hours ago and we hung out for a little bit. It was an awesome time. And then he got to experience the thunder. Not the OKC thunder, but the Oklahoma City weather. So good times.

Rob Ramirez: It was shaking the hotel, dude. I've seen I've never had thunder like that in my life, and I've been through all types of hurricanes. I thought we were getting bombed at OKC. Corley: The springtime Midwest Thunderstorm. All right, let's get to the sponsors. Here's the deal, man. When the people heard Robert Meiros was gonna be on, the sponsors were like, I want that show, I want that show, I want that show, which is an amazing like first world problem for a podcast. Like, oh, people want to sponsor it. Awesome. But here we go. There's a few of them for you, my brother. Be proud. You spoke, snap tight, listened. Built with you in mind, the newly launched American-made Supreme 2 is designed to perform at low and high pressures. With Supreme 2, you can count on improved packing and kink resistance, making it a game changer for all municipal firefighting needs and price points Now offering guaranteed shipping and 28-day lead times. Visit snaptighthose. com to learn more or find a distributor near you. Affordable Drill Towers on a mission to bring you cost-effective and versatile training props like the Affordable Belout Prop, which allows you to practice window bailouts, ladder bailouts, and ladder high point rescues. They also make the affordable standpipe prop. You can roll it into the classroom for standpipe theory and then roll it into the parking lot where you can pump realistic flows and pressures. And their mainstay. More than 60 drill towers installed. The affordable drill tower comes in several configuration and standard with the standpipe system. Choose from one or two sets of stairs, integrate it into your existing connex boxes for multi-story access or freestanding on a slab. All models NFPA 1402 compliant and gain you ISO credit. The only thing that you cannot do on an affordable drill tower is live fire training. Call Steve 844-55 Tower or drop an email to info at affordable drilltowers. com Firefighter safety and accountability starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground Identifier Safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours. No switches, no batteries, which means you can rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions. All specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job.

Corley: Be seen on scene identifiersafety. com. And last but definitely not least, man, our man Dave Prescott, the fast wrench. is the one and only standpipe operations multi-tool in the fire service. It combines 10 different tools into one lightweight, easy-to-use hand tool The fast wrench is quickly becoming the best practice tool for adjusting any make or model field adjustable PRV, and it is an absolute must-have in your standpipe kit, designed by a firefighter for doing the tough business of standpipe firefighting. Lighten your kit, streamline your operations with the fast ranch. Check them out at fastranch. net. And boom With that being said, my man, Rob Ramirez, are you ready to talk about artificial stress, Maydays, modern adult learning, the challenges of teaching and traveling, being an author, being an amazing human being? Where do you want to start? I want to start wherever you guys want to start. Rob Ramirez: I am absolutely ready to go and I'll talk my way in and out of anything tonight. So let's do it. I'm in. All right. Corley: I'm going to kick it off with I love this thing. Keep it handy. Keep it handy. The book of search. I want to be the first person that gets everybody's signatures, and I feel like I have a shot at doing so, but we'll see. But I'm trying. I'm trying. But you wrote artificial stress in the training environment. That was the the the crux of your article, creating artificial stress. So let's just start there on what the Let's just start with like a soft toss and say what's the fire service getting right and what are we still getting wrong?

Rob Ramirez: awesome. So the reason I I even started talking or thinking or gearing my mind to go down that road of artificial stress many years ago is because we all grew up in the generation anybody that came on the fire service in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s we grew up in a generation where it wasn't unheard of for instructors to do crazy shit during training, right? You hear horror stories about air packs being ripped off or turned off or masks being ripped off or all types of you know these freaking stressors being injected into scenarios and training in the very early stages of development and and that developed into a lot of You know, training scars, training wounds, whatever you want to use. But the problem there is that if you dive deeper down that wormhole. you start looking at the fact that not only are you creating scars where people going to the A avoid training or B not really learn from the experience, but my other subject matter lane, which is May Days and Firefighter Rescue Corley: They go hand in hand. Rob Ramirez: Because a part of me started thinking, like my brain was going like, okay, what if the reason this person called a made a or resulted in a this incident resulted in a line of duty death is because the skills and drills that they were introduced to at some point incorrectly. and the injectors that were put into those scenarios never prepared them for the real world situation. As instructors, we have a huge responsibility when it comes to firefighter and self-rescue. Your calls have to be clear. The plan has to be clear. You have to get very granular with it because the consequences of firefighter rescue training and Mayday training are terminal. It's not like you're gonna stretch short. It's not like you're going to pull the wrong supply line. It's not like you're gonna pull the wrong attack line. You're not gonna throw a ladder and come short of a window The consequences of doing it wrong for yourself or for a brother firefighter are terminal. And that alone is something that's going to affect your biology. So if you do not inject these stressors right. And you do not develop the skill at the most basic level the right way, you're never gonna get competency from the student.

Rob Ramirez: And they're gonna if the result is gonna be that they're gonna re they're gonna end up surviving the drill and not learning or growing or developing through the drill So a lot of what we talk about in that chapter of the book, and a lot of the stuff that I'm talking now in the training code presentation is that it's looking for that sweet spot, understanding understanding artificial stressors and understanding that algorithm that injects stress, introduces a skill and and basically disrobes it at every level. And you get so granular with skill development that at the end you have something that's very easy to recall under stress. Corley: Nice. Nice. And and would you say that's the number one mistake coming out the gate for most I don't want I like I I'll just say like no novice or low skill instructors is Is trying to throw too many chunks at the student at once? Rob Ramirez: Absolutely. Instructors must understand that the student's strengths and weaknesses and limitations and their level of competency Has the most major role when you're doing skill development or introducing stressors into a scenario. At no point do you as an instructor dictate the speed, tempo, or variables that you put in the scenario. The scenario is dictated by the level of the student's ability. So what I see a lot of, and I'm not judging instructors, I'm judging the results and the programs. What I see a lot of guys is Basically, you get instructors that use these linear cookie-cutter approaches to firefighter rescue training or skill development. Right? They they inject arbitrary stress and they don't understand the biology of the students. They don't attend they don't anticipate the response of the person. They they think that because they're in bunker gear, they're capable of doing X, Y, or Z. When in reality You know, you can be a guy in bunker gear in a costume, or you can be a guy in a bunker gear who, you know, went through on the job when the Bronx was burning. Two different dudes in bunker gear. So I can't treat them the same. So that arbitrary injection of stress and making shit difficult just for the art of making it difficult is dangerous, counterproductive. And in my opinion, it's fucking amateur hour. You know, very JV.

Corley: I love it. JV, baby. There's levels to this game. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so let's talk about stress and what is stress in the training environment because a lot of people think elevated heart rate is stress. That they just equate the same, you know, hey, if you get their heart, you know, an assault bike and let's do the rep. You know what I'm saying? Now we have stress, which I'm not knocking it, but talk to me about what is artificial stress. And at what point do you start introducing it? Well, that's a lot to unpack, but but go ahead and take it whichever direction you want. And we got questions coming in, so get ready. Rob Ramirez: So the first thing we got to do is understand that when we're teaching these guys and girls and I'm and I'm and again I'm I'm gonna try not to get nerdy with it and start talking about like brain parts because I'm gonna put people to sleep if they listen to this during a workout but honestly, the first thing we have to do is understand biology and understand the way the brain works. Understand that these are adult students with past experiences. If you do not marry the new skill with their current skill or their new experience that you're trying to introduce with what they already know works because they tried it for X, Y, or Z years, number of years in their career, that you're not going to get buy-in. All right. If you try to inject too much information into something and you make it too complex, you're not going to get buy-in. The problem with today's fire service, and I'm speaking in very broad terms, the problem with today's fire service is that we're always crunched for time. You know, you you you get invited quarterly to do a 90-minute presentation. And then I get invited to do a one-hour presentation. The next guy gets invited, he does a four-hour block. God bless the guys and the men and women that come out to to to take the classes, right? But they every one of them has to understand that when they leave one of our classes, they're not leaving there with a skill. They're leaving there with a conversation to take back, practice a thousand times correctly, and turn that in conversation and those books marks into wisdom through application.

Rob Ramirez: The problem with injecting artificial stress or trying to get too fancy with your drills and injecting too many components or stressors is that that is not productive. Ask yourself as an instructor or as a company officer before you put a drill together, what is my goal? Is my goal for this person to don their SCBA in 90 seconds or less? Is my goal for them to package down firefighter? Is my goal for them to throw a 28-foot ladder to a window by themselves? If that's my goal, that's all I should be working on. I need to come up with a plan to achieve that goal. And that plan needs to be broken down into very granular steps. Disrobe every step of the drill. Little by little from body position to what their person's wearing. Are they in an air pack right away? Maybe they're not. Maybe they're just wearing bunker gear. If they kick the shit out of that part of the drill and they freaking rocket put them and put them on an air pack and then in after that put them on air after that put them put them black them out after that introduce stressors you can start introducing stressors by just a stop clock right A stop clock in itself, measurement and setting an expectation. You will complete this drill in 90 seconds. You will complete this drill in two minutes. That alone is an artificial stressor. And and I've I've heard Brian Crush say it before, right? Sometimes we introduce the metrics prematurely And day one, hour one, you bring out the stopwatch. And that stress prevents the brain from learning. Because the brain Ultimately, the human brain is a horrible multitasker under stress. And it can only do two things. A survive or B learn. If you stress it, it's surviving and not learning. If you stress it just enough, right in that sweet spot, somewhere around you know 70 to 60 to 80 percent of their skill level Where they're failing 20% of the time, 30% of the time, but being successful 80 to 70 percent of the time, at that point, you found the sweet spot, and it's gonna be individual to the student. And unfortunately Unfortunately, unless you're assigned to them, you're not going to have time to work through that process in the classes that we give.

