The Hidden Power of Creating Connection through Conflict

TRANSCRIPT:

Brent: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Firefighter Support Podcast. Appreciate all our guests today, one returning guest, Jordan Wooley. Thanks for coming back anytime. Started off the first time. Let's do quick intros on everybody. And then we're gonna get into our topic today, which is conflict, which.

Probably doesn't have much to do with firefighting or fire stations, or we're gonna talk about it anyway. But

Clair: Ben did I some sarcasm there. Comment,

Brent: there might be a little conflict in there. Mostly just between A and B shift. C shift is pretty good, but A and B shift, they got problems. So we're here Oh man.

For them today. But Ben, this is kinda your first episode with us, but we go way back. Why don't you give us a little intro to your fire career and what got you all the way to sitting on this couch today.

Ben: That's a lot. That's a lot to say. Yeah, so I started in the fire service in 2004 with North Logan City fire department as a volunteer firefighter.

And I worked with those guys for several years until I became a deputy fire Marshal at Utah State University. I worked there for five years until I got hired with Logan City [00:01:00] where I always wanted to go. and I've been with them now for nine years.

And I'm currently paramedic, engineer at station 72 on C shift. And I'm also currently the union president for our local union 2148. Yeah, it was a little bit about me

Brent: what made you kinda stick with the fire service?

 I know your first call was pretty rough, if I remember right. how come it wasn't like, oh gosh, I don't want to do this ever again, but instead.

You've turned it into an awesome long career.

Ben: Yeah. Honestly I was introduced to the fire service in a really quick and brutal way. My first couple calls I got introduced to the tragedy that, that we have to be a part of and try and help and and honestly, at the time I questioned pretty heavily if I, if this was the job for me.

But honestly, I found just a lot of satisfaction in being in this profession and helping people. And it's just done a lot for myself. Personally, I just, I feel accomplished from being in this profession and being able to learn and do the things that, that we do. And yeah, it was a rocky start.

 [00:02:00] it helped me grow and realize that, that this was truly like one of my passion was as in the fire service and and doing medical. But yeah, it was definitely a kind of a rough start. But luckily, that it's all now I reflect back in all those years, it's was all super positive stuff that helped prepare me for things that,

That I'm dealing with now,

Brent: When I started in North Logan in 2007, Ben was definitely one of the, like the go-to cool guys in the room. So as a barely like 18 and three days old person that I was, it was like, man, Ben's energy in the room. And also it was just like, I think that was my first real connection to the brotherhood.

And then of course over the years we did a lot together and but man, it just seemed like that's what hooked me right away about you was just like, man, you just, everybody seemed to rally around Ben and just fun guy to hang out with, but then everybody wants you right there on the calls too. So it's just that cool dynamic of going to do hard stuff, but then, getting some Cubans at the Village [00:03:00] Inn after drill.

 I think that's something that really strengthened me through those first years is just I had really great mentorship. And then just the, having the brotherhood and just having that team dynamic is what I needed to really feel successful.

Ben: Yeah, I really credit to a lot in my first years. Just, great mentorship and just, good people to work with.

Brent: Jordan appreciate you coming back and last time you were on the podcast, you're a fairly new.

Graduated Probie, now you're just the veteran. Oh, not even close. Everybody own department now. Looks up to Jordan, so don't

Jordan: be like me.

Brent: But thanks for coming back and thanks for hooking us up with Claire or subject matter expert today. Maybe you can give us a little intro on Claire and then we'll turn it over to Claire to tell us a little bit about himself.

Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. It'll be, he'll probably introduce himself way better than me. But before the fire days, I did go to Utah State. I got a degree in communications. And I took two classes from Professor Canfield here public speaking class, and then a conflict class. And that conflict kind of resolution class that I took probably had the greatest impact on me, more than any other class [00:04:00]I took.

And it's something I think about all the time. And it was definitely my favorite class. And so as we've started these podcasts and I've been brainstorming things. I just, Claire kept coming back into my head as someone who'd be just an awesome guest to help us. I know that you've dedicated most of your life and your studies to communication and conflict.

And that I don't know, tell us a little more about yourself and kinda your background.

Clair: Yeah. Is it okay if I ask you a question? You mentioned that conflict class had the largest impact on you. How would you describe that? Like how has it impacted your life at this point? Oh man.

Jordan: I think one of the greatest things that came out of it is just and I don't know, maybe this isn't even part of your class, but it's, what I feel like I got out of it is definitely that conflict is everywhere, and it's natural and it's normal. And just because you have a conflict with a spouse or a parent or a coworker doesn't mean your relationship's bad.

It doesn't mean you guys don't have a good connection. It doesn't mean you can't work together. It's just a part of life. And there are ways and tools to process that and get through it [00:05:00] without. Ruining relationships. And I remember talking a lot about forgiveness and things like that in class.

And I think that's just impacted everything from my marriage to big decisions and just talking about everyday thing. It's yeah, we can disagree and we can still have a great marriage. We can still have a great crew on the fire department. And that's probably what hit me the most. Yeah.

Clair: Yeah. And Jordan, I think you're highlighting something that's really insightful, which is for the most part, people usually think about conflict in negative ways, right? You talked about I learned that conflict doesn't mean my relationships are broken. That's how I used to feel about it too.

Like the reason why I started exploring conflict and how to do it differently is I was horrible at it, right? And I remember this moment when. I was taking an interpersonal class, interpersonal communication class at Weaver State during my undergrad, and I was, I'd just been married for a year, and they started [00:06:00] talking about how people usually deal with conflict and there's different styles, right?

Like how you typically respond. So like competing, are you really aggressive towards what you want? Are you accommodating? Just give in, it's fine, everything is fine, dumpster's on fire, but it's fine, right? It's whatever you need or avoiding, which is predominantly the most. I often use style of dealing with conflict as just wanting to avoid it completely.

And that's what I discovered. I was right. I would, I didn't want to talk about any of the things that I had conflict about. And so I'm taking this class and I was really bothered by that. I'm like I just won't be an avoider anymore. So I decided I was gonna deal with this. A conflict that I had with my spouse that had probably been going on for weeks.

I can't remember exactly what it was, but I was like I'll just handle it differently now. I'll talk about it. And I procrastinated it all day long. And finally we've gone to bed, lights are out. She's just a few inches away from me. And [00:07:00] I'm thinking through my head what I should say.

And I laid there for two hours in the dark and I could not say a word, right? Like I was still in that mindset that conflict means there's a problem, right? A problem with us or with me. And so conflict would be something to be avoided that was negative, and that wasn't working for me very well.

