Leading with Courageous Nobility to Change the World- LEO Jeff Daukas

[00:00:00] Jerry: Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Enduring the Badge podcast. I'm your host Jerry Dean Lund, and I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode, so please hit that subscribe button. And while your phone's out, please do me a favor and give us a review on iTunes or our Apple Podcast. It says, Hey, this podcast has a great message and we should send it out to more people. So please take that 30 seconds to a minute to do that review and just maybe by doing that, it'll push this up into someone's podcast feed that really needs this message. 

[00:00:29] Jerry: Everyone. I'm super excited to announce that I've teamed up with an incredible person, and that person is Dr. Tia White. She is a public safety, wellness and empowerment specialist. Together, we have combined our knowledge and expertise to create a. Five day training course. Now, that training course, you can attend different days of that training course, whichever ones fit you, but day one would be peer support and how to structure that and get your team up and running, and maybe some of the legalities about that.

[00:00:59] Jerry: Days two, three and four are going to be about advanced wellness and sleep and finances and family dynamics and diet and nutrition and retirement and mindfulness and meditation, and how to be that complete first. But we did not want to leave out the significant other in your life, and that is gonna be on day five.

[00:01:21] Jerry: Feel free to bring that significant other with you. And we are going to do a training that's gonna empower the both of you to have a better relationship, a successful relationship, and one that is going to stand the test of time as a first responder for additional information. Please, go to the Instagram page called Complete First Responder for More Details.

[00:01:51] Jerry: My very special guest today is Jeff Daukas. Jeff has served in many different roles in the law enforcement community, and he's gonna share some of those experiences, but most of all, I've talked to Jeff about his leadership and Jeff has a great leadership style. He loves to lead with courageous nobility and he believes by doing that he can change the world. And I believe it too when you listen to Jeff in this podcast. You're gonna get a lot of great ideas on how to be a good leader and just overall how to be a great person in the world. And by being a great person in the world, you too can make a difference. Now let's jump right into this episode with Jeff.

[00:02:35] Jerry: How you doing, Jeff? 

[00:02:37] Jeff: Hey, how you doing, Jerry? 

[00:02:38] Jerry: I'm doing awesome. I'm doing awesome. I'm so excited that we could actually find a time to meet up today and, uh, talk about what you're doing in the world. 

[00:02:47] Jeff: I love it. Yeah, it's gonna be a a great time. There's so much going on. As you know, all we gotta do is blink and it seems like a whole culture is passing us by day to day.

[00:02:55] Jeff: Right. 

[00:02:57] Jerry: Very true. Jeff, introduce the audience to yourself. 

[00:03:00] Jeff: So, as you said, my name's Jeff Daukas, I work as a supervisor in a major metropolitan police department. I've been doing the job, uh, first as a probation officer a hundred years ago. Uh, and then as a police officer now for almost 25 years. Uh, I've had the privilege to work through administration, working through public information office.

[00:03:21] Jeff: I've done patrol field training. I was a detective from property all the way through homicide and that was crazy. Uh, and then as a supervisor working through, uh, protestor response. I ran that unit for about six years. I was on it for about 15, just doing some different things in investigations as a supervisor. I ran our F T O program for a little bit with the team.

[00:03:43] Jeff: Um, and now I am. Loving my life as a patrol supervisor with a squad of people, half of whom have more time on than I do. So that's always encouraging a different level of motivation. But, uh, the joy of my life is, uh, my marriage. I've been married over 25 years with my 27. We have two wonderful boys. One's in college, one's finished in high school.

[00:04:05] Jeff: Uh, I'm real active in my church and, uh, there we go. Just looking to serve in any way I can. 

[00:04:12] Jerry: Yeah. Well apparently you have, because I mean, you, you've had a lot of positions within the department you work for and I mean, they probably, like your patrol old guys probably think you've been around the block.

[00:04:23] Jeff: Yeah. It was funny because as soon as I got out of, I remember I promoted at year 11 and I always knew when I, I, I knew when I started to think about promotion to a supervisor, I thought, I don't wanna be the guy where your, your guys come over and your answer is, I don't. Yeah. Right. We, if you're in the, in the industry, you understand what that's like because you, you pretty much nowadays, or at least even when I started, you accepted the fact that there were guys, the old grizzled sergeants that they told you they didn't want you to talk to them at all.

[00:04:54] Jeff: There was like, Hey, find the corporal. Find a senior officer, just leave me alone so I could have my coffee and my USA today is really what the guy did. Um, and if you, so you couldn't go to them, right? And so you would go to these mid-level supervisors who would always say to me, you know, I don't know Jeff, but I'll find out for you.

[00:05:11] Jeff: And I thought, okay, well I appreciate that, but. I, I thought to myself, if I want to become a supervisor, I probably should be skilled in understanding the front of the house and back the house. Right. Through investigations. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, man, I was the catchman eye when I, when I was the, the lead field training officer on swing shift, south side, you know, kicking the tires, lighting the fires, and uh, I go to investigations and it was, like someone threw cold water in my face, right?

[00:05:38] Jeff: So I go through there. I do about six and a half years as a detective, as I said, working property, a little bit of fraud, forgery, uh, violent crimes, working with bank robbery stuff, and then two and a half years in homicide. So I come back, but I've been gone for, like I said, six and a half years. So I come back as a new sergeant.

[00:05:56] Jeff: Which was funny because I, I thought, okay, well I got all this information I'm gonna share and one of the first weeks, I'll never forget, Jerry, it was, it was so funny. Tell me if you had this experience. I have the new patrol squad and I was on, uh, a swing shift with midweek off, which is the squad that people didn't want, and.

[00:06:16] Jeff: We go to a, we go to a shooting and I walk up to the scene and I'm telling these guys, look, if you, you can string that bullet hole from here. I can tell you how tall the guy was. I can tell you the angle of the shot, and I'm doing blood spatter analysis. I'm a blood spatter guy and I'm, I'm doing crime scene management.

[00:06:31] Jeff: And my officer looked at me and goes, Hey boss, I just don't even know how to do my time sheet and they're doing two o'clock. Can you help me? And I just like, I just lost it. I said, ok. I've obviously overthought this process a little bit. And so what I learned, you know, like you said, the guys must really appreciate that.

[00:06:50] Jeff: Well, they didn't know me. They didn't know me. They didn't know anything about me. Uh, we have a pretty, in my agency, there was a, it, it's a larger agency and it's pretty striated from investigations to patrol. Yeah. And so when you go in one of those pillars, you silo yourself out a little bit. You can. Out on an island and you come back to patrol.

