056 Todd DeVoe - Emergency Management

In just a few seconds, we're going to share another amazing leader with you. But before we get started, I want to invite you to join the Sensei Leader Movement. I founded this global community to support and develop human-centric leaders, leaders who care, leaders like you. Our first-level membership is free and always will be. You'll have access to online workshops, special members-only events, preferred rates on coaching, and a lot more. And if you join today, you'll get free downloads of all 3 books in my 8 Strategies for Leaders series. You know, the best leaders always want to improve, and we're here to help. Go to slmjoinfree.com and join the movement today. Today we're talking to one of our heroes on the front lines of community leadership. Without our first responders, we'd be in a lot of trouble. And thankfully, whenever we are in trouble, these leaders are here to help us, right? So today we're talking to one of those remarkable heroes, Todd DeVoe. People who inspire inspire, empower, and guide us to our very best. Leaders who are walking the walk. Your host, leadership activist, author, and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement, Jim Bouchard. Todd DeVoe's involvement in emergency response, emergency management, education, and volunteer management started in about 1989, and he became a volunteer firefighter in upstate New York. So we'll talk about that, I'm sure. In 1991, Todd joined the Navy. He became a hospital corpsman. After his service, Todd served as an emergency medical responder, EMT, in some of the toughest parts of LA County and later became the emergency Services Coordinator for the city of Dana Point. Today Todd teaches at Coastline College, California State University Fullerton, and the University of California Irvine. I'm getting alphabet soup deficiency syndrome here. He's the Director Emergency Management for Titan HST, and he's the host of the leading emergency management show in the podcast space. It's called EM Weekly. Todd, that's a, that's a hell of a resume we're starting with there.

Yeah, keep busy, that's for sure.

That's what it's all about. Leadership is service. So what got you interested in emergency services in the first place?

Well, you know, it's gonna sound so cliché, but I think it's true. I started as a kid, right, and being a Boy Scout, right, and getting to do a lot of cool stuff in the Boy Scouts in upstate New York. I got to go up to, you know, the Adirondacks and camp and hike and hit the hit a lot of the peaks up there. You know, even got to go up to Maine and do one of the canoe trips up there and got to see a lot of the world. Part of that, you know, I was doing this was, you know, learning how to serve your community, right? It's not just about camping, it's about doing service projects, things, you know, like we built a— one of the earliest things I did, I think I was 14 or 15 when we did this, is we helped build one of the parks, like the old-fashioned wooden, um, you know, playground jungle gym type things that we built.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Back in the '80s. Um, so that was like one of the big projects that we did and we actually did the fundraising for it and stuff like that. And, and, and put together the team as some, one of the kids' Eagles projects that we had, uh, that we worked on.

Well, that's impressive because the reason I got drummed out of the Scouts is because all I cared about was the camping.

Yeah.

Right.

You know, I mean, that's me too, for that matter, badly. But, and I think that just kind of instilled that service, you know.

Right, right.

You know, and I grew up in an area that had volunteer fire departments, you know, when I turned 18, it was just an assumption that we'd join the fire department, you know, in our family. And I did. And my dad had a restaurant, it's a deli. If you guys, for people who don't know what a deli is, back East deli is different than delis elsewhere. It's sandwiches and stuff. And right. And whatnot. And, uh, right next door to our deli was one of the fire stations, and so it was just convenient, I suppose, to join that. And my dad supported it, so if we ever had a call, I was able to leave and go run on the calls. And I really got interested in firefighting and whatnot, becoming an EMT. And, uh, during that time period, um, the first Gulf War, uh, broke out, and I got patriotic and decided to go and do my part. Um, I got in and By the time I got done with boot camp and whatnot, the war was over. So, uh, you know, so much for, for going to war.

But, uh, sorry, that's not necessarily a bad thing, right?

Yeah, you know, and, um, you know, when I got out, I, I, my goal was to become a firefighter, you know. And so I was going through that process and I was actually in the process with the LA County Fire Department when I got the Dana Point job. And, uh, and I'm gonna rewind a little bit. One of the jobs I had when I was working EMS was I worked, um, as the medical logistics chief for some of the larger fires that we had in California, and I really got interested in that coordination piece. And at the same time I was going, using my GI Bill, going to school, I was getting a degree in public administration, and the process really interested me. So, you know, reading Max Weber and Singer and those guys on processes and and the philosophical aspect of what it means to lead really interested me. And so it was really that connection between your public service and the neat part of processes and putting things together and building teams and whatnot. So that's why I was really interested in the emergency management side of what we do here as public safety.