Because as you mentioned, conflict is an inevitable part of our life experiences. As long as you care, like that's one thing that really stood out to me, Ben, about what you were talking about as you were really passionate or you cared about what you were doing, and conflict is always going to follow.

The things that we care most about. If you think for a moment where you all experience the most conflict, where is it? Who is it with for you? A shift.

Brent: A shift? Okay.

Clair: Yeah. No,

Brent: It's hard. It definitely is family and I'd say probably with my spouse. And it's probably 'cause I feel that's where I have the most to [00:08:00] lose.

Yeah. Like a stranger or even a patient, if we have a conflict that we know they need to go to the hospital, but they don't want to go.

Clair: Yeah.

Brent: I got, very little at stake here. We want to help you. But if I feel like with my family or my kids, and especially my wife, if I say the wrong thing.

I have a lot to damage here and I have a lot to

Clair: there's risk.

Brent: Yep. A lot of risk. There's risk

Clair: involved. Yeah. And when I started learning about conflict, what I was really hoping to do initially is figure out how to get rid of it in my life. Like, how can I not have any more conflicts?

Because again, I saw it as negative and I did figure that out. Like I finally figured out, if you don't want to have any conflict in your life, just stop caring. Don't give a crap about anything and you won't have any conflict. But. If you care about your spouse, you care about your job, you care about your work and the C shift and the a shift and whoever you're having conflict with, right?

It's showing I care enough about this to realize [00:09:00] that. I desire things to be even better. I want to create a change or a transformation in this relationship or within myself or within my community, and that's why I feel the emotion and the energy and the tension of conflict, not because. It's broken or it's bad, but just because I care deeply and I want to create a change.

And so when I started on that path it started to help me realize conflict's normal, this is gonna happen. And it's then up to me to figure out how can I create those types of meaningful changes within myself and my relationships and my communities.

Brent: Yeah, I think there's a ton of guys that would relate with all the things you've already said.

Including that apathy. Yeah. 'cause I think if you look at the conflict eventually, yeah. You can't do this forever. And so yeah, you stop caring and the pain goes away. And

Clair: especially for avoiders, that's a really common tactic, right? So if I'm [00:10:00] feeling tension and I don't know what to do and I feel like conflict is bad, then one of the strategies I might engage with is to just stop caring.

I'll try to talk myself out of. The importance of this thing or this relationship so that I won't feel the tension of conflict. Because if I don't care, I won't have conflict. But I don't think that's a very healthy life strategy. It's stop. It seems like it's a moral disconnect, right?

Yes. 'cause

Brent: if these are the things you're passionate about, why you got into the job, right? And if you solely distance yourself from that, then it feels like your core values and your actions are slowly

Clair: the denial of what makes you. Yeah. That's essentially what we're doing, right? It's like I'm gonna remove something that's deeply important to me at my core, as you said, so that I can not have to deal with this conflict.

Instead of leaning into it and engaging with, I can make my world even better, create the changes I [00:11:00] want so that I can live more true to my core self.

Brent: So what are some of the, like what does the path look like to go from where you were and these things you're experiencing too? Regularly practicing, engaging with the conflict.

Clair: Yeah. Because that story I told you about, lying in bed, not being able to say anything was 27 years ago and I didn't figure it out overnight. It was a pretty significant journey for me. It's something I pursued in my education for years. I did training and conflict mediation, transformative conflict mediation and all of those things just helped me develop first a different perspective that you were able to pick up much more quickly than I was.

It's like he's so

Brent: good at that. Everything we do at the fire department such makes everybody else look like a bunch of man.

Clair: It took me a long time to do that and also to develop some additional perspectives and skills that would allow me to handle my conflicts differently than I had [00:12:00] in the past, which was primarily just trying to avoid them.

And once I. Started doing that. And that was all for me. I was trying to do it for me because I knew I couldn't have the relationships I wanted. I couldn't live the kind of life I wanted to unless I figured out how to do conflict differently. And then once I did start to see some of that transformation for myself, I realized I'm not the only one struggling with this.

Again, across every demographic avoidance is the primary response for most people to conflict. And so is that just 'cause it's

Jordan: easy, it's just the easiest option just to forget about it.

Clair: You mentioned some of it, it feels risky in those things that we care about sometimes it is, it does feel much easier.

But that is the short, long way. Versus the long, short way. There's a story from the Talmud about a rabbi who's walking along a road and comes to a fork. He's trying to get to a city and there's a young boy there and he asks him, which way should I [00:13:00] go? He said that's the short, long way.

And this road is the long, short way. So he takes the shorter road, starts heading towards the city, and suddenly his way is blocked by gardens and hedges and he can't actually get to the city. So he has to turn around and go back, and he sees the young boy there again. He's like, why did you tell me to go the short way?

And he said I also said it was the long way right versus the long way, which certainly seemed a much longer distance, but he actually was able to get there. And sometimes what we do with conflict is we take the short, long way, right? It's how do we fix this so we can stop talking about it?

And move on. However, that oftentimes means that we just keep coming back to the same conflicts over and over again 'cause we haven't actually dealt with them. And 70% of conflicts in long-term relationships are systemic, ongoing conflicts that you've had [00:14:00] multiple times, 70%. Have you had in your relationships, conflicts that you've come back to again and again?

Ben: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Clair: Yeah. I have as well. So it's if I think that conflict is bad and I just gotta get it over with, then I'm often gonna try to. Take the shortcut, whatever the quickest way is, I'll just give in to the other person. Or I'll avoid it completely, or I'll fight for what I want, or I'll just come up with some sort of compromise without ever getting to the point where I can collaborate with the other person, come to a place where I'm meeting my needs, creating the change I want.

'cause it does take a lot more effort and energy to do that. Yeah.

Brent: I think there's a temptation with our job, and you guys correct me if you feel differently, but I feel like our schedule is very conducive to the avoidance and the shortcuts because it's two days on, four days off. And and when we're on it's full separation, right?

Like we're at the station, we sleep there, live there for two full days. There's no coming home at five and then back. And so [00:15:00] it's almost like sometimes, okay, I just gotta make it to the next two days on.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Brent: So let's resolve this conflict or do whatever we gotta do and then I'm gone for two days and we can just step away from it.

Or, on the other side of it it's, I just got home from shift dealing with this, all this stuff, and I don't want to deal with that conflict right now. I just need a break. And I think I think there's lots of good reasons pick up overtime, but you definitely see that as an avoidance thing too, guys picking up all these extra shifts.

'cause I can

Jordan: Works easier. Works easier.

Brent: Yeah. I'd much rather deal with all the conflict at work as far as the job and the patients and the 9 1 1 calls, because that's an easier conflict to handle than whatever you've got going on in your personal life sometimes. But

Clair: yeah, I mentioned that conflict is all about creating the kind of change that you want in your world, and there's a difference between a first order change and a second order change.

