Lessons we Learned Late, But You Don't Have to

[MUSIC] Welcome to Blue and Beyond. I'm Chad. I'm Josh. Hey, this is where we take a break from the daily grind to help you grow, laugh, and maybe even learn something new as it's related to the world of law enforcement. Whether you're starting your career or you've been at it for a while or mission's pretty simple, provide practical advice and inspire growth. And most importantly, let's have a good time while we do it. All right, cop stuff, we wish we knew sooner. So here's the goal, man. Things that we didn't know, but we wish we did. I mean, in this applies to new cop season cops, whoever. So, all right, I'm going to go first. I think though, something I wish I knew sooner or fully grasped, grasped was understand that you are representing the whole profession. So, any contact, any call, any traffic stop, you are representing the whole profession. You might be their only cop, so don't be a shitty one. You know, I think we forget sometimes that for most people, their entire experience with law enforcement might happen two or three times their whole life. And guess who gets the shape that entire opinion? It's you. It's me. It's whoever. So, on that random Tuesday, it's that non-priority call that parking complaint, that neighbor dispute, whatever it is, the call that you're tired and you're over it, that's the moment they remember. They remember that, how they were treated. You know, they don't know the day you had or the week you're having. They don't know any of that. They just know how you treated them. So, I would say understand that the average person doesn't call us if they don't have to. You know, they don't, most people that we interact with, they don't live in the criminal justice system. They're not career victims, they're not career suspects, they're just people. So, their perception and their, you know, their experience comes from their very own limited interaction they have with us. And a lot of times it's coming from their family and their friends that tell the story about how they got pulled over or what happens when they called on the crazy guy, you know, in the median with a shirt off. Like, their perception of us is shaped by an extremely limited interaction. I had a discussion with one of our patrol guys the other day and it's not only your criminal contacts that counten matter, it's all of your contacts. So, when you're going out there and you're making contacts, be intentional with anybody you contact. If you contact my grandma, should be polite, be that stereotypical cop that you want your grandma to run into an encounter. That way that, that person will hold on to that for the remainder of their life. And that, it's kind of generic and we hear that all the time. Like, treat people how you want to be treated. But honestly, it's hard, man. And it's really easy to think of that on the big calls, the hot calls with the adrenaline dumps where we kind of, our best gets brought out of us. But the real test comes on those lower priority or those lame calls that test that mindset and kind of that ability the most. You know, it's that civil issue, that neighborhood complaint, the lost property, whatever it is, like when you're annoyed. Like, that's when the biggest test occurs is your ability to represent the profession. Those calls that probably occur more frequently and we don't want to be there and the citizens can tell the second you get out of your control car that you don't want to be there. Those calls probably have the biggest impact. Right. Like the high frequency, low excitement. Yes. That's where you get tested the most and where, you know, that's where you get tested. So I think understanding that. So like my advice is the stakes are a lot higher than you think the stakes are high. You know, that kid watching from the porch might decide how they feel about cops based on how you talk to their mom or that neighbor watching you deal with the drunk dude that they live next door to that may determine what they think about your agency and what they think about police in general. You know, the driver that you stop for rolling a stop sign or speeding, you know, they may be like this neutral person on police. They may just be right in the middle. And if you treat them like shit, like all of a sudden they fall on that side of the fence. But the other way you can treat them really well and you can be professional and provide them with a decent experience. All of a sudden that's a supporter. They're an ally, you know, in the same thing like the store clerk that you blow off for a shop lift, you know, someone stole a candy bar. They're going to remember your name. They're going to remember your tone. They're going to remember the attitude you had. They're going to remember that forever. So understanding that the stakes are high. They're higher than you think. So that's kind of what my advice would be is that you don't get to pick which call people remember you buy. Like you can have a list of calls and you can say, you know what, that call I kicked ass on and I did a good job man. It was awesome. You don't get to pick what call people remember you buy. You only get to pick and control how you show up every damn time for every contact. Because today's RP on like the parking complaint, they could be tomorrow's witness in a serious assault or they or