Yeah, it sounds like we have some parallels because my interest in firefighting started when I was young too. I was I was in high school and they had the junior division for the volunteer department at that time. And that's how I got into it. And then eventually, yeah, I ended up being an EMT and doing fire rescue and whatnot. But then I got out of it. I thought I was gonna do it for a career, but I didn't stick it out. And then one of my greatest regrets that you fulfilled was serving in the military. I didn't do that. I was busy messing up my life at the time. So there you go. You know, it's interesting because when I talk about a past with fire service and whatnot, inevitably the issue of command and control comes up. And I go around preaching that command and control is dead. You know, the age of command and control is dead, but there are certain times when we need to apply that command and control technique. And my contention always is that even in a situation like the military or like a fire service or police service, something like that, you're only gonna follow somebody's orders if you trust them, if you respect them. You think I'm way off base or you have the same experience?

Um, there's the same experience, you know. It's funny because, you know, we'll go to— and it's partly joking, but there's a lot of truth to this. Um, you know, when a lieutenant walks in the room and says, hey boys, this is what we're doing, and he lays out all this stuff and he walks out, and we all look at our chief and say, is that what we're really doing? Um, you know, it's like, okay, yes sir, let's do this, yes sir. They look at the chief for the actual orders. And there's some truth to that because The, the ability for the senior enlisted officer, you know, to be able to, um, interpret what the officer really means. Not saying that the junior officers, um, are bad or what they do, but there's also the inexperience that, that the levels there. Some of us, you know, have been in the military longer by years than the junior enlisted guys. So, um, after, after it takes a little bit for them to prove themselves to us, I guess, for lack of a better term, I don't And for the officers that are out there, I hope you guys don't take offense to it, but it's just that, that's the truth of it, right?

No, no, no, it makes a lot of sense because then the flip side is always that, I always remember those old World War II movies where there's a green lieutenant that gets his first command and gets thrown into his first battle, doesn't know what the hell's going on, and so the grizzled old sergeant always bails him out because he's been there and he has the respect and the trust of the other troops. So yeah, you hit right on one of the key points that we're always trying to emphasize around here that true leadership, genuine leadership, really doesn't have anything to do with rank or title or position of authority. Anyone can make you, for instance, an officer, but you have to earn the respect of the troops in order to be a leader, no?

Oh, absolutely. You know, it's funny, I talk about this a lot when I teach and we talk about leadership and there's always the the given leadership position. So like you said, you, you become a manager or you get, you know, promoted to whatever, um, and that's what the leadership— when I say leadership, the, the executives will look at you no matter what you're doing, whether it's business or government or whatever, right?

Right.

You get promoted to this management position.

There it is.

And then you walk in and then there's the guys who used to work with, right, who, you know, know what you did when you were not a manager, right? And they kind of have that look at you. And then there's the, you know, the people who don't know know you from Adam and go, "Do I trust this guy? Do I make trust decision?" Constantly have to be able to prove yourself to your subordinates and then also to those who you report to, right? I mean, so you get the job because of your experience or you get the job because, you know, or your resume if you will, right? You get the job because, you know, you're the best out of the group that applied for it, you know, that type of thing, and you still have to continue to learn, and so I think that's really important. Then you have to also trust your locker room leaders, right? If you think about football, for instance, you might have your guy like Tom Brady, right? I'm picking on him because he's in the news a lot right now. I'm sure he's a great leader. You get a guy like Tom Brady who everybody's going to listen to because he's the quarterback, he's the franchise guy. But there's also the guys in the locker room that really make it happen, right? You know, like the guys who are afraid to go talk to Tom Brady because he is who he is. And there's got to be— you have the guys who are, you know, the backup quarterback, if you will, or the, you know, the guy who has been in the league for a bunch of years but still just a journeyman, if you will. Sometimes those are the guys that make the better football coaches, right? And because they know the system and they're able to talk to people on a level that they understand. So I think there's importance to understand that. And then kind of building on that, as somebody who gets promoted into a leadership position Understanding who your locker room leaders are and taking them and be friends with those guys because they'll do a lot for you if they trust you as well.