[00:07:09] Jeff: And like I said, I blinked and the whole culture had gone by, but, uh, I've been a supervisor now for 10 years and I absolutely love it. And so, yeah. Now the guys that I work with are guys that I came up with and we have our own personal stories and backgrounds, but it, it enriches the squad dynamic cuz we all, it seems like we all just, I've only been back to patrol for a couple months and yet we're all clicking because we've all worked with each other for over 20.

[00:07:34] Jerry: Wow. Yeah. That's gotta be nice. Yeah. Nice to be in a group like that, excuse me, where you can click and probably there's some of that unspoken of that happening. Mm-hmm. You know, and, and that's a great way to be in a, in a group of people just communicate by looks and actions and things like that. 

[00:07:52] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:07:53] Jeff: Jeff, anticipation, 

[00:07:54] Jerry: Jeff, I, I mean, what's your leadership style? 

[00:07:58] Jeff: So we talk a lot about, I mean, if you've been in any kind of cop world at all for any length of time, you've gone to some leadership school probably because you desire to promote or you were voluntold or you were disciplined into it, right?

[00:08:12] Jeff: Uh, some of these things, and I've had the privilege to go to a whole bunch of these schools, and a lot of 'em will tell you pretty much the same thing, right? Serve your people. Make sure you're mi uh, minimizing liability, maximizing efficiency, and you can throw metrics and data points at these things all day long.

[00:08:30] Jeff: But what what has really been key for me is the idea, and it's not a new idea. I mean, uh, servant leadership, right? Yeah. Greenleaf in 1970 wrote the servant leader and Blanchard and Hodges like that. That whole idea of what it means to being a servant leader as viewing the needs of your people as more important than your own needs has always been critical for me.

[00:08:51] Jeff: I've done that as, uh, as a father, as a husband, as a detective, as a supervisor, because I, I, uh, soundly reject the notion that rank or letters behind your name or titles in front of your name, define leadership. Yeah, I reject that completely. There are men and women in the world, regardless of the job, that are doing what we would call entry level.

[00:09:14] Jeff: And they are the most charismatic leaders. The most transformative leaders, because leadership is about influence, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you think about that. If you have no followers, you're not a leader, you're a tyrant. If people only follow you because they're mildly curious to see what's next, that's, that's still a leadership style, right?

[00:09:33] Jeff: Yeah. And we know people like that, but. What it does is it puts you in a position to be exhausted for the right reasons, in my mind. And so I know, I tell my wife, look, when I go to sleep at night, if you start a conversation, mid-sentence, expect me to be snoring because I'm 30 seconds in, I'm asleep. So I wanna lead by being out front and being participatory with my people, but really serving them.

[00:09:56] Jerry: Yeah, I, I think there that, I know I'll just say it kinda like a buzzword or whatever, like that style has been around for a while, but I don't really, I see a lot of people say it, but not really like embrace it. 

[00:10:09] Jeff: Mm-hmm. No, you're, you're absolutely right. And so I've recently been a part of the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance with Dr.

[00:10:17] Jeff: Travis Yates from, uh, courage, leadership, and. He's editor-in-chief of Officer Magazine, so we actually had a chance to go and train some people this week, as you and I were talking about earlier, and the style of courageously, why you call it courageous leadership and what that entails and, and how it means you have to base what you're doing on principles of integrity.

[00:10:38] Jeff: Of fortitude on facts, not feelings, on anticipation of events. Right. And there's a whole list and that's, uh, and I give the information at the end of, of, we're talking about how to get involved, but we're building a tribe of courageous leaders across the country. And it is amazing. That's just recently started.

[00:10:54] Jeff: It's amazing the wildfire that's catching because of that. And that's something that Travis talks about a lot. If you're gonna put the knowledge in your head. Right. I mean, he is got a doctorate, he's just got his doctorate and he flat out said to people, five years of my life, it doesn't mean a darn thing.

[00:11:10] Jeff: Yeah. It it, the title, you know, doesn't mean a thing if you can't embrace it in here. But then, and I and I, I push back, I said, it doesn't even matter here unless you're walking it out. Yeah. Cause you could be the smartest, heartfelt guy on the planet, but if you're not walking that out in some. Then what you're doing is it's all dine on the vine, right?

[00:11:28] Jeff: And so yeah, people say, well, what does that look like? And what it looks like is being able, um, to identify truth, call a duck. A duck, right? And not worry, like part of the definition of what I. Like to talk about with, uh, integrity is that you're, you're not at risk of political pressure, media scrutiny or risk of career advancement.

[00:11:48] Jeff: That's how you know you finally got some freedom to do the things you want to do because you're making changes that way. When you go, look, I know what's right, and if I don't talk about what's right and stand up for what's right, then the people that I supervise, they don't get to be protected that way.

[00:12:03] Jeff: And that's the. It's gotta be about the people we protect and supervise so that they become the leaders that say, you know what Old doc is back there. That guy was getting it done because he took care of me and my family, and it made me a better police officer. So hopefully that resonates a little bit with you, Jerry.

[00:12:20] Jerry: Oh yeah, of course, of course it does. I mean, I, I really love leadership and all the different types and, you know, we we're all in different situations trying to lead it. Mm-hmm. I should say the best we can. But Jeff, I think there's people who go to these classes and then they learn, you know, what you're teaching, but they don't really come back and implement.

[00:12:43] Jeff: Well, I, I think that's the, the first word. That's the courage in courageous leadership, right? I mean, how many of us have sat in a briefing? Okay, so I'll, I'll talk about me. I sit in a briefing and you can always tell, uh, graveyards lights are low. Swing shift lights are in full blast, and there's music playing in the background day shift, you smell breakfast from people eating and briefing, right?

[00:13:05] Jeff: So you kind of can nail your shift by that, but, In all these briefings, for example, which is like your small squad dynamic should be where you have the most influence and the most change. And we get an idea about these briefings where lieutenant or commander will come in if his day shift or swing shift and bless their hearts, were coming in on, uh, on graves.

[00:13:25] Jeff: But they come in and all of a sudden the people, the sergeants, they vapor lock. They know what they wanna say, but they're muting themselves. They're hedging themselves because I don't know. Their heads themselves because they're afraid, well, if I say this, I may be called an lts office. Or if I say this, people are gonna say, well, why do you believe what you believe?

