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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Felicia, welcome aboard to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be fun. In 1992 you made a decision that would change your life forever. Before we jump into that, what that decision was, give us the backdrop, what brings a person to make the decision that you made?
Speaker 2:Well I was pretty wild, I grew up a good Catholic girl, but I had a little wild side and I needed structure. In 1992, I joined the army. And if I hadn't, I'd probably be in prison cause I had a lot of energy and nowhere to use it constructively. So the army gave me direction. It gave me belonging.
Speaker 2:And it's the first time anybody ever told me I was a leader because I was a pretty meek and mild little Catholic girl. Forward thirty something years later, I had a twenty three year career in policing where I was a bomb tech. I retired as a lieutenant and I led teams hunting bad men and sometimes bad women. So,
Speaker 1:So, there was one step at a time, did anybody sing You're in the Army Now, that old song, You're in the Army Now, did you miss that experience?
Speaker 2:Remember Pirate did you ever see the movie Private Benjamin?
Speaker 1:Private oh, no. No. I thought you were gonna say saving
Speaker 2:private eighty. She's she's it's hysterical. It's got Goldie Hawn and I was probably a cross between Goldie Hawn and Polly Shore as far as clueless and okay with being clueless.
Speaker 1:So you're in uniform, you're on your first day, you got all your gear. What are you feeling? What's going through your head?
Speaker 2:Scared. Our first day, we were in a cattle car with all of our gear and we had to run everywhere, And I was like, what in the heck did I sign up for? Because I, it was nothing like I'd ever seen. But eight weeks later, I was doing pushups and pullups, who knew?
Speaker 1:What was, what was that experience, what was bootcamp like for you? Did you know what you were getting into? Did anybody prep you? Did you do research? We didn't really have the internet like we have it today back
Speaker 2:Zero research. Zero research. My grandfather was in the Navy and I looked into the Navy but they had like three or four different uniforms and I thought that was too complicated. So the Army only had two. So I'm like, that's my, those are my people.
Speaker 2:So when I went, actually I wanted to go in right out of high school. I graduated around 17, but I don't know, kept putting it off and wishy washy, and then I didn't go in until I was 22, which is pretty old for a basic trainee. And back then, they had them where women were all together and men were together, so that you weren't, you couldn't even be within like 10 feet of each other. So I thought that was good because we, they really had to work on our physical fitness because it takes longer to build up a woman, even though you can make her strong, which I later found out. I didn't even know I was an athlete until I went to basic training.
Speaker 2:And I up, I think my first mile run was like twelve minutes, which, you know, you can kind of meander along with a cup of coffee. And then even later on in policing, my fastest mile was seven minutes. So who knew?
Speaker 1:So seven minutes for, what's it, 1.6 kilometers, that's not Yeah, one mile for
Speaker 2:a one mile. Yeah, that's pretty fast, especially for an old lady. I was in my forties when I got into a seven minute mile.
Speaker 1:That is really good then. I know
Speaker 2:right? And it all started with the military. That's where I started running, but I hated it because running was a punishment. And then after I, after I did, I joined the police department and had to stay in shape, then all of a sudden I realized, oh my God, I think I'm good at running.
Speaker 1:Did you I get I'm the runner's high? Did you, did you get to the
Speaker 2:stage where you actually
Speaker 1:enjoyed it?
Speaker 2:I love
Speaker 1:that. That's I hated it in the military. I did not enjoy that but I for fun when I would run, that was and especially when you kind of cross the the ten minutes running and kind of the high kicks in, it's quite an amazing feeling. So, okay, so The Good, The Bad, and Ugly. Describe to me the absolute worst moment in the Army and your best moment.
Speaker 1:What were those two? And sometimes it's the same one.
Speaker 2:Right, right? Oh man. Well, worst part about the Army for me was I came in during Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And so I was pretty, I mean, was still young and like I said, I grew up Catholic. It was the 80s into the 90s, early 90s, so I was clueless about everything.
Speaker 2:I didn't know nothing from nothing. So originally in an American military application, it had the question, are you now or have you ever been a homosexual? Do you plan on, it was like this stuff and so filling out the application, thought I was gay, but I didn't know because there was no one to talk to about. I graduated high school in 1987. So everything I knew was like from TV or I don't know, jokes.
Speaker 2:Who knows? So I put no, right? Because that's the only way I could get into the military. And then in '92, think a little bit like a year later, I think it was after basic training, they passed the don't ask, don't tell, which I didn't know how I felt about it. I knew that it was a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:They gave us back our applications with that question all blacked out. They did that for everybody's applications. Crazy. So I never liked it still felt like I had plenty to contribute. And why did that matter?
Speaker 2:Cause I, it's not like I was, you know, you're not supposed to have sex on duty. So why does it matter? Frowned on no matter what, whether you're straight and gay, it's frowned on.