I couldn't agree more. And that's why we make a pretty hard semantic distinction between what we've created, a character of the evil manager, right? And you just said it perfectly. I mean, anyone can make you a manager and not always for the right reasons. I mean, a lot of times it's deserved, but sometimes it's nepotism or sometimes it's political savvy or whatever gets you in that position, but only the people you serve can make you a leader. And you know, you've done this for a long time now. And you know, I'd like to hear from you, you know, how obviously, you know, you've been able to earn the respect and the trust of the people you serve. And you know, I can hear from your voice and I listened to a couple of your podcasts and, you know, the enthusiasm comes through, you know, the authenticity comes through. You know, how do you think you've been able to earn and maintain that trust and respect through all these different positions?

Mistakes.

That's always a part of the game, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I have learned more from my missteps than I ever have from anything that's gone right. And I, I, I tend to beat myself up. And I think most, I think most people do, right? I don't think I'm anything.

I think the better people do, you know?

So I tend to look at my mistakes and I, and I, It's funny, I look through all these positive things that people say, you know, on the podcast or whatever, and the things that I dwell on are the negative remarks because I want to see what am I doing wrong and how can I improve. And I take a look at that and I really grow from that because I take a look at like, you know, say people say positive things about you or whatever, that's great. But it's when the people are saying negative things about me that I don't dwell on it necessarily in a negative way. I dwell on it in the aspect of going, What can I do to be better? What can I do?

Well, you're paying attention to it, right?

That's the thing. Yeah, to make those people, those negatives into a positive. That's the thing that I think is important.

No, that's the key. You know, I hate it when people just come out with the cliché and they say, well, in fact, when I was boxing, it was funny, I had a cool trainer and he always, usually when my face was, you know, all mashed in, he'd say something like, you always learn more when you lose, Jim, don't worry about it. Of course, then he'd turn around and say, well, some days you don't freaking feel like learning anything, right? But I always hated that cliché that all mistakes, all losses were a lesson. They are, but you have to go in, you have some work to do. You have to go in there and wring those lessons out, don't you?

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I have a friend of mine, a great guy, and his name's Brian Colburn, and he's part of the Ian Weekly as well. And we bounce stuff back and forth with each other all the time. It's also important to have that person where I can go to Brian going, dude, I got this like you know, this criticism. Am I really this way? You know, is it, is it, you know, or is it just a perception that somebody else has? And we can talk that through. And I do the same for him, right? You know, on mistakes that we make and kind of, you know, make that plan to be better. And I'll tell you a true story. So I had a guy who I've known for years, and I like the guy, and it was like a political thing, right? And I didn't support his political candidate. And so he—

that happens too much these days. I know it.

Yeah. And he just completely cut me out. Like completely, you know. And I'm like, holy crap, I never said anything negative about him personally or anything like that. I just didn't— and I don't really say anything negative about, um, other candidates either. I tried to try to stay pretty neutral, right, things, uh, but I just did not support his political view. And I was talking to Brian, I'm like, is that— I mean, like, what did I do wrong here to, to make him walk away? And I didn't blame— I didn't blame the other guy.

You're gonna look in the mirror.

Yeah, right, you know, exactly. Um, and I think that's important. And It's also important to have that person that you can bounce things off of. They'll take a— not a cheerleader, right? You don't want a cheerleader in your corner. You don't want a yes man. You want somebody who's going to look at you and say, yeah, this is where you screwed up and this is how you can improve and do that continuous improvement.

Hey, we're going to take a short break. We'll come back and I want to pick up. I want to learn more about EM Weekly and your work there. And really, really appreciate you being with us here today, Todd. Thank you so much. The research is bombproof. People perform at their best when and only when they know their leaders care, when they know their work has meaning, and when they have the chance to learn, grow, and develop. To accomplish this, we need to connect with the people we serve, the people who trust in our leadership. Leaders today need emotional intelligence, strong interpersonal skills, and an accurate sense of self-awareness. I'm Jim Bouchard, leadership activist and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement. The sensei enjoys a very special relationship with students. It's one built on respect, trust, and loyalty, and these are also a leader's most valuable assets. I help you build these relationships. I work with you to help you inspire, empower, and guide your people to their very best. That's what the best leaders do, and that's what the sensei does. My job is to help you be the sensei so you can lead your people to their very best and yours. Executive coaching, workshops, corporate training. Visit thesenseileader.com or call 207-751-4317 today to learn more. EM Weekly hosted by today's guest Todd DeVoe is all about bringing news, interviews, discussing trends and issues that impact emergency management. It's perfect for all first responders, military, education, public safety, communications, disaster volunteer organizations, public health, humanitarian groups, NGOs, professionals, students, and researchers. EM Weekly also offers a blog for those who would rather read the transcripts and have access to additional content not discussed in the show. It's all free with the simple mission of strengthening the EM community. Listen at emweekly.com. That's emweekly.com. Emweekly.com. Hey, we're back with Todd DeVoe. Among many other things, he's the host of EM Weekly, which is a great podcast for first responders, emergency medical service people, and whatnot. And what great experience he's been sharing, some terrific— God, your stories are terrific. We were talking about the politics. That's one of the biggest things in our workshops that comes up all the time right now. And at conferences, right? How do you deal with it? How do you manage it? People are so hateful back and forth. And I'm with you. I don't care. Someone could be 180 degrees different political views than me, but hey, we've got to work together. We've got to live together.

Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, I actually like people who have opposite views of myself.

It's more interesting anyway, isn't it? Sometimes.

Yeah, but it also challenges you to look at your view, right? And to say, you know, am I right? Right? You know, if you live in an echo chamber, if you will, of course you're going to be right. Everybody's going to be.

Well, you can't be because I'm right. So people forget we can both be right.

Absolutely. But I was listening to a book the other day, and I— gosh darn it, I forget the name of it. But anyway, he was— the guy was talking about having The, uh, the rival, the, the, the— oh, it was a Simon Sinek book. That's, that's— oh yeah, yeah, right. And he was talking about having the, um, uh, a rival, uh, an arrival that you can, you can respect, but a rival nonetheless. And, and he was telling the story about how he had this other guy who was a writer as well, and, and he just, every, you know, he wanted his book to be number one on the, uh, New York Times bestsellers list. And when he was, he felt that he won. And he was talking about how there was really no winner there. But he was saying that that rival actually makes you better because it's someone who you can— that challenges you. And I thought about that time in high school, and I had this one guy who was from a different school, and we wrestled in the same section. And him and I would go back and forth, and it made me a better wrestler knowing that I had to go against him in the sectionals in order to go on to the states. You know, and that rival right there always makes you better. And you don't have to dislike them as a person. Right. If you disagree with them.

No, it's a respect thing, you know.

Right, but they could challenge you to think on the philosophical side of things. I think it's, you're better off.

You know, it's cool that you brought up the wrestling because I was just gonna ask you if you were a martial artist or a fighter or a black belt of some sort, and you are, obviously, because wrestling is a terrific martial art. And you know, you're absolutely right. Years ago, I remember somebody challenged me one time because, and I was never, I was horrible about this. I was never one of these guys that said, "I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the best." In fact, I think I was telling some other people in the group that they were the best, and they took umbrage to that. They said, "Well, you could offend some other people." I said, "Well, no, no, no, no, no. You guys are the best. That's their problem to worry about them being the best." You know what I mean? And there's plenty of room. I've always had that philosophy that there's plenty of room at the top. It's the middle and the bottom that get really crowded sometimes. Tell me more about EM Weekly. That's a pretty cool— Pretty cool adventure you're doing there.

Sure, sure thing. Yeah, so Ian Weekly started 4 years ago as a podcast for— basically, I brought it in for my students where I teach, and it just— from there, just kind of people started listening to it, right? And the whole part about it is—

every time I launch an episode, I hope, I hope people are gonna listen.

Yeah, you know, I figured I'd have 32 people a year, you know, or a semester listening to it, and that would be about it. It. But it's gotten bigger. And people have actually, you know, have reached out about the show, thanked me for doing the stuff. And I'm humbled by that. Because it's not about me at all. It's really about the guests. I tried to make it about the guests. And it's also about bringing quality people to emergency managers from around the world, right? And so that's what we try to do at EM Weekly.

No, that's the cool thing. I mean, you know, there's a lot of A lot of bad things about technology these days too, but one of the great things is you just hit it. We can touch people all over the world. We can meet and listen to people all over the world, and I think that's cool. Let's talk about your teaching service too, because again, you're hitting on all cylinders here. To me, that's another one of the greatest expressions of leadership. You know, when people really press me, and I think I'm going to be on your podcast too, I think Alex said, but—

Sure.

So I'll say it again then. When people press me for, you know, one, summary statement about leadership, I always say, well, leadership is sharing. The leader shares. And what better expression of that than teaching, huh?