Like first order change is just, I'm gonna switch up the circumstances. And if I just change the circumstances, [00:16:00] then the problem's over, right? So it's I've got this conflict, but I'll just get to the end of my shift and go home, and then I'm at home under different circumstances.

And it's okay, I've dealt with it. Or maybe you have such an intense conflict at work that you decide I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave my job. I'm gonna go somewhere else, but you haven't actually created any sort of meaningful change. You've just shuffled the deck. I like to play poker. Texas told them.

Dude, I'm guessing you play a lot of card games at the station.

Brent: Again, Jordan always wins, but I'm gonna get my money back. Yeah.

Clair: One day. Yeah. I love to play Texas hold them. And if you're familiar with that, everybody gets two whole cards, right? And then you're using the community cards. There are so many different possible configurations of those two cards that you can get, right?

So many different possibilities. And when you don't like the cards you have, you can always just toss 'em in. And get a new hand, and that's what you're doing. It's I'm just gonna keep tossing in my cards when I don't like 'em [00:17:00] and hope that I get the circumstances I do. Let's get some pocket rockets, right?

Let's wait for ACEs before I actually play. What that means is you're constantly at the mercy of your circumstances. And you're never actually dealing with your conflict. You're just trying to change the circumstances until they're ideal for you, but much of that you can't control and it doesn't actually create the meaningful change.

If any of you ever seen that show that was on for a while, I think it was called Baggage. It was like a dating show.

Where they would have three contestants and somebody who would ask them questions. You've seen those kind of shows, right? The way it was built around is they would have these suitcases that inside of them had their baggage.

Like their personal baggage. Oh, I have, I've sued 15 people in my life, right? Or something like that. Or I always wear my socks constantly around and I throw them wherever. So it's like they would see the pa baggage that they were [00:18:00] carrying into that relationship. And I feel like that's what we do with conflict sometimes when we're just doing the first order change.

I'm just gonna take my baggage with me to the next stop, to the next job, to the next relationship, to the next situation. And if it's not to my liking, I'll just find a new one. But you just keep carrying around your luggage and your baggage with you and it creates those kind of patterns that aren't very satisfying to us.

Versus second order change, which is where we make the internal change that changes everyth everything. My circumstances are different because I'm different. I don't relate to them in the same way anymore. I don't get angry at that thing that used to annoy me. I've done some sort of work within myself to change that.

I dunno if that makes sense, but to me that's really helpful for me to think about. I'm trying to create meaningful change in my life, not just toss my cards in.

Brent: Yeah,

Clair: because you're still playing the same [00:19:00] game.

Brent: Yeah. And I like what you said just at the mercy of your circumstance. And if there's one thing I think firefighters like to at least feel like they have it's control.

And, but the idea that you're at the mercy of your circumstance is not a very attractive place to, to live. And if you can control, like you said, your inner

Feelings, perspective, whatever, then that's truly a sense of. Yeah, being able to control what's around you versus being controlled.

Clair: And that's one of the things that helped me to start doing conflict differently. And the way that you learned at Jordan was framed under ownership, right? Like ownership is a process of being able to sort through what can I control and what can't I control, right? It's figuring out what's my stuff and what's not my stuff.

Because in conflict, so often we're trying to control stuff that's not ours.

Brent: I'm pretty good at pointing out all the things my wife should do differently.

Clair: Here's what you're doing wrong, here's what you're doing, and how well does that [00:20:00]work? I think she, she's gonna listen to me eventually.

It's I'll keep trying maybe one of these days, right? It will create a change. So blaming is like a really normal place for us to get caught up in because it's easy to see how everybody else needs to change because it's like, if you were different, then my circumstances would be different and we wouldn't have this conflict.

Instead of realizing that's actually not under my control. I can't do anything. About that. I gotta focus on what I can control, my emotions, my reactions and responses to other people, the things that I care about, the choices that I make. Like those things, if I put my energy towards those, I feel far more empowered instead of feeling frustrated.

'cause I can't make other people do what I want them to.

Brent: I love that. And I want to just look at and I know we, we joke about a lot, but really shift change is a fairly, lighthearted conflict most of the time. But I really [00:21:00] appreciate a captain that his approach to shift change.

And so that's when, right when shift's coming off and you're taking over the same trucks, same station, and so they didn't clean the toilets or they left the truck with half fuel, then that's where these moments of conflict can sometimes occur. Yeah. But I really like the attitude of, captain that I have that is just look, once we're here, these are our trucks, this is our station, just let it go.

Like it's our truck Now, whether it's got all the fuel or no fuel, or they didn't restock, whatever, just forget about that part and just own it. It's our truck now.

And I think that's helped a lot versus I've had other scenarios where the captain or whoever was just insistent on calling the captain of the last shift and letting him know, Hey, you guys didn't do this, and this.

You guys gotta start doing better. And of course the response was never, oh, I'm so sorry. We will do better. It's you guys didn't do this, and this. Yeah. I don't know. But it seems like with the other attitude, it was just like easy. Once the expectation was once we're here at sars, we'll just [00:22:00] deal with it.

Unless it was like a blatant safety thing it is just like easily brushed off the shoulder and it became a non-issue. Yeah. But I don't know how a shift changed those for you guys.

Jordan: I think one thing that I've had to change in myself is I got some advice from my mom a long time ago and it's some that just stuck with me for a long time.

And she told me, she said, most people are doing the best They know how. It might not be your best, it might not be like what you perceive they should be doing, but, and I would say with most of what people we work with, like most people love the job. Most people don't want to leave you screwed when they're coming off shift.

And so I always try to think like when we come on and there's some sort of conflict or something doesn't look great, I'm like, man. Maybe those guys had a rough night, maybe they had tons of paperwork to do, like may, like who knows, maybe they didn't and maybe they just were mentally gone, 'cause sometimes you get that way or just lazy eight after hours. You're 72 hours, 96 hours into a shift and you're just done. And so it's yeah, it's okay to be frustrated sometimes, but [00:23:00] then I always have to be like, I don't know what those guys have been doing for the last couple days.

They're probably just doing the best they could have done. Yeah. And and

Brent: Even if they weren't doing their best I've tried to deflect a little bit with humor sometimes, and if I have a partner or somebody that's complaining about the previous shift, I was like, you know what?

I actually heard they were up all night thinking of ways they could mess up our shift change, a little more of that sarcasm. But it's just one way to put it a little perspective. It's not like they did this on purpose. It's not like they went the whole shift. Totally. And it's man, what can we do to make this miserable for the next crew?