Speaker 1:For for the younger listeners, what's don't ask, don't tell?
Speaker 2:Don't ask, don't tell was a law where the army, the military used to be able to kick you out if they found out you were gay in any way, shape, or form. In fact, they had investigators in their criminal investigative division dedicated to go seek them out and then they would get kicked out. So Don't Ask, Don't Tell stopped the proactive investigation and the agreement was, if I don't tell you and you don't ask me and I don't have sex on duty, then who cares? It doesn't matter. So that's, I did most of my career.
Speaker 2:Actually, did all of my career, ninety two to two thousand. I don't think they got rid of it until the early two thousand's. So that's how I spent my career was under that, which I was grateful for because I know women in the, you know, who served in the eighties and in the seventies and the sixties had it much harder and it was pretty brutal when they kicked you out. Well, men too.
Speaker 1:I mean, general, we always feel like it's awful right now, but the things are getting better. We're taking steps forward all the time, but they're baby steps, you know, one at a time.
Speaker 2:The world, listen, when in The United States when they said gay people to get married, never in my lifetime did I thought that would happen, so we've come a long way.
Speaker 1:I don't want to sound like, you know, the grandfather, oh, back in my day, but my friends, no, my some of my best friends, they still can't tell their grandmother that they're gay because that would kind of break their heart. Right? Today, for the youngers and, you know, my my parents who are my generation and their kids, it's a no brainer. Like, of course, like, what's the problem? But my generation, yeah, you you you maybe you could tell your parents, but not the grandparents.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That's too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've known people. Yeah. They're still still around. They're still that generation that and they don't want to upset them in their in their later years.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Which, you know, why does grandma need to know who I'm having sex with? I don't think she does.
Speaker 1:Like, yeah, I agree with that. I mean, but but there's there's a that's true. But I feel like my friends in that situation, they still feel like it's a little heavy on them that they can't be who they are next to, you know, certain parts of the family.
Speaker 2:Especially if you're married and you you can't bring your spouse around. But I mean, it's it's, I don't know. My personal opinion is you should bring your spouse around in that case. If you're not married, then why, you know, stir up a hornet's nest? But if you are married, that's a choice and it's a valid choice.
Speaker 2:So sometimes your relatives just have to get over it. They either accept you or they don't. But you never give them an opportunity. How, you know, what if they would have and you'll never know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Complicated complicated days, a little bit more simple We have new and other issues though. You finished the army eight years later, more or less, and you're standing in civilian clothing for the first time after almost a decade. What does that feel like? Is scary?
Speaker 1:What were you, did you just know what you were gonna do and everything was okay or was this terrifying?
Speaker 2:Well, I had finished a degree in criminal justice and I went into policing, which I never in a million years because I came from a family, my father thought the police were idiots. Never in a million years. Even my I see my high school friends and they're like, there's no way that you were a police officer. I'm like, I don't you know, my energy has been focused onto constructive things. So it's good.
Speaker 2:It it was
Speaker 1:I'll say something for our audience. Even police officers when they talk about themselves like, oh, I'm just a dumb cop. It's some of the first of all, it's cops, firefighters. I'm gonna all first responders. I'm gonna put them in one bucket.
Speaker 1:The best, smartest, intelligent, and just amazing community I've ever worked with. So I'll just put that out there that even though police officers treat them themselves say that about themselves jokingly, it is so untrue. In fact, you know, the the stuff that some of my friends show me, one one of my friends, he is into like recreation of crime scenes based on drone technology, creating these three d crime scenes. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. And yeah, he also says, I'm just a dumb cop.
Speaker 1:No, you're not. No, you're not.
Speaker 2:Well, because I'd rather have somebody underestimate me because it makes everything easier.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's yeah.
Speaker 2:That's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's that's right. Sorry. I I barged in there.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:So you're no longer in the army or in the police.
Speaker 2:Right. I'm getting out of the military. And the only reason I got out of the military is because I had a police job come up. Otherwise I would have stayed in. And it was actually went in through a federally funded police academy.
Speaker 2:It used to be, it was called the police corps. And the cornerstone of that was community engagement. And so not only were you doing your police academy, but they were including college courses about like really social science, things that had to do with sociology and stuff like that. So that really, that was the foundation of my entire policing career is I really bought into the community oriented policing and community engagement because at the end of the day, it's their neighborhood. I'm not living there.
Speaker 2:So the problem solving will last when they're part of the problem solving process. Not when I come and dictate, you guys need all this and I do it all. Then I leave and I go to another area. So if you want lasting results and I I'm very proud of the work that my squads and I have done. Cause when I first started, there was places in Tampa.