Rob Ramirez: So this is something to take home and bring back to your people, not figure out at a fire conference Corley: Dude, I love it, man. I love it. individual. I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven timestamps in the first 10 minutes of us talking actually on topic individual. Let me finish my explaining that. So I got questions coming at you from the audience. I'm gonna see which ones are on the current topic. And and so if you've got a question here that's not on the current topic, I may come back to it. All right, but relentless rejects, Preston Lions coming at you right out the gate. When teaching, when do we incorporate stress inoculation in the training? Which is what you just started basically been talking about, but go ahead. Is there a Rob Ramirez: Preston, my brother. Well, love me some Preston. So like I just said earlier, your your brain's a horrible multitasker and the drill is going to be designed and built around the competency level of the student. The speed of the drill is going to be based on the student. Again, I'm going back to his purest form. I'm in my world right now, what I'm talking about right now, it's a long-term investment. Not a quick fix, right? You can't become MJ, Michael Jordan, overnight. Neither could Michael Jordan. All right? It takes years and years and years Of doing the same shit 1,000 times to create that automaticity or that automatic reflex that we're looking for. That when we have a stimulus, our action matches or defeats the stimulus. Right? It takes years of doing that. And then you have to make sure that what you're doing a thousand times, guys, actually makes sense and applies to the real world. Because you can learn something really, really, really well and create automaticity or that reflex by doing it a thousand times, but if you're doing some unrealistic shit that you can't Defeat your opponent with and/or the situation, you're basically training to do the wrong thing because automaticity, the act of becoming automatic or reflective and in a stimulus can't differentiate between right and wrong. So when is the right time, Preston? Honestly, it's dependent on the student because if you bring it on too early, you're gonna hinder their growth For example, let's say I put a student in a some type of SCBA confidence or a confined space prop or one of those mazes they put all of us in at some point in our career to to create you know confidence in your air pack and and maneuvering through small tight places Let's say I do that.

Rob Ramirez: Let's say I'm watching the student because they need to be on them, watching their body language, listen to listening to their breathing, communicating with them, watching them struggle, watching their body behavior, their body language change, listening to their breathing Noticing what's going on, what's doing, what they're doing right, if they're getting into repetitive processes that are not working or not, meaning they try the same to they try to put their helmet through the hole the same way over and over and over and over, like an inmate scratching at the wall hoping they can make a dent in it right if you start noticing that that cookie's been in the oven too long you're gonna burn it you got to pull it out of the oven All right. Stop them. Remind them what the skill is supposed to look like. Give them some quick, clear, and concise feedback and actionable advice something they're gonna implement right there don't just say you're doing it wrong don't just say you're doing a great job right let them know you're gonna step back a little bit you're gonna turn your right shoulder down get your elbow off the ground get your shoulder on the ground Bring your right ear to your right shoulder. Clear the front of your helmet. Give them actionable advice. Because now what you're doing is you're connecting the dot for them in their brain. When you connect those dots and their brain and their body make that connection, now the result is that they learn the process. If you go right off the rip and let them burn and fight and struggle and then pull them out and tell them they did it wrong when their heart rate's jacked 180 because of hormone and exertion Because they had that when they went right into fight or flight, that brain just survived or did not the skill and drill and everything you just did set them backwards you know, 10-15 days. So in order for that to work, you stop them, you pull them out, pull that cookie out of the oven, you tell them, hey, let's take a step back to where life didn't suck. Let's talk about what we're gonna do next and attack it with clear and concise information and directions.

Corley: Something actionable. Love it, man. Something actionable. and brother, you have the best analogies. I love the cookie in the oven is is phenomenal. You have one of my all-time favorite training analogies, and it's the knife fight in the elevator. Oh yeah. That is my absolute that my absolute favorite of all time. So I'm gonna I'm gonna segue to it, although we've talked about it probably every scrap, but I'm still gonna say break down the knife fight in the elevator, because I think it's applicable at this moment and I love it. So so go ahead. So, you know, the variables. Rob Ramirez: We have all these all these failure variables and your biology, your environment, the equipment you have, the people that you're with, the training the people you're with have, right? But ultimately, it comes down to those six inches between your two ears. If everything you learned cannot be replicated in a real Mayday or self-rescue situation, then it's useless to us, right? And and I and I for a couple of years ago I thought about it and I'm like, man Imagine being in a freaking box with a guy. I guess it's from Miami, right? So people trying to stab each other and shit. So I'm like, imagine being in some type of box. And you're unarmed and unexpecting the situation to happen, just like most maydays are unexpected. No one ever pulls up to a fire and says, I'm about to have a Mayday in the next eight to ten minutes. So it happens unexpectedly, and then you start reacting to the threat, the threat being the fire. In this case, in my analogy, it's a man and a knife. So here we go. You jump into the elevator. As you walk into the elevator right before the door shut, a well-dressed gentleman walks in right next to you. You hold the door, they walk in. You hit 10, they hit 10. Oh, I'm going to 10 as well. Perfect. As soon as we start moving up, you guys kind of kind of do the bro nod at each other, you know, standard. I looked down on my phone because Corley Moore is waiting for me on the 10th floor. We're about to meet for dinner with a bunch of the guys As we hit about floor two or three, this maniac in the elevator with me brings out this giant crocodile Dundee knife and starts coming at me like the Tasmanian devil without warning and for no reason.

Rob Ramirez: As he's swinging that knife and I'm completely unarmed. We're nowhere to go in this box. The elevator is still moving somewhere around the sixth or seventh floor. The door's open and my chief officer, my battalion chiefs, pops his head in the door and goes, hey Rob, what's 27 divided by 14? Go. And the door shut and it keeps going. And I'm still in a night fighting elevator. He's swinging at me like a maniac. We get somewhere between the eight and nine, doors open again. My BC comes back, says, hey Rob, I ask you a question. This time tell me what 22 times 37 is And shuts the door again. And at no point during this night fight, when I'm fighting for my life against this threat Am I going to be able to use the frontal part of my brain, that more modern prefrontal cortex part of my brain, which is responsible for two plus two equals four? Because I'm fully in my lizard brain, you know, caveman, fight or flight, don't let the saber-toothed tiger eat you. So as I'm in that process, it's very similar to the same part of the brain that we have access to when we're trapped in a basement. Or disoriented and out of air or fallen through a roof. You cannot expect the members inside to apply complex skills, to give you lunar communications, or to talk to you in a manner that you would talk to them from your climate-controlled vehicle. That is an impossible request. And our training goals must meet that environment. Because if you train somebody with a bunch of high-speed, freaking new new age Skills and drills because if you watch a YouTube video somewhere and they're gonna tie a double figure eight flying raker shore on a bite out of their pocket while wearing oven mitts below three feet with 600 at their neck, you're absolutely amateur hour and it's not gonna happen I promise you it's not gonna happen. Even the most prepared people in the country can't make it happen. And history has proven that to be the truth. So my knife fighting the elevator analogy is that we cannot train our people to do shit that's not gonna work in the environment.

Corley: Love it, man. Rob Ramirez: Thank you. Thank you. Corley: I wish I had a soundboard where I can hit applause. The scrap is going to get fancier, apparently. Dominic Poston Postin. Roll with me, Dominic. He wants to know what would be your top stressors you would introduce into writ training that would be productive. And of course, it is based on the student. And we're and and the student's competency level determines the tempo. But you've established that. So what are your top stressors? Rob Ramirez: So the first thing that I would do is just honestly follow the algorithm. So Corley just hit the nail on the head, right? We're gonna we're gonna be repetitive with this because we're gonna stay on target. We're gonna keep the main thing, the main thing. At no point am I going am I going to lose track of what the main thing is, right? The main thing is learning. The main thing is skill acquisition. The main thing is skill development. So whether it's writ or not, and the question is writ, so let's stay on it. The first thing I'm gonna do is Demonstrate the drill in the gear and the environment they're gonna be in. The environment you're doing the drill in has to be realistic. I understand that we can't turn our firehouse apparatus bay into a single-story ranch with fire coming out the windows I get it guys, I get it. So what we're gonna do is basically that we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna create a realistic drill in a realistic environment. We're gonna demonstrate the skill in the drill. We're gonna make sure that it passes All the Mayday mindset failure variables. What are the Mayday mindset failure variables? We will not teach a skill, we will not develop a skill, we will not introduce a skill in any class or talk about it if it doesn't meet what we know is true. First and foremost, the failure variables are our biology. Okay? Our environment, our equipment, and our people. If our biology, meaning the way that our body reacts To a stressor, to a known stressor, to a predictable failure. Will not be able to do the skill. I'm not going to teach you the skill. If you cannot do it wearing over mist below three feet with zero visibility, I'm not going to teach it to you because it's not available.