Of course, everybody's doing their best or you don't know what happened, but. Either way, if even if they did make a mistake or they did get to a point where maybe they were a little lazy or whatever, it's not like they were personally out to ruin shift, intention shift.

Jordan: Yeah.

Brent: I think people's

Jordan: best, oh, sorry.

Real quick. I think people's best changes, I dunno about you guys, but you can, at least for me I'm not a great test taker and I can take the same test, a few times in one day you're on and you'll nail it. And the other day who knows, maybe you just slept bad and you're, you tried your best, it just wasn't there.

So I think even though we look at these people [00:24:00] sometimes, we're like, man, they're not trying their best. Maybe it was their best and maybe it's not the best they normally do, but for that period of time, that's just, that's all they got. Which is okay.

Brent: I can hear the inside of Ben. It's erupting in laughter.

'cause I'm, our shift changes today are so minor compared to back in the day. I've heard some stories and I know. I don't know if you don't have to share unless you want to, but like some of those shift changes were actually like pretty rough, right?

Ben: Yeah, definitely. There was, yeah, there was definitely times when there was a lot of contention between different crews on that change.

And I agree with what both of of you have said, like having a good perspective of Hey, I really don't know what happened the day before. And I always like to reflect too on myself. I'm not perfect, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna forget something. Like I'm gonna do the same thing. And I hope that when I do that, someone gives me like a little bit grace and like has the same perspective or understanding.

But really what I feel like caused a lot of con contention back in some of those things. It was all about the approach. Yeah. And it is because it was such an aggressive thing. It wasn't like a, Hey, we have a conflict. Let's make a, [00:25:00] let's try and fix it. Or, it was just like.

It was like we were saying, it was just a battle. You're gonna call us out. We're calling you out. We're not gonna bend over backwards and then we're not gonna accommodate for you. And so you could see that just no one wanting to come together and have a good understanding of where people were coming from really affected it.

And early on and when I seen that I had some a good captain at the time too that, notice that it's easy as a new guy to get sucked into those things, right? 'cause you feel like it's part of just a normal thing that happens in the department and you can get sucked into some of those, just toxic environments in those situations, which is tough.

But I had a captain that was really good that told me one time that you have to first understand before you could be understood or now I can't remember what the code is now, but he was essentially saying you have to understand what, where they're coming from before. Then you can explain where you're coming from.

And that was good, like perspective for me to just know, like trying to look at it from their perspective first and then looking at mine. And then just the way you approach those things to try and [00:26:00]make a resolve can either make a good situation, a situation better, or it definitely could make it 10 times worse.

So there definitely was some some tension and some heated moments sometimes, but, but there's a better way to, to try and handle those situations. For sure.

Brent: Yeah. I feel like we've grown a lot as a department. I don't hear too many of those stories now where it's just like crazy, like abrasive at shift change, but it's always the little things.

It probably didn't get like that overnight with those crews either. It probably started with some of these little things, little weeds that you don't pull. Now. I'm curious, Claire, is there a different word in like constructive conflict that's productive versus like abrasive conflict that's just constantly like putting you into a deeper point of tension?

Or is that all under. Like the one

Clair: term of conflict. Yeah, I mean that, that's a really insightful thing to point out, right? Is that conflict's inevitable. It's gonna happen, right? It's all around us, but conflict can be destructive [00:27:00] and it can be productive. So it's not conflict itself that's problematic, it's how we engage with it.

And you've seen and probably all experienced and been a part of engaging in conflict that's destructive and isn't helpful. I've done it lots of times, right? Versus. I can think about conflict or have a perspective of this can be constructive. I can build from this, I can create change. It can be healthy depending on how I engage with it, which you were giving some really nice examples of, right?

So I can go into a conflict and I can tell myself a story about the other person that their lazy af, I think is how you described it, right? Or that they thought about how to mess up my evening all day and they were successful at that, right? That's a story you can tell yourself. That's a perspective you can have.

Or you can also have a perspective of I'm going to choose to assume they're doing [00:28:00] the best they can right now under the given circumstances. And as you said, sometimes circumstances cause us to be at less than our best. Because we're really tired or we are emotionally overwhelmed. And maybe I'm emotionally overwhelmed because I've never been taught how to manage or regulate my emotions in my family growing up, that wasn't a thing that we knew how to do, right?

Like we weren't, we didn't talk about how we felt, so we didn't know how to deal with those things. So if that's your background, why would I expect that somebody would be able to manage their emotions well after they've just had a horrible first call like you described, right? So if I choose to think that way versus the other way, I have immediately made a difference in how that interaction couldn't potentially go, right?

'cause if I walk into it, assuming the worst from [00:29:00] you and that. You are not doing the best you can, you're trying to cause me harm. The way I engage with you is probably going to encourage the very behavior that I'm trying to change, right? So if I don't like how people are treating me at work and leaving the station when I come in and I come at them with, you are a bunch of lazy sobs, and like, how do I'm probably gonna create some defensiveness and encourage them actually to respond to me in a way that's going to reinforce the behavior that I'm wish would change versus, okay, if I'm gonna go in with this different approach, maybe I can have a different kind of conversation.

And that's what I'm always interested in is how can you create a different kind of conversation. And a big one that you probably remember, Jordan, is to start asking questions instead of making statements. It's like Ted lasso effect. [00:30:00] Be curious,

Brent: not judgmental.

Clair: Exactly. Because our default is to go to judgment and to assume you made a bad choice.

And I'll tell you why that was a bad choice versus I'm going to try and understand you and you really pointed out how badly we often want in a conflict to just be understood. Can you just see me un understand like what I'm going through, what my perspective is? So when we start asking questions, we actually offer that gift to the other person.

I'm going to ask openly and honestly to try and understand you better. And then as I listen, I will, I'll understand you better and I'll have a greater capacity for empathy. And I'm giving you the gift that sometimes is exactly what we're hoping for in conflict. And they're also far more likely to ask you questions and listen to you than if you just came in.

Guns blazing. With your list of grievances.

Ben: It is, oh, [00:31:00] sorry. Go ahead. I just noticed in those kind of situations when when that happens, how much you realize quickly, how much you misunderstand.

And I find that a lot where I especially in the fire service where I've either built up a storyline or I have a perspective, a certain perspective, and I think that's what the problem is.

But when I start asking questions and I start getting their perspective, and that understanding, you quickly realize sometimes you're like, wow, I was really off on this. Yeah. Like I was taking this like totally wrong. I wasn't the intention of this or, this conflict or, just even just, normal things that happen at the fire station that you realize really quickly that you're like, wow.

Now asking questions helps me have a better understanding of, and now I can give my side and what was Bo Yeah. My perspective. But it's interesting to me how quickly you can. Start to understand that person better. And then to me, I, my experience, I've found that a lot of times I'm really can be far off of what I actually, you know, what I actually initially thought was,

Clair: yeah.