Oh, absolutely. You know, I mean, I turned 50 in April, and, you know, for most people, they go, that's not old. But in the world of emergency response, emergency management, I'm an old guy. And in that aspect, I want to know that the next generation coming behind me, you know, those guys, the gals and guys that are, you know, in their 20s right now, or, you know, are coming up behind me, that are gonna understand all the struggles that we had to get to where we are today and learn from our mistakes, right? And then hopefully they don't make the same mistakes. And there was this, there was an article that was talking about the intellectual void that is occurring as emergency managers start to retire. And I'm like, no, there's not. I disagree with that wholeheartedly because there's so many people out there that are teaching the new generation coming up and still involved in emergency management through research, through writing, sharing the knowledge. And even though they might not be in the emergency operations center any longer, they're actually still able to influence the new generation coming up. And the students that are coming through our programs They are unbelievable. They are great. They are so smart, so well-read, have a greater understanding of processes and how things work. Now, the critique on them is that they don't have the world experience, but they'll get that, you know.

None of us did, right? None of us did to start.

Right! Absolutely. And then, you know, our job as emergency managers and first responders that are older, the captains, the chiefs and whatnot, is to keep mentoring the new kids as they come up, you know, and learn from them as well. Because I honestly learn as much from my students when I teach as they do for me. Sometimes I think more.

No, amen. Absolutely. I always used to tell my instructors, I said, "You need to be selfish when you teach." And they'd look at me freakishly, you know, and I said, "No, no, I'm serious." I said, "Because it's what you get out of it that, you know," creates the energy that you're going to reflect back to your students. And I'm glad you brought up that generational issue too, because we're hearing so much of that. And I think people in different industries will benefit from what you just said. I think a lot of it has to do with us giving them the chance, isn't it? We've got to be open-minded, open-hearted about that, no?

Absolutely. You know, there's emergency— I was picking on emergency managers right now. There's some emergency managers out there that are very stingy with their time, and I understand. But when I have young kids come up to me and talk to me about things, I'm more than willing to spend my time with them and go through and just, I give them my personal cell phone, they can call, email me, LinkedIn, I say yes to almost everybody. And I connect with them all the time. Matter of fact, when I was at the national conference a few years ago, when I say a few, I didn't go to last year, so the year before last, I met a bunch of the kids and I actually spoke to a bunch, bunch of the college kids. And it was funny because I felt like I had little ducklings following me around because a bunch of them just kind of glommed onto me and went wherever I went. And I was happy, you know, I wasn't saying that in a negative way. I just say that was just kind of neat and it was humbling again to have these kids like want to learn from you. It's just like a very humbling experience. And I say this in truth that if you are a good instructor and you have students that follow you to classroom to classroom, just respect them and understand that that it is a great honor for you to be able to teach those kids and take it seriously and take your responsibility seriously as well.

Oh, you know, we're so singing in harmony because you're absolutely right. It is a privilege and it is a humbling experience to have people trust, you know, in your leadership and your— you know, the only one— I'll tell you what, if we are ever in the same room doing a workshop together or a conference or something, the thing about being stingy with time, I want to hit that because leaders and managers who want to be leaders, you've got to get over that. You know, I hear that all the time and I'm pretty blunt and brutal in these workshops because when someone says, I don't have time to spend with the people, you know, down on the rank and file, I said, well, you better damn well make it. You know, you don't want to be an undercover boss.

No, no, not at all. It's funny, I actually had an administrative assistant and she would, she would actually pull me out and say, "Oh, hey, I have to talk to you about something really quick." And she'd pull me away because I— even though you look at me, I'm a little on the chubby side. When I go through some of these things, I don't eat at all. And she could see me starting to lose my energy and whatnot. And so she'd pull me aside and put me in a room and make me have lunch or whatever because I wouldn't leave until people didn't need me anymore.

Oh, right. All right. Well, you're Your friend Simon Sinek, what is one of his books? Leaders Eat Last, right? But the flip side, of course, is that people, you know, when they're accessing, when you're accessing a leader, you want to make sure that you're respectful of that time too. It's awful that sometimes, you know, someone just, that open door policy can get tricky, right? If someone's just taking advantage of that and not being respectful of time. But as leaders, no, we need to make, we need to make time for face-to-face time. Absolutely.

Yeah, for sure.

Hey, you know what? I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you one of the pressing questions. Of course, these episodes are evergreen, so who knows when someone, you know, listen to this 5 years from now and say, what the hell are they talking about? But here we are facing the coronavirus, right? And you're right in, you're in the, on the spear, you know, tip of the spear with this thing.

Yeah.