Rob Ramirez: Then the next thing is your environment. We cannot control our environment. And guess what? The fire and the environment always get a vote. So the room, the structure, the equipment, the people, the heat, the temperature The smoke condition. We cannot control that. So if my skill does not meet all of those, I'm not teaching it. Our equipment, your radio straps, your bunker gear, your failure, your communications, your All these things. If they do not pass the skill or drill, we're not teaching and we're not using it. Okay. And lastly, our people. Our people, because if you're trying to communicate with the outside world The traffic may step on you, your transmissions may get bumped, or they may not be trained right, or they may have also received unrealistic training, or they start to freelance and they're out of position, or you don't get the suppressive request that you asked for and the protection you need from the hose line or you show up with a bunch of dudes that come to help you with no plan. So if I can go ahead and see that our people, our environment, our biology and our equipment are going to pass what we know to be those stressors of environment, you know, below three feet, bunker gear fully encapsulated, radios, they may fail. Biology jacked up heart rate because of hormone, not because of exertion. If all these things pass, then we can keep moving with our drill and our skills. So make sure it's realistic. And then the first thing you're going to do, man, is set an expectation, set a metric, bring out the stopwatch. After they mastered that, you're going to go ahead and make it a little bit more difficult by removing the visibility. Once you remove visibility and you add the stopwatch, at that point you can start adding exertion. Once you add exertion in a physical form, like they can Get their heart rate up physically. There's no way that in training we can be creating a hormonal response. We really can't. You're not gonna scare the shit out of this person or chase them around with a knife, right? So You know, create the metric that sets the expectation. Now they're fighting the clock. Remove the visibility. Now they're trying to fight the lack of visibility. And every single one of us makes an average of 35,000 decisions per day.

Rob Ramirez: All right. Google that shit is true. Every single one of us, from the time that we wake up to we go to bed, we make 35,000 decisions per day, give or take. Out of those 35,000 decisions, almost 100% of them start with your eyes. That looks delicious. That looks gross. She's pretty. She's not. He's cool. Fight him. Right? All those things happen through your eyes. So you take away the eyes. You don't become a better decision maker. You make a more you become a worse decision maker. Insert exercise, get your heart rate up and get them in there so you can introduce some fatigue and heavy breathing. And then if you want to get real nerdy with it, you start adding passive smells. What's a passive smell? a smudge pod with some wood and some hay in it outside as they're masking up you don't have to even bring in the building you can use hollywood smoke in the inside a smoke generator right Outside when they're gearing up or where they're staging or they're waiting to go next or on deck, have a couple of smudge pots roaring with a bunch of wood and hay and just let it get smoky and stinky out there. Let their nose bring that in, let their eyes see that Those passive smells without getting too nerdy, they also create a realistic environment and it lets them know that their brains understand that now they can marry that smell to the skill and the drill. It opens up memorization pathways that we share when we're learning with other parts of the brain. And then after that, you start adding noise. Whatever noise you want. I don't care if you want to play some shitty music or you want to set off a pass device. I don't care. Noise pollution is noise pollution. That's what negotiators use to get hostages out of buildings. And once you do all that, guys, you create a system that they're successful with noise, successful with smells, successful with exertion and exercise. Successful with zero visibility, successful at meeting the metrics, and now you have a fully functioning firefighter that you can start creating ooter loop interrupters. What are those Have them go in there and when they give you their plan A, even if it's on point, take it away, don't make it available.

Rob Ramirez: They have to default to their plan B. They start getting more advanced, take away their plan B. Make them get to C their contingency plan. And make them work down their algorithm to show to show adaptability and the ability to jump from one plan to another under the worst conditions possible. And the most important part of every drill. Is after you're done, critique, critique, critique. It needs to be timely. It needs to be happen right there, right outside. And again, I'm gonna use that word again. You need to give them Concise information that's actionable for the next time they do it. Don't just tell them that they messed up, that you were almost there. Don't use any of these passive, you know, broad stroke approaches. Give them laser-focused, actionable critiques. So they can go in there, repeat it, correct it, and then repeat it again. Corley: Dude, I love it, man. I give it there. If that's all you get out of the scrap, they just got a blueprint for setting up your training for success. And this is like this is what you're talking about when you say, come see my lecture. And I'm not talking about advertising for your lecture, but when you come to a lecture, you take that, write down those notes, and then you go back and implement it so you can get your thousand reps I wish I had that. I had to learn through failure. Yeah, Dominic said, what a great answer, LFG, with I think four exclamation points. So no, great, great question, Dominic. Thank you for it. And of course, as expected, Rob crushed the answer. Joke of Vita. Okay, let me see if there's any more stuff. I don't want to go to other stuff just yet. I want to see Tyler E has one on stress and and we got human psychology here. So I'm gonna hit those before I come back to the other ones about Jupiter and things. All right, so Tyler E says, since I'm on the treadmill, what kind of fitness are we hitting to maximize our abilities to dial up and stress ourselves and train some of the upper end of our fitness to prepare for those incidents? I'm not sure I understand the question. Did it make sense to you? Maybe ish.

Rob Ramirez: It's individual to the person. Right there. I'm not going to tell you that you need to do 50 burpees, hit a tire 47 times, and and then and do lunges for 150 yards. All that stuff works, right? All that stuff works. All that stuff is great. It makes training uncomfortable, right? And it builds resiliency and decreases fatigue. But resiliency is not skill development Right? It means that you're able to do a skill over and over and over because biologically your body is able to produce that skill over and over and over again. Doesn't mean you're developing a skill, guys So when you're talking about what do I need to do to get better at a skill, you got to separate the two. They're not one and the same. So it's a it's Two different things when you get very uncomfortable, you build resiliency. That's the brain saying it's okay to suck, it's okay to be uncomfortable, it's okay to get my heart rate up for my hands to be tired, for my legs to be tired, to be breathing hard. If you're looking for how much you need to do before you introduce a skill, get them to mouthbreat. Period. And that's going to be individual to the person. Work them out until they start breathing through their mouth. The second you see their mouth open like a Neanderthal, all right, at that point you drop them in the actual scenario or in the drill Because biologically, when you stop using your nose and you start going to your mouth, you've exceeded your capacity. And you're at the point where we can now dump you in because you're biologically uncomfortable Period. Get them to mouth breathe. Get yourself to mouth breathe and then do the drill. You don't have to hit a target time or heart rate or any of that. We're not trying to lose weight. We're trying to get skill developed Keep the main thing the main thing. Keep the main thing the main thing, bro. Separate the two. I love it.

Corley: Dude, great, great answer. And you're not downplaying physical fitness at all. Rob Ramirez: No, I love it. Corley: Yeah you need both. Rob Ramirez: You need you need both. You need the you know, think about the scale of justice. You need both. Too much or too little of either is gonna make you a bad operator. Right on Corley: Steve Bouch, what began your journey into human psychology and where should one start to learn about it themselves? Asking for myself. Rob Ramirez: Honestly, two people. when things go bad, polykappel. All right. He was a Florida guy. He was in Clearwater. And he was talking about this stuff when I was just beginning to scratch the surface on it. And I had never heard anybody talk about it that way and make it sound cool. And then after that, a mentor and a friend, Rick George. You know, Rick George. Started talking about it as well and absolutely got me going in that direction. That's how I got into it. And then you know you can't control what you can't control, right? You can't control who you love, you can't control what you like to eat. You know, this kind of shit was delicious to me. I really, really enjoyed learning how to learn. And maximizing human performance has always been a thing for me, not athletically, but mentally. I wanted to make seek excellence, find mastery, understand that I'm never going to get there, but I'm going to do everything possible, right, to Find the way to do it right. I can he can teach somebody how to do a skill, right? You can teach somebody how to deadlift. You know, legs this way, the bars here, your hand positions here. you bend your knees get straighten your back you can go through all those steps you know knees over toes all these things you can go over right but when you talk about learning People don't know how to learn. And if you don't know how to learn, then how are you going to learn to teach? And how are you going to know how to teach in order for people to learn? If we're keeping the main thing, the main thing, and we're trying to create skill development and make sure that our words are making impact in the performance and in the careers of other people, it it behoove us to get into the psychology of human behavior and and performance psychology as well Boom.

Corley: I love it. Paul Capo, scrap 237, if you want more. Rick George Scrap 152, although he was one of the very, very, very originals. He was scrap number 17. That makes him like the fifth guest ever, that was ever on the scrap. But it was but I want to say it's a very short scrap when they were that old. But both of them phenomenal. So just to bring those up since since Rob mentioned them as mentors. Two OGs, man. All credit goes to them. Love it. And that's what I love about it is the fact that you give them that in that manner. Where did I put it? Where did I put Ramiga's copilot notes? How come I can't find you? There it is. All right. I think I got everybody on stress. Now I'm gonna move on. All right, here we go. I got another one on teaching real quick from Dylan Wisenhunt. He wants to know what's the biggest challenge when moving from teaching new guys to teaching for senior guys and your peers? So like, yeah, from recruits that are, you know, you got a lot more control versus teaching your peers slash senior firefighters. Yeah.

Rob Ramirez: So the biggest mistake that we make as instructors or as company officers or as anybody that's doing any kind of training to people that are on the job already already that are either senior than you or have the same level as you. And trust me, I've never given a presentation in my entire life. where I'm the smartest and most firefighting centric person in the room. I guarantee you that every audience I've spoken to, there's dudes in that room that have been to more fires and done way cooler shit than I have. All right. So knowing that to be true, I keep that in the forefront. when I'm talking. So quick answer. You have to marry what you're teaching to what they already know works. Period. And embrace that. Embrace that, embrace that, embrace, embrace that, right? The goal is to get buy-in. They gotta get buy-in from you gotta get buy-in from these senior members. So in order for me to teach a senior member how to do a new skill, the first thing I got to do is not shit on their skill. All right. Look at the way that you do this. I love the way that you do this. Tell me how you would do it. Let's look at that now. Let's try this. Right? And this is why we're trying it. Back it up with supportive data. Cite it, source it. Let them know how you're using X, Y, or Z to make it work faster, more efficient, less exertion, you know, and then marry it to what they already know works. So if they're it's like trying to teach somebody, I'll use this analogy, a brand new student versus a senior guy. Picture somebody who's never seen a horse or a zebra their entire life. Never never once seen a horse a picture of a horse seen a horse or been around a horse. Never seen it. And that same person never seen a zebra. How hard would it be to describe it to them? You got this giant four-legged mammal with hair that you can ride on, and then you're a zebra is the same thing, but you with black and white stripes and a mohawk, right? Versus someone who's never seen a zebra but has seen a horse. That's a senior guy. And you're like, dude, picture that horse right there that you've been around on a hundred times with black and white stripes and a mohawk.

