Today on The First Responder Playbook, I sat down with Pradeepa Narayanaswamy—TEDx speaker, author, and executive coach—to dive deep into the heart of leadership. From overcoming the fear of criticism to finding your unique voice, Pradeepa shared her journey from writing her first blog to publishing three impactful books. We explored practical ways first responders can make confident decisions under pressure, avoid compassion fatigue, and lead with clarity and confidence. This episode is packed with wisdom on growing as a leader, staying connected to your “why,” and embracing the courage to step forward, no matter where you start.
Want to be a guest on The First Responder Playbook: Insights on Leadership and Training? Send Brent Colbert a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1748037097521814b71b1b454
Follow Pradeepa at:https://pradeepa.coach/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Guys, welcome to the first Responder Playbook. I am blessed to have
Pradeepa with me today. I'm gonna let Pradeepa
do her own introduction in just a second. So I'm. Because I know I will
not do this justice. But she is a TEDx speaker, a three time
offer author, an executive coach known for
mining diamonds in Leaders with a forward by Dr.
(00:22):
Marshall Goldsmith. Her latest book, Practical Leadership Simplifying
the Complexity equips leaders with tools, insights and
confidence to lead with purpose and effectiveness. Our mission,
to change the landscape of leadership and humanity one bold leader
at a time. Pradeepa, welcome to the first Responder Playbook. Thank
you, Brent. I'm so grateful to be here and
(00:46):
really looking forward to this conversation and thank you so much
for the avenue that you have created
and be able to talk about
bold leadership and topics that are not
often focused for such a
crucial, you know, part of our
(01:08):
society, which is, which is, you know, which who are the first
responders. So, so thank you so much for creating this avenue. I really, really
appreciate you. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm excited to have you.
Yeah. I want to talk about one,
how did you go down the path of writing books?
But two, I think it is awesome that you've done a
(01:30):
TEDX speech. How did you go down that path as well?
Yeah, I'll talk about the book first
and then the TEDx. For
me, I grew up in India and
I did my schooling and my college there in India.
I didn't realize but I realized it now through
(01:52):
reflecting somewhere around like 8th grade
where I was studying, I realized
I really enjoyed writing essays
and I'm not like just reading the
book and reproducing what it is supposed to be.
I had a flair for storytelling back then. I'm
(02:16):
just thinking about it, you know, and I wrote
essays for my language papers and history.
Those are the two. And
for example, we studied Boer war for Africa.
And I still remember how I talked
(02:36):
about the war through my lens, through how
I read it and how I saw it happened
and it got called up. You know, thankfully
Ara, my principal was my history teacher too, my school
principal and I got called out for,
you know, writing that essay and you know, she really
(02:58):
appreciated how I put my
visualization into that work. Back then I never
saw a movie or anything like that. It was all in my imagination.
So fast forward. There is something in me
about writing and expressing myself through stories
because, you know, I feel like I am a big
(03:21):
lover of stories. My grandma and my dad and
my aunt they're amazing storytellers. Like I could, I mean, I
even listened to them telling stories when I was an adult. So, you know,
no shame there. And to me, there is something about
storytelling that connects people. So I kind of, I think I
followed that passion along. But after
(03:44):
getting married, coming to the US and I kind of forgot about
that side of writing. And then suddenly in
2012, 2013, the
workplace that I was working at, they were starting their
corporate blog and they asked me to write something
(04:05):
and I started writing. There
was a topic about servant leadership back then that was really close to my
heart and I wrote a story
because the Persona that I had was a person in my team
who was very much playing that role of servant leader. So I
used her as my main
(04:27):
character and wrote the story around her.
And then I sent it to one of my colleague for just editing
and proofreading, just to make sure everything looks good.
But then to my surprise and
to my fear, I got the article
back completely full of red lines.
(04:51):
And there was so many edits in there, it didn't
look like my article anymore. And there was also
a banter and like a fun comment,
like light hearted comment about the
generous use of the word that I had in my article, the.