Speaker 2:You couldn't walk around with your baby because there'd be gunshots and everything. And to see young mothers pushing baby strollers in those areas, you know, later after not only my squads, but our whole department, it was like, it was a total mission like that felt great. My, my city is so much safer. And I feel very
Speaker 1:proud We, we, we we've had EDO on the podcast, but the EDO community led, these are not things that public knows about or thinks about. Break it down to us, what does this work look like on a day to day, month to month? How do you go from, you know, dark, scary, alley drug deals happening to, you know, young moms pushing down What's the path from A to B?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. It starts with dignity. So everybody you come in contact with, good guys, bad guys, victims, suspects. Honestly, the core of American policing is supposed to be we protect your rights above all things. Above all things.
Speaker 2:I'd rather have a suspect get away from me than violate somebody's rights because it's that important over here. Supposed to be that important. So our chief from our chief on down, the message was very consistent and it was we treat everybody with dignity. We treat everybody with dignity. I had a suspect in custody and everybody wanted to beat his butt and I covered him because he's in my custody.
Speaker 2:He's my responsibility. Nobody's going to hurt my prisoner while he's in my custody. Like that's an ownership of the responsibility, not of the people, but of the responsibility. So if you show up and you say voluntarily, I'm going to be your police officer today, you assume the entire responsibility of you can trust me, I'm going to treat you fairly, and I'm not going to violate your rights. I'm going to protect your rights, in fact.
Speaker 2:Not every cop is like that, but not every doctor's a good doctor. Not every priest is a good priest.
Speaker 1:It's incredibly difficult though because you're going into a situation which you don't know what the outcome could be. There's a large amount of danger. What a lot of people don't know is that a knife is more dangerous than a gun in if you're under what is it 12 feet. So you're in a lot of risk and you're trying how to gauge do I behave? More
Speaker 2:than the physical risk is the there's a political risk. There's a, you know, you you if you make a mistake of law, you could could get fired, you could get arrested. There's so many things that can happen. So you have thousands of statutes. In my state, out of of Florida, there's thousands of statutes that you have to know, plus all of the officer safety stuff and officer safety becomes easier through experience.
Speaker 2:In fact, I used to teach officer safety. I used to teach defensive tactics and you become better at it because you start to see signs of behavior cues of an attack or behavior cues of escalation. For your police officers, de escalation skills are, they're usually really good at it. I'll tell you who's the best at it is detention deputies. People that come from the jail are the best at deescalation because it's usually one of them with 72 prisoners in a pod.
Speaker 2:That's a lot. That's a lot to manage. So understand that you can't live your life in fear either because the bad guys know when you're scared. When you are confident with your abilities and cause you should be keeping yourself in shape. You should be practicing your defensive tactics skills.
Speaker 2:Should be practicing your firearm skills, all of that. It's a lifestyle and it's a mindset. Cause I know when I was working, was a police officer 25, especially if I was in my jurisdiction, there wasn't ever a time that somebody couldn't come to me and get help from me. And that is, that was just, that was my mantra. So, and I feel like most of the people I worked with, they felt the same way.
Speaker 2:In fact, I've seen police officers off duty with no gear, go in and break up a fight without a vest, without guns, without any of that stuff, because it was the right thing to do. So that's the policing I came from Involvement, matter of fact, because of the community engagement, I've had several incidents where I've been in a knockdown drag out fight that could have turned deadly because when American police officers go anywhere, we're always armed. So there's always a gun, any interaction with an American police officer. I've had people that I've arrested come help me in a fight. We've had people, officers that were shot and people come from the neighborhood that hated the police, get in the police radio and call for help and stay with the officers until the ambulance got there, even though they were gonna get ostracized by the community because they did that.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's so many good people. That's, now I'm retired, what I do now is I'm really trying to answer the question, why do some people behave in a harmful way and why do some people behave in a helpful way? What is it about us as humans that makes us make those decisions? So I feel like I'm a burgeoning social scientist. That is where my, a lot of my time has gone is into answering that question.
Speaker 2:Do we do what we do? And how do we nudge people towards helpfulness? That'd be great to know.
Speaker 1:You're in very, you're in very good company today because I forced my daughter, what was this, two years ago to read the book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kuneman and Anam Stravirsky, which are of course to our audience, the forefounders of social psychology and the book that you referenced without referencing it, Richard Thaler, he was my professor by the way, the book knowledge. Really? Yeah, it was at University of Chicago. I read that in his alma mater. Yeah,
Speaker 2:I was blown away. It's like an epiphany. And that is what, that's what we do. You know, if I go to a scene and there's somebody, there's irate people, well, first I look for the leader because the leader's going to help me control everybody. I'm not controlling anybody.