Rob Ramirez: That's a zebra. So that's what you got to do with skills. Corley: That's it. Beautiful, man. So we have cookies, horse zebras, knife fights and elevators. I love it. I absolutely love it. My brain is ridiculous Dave, Prescott said Chief Ramirez literally has the answer for anything you throw at him. Anything. Impressively varsity. Dude, it is impressive to throw questions at you and watch you crush them. So and I'm assuming that's Dave because it says fast wrench on there. so absolutely, man. And that is true. Varsity AF, buddy. Now we work in the same county, Dave and I. It's awesome. Did you take Joe Gavito wants to know, did you take any Rick classes prior to you becoming an instructor? What did you get out of those classes that helped shape your class? Rob Ramirez: That it was incredibly difficult and unrealistic and challenging, and I felt like writ was a lost cause. I wish I could tell you something different. another part And another reason why I got well involved in the whole Mayday Mindset writ stuff is because every other class I took Made sense to me and with practice the skills became became easier, right? Because no matter how resilient or how hard or how complex a skill is, you can defeat a repetition. If you do it enough, you'll get good at it. I don't give a shit if you're trying to fly a plane or throw a ladder. You're gonna get better at it if you research and practice and fail and adjust and research and practice and fail and adjust. If you're relentless with your reps, you're gonna beat a skill no matter how hard it is. And no matter how much I did writ training, it never got easier and it never made sense to me And they would inject all these variables into it in the classes. Like this can work if that, this would work only if that This could work if you do this, but if you if this is there, then you can't use that. So I said, you know what? That's a lot of fucking variables. How about we start like getting rid of variables and start finding constants that we know are gonna be there And start applying those constants and exploiting the shit out of them. Let's get those constants and let's exploit them, exploit them, exploit them.

Rob Ramirez: Let's identify the predictable failures, those common usual suspects. And let's avoid them. So avoid the predictable failures, identify the constants and exploit the shit out of them. And then apply skills that work inside that made-in mindset variable formula where if it works in the environment, if it works with your biology, it works with your equipment and it works for your people, then you're most likely going to be successful. You're stacking the odds in your favor, in your favor. That's all you're doing. Corley: We love it. I'm just gonna say love it after every answer. And 100%. You gotta say 100%. I'll give you a few hundred percents. 100%, you'll get those. Let's go. Scott Hoke says, how much do you learn while you teach? And with that, well go ahead. I'll I'll I'll I'll put the next part on the end. He has a add-on to it, but go ahead. How much do you learn while you teach Wait, what's the old sayings? Rob Ramirez: see one, do it one, teach one, whatever I forgot how it goes. I've yeah, I've heard it. I don't I don't know if I can rattle it off. Yeah, me neither. But yeah, you learn. It's just because you're repeating the information, but doesn't mean you're getting better at it unless you're freaking doing it. All right, I'm not getting better at talking about Maydays unless I'm out there in bunker gear and doing the skills and drills of the students. I have to have to have to do it. I can't teach you to swim without getting in the water with you I can't. I can talk to you about swimming all fucking day. Michael Phelps can talk to me about swimming all day. But if he doesn't get wet and I don't get wet, neither one of us is going to get better and I'm not going to learn the skill. So yeah, you get better by teaching because theoretically the information is more readily available, right? It's in it's in your frontal front burner, but man You gotta balance that with some type of performance, right? So in the world that I'm in and the stuff that I'm teaching, I'm talking, I'm talking about Firefighter rescues and ladders and if you can't truck, you can't writ. So we're cutting and forcing and searching and stretching and dragging and throwing.

Rob Ramirez: I gotta do all of that. Corley: Yeah. Rob Ramirez: I just talk about it And I pick up a ladder in front of you. I'm not going to fool you. You can fool the freaking spectators. You can't fool the players. So I got to make sure that I hold myself accountable as well. So if you're talking and not doing, guys, you know You gotta get out there and teach it, but also do it. Knowing the information is great, but you have to marry the two. Books, smarts, and application create wisdom. Corley: Hmm. Hold on, I gotta write it. Books, smarts, and application create wisdom. 846, my time. I love it. 100%. Cody Oates said, This is my first time watching live, and wow, what a good one. Shout out from Texas. Thank you for tuning in live. Throw a question at Rob. You did catch a good one because Rob is one of the best to catch live. Scott Hoke, the second part of Scott Hoke's question is what would you say to all the instructors that know it all and can't or won't learn when they teach? Rob Ramirez: That's tough, man. If if if you're not doing it, then you shouldn't be doing it, right? Let's keep the main thing the main thing. I understand. I don't expect a 60-year-old man who's been retired 25 years, right? To get out there and and and get after with me in the hot Florida sun and throw ladders and and and jump out windows and do head-first bailouts. I don't need it from that guy. He's got a pass. But if you're you're still on a truck, And you're talking about truck stuff and it's beneath you to perform it, then you're probably in the wrong position. At no point should you ever be above any of that if you're gonna be you know preaching it and talking about it and setting expectations for other members to be at that level as well. I'll tell you this. If you don't, then you're gonna get called out on it. And even if they don't call you out, your message is gonna get lost because they're gonna you're gonna create a barrier. And they're gonna that barrier is gonna influence the fact that the the student's not gonna learn or develop as much from you. I hate to say that, man, but again, we make 35,000 decisions per day and they all start with our eyes And if you if you show up to teach a class that requires some type of physical capability, looking like freaking 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound bag, you know, you're not going to get buy-in from the class

Speaker 4: Right. Rob Ramirez: You're absolutely not. You know, and that's unfortunate because that might be the smartest person in the room, but unfortunately it's is it's human nature. And if you're gonna be an instructor I am going to compare the master instructor's skill set to what I'm about to say. Bill Guston. All right. You need to be relentlessly curious and humble. Humility and curiosity. The curiosity keeps you a student, which makes you a great instructor, and humility keeps you grounded so you know you're never above anybody else. Corley: Dude, I love that. I'll give you 100%, man. And I'll run that into the ground. Dominic said, what would be your best tip or tips to becoming a better instructor or instructing? And I think you just crushed that answer without even knowing that it it had it had been asked. So dude, that's beautiful, man. curious and humble. Joe Govita coming at you. And Joe says, what if you have a horse in the elevator with a knife and the door opens? And it is a zebra that wants to know what lunar stands for. Rob Ramirez: Tell them that lunar sucks. All right, that's what you gotta tell that damn zebra. And how did the horse get the elevator and how big is this elevator or are we talking about a miniature horse? I'm so confused with Joe's question and and I I feel like he's setting me up for Lunar. I'm not gonna go down that road. The only thing that Lunar got right is putting location first. When you call a Mayday, the first thing you should be giving is your location Not who you are, all right. I I get it you want to tell them that hey is Rob I but you know what that shit always works in training When you give a lunar or a the W's, you know, who, what, where, what, whatever it is, I don't even know it because I think it's bullshit. There is no guarantee. There is no guarantee that your transmissions are going to get out. We have case studies. We have data that says the majority of your Mayday transmissions when you click your mic, if that equipment doesn't fail you, if your biology doesn't fail you and your people don't step on your traffic You'll be able to get one or two parts of it out.

Rob Ramirez: The most important part you can get out is made made made a Charlie side first floor Click, click, click, click, boop, boom, boop. Come on. Command with the mate. All I heard was second first floor Charlie side. Let's get units in that area to start moving that way as I try to reach back out to the freaking downfirefighter with the Mayday. Because that's what's important. If I just give my information and my favorite color and my and I enjoy like long walks on the beach and I'm a Pisces, I've heard if I give all that shit before I give my location, there's no guarantee that my transmission is gonna get out. We have so much data to support that. What's his name? Fredericks County, Captain Laird. The line of duty death about three or four years ago, right? The afteraction on that was incredible Right? If you look at the after action on that, there was 127 drop transmissions. 127 drop transmissions during a 14-minute Mayday He was cool as a cucumber. He was the consummate professional, dialed in, giving directions, advising and conditions, telling them what he needed, coaching his members through his own rescue. He had 27 mistransmissions that he tried to key up on. He either got stepped on or the frequency of the channel didn't other didn't come out. Your biology is in a failure, your people are going to fail you, your equipment's going to fail you. So make sure you put out what's important first. And what's important is where the fuck you are.

Corley: But first things first. Let's keep it. Rob Ramirez: First thing first, man. I can't help you, but I don't know where you are. Corley: It's a big building and it's on fire. Captain Laird, Alan Glagowski wanna know who was like was you Fredericks County, Maryland? Fredericks County, Maryland Yeah, but the yeah, I don't want to but yes, I should find it. You should be able to find it there. Rob Ramirez: Frederick's Frederic if you go if you google like Frederick's County Frederick's County line of duty death, Captain Laird L-A-I-R-D after action or report, it'll come up. They did a great, great job. Kudos to those guys for putting all that information out there. Corley: Yeah, learning from being able to learn from great question and you got him you got him to touch a little bit on lunar I had never heard the who, what, where. I love that. The fact that the the the attack yeah, I hadn't heard that. So that's good. Speaker 4: Yeah, location is the one thing you know about right. Rob Ramirez: Putting that first So would you say where who what? Yeah, just where. Speaker 4: May they made it made a division two. Rob Ramirez: May they made them made a Charlie side. May they made it made a first floor front room. And then you give the rest of your shit. Okay. And guys don't get it because they're like, oh, it always works in training. Of course it works in training.