they may have the driveway that you want to park in to watch dope deals down the street. So treat them with respect. You know, we've we've all been on the receiving end of shitty customer service. And I think we're all probably thinking something right now. If I said, hey, think of a time you got shitty customer service, something pops in your head. But we've also been on the end of really good service. So try to be on that side. I mean, it's tough. It's a marathon, but create those positive experiences for the people that you interact with. Because remember, you aren't just representing yourself or your department, but it's the whole damn profession. So my, you know, my first thing that I wanted to talk about was just understanding that the impact you have and that most people don't have police interaction. So make it a freaking good one. All right. If you haven't heard the traditional work life balance speech yet, especially in policing, you freaking will. Instead, focus on being fully present in the moment. I don't buy into the work life balance myth. This is just something that I've kind of come across or a revelation I've had with some reflection. I think it's more appropriate for policing to focus on giving 100% to what you're doing at the moment. So if you're at work, you're giving 100% to your shift, then flip the switch and give 100% to your family or your personal life. Half-assing either one of them cheats everybody, including yourself. Too many cops try to balance work and life by working so much they forget they've ever had a life in the first place. Why balance doesn't fit cops, the traditional balance is because policing just isn't a nine to five job. You're dealing with high stakes calls, overtime, constant adrenaline dumps, trying to balance that with like any sort of traditional sense. I think just is going to lead you towards guilt and burnout. Instead, aim for intensity in the moment. When you're on a call, your family shouldn't be in your head. You should be there on that call. And when you're at your kid's ballgame, your phone should be on silent. Be at your kid's ballgame. Cops often struggle to turn off work mode. You need like a post-shift ritual sometimes to help transition. My, for a long time, has been gym. Back when I was like first on patrol, work in night shift. My favorite thing to do is come home and watch a couple episodes of Family Guy. I have the same, like the same type of ritual, like my favorite thing to do when I get home. It's to either watch all the episodes of the office, but have some sort of transition that becomes like my reminder that like work is done. And I think for anybody that has a little bit of a commute, like you need to use that time to either throw a podcast on, has nothing to do with policing, like a history show, whatever interests you, or play some music that like gets you out of that mindset, because taking that shit home is not good. So on that, I think it's important it needs to be completely opposite, completely different. Remove from policing. Don't come home and watch cops. Don't watch a cop sitcom. Watch something that's silly. You're not going to get sucked into a 12-hour binge session on, or actually invested in that way you can spend 30 minutes to chill, and then you can go to sleep, or do whatever you need to do. So my question for you is, with you and your family, is it hard for you to not come home and like talk about your day? Like are you asked like, what happened today, or have you set like a precedent that like you just kind of have left it? How do you do that? So it's been a work in progress, but essentially now the most I'll get from my kids, if I get them, is they ask if I caught any bad guys. And I'll tell them, yeah, I caught a bad guy, or yeah, we caught some bad guys today. And sometimes it's pretty funny, my youngest daughter would be like, you only caught one. She knows Dad really well. She should be saying one, that's a good day for you. But most of the time, most of the time we don't talk about it. Not because they don't care about what I do. The kids still do the, I want to be a policeman drawings when at school and all that kind of stuff. But it's just not priority. You know, you come home, my priority is to turn on Dad mode and be there for him before bedtime. Well, I think it sounds like you're doing a pretty good job at that. So you definitely want to have some ritual transitioning to the home life is basically what I'm hearing from you. Yeah, and set some, set some boundaries to like don't, don't talk cop at dinner. I think some of those big boundaries are huge. A lot of times we miss those family events. So when you have them, it should be special and it should be a family event. Make sure you take care of your self-care. It doesn't have to be grinding it out at the gym. If you need to, it can be watching a dumb show, can be grabbing a burger every once in a while. So prioritize that kind of stuff as well. And I would add to like when you talk about not bringing your work home is so much and our job is negative like we, you know, we're so critical of everything that I think when you bring that work home and you start talking about work, it's hard not to talk about the critical things. And now you've brought that, dude, I don't want to say it, but you brought that vibe home like that, that negative vibe or that