Speaker 2:They already have a leader. So I go to the leader and if I can nudge the leader, if I can give them a reason to think that calmness will help their position, then they'll do it. But if I can't figure out how to make that connection, they're not, nobody's helping me do nothing. It's all uphill battle. And I think a lot of seasoned police officers are just good at the gift of gab.
Speaker 2:They're good at identifying those connection points so that people comply is such a forceful word, but that's, we need compliance to move on with whatever we've been called for. Because in America, you know, for the most part, we show up because somebody called us and asked us to show up. We don't, you know, if I had, I got paid by the hour, I could have sat and drink coffee and eat pie all day. I don't have to go get yelled at, but somebody called us. So then we went.
Speaker 2:And so that's a lot of times people relax when we remind them, look, somebody called. We just got to make sure everybody's okay and we just gotta, we have to, if you called me, I would investigate for you. This person called, so now I have to investigate for them. Let it happen.
Speaker 1:You talk about social psychology and is, this part of the training that officers used to get, are getting today or is this just like if you get into it and you study and you learn and figure it out, you know, good for you.
Speaker 2:I think a lot more police officers today are going to college and they're getting degrees in social sciences and in criminal justice. They do talk about how different variables affect the crime rate. It's not just the desire to steal or the desire to hurt somebody. It's poverty. It's PTSD.
Speaker 2:It's so many things. There's so many variables that go into it. And I think they're way more like when I first started, I know some of our old timers, it was like they had never met a real human being before because they were so black and white. And the people that came, the younger people that came as I was phasing out probably thought that about me because society changes right in the social contract. It changes with different generations in my in my day if I hate to say that but in my day I had a field training officer.
Speaker 2:This man had gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and by the law because they lived together he should have been arrested. However in domestic violence, there's so many things so many factors that go into it. A lot of times, even if the women are controlled, the man makes the money, they've got children, da da da da da. There could be all kind of ramifications. So my training officer asked the woman, You wanna go to jail or do you wanna pay for it?
Speaker 2:And she's like, I want him to pay for it because I need him to go to work tomorrow. So we took him behind the seven Eleven and he whipped his ass and then he brought him back out and he told me to stay in the car. I wasn't allowed to see it. So I was just in the car. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2:I was just like, let me write my report. And he came out and the man thanked him. And then they left. That was the kind of relationship we had in the early 2000s. Today, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2:Would be, not only would I be fired, I feel like I would be sent to Siberia. That would be just absolutely the most unacceptable thing of all time. Today, people want reports. They want to be heard. They want all, and so it's a different interaction and society gets to make that, they get to make that call because we serve and we're made of, that's the other thing people forget is the police are made of society.
Speaker 2:So the same cross section that's in your city is exactly the same cross section of the people wearing uniforms. They're Democrats, they're Republicans, they're atheists, they're Jewish, they're all the things. So I think people forget we're just humans doing the best we can with the information we can. And I personally think a lot of police officers show up broken. That's what attracts us to this because we do, you know, we're saving people.
Speaker 2:And I know me personally, I came from a very violent home, but it made it so when I went to violent scenes, unlike other people, it didn't bother me. So I could stay in the fight and I could talk to people and I could, my deescalation skills were, I think they developed probably a little bit better than most because I had already, I've been de escalating since I was six years old. So policing gives people that are broken a chance to use their energy constructively. And you don't have to see yourself like you're a victim or you're broken or anything. You had skills that were needed in the moment and you get to be helpful.
Speaker 2:And then like now I'm retired, that's a different life. I'm not broken. I have great memories of being a police officer and now I'm just going to do my best to be a good citizen. That's all I can do.
Speaker 1:It's a very heavy price that police officers pay mentally, physically. It's a tough job. How do you, and some people, alcoholism sometimes happens as a repercussion, other elements. How has this kind of developed over twenty, thirty years back when you were in the force compared to today? Is there more awareness around helping officers kind of maintain their own mental health?
Speaker 2:I think it depends on the city or the jurisdiction, but for the most part, the buzzword is officer wellness because our suicide rate is eight times the rate of citizens. And in fact So
Speaker 1:that's, let's just stop on that stat for a second. That is, that is a tenfold almost, right? That is massive. We talk about dentists having higher suicide rates than other doctors. I think dentists is only twice or four times.
Speaker 1:This is double that once again.
Speaker 2:It's massive. Massive. In fact, more officers kill themselves than are killed in the line of duty by That's crazy. Three three hundred percent. And it has a lot to do with, especially like when I first came on, I came on in 2000 and we just, you know, Gen X, right?
Speaker 2:You take the generational stuff, you know, you just suck it up and you suck it up and drive on is the phrase or, you know, suck it up buttercup. A matter of fact, the best story I can tell you to give you an image of what it was like in 2002 or 2003, we have neighborhood rivalries in Florida, in the South, everybody has a gun. So this neighborhood would come to this neighborhood and shoot them. And then this neighborhood, go to this neighborhood the next night or a couple nights later and shoot them. So in the area I was working, it was our turn to get shot at.