I don't know why this story came to mind but it did. It's not one I personally went through. [00:32:00]But Jordan, did you ever have any college group assignments where you had to work with others? Yeah, absolutely. And rely upon them. And your work is very interdependent. You rely on each other, right?

So there's this experience that a colleague of mine had where he was in a group and they had to give a presentation and they're all together in the classroom about to give it. And one of the. Class, the members of the group has not shown up yet, just isn't even there, right? And he's becoming more and more frustrated and telling himself a story about how irresponsible and how much this person doesn't care.

And then she got there finally. And on the way had been in some sort of car accident or some sort of event, right? That kept her from being there. And of course, as soon as he found that out everything changed and. There was so much that he assumed was correct, that was just not true [00:33:00] and misunderstood.

And I don't know why that came back to mind, but we can so easily tell ourselves stories of the bad intent of other people or that they're doing what they're doing because they've got poor character or bad choices. And the

Brent: problem with firefighters is we're all pretty good storytellers. We're sitting around the table telling old war stories, Uhhuh.

And so yeah, our internal stories we're telling our. We're probably pretty, pretty good. But we're pretty convincing.

Clair: Yeah. And when you tell a story in a conflict, you're likely to make that story become true. Have you ever told yourself a story of like, why should I even bring this up with so and because last time I did, they just ignored me and it's never gonna change anyway, so what's the point? So I tell myself this story and now yeah. I'm much less likely to bring it up, aren't I? Or to engage in it in any sort of way that could.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Brent: Is there, it seems to, and sticking with kind of the shift change theme for a minute, but there's also seems to be [00:34:00] experiences where you can anticipate the conflict, right?

So like you have that you're the one that had the rough shift. We didn't fuel up the rig like we should have, rather than waiting for them to discover that during their truck checks and then have this whole buildup and conflict, whether they should bring it up or not or just deal with it. At shift change, you can anticipate that and just be like, Hey, I'm really sorry we didn't have the chance to fuel up the truck.

And then I guess the level of your apology probably has a lot to do with it too. Hey, sorry about that. And then you run out the door versus Hey, sorry, we didn't fuel. I know that really throws a wrench in the day when, first thing you gotta do is shift, is go take the truck down to the station, fuel up and come back.

We'll do better next time. Yeah. Or whatever. That's

Clair: such a great explanation of practicing ownership. Like that thing we were talking about early, earlier on, about here I can see these are my contributions. Here's what I'm bringing to the table in this conflict. I know that I am a piece of this, right?

And you're sorting through and owning this is my piece, right? [00:35:00] Yeah. I didn't do that. And here's how I feel about it and here's what I'm gonna do about it. Just sorting through and taking that ownership makes such a huge difference.

Brent: Yeah. It doesn't even give 'em the chance, the storyline, like you just, you nip it right before it even starts.

So I think, if only we could take some of those skills and apply 'em at home, that's the trick. And that's, I want to transition a little bit back to the home life. 'cause I think, and not, I don't know, I think there are a lot of conflicts at the station in between, but as we talked about, there's not as much risk there as there is at home.

And sometimes I feel like I'm much better at handling conflict with my coworkers than I Am at home. Yeah. And how do you take the same skillset and apply it Yeah. To where it matters most?

Clair: Yeah. One of the challenges of trying to create change by dealing with conflict differently is creating the change in how you do conflict like that in its in and of itself is a huge change to make right.

For me to go from constantly avoiding. Conflict to engaging in it. [00:36:00] That's a big change. It was for me because I had momentum, right? Momentum. I sometimes forget the equation, but I believe it's mass times velocity. For example, your fire trucks have an incredible amount of momentum once they're moving at 55 miles an hour, right?

How much longer does it take you to stop a fire truck at 55 miles an hour than if you're on a motorcycle? I ride a motorcycle. It's a lot longer distance, right? Because you've got so much more mass going at that speed and are the way we communicate creates patterns. And behaviors that develop a certain type of momentum.

So if I have had 20 years of relating to my significant other right, or a big, tough one to change is, I don't know if you've experienced this, Jordan mean you took the classes, relationships with family. Your whole life, you've been communicating a certain way and you have [00:37:00] built up this momentum, this mass of interactions that's really tough to turn around and change initially.

So sometimes it's easier to start going in the right direction with a new coworker, right? It's like I, I start practicing healthy conflict with this coworker and we're building a good pattern and momentum in a totally different direction. But when I go home, it's oh, I gotta break out of these ruts, these patterns that I have been building for decades, right?

I still find it more challenging. To deal with conflict differently in my family of origin than I do with new relationships that I'm forming. So it's not because you don't care, like that's the place you care most, but you also have all that momentum you have to work against.

Brent: I've never thought about that way, but man, that makes a ton of sense.

Clair: Yeah.

Brent: And I keep coming back to fire stuff, but like shift bids and changing crews is usually like a pretty good [00:38:00] time to start a new version of yourself. 'cause you come in with less expectations. But Yeah. Unless you're willing to change families, like you're not gonna get that right. At home. So you gotta, so what man, what does that look like?

What are the steps to start

Clair: steering the ship? Yeah. What's great is even though that kind of change is hard, even small shifts make a really big difference over time. If you get a flight, I just flew to Chicago and back recently. What if they had gone just one degree off of the flight path?

If they got off the flight path, just one degree, we would've ended up hundreds of miles away from Chicago instead of landing where I wanted to. Yeah, because the further you get away from that initial direction, the wider the gap is. So sometimes it might feel like I want to turn this whole thing around immediately, but if you can even start to make incremental small [00:39:00] changes over time, you're gonna be in a really different place than you were before, right?

I encourage people to have patience with themselves in that, but start making some changes. Some one degree changes. Yeah. It's like I'm gonna choose not to tell a story in this situation, and I'm just gonna ask a question.

Man, that's a change that's going to take you somewhere else, right?

I'm gonna choose not to tell a story about their poor intent. I'm going to assume the very best from them. That's a change that's meaningful, that's gonna take you somewhere else. So I like to think about it as, yes, an incremental thing that makes huge differences over time.

Jordan: I think that's one thing that's tough with especially all the firefighters and you guys can maybe relate to me or not, but at least me, I like to fix things, right?

It's one of the coolest parts of medicine, especially Emerge Emergency Medicine, is there's a problem. You do X, Y, Z, you normally see improvements, right? And especially I know a lot of our guys have experience with, mechanics or construction. You're just, you're fixing [00:40:00] things sometimes it, at least it's hard for me to do these one degree changes because you're not seeing results immediately.