negative shit from your shift or work or whatever the culture may be happening that day. You've not brought that home when it definitely should be two separate things. Yeah, when I was a one or two year cop, I was always watching the news trying to see like what else was going on that I missed. And I don't, I tell people I don't watch the news because I live it. I don't need it anymore. I get my max. I get my fill. I'm the same way, dude. I do not watch the news. I have no clue what's happening. I ask my dad like on the phone. Anything I need to know about in the world, you know, I think the goal should be tell me if you agree with this. If someone were to be air dropped into your home, they would have no clue your cop. Yeah, 100%. If you look around where we are right now in my house, there's not a single, there's not a thin blue line flag hanging up, there's nothing. I mean, what may give it away is all my vans that I own and all that stuff, but like, if they were a fly on the wall, they should have no clue that you're a cop. That's probably a good practice. It's a phase, right? It's something that you learn into when you're a new cop, you lean into it because you're excited. You work so hard to get there. You know, you just like steer into it, thin blue line, punisher, but hopefully fuel cans. The gas cans, sunglasses, you're wearing like 511 tack pants to Walmart. Yeah, exactly. You know, you steer into the skid there, but I think it's important to kind of like work your way through some of that phase and it's okay to not have it be your complete identity all the time. Yeah, dude, I on that note and part of that new phase and I'm going to totally like divert this conversation real quick is we'll have new people and they're walking into work and they're open carrying, you know, like they're so proud to be a cop. They're open carrying their shit and I'm like, do you have any idea how much of a tactical disadvantage that is in the public? Like if something shitties going to go down and you're open carrying the first person that's going to get it is you because you are broadcasting. You are broadcasting that you are the person that can probably handle your shit so you probably need to get got first. You know what I mean? So like in that phase of like I got the Punisher sticker on my car and I'm wearing Oakley gas cans and wearing 511 tack pants 24/7 with my Oakley tan boots like part of that phase. Yeah, don't open carry and conceal that shit. It's all been nerds to like it it's happens but at some point I think for the sake of longevity with this career and your sanity like it's okay to resort back to like being a normal person again. So the second thing I thought about is something I wish I would have took on sooner or been better about it sooner is asking for advice and really asking the right people for advice. And like I can remember early on in my career being in this on this crazy chaotic DV call screaming kids pissed off dad the whole deal. So I'm like fumbling through these interviews trying to keep it all straight and this season cop shows up didn't really say much just starts handling everything diffuses dad separates the parties gets the gets clean statements. Has the report like practically outlined in his head before we even clear the scene and I remember thinking like damn that's how that's supposed to look. But you know what I didn't do I didn't ask him a single question after I didn't pull him aside I didn't ask how he kept his cool what questions he asked nothing I assumed I was like I guess I'll figure it out eventually. So like looking back that was such a wasted opportunity and it probably cost me months of growth or at least a handful of DV related calls. So what I'm trying to say is I think if you can learn to ask for advice I think it's one of the fastest ways to level up in this job and in life honestly because it's it's simple man ask questions seek feedback invite that critique especially from people who have proven that they have gotten that shit right or they have been there and done that. Yeah it takes a little bit of like the you have to take the bite out of the humble pie to go out of your comfort zone approach somebody and ask him for help sometimes ask him for advice and the other angle of that is when they give you the advice you better frickin internalize it and use it. Yeah man so like as a as a cop new or seasoned find the people who are unanimously respected you know the people who know what they're doing the people that are better than you in an area you know you may have more time on them but they may be better than you or have a skill set that you don't have. Get advice like every department has them the officers the detectives they're just solid typically they're not the they're not loud about it they're just the the dudes and the chicks that are dialed in you know the people who like if their name gets brought up people just kind of nod and they're like yeah that that person's legit like they know their shit like that that's that's the person I'm talking about so like what I'm saying is go to them ask them specific things whatever's appropriate for their work. Appropriate for their role or their expertise or experience go to them ask for advice hey how do you prep for court hey how do you articulate this whatever it is go be proactive and seek out those things because