Speaker 2:So I was driving through, we hadn't seen anybody yet. I was driving through and I saw these gentlemen kinda sitting outside and they were just sitting on a stoop, drinking some beer. And I didn't even get out of my car. I just rolled the window down. I said, hey fellas, you know it's our turn to get shot tonight.
Speaker 2:So it'd be great if you guys took that inside. Let's just let them come through. They won't hit anybody, it'd be great. And one guy with a big beard, he's probably in his forties, was like, sweetheart, we appreciate it, but we're good, we got it. And so I was like, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna come back and check on you guys.
Speaker 2:So I drove off, I turned the corner and probably three minutes later, I heard a tone, which is an alert that there was an emergency call and it was shots fired at the location I was just at. I turned my car around and I go there and the man with the beard is the one who was shot. And we didn't have any tourniquets, we didn't have any of that. So I had neighbors bringing towels and everything. And this man died in my arms.
Speaker 2:And he didn't expect that to happen at all. And the saddest thing was I asked him if I could call anybody for him. And he said there was no one. So after he passed away, all the other officers show up, the ambulance gets there, the next thing I do is I get statements from people, I look for video, and then I go to the next call. Nobody talked to me about it.
Speaker 2:And I didn't even know it bothered me until about five years ago, a friend of mine who owns a company that has those GO bags with tourniquets and stuff in it asked me, Hey, was there ever a call where you wish you woulda had a bag like that? All of a sudden I was right back there at the scene. I could smell it. I could see it. I could see the man right in front of me.
Speaker 2:And those are the things that we never talked about before that we definitely talk about now because we recognize that if you know the book, The Body Keeps the Score, we're walking around with all of the traumatic stress incidents that we've ever dealt with.
Speaker 1:Just we hold on to it. Problem is that it creeps up on you. You don't necessarily understand that it's there and you think you're fine. In fact, you think that you have you've built up a resilience and that you're not as affected because you've been exposed to all these things. Look, I grew up with bombs exploding around me, running to bomb shelters, know, people being stabbed.
Speaker 1:So you're like, okay, it's another Friday. Like, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So you kind of think that, you know, and I I will say that sometimes, look, to a certain degree it does give you perspective to life because when something stupid happens, you're like, okay, that's stupid, like, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But but these scars, they do stay with you and you don't even recognize as you don't know that they're there and when then they kind of erupt all at once and that's the dangerous That aspect of
Speaker 2:happened to me two, actually three years ago, four years ago, my brain broke. There were so many signs though. I was having memory problems. I would not take a break. I was not taking vacation.
Speaker 2:I had major traumatic incidences happen over and over and over again, without any break, without any debriefs, without any of that stuff, thinking that I didn't need it. And I even had a friend who was like, you've been through a lot. Why don't you take a break? And I'm like, no more than anybody else. And then, you know, there was a little girl, a little four year old girl who was shot and then I did CPR on her.
Speaker 2:And I remember that that didn't break anything, but it was real close. And then it was actually a year later, her mother saw me at an event that we were supposed to be talking to the community about guns killing children. And she lost it on me. She was not, she didn't really like the police to begin with, but she thought I was a different officer and accused me of trying to tase her that night when actually I kept it. I like kept everything together and I was not going to get mad in public and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But that is, it wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to me by any means whatsoever, but it was the last thing that my brain could handle. And within about two to three weeks, my memory was so bad. I couldn't remember things minutes in minutes. That's how long my memory was. I couldn't read because the words turned into little symbols and I couldn't write things down.
Speaker 2:There were so many things happening and I hid it because of that type A, you know, maybe if I run more, that military mindset, maybe if I drink more water and it was getting worse and worse and worse. And by the grace of God, I was introduced to a different veteran, a Navy veteran who had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy clinic. And he was doing a study on combat veterans with PTSD and traumatic brain injury. And it turned out, long story short, I was diagnosed with a moderate TBI and PTSD. And I threw myself into everything I possibly could because I just, that was the thing that had to happen.
Speaker 2:All of that had to break so I could finally surrender my will. And I have a deep belief in God to get me through that. And now through the other side of it, it's total, I'm a totally different person. And I feel like I'm much healthier. I'm a better mom.
Speaker 2:I'm a better sister. And I, I can connect to people that in a way I couldn't before, because I only saw myself as a protector And protectors, you can't really connect with. So it was, you know, God's grace.
Speaker 1:Part of the problem is that there was definitely twenty years ago, there's this expectation like you've got to be strong, right? That was kind of the expectation and that you know almost you know certain types of failure especially associated with you know psychological that had a stigma to it and it's like oh you're weak and to the level that you know it was incredibly stigmatized if you took any kind of medicine or anything like that. Like it wasn't, you know, we've taken some steps forward since. Let me ask you this. If you had the, you know, divine power to change just one thing, one law or one thing, what would that be?