Corley: Right on. And that's what you said, part of the Mayday variables. Rob Ramirez: Yeah Corley: By all environment. The environment. We talk about the skill side of things a lot. This comes from Michael Ramirez, your namesake brother, your hermano by namesake. But what are some things on the mental side that often get overlooked? Rob Ramirez: So you said who you said, Micromares? Yeah. Yeah, my my Mexican brother from another mother. Right on. Stay away from California, Macho. Corley: so oh what was this question? I'm sorry. We talk about the skill side of things a lot, but what are some things on the mental side that often get overlooked? On the mental side, from the Rob Ramirez: From the student or from the instructor? I'll say yes and let you go. I'm guessing student. Okay. I'm guessing student. If it and and you know what and and probably if the guys that are on here, even you Corley and myself, we we've been around pro around the same well you've been on longer than me, right? You just retired, but It changes in different levels of your career, different stages of your career. Your mental setup changes and what you require and the space you need to be in to learn changes, right? And the challenge becomes as we get we get older in this game because the shit that we've been doing has been working for so long successfully, whether it was right or wrong or indifferent, or we started normalizing deviance, and we just we've just been lucky for 25 years. You know, we're still here and we're still talking about it. So we're doing something right. And becoming maintaining that growth mindset the more senior you get on this job, it's it's a deliberate action. You have to be purposeful. to maintain that growth mindset. You have to. Earlier in your career, you know, your ego's down. People are investing in you. No one expects shit from you. you're the new guy everybody's talking to you everybody's teaching you you're a sponge you just you're just absorbing absorbing absorbing and you just gotta you know listen and listen and listen and apply and listen and try and fail and learn and ad adjust and and that's cool the but the longer you do this game right and Mike has been on around for a long time as well you know he's not a junior junior guy you know you have to understand that you you have to remain diligent And you have to maintain some type of intentional growth mindset.

Rob Ramirez: And sometimes you have to understand that what you're thinking is not true. And your ego gets in the way of learning. Humility and curiosity, and maintaining a growth mindset are the space that you should be in every single time. Picture yourself like a freaking two-year-old Toddler, right? Where you can teach them two or three different freaking languages that they can learn them without an accent and they can mess up over and over and over again because they have no sense of self-worth, they have no sense of ego, and they're okay with learning. The older we get, the more stubborn we get, and we and it becomes harder and harder and harder to measure that ego and continue to maintain that growth mindset. Dude, I love that deliberate deliberateness. Corley: Yeah, you have to be farther intentional, deliberately intentional, max points 100% No, one, I I love it. I love it. James Platt says coming from a small suburban, rural, rural, combo agency. That is forced to focus on engine ops due to complacency and a lack of truck work experience, right? So they just don't get it. How do we grow a Mayday mindset culture Rob Ramirez: Well, but this question's come up a bunch of times, right? I understand that different parts of the country have different types of staffing and deployment models. And the people that you put on a fire, not the number of people that we put on a fire, is obviously not the number of people that the major metropolitans put on a fire Well they can just throw bodies at a at a fire in a building and you know the numbers and the data show that the more people I have under the underneath the same burning roof, the safer we all are because the help is coming from the inside, not from the outside, right So understanding that to be true, if you don't have the luxury of having a four-person writ team outside that's coming off the truck with saws and hooks. Then you don't have it, right? You just don't. So the best thing you can do is be competent and understand that writ is not special. Anybody that responds to a fire in any town USA needs to be capable of rescuing one of their own or themselves. Writ is not special. So make sure that your members, even if you have four or five of them out of fire, are all able to perform an air emergency, mitigate a mass failure, mitigate a drag, mitigate a down firefighter.

Rob Ramirez: Those are skills that you can do one-on-one or two-on-one. Doesn't matter. Big purses are going to require more than one rescuer, and vice versa. So make sure everybody has a beginning skill level where they understand that and they're able to rescue themselves or one of their own And after that, if all you're doing right now is getting four or five dudes at a fire to put the fire out, but put you know wet stuff on the red stuff, water makes everything better, unless you're Johnny. So Make sure you put water on the fire, knock it out of knock, knock the shit out of that fire, punch it in the mouth, right? And get as many people as possible underneath the same roof. I'm not gonna tell you you need a red team outside if you don't have people for a red team I'm gonna tell you you need people inside that building under the same burning roof in order to mitigate the emergency and get rid of the threat and maximize your possibilities of not ending up in a Mayday, or if you do maximize your possibilities of surviving that Mayday because the people inside the house are the ones that are gonna get you out in a jam. Not four dudes standing outside with a hook like a bunch of shepherds

Corley: I love it, brother. I love I love when you get going. Thank you for the question. Jim. And yeah, absolutely, 100%. I'm gonna quit that now. I love it. Credibility and relatability when teaching students. Tellboard misfits, my man, Mr. Velez wants to know. Primo, talk about the importance of credibility and relatability when you're teaching students. Rob Ramirez: And my guy, John's the best, dude. We saw him this weekend too. beautiful, beautiful family. And I I told him that I told his wife when she was trying to get him to leave early that she looked beautiful and that she needed to go to bed and to leave my boy alone. Did it work? I think I got him a hall pass for an extra hour. So it was cool. Anyhow, relatability and credibility. So instructor 101, right? This is instructor 101 and here it is again back to those scales of justice. So think about the lady with the blindfold in the two scales, right? since for the people that are not watching, if you're listening The lady with the two scales and the blindfold. So in one hand, she has relatability. I am like you. I am cool. I look and sound like you. Right? And in the other hand You have credibility. Look at all the cool shit I've done, and look at all my degrees, and look where I work, look what the patch on my uniform says. Right? Right, those two need to be somewhere in the middle Close to 50% in order to create and grow your audiences. I am like you and I am credible. Because if you have too much credibility, like you're the you're the baddest dude on the planet at drops per millisecond, right? But nobody can understand you because you're too damn smart. You can't grow your audiences. Right? But if you're that dude and also relatable and you can get that really complex, difficult, hard to understand crazy information and make it easy and digestible and granular and chunk it down so a savage like me can understand it Then that relatability and that credibility is going to grow your audiences. So anytime that we're talking to people or we're talking about something to a group Your vulnerabilities are what bring you together, your relatability, the the I am like you concept, I am learning with you concept.

Rob Ramirez: I've been there, I've messed it up. Let's work on this together so that you don't do it. approach And some credibility create a very effective vessel for information and learning. Corley: Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you for the question, John. Rob, you got still got a ton. I'm still throwing some more at you. Scott Hoke asked this one, which I think you kind of answered, but I'll let you touch on it, which is while I believe Mayday writ training is imperative, at what point do you recognize that you're putting all your focus on the rescue and not enough on preventing getting those getting in those preventing getting in those scenarios to begin with. Rob Ramirez: Thousand percent. Well you gotta you gotta do both, right? You gotta do both. You gotta be good with your tactics, but you also have to make sure that you have Of an ability to rescue one of your own. We talked about it earlier. Again, if it's a short staff fire department, put the people under the roof. Don't leave them in the front yard. If you do have a writ team assigned, make sure they are the baddest writ team in the nation. I want a bunch of savages and psychopaths breaking through walls to come get me. I want them searching ahead, above, and without the protection of a hose line. And I want them to be effective below three feet and zero visibility so that when they find me, they can package me, convert me, drag me, get my ass to a window, throw a ladder, and get me down the ladder. That's what I want coming after me So I'm not going to rob Peter to pay Paul. I want both. I want the members to be highly effective firefighters. I understand what the data says and what needs to be done under this burning roof. I want everybody there But if I do have the luxury of having a rit team, I am going to assign a competent writ team. And competency in writ equals truck work. If they cannot truck, they cannot writ. So make sure that if you assign a writ team, they're performing at the highest level possible and they're able to truck and perform traditional truck company skills So that you can put them in that environment and they can be successful. Because even the highest performing RIT teams in the country are only successful about 8% of the time.

Rob Ramirez: Right? And if as the as the complexity of the incident increases, our chances for survival in that number of 8% starts to decrease. Corley: Right. Rob Ramirez: So you know what? the answer is both, brother. I'm not gonna rob Peter to pay Paul. So I want to make sure that we're functioning high speed and high performance on both ends of it. Tactically, strategic, strategically. And if I can afford a red team, I want them operating at 100%. Corley: Boom. Boom. yeah, if you can't truck, you can't writ. I think you did. Scott Hoke was asked the question about, yeah, I've heard you say if you can't truck, you can't writ. But I think you just articulated that very, very well. Speaker 2: Yeah. Corley: Primo Rob. Oh no, I just already got you with that one. That was Michael's. I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was the same question. McGinn coming at you, and I understand this when it says, what is the mistake you wish you could take back as an instructor slash leader? Oh boy. A mistake. Rob Ramirez: A mistake. Come on, man. What is B? I've been teaching a long time. Not only fire, but I did a lot of EMS training, guys. Rob's a paramedic. And I did with a paramedic instructor for many, many years. And I've messed up on all types of things, whether when I was teaching paramedicine back in the day. and now the fire instructor and doing the Mayday mindset stuff. I started doing this in 2014. We're 11 years down the road now almost doing this Mayday stuff and there's things that have changed data that has done support what I was doing in the beginning and I was guilty in the beginning of wanting to do everything every class And I wanted to get on there and teach guys how to use a freaking flying bowl and rakershore on a bite with a piece of rope and they're gonna do some cirque de soleil shit and jump out of window Right? I did that. I taught that. I didn't know any better. I just didn't know what I didn't know and the data wasn't there. And unfortunately, until you start getting Exposure to other states, other departments, other people, other instructors, and you start learning that there's a fire service outside of your part of the world, mind being South Florida, since firefighting is a local sport.