being able to seek out advice is critical I mean you know the old saying like you don't know what you don't know you know you may think that you're doing something right because nobody's corrected you but really that does it that that's not the best part of the story. That's not the best practice honestly you you may feel good about a call but there may have been a small opportunity to level up or do something better in that situation that would be like tremendously valuable to you for the next time you have that call. You may unlock some insight that can make you better or you know you maybe after a call you ask hey you got any advice on that anything you saw there and they may give you a chance like they may ask something actually I saw this but really that may give you a chance to express your thoughts on something and educate them it may be level them up so it's really a win win they may ask you something and bring something your attention like damn that's a good point that you know thank you or you may hear that question provide an answer. And then level them up because they didn't see it how you saw it so man my advice is just like opportunities like advice opportunities are everywhere like post call debriefs hey you got any advice on me for that or any thoughts on that you know weekly recap with your team or or your FTO hey what's something I miss this week that I didn't realize or you know it's court prep with a with a DA you know is there anything in my report in this case that maybe it would have made it easier for you or evidence collection or documentation maybe a picture whatever like like the end of shift you know everybody's usually at least in my agency like my team will gather real quick before we hit the locker room. Hey any feedback from you today anything you do differently if we had that again anybody anybody and it doesn't even have to be directly related to the things that you did or experience I think like let's say someone who just tested for a special unit you know you may not be trying to go into that unit you may not be trying to take that route right at that time but like that person hey man knowing what you knowing what you know now what advice would you give someone preparing for what you just went through you know and getting that. And getting that advice from them it doesn't necessarily have to be something you did but it can be something that you may do one day you know hey you you worked out you know you did some crazy tough mother or something like hey any advice for me that you'd have you know preparing for a tough mother we see this approach of asking for advice everywhere in life right I know for you when you've been on your freaking brisket trip you know your brisket stuff. Josh tell me how do you do this brisket tell me what seasonings do you use give me advice on how you do your brisket sure shit you give me like this whole outline of how you're making your brisket from the lessons the losses the shit you've experienced you know vacation planning do we not do it in vacation planning all the time you're getting ready to go on a Disney cruise and the first thing you did was like hey tell me about a cruise tell me how to sneak out go on the Disney cruise yeah you're like and I'm like dude I'll tell you how to sneak out call on the crew so like you know hey another example is like hey I'm building a house you've built a house what let how did you screw it up tell me your losses and your lessons so that I can do a better so this idea of asking for advice is present everywhere in our life why can't it be in policing I think we can be better about it I think we could level each other up and you know you just got to be humble and do it so I'm bangin table for this because if you invite feedback I mean most people aren't just going to offer it unprompted they don't want to offend you they think it's a small thing they could critique you on but if you ask for it you're signaling like human you're signaling a growth mindset you're signaling accountability it makes people want to invest in you especially if you actively listen to their advice and apply it and if you get to if you get to a place where you're consistently someone who's comfortable with asking for advice regularly like long term you're going to get better you're going to get better faster no question about it you're going to build trust just like in our last episode we talked about that as well so we talked about that equity with teammates you're going to build trust because people will see you as somebody who's not arrogant they're just trying to do the job right and they're trying to do it to the best of their ability you know and also it's it's going to build connections with solid people you know not everybody has an opportunity to interact with a detective on a daily basis or an interdiction officer or a narc or what the investigation sergeant so like if you can have an interaction with them that's positive and you learn something you're going to leave them with an impression of who you are so I would I would just say this man ask for advice every opportunity you can the opportunities are out there you can grant for 10 years and any you can plateau or you can ask the right people the right questions and you can get 10 years of growth in half the time be curious be coachable seek out people who quietly crush