Speaker 2:Mandatory vacations. Every six months, you got to take two weeks because looking backward, I see that if I knew then what I know now, would have taken the vacations. I would've taken the time off. I would've talked to people and said, you know what? I need a minute.
Speaker 2:And that's what I never did because I never thought I could because, well, first of all, you know, when you become a corporal or a sergeant or a lieutenant, you have the weight of leadership. So you're like, I can't let him see me be weak, which is unreasonable. No humans work like that. So I would definitely add a mandatory one to two week vacation every six months because your body needs time away. Meaning no work whatsoever, no off duty.
Speaker 2:And that's the other thing, you know, lot of police officers and firefighters in America, work, a lot of them work like, something like forty eight hours on, twenty four off. It's a weird schedule, but they have full time jobs other than, so they're constantly working. Police officers do off duty constantly. There's no sleeping. It's just, we wreck ourselves.
Speaker 2:In order to process PTSD, order to process traumatic incidents, need REM sleep and none of us are sleeping.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you would agree with this, but I would almost argue that officers, bosses, whatever the situation, by showing a certain level of controlled vulnerability saying that, look, I've been through a lot, I'm gonna now take some time off to recover and get back on the horse, that shows a certain level of leadership which then the rest of the team would be like if the manager or the officer or whatever is doing it, then that's an acceptable behavior when I get that I'm gonna be saying that.
Speaker 2:Yep. That's so sweet.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. Wasn't it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that back in my day. But No. I feel like and it's not like that everywhere all the time today even, but I I would advocate that, you know, lead by example, and that also means that you as a manager need to be honest about when you need time.
Speaker 2:Right. Then that means you have to know yourself and you have to have self leadership, which is, you know, there's so many leadership books out there and military leadership courses and it's all about leading people and it's very little is about leading yourself because we have those unreasonable expectations that, well, nothing's ever gonna bother me because I'm the boss and I'm the greatest, but you're not. So I think we're moving in the right direction. In fact, that's what I, for the last year I've been writing a book that is basically, there's a lot of dysfunction that happens too in government. You know, you were in, were you in the Israeli army?
Speaker 2:Were you with the Israeli army? Yeah. So, you know what I mean? You know, when the government gets together and says, Hey, we ought to do something. It's total chaos.
Speaker 2:But you have really good people with altruistic motives that want that purpose and they want that greater good inside of this toxic. And so sometimes the beginning of filling your glass up, you know, your traumatic stress incidents and stuff happens at work. It's just the toxic work environment you're in. So I'm writing a book it's called Confessions of a Workplace Heretic. And it's basically about what it takes to hold onto your integrity when you're inside a toxic environment and you can't just walk away.
Speaker 2:There's just so many people that can't leave for whatever reason. So it's, you know, from my military and police life, it's written like a practical field guide about finding ways to create your little pocket of decency inside of that toxic workplace so that where you go, you bring good and you don't, you can stay true This to your is
Speaker 1:difficult. It's not our natural instinct. Our natural instinct is to shout out this is not okay. If we're right, if we're wrong, doesn't matter. We still feel if there's an injustice happening, we need to shout it out and it needs to be squashed and how does not everybody see this?
Speaker 1:But you, keep me honest here, advocate something slightly different and I will quote you now, quiet power of doing the right thing when it's the hardest. What does that mean and once we understand the problem how the hell do we do that?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, if I ask you to think of a time where you were a bunch around a group of people where the person in power did something icky, not quite so wrong, but just it wasn't right. And nobody said anything. And were you the person who said no, because humans, you know, we go, we have a tendency to go with the group and it's really hard for us to go against the person in power. Like we're, you know, our biological wiring is so that we aren't kicked out of the group.
Speaker 2:Cause when we were cave people, we get kicked out. We wouldn't have any food. We don't have any shelter. We'd die. So we're, we're almost having to really come to our criminal cortex to where our reason is.
Speaker 2:And that's why my big thing is that you think you're safe being quiet in the moment, but that's going to wear you out. It's going to affect your heart. It's going to affect your lungs.
Speaker 1:There's a price no matter what. Mean, it's an impossible.
Speaker 2:There is a short term price for building up that self esteem to stand up and create those boundaries and hold them. It's a short term price of extreme discomfort in the beginning. And you know, maybe you don't get that promotion. It's a, it's a, the price is these future things you can't hold in your hand, but the price of compliance into an environment and in doing things that make you feel sick about yourself is a definite long term steady decline and you lose your health so that when you're out of there, because you will be one day, you will not be working and they will not be calling you to check on you. You're going to be alone with your health problems and it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:We had a situation where certain people decided to look the other way and other people decided to report. And I'm going to keep this real fuzzy because this situation never came into the public eye. It was buried. And I don't want to get anybody in trouble. But this was sexual harassment.