(05:13):
And they called me Deepradipa, right? Like they signed
like deepradipa, dear Deepradipa. And
somehow back then I didn't know how to process
that. But it really shook me saying like,
oh my God, I don't think I'm good at this. I'm not going
to write anymore. And I kind of closed the chapter on writing.
(05:36):
Of course I published the blog with whatever comments my
colleague gave me. But then that's it, like I was really scared.
And then it took a really long time, like four. And
until like 2016, I didn't touch, I didn't
write anything at all. My LinkedIn probably would be the,
(05:56):
you know, like how, how I'm showing up on LinkedIn. There
probably would be the best way to assess that.
But then something started changing for
me. My own, you know,
journey with my infertility struggles. There are things that I really
wanted to share. And
(06:18):
speaking is an avenue that I already ventured into.
And I thought, like, how about writing as well? So I
slowly started expressing myself again.
But there's so much of fear now. It was
not just sent to one person who can redline it and just
send it to me discreetly via an email, right? But here I have
(06:40):
to be on a public platform where I don't know how many Connections
I had like back then, 500,000, I have no idea. All
these ice can critique and comment and
what kind of criticism I'm going to get. And that was
quite scary for me, and
I really have to get over that. And
(07:03):
one perspective that I,
after my continuing to grow myself, the perspective that I
decided to take that really helped me with that is
I am not writing to
get awarded in,
you know, for language, right? Like, I'm not. I'm not being
(07:27):
rewarded or awarded for my linguistic skills or
my grammatical skills. I am writing
for a different purpose. I am writing because I'm
thinking. Writing is an avenue for me to express myself, express
my thoughts and in a way that I wanted to
communicate to other people who might benefit from what I'm
(07:49):
sharing. And that
perspective, I kind of, you know,
really held that perspective strongly.
That really helped me come out of the fear that I
had since the blog, you know,
since the blog and the red lines that I got from the
(08:12):
blog. I also
remember during some of my early days,
I didn't have an editor or anything like that. I just write and I publish.
There were a few people who commented on the grammatical
mistakes that I made, and I thanked
them and I went back and changed it because I
(08:35):
really appreciate somebody's taking their time to tell me what
I have to change. And I appreciated that because I saw that
as a learning opportunity and a growing opportunity rather than a
criticism. And that also helped me
tremendously. So that was my start of, like, coming
out of the shell. And I wrote
(08:57):
my first book. And my first book
was literally, I did a video, like
a video of all the topics. I took everything
that I said, converted that script into
chapters, and then had a publisher work
with me to edit those chapters. And then I published my first
(09:19):
book. So, you know, it was kind of like a speaking to
a language. Sorry, speaking to converting them into a text
to, you know, making it a book.
That was the start of my journey. But then
what I also realized, Brent, is the more that I started writing,
the more I started becoming more and more comfortable.
(09:42):
I have to write that first blog that got the red line
to be able to be here and speak about my journey.
Now, 15 years later, and
published my third book and got raving feedback and
a beautiful foreword by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. He just doesn't go around, write
forwards for books. You know, he checks out what I'm working on on
(10:05):
Highway Road. So to me, that was
improvement in progress. I have to.
There is no easy way to get over that. And I know the
reason Why I want to share this story, this backstory is a lot
of people hesitate. A lot of people that I work with, a lot of my
clients, my students, they all hesitate to share online for
(10:28):
various reasons. And one of the reasons is being critiqued and being
judged critically by other.
And what I have come to realize is if
you put anything out there, there's a
percentage of people who are going to love it because they care
for you and they love you and they want to support your work. There's the
(10:51):
percentage of people who's going to, like, hate your work no matter what you do,
how beautiful, how wonderful it is. Even if you are the
Picasso of the world, if you put a painting out there, they are going to
critique you. And then there's the bunch of people in the middle
who just don't care. And I
decided I wanted to serve the people
(11:12):
who see some value in my work.
