Reflecting on my years as a Police Officer, here are ten things that I learned;
1. Life can change in an instant - both for good and for bad.
2. The decisions you make as a cop can change lives - both for better and for worse.
3. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people - ultimately bad people have more bad things happen to them than good things because of how they behave.
4. It is all about the numbers - not how many arrests you make or how many people driving drunk that you catch as many may believe. It's about how many lives you save or change for the better.
5. Cops have to live for the rest of their lives with decisions they have had to make in a split second.
6. Cops make mistakes and get it wrong - good cops admit it and work to make it right.
7. Those who work for the police do so because they genuinely want to help others, not because they want a better life for themselves.
8. Rarely do you see good things when policing, and because of that you become cynical which can make you seem hard and uncaring.
9. Police officers have emotions. They feel, they fear, and they cry - they just don’t show it on the outside.
10. Policing damages good people - when they leave the service, every police officer has issues that they must rationalise before moving forward. Some may never rationalise them.
Police officers are only human with human frailties. None set out to offend or to do harm, the opposite is always the case. And they do what they do for you.
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Step Outside Of Our Comfort Zone!
My name is Lance and this is my picture.
There are numerous quotes about the benefits of stepping outside of our comfort zone – It is not as scary as it looks, Growth happens in discomfort, Our comfort zone is in our danger zone, and so it goes.
People told me that taking on my fears would be exciting, that I would learn about myself, that I would grow. That never happened for me as a child!
Doing things outside of my comfort zone made me feel even more inferior to others than I already felt.
Recently, while attending a 6-day course for a Diploma in Positive Psychology and Wellbeing run by the wonderful Dr Denise Quinlan and Sue Langley of the Langley Group, we were asked to draw a picture.
Oh good, I thought, another opportunity to make a fool of myself!
We had just been talking about emotions and how they affect every part of our lives.
Through the work that we do in WARN International, I have learned that if we focus on what we love when stepping into the unknown, it gives us something to hold on to, and helps us reduce our fear.
Another of the many mantras we prescribe to - When times get tough, hold on to what you love. In those tough times go with your heart and not your head because your heart will always know best.
This concept comes from my time as a crisis negotiator. When someone is struggling, we talk to them about what has kept them going to lift their mood. This hook is something that they love dearly.
I chose to draw a heart on my blank canvas, well kind of a heart. Recalling the few times I've been challenged about the concept of the heart overruling the head, I painted a brain beneath the heart to imply our heart is always more important when we are in a dark place.
Within our hearts, there are always dark things, the black dot. Within our brains, there are always bright things, our memories. So, I connected the heart and brain in a circular motion to join the two as happens in our body, with the two connected to our gut.
If we can learn to go with our head for rational decisions, and to go with our heart when our head is overwhelmed with negative emotions then decisions will generally be the right ones.
The yellow in the picture shows that we have far more brightness in our lives than darkness, it is just that the darkness impacts us more deeply than the brightness. The flecks of yellow in the black indicate that there will always be a little brightness within those dark places if we know how to find it.
To take on tough times we must learn to step outside of our comfort zone, to become uncomfortable as we find our way back to true comfort, being connected with our world.
If you think back to the challenges that you have faced and how difficult it seemed at the time, and then compare them to where you are now, the chances are you will see how important it is to always hold onto your heart in those times.
What got you through those tough times? I suggest it was something that you loved dearly.
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How Many Careers Have You Had?
In the 1950s and 1960s, on average, people made three career changes in their lifetime. In 2024, that figure is closer to 12.
The limited change in career path was largely due to the desire for security that certainty brings—certainty of knowledge, certainty of continued employment, and certainty of a secure future.
It was also due to the limited number of career choices. As an apprentice builder, I had two options: residential or commercial. Now, there is also mixed-use, institutional, industrial, civil, and many more.
Changing careers from being a builder to join the New Zealand police was a simple choice for me, I never truly enjoyed building and had always wanted to be a cop.
Leaving the police at the age of 57 to start another new career was more difficult and an emotional decision. This choice was fraught with risk for who would employ a 57-year-old with only two previous careers?
Having enjoyed being the lead instructor on the Police Negotiation Team (PNT) crisis negotiator's course it was a no-brainer, start my own coaching business.
With nothing more than a website, a laptop, a badly constructed PowerPoint presentation and a lot of enthusiasm – WARN International was born.
Something I hadn't considered was the emotional toll it would take to develop a business. How hard can it be, simply build it and they will come. Wrong!
It took a lot of hard work mixed with determination and loads of courage. A few weeks before leaving the police a behavioural psychologist asked – “Have you run a risk analysis to see if your business will be successful?”