[00:13:46] Jeff: And then what do I say? How do I defend what I believe? Again, I reject that I, I believe in what I believe. I know who I am. I know that if there's things that are gonna help other people, let's talk about those things. And instead of being cowardly and having a, you know, as Travis as Travis says, you know, be on the apology tour all day long.

[00:14:07] Jeff: And just you and your bobblehead, like, okay, we'll just sit and take it. Or, or you know what Lt um, whatever you say makes sense going, wait a minute, this is my briefing. Let's have, and there's a professional way, right? Yeah. But courageously to say, we're gonna talk about these different things here, challenge people, train them, and then walk over to lieutenant's office and explain, here are the principles of why we're doing what we're doing, and see if we can get some buy-in from our, our chain of command.

[00:14:30] Jeff: And I've had tremendous amount of success with that. Most people. They either have not experienced that and they may not even believe what I'm saying is true, but because of the way I show the courage and do what I'm doing and respect, they have to at least accept the why statement, right? Yeah. The why behind what I'm doing makes sense.

[00:14:50] Jeff: It's helping people, and if that's the case, why would you stop it? Because it translates into the data points that the commander is asking for, you wanna reduce crime? Well, let's encourage our people to go talk to the kids. Not just playing midnight basketball, right? Yeah. Let's talk to the kids and then we'll talk to the parents.

[00:15:08] Jeff: And then we say things like, you know what? It's not okay that you guys are going month to month and you have $2 in your account. How do we fix this? And spending time? And I think the shift in law enforcement when I started was I was on day shift for a point as an officer. We had time, our commander said, Hey, take the time you need to solve the problem.

[00:15:27] Jeff: And he didn't define that. And it was really, it was really cool because I remember going to a business and saying, Hey, can you gimme some money to help this family out? And they said, well, what's going on? And so I'm spending like an hour talking to a business owner. Yeah. Who then basically subsidizes this family for six months.

[00:15:44] Jeff: And solves a problem. But you know, as well as I do that nowadays, it's go, go, go, go, go. There's a call. We got two people on the road because we're low staffing, right? And, and how do you deal with the safety issues? And this guy's calling for backup. And so you resolve a call at the quickest possible level, and then you move on, right?

[00:16:03] Jeff: And boom, the leadership is gone because the impact isn't there. Yeah. Yeah. And that's key. 

[00:16:11] Jerry: Yeah, I, I like what you said about, you know, being able to share your, your beliefs and, you know, with your, with your crew, your team or, or whatever, how that, how that looks like. And then going up the chain of the command to explain maybe why you said what you said and your feelings.

[00:16:25] Jerry: Mm-hmm. What if you skip that, skip that step, and don't go o back over to your chain of command and, you know, just let what you said, just let it ride. What, what's, what's that gonna bring. 

[00:16:37] Jeff: Well, and, and I see your smile on your face cause you already know what the answer kind of could be. But let, let, let me, let me unpack a couple different scenarios.

[00:16:45] Jeff: So you have lieutenants that are not on the same agenda as what the sergeant and the squads are doing by nature of their assignment. Sure. So that's on the digging lieutenants. Yeah. Um, I, I, I worked, I, I worked as a part-time, um, like a t d Y lieutenant for a bit, and you're just dealing with. Moving pieces onto chest port.

[00:17:04] Jeff: Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. Right. As Shift commander we're, you're trying to do all that stuff and so I don't have the expectation that my lieutenant's gonna be aware of, you know, have you dealt with your use of force issues and your court? Things like that. That as a first line I gotta deal with. So there have been times where I don't seem the lieutenant for a couple weeks now, does that take away from the mission?

[00:17:25] Jeff: And the answer is no. Right? Because the mission as a cop is always about public safety. It just, And you expand from there, public safety, right? The, the, the, the continuity of trust and all the other stuff we're gonna be doing, you know, old sir, uh, Robert Peel, he had it hit it, right? You know, and so we have to think about that.

[00:17:44] Jeff: And so the minute we start taking a one degree deviation from our mission, which is public safety, you're gonna have a problem. So what I've done is I've seen. You don't, I don't need to have a conversation with my lieutenant. In fact, there have been weeks where my lieutenant sent me a text message just, Hey, how's it going?

[00:18:01] Jeff: Just make sure you're alive because he knows, just based on the metrics that he's pulling, that the mission's getting brought forth. Yeah. Right. And so, so there, that, that's, that's one scenario. But that requires you to have people ob obviously a relationship with your lieutenant first line that's gonna be people of integrity and, and nobility.

[00:18:19] Jeff: Right? But what if, what if I'm off the. What if me and the, uh, you know, the retired on duty day shift, guys are, are running our miles and we're hanging out for two hours in briefing and we're not doing what we need to do. Um, and I start making decisions that are away from the mission. Well, at some point, you know, we're not dumb.

[00:18:42] Jeff: We understand that if, if, like, I would understand that if I'm doing something that's counterproductive, I don't want my boss. And so now you have this, I have to monitor you and micromanage you, which is a horrible position. Yeah. And you know what, and and we see some of that, don't we? Yeah. In our industry, yeah.

[00:18:58] Jeff: We see some of that going on where, and it could be for a variety of reasons, and, and I won't speculate too far, but to say I, if you're not super secure in what you do, remember I talked about, I didn't wanna say, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. If I, if I'm not secure as a supervisor and my lieutenant is not secure, half the lieutenants, I end up.

[00:19:17] Jeff: As officers, and so if they're not secure in what they're doing, then they're gonna have a real tight grip because maybe they don't trust their ability to have enough confidence or moxie to say, I don't know. They wanna just really have a tight, tyrannical grip. And so if I'm not communicating, I, I try to overcommunicate my lieutenant until they say, Hey, we got it.

[00:19:37] Jeff: We know where you're at. Just leave me alone. Right? As long as we're, as long as I'm communicating with them, then there hasn't been an issue. Even with, and, and you can hear 'em in my voice, even with, uh, areas that are maybe not as towing the line as other guys. Because I like to push the barriers. I like to get my guys out doing projects and different things, and, and when I do that, I'll get a message from a, a commander who gets, you know, he's getting the backend email from city council because the business owner called him and the commander's going, Hey, great job on this.

[00:20:10] Jeff: The lieutenant doesn't freak out saying, why don't you tell me first? Yeah. The assumption is I'm serving people through public safety, so let's figure a creative way to do it with low staffing. 