Rob Ramirez: You really don't know what you don't know. And so the answer to your question is I've made a shit ton of mistakes. And each one of them has allowed me to grow past them and fail forward. Corley: Nice, nice. I love one of my favorite quotes come from Brian Crush, and he told me he said, Corley, once you get outside the walls of your department, you realize that the fire service has no walls. And I was like, dude, I love it too, man. It's just like and and and and I didn't know what I did. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah. Even when I teach, there's certain slides in my early classes. Where I'll be like, hey, listen, this slide when I when I first started teaching this, I thought everybody knew this slide. And I as I've traveled, I've discovered that's just not true. So I'm gonna explain it to you now. And then I go through it, you know, and But it's crazy because I thought it was just year one, day one stuff at the Academy everywhere. And then you get there and you're like, -uh. Oh, oh, you you mean you guys do it this way? Oh, that's way better than what we do. okay. I'm looking here. Cody Oates wants to know, we're a young and growing department building a truck culture. How would you approach separating the competency to ride the truck versus the engine?

Rob Ramirez: So again, I think both skill sets, whether you're doing a traditional truck and traditional engine work, they require some type of measurement, some type of metric, right? Honestly, the only reason that I would venture in saying that you want to put more experienced people on the truck is because the truck is not attached to a hose line or a safety piece of equipment that can suppress fire and if you follow it right back it'll take you back to the truck you just got off of. So the reason I would venture to saying, hey, let's go ahead and make sure that we put specialized training and senior members, more experienced members, if possible, on a truck assignment. If that's something you guys have bids or station assignments, it's only for that reason because a lot of the factors, if you're doing truck the right way You're operating autonomously and remotely from everybody else's protection. You're looking for spaces of opportunity to search. You're looking for ways into the structure via ladder. You're identifying roofs. And you you gotta be on more roofs in Santa Claus before you figure out what a spongy roof feels like versus a normal roof. On a hot summer day, I've had guys down here in South Florida, they get on a roof on a hot summer day and they're like, oh Rob, the roof, the roof is spongy, and it's a pot on the stove downstairs

Corley: Yeah, you're like, no, it's July, man. Rob Ramirez: It's just fucking hot, dude. But they just don't know what they don't know because again, our level of exposure is directly correlated to our level of understanding, and they just haven't had enough exposure So be really really good at truck have the metrics to ride the truck and then also do the same for the engine. Once you go ahead and you start on the engine and you get really good at the engine work and and you're you're stretching the right way, you're estimating the right way, you're going beyond you're pre-connected, you're stretch or calculating your stretches the right way and you're applying water the right way and you're you're you're you're flowing and moving and understanding water application Once you you get really good at all that, you know, and you've pushed those hallways and made those freaking fires, then you can start, you know operating on on the other side of the of the house that that's the way your oper your department works where if you're working on a truck or a squad that operates as a truck outside their first due You have to understand that you don't have that luxury of a safety line that takes you right back to the fire truck if you get lost and you're able to find it. And or water coming out of the end of it to get rid of the of the enemy, which is which is fire. You're gonna be operating above, below, or without the protection of a hose line many times and you're gonna be making decisions autonomously by yourself that don't don't maybe do not require a group of people you're gonna be getting on roof that you're gonna have to decide where to make a hole on and whether it's safe to be on there and how long you can be on there with just maybe you and another person Whether you're an inside truck or a ventilation group or an outside truck, these are all decisions that require thinking firefighters. And I'm not taking anything away from the engine. The engine brings the most important thing that we need of every fire, which is water Right to protect the most important thing that we do at every fire, which is search. So in order for us to operate well, we need to be good at both, but you definitely need to have some type of a metric.

Rob Ramirez: to ride each truck because they each they're each independent of each other and they have their own skill set and requirements. And I'm not shitting on one or the other. I'm just Telling you what my observations are. Corley: Right on, right on. No, and that's the question he asked. Luke Stevenson coming at you from Australia. And and I like this question because he's asking it. Yeah, upside down. You got to be upside down. Not knowing how the US trains and separates truck versus engine. With that rule of if you can't truck, you can't writ. Basically just explain what you mean by that in in layman's terms for Luke. He's not a layman, so I hope he doesn't take that. But for the what dumb it down I speak off. I'm just gonna insult Luke over and over here. Rob Ramirez: Go. What's up, Luke? How you doing, my brother? All right. So the if you can't truck, you can't raid, it's just very simple. Again. Knowing what the statistics the data and the statistics tell us, knowing what history has proven to us in the States as far as how we are finding firefighters, where we're finding firefighters, what it takes to find a down firefighter, convert a down firefighter, drag and remove and get to a down firefighter in and out of buildings, whether it's multi-story buildings and or single-story buildings. The if you can't truck, you can't write mindset is I don't care. I don't care guys what truck or what vessel or piece of equipment or method of transportation you use to get to this structure of fire. If battalion chief Corley Moore or your SOG or your policy say that you are going to be the RIT or Rick team, you need to be able to perform traditional truck company skills in order to be an effective and capable RIT team. Because nothing that we do in writ requires a secondary water supply, a draft, or or a backup truck for water. Everything we do in writ requires searching above below without the protection of a hose line. Being capable of searching in zero visibility and finding somebody, not a mannequin that's built like plastic, somebody who feels like a beanbag. in in the in in the space that you're not supposed to be in without the protection of water. Understanding that when you get to them, you need to be able to package them.

Rob Ramirez: So it requires finding them and dexterity in that environment. to package them then you need to be able to effectively drag them in below three feet and in a narrow space and then we once you do that you need to decide whether or not you're going to shelter in place or you're going to move them on into another room for removal If you're the outside truck, you need to get ladders to the window, one or two. You need to understand when to take the window, how to address the window, how to take the lady parts and drapes and curtains off the window Then you need to be able to get that firefighter to the window and bring them down to where they can actually get definitive care and transport and treatment. In addition to that, on the way there, you need to force and break and breach and use tools that are traditionally forcible entry truck operations. So why do I say if you can't truck, you can't writ? Because writ and truck company operations are directly tied to each other. If you assign a medic unit to writ, that's never been on a truck or you assign a career engine person to writ that's never done truck work, your decreases you're decreasing statistically the chances for removal and or rescue of the downfirefighter Period. So when you're a chief officer and you just start assigning people to these trucks, do them a favor, man. Put them in the right position because the firefight out of position is ineffective on the fire ground and they're not going to be able to perform a successful rescue.

Corley: Right on. Right on. There you go, Luke. Rob Ramirez: I don't care if you show up on a Vespa, dude. I don't care if you show up on a scooter. I don't care how you show up on a bicycle. You need to be able to truck. Period. It's not your truck, it's your skill set Corley: Oh I gotta I gotta reply. I heard lady parts. Alright, we're discussing with we're discussing whether you said lady parts or lacey parts. Lady, lady, decorations. Okay. Okay. All right. Is there a routine English is my second language, kind of like Luke. Right on. Jacob Johnson coming at you from Texas. Is there a routine? You should have before shift to get your mind right. Example. Personally, I would get there early, stretch, check gear, do a gear drift, go through tools and pockets, etc. Set my tone. Is there any routine you have? Rob Ramirez: Absolutely. My routine right now consists of coffee, making sure my belt and my shoes are shiny and my computer is on. No, but honestly, before Before I back in April, way back in April, man, when I used to be a firefighter, we Yeah, absolutely, Jacob. What's up, JJ? Real quick, he said something to me the other day has nothing to do with this podcast. What I'm gonna say because I thought it was freaking gold. I love it And he said to me, and I'm going to try to get it right if you're listening, Jacob, he said to me that we cannot demand followership without ever establishing leadership. And that was freaking awesome. We cannot demand followership without ever establishing leadership. And I'm like, that's a freaking nugget from Jacob Johnson.

Corley: I love it. So anyhow. I plan to get him back on before the end of the year. We have to work out the logistics because it's been a while. So he's coming back. So we'll discuss that selfsame quote right there when when I get him back on. yeah, we're we were talking about new instructors and all that, and it was crazy. No, it is. Rob Ramirez: That's a beautiful it was a great he said it and it was like freaking amazing. I haven't forgotten. Corley: This was like two weeks ago. And we've had this theme running throughout the 2025 of followership versus leadership. We've had this theme running. with a lot of different people named Mark talking about it. And so it's been a good, it's been fun. Rob Ramirez: Awesome. Corley: Yeah. Rob Ramirez: So back to the question. I forgot what it was. what was the question again? Because Jacob Johnson. Oh yeah, setup for for shift. Yeah, just routine, routine. Absolutely. You have to have a routine. You have to have a routine. You have to have a routine. You have to thirteen your routine, if your routine consists of showing up to the firehouse, you know, 10 minutes before shift in in street clothes and changing into your uniforms and grabbing a coffee and watching the news and reading the paper and doing a Sadhu crossword puzzle. All right, and talking shit up about the B shift, then your routine is off. Alright, if you're waiting for the first freaking for the tones to go off to get your gear in the truck, your your routine is off You need to be meticulous and you need to be freaking OCD with your gear setup. You need to drive to work and set your mind right, especially if you're a company officer. I listen to podcasts in the morning. I listen to the scrap in the morning. I 100% will not lie to you. I listen to the scrap in the morning on my way to work. That's what I do because I don't get to catch them live all the time because I'm tired and I'm sleepy and I'm on Easter standard time. But yeah, I listen to the scrap in the morning, gets my mind right. Something about the conversation on the scrap will get my brain going. Something I'm gonna do on shift when I get to work.