I panicked, what’s a risk analysis?
What if I fail?
What if this doesn't work?
What if I can't provide for my family?
What if…
Looking back, I doubt that I would have started a business had I run a risk analysis. There were no markets for what I intended to do other than negotiating in challenging situations. De-escalation wasn't really a focus at that time.
Six-months into the business and was in despair, I built it and they had not come! Doing what most people would do I looked for a real job working for someone else.
My wife intervened, “Give it everything for two weeks and then make a decision.”
That was the spark needed to ignite the fire, permission to ignore the risk, to ignore the fear, to ignore all of the emotions and to give it everything without thinking about failing.
I developed a spreadsheet of organisations to work with and started making calls. Then, began meeting with as many people as I could regardless of where it led. It worked.
Fear often holds us back from taking risks, from doing what we know we can do, from being our best self and from achieving all that we desire to achieve.
Sometimes we just need someone else to give us permission to ignore our fears.
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Brain Physio!
Physio is a necessary part of healing the body. It can be painful, intense, emotional, and exhausting. Why is it then that we struggle to tell others that we require mind (brain) therapy despite both treatments being similar?
A physiotherapist will identify the cause of the injury by getting us to talk about what occurred and will generally push the hardest on the part that hurts the most to release the blockage to get the blood flowing and reduce the pain. In a similar way, so does a psychotherapist or psychologist, they push hardest on the emotion that is the most painful to release the built-up energy, thus reducing the pain.
As we have discussed in previous posts, emotions will come out, they must. They have to come out otherwise they will fester and grow and make it more difficult to repair the memory (injury) in the same way that we must get physiotherapy sooner rather than later.
The main difference between the two therapies is that repairing emotional pain requires more effort from the client rather than the specialist. It can be very difficult to go back and relive an incident because the accompanying emotion will be refreshed and become real. However, it is a very necessary part of the healing process.
Talking about our emotions isn’t about moaning or complaining about what happened, it's acknowledging our true self. Expressing an emotion significantly reduces it and if the person we are talking with acknowledges that expression, it disarms the emotion so that is no longer as harmful as it might have been.
Talking about mind health should be no different to talking about body health for they are interconnected. Both make us who we are, and I may suggest that the mind is more important.
Visiting a counsellor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or psychiatrist should be no different than visiting a GP or physiotherapist. They are all necessary in our recovery.
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Run To The Fire!
Since we began in business many years ago we had a mantra. Well, we have a few, but one of them being - run to the fire!
The need to take on life's challenges instead of doing what our brain wants us to, withdraw to remain safe.
Our brainstem is where our hardwiring sits, it is programmed for simpler times, to look for danger to avoid it.
I'm a big fan of Richard Branson’s quote - “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”
Three years ago I was fortunate enough to provide a keynote to the United Fire Brigade's Association (volunteer firefighters) conference in Wellington. 600 firefighters in the auditorium and double that online.
Was I nervous, you bet. Standing in the middle of a massive stage looking out into a sea of faces all of whom are staring directly at you waiting to see what you have to say.
I do not remember much of the presentation however, I'm told it went very well and I was invited back for a second year.
That also went well and I was excited and humbled to be asked back for a third year. 2024 was to be different; this year was scarier than any other year - three workshops on Hidden Barriers to Inclusion!
Unconscious bias can be a touchy subject for some. In the back of my mind I knew I could do it yet also in the back of my mind was what could happen if it didn't go well.
How could I cover a difficult topic in a non-confrontational way that would resonate?
A few sleepless nights, a lot of research and relying on personal experiences, the programme began to come together.
The night before delivery was surprisingly relaxing, unlike other nights before a challenging delivery I slept comfortably. That was until 6 am when I had our mild panic attack - are you ready?
Out of bed I get, look through the programme, and make a lot of adjustments. The presentation slides were already loaded so they could not be changed, I will have to introduce the changes from memory.
A few more notes, and a quick final run-through, and there I was standing in front of an auditorium full of firefighters - the photos do not do it justice!
Firefighters are a great bunch of people, volunteering their personal time to help their communities, representatives from each brigade are now at the conference on a weekend when they could be at home.
Following the presentation, many of the audience took time to come up and shake my hand; to tell me how much they enjoyed it - with some asking if I could cover the same topic in their workplace. You bet!
We must all learn to take on challenges for this is where we learn and grow. Yes, it is nerve-racking. Yes, it might go wrong. Yes, you might not achieve what you want to. Yet we should do it nonetheless.
Take that risk in life, take on that challenge, step into the void of uncomfortable.
The greater the challenge, the greater the planning, the greater the preparation, the greater the reward.
Let's talk!