Right? And there's been interesting conversations going around, especially within the movement here. How leaders are responding to this. What's your take? And if you're listening sometime in the future, don't worry about it because you're probably facing some other similar crisis. How do you think the response has been and how should leaders respond when we're facing something like this?

Well, some of the stuff that really disappoints me is how both political parties in the United States right now are using it as a political football.

Amen. They're cashing in on it.

Yeah. So that's just— I just want to get that out of the way because there are some decisions that are being made that are correct decisions that the pundits are attacking. And right, but we'll just leave that as it is. You know, I think there's a lot of scared people, and I think because information isn't flowing— and I don't know if it's not flowing because they don't want to share it, which I really Hopefully that's not the case, but I think that even the governments aren't 100% positive on how to approach this. And that being said, when there's a vacuum of information, people start listening to conspiracy theorists or whatnot, and then they start acting on their own. At this point, it's just a really severe cold, and if you take your typical steps that you take for flu and cold season where you wash your hands, you do that stuff, you know, if you feel like you're sick, social distance yourself, you know, you're gonna be okay. There's a vaccine that has been created, it's going through the process right now, although the bad part about it, it's not gonna be out for 18 months. This is, we're recording this in March of—

It'll be out when it's over, right?

Yeah. You know, um, but you know, it's like any, any, any other kind of vaccine for a virus. And yeah, um, and like, like any other bad flu or, or whatnot, if you have underlying issues such as respiratory diseases or whatnot, right, um, you know, you might succumb to it. So, so is it bad? Yeah, it's terrible. You know, um, should we take precautions? Absolutely. Um, you know, I think that there are some things that we're doing government-wise as far as like declaring an emergency that people don't understand why we do these things. It's not necessarily because we have this overwhelming number of victims at this point, but it releases funding and other opportunities for us to be able to do things legally that we have to declare an emergency in order to open up those doors. And that's why we do a lot of that.

I'm so glad you said that, because I think that's one of the things that happened today when California declared the emergency. I think that was a— from what I heard, a legal mechanism to keep one of the ships from coming to port or something like that.

Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, but you know that what I really took away from that though, and thank you for bringing that up, is the idea that, you know, in a crisis situation when the poop's hitting the fan, that it's very important that leaders are as transparent as possible, right? And to share information as openly as they can. You gotta trust people.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, because I mean, You know, there's some things that you don't— it's a balance, right? And then I say this because like there are some things you don't want to share because it might cause panic, but then there are things like you— if you don't share it, it might cause panic. So when you're sitting there at that table trying to make the decision— I've been there, right? I've been in these conversations. We've— back when we had the H1N1 virus going through and have the conversations and And I asked a lot of questions in there because I wanted to know what this decision, you know, means, right? And there are some things that were triggers and whatnot that forces us to do certain things and whatnot. But, you know, being in there, and I, again, I was not the decision maker, you know, the health department was, but I asked a lot of questions and understood where they're coming from because I wanted to know why we're making the decision we're making.

Hey, Todd, thank you so much for that. And You know what, if you don't mind, I'm going to put you at the top of the list. When we have the coronavirus or the next, you know, H1N37 or whatever comes along, we're going to have you back as the voice of reason. Is that okay?

Absolutely.

No, there's lots of cool things we need to talk about. So listen, why don't we wrap up? Tell people how to get in touch with you if you'd like them to. And obviously tell folks how to get to the EM Weekly because we're going to make sure we share this with folks in our circles that that are in emergency services and first responders too.

Sure thing, yeah. So EM Weekly, it's easy, it's emweekly.com. My webpage at Sitch Radio, and that's our home of EM Weekly, or you can find it on any of your podcast listening platforms such as iTunes, iHeartRadio, iTunes, or what's this, Spotify.

All of those things, right?

All those things. I always forget all, there's like hundreds of them out there now. And then as well, if you want to email me directly, I'm happy to hear from you. It's really easy. Todd, my first name with two D's, todd@emweekly.com. Or hook up with me on LinkedIn. I'm on there a lot. That's where I spend a lot of time, you know, with it. I love LinkedIn, and I would love to hook up with you guys there and say hi.

Todd, thanks so much for being— and thank you so much for your service to our community. It's my pleasure. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Walking the Walk. Please like and share. Our mission at the Sensei Leader Movement is to support and develop human-centric leaders. Leaders who put people first. Leaders who inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. Be part of the movement. Join and access all our free resources by visiting thesenseileader.com. To book Jim or host your own event, call us at at 207-751-4317.