The Day My Lunch Called the Fire Department

When I was about 20 years old, I worked paid EMS and volunteered at my local fire department. One summer day, I volunteered to cover the daytime shift at the firehouse. It was quiet. No calls. No emergencies. Nothing happening. Which, of course, is normally when trouble begins.

Around 11:30, I decided to make lunch. I put a can of Campbell’s soup in a pan, turned on the stove, and went off to do some equipment checks. I do not remember what kind of soup it was. 

Whatever flavor it began as, it eventually became “smoke.” A few minutes later, the siren above the firehouse went off. At our department, the siren system was pretty simple. If it sounded once, we had an ambulance call. If it continued, we had a fire call. I stood there and listened.

One siren. Then a second. A fire call. I enthusiastically grabbed my gear, got dressed, and hurried into the radio room to find out where we were going. The dispatcher came over the radio. “It’s an automatic alarm at your base.”

I remember thinking, That’s strange.

I was standing inside the base. I had not heard an alarm. I did not see a fire. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Then it hit me: the soup!

I ran toward the kitchen and discovered that my lunch had progressed well beyond “slightly overcooked.” It had burned badly enough to fill the kitchen with smoke and activate the fire alarm. I had managed to create a fire call at the firehouse. There is probably a special award for that.

I quickly told dispatch that everything was under control and the building was not actually on fire. Unfortunately, the rest of the department had already heard the call. Volunteers were jumping into their vehicles, racing toward the station, prepared to save the firehouse from destruction. They arrived ready for smoke, flames, danger, and possibly heroic action. Instead, they found me standing beside a ruined pan of Campbell’s soup.

Firefighters are generally compassionate people. They are also completely unwilling to ignore material like this. For quite some time, I became the subject of jokes, comments, and helpful reminders about basic cooking safety. I deserved every one of them.

Looking back, the story still makes me laugh. But it also reminds me of something important about leadership.

Most leadership problems do not begin as enormous problems. They begin as something small we believe we can safely ignore.

• A conversation we need to have.

• A commitment we have not followed up on.

• A teammate who is beginning to struggle.

• A process everyone knows is broken.

• A decision we assume someone else is handling.

• A can of soup quietly burning on the stove.

We tell ourselves we will get back to it. Then the siren goes off.

Strong leaders do not merely respond well when alarms sound. They develop the awareness and discipline to notice what is beginning to burn before it becomes an emergency.

That requires attention. It requires follow-through. It requires the humility to recognize that even small responsibilities deserve stewardship. Especially the ordinary ones.

Leadership is often less about dramatic heroics and more about remembering what you left on the stove.

And occasionally, it means admitting that the fire department raced to the firehouse because you could not successfully heat up lunch.

Learning to Walk

 

My granddaughter is learning to walk.

She was in her playroom, surrounded by toys, small chairs, and pieces of furniture she could use to pull herself up. She moved carefully from one support to another, preparing herself for what seemed like it might finally be the moment.

Then came the smile.

It was big, enthusiastic, and full of confidence. That smile made me believe this was it. She was going to stand on her own, put one foot in front of the other, and walk across the room.

She stood, took a shaky step, and fell.

For a second, her face showed complete surprise, as though the floor had betrayed her. But the surprise disappeared almost immediately. Within moments, she was reaching for the furniture and going right back into perseverance mode.

Everyone in the room encouraged her. We smiled, clapped, called her name, and celebrated every attempt. She did not need much convincing.

She was ready to try again.

One of the greatest lessons on resilience does not come from a CEO, an elite athlete, or a leadership expert.

It comes from a one-year-old learning to walk.

Failure Before Fear

A child pulls herself up, takes a shaky step, loses her balance, and falls. Then she repeats the process again and again. There is no embarrassment or self-doubt. She does not sit among the toys and conclude, “Maybe walking just isn’t for me.” She does not compare her first steps to people who have been walking for decades. She watches, imitates, reaches, falls, and learns.

Slowly, almost without anyone noticing, the impossible becomes ordinary.

As adults, we often reverse the process.

We fail once and begin questioning our ability. We struggle with something new and assume the struggle means we are not equipped for it. We compare ourselves to people who have been “walking” for years and forget that they once stumbled too.

• The toddler treats the fall as information.
• The adult often treats it as a verdict.
• A toddler falls and instinctively asks, “How do I try again?”
• An adult falls and often asks, “What is wrong with me?”

One question leads to adjustment – the other leads to shame.

Failure Is Not Always a Stop Sign

There are times when failure should cause us to reconsider our direction. Some strategies do not work, and wisdom requires discernment. But failure is not automatically evidence that we should stop. Sometimes it means we are attempting something difficult. Sometimes it means we are developing a capability we do not yet possess.

Sometimes it simply means we are learning.

No engineer learns excellence without rework. No leader learns to lead without making mistakes. No athlete builds endurance without discovering limits.

Formation is rarely clean – it often looks like standing, stepping, wobbling, falling, and getting back up.

Encouragement Matters

My granddaughter was not learning alone.

Everyone in the room encouraged her. We were not criticizing the fall, analyzing her technique, or comparing her to other children. We were celebrating the effort and creating an environment where she felt safe enough to keep trying.