[00:20:21] Jerry: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I, I love that. I love, you know, finding ways to serve people. And you shouldn't have to feel like maybe you have to run everything by your, whoever's above you to, to do something that you know is right and aligns with the mission.

[00:20:42] Jerry: Correct. Or, yeah. And, and if you don't, if you can't do that, then you can't effect, you're right. You can't effectively lid lead, it's mm-hmm. You're just always being torn apart by like, what do I think I should do? And then what do they want me to do and what am I gonna get in trouble by doing? You know, 

[00:20:56] Jeff: it's the politics.

[00:20:57] Jerry: Yeah, the politics, 

[00:20:59] Jeff: which we all would agree. The politics and the admin that causes the most stress it does of our job. And I know guys, how about this? I know guys that would rather run into, it's the old analogy. You run in that building, clear that building with you and a buddy, and there's a guy with a rifle and you have your handguns.

[00:21:14] Jeff: There are guys that'd rather do that than go talk to the lieutenant about a possible difficult situation. Sure. Right. So why is that? You know, why, why is that? It's because the trust isn't there. Yeah. You know, the, the, the trusts isn't there. They haven't, you haven't, you talk, you know, Travis talks a lot about, uh, deposits and withdrawals, and we've heard that before, right?

[00:21:35] Jeff: You wanna build into your community, you gotta spend time with them. You wanna build into your relationship with people. And I think we forget that Jerry, internally, you gotta be able to, like, I know the name of my lieutenant's, uh, wife and his kids. Like, you have to know something about your chain of command so that I can pull from that, um, that emotional equity.

[00:21:54] Jeff: So my boss goes, okay. I don't really know what's going on, but is that consistent with Jeff's character? And that's something I use a lot. Is this consistent with your character? When I hear something instead of knee jerking to say, whoa, you better get in my office. I'm thinking, okay, what's the, why is this consistent with this guy's character?

[00:22:12] Jeff: And if it's not, well, then we can have that next conversation. But I think you've seen it over your career. I know I have too. Where so many people, the minute they get something that's beyond their wheelhouse or they don't understand, boom, it's like, you're called in. What's going on? Why'd you do it? And I go, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:22:28] Jeff: Is this consistent with my character? You believe me. You come to me for advice 95% of the time, and this one time I've driven the car off the cliff. Does that make sense? And so that's how I'm trying to empower my guys too, even at the officer level, of course. They have the most contact with people in the world.

[00:22:47] Jeff: Yeah. So in my community, to go up to some, to go up to a guy who, you know, maybe is victim of crime and treat him like a suspect, or to go to an accident and yell at everybody because they crashed their car. Is that consistent with someone's behavior? I mean, you got a family of six, right? Or a full of penguins, whatever it may be.

[00:23:05] Jeff: Right? Is is that, is it consistent? Like, this guy's a NASCAR driver? Probably not. Right? Right. So I, I think that that trust component and being able to talk to people is, is gotta be there. 

[00:23:18] Jerry: Yeah. I think one thing you're, we're you're talking about character and I think one thing that I find when it comes to character is that the rumor, mil is the main thing that actually attacks individual's character.

[00:23:36] Jeff: Hmm. Okay. So I would agree with you on that. But I remember my dad telling me years ago, and I don't believe him because who believes your dad when you're 14, right? Later on, I, when I, I remember getting married as a quick offset and I remember telling my dad, I got married at 22, and, uh, I remember telling my parents, man, it's amazing how smart you guys got in the past two years.

[00:23:59] Jeff: They'd start laughing at me, you know, like, okay, whatever. Yeah, but he, he talk. My dad always said, you know, the lie's only true if you, Yeah. And I thought to myself, okay, well that's all great, dad, that you don't know what's, you don't know what's, like for me, the people are saying this and they're looking at me giving that hard, sideways glance.

[00:24:19] Jeff: How do, how do I deal with that? Well, what happens if you believe that? Well, let's, let's play that out. Right? Yeah. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy the minute you start hearing, because as a sergeant, I really, believe it or not, I, I. The last person hear anything, right. People do a pretty good job of insulating me from that.

[00:24:37] Jeff: But I remember as a detective, I felt like I was the shower drain of my agency. Like all the dirt would swirl around me, never kind of stick, but just pass by. And so I, you would start making opinions based on what you'd hear. Right? Right, right. Um, and having gone through that numerous times, I wish encourage people and the, you know, the people listening, Hey, if you had issues with that, you wanna talk about character?

[00:25:01] Jeff: Remember, is this consistent with this person's character? When you hear a rumor about a guy that was, you know, bass diving off, uh, you know, the Himalayas into a, into a, a Taliban camp, like that's probably not real. Okay. But I would, I would encourage people just go talk to somebody. So this happened to me recently where there was a situation that went up and my lieutenant walked in, my office, closed my door, which.

[00:25:27] Jeff: It's not really a good thing when that happens. Yeah, right. Yeah. He didn't have that look like, Hey, we need to talk about with your officers. He just said, Hey, here's what I'm hearing, and I just want to know what you think about that. And to his credit, that's how we approached it. And I was shocked. Right.

[00:25:41] Jeff: My, my, I, I looked at him like, And I, and instead of spotting off, right. Even my heart's racing now, thinking about how angry I was. Yeah, yeah. Instead of building the defense and building the walls and saying, well, you're gonna have to fight me for this and I'm gonna defend my reputation. That's all. A bunch of garbage reputation is, can be made by their people, but it can be taken by them too.

[00:26:03] Jeff: But your character. Is established by the man or woman that you are day to day by your actions. And so I looked at him, I said, okay, lt, is what you're hearing again, is that consistent with my character? And he looked at me and smile. He goes, of course it isn't. That's why I came in to talked to you versus just writing you up.

[00:26:22] Jeff: And then we unpacked where that came from and realize, The game of telephone is alive in most of our Oh yeah. High school. High school police departments. Yeah. You know, we always joke around, we're like, man, this would be a great place to start an adult police department. You know, because that high school rumor mill, like you said, that can be destructive.

[00:26:41] Jeff: And so I'd encourage people to listening too, and maybe you got some advice on this as well, Jerry, that you may think that you're being a good listening ear. Okay. You may think you're being a good. You may think all these different things, but ultimately what's the mission? Public safety. And as I tell other people, you know, my wife's had the blessing to homeschool, so I'm it, right?