You might see some small ones, but these big long changes that are gonna come over time we are not patient. It's hard to be patient. Yeah. But I think, at least for me, the deeper you care and you care so much about your family relationships and stuff, that it makes it easier for me to be patient because man, I care about this.

So if I do two or three of these little changes. I can be patient 'cause it's gonna be so worth it in the end. And we might not see all these changes immediately. I'm not fixing it right now, but we're gonna get there.

Clair: Yeah.

And when you realize conflict isn't something that has to be fixed.

Again, it's just a reflection that I care and a reflection that I want to create meaningful change. This isn't about getting it over quick. This is about transforming my relationship. At home, at work, within myself. So we don't have to get over it real quick. We don't have to fix it. Have to [00:41:00] engage with it.

Brent: Yeah. I like, james Clear Atomic Habits if you're familiar with his book and philosophy, but it's building these habits over time is really what makes the most change. But one of the principles is to start with like if you're going to the gym, don't create this workout that's just a behemoth of a workout

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Brent: That you can do on your best day when you have three hours of spare time. It's what is going to the gym look like on your busiest day? You woke up late, and what does it look like? And start right there. And coming back to your point of, okay, if I'm gonna make one change in my relationship when it comes to conflict, what can I do today that I would do, even if I had the worst shift and I'm coming home, I've been up all night.

What's something I'm willing to do even then? Yeah. And that's where you start. And then when you get good at that, then you can, keep making those one degree changes, but you start with something that's sustainable, even in the worst. Possible scenario. Yeah.

Clair: Yeah. And I'll give you an example that might be, encouraging or [00:42:00] hopeful.

I had a student who had taken classes from me and had learned how important asking questions was, that's a really important skill and a big change. Instead of blaming or. Telling stories. And so she had been practicing it over a number of months, right? She'd taken the class, she'd even told her husband about this, and they'd had some conversations where she said, I'm trying to figure out this problem, but I don't want you to fix it.

I just want you to listen and you can ask me some questions if some come to mind that might help me explore this. And so she'd practice that kind of stuff. And then, she was going on a road trip to their in-laws from Logan to Morgan. And hadn't even gotten a mile out of Logan when they were in probably one of the biggest conflict fights they'd ever had in their marriage.

The kind that you, you hear things being said like, do we even still want to be married? That level of conflict. And she said she was like curled up [00:43:00] in the passenger seat, crying and she just kept thinking to herself in her head, Claire is so full of shit, right? She's this whole question, all of this conflict stuff, maybe that works for the little stuff, but not for this.

She felt really stuck, really hopeless in that situation. And she's just cursing my name in that situation. But then in that moment, her husband, who has not taken any of my classes but had just learned from their conversations and observing her, he asked her a question, right?

And it was an open, honest question. She doesn't remember exactly what it was, she responded and they started to talk and she said, by the time we got to Morgan. We were laughing and I had never felt so close to him and it all turned on one question. That's a pretty significant change, right?

Going from do we even still want to be married and Claire's full of shit to I feel more connected now [00:44:00] with my significant other and we were able to do this differently.

Brent: Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I think and we've been learning on. Some of the peer support team stuff about post-traumatic growth, but that after traumatic incidences, the idea is that, not only can you recover from it, but you can actually become a better person than you were before the traumatic incident.

And so I am starting to think about conflict like that right now. It's just the right kind of conflict and handling it correctly. You'll actually come out better, stronger, than, it is, conflict isn't just getting by getting back to baseline or back to zero.

You'll actually,

Clair: It's a facilitator of growth and change and transformation.

Jordan: One thing I think of is, about this growth is I think of a graph. Okay, now just hear me out. Picture a graph in your head and just like a line graph. So like the days you're doing good, your graph goes up, you hit a big conflict, you come back down maybe, right?

And you're going up and down. And I think if we look at our life in just like a period of a month or a week, [00:45:00] or even in every hour, like at least if I look at my own graph, dude, I'm like this, right? Just up and down, just good days, bad days. I dealt with conflict. Great. Today was a bad day, but I, on this topic of growth, I like to think that as you grow, if you stop looking at such a small period of time and you make these one degree changes and you change that graph to, 15 years you're not gonna see all those little ups and downs.

You're probably gonna see an exponential just growth. You're just gonna see it going up. 'cause you're not zoomed in, you're not looking at all these little things. And I think so much I focus on man, this week has been awful. This hour has been rough. Instead of man, look at how much we've grown in the last year.

Look at how much, much better my relationship is now than it was five years ago. And so if you change your viewpoint and see that you can really see how much those one degree changes make a difference, and you can see your own growth.

Brent: It's the sign of a veteran marriage, right?

Like after a fight oh man, we've done way worse fights than that. Like this one was no big deal. But Ben, I'm a little curious, [00:46:00] just where you've been on the department longer and have, and as the union president, you get exposed to lots of probably areas of the department that the average guy doesn't see, but have you seen that in a lot of your experiences where you've seen a conflict happen?

Maybe it was between a member and admin or something, but after like post-conflict, you actually saw like a pretty good bump in. In the relationship or in the circumstance.

Ben: Yeah, for sure. And it's interesting as union president, I get to be involved with all kinds of conflict that happens within the fire department.

And that could be a. Between, people in crews or, how guys feel about policies or, the direction the fire department goes. There's all kinds of things that causes conflict and within the fire department and things. But but I would say that yeah, when I've seen, or when I've been a part of those situations and it's done like we've talked about, it's done in a way that there's been [00:47:00] where it's, there's been opportunity for both sides to, express their side, their opinions and what they feel. And then at the end it comes together with having an understanding. And sometimes in the fire service, that can be, sometimes all that, that someone might need is just to feel like, they have a voice or they can voice what they, what their needs.

Sometimes due to our policies and way things are, they just don't really change. It's just, Hey, I understand that you're, you maybe don't like this or don't like the way that this direction's going, but at the end of the day, we're not a place to change it. And but sometimes that opportunity to have like that good discussion about those things really helps.

And an incident happened at the fire station where a guy just really felt. That hurt with just a situation that happened. And I think having an opportunity to, express their feelings, feel like they're heard and then to just have good open conversations.

And I have to admit that the administrator that was there, I think did a really good job about just giving that individual [00:48:00] an opportunity to give their side or their perspective or their under, what their feelings were, made them feel very heard. And even apologized and said, Hey, I wish we could fix it or change this or made it better.

But, unfortunately there's nothing we can do at this time, but we can always make things better for the future. And it just seemed like such a it, it really elevated that conversation. And honestly it was unique because what it did is it helped that firefighter just put his guard down, right?