The best leaders do the same.

They do not prevent every mistake or remove every obstacle. They stay close enough to support, wise enough to encourage, and patient enough to let someone take the next step.

Leadership is not carrying people forever - it is creating a place where they feel safe enough to learn.

The Courage to Be a Beginner

One of the hardest things about adulthood is giving ourselves permission to be beginners. We like competence. We like knowing what we are doing. We like appearing capable.

But every meaningful new chapter requires some return to awkwardness—a new role, a new relationship, a new discipline, a new skill, or a new calling. We cannot learn to walk while protecting ourselves from every fall.

Growth requires humility and the willingness to take the uncertain step before we know exactly how it will turn out.

Faith often works the same way. We are rarely given a complete map. More often, we are invited to take the next faithful step.

Sometimes we wobble. Sometimes we fall. Grace meets us there too.

Keep Getting Up

The next time you fall short of a goal, miss a commitment, or struggle with a new challenge, remember the toddler in the playroom.

Do not confuse falling with failing. Do not compare your first steps with someone else’s practiced stride. Do not make a permanent judgment based on a temporary stumble.

No one learns to walk without falling. No leader learns to lead without making mistakes. No engineer learns excellence without rework.

The people we admire are rarely the ones who never fell. They are the ones who kept getting back up.

Keep getting up.

 

Busy Isn't the Same as Valuable

The dashboard was beautiful.

Green meant I was on track. Yellow meant I should pay attention. Red meant something needed my attention. The formulas worked. The algorithms worked. The reports worked. Everything worked.

Until it didn't.

Like any engineer, my instinct was to measure the problem. So I built a system that tracked my time. Every hour had a category. Every project had a home. Dashboards showed me where I was investing my energy. Reports told me whether I was making progress.

It was organized. It was accurate. It was elegant. There was just one problem.

I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

I had built an incredibly sophisticated system for measuring activity. What I really wanted to understand was impact. Those aren't the same thing. As soon as I realized it, I laughed.

It felt strangely familiar.

Last month, I shared that for three years I had been trying to solve the wrong problem. I thought I had a training problem. In reality, I had a structural problem. Here I was again.

Different challenge. Same lesson.

This time, I wasn't solving the wrong physical problem. I was solving the wrong leadership problem. The question wasn't, "Where did my time go?" The question was, "What created the most impact?"

The dashboard still sits on my screen. I still use it every day. But it no longer tells me whether I was successful. It simply helps me ask a better question.

Was I busy… or was I valuable?"

What Surgery Taught Me About Leadership

 What Surgery Taught Me About Leadership 

 

Four hours and eleven minutes. That's how long it took from the moment I arrived at the surgery center until the moment I walked out the door after surgery. Apparently, the previous record was four hours and thirteen minutes. 

Now, I should probably clarify something. 

Most people wake up from major surgery thinking about recovery. I woke up thinking we had a legitimate shot at setting the speed record. My wife wasn't surprised. Neither were my friends. Competitive people are strange that way. 

But somewhere between the walker, the physical therapy exercises, and the realization that I now had new metal body parts, something struck me. 

For the past three years, I had been trying to solve the wrong problem. 

As an endurance athlete, my instinct was simple: work harder. When my running performance declined, I adjusted my training. When my mobility decreased, I modified my workouts. When the pain increased, I found ways to compensate. I stretched more. Strengthened supporting muscles. Changed race goals. Reduced mileage. Adapted. 

And for a while, those adjustments worked. 

Until they didn't. 

Eventually, the reality became impossible to ignore.  

I wasn't dealing with a training problem. I was dealing with a structural problem. No amount of discipline, grit, or determination was going to solve the actual constraint. 

And that's when I realized how often engineering organizations make the exact same mistake. 

When schedules slip, we push harder. When quality declines, we add more reviews. When teams struggle, we schedule more meetings. When delivery slows, we ask people to work longer hours. In other words, we attack symptoms while leaving the constraint untouched. 

The problem is that effort cannot overcome a structural limitation. A team operating inside a broken system will eventually develop workarounds. Talented people absorb friction. Experienced leaders compensate. Heroics become normal. From the outside, things appear functional. 

But underneath, the organization is limping. 

I've seen organizations that thought they had a staffing problem when they actually had a decision-making problem. Organizations that thought they had a quality problem when they actually had an ownership problem. Organizations that thought they had an execution problem when they actually had a leadership problem. 

The symptom gets all the attention. The constraint remains. One of the most valuable leadership skills is learning to distinguish between the two. 

At Exceptional Difference, we often talk about three simple principles: See reality. Accept reality. Deal with reality. 

Simple doesn't mean easy. 

The temptation is always to attack what is most visible. The harder work is identifying the underlying constraint that is creating the visible problem in the first place. My surgeon didn't tell me to train harder. He told me to fix the problem. Leaders should do the same.  

Before asking your team for more effort, ask a different question: 

What is the real constraint holding us back? 

Because excellence rarely begins with working harder. More often, it begins with seeing reality clearly enough to solve the right problem.