Speaker 1:It was a very senior person. And the people people were fired because they were harassed and the other people who reported were retaliated against and they lost a whole bunch of credit, job, work, equity because the company was in process of being sold, so they lost large amounts of money and that CEO, despite being reported to HR, nothing ever happened to him because, well, they were in the middle of an acquisition and the board didn't want to lose a whole bunch of money and I wondered to myself like, you know, this is a $250,000 versus the ability to sleep at night, Who paid the bigger price? The managers that looked the other way and basically, you know, sold their soul to the devil is what I'm gonna say. Or the people who lost a $250,000, but they can look their daughter in the eye and they can sleep at night. I want to argue that $250,000 is worth looking your daughter in the eye and sleeping at but that's a shitload of money.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you what, I come from the world of training and the act of standing up for yourself and what you believe in changes you. If you're facing Tell me
Speaker 1:about that. That's incredibly interesting.
Speaker 2:If you're facing a dangerous situation to be able to stand up and say, no, we're not doing this, That changes you and it makes it easier for you to stand up the next time so that you stop tolerating that BS. You stop tolerating these small people trying to make you be small too. Or these immature people trying to make you like the simplest and probably the most common example is making fun of the quiet person at work, right? There's always somebody that this guy, you know, the top dog makes fun of whoever and nobody says anything. Well the first time you say something, everybody's gonna talk about you and this person's gonna be mad at you.
Speaker 2:However, if it's the most toxic place in the world and you shouldn't be working there anyways, they'll get rid of you. Think that's okay. If it's not, then this guy will think twice about doing that to you. And that was my career. I was a strong female coming up and there were still men on the force at the time that I first came on that thought women didn't belong in law enforcement.
Speaker 2:So, you know, other than putting smiley faces on messages so people knew I came in peace, What could I do? You know what I mean? Because I wanted to learn how to fight. I love to run. I loved all the fast moving stuff that girls aren't supposed to do.
Speaker 2:So I just learned, I just had to, because I really didn't have any other option say, no, we're not doing that. But here's why we're not doing that. Never disrespectful. But I held my ground to the point that there were supervisors who didn't wanna deal with me. Then it wasn't that I was ostracized, is that they never came to give me problems.
Speaker 2:I didn't receive the pushback that other people got because it wouldn't go anywhere. Because I could quote chapter and verse of the policy and say why we shouldn't do it. I mean, was, you have to have your ducks in a row. Part of what I read about in the book is you should have an exit strategy. And I had an exit strategy in case I couldn't stay here anymore.
Speaker 2:If it got too toxic and I just couldn't do this anymore, I had planned an exit strategy. So that's what this book does. Puts these things in practical terms on what you need to save yourself and then little things you can do to build up those boundaries and build up your health so you can create that pocket of decency for yourself.
Speaker 1:So let's start at the earliest possible stage of identifying a potential toxic environment, which maybe you just don't opt into, right? Because the easiest way to solve a problem is not have it at all. What are the signals or the red flags or yellow flags that you would kind of advise to the audience to say like this might be a very toxic environment, Ask these questions, look out for these things.
Speaker 2:Well, would first say that there's a lot of people who are who are for profit, like salespeople. If this job stinks, they'll just go get a better job with more money, right? So that this book isn't for them. It's really for service oriented people who are driven by the greater good that they're doing. So it's really hard for them to leave because they see how that they're actually doing something good in the world that they wanna do.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of a stuck point. So with that population of people, the first and easiest thing to see is, you know, putting somebody down in front of other people and everybody laughing and nobody's saying anything. That's easy because that happens all the time. And matter of fact, it happened so much that I don't even think we notice it. But that is, I think you should, that's a mark.
Speaker 2:Is it just this guy or is it everybody? So it gives you a clue to open up your eyes. You start seeing, it break down some types, and one of them is the insecure overachiever. And the insecure overachiever, God bless them, will lie, cheat and steal to get the recognition that they think they deserve, still believing that they're doing the right thing, but reckless with what they'll do. And you know, people give themselves away in the things that they say and the things that they do.
Speaker 2:You'll, you know, queen bees, click leaders, everybody starts talking about it, even among, if you change squads and somebody was talking about, oh, alpha male over there or queen bee over there. If she doesn't like you, she's gonna talk about you. You hear those little things. If you start hearing a lot and you're not attached to where you work, start your exit strategy because why would you wanna stay? But if you've been there for twenty years and you're this far away from retiring or this work is so important you can't leave it, then you have to come up with ways within the policy that are, you know, you can defend that to establish your boundaries.