And he was able to just. And really just pour out his heart of what he needed. And it actually as that became more, it was like, it was more, it was bigger than what the problem was. Like, like the problem was minute to like just he needed to feel like seen and loved and Yeah.

And and that people cared about him. And it was interesting, like in this thing is it started as this like conflict. And I'll be honest, like at the first of the meeting, it was quite. Awkward, right? It was like that tension. It was awkward and took a little bit to get going, but at the end it was emotional.

And and the administrator, me [00:49:00] firefighter, we were all like emotional, like crying, like essentially giving each other a brace and encouragement and just like strengthening one another. And so I really think within the fire service, conflict is gonna happen. It's just. And it happens in all aspects of it between our coworkers and admin and the city administration policies.

There's all kinds of things that, everything's just not gonna be perfect. But but if it's handled the right way, like in this incident, man, it really showed me that that if it's done the correct way that it's like more than just oh, we're fixing a problem. Like we are, like we talked about, we're really growing and like improving ourselves, but like each other, which I thought was cool.

I felt like when. When this firefighter left that he felt different than when he came in there, that he didn't, that he was upset, but when he left, he felt, totally opposite. And so it was a cool experience being able to see that. And so occasionally I get to, be a part of those kind of, conflicts.

And those are the type that I always hope as a union president. Yeah, those are the type of conflicts that I, if I get involved [00:50:00] with, that's the direction they go. And they don't go, to a super negative or a difficult, disciplinary or diff, places like that.

But but that, that was recently a really cool experience I was able to be a part of as union president. And it was cool to see how how well the administrator handled that situation. And the really what it did. For all around. And so there's been some great follow up since then too.

And I think that that there's been some,

Brent: Sounds like you get constructive, other than it humanizes admin a little bit, which we can't have any of that, but no, I think that's a, that's an awesome story. And it is good to remember that man, the job is heavy on both sides of that line, right?

The guy's on the front line, and then the amount of work that goes in behind the scenes. On the admin floor that just nobody appreciates. 'cause you don't understand it. But

Clair: yeah, I'd love to highlight, one of the things I noticed about that conversation that I think helped it go well, right?

Because when we have conflict that is constructive and that [00:51:00] is about creating that kind of change that we want we oftentimes don't even recognize it as conflict anymore. We just start calling it, it's a really good conversation. But of course it is conflict, right? Conflict isn't good or bad, it's not destructive.

It can be a really good conversation. And one of the things that I saw. You describing there was a willingness to put down the armor, take off the armor to not be defensive. I heard you talking about that, initially in conflict. That's our intuitive thing to do because as you said, it's really risky.

Sometimes it feels like we could get hurt or something could be damaged. So we put on armor, and I don't know what your armor looks like, but my armor often looks like defensiveness. Or accusations or Right. I'm just, I'm creating something to protect myself. But when I'm protecting myself, it keeps me distant and disconnected from other [00:52:00] people.

They can't get past my armor. ' cause I've armor up and I'm trying to protect myself. One of the things that is counterintuitive, meaning it's not what we first think we should do. The first thought is put on armor, protect yourself. It's counterintuitive to instead be vulnerable, to open ourselves up to those who are in conflict.

To let ourselves be seen. This is how I'm feeling. This is what matters to me. I heard you describing how this person said what I really. Juan is to be seen and cared about, wanted a sense of connection it sounded like. And unless he lets you see that, how are you supposed to do anything right?

If you can't see past the armor, if you don't know what other people really need or how they're feeling or what's not working for them. So one of the things that really makes these conversations work is choosing to be vulnerable and letting yourself be seen. But that's really scary for a lot of people, right?

Ben: Yeah. [00:53:00] Seriously scary. And I think in a situation, I guess you're, you're there with your your administrator, your, your boss. Your leader, your, and then you know, you're with a coworker and. And sometimes letting off that, that armor or your guard is yeah it's challenging it to do, it's terrifying.

It like terrifying, right? It's not only are you in a situation where you're like with a, an administrative, a boss or coworker, or even in my case, union president, I would assume that sometimes if you're gonna be with me, that's not a, that's not always a positive thing. Yeah. People are like, oh, the union president's here.

Oh no. This is a bad thing. And if

Clair: you've had conflicts in the past that have gone poorly, a lot of the reasons why people do put on an armor or see conflict as destructive is because they've experienced it. They felt somebody who attacked them or did them harm. And so it makes sense that I'm not gonna open myself up to be harmed again, and I got the union president here and so I better protect myself.

But of course, if you're protecting yourself, you cannot connect with other people. That's the great [00:54:00] paradox of relationships, is you can't have self-protection and connection at the same time. We try for it, right? It's I don't wanna open up, I don't want you to see me, but I also want to be connected to you.

I'm sorry you can't have both. I understand why both are valuable, but if you want to have connection, like at the core, you're gonna have to let yourself be seen. And of course. It's vulnerable because there's emotional exposure, there's risk and uncertainty. You don't know what's gonna happen, right?

There's something important to you about that's at risk and you're likely going to feel something, right? You're like opening yourself up to actually have emotional experiences, and that's why a lot of people protect themselves and shut that down. But then you're also shutting down connection.

And if you think about all your relationships, how did they form? ' cause you let yourself be seen, you opened up to somebody.

Brent: Yeah. Heard somebody speak recently and they just emphasized the [00:55:00] point that relationships are measured by depth. Not by time. And we often think reverse of that.

Oh, we've been married for X many years and, but often that doesn't mean. A lot, right? Yeah. There's a

Clair: correlation between the amount of conflict that happens like in, in couples long-term relationships and their divorce rate. And it's exactly the flip of what you would think it would be.

It's those who are avoiding and not having conflict in their relationships that are far more likely to get divorced.

Jordan: Changing topics real quick. I have a question for Ben actually. Yeah. 'Cause we talked in the beginning about you were mentioning some statistics of lifelong relationships, like more intimate, lifelong relationships. And I think one thing about the fire department that a lot of other jobs don't have is they're obviously not as intimate as your family relationships, but they're pretty intimate as far as the job life goes.

I know a lot of times other people, they're you move companies a lot more. I think firefighters are pretty loyal to their department. We're spending 48 hours straight together. You don't, you're not getting that time away from your coworkers. And so it is that weird, [00:56:00] intimate relationship and Ben, where you're in an acting captain role and you're sometimes that admin position for some of these younger guys or for your crew for that day.

How have you dealt with that kind of conflict? When maybe there's a problem with the crew, when you're the one in charge and when people are looking to you for answers as the captain, how does that look for you?

Ben: Yeah, that's a great question and on me on a, like a personal level.

I, and this is really comforting with this podcast to talk about. Like I would say I'm similar in a lot of ways, like avoidance, right? I'm not one that likes conflict. I'm not one that likes to be in, awkward situations or have to have difficult conversations or those different things.