it because those are the ones that usually have the answers that you didn't even know you needed the ones that are quietly crushing it are usually ones that are actually crushing it the loud ones that are flaunting it are usually faking it you know it's true it's true and figuring that out can be hard you know is figuring out who's who especially as a new cop you know and that's another challenge in and of itself so so that's my number two ask for advice seek advice is often as possible it will only level you up and it will help your reputation as an officer all right so here's one that's a constant struggle I think in policing no matter what agency what department you're at you're going to have to keep this in mind and keep working through it it's staying immune to toxic vibes no matter what department you work in what group you work in right policing in general throws you into a petri dish of negativity you're going to be surrounded by cynical vets whiny new guys mountains of paperwork redundant tasks the job is tough we often see the worst side of humanity it's real and it's not healthy to just marinate in it toxic attitudes in your team keep your head space clean so you don't turn into that cop that hates everything and hates everyone with that you need to recognize like the power of influence negativity spreads faster than good tactics that are ranged toxic comments can shift a whole vibe of your shift you've got more influence than you think use it to steady the ship not to sink it man and that just goes back to we've talked about it before like that common enemy intimacy or that common enemy bonding you know where cheap equity with people like easy to build rapport is to just talk shit and that is it's like it's like cheap carbs you know it's just easy it's candy it's bullshit where you see it all the time and you see people doing oh you see how John handled this call or do you see how you know Jessica did this or whatever like that's how people are bonding at agencies nowadays and I think recognizing it when it's happening or you're getting attempted to be pulled into it or realizing when you might be doing it and being able to hit the time out button and catch yourself because that shit is so toxic it does nothing for anybody but it's so prevalent like when you label it and you you know common enemy intimacy you and I are going to get intimate and we're going to bond build a rapport over shitty on something so so shitty for our profession yeah everyone's fighting admin or fighting the other team or fighting investigations and they're not actually being productive towards any of it so with that like don't allow yourself to turn into the complaint desk sometimes you have to check yourself are you solving problems or you just complaining no one will ever say oh thank God thank goodness Josh spent all day of briefing Trashing admin now I'm fucking fired up to go to work that doesn't happen no so build your immunity right humor kind of like we just talked about humor is an armor right we use it all the time as a coping mechanism it helps us survive but when it turns into something that's pointed mean bitter and as a constant focus against a unproductive goal or a unproductive topic and it's counter productive towards the culture of your team it's just going to drag everybody down and another part of that is choosing choosing your circle choose who you allow to be with like not everybody deserves a seat at your table as someone's constantly bitter cynical draining to your team's morale it's okay to create a little bit of distance prioritize your own headspace then you can focus on trying to influence them and dealing with people like that I think that's the challenge but honestly if you call it out in a positive way it is extremely uncomfortable for that person on the shit talking side to be called out like to it like it's uncomfortable and typically if you calmly address it or or kind of tennis it back in a positive way eventually they will realize like and Josh is not somebody I can go you know be the complaint desk to he cannot be my complaint desk I've been on some of those teams and I've been at the point where I've allowed myself to get sucked into that negative mentality and then like to break yourself away from it yeah that's what I did I turned to humor so they would start complaining and I would just start firing back at him with stuff of like oh well what have you been working on today you know like that just like simple stuff to check them and then you just kind of have to recognize the path that you're on which sometimes is easy sometimes it's difficult and it could try and course correct it can course correcting it can look like a lot of different ways it can be as simple as like I'm a big like easy like somebody will start talking about something or saying something that I'm not a fan of and my default is just a easy easy like and that's a cue to them and to me that like this is going a direction that I'm not a huge fan of it can look like a lot of different things though and I think individually you got to find what your kind of armor is for those things that signals like hey dude teammate chick whatever it is like I'm not really into where this is headed or taking it that whatever that shit is that they're saying and trying to flip it into action like yeah now here what you're saying