Speaker 2:And the first time, I know a lot of people that are over producers and their boss will say, can you stay a little extra? Only you can, you're so good at this. And they do and they do and they do. Well, the first time you say no, that relationship is going to change, but that's a good thing. And that's the whole mindset reframe is no, it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:I, do I need them? Do I need to be overproducing to make myself feel better? Then that's external validation and that's not healthy. Or do I just start saying no and I start to validate myself on the inside? That's what this book kinda covers.
Speaker 2:It's not really like a recipe book for do this, do this, do this. It's really, I've always been like a motivational, you know, let's go take the hill. But before you have troops ready to go take the hill, you have to convince them that they can shoot and they can fight and they can last and that you have to get those little steps and that's what this does, hopefully.
Speaker 1:That's For my the audience, when is the book coming out and what's its name again?
Speaker 2:It's called Confessions of a How to Be Safe in an Unsafe World. And I'm hoping it will be coming out in the spring of twenty twenty six. It's in the, in with the editor and I feel like we're very close and it'll be on my, when I launch it, I'll be, it'll be on my socials and my web, my website, which is feliciapecora.com.
Speaker 1:Let's have you back to talk about the book once it's released.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, That I'd love
Speaker 1:would be, wonderful. Being in the Army Police Department, you know, you've done a lot of other amazing things beyond that, that we just don't have enough time to get to. It molds you as a person and then you become a parent. What are the things that you see differently than other parents in your environment that, let's say lessons or philosophies that you think like, this is the way, I know it's the way because it's proven to work, but other people don't quite see it this way.
Speaker 2:Right. Well that has to do with being prepared, being prepared for the worst thing to happen. You know, I have a daughter, so there's so many bad things that happen to little girls, it's not even funny. But now add to that school shootings, or add to that she doesn't look when she crosses the street. There's so many ways that parents don't have any control.
Speaker 2:All we can do is give them the information, you know, and to really emphasize how important it is to look both ways and hope that they go out and make those good choices. In fact, when my daughter was real small, I had a fake plastic gun because I taught defensive tactics, and one of the things was to remove a gun, so I had a fake gun. And we had a police bag, and she was never allowed to touch the police bag, and we talked about the police bag, and we said there was guns, and dah, dah, dah, dah. Well, as a test, I put the plastic gun in the living room, and I walked in the kitchen. And she was playing, she was playing, and and I was in the kitchen waiting, and then she came in the kitchen, she goes, There's a gun on the couch.
Speaker 2:And she didn't have it in her hand because she knew she wasn't allowed to touch it.
Speaker 1:Good job.
Speaker 2:And I was like, thank you for telling me. And so like, it's those things that no parent really looks at gun safety that way. Yeah. Or you know, safety, when we go out in public, we'll go to Bush Gardens. And even if we bring friends, there's a safety brief.
Speaker 2:Know, somebody comes up and says they need your help to find a child. What do you do? I'm allergic to children. I'll run. She's even helped me teach safety classes for kids.
Speaker 2:And it's not, I don't, I feel like she's not scared about those kinds of things at all. In fact, I got a letter this week from her teacher, two boys were going at it in her classroom. They were arguing and it was escalating and she walked over and she calmed them down. Wow. And I was like
Speaker 1:And she So just 11. Remind the audience, she's 11.
Speaker 2:She's 11 and all the hormones, all the, you know, all the things. And she is a problem solver. She's, I'm so proud of that. But it took, you know, it took constant, you know, bad things happen. We gotta be prepared, you know, and most people are good and be good to good people and bad people, we don't date, we don't marry, we try not to be related to.
Speaker 1:The variability.
Speaker 2:That's what we can
Speaker 1:What an absolute delight. There's only one question on the show that is scripted. It's the only one that I know I'm going to ask in advance, but it's a hard one. If you had to go back to the most difficult point in your life, whether it's twenty minutes ago or twenty years ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:My goodness. In the words of George Bush, stay the course. Know that if you set your goal, investigate the things you need to do to get there and just get there. And it's okay if you don't get the job. It's okay if you fail the class because it's not about the thing.
Speaker 2:It's not about the hill you're climbing. It's about the final destination. You're gonna get there, even if you have to go around. So that is what I really wish I would've known when I was younger because I took it so hard when I didn't do the thing that I, or if I wanted it so bad and I just would make the stupidest decisions to get this thing because I needed this thing. And now I understand I never needed any of that.
Speaker 2:I just needed to be true to my values and I, I would end up here no matter what. So you're always where you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1:My wife and I have a saying that if you shoot for the moon, worst case scenario, you're going to reach the stars.
Speaker 2:Felicia, thank
Speaker 1:you so much for joining us today. This has been an absolute delight. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.