That's not a strong thing for me. And it's interesting that for me yeah, that's something I've always struggled and it took a long time for me to realize that by not addressing certain things that I was hurting myself more than I was like making, making things better, right?

Like I would just be like, I'll just take it on the chin kind of a deal. And that, and it, but it's interesting, I had some major difficult thing that [00:57:00] happened in my personal life with my with my parents. And and it forced me to. Be more comfortable about having difficult conversations, or have be more comfortable on and in addressing conflict. And so that's something that's helped, but sometimes that could be really challenging in the fire service, especially because of the relationships that we have and that you build that sometimes it's I care about this person, or I care about our relationship.

I don't want to ruin a good thing that I have, and having this conversation might make it a little bit awkward between us for a while or, might just make things difficult. And and then in like in a cap acting captain role or some of those things sometimes if I'm on a crew that I'm not their captain, right?

I'm feeling a role there and it's also a little awkward and discomfort to be like, Hey, I know I'm not like your real promoted captain here, but hey, we have an issue. I have to address it, and things like that. But what I've found in those situations is that if if I can do it the right way, and I think the right way is that like we talked about [00:58:00] already by just asking good questions and understanding.

I know like for me in the fire service I always appreciate more when I make a mistake that someone comes to me and says Hey what was going on? And then I have an opportunity to give the details and then they're like, okay, now I have the details. Let me tell you why this is why this can't happen or what was wrong, or, let's address how we can make this better.

Then Accu being accused of something, right? Like Absolutely. I remember one time and the the, I had a new probie with me and so we were figuring out, I was trying to figure out what we're gonna do for the day, and he was in the back of the ambulance, had my partner with me. We were gonna station 70 and my partner just backed into the station with no backer, which you guys know big.

No, the chief was in the. In the bay looking out the window of the bay looking out the garage door window there and saw the whole thing go down, right? And we got pulled into the office with the battalion chief and the town chiefs or, the assistant chiefs is.

Hey, we gotta write you guys up. It was like, for what? And they're like, oh, you guys did a [00:59:00]violation? And then it was funny 'cause he caught himself and he is wait a second, hold on, let me backtrack. Hey, when you guys came to the station, did you guys have a backroom when you got out?

And I, and it's funny 'cause then I like caught myself and I was like, ah, yeah, I was actually like on my phone thinking about what we're gonna do with the probationary firefighter for the day. I wasn't paying attention. And my partner Yeah, he did back to the station. Yeah. We didn't have a backer. And then he was like you guys know that's a violation and went through this whole process, right?

And we got a, letter caution or whatever. And it was a good learning moment. But it was interesting that like, when it first started I was like almost defensive. Like almost you gonna write me up for what? I didn't do anything right. Like super defensive. And then when they started asking those questions and and we started having a conversation, then it totally changed.

Oh yeah, I recognized that I, that we made a mistake and we should have done better. Unfortunately that was Sorenson's first day as our captain and he had a right. Another firefighter gave us a letter of caution. So we came back, the first five minutes of him being a captain, he had to write us a letter and he was not appreciative of that.

Sorry, Sorenson. But I try to take some of those experiences in those situations and just. [01:00:00] One, like we talked about already, not jumped to any conclusions, ask good questions, get information and then try to do it in a private like situation. Also, like I don't I really I know early on in my career I had some firefighters I worked with that they were not shy about causing conflict or like addressing conflict or issues in public, in front of people.

And it just never felt like that was as successful because it was just embarrassing or it really put people down or just destroyed the, probably the good nature of trying to make like solutions. And that's, it's one of the things I tried to do in those situations is ask all questions, have good conversation, get their side of it, but then do it privately.

Do it in a way that it's not intimidating or, Hey, I'm your leader. I'm, I got power over you or anything. I don't like that dynamic either. I like just having an opportunity just to be on equal plane, have conversations, and then unfortunately sometimes in those situations as a leader. Then it comes down to [01:01:00] having to, say, Hey, we made a mistake.

And it's not a bad thing. We make mistakes in the fire service. And it's just part of the growth of being a firefighter. You make mistakes, you learn from 'em. And I think for me, most of the mistakes I've ever made in the fire service has been the biggest lessons that's benefited me to be like a better firefighter, a better person, a better, father, different aspects of my life.

But I dunno, did that answer your question? Yeah, no, that was great. That was perfect. But those are some of the things that. That I try to do, but it is very challenging. When you're with your coworkers, like you said, when you have that relationship, it's and things are good. You don't want to like for me sometimes that, that's where the avoidance comes in.

I don't really want to

Jordan: because it's different. Make it awkward. I don't wanna

Ben: ruin a good thing I you and enjoy my spouse or

Jordan: equals you and your partner and the ambulance. You're equals. But it kind of changes unless you're

Brent: medic a MT, then I, your spot,

Jordan: Though, it changes when there's a power differential, I feel like a little bit, it shouldn't change how you resolve conflict, but sometimes it changes your feeling or how quick you'll be defensive or certain things like that.

So I liked your insight a lot there.

Brent: Yeah, I think it was a good example of kind of a good over encompassing of kind of all the things we've been talking about. [01:02:00] Summed up in, in one letter of caution, which, by your seventh through eighth you get super numb to those apathetic. So speaking for this experience, but no.

Just as we wrap up here want to turn back to anybody that kind of has any last thoughts, but especially Claire, just if there's one message about conflict that you wish everyone knew, but certainly every firefighter could walk away with from today, kinda what would that message be?

Yeah.

Clair: Conflict is normal. It means that you care. And it can actually transform relationships. It can transform who you are to be more in alignment with how you wanna be in the world. And I know it's tough sometimes to remember all the things that, like we might want to do differently, right? The same way.

It's probably tough on the first day of the job to figure out everything that you've got to attend to as a firefighter, right? As a help I have a a TEDx talk that's on YouTube. You can just Google my name, Claire Canfield. It's called The Beauty of Conflict. So whenever, folks listening might need a refresher on some of the things that they can [01:03:00] practice or try to do a little bit differently in conflict, that's a place that might be a useful resource for

Jordan: great TED Talk.

Yeah.

Brent: Perfect. That's good. We'll yeah. For anybody listening to this, we'll make sure it's in the. In the transcript and in the comment section, so you can easily find it and click on it. But yeah. Thank you.

Clair: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Brent: Yeah, thanks everybody. We'll catch you on the next one. Appreciate everybody coming out, spending time doing this, and we made it through the whole podcast without any conflict between us.

And you can all be for now until the camera turns off. Yeah, until the camera. Okay. Thanks guys.