[00:27:02] Jeff: I'm it on the job as far as making the money. Yeah. This is a job for me. This is my livelihood, this is my calling, this is what I want to do. So I'm not playing, you know, after school sports, I'm, yeah, we may be friendly at work, but if it comes to, uh, betraying the things, like throwing away my career for that bad decision because we're friends.

[00:27:21] Jeff: Yeah. That's not happening. Yeah. Yeah. And we need to be an adult about it. So I'd encourage your people, even if they think they're, they're being a good listening ear, you have to be judicious in how you do that. I mean, I won't, I don't, I don't go out with people after work to, I mean, and, and that's because of my family stuff and I wanna see my kids.

[00:27:38] Jeff: I don't see 'em. Right? Sure. Yeah. Um, but there is that issue, right there is that time when you feel like you wanna be part of the. And so you're gonna chop it up with the team on, on debrief or something, and you're just gonna laugh about it. And there are things we laugh about. Sure. But then we always leave the, okay, so let's, as a supervisor, I'm like, okay, we're, we're not talking about that anymore.

[00:27:57] Jeff: We're putting that to bed. Yeah. And you have to let that go. You have to say, all right. I also have, uh, demonstrated over my career something that was super important to me. When you come outta my office and say, somebody said, can I talk to you? This goes back to character and rumor mills, I keep it in the vault.

[00:28:12] Jeff: Yeah. And. I just got done talking to people this week. I said I've had people come in about drug abuse, alcohol abuse, marital infidelity, uh, children outta control. Um, I've had guys come in and say, I'm thinking about killing myself and as a supervisor, That's a, I mean, that's one you all, these are basically full stop type situation time.

[00:28:33] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. But then I can't leave there and, and be and say, Hey, you know what Jimmy did over here, and, you know, you can't, you can't run your mouth about it. And that helps build the, the continuity of trust in my character. Could people know they can trust me and they know that they can, we all have issues, right?

[00:28:50] Jeff: All of us have got issues. Yeah. We gotta be able to feel safe in being able to talk to people that we know are men and women a character. And without the rumor mills destroying us. You're right. 

[00:29:00] Jerry: Yeah. I, I wanna go back a little bit. I really like the, uh, was that your lieutenant or who was that? That came in and, yeah.

[00:29:08] Jeff: My, my lieutenant. 

[00:29:08] Jerry: Yeah. Lieutenant. I, I like that he came in and shut the door and actually talked to you before. Yes. He took any steps. I mean, that is right there, like the. Proper thing to do. Right. Right. I mean, hands down. Right. I mean, would you would do that to one of your officers, right? Correct. You'd go in there and and do that same thing, so I think that's prop props to them.

[00:29:29] Jerry: I think something that's also, that would serve people really well is that, yeah, there are times that people vent and rumors and all these other, whatever you wanna call it, things go round. But then they can get out of hand, right? Where they really actually start hurting and being impactful to other people because the telephone game right keeps going down and the rumor mills getting, getting worse.

[00:29:50] Jerry: I think what I have found that served me very well in my career is just I don't judge people on. What I hear about them, I judge them on what my interaction is with them. Right. Because my interactions with so many people are completely different than other people. That's just my personality. Like I, you know, I don't have a big beef with a lot of, a lot of people.

[00:30:13] Jerry: Like I just mm-hmm. You know, they treat me good. I treat them good. Like, I mean this, I mean, if other people like 'em, I don't care. 

[00:30:20] Jeff: Yeah. And you know, that's, I think that's a big issue too. Uh, are you familiar with that concept of dispatch priming? 

[00:30:26] Jerry: No. 

[00:30:27] Jeff: So this is a thing where with dispatch, you get a call for service, right?

[00:30:31] Jeff: And it says A guy's running through an apartment complex. He's holding something in his hand, looks like a. Right. So every cop shows up, what are they believe in right away? 

[00:30:40] Jerry: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:30:41] Jeff: That this old boy's got a gun and so they're drawn down on him and this guy, you know, like the guy's walking with his, his bible in his hand and his cell phone talking to somebody, you're going, right, right.

[00:30:49] Jeff: He's going, why are you pointing your guns at me? So that's that concept of dispatch priming. Yeah. To where I argued years ago that every call for service in the, in the world to come out as some unknown trouble or some suspicious circumstance. Yeah. To give the cops a chance. To make a decision, and so I parallel that with what you said.

[00:31:08] Jeff: If we walk in and we're primed to already. About people, the things that have been said wrongly, maybe. Yeah. Maybe even correctly without having an opportunity to take that in, in back and forth between me and someone else, I would submit to you that that's probably not, not probably, that is inappropriate.

[00:31:25] Jeff: Yeah, because you're missing out on the richness of the relationships, right? Yeah. I mean, how many times have you had an encounter with somebody? Well, this guy's just a slug, or he's, you know, he's not a good person or whatever. And you talk to him Yeah. And you're like, Hey, this is a pretty cool guy. Yeah.

[00:31:41] Jeff: Yeah. And you're thinking, why do people have a problem with this officer or this person? It happens to me all the time. And so the, the, the problem I have on this, Jerry, is that once we realize that, What are we doing to combat the rumor that's going around? Are we perpetuating it? Right, right. Or am I yucking it up with the boys later going, oh yeah, yeah, no, I know what you're talking about.

[00:32:04] Jeff: In my mind, thinking, oh, but he's pretty cool. Yeah. Or, yeah, you know what? He's a tactically, you hear guys that are just train wrecks, right? And yeah, you got with them and you think. There's nothing wrong with what he's doing. Maybe he does a little differently than me, but I have no problem with his safety.

[00:32:17] Jeff: I've been an attached instructor for 20 years. I got no problem with the guy's safety. Right? Yeah. But am I willing to be courageous and say, no, no, no. Let me, let me again, let's deal with facts. Let's not redefine the narrative. We have a whole federal government system re redefining narrative. We don't need us to do that.

[00:32:34] Jeff: Right, right. Let's, let's talk about facts over feelings. Let's talk about the facts and then be able to tell people professionally, I mean, I've, I've flat out said in briefings, all right, uh, I don't agree with you and here are the reasons why, and we can talk about it offline so we're not talking about in front of people.

[00:32:50] Jeff: Yeah, that's great. And if you wanna have that conversation, we can ultimately, I'm the supervisor, this is what we're doing. Yeah. And if it's not a illegal, immoral, or unethical, I'll see you out there. Right. That kind of thing. And they're like, okay, yes sir. You know, but that you may not, I've never had anybody in my career say, oh yeah, Jeff Dakis.