what do you think we can do to try to fix this fix this yeah I think we could talk about addressing negative culture like a whole 45 minute episode so if we need to let us know in the comments or what not but we can we can definitely put that one on the list so the my last one is the one that I am most passionate about I think of these things and let's be honest this this could be part one the shit we wish we knew of like a 10 part series so just for today so here's mine start a freaking briefing journal and start it yesterday one of the biggest game changers that I wish someone had drilled into my head early on keep a briefing journal I feel like in the culture of law enforcement we treat briefing like this place to just react to yesterday's dumpster fire like it's backwards how many times have you been in a briefing where someone breaks down some tactic some legal update some lessons learned from a call and everyone just kind of sits there nausea my god there's sitting there lean back in their chair or they're eating something you know sipping on a white monster sipping on coffee yeah like it's just kind of like this time is just passing like this job moves fast if you don't write shit down you are not going to retain it cops always say tell me tell me if you've heard this we don't get enough training we don't have enough training we'll I wish we had more time to train yeah cool well let's start tree treating briefing like micro training but that shit only works if you're capturing good stuff so I say keep a journal for briefing and here's okay what am I going to put in there I don't know what I'm going to put okay well cool put in there you can put in stuff like tactical tips tricks whatever you know smart officer safety reminders you know we we don't need a reminder we don't need to officer searching the car when we only have to because when the tweaker walks up on foot we have no one who sees him coming you know like you can put in there topics from you know better containment hey on this call we didn't have good containment we went up to the guy who had a warrant his house and he escaped out the back cool wish we would have had containment on the backside you know you can put in all kinds of tactical stuff and that's just one section you know notes from debriefs for after action stuff like hey this worked on this call write it down make a note of it you know you how many times are we in a briefing where someone's bringing up a legal update or some type of policy nugget case law like hey cool recent fourth amendment kind of change or hey this use of force ruling and this is going to change how we do things like cool put it in there it was talked about put it in there maybe clarification some department policy like well technically it is a pursuit if you continue to follow them even with your lights not activated you know whatever it is or maybe you had questions you had the chief come in or the sheriff come in or the sheriff come in or lieutenant captain whatever you had questions and they were answered you know like cool write that down hey I asked this question this was the answer other things you can write down and I love doing this is just lessons from the street hey what went sideways on this call what would you do differently if you had this same scenario tonight or today you know why did this work let's write down hey cool this work because we have backside containment we were able to rest him because when we knocked on the front door he ran out the back and we had an officer two officers on the backside of the house you know or you're on a team you can experience everything you're learning from your partner's losses like oh you know Josh learn this on this call let me write that down I didn't experience it but I don't need the experience that loss to be able to learn from it so writing down other people's losses I have a few co-workers on the team now and one of the guys carries an actual like paper notebook to all of our meetings he'll write down names addresses phone numbers anything that comes up just on paper it's a hard cut hard hard covered notebook mine my version of what you're talking about is just a notes tab in my cell phone hell yeah like it's super simple super easy when I was back on patrol I had one of those like pocket notepads that was actually for taking notes on calls and I had a pocket notepad that was like my bad guy roll a decks I had all the trap houses listed out as I found them I just wrote down the addresses so when it's like two in the morning and there's not anything going on and I'm looking to go fishing like I could flip that open and start looking through stuff can look like a lot of different things I have something and other things you know you can write down are like awesome leadership moments you know like hey you know Sarge let Josh go home early today because this kid had a softball game like this was awesome like writing down those good experience you know maybe you got some awesome quotes or some lines or or feedback that stuck with you or advice because we're asking for advice now or maybe how like a supervisor handled conflict or something but like leadership moments whatever you want to call it like jot it down take notes have have notes of that because a lot whatever you're writing down a lot of the tactical stuff for the losses of the learning a lot