Rob Ramirez: It's the same thing every time. My gear gets set the same way. The equipment in the truck is set the same way. My air pack gets run through. All the bells and whistles go off. All the lights come on. The mask goes on my face. I take a breath. Air is free. We love air. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Set your pass device off. Make sure that works. My thermal imager battery gets changed. My thermal imager gets put in the same position every time. My gloves and my hood get put in the same position every time. Everything is exactly the same. And my tone is set from the beginning of the day. Because I know that if I get myself an order, now I'm out of the way when the call comes in. As a company officer, I only needed to worry about the other members. So if all my shit's in order, it's not in the way of me doing what I need to do once the tones go off and I get there. So I just wanted to make sure that I was out of my own way so that I can focus on my tactics, my strategies, and my people.

Corley: Boom. Boom. 100%. I love it, brother. And I love it when you get going. John Shackelford says I'm I'm pivoting here And getting towards the new position, because you brought it up a little bit with your shiny shoes and your computer. What's the biggest change for you? John wants to know, what's the biggest change for you moving to a Chiefs job? Rob Ramirez: not going to fires. Yeah. The kitchen table. So I've been through this before, right? I've been through this before. I'm in a very unique situation right now. I've been through this before. From 2013 to 2018, I was the training captain. on 40 hour. So I wasn't on shift, right? But I was working at the training center. I was working at the fire academy. I was I was constantly touching people, talking to people, working with people, and doing what fit what fills my cup, right? Part of being an instructor, if you're really into this Type of shit like we are, you need to feel like you're investing in filling people's cup in order to fill your own. Corley: Nice. Rob Ramirez: And that's something it's like it is like a it's like fuel to your fire. So That was cool. right now the unique situation I'm in is that we're building a fire department. And that's unheard of down here. So I don't know where you are in the world or in the country, but in South Florida in the Tri-County area, which is Palm Beach, Broward, which is Fort Auderdale and Miami, Miami Dave, fire departments don't pop up anymore. It's not a thing. So for whatever reason, without getting into any of that, we're starting a new fire department from scratch. Oh, it was a great opportunity. I have eight years left before I call it quits. with the pension plan that I'm in and the opportunity came to work with some people I highly respect and build a fire department from scratch. And it was like all those conversations we had of conferences. How many times have we been sitting around in between classes or in a break room somewhere in a hospitality room or whatever. Can you imagine if all of us worked together? Right? And I had the opportunity to do that.

Speaker 4: Right. Rob Ramirez: The opportunity to do that. I have the opportunity to bring in people that I want to be with and work with Steve Shaw from you know fire engineering and work with other guys that are like-minded, Mike DeStefano, that the guys that have podcasts, guys that are into it, guys that are like Ate up like I am and a fire chief who gets it. And every freaking conversation with these guys is a freaking classroom. So I'm enjoying it But what I'm missing right now is the people and the opportunity to fill my own cup, which will come when we start hiring people, you know, later next year. We're bringing in another hundred or whatever without people But in the time being, the biggest change, John, it's not being at the firehouse. I had a conversation today on my way home with the captain that would relieve me when I was on duty back in April And they had a real big fire two days ago. And one of his firemen ended up burning his hand. He's doing well. He's they took him to the burn center. And we were talking about the call. And I'd be absolutely full of shit If I sat here right now and straight faced looked into my computer and told you that some part of me while I was driving home today didn't want to be there, right? Because A, I love those guys. B, I love being a fireman. And and I want to be in those opportunities when they're there. So that part of me is it is the biggest adjustment right now, but I'm working on a greater cause and creating the best fire department I can for the men and women who I'm going to serve when they start.

Corley: That's killer, man. I'm excited for what there's a lot of people watching what you guys are doing. Just to just it's such a unique thing. And to be able to have you know, be in the the bleachers and watching it unfold you know, outside looking in. So we'll we'll get more updates. Absolutely. And I'm having Steve back, you know, as it as it gets progressively closer and probably he's gonna have a lot on his plate. All of you are. So it's gonna be fun to get the updates. It really is. So beautiful man. And that kind of covers Joe's question, which he wanted to know about what had you excited about Jupiter, but I think you kind of encapsulated it. Yeah, very excited. So book and books. This is one of my favorite things to ask. You've been asked it a few times. So I don't know if you can revisit old books for people who've never heard you talk before, or you can come at me with new stuff. What do you got? All right, so old books, right? Rob Ramirez: Old books, the Bible. We meant I mentioned Rick George earlier. About six years ago, I bought his book. developing firefighter resiliency. And I've mentioned that in every podcast. A lot of the stuff that I talk about when it comes to like chunking and clear and concise goals and resiliency and skill formation and drill implementation. It comes from Rick and Bob Carpenter retired from Miami Dade. And that tiny little book, man, I I got so many markers and freaking highlights and and post-its in it. You'd think that that thing's 200 years old. It's only like five or six years old But that's the Bible. I highly recommend it. If anybody's into this kind of stuff, it's an easy read. And he's the OG and triple OG of all of this. As far as new books, back to the book.

Corley: I want to say it. Developing firefighter resiliency. Rick George Rob Ramirez: Carpenter and is Gillespie or was it yeah Gillespie yeah you all I wanted to make sure I had all three yeah go yes yes yeah I think you probably get an Amazon now these days for like twenty thirty bucks It's not a but it's not a it's not a bad buy. Corley: No, and it's it's yeah it's yeah sorry we can sit here and talk about just it. Rob Ramirez: I didn't mean to catch you off. So currently I have this really like deregulation type fire chief and I'm telling you like every conversation in the classroom with this man and not only does he challenge us daily with building a fire department and our divisions and everything that comes along with it, but he also like assigns reading. Nice. Book book projects and reading and leadership freaking conf information. So back to John's question. Right now I'm Reading or andor listening to, and I know that Corley is not the same. I read the 9L's. All right. You don't get the same from reading and/or listening to. I love listening to books. I love listening to books It's not the same. Go ahead. But I feel like I feel like I'm gonna let you down, right? Being judged. But I'm gonna crunch. I gotta I do a lot of driving and very a lot of work. I love reading.

Corley: I love listening to books. I I don't Rob Ramirez: All right, all right. I won't defend myself. It's different, right? Oh yeah. So right now I'm I'm I'm I'm reading the six types of working genius. The book's called Six Types of Work and Genius, and it's by Patrick Lencioni, and The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley. No. Those are the two books assigned to us, and we're reading both of those books, and they're basically to get our ideations into application and making sure that we have a clear and concise path to our towards our goal. And the challenges of that and how to overcome them. Really good read for anybody who's goal-oriented and looking to work on a project or more, whether it's professional or personal, both books. hit the same part and it's it's there they've been a really really insightful listen and they're due next month july 30th Patrick Lincioni which book I haven't I don't know if I've heard that one I love Six Types of Working Genius Six types of working genius. Six types of working genius by Patrick Lincioni and The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley. Corley: No, no, I love Lincioni. He's one of my favorites. his five dysfunction of a team is phenomenal. And And one I reference quite often. So I don't know if I've read that one. So that kind of six types of work in genius. Pretty cool. Piqued my interest. The title also has piqued my interest We do a thing on here. I don't know if you'd know aware of this. We do a thing called the Five Questions for Firefighters. There's no right answers. There are just your opinions. You've not been you've not had this version, correct? I have not. Okay, good. Good. I always try to space out my repeats, my and and this most people who know me know this that I would have the same like five or six people on the scrap and and just over and over and over. So I But yeah, we gotta space them out. So are you ready for the five questions for firefighter version 4. 0? Let's go. Number one, you are the proby once more. You have to cook the meal in the firehouse. What is what is your go-to meal?

Rob Ramirez: All right, we're gonna stick with 305 on this one. So Cuban parents, born and raised in Miami, Florida, lived there my entire life until my mid-30s I've now progressed and moved to Palm Beach, which is about an hour north. But that's what you do. You get out of there as soon as possible. Anyhow, I'm gonna go with a traditional Cuban meal. That's what I would do with the firehouse. And what does that look like? It's going to be something we're going to start with like some for my friends from Miami listening, we're going to start with some thinly sliced, warm, and pressed Cuban bread with a little bit of oil and butter on them as an appetizer, maybe a little ham croquette. All right. If you don't know what that is, look it up. They're delicious. Picture a mozzarella steak, but with ground ham in it. All right. It's delicious. And then you might even sprinkle a little bit of lime over it right before you take a bite. Amazing. Making my mouth water right now. I'm gonna the main dish is gonna be a rice and bean because we can't do anything without rice and beans. It'll be a black bean made from scratch. All right with mom's recipe. And then the meat, my favorite Cuban dish is rice beans. And something I'm going to say in Spanish, and then I'll tell you in English, is called vaca frita, which translates to fried cow. It's basically flank or skirt steak that gets pressure cooked in seasoning, pulled, shredded And then fried over and over and over again as you doused it with sauteed onions, garlic, and fresh lime Okay. And then you grab that shredded fried Cuban limey deliciousness and you put it on the plate with the rice and beans. And you put a side of delicious sweet plantains, which are also fried. And then you might even top that off with like a little cafecito, a little Cuban coffee after, as a chaser, and a nice stogie in the apparatus bay with the boys.