[00:33:10] Jeff: Yeah, he's okay. It's either we love this guy or we can't stand him. Yeah. And it's all for the same reasons, because of my intensity for wanting to be right on the, the character line and back people. I'm really intense about that. So I think that there is a place that we gotta remember, we spend our whole career as cops and even if, if you're a parent, like you have to anticipate problems, right?

[00:33:34] Jeff: Um, how many times have you heard this, where. You tell a story to somebody or like, I'm telling my wife something and, uh, she says, wow, you're, you're a fatalist. And I said, no, no, I'm just a realist. Right. Yeah, because we're always trying, I'm always trying to think out the solution to all these bad problems.

[00:33:54] Jeff: Yeah. To an. Right. To anticipate. Yeah, honey, you can't walk on my right side. That's where my gun hand is. And you know, it's just like, are you kidding me? We're we're going to Hobby Lobby? What? Yeah, what possibly could happen at the Christian Etsy store here? What's going on here? You know, come on. And, but, but that's the kind of thing we, we, we so often take ourselves in a position where, yeah, we're gonna treat people differently, but we just gotta get rid of that bias.

[00:34:17] Jeff: We gotta stand for what we know to be true and stay on mission. 

[00:34:21] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:34:22] Jerry: I love that. Jeff, you, you're involved in a lot of different things and tell the, tell the audience a little bit about some of those other things that you're involved in. 

[00:34:32] Jeff: Well, okay, so going back to, we talked about working with, uh, Travis Yates and doing some of this teaching, it has been a whirlwind adventure of that.

[00:34:42] Jeff: So far. I've been teaching for over 20 years teaching in the area of, I know it's around the country, that blue courage or, and I'm a Franklin Covey nobility of policing instructor. And so being able to bring the core concept of ethics, integrity, legacy impact for what we do. To, to officers, young and old.

[00:35:00] Jeff: I mean, a mine c I teach to the pre academy recruits. That's awesome. Right? Because we wanna make sure, and this plays into what I'll tell you, uh, somebody asked me, well, why, why are you spending, you're like the senior sergeant, senior instructor. Why would you spend your time with the Premy guys? And I ask them, the old Chinese proverb win's the best time to plant a tree.

[00:35:19] Jeff: Yeah. Right. And I say, well, 20 years ago or right. So I didn't get these guys and gals 20 years ago, but I get 'em right now. And it's funny, part of what I do is talk about the shift in law enforcement since nine 11 being on, and it's getting to where Jerry were me and was. I had somebody look at me, they go nine 11 and then they go, when did that happen?

[00:35:41] Jeff: And I went, On nine 11, it is kind of funny you think about that going, okay, well, so what does this mean? But, so I'm, I'm teaching a lot of that kind of stuff with, uh, character nobility, that Blue Kurtz philosophy. But I'm also, I love writing. So with, uh, with Dr. Travis Yates, he, like I said, he's the editor, uh, editor emeritus for Law Officer.

[00:36:05] Jeff: I started submitting articles. I've been reading his stuff in law officer for years. I started submitting, I submitted an article. Uh, called Courageous Nobility. Um, he had me on his podcast. We talked about it, and it just blew up. And so, uh, I'm, I'm writing through CK which I didn't even know that was a thing until we started talking about it, but it's a good portal for authors and so that's been a lot of fun.

[00:36:27] Jeff: I've been writing about nobility and about current deals. I'm trying to follow. Jerry Lund's footsteps here. I've bought a microphone to start talking about things on a podcast, maybe one of these days here, but I love being able to do that. So I've, I, I've taken over courageous nobility@protonmail.com as an email address, and we'll talk through that maybe at the end.

[00:36:47] Jeff: But I love being able to write articles to generate conversation. And what's happening is I'm starting to get, you know, through LinkedIn and other places, people are starting to reach out, saying, Why do you believe what you believe? And it's critical that we step into those moments, right? Yeah. And so I'm, I'm inviting people to have these conversations and I'm, I'm, I'm renewed and reinvigorated after 24 years.

[00:37:12] Jeff: Like, so we get done. I'm, I'm can't wait to write some more stuff and kind of engage people where they're at. But, so those are the things I'm involved with. I'm involved, heavily involved. Um, I'm an elder in my church, in a Christian Church, so, you know, I'm, I'm doing things like that, helping serve people in that regard as well.

[00:37:27] Jeff: And I got, like I said, one kid in college, so every 16, 17 days I see him. So, but, uh, it, but it's, it's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. 

[00:37:37] Jerry: Yeah. Jeff, like what's something that you've. Wrote about that you were really enjoyed and you got a lot of feedback about, I know you're clearly right, you're gonna enjoy all the articles that you sure you send out there, but maybe was there some something you sent out and you got some feedback back that you thought was awesome?

[00:37:57] Jeff: Yeah, so I just had an article drop last Tuesday. I put it out there and. I, I was kind of riding with a little bit of a bite in my tone because of what's been going on with that. You know, the vascular neck restraint debacle. Mm-hmm. That's going, people are trying to cancel thin blue line flags everywhere.

[00:38:14] Jeff: I'm surprised that you haven't gotten attacked for having an American flag as your background, you know? Yeah. I mean, these, that's coming, I'm sure. Yeah. And, and, and, but, but what I wrote, I just wrote an article called Dirty Mirror Reflect. 

[00:38:27] Jerry: Oh, that's, that's a very, like, great name, Jeff. That's, that's very, yeah, that's very deep.

[00:38:32] Jeff: So the idea and, and I'm trying to captivate people and hook 'em into that, that, well, what's that about? And um, I think my tagline said something like, sweeping away the grime of what we're, what we're sup expecting to see for what's really there. But I just, I talk about these different quotes about law enforcement, about the nobility we're doing, and then I open through, well, here's the lens that we're viewing things through.

[00:38:55] Jeff: Right? And if you are constantly looking through, like trying to get a reflection off a dirty mirror, you don't see the true reflection. Yeah. But yet we're defining policy. We're we're, we're creating legacy impact for communities and for officers based on a slip shot interpretation of what the truth.

[00:39:14] Jeff: Yeah. And to be super clear, there is only one truth, because if you have a truth and I have a truth, it's not truth. They're opinions. Yeah. And so we we're, we find people shaping into that. But I, I wrote, I, I said, you know, it's kind of, anytime I talk about a mirror being a ha having kids, I think about some of these little Disney things.