of those entries into your like briefing journal they're going to spark training ideas or concepts like they may not be today but six months from now when you're on a different team and you're like shit man we're not really doing much in briefing and you flip back to six months in your notebook and you're like oh that time we okay we had a really hard time getting four occupants out of a vehicle with only two officers and we talked about it cool hey guys do you want to go out to the parking lot and for briefing we're going to walk through and talk about getting out four occupants out of a car with only two officers and how to do it safely and frisk them one at a time you know so like all of those entries will likely spark training ideas and their topics that or just tabletop briefing conversations that'll take ten minutes five to ten minutes out of a briefing you know problems that you problems that you're seeing that could be like a proactive conversation or scenarios that you think you could mentally walk through with your team videos case studies you to body cam whatever like so often we wait for shit to go bad then we retro you know we debrief it after well you and me maybe on a team today six months from now we're on a different team I don't think we need to wait for that team to experience that lesson in order to learn it like why can't I just look in my notebook and bring up something that I learned and like hey I want to throw something out to you guys pull up the Google maps and be like hey let's say we had this car here what do you guys think about this and you're just debriefing it from last year's team it's going to be something that can be applied to any call or any circumstance whatever it's going to level people up but you don't have to wait to learn the hard way in order to have your team experience so I think there's a bunch of benefits to it you know maybe a year later you're promoted or you're on a new team and you're running briefing shit man like I said flip to your book pick a topic boom you're ready to go and it's kind of becomes like this personal library of lessons whether it's leadership related tactics all that stuff you just you have this library of lessons that you can use it anytime and honestly I think it promotes like a proactive learning culture instead of just reacting to like I said last nice time like I said last nice dumpster fire like you can be proactive about it you know I can think of a time when we were still on the same team and I heard like a road rage incident pop off where a dude points a gun and another driver we were kind of in the area we found the guy and he's driving to drop his kids off at school and so there was dialogue on the radio whether to contact the guy at school or not but like that's a great tabletop discussion like you have a road rage somebody pointed a gun in a road rage incident to another person then continues three miles down the road and is going to drop their kid off at school do you contact them before do you contact them after what are the pros and cons what's the thought process for this but if you didn't write that shit down that call and the lessons from it you're not bringing that up in a briefing three months later on a new team you don't have you know unless you're just weird in your Eric and you have a memory and you never forget anything like I can't tell you what was significant three weeks go on my team but I can flip through my almost dropped an F bomb I can flip through my I can flip through my notebook and I can tell you what was significant a couple weeks ago so keep a briefing journal you can call it whatever the hell you want you know you can call it the cop brain backup drive you can call it the blue book the the stuff I wish I could remember whatever man but like this culture of let's just wing it in briefings and see what happens and you know how like you have a room full of experience cops and a lot of times we're just wasting that 30 minutes 30 plus minutes of briefing when we could get something productive out of it and a lot of that will hinge on your retention of historical stuff historical conversation so you know and now that I'm banging the table on this I think like if you had a team of people that like did this consistently you can get to the point fast forward months and be like hey Josh what's in your briefing book give me something from your journal give me something there that you thought about a thought or something and like you can express it we can go around the room and talk about stuff that was important to us or learns lessons learning points all that kind of stuff it would be a perfect way to fill in of like a slow briefing like hey it's a Monday we don't really have anything who's got some for the table no one's got some okay cool chat hit us with something out of your out of your briefing book that we can round table or talk about you know all man this guy on a mo pad I couldn't figure out how to stop him with the traffic violations were because it was a 49 CC and he's riding in a bike lane like you know well that you can work through it as a team talk about it be productive and still learning I can tell you that there's times where I'm scant where I'm listening to you to like the county's channel or the state's channel but here's one from a couple weeks goes I heard they were officers were going