3 Lessons Firefighters Taught Me About Humility

Sometimes I need to learn old lessons the hard way - again!

Recently, I was wearing sixty pounds of firefighting gear and questioning my sanity. As I trained with a group of firefighters from the Windsor-Severance Fire Department in Colorado, I got humbled very quickly. I had told myself “I’m not in bad shape for a 56 year old! I was in the Army! I’ll hold my own.” NOPE!

I was in the gear with these firefighters in order to learn more about their training, their culture, and what it was like to live the life of a firefighter. We developed a curriculum called Becoming a Firefighter of Character that we rolled out that week to 55 fire service leaders in Colorado.

I don’t care who you are or what type of work you do, you can learn important lessons in Humility just by understanding what I learned that day - besides the fact that firefighters are in much better shape than I am!

Humility - Believing and acting like “It’s not about me.”

Lesson 1: You Can’t Do It Alone

I was placed at the front of a hose that was already pressurized for it to spray water hundreds of feet to put out a fire. The fire company officer told me we were going to enter the two story training building and move to the second floor. It sounded e