[00:39:31] Jeff: I think about the evil Queen and I wrote down, right. It's the evil queen that says mirror, mirror on the wall, spread the lies and defund them all. And people jumped on that quote. Um, but what's been nice is that as soon as I, I helped them understand some strategies to see the mirror clearly, and then where we go from there.

[00:39:49] Jeff: Uh, my challenge was, okay, now that you see the world for what it is, it's kind of, you know now, now that you've been unplugged from the Matrix, right? Yeah. What do you do with what you have? And that was the, the capstone challenge. And that drew, that drew me into the alliance conversation and I was trying to, to draw people into that.

[00:40:07] Jeff: So I. For me, I, I got done. I told my wife, I'm like, I just crushed this and Jesus. What are you talking about? I was very excited because I knew that it had some value, but to start getting some feedback, I had chiefs of police, like I said, I don't even know, start reaching out, wanting to connect, and I'm engaging in conversations and it's been reposted, I don't know how many times ready, but in, in spheres of influence.

[00:40:31] Jeff: I have no idea. I have no idea who these people are. You know how it is. You just get tagged. Yeah. And. Well, where did that come from? But I'm excited. I want people to start looking at things differently. I want them to be founded and grounded in things that matter, because whether you have 24 days on or 24 years on, yeah, this has application.

[00:40:50] Jeff: Sure, sure. 

[00:40:53] Jerry: What I mean, that's gotta be like a great feeling like to, to write something like that. And then does it propel you to like to write the next, the next thing or, oh, yeah. Where do you get the next idea to write about? Where are you grabbing this from? 

[00:41:07] Jeff: I, yeah. At, at one point Travis looked at me after he read, he said, did that come from your brain?

[00:41:12] Jeff: Where did that come from? Uh, so I, I'll tell you, praise God that he gave me the ability. To have that grounding. Um, yeah. Uh, a lot of what, I mean, there's, I would submit to you that there's nothing new that I'm gonna say as a cop that 50 years ago cops didn't deal with, I would submit to you even 50 years from now, they're gonna look back and go, ah, yeah, this old boy didn't want this Then we're dealing with it now.

[00:41:35] Jeff: Yeah. And we've seen it. Right, right. But I will tell you, I believe that there's, there's nothing new under the sun, so, I get a lot of my inspiration, you know, from my faith, obviously. Yeah. Being able to interact. I've had the, the privilege to interact with people all across the country. I've taught a lot in Mexico with tactics and things when I was younger and a little less gray in my goatee.

[00:41:56] Jeff: Right. Um, and so having the, the richness of interactive relationships with people just reminds me, and, and here's what it is too, Jerry people's. People's scars provide a roadmap to good stories. Yeah. And the reason that you can walk into a room, like I can walk into a room and people go, oh, you're a cop.

[00:42:18] Jeff: And you can captivate a room with your stories, is because normal people like the exterminator guy, he doesn't worry about going into a building with kids and that are in a meth house or Yeah. You know, the librarian doesn't worry about having to deal with a seven car wreck with two. And so people, there's this allure of law enforcement that people, they want to grasp onto.

[00:42:40] Jeff: And if we can give them, like through your podcast and through some of the writing I'm doing, if we can give them a look behind the curtain a little bit, but do so in a way I believe that challenges them and pushes them to, I I'm big on just address your why, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's not even my Simon Sinek that that whole deal, him and that book, his start with Why and Leaders Eat Last, like we should look for your, your base purpose.

[00:43:03] Jeff: Right. So I know I wrote a mission statement in 2015 to be proactive in my life and my mission statement drives me. And people that know that can say, okay, well I can see, uh, broad brushstrokes of your mission statement in your writing. Service to people, service to my, uh, to my faith, my country, my family, right?

[00:43:23] Jeff: Mm-hmm. And so some of the things I get are sure from current events, some of it are from pains in my life, but some of it's also the things that you and I, after decades of law enforcement go, I wish I had a forum to talk about this. And all of a sudden, you, you do. Yeah. And we need to be men and women that are willing to, to step into that, that gap courageously.

[00:43:44] Jeff: Would you agree? 

[00:43:44] Jerry: Right. Uh, no, I totally, totally agree. Mm-hmm. I totally agree. Jeff, are you gonna, like, do you have a goal to like maybe combine a lot of this stuff into a book? 

[00:43:55] Jeff: Yeah, so we just had that conversation again this week. So well timed. Uh, I, I have, you know, I got about 50 different things swirling around in my mind, uh, at any given moment, depending on how much coffee I've had.

[00:44:09] Jeff: I will tell you that I've tried to engage my children, okay? So I've tried to teach them and disciple 'em and, and, and be a good mentor and model, uh, as they got older. They had email and then I remember when they first got their phones, it's like, Hey, we get a pride outta your hand, your teenager kinda thing.

[00:44:26] Jeff: So I'm trying to engage my children in a different way. So about three and a half years ago, I started writing a weekly email, encouragement to my boys. Um, and I just copied my wife so she would know kind of like how we keep building through the week. Um, and I write on the first part of the week, and so, She put 'em together in a book every year on Father's Day, she gives the kids like another volume and, uh, I'm probably gonna put that out.

[00:44:50] Jeff: And then, uh, I have another thing, uh, I've written to support law enforcement, but I look at these articles and I'm trying to commit, and I'm gonna say it on the podcast, so now it's gonna be real. That's right. Be careful. I'm gonna anchor my feet and cement on this one. But, um, I want to put out an article a.

[00:45:06] Jeff: For the rest of the year that'll give me about 51 articles. And yeah, putting that together, I don't know about the continuity of thought on that. Sure. I don't know. I'm, I'm not, yeah, I, I would say, it's funny cuz I would say I'm not an author and you know, Travis this week, he's, he says, you're, you're outta your mind I would buy this book tomorrow.

[00:45:27] Jeff: Are you kidding me? So I'm encouraged for where? It's where the Lord's put me and, and how I can be of use. But yeah, man, I would love to be able to do that. I just, I don't know what the next step's gonna be. All I know is that when I get something in my heart, I wanna put it out for people. And then something you taught about character.

[00:45:45] Jeff: If I can take a step back, if you don't mind. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. You think about character, it's about availability too, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Something that gets me fired up. And I'll try not to yell right now through my little microphone, but man, do not tell me that you're there for me. And then turn your phone off at eight or swipe left because you don't wanna see my call, man.