to contact this guy who's sitting out front of the library he had a warrant and he was kind of a suspect in a D.V. an officer went to contact that person by themselves and at one point that contact kind of went a little bit sideways it ended up being a use of force or response to resistance with like one officer in the suspect so by himself so I get brought up a good conversation for me that I wrote in my notebook of like hey if you're in a contact and it goes sideways at what point do we disengage and keep eyes on like at in what world is there where we say you know what like he's not armed he's not like do I really need to be in this knockout dragout fight or can I just shove this dude away get a little distance and start air and radio traffic get the cavalry come and get ten cops and that's a yeah that's a good is there a world scenario and maybe there and all that does generate conversations because you do that in a briefing and all of a sudden someone's you know hey when would you continue the fight one on one all these circumstances okay well when wouldn't you all these circumstances until you right now the human aspect if I get into a fight with somebody one on one like I'm not going to be thinking about disengaging it's going to be tunnel vision to fighting that guy I wish I would have the mental clarity to be like am I is this worth it maybe it's not do we ever trade it do you think about that policing have we ever trained disengaging no because once you go it's a one way street but are there times where you know you roll up on the dude you know a man you got any weapons on you first come he has no weapons yeah and in all of a sudden it gets a little frog he put hands on is there is there a scenario where you're better off just disengaging and keeping eyes on the dude and if he starts running cool you cannot run the radio pro like like go get my car but if you never wrote down if you never wrote that down if you never heard that on the the counties radio channel and wrote it down you can't bring up those conversations and briefing you know so so that's what I'm being in the table for I think if you can keep a briefing journal if you're not keeping a briefing journal honestly like you're doing yourself a disservice it's something that I think everybody should do I don't think I I take notes so my notes tab in my cell phone is fat I've got several folders the most recent things that I've been putting in there have been training ideas so been pretty passionate about trying to come up with some short 15 20 minute trainings that I can kick for our patrol teams and our proactive teams in a briefing setting one of them is some kind of a critiques that we've had on some of our cases have gone a jury trial just how to make our cases better in front of a jury specifically for that one it's working through searching vehicles and documenting the searches in a way that's juror friendly and then I would say like that training folder has been the one I've been using mostly but you can have multiple folders of multiple topics it doesn't have to only be that briefing it can be I have one that's leadership I have one that's quotes some of them that are just funny I've made me laugh that I don't want to forget all those things trap houses too don't forget your trap house addresses and really like with some of these briefing conversations and journals and future topics like it goes back to coaching for me and I think great coaches they don't coach what they would do I'm not going to coach and say this is what you should have done this is what I would have done great coaches they generate a culture of activating thought process like in over time this kind of rest you know like they don't tell you do this do that it's micromanaging they generate a culture where you think you think critically and that's what some of these notes and these journals give you the opportunity to do is to retain some of those lessons bring them up at a later date and also you know there's times where I get in the briefing a couple minutes early I'm waiting for people to show up cool I'm going to go skim before weeks ago and you know what oh shit I forgot about that incident oh man yeah we did not do a good job of telling all the officers coming into the area which we are guns were pointing like oh that's a good reminder hey down ranges to the West do not come in from the West things like that so yeah man I think we could probably have you know like a ten-part series on the things we wish we knew so this was just episode one but yeah dude I think it's a good conversation and if these are things that people are doing I think they're only going to make them they're only going to level them up for sure and if anybody listen to this wants to hear more along this topic line let us know DMS comment whatever it takes and we can crank out what we're doing is going to do is really good and we're going to do this. So we can make sure it takes and we can crank out some more that are similar to this. All right that's a wrap for this episode of the blue vion thanks for hanging with us and if you've got any thoughts on anything we talked about today ideas topics anything you want to hit us with should just a DM on Instagram we actually read them remember this job is an easy it's hard mode all day every day love it embrace it we'll see you next time. [Music]