Honored and Humbled
Honored and Humbled
A couple of years ago, The California State Firefighters Association (CSFA) held their annual conference in Anaheim. I was honored and humbled to be asked to be the conference keynote speaker.
When Gene Gantt, the CSFA General Manager asked me to be the keynote speaker we discussed topic and time. We decided 20 minutes would be the time limit. He asked me about a topic. I suggested “lessons learned” from a 32 year career in the fire service, 25 years of which were as a supervisor. I told Gene I would use the mistakes, and errors in judgment, I made and the lessons I learned from these mistakes as a foundation for the talk. Gene was skeptical. He reminded me in a nice way that I had only 20 minutes.
My plan is to talk about understanding people in order to get along, how to get people to want to work with and for you, and to pass on advice on how to be an effective and respected leader. Allow me to remind you that these are just my thoughts and life’s lessons learned. So, here they are.
Let’s start with understanding people in order to get along. The key to understanding people is to get to know them and their “value system.” Do you ever wonder why people do the things that they do, or say certain things, or have certain cultural beliefs? Their beliefs and actions come from their value system and their genetics. A value system identifies how you view the world. What is right, wrong, good, bad, how people should act, what is appropriate to say or not say.
A person’s value system is developed early in life. As a child growing up we are like sponges, absorbing everything around us and excepting much of it as true, especially when it comes to our parents. This is where we learn a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. Additionally, your social-economic situation, and where you live plays a role in developing your value system.
In the pre-teen and early teen years, we tend to copy people, often our parents, but also other people. Rather than blind accepting, we are trying on things like cloths, to see how they feel. We may be much impressed with religion or our teachers. I like many of you had a favorite school teacher that we always remember.
As we grow into our teens and young adulthood we become extremely influenced by our peers. As we develop as individuals and look for ways to get away from the earlier programming, we naturally turn to people who seem like us.
We use the same concept in the fire service during the new hire process. We like the candidates more when we see another one of us in them.
I grew up in San Pedro. We were extremely poor and my father left the family when I was 12 years old. There were times when I didn’t know if we were going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a Swanson TV dinner or popcorn for dinner. This experience developed a value system that doesn’t allow me to waste food, work hard so I wouldn’t be poor, never allow my children to be hungry, be grateful for all that I accomplished and have.
As a parent I shared these value systems, sometimes too often, with my two sons and now my grandchildren. As an example, a Stein house rule during meals was you could eat as much food as you wished. However, you must eat whatever you put on your plate. My sons never went to bed hungry so therefore they could not understand the reasoning for this rule. They didn’t experience what I did, so my discussion on food really had no impact on them. However, that was and still is part of my value system.
Another part of my value system is I don’t believe in entitlements. Why? Because I worked hard to reach the successes I have in the fire service and life. No one gave me anything. If I wanted something I worked for it. For many years while working as a firefighter I worked other jobs in construction, sometimes seven days a week. If you want it!! Work for it!!
In closing these are my thoughts and my value system ideologies. These are the thoughts I shared at the CSFA Conference.
VIVI BENE- LIVE WELL
RIDI SPESSO- LAUGH OFTEN
E AMA MOLTO- LOVE MUCH