[00:46:08] Jeff: Just be honest and tell people I'm only available from noon to two for you in life. Yeah, right? Yeah. And so we have to be available. As leaders, you have to be available. The, the hardest thing ever is, is walking into a situation where you, as a, as a supervisor, I have eight people that work for me and I wonder, I have eight little kids rolling around.

[00:46:29] Jeff: Are they okay? Hope nobody, we got arrested this week. How's their family? You have to be available. And so I write these things. I wanna put them out to people. Uh, and I don't know what the form's gonna be yet, but I wanna make sure that regardless of what happens, I'm gonna be the kind of man that's available.

[00:46:46] Jeff: To help walk people into the next step. There are good men like you and others that I'm looking at going, man, this guy's got it down. He's got it right. He's making himself available. Um, Brandon Griffith, another one of our, our mutual friends, right? Yeah. Yeah. Guy almost died and said, you know what? Life changing event time to get serious.

[00:47:02] Jeff: And his ministry, that Griffith Blue Heart Foundation is unbelievable. It's worldwide. Yeah. You know, and it's, we gotta be available. 

[00:47:13] Jerry: Yeah. Yeah. I think Jeff, for you, it seems like you've written enough and you're in doing a lot of different things. I think that book will just come naturally. I'll be curious though, to see how much of it's leadership and how much of it is just, um, other practical life tips.

[00:47:31] Jeff: Yeah. Support. Support. Yeah. That's a, my wife's, cuz I, I brought that to her and she just looked at me. What are you talking about now? Now what are we doing? Right? Yeah. Now what are we, yeah. Now what are we doing? Yeah. Come on, Jeff. Jeff, 

[00:47:44] Jerry: Jeff. It's true. It's not what you just what you're doing right. It's now what we are doing.

[00:47:48] Jerry: Right? That's right. Because that's impactful to your family. 

[00:47:52] Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. And I would be, I would be, uh, a selfish practitioner of things that I don't preach. Yeah. Or I to leave my family behind chasing something that's irrelevant to the support of my. Into the people I say I care about. And so, yeah, my wife, uh, our, our, our Deal, our our, our code for backup is 9 0 7.

[00:48:15] Jeff: And, and she's always my 9 0 7. She's right there with me. She knows more about police work than most of the guys on my squad. She comes out ride alongs and she says, that's awesome. You know, she tells the guys, you know, you got PC for, uh, just orderly right there, guys. Who are you? Yeah. I go, do not mess with Mrs.

[00:48:30] Jeff: Sarge. She will crush you. Yeah. Mrs. Sarge will crush you So, Yeah. But we wanna walk that out together, uh, and we'll see, we'll see what happens. Man. I, I, I can envision not a little kid's book Sure. But maybe a coffee table reference, something that, that cops look at and go, okay, you know, I hadn't thought about this before, because again, with all the leadership stuff, I would just.

[00:48:51] Jeff: I want to hit the drum again, man. This, that idea, that Courageous Police Leadership Alliance, like what we're doing with that and what, uh, that Travis Yates is doing with courage leadership is unbelievable. It's unlike anything I've seen in leadership before, which is why I want to be a part of it. Right, right.

[00:49:08] Jeff: So we'll see what happens. Yeah. 

[00:49:11] Jerry: Well, lots, lots of great things I'm sure ahead of you, Jeff. For sure. Jeff, working people find you on social media and reach out to you if they have any questions. 

[00:49:22] Jeff: Sure. So I, I have, uh, my own little email portal, courageous nobility proton mail.com. So that's a huge thing to get to.

[00:49:31] Jeff: But courageous nobility proton mail.com. My Twitter is at Noble Courage now. So it all kind of connects that way. Um, I'm not on Facebook yet. I'm still trying to build something out with that. Uh, the biggest portal that I would say I would love people to take a look at is Jeff Daukas J E F F D A U K A S, @substack.com.

[00:49:55] Jeff: That'll get you right into the portal, which believe it or not, Courageous nobility with Jeff Daukas so if you're looking up, uh, substack and courageous nobility, you're probably gonna run into me. But through that, I would really encourage people to, uh, invest some time. Nothing's gonna take you more than I think the largest article is 10 minutes, right?

[00:50:15] Jeff: You take 10 minutes, you read some of these articles. Uh, Jerry, this will benefit you and your family as well, brother. Oh yeah. Take a look at this stuff. Jump in there, engage with some of these comments. I've been amazed some of the, you know, you hope that people will give you some feedback. The chat in that sub has been unreal with some of these people that are high level guys.

[00:50:37] Jeff: Um, I'd encourage people to just, uh, to try to reach out to me that way. And, and if you, you know, email is that, that, that harder way. But certainly if that's something that people wanna have ideas, I would, I would encourage, like I had my children contribute on one of the articles about Legacy and that was a big deal.

[00:50:55] Jeff: That's cool. That was, yeah. My wife. So yeah, ideas. Submit 'em, I would love to be able to put 'em together and be able to work with other people in getting that message of leadership nobility. And doing it from a, an ethical, integrity based mindset. And you say everybody does that, are they though? Look around.

[00:51:13] Jeff: Yeah, look around. Look around our country. And you tell me how that's going. Cuz I would submit to you it's not working right. And we can do better. We always can do better, Jerry. Yeah. Starts with one person, right? Absolutely. Culture one is actually a thing, and we talk about that, right? I'm just a cop. Do not say that in front of Travis Gates or me like I'm just a cop.

[00:51:32] Jeff: You are just a cop. Your influence expands hugely among your community and just a cop changes lives. 

[00:51:39] Jerry: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Jeff, thank you so much for being on. It was a great podcast. I really appreciate it. 

[00:51:46] Jeff: Absolutely, Jerry. Thank you for your time and I appreciate what you're doing, helping people out, and let's do this again soon.

[00:51:52] Jerry: Yeah, definitely. When you get that book done. 

[00:51:54] Jeff: Yes, sir. There you go. Dang it. Now I gotta do it. 

[00:51:57] Jerry: Yeah. 

[00:51:58] Jerry: Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you access your podcast. If you know someone that would be great on the show, please get a hold of our host, Jerry Dean Lund.

[00:52:11] Jerry: Through the Instagram handles at Jerry Fire and Fuel, or at Enduring The Badge podcast also by visiting the show's website, enduring the badge podcast.com for additional methods of contact and up to date information regarding the show. Remember the views and opinions expressed during the. So we represent films of our host and the current episode's guest.