Episode 524: Mann Gulch

Hey everyone. Well, if you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, you know how much I enjoy to be able to bring metaphors, analogies, and stories. I think it helps me personally to be able to make sense of business. And there's actually kind of a correlation with this. I think depending on the industry that you're in, I know many of you that listen to it, you may be in a services business. Maybe you are an insurance agency owner learning from other events, reading books, being in groups that are outside of your industry, learning from other people, um, can absolutely be incredibly helpful. If you're a marketing agency owner, if you're a pool, uh, maintenance or pool construction company, going and being around other businesses can absolutely help you. And I think that's kind of why I enjoy learning about stories and then how to pull some of those different metaphors. Into helping me to make sense of business and how would I apply that? Maybe that's obviously sports, maybe I bring something in about, you know, my son or my daughter playing, or maybe it's around Auburn football and some of the lessons from that. Well, this story is about the tragic events of Mann Gulch. Now, I typically will record these Friday episodes, I'll have an idea, maybe a layout of a few bullet points. I I typically never read from something, but today I'm going to. I'm not going to try to memorize the story, so I'm going to read. So if it sounds like I'm reading, I actually am, but at the very end I'll share with you some thoughts. The tragic events of Mann Gulch. In August 1949, a group of firefighters lost their lives in a tragic event that would later become known as the Mann Gulch Disaster. This event was a watershed moment in the history of firefighting, and it would forever change the way firefighters approached their work. On August 5th, 1949, a group of 15 smokejumpers— which I actually believe, sidebar for a second, that David Goggins actually started doing some smokejumping within the last couple years just because he wanted to do it. That guy's crazy. If you haven't read his book Can't Hurt Me, highly recommend it. They were deployed to Mann Gulch in Montana, put out a wildfire. These smokejumpers were a group of specially trained firefighters who were dropped into, to the remote areas by airplane to fight wildfires. However, upon arriving at Mann Gulch, they found themselves facing a much more challenging situation. Than what they had anticipated. Have you ever gone into a situation in your business where maybe you've lost a lot of people, you've had a lot of turnover in a short period of time, or maybe the entire industry has flipped on its head all of a sudden and you found yourself in a much more challenging situation than anticipated, as these smokejumpers did? I think we all have. As the smokejumpers approached the fire, they discovered the flames had spread much more quickly than they had anticipated. The fire was now moving uphill, and the smokejumpers were quickly becoming surrounded. In a desperate attempt to escape, the smokejumpers began running towards the ridge. However, the fire soon caught up to them, and they were forced to deploy their fire shelters. Unfortunately, the fire was too intense, and 13 of the 15 smokejumpers lost their lives. In the aftermath, the Mann Gulch disaster was really a wake-up call for the firefighting community. It highlighted the need for better training. Oftentimes, whenever we face difficulties in our business, you know, maybe difficulties within the team, we kind of look back and we realize that it also precipitates the need for better training, improved equipment. Maybe our teams need better tools at their disposal and more effective communication between firefighters. In the years following the disaster, new firefighting techniques were developed and use of fire shelters became more widespread. Perhaps the most significant that came out of the Mann Gulch disaster was a renewed emphasis on the importance of teamwork. The smokejumpers who lost their lives at Mann Gulch were all experienced firefighters, but they were unable to overcome the challenges they faced on their own. In the aftermath of the disaster, firefighters began to work more closely together, relying on each other for support and assistance. The Mann Gulch Disaster was a tragic event that had a profound impact on the firefighting community. It served as a reminder of the dangers that firefighters face every day and highlighted the need for better training, equipment, and communication. However, out of this tragedy came important lessons that continue to shape the way that firefighters work today. I think that the Mann Gulch Disaster can serve as a powerful analogy For us as business owners facing a crisis, in the face of unexpected challenges, it can be tempting to cling to old ways of doing things, even when they no longer work. However, just as the smokejumpers who lost their lives at Mangolds were unable to overcome the fire on their own, I think we as business owners must rely on others for support and assistance. During the times of crisis. To succeed in the face of adversity, business owners must be willing to adapt and embrace new ways of doing things. This may involve rethinking long-held assumptions, taking certain calculated risks, and working more closely with others. I think by doing that, we can increase our chances of success. And emerge from the crisis stronger than ever before. You see, if you even go— and that's a brief summary— but if you go and actually do even more research to the events of Mann Gulch, the couple people that did survive, they survived by using a very unconventional tactic. They survived by actually starting a fire around them, and what ended up happening is the fire literally— to the two people that survived, the fire jumped over them. I, I can't recall the name of that technique, but it had not been widely used. I mean, this is 1949, and they were able to survive. And so we're using something tragic like that as, uh, an analogy for us as small business owners around that times will change. And this is why we as business owners have to do a few things. Number one, we have to be willing to let go of some of the old ways of doing things. There are times that holding on to the, you know, repeating successful actions works until repeating successful actions stop working. There are marketing channels that work and then they stop working. There are, there are team members that are A-players and then sometimes they slip and they're no longer an A-player. There is a certain way of doing things that has worked 5 years ago, 10 years ago, and they just don't work anymore. And so being willing to put down the old way of doing things going into 2026, certainly continue to do the things in your business that are working. And so my thinking time prompt for you today would be is if you were just listening to this on your way to get a coffee, on your way to, to work out this morning, as we get into the new year, and we're all kind of somewhat doing some reflection on 2025, and we're peering around the edge into 2026, what are the things that you want to continue to do that worked in 2025? And what are some of the things that we need to be willing from an open-handed perspective, to sit down and say, that is no longer working. That worked. And that was exactly what we needed to do at that time. But it is no longer working. And we have to take a critical look at that and be willing to change. It's not changing for change's sake. It's actually looking at it and saying, you know what, things have evolved and changed. AI is here and I don't know where it's going to go. I'm not, I'm not going to do a Friday solo episode on AI until I feel comfortable to be able to speak from firsthand knowledge. I'm trying to utilize it ourselves. We utilize it in some ways producing some of the assets around this podcast. I certainly use it in preparing some of the notes for the podcast. And I think that things like that are going to be great. So leaning in and leveraging something like an AI, but it's not just AI. It's about teams and marketing channels. Our sales process, the way that you sold 10 or 15 years ago, is not necessarily the way maybe you're going to sell today. People are buying more things on the internet without speaking to sales reps. Instead of fighting that, how can we lean into those opportunities? So what are the things that you want to continue to do in 2025? And what are some of the things that maybe you want to stop doing? Just like, you know, the tragic loss of some of the people that had tried to, you know, ride it out by clinging on to their old techniques that they were trained on at Man Gulch, and they tragically lost their lives. What are some of the things that we as business owners can do to set to the side the old way of doing things? Hope you enjoyed that story. I picked this up, I believe I first heard about this somehow. I think this was from Keith Cunningham. I don't think this is necessarily directly in The Road Less Stupid, but one of the, one of the other articles or something like that. So I want to make sure I give credit to him for the first time that I, that I read this and wanted to bring it to all of you. All right, everyone, hope this served you well. Hope 2025 was a good year for you. But either way, whether it was or wasn't, I'm pulling for you to have a fantastic year going into 2026. Thanks so much for being along this ride with all of us at Above the Business. We're really excited about what we're going to be doing with these podcasts and YouTube episodes. We're excited about our workshops series going into 2026. I love doing workshops. I love being live. With people from across the country. All right, everyone, till next episode, lead well and go be great. If you're watching this on YouTube, it would mean so much if you hit the like and subscribe button. As I mentioned in the episode, we have so many things that we're going to be doing in this upcoming year on our YouTube channel. Thanks.