And there's all these people. I'm just going to thank
them if they choose to respond. And that's pretty much it. I will be
moving on. So for
me to write three books, I have to
write one blog. And for writing that one
(11:34):
blog, I have to write the first paragraph. And for the first paragraph,
I have to write the first sentence. And for that first sentence,
I have to write the word. The. The.
It's the building blocks. Yeah. And
I love that because I actually just got my first article published in
(11:55):
a. A police journal. Awesome. Last
month, and it is very much for me
to come out of my comfort zone. I'm. I'm actually a doctoral student, too,
and I wrote the article. And the gentleman
said, I love him. He was actually one of previous guests, Dan Frazier.
(12:16):
He said, that's a really good academic article, but
you're speaking to a group of police trainers. And it's not sticky.
Yeah. And he's like, it's not. He's like. And he gave me some tips
to redo it. Yeah. To make it stick.
And I'll never forget, for like a week and a half, I just had this
writer's block of, like, how do I want to approach this? Yeah. And
(12:38):
I sat there one night, fixing to go to bed, and I was like, I
know what I want to write about. And I scrapped the whole thing. And I
knocked this new article out in. In an hour, and he read it a couple
days later, and he's like. He's like, I'm not saying your first one was bad,
but for your audience, this is so much better. Yeah. And for
him, for that, I'll Always be grateful because
(12:59):
he. He gave it to me in a way that it made it click to
me. Yeah. To relate to your audience. And it would have never,
you know, I kind of, like you said, you got to start with that first
word, and then you get that first paragraph and your first, you know, blog post,
and then you go to your first article. And, you know, eventually I would. I'd
like to get up to the point where I can write a book. Yeah. And
(13:19):
it starts with those small building blocks to get you there. And,
you know, a lot of my friends in law enforcement were like, man, that's so
cool. You get an article published. And to be honest with you, I'm still right
there because I was like, I never thought I would get to that point.
Yeah. And now I have it out there, and I'm like, okay, what's next?
Let's get the next hurdle. You are. You are an article author now.
(13:41):
There you go. Right. Like, that's how it starts. And I
love what you are sharing. And a lot
of people will have different ideas as to how
to write, how to, you know, especially if you are on LinkedIn,
there's so many people talking about how to write a post,
how to hook, how to have a CTA at
(14:03):
the end, call to action at the end. I mean, like, there's so many
templates and strategies and things like that.
But what I have come to realize for myself is
you have to find your voice. That's something that you
are comfortable with and get really good in
(14:23):
refining that voice. So that when people read your article,
read your story, read your post, they know
that it's coming from Brent or it's coming from Pradeepa,
and they will hear you through your
words. So that's. That, to me, is the biggest thing.
Anything that I write, I will write it.
(14:47):
I mean, now with the help of AI, I can do a, you know, talk
to my. Talk about the article, because I talk a lot and I talk to
my article. I take that and then I edit it and I make it my
own. So there are easier ways to do that now. But
how you wanted to share what is your voice is only
you can do that. Absolutely. 100% agree.
(15:11):
How did you go down the path of speaking and getting into the TEDx?
Yeah, and again, like, my speaking
passion started way in my childhood. My dad is an
amazing orator, and he speaks
so brilliantly. He knows how to make the audience
laugh and, you know, hook them in his
(15:33):
storytelling abilities. So I think watching him grow,
you know, helped Me,
I would say start having the passion for talking and
talking to people. For me, talking is not just about
talking. Talking is about connecting to. That's how
I see it. And
(15:56):
to me, I'm, whenever I'm speaking,
it's not just me monologuing. Even when I'm speaking
within 250 people or whatever that I'm, wherever I'm speaking,
I like to connect with the audience. So the audience are also
interacting with me. And to me, the dialogue
(16:16):
and the multilog really kind of.
I love that part because there is so much
richness in more people talking and
interacting rather than one head
moving their mouth and saying maybe brilliant things. Yes.
I wouldn't, I mean like, yeah, there are brilliant things, but
(16:40):
hearing other people, getting them involved, getting them excited,
that's what I really, really love about speaking. And even in
my TED Talk you mentioned that. Even in my TED Talk I
had an