Corley: I love dude. That might be the most descriptive meal we've ever been given on the five questions. Like the most I I I know I have the recent bias where I forget other people in the past, but damn, I'm gonna go over hunger. And I was not gonna give you max points unless you said plantains at some point, but you got them in there. Because that's the only thing I know about Cuban cuisine is plantains. What is it? Amateur hour? Of course I'm gonna say plantains, dude. I love it. number two, it's job town. It is time. You are in route and responding. You gotta think of the scene from backdraft where he slaps that cassette into that tape deck. What song are you playing while you're in route? Rob Ramirez: So my music selection is of of an autistic ADD O C D third world immigrant. All right. I listen to everything from Mozart to freaking, you name it, the baby hip-hop. All right. And country music, Spanish music, reggaeton, everything in between. But for this specific scenario, if I'm trying to get jacked up like old Rob, I'm talking about like, you know, like like holy shit, we're going to fire it, lose my mind, throw up the horns. I want to have something like like rage like killing in the name of by raging as a machine or toxicity like by system of a down something like that if i'm gonna go like hip hop i'm gonna go with like victory victory by biggie and we'll call him puffy because p diddy's in trouble and he it's

Corley: you know what let's forget about victory let's stick with the rivers system of a down system of a down and or rage i need your answer because these get added to a spotify list and you only you only get one only get one i give i gotta pick one Rob Ramirez: I'm gonna go with Rose Tattoo by Dropkick Murphy's. Rose tattoo. I completely changed it on you guys. Corley: Yeah. The last minute curveball and anything, but I love I love your description. I love all the songs you talked about. I I got lots of things. Sorry, I don't know the rules. Sorry. That's my first time doing this one. That's true. That's true. No, you have well no matter what. I'd love the there is no right or wrong answer. I just like hearing it. And whether you get my now, if you'd have given me three or four songs, you wouldn't have got max points But you gave me one, you got me Rose Tattoo, you got me drop kick Murphy's, which automatically gets you max points. So it's easy answer. Number three. Whose boost? It's not the first drop kick Murphy's. It's not. I don't I'm positive of that. But that's okay. but it is the first time Rose Tat 2 has been the the name. I'm 100 okay. Sam gave me the thumbs up Whose boots, past, present, or future, would you like to spend 24 hours in? fire service related, personal, professional, sports, anybody?

Rob Ramirez: Whose boots? Past, present, or future? All yours. Whose boots? I would I would say that I would want to spend 24 hours in my son Gavin's boots Corley: Oh wow. Rob Ramirez: Yeah. Corley: Yeah. Rob Ramirez: No. you know, you know, you know Gavin's condition. Oh yeah. So I've never heard him talk. And I don't know what he's thinking. So if I got to spend 24 hours in anyone's boots, I just want to know that he's okay. Corley: Hmm, dude. Yeah. Good answer. So easy max points, brother. Number four, you are retired. You're sitting on the beach enjoying my ties. What do you want to hear through the grapevine from the people you used to work with? How do you want to hear that they describe you to the new hires? Rob Ramirez: you know, legacy. So I want him to I want him to say that I cared. I want to let them know. I want to I'd like to hear them say that I cared. I like to hear them say that I did the job the right way and that I that I always put the mission, them, their families, and myself. in that order, you know, first. And that they knew they can count on me. And that A pat in the back, an attaboy, or a kick in the ass. It always came from the same place from my heart.

Corley: Ooh, nice. Very nice. I love that Max points. Four for four, my brother. You're killing it. And you've had this one before because this one will never change. In my book, this one, you know, yeah. Heavy fire. Searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on the VES? Rob Ramirez: I said it earlier. The engine brings the most important thing to the fire that we need, which is water. to protect the most important thing that we do, which is search and remove. So I will be VESing the most ready-to-go window I can find. And we're going to go beyond the door. And if conditions permit, we're going to go all in and we're going to finish that window initiated search. And we're going to be exiting the front door of the house. Search complete. Corley: Boom. Boom. Max points five for five officially. Yeah, people said where these onions come from. You didn't make I'm not crying. You're crying. your answer on your son Gavin, brother. I'm telling you, that's the powerful answer. And if people know Gavin or people know you, I can't, I don't have words. So but five for five, crushed it, max points. Other than the word Other than the meandering, what was it that was said at my retirement party? They said, I think it was Lieb, I believe it was Frank, who said never trust a he was quoting a g we were discussing in general, never trust a man that doesn't cry.

Rob Ramirez: Oh absolutely. Corley: Yeah. And I was like, we were trying to discuss we were trying to figure out who said that quote, but we I don't know we got sidetracked and I don't think we ever actually tracked it out. It's easy to sidetrack. No way. ADHD somewhere. With that being said, five for five max points. That officially puts 305 in the books for the scrap. My man, why I'm like, why does he keep holding up eight fingers? My man, Rob Ramirez, thank you for spending your East Coast evening with us. If someone wants to get a hold of you, book that training code, book Mayday Mindset. How do they go about doing so? Rob Ramirez: Email is the easiest. I'm on social media. So you find me on Facebook or Instagram. Send me a message. I'll respond to you. Or send me an email, Rob Ramirez at madeamindset. com. And I'll get back to you guys as soon as possible. Where are you? Corley: I'm gonna see you at Firemanship, yes. I'll I'll see you next month at Firemanship. Kick ass. I don't know. Rob Ramirez: I'll see you at First In. Okay, good, good. Yeah, we have Jimmy Ellis in Pittsburgh after that in August.

Corley: We'll be around. No, rock and roll, man. No, I'm looking forward. Firemanship's the next thing on my books. I've I I'm on a little hiatus here, but it's the next thing coming up. So you, Rob Fisher, Scott Thompson, Frank Lee. We're all gonna see each other there So it's a party. Yeah. where was I at? I do a thing on here called the scrap challenge. It's where I ask you to give a challenge to the audience. It's new. You haven't done this before. Nope. But you give a challenge to the audience that they need to complete before the next scrap. all right. Rob Ramirez: We'll stick with Maydees. So before the next grab, I challenge you to look up the Fredericks County after action And do some research on it, take some notes, and find those predictable failures that we talked about earlier, whether it's the biology, the environment, the people, or the equipment. Captain Laird, line of duty death, Fredericks County, Maryland And while you're at it, also take a look at the Irmo after action report that was put out for James Michael Mueller And you identify the same predictable failures, find comparisons in the two and learn from it, share it with your members, do a tabletop and make sure you're addressing all those known failure variables because we're not finding new ways to hurt firefighters or lose members. It's the same issue that happens over and over and over and over again in different places and it shows itself in different ways. But if you you're able to identify it earlier, maybe just maybe. Just maybe. And this is the type of job where you can do everything right and still get jammed up. But just maybe we can avoid one of those situations we're trying to avoid.

Corley: Love it. Great challenge. Great challenge. Final question. What who what? Who is somebody that needs to be on the scrap? I'm always looking to expand because I kind of get my circles. As you know, and I'll do the same ones. I want to expand this, but I'm always asking. Who should I have? And I know you can't know all 300 guests that have been on, but Rob Ramirez: So you may say somebody, but you've had some really, really amazing people on. we have a lot of the same exact friends that have already already been on here. There's guys that we've never heard of that are probably rock stars. I'll give you one, my my deputy chief, Mike Mike Destefano. PhD and he's got a actually a podcast he does himself that's called Unbranded Leadership. And he's huge on leadership, jam-up guy, super relatable, super credible. And just an overall good dude. And he's my boss and he's younger than me. And I'm working with him a lot. Corley: De Stefano? Rob Ramirez: DeStefano. Corley: Yeah, get me his info and I will I will get him. I will get him on. I got a whole bunch. I'm kind of jammed up right now because the grease trip. Two things. I'm trying to do the scrap every Tuesday and not be a liar, right? That's the that's the but with the Grease Trip, it's like I've got to get three separate guest hosts to keep the scrap weekly and keep it on Tuesday. So I'm working on that. And I don't want to lock in those August guests. before I get the the the host locked in. So I'm kind of frozen on on the booking. So anyway, yeah, big problems. Big problems for the scrap. It's awesome problems to have. Awesome. thank you for that. I'm gonna get me his contact info. I'm gonna get him on here. Housekeeping, go to patreon. com/slash the vigilantes. Become a vigilante. We are the like-minded souls. You are never alone as long as you have like-minded souls. And the vigilantes are just amazing group of human beings. And the amount of questions that get answered and thrown around and talked about and resources available, man. The best part, as I say every week, is the after party. The after party is where we go and we roast the guests. The vigilantes show up. They get invited to the after party.

Corley: We roast the guests. It's a good time each and every time. And that's happening. Rob is posting the link right now to the Vigilantes. So all that being said, coming up on the scrap, Mike Bernard, next week, another Book of Search author. He wrote a unbelievably good article in there one of the most articulate and step-by-step guides in there and I've never met them yeah the book of search so I'm excited about that conversation and then the one and only Josh Wheeler Coming up after that. So for the foreseeable, Tuesdays are going to be fun. And that, well, I want to say Tuesdays. Tuesdays are for tacos and the scrap, so make sure you show up on you never have to ask when the next scrap is going to be because it is on Tuesday. So hopefully you can put it on your calendar and show up and ask some live questions from these amazing guests Enough from me. Let's get to the after party. Thank you once again, Rob Ramirez. Mihirmano, is it Por Otra Madre? Yeah, the otra madre. De otra madre? Rob Ramirez: Yeah. All right. Corley: All right. I'll get better and better each time. Thank you for sharing your evening with us and for being such a phenomenal guest. Audience, I can never thank you enough for showing up each and every week, each and every Tuesday for the scrap. Without you and your questions, it's just me and my friend talking, which I would do each week, don't get me wrong But you guys make it magical. You guys are the ones that drive the conversations and keep it unforgettable. And I can never thank you enough. So please keep showing up. Remember, MUTS Don't scrap. I hope the tones stay silent unless it is burning. This job is not safe. So stay smart out there