importantly, it looks like they just gave up. Certainly not the quality I look for in leaders.
If you wear clothing that is meant to be ironed or dry-cleaned, then by all means, make sure you treat your articles of clothing to that luxury. Nothing beats the look of a well-ironed shirt or blouse or the crisp look of a dry-cleaned pair of pants or jacket. The wrinkled, just-slept-in look usually works best for college students or reporters that live inside the media van fourteen hours a day. Did you know there is a magical thing called wrinkle release? It’s another great addition to your clothing emergency kit that you're going to make.
Do you carry scissors or a small Swiss Army knife? If you don't have one or carry them in your purse or pocket, do yourself the favor and grab one of those items. Those little strings that appear on your clothes out of nowhere, yeah, those things, we have to get rid of them as soon as they appear. Don't just pull on them – cut them. Some people have even burned them off, but I prefer the cut method. In the military, we referred to those little strings as Irish pennants. Don't ask me why; that's just what I grew up knowing them as. They are like the weeds that grow on clothing, and they are one of my biggest pet peeves. Before I put anything on, I look for the Irish pennants and I get rid of them immediately.
Again, the head-to-toe once-over of what you are going to wear for the day should take no longer than seven minutes to perfect. You want people to always have a positive image of you. They will notice the attention to detail you put into your outfit or uniform, and if you can perfect attention to detail on the small things like clothing, then you are going to be a master of attention to detail on the bigger things in life that really matter.
I can remember my attention to detail failure all too well. It was very early on in my paramedic career. We were dispatched to a house fire. We pulled up to the scene of the fire and parked almost directly behind the fire truck. We got out of the ambulance and pulled out the stretcher, placed the oxygen bag and jump kit on it, and positioned ourselves kind of off to the side. We needed to be as close as we could be in case one of the firefighters got injured. What we didn't expect was one of the neighbors to come and tap us on the shoulder and tell us that her husband was having chest pain and wanted to go to the hospital. We loaded him onto the stretcher and put him in the back of the ambulance. Guess what we couldn't do? If you guessed drive away, you would be correct. We were now trapped by the fire hose that was all over the street in every direction and the other police and emergency vehicles that were also parked. We were trapped and had to make the embarrassing radio call to the 911 dispatcher and have them send another ambulance because we had trapped ourselves in and couldn't go anywhere. When we originally pulled up on scene, we should have paid attention to the small details like where we were parking and that fact that in a few minutes, there would be hundreds of feet of fire hose in every direction. But we didn't, and in the end, the failure to pay attention to the small things cost us big time when it really mattered. Luckily for us, the other ambulance crew was right around the corner and with the help of a few police officers, we were able to lift the stretcher over the fire hose and wheel him to the other ambulance. Attention to detail on the small things will help you for the big things.
Challenge 4 (Nutrition or Meal Planning)
I can't even believe I am going to write anything about this topic, but I do have a story I would love to share with all of you. I, like many of you, have yo-yo'd up and down with weight from my mid-twenties until today. The times I have been focused on fitness and nutrition were honestly the times I felt my best mentally and my best physically. I have struggled with keeping on track with this for the last decade. It is my kryptonite. I think I don't have time to work out or eat healthy, but I do. I just don't want to, because fast food tastes so much better than a bag of broccoli, and meal prepping cuts into closing my nap rings. This is the one area of my life I need to put more focus on because quite honestly, I am tired of hiding in my clothing. For any of you who know me and want to know why I wear a hoodie when it's eighty degrees out, well, there you go.
So here's my point with this one. I used to be a gym fanatic. I would wake up at 4:30 every morning, go to LA Fitness and work out for two hours, then go to work. On my lunch break, I would head up to my boxing gym and get my boxing workout in and then go back to work. In the evening, I would either jog or go to my Jiu-Jitsu class. I was in the best shape of my life until one day while I was getting ready for work, I bent over to put my boots on and I heard, pop, pop, pop, and all of a sudden, I was flat on my back screaming in pain. The ER doctor told me I had herniated three discs in my lower back and that eventually I would need surgery. Being a medic, (and medics are the worst patients), I didn't like that, and I just succumbed to the idea that I would just deal with the pain the three or four times a year I would throw my back out. This certainly put an end to my boxing and my MMA training, and I just stopped caring about working out. I ate worse than I ever had and before I knew it, I hated the person in the mirror (challenge 1). We all know what we have to do. There are too many apps that make this easy for us. For me, it was an app called MyFitnessPal. One year not too long ago, on New Year’s Day, I woke up and made the commitment to start logging everything I ate and whatever walks I would try to take. I kept my calorie intake below or close to my goal and before I knew it, forty pounds flew off my body faster than I could say, "I'll take a number one with large fries." Less than six months later, after re-discovering the real taste of pasta again, the weight was coming back on and I could not get back on track.
Fast forward to 2016 when I was creating our Tactical EMS team. I needed to get back into shape quickly. As the leader of the team, I had to be the example of fitness because I had to take the same physical fitness test as everyone else who was trying out for the team. I started walking every morning, during lunch breaks, and after work for hours, and I mean for hours, on end. For three straight months, I easily walked over a thousand miles on the streets of White Oak, often coming home with a limp. Very quickly, that limp turned into excruciating pain and I could no longer put weight on that leg. Fast forward to the MRI and they showed me that in my right knee, more than half the cartilage was missing and I had a deep bone bruise. Injured by walking? You have got to be kidding me! The truth is, I knew I was overdoing it, but I loved exercising and never imagined you could injure yourself from walking. Leave it to me to expose that nasty truth. I did manage to complete my physical fitness test. I just hid the pain and discomfort from everyone. Our Tactical EMS team is now fully operational, and we have done several missions with our local police department and a handful with our county SWAT team.
So here I am today, attempting to claim that fitness and meal planning is important for leadership. It is – I know it is – and I can openly admit to all of you that if I had to do a self-leadership evaluation of myself, this would be the area that I would score myself the lowest in. Leadership isn't about being perfect; it's about being real. I have work to do, but I might not be that much more different from many of you reading this. We can do it; we know what we have to do. It's just about finding the motivation to do so. Yes, we all have the time to commit to this. Remember, the excuses begin and end with us.
Challenge 5 (Rehearsing)
Everything we do in life requires some element of practice or getting ready. Undoubtedly, you will at some point in your life or career have to give some kind of pitch, presentation, or speech. Let's not stop at those. Let's also include conducting an interview or being the interview candidate yourself or even having difficult conversations with people. Whatever the moment is, you need to rehearse and rehearse often.
I can remember a few decades ago living in Ft. Lauderdale, broke, with no real idea what I wanted to do anymore with my life or who I really was. I answered a wanted ad in the back of the Sun Sentinel that said, "CASH PAID DAILY, NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY." I called the number and was told to meet them on the corner of Oakland Park Boulevard and US 1 for the job. Totally sounds legit and professional, right? I drove my 1979 Chevy Impala land yacht hunk of crap to the general location, parked, and walked over to the intersection. I kid you not – two minutes later, this white stretch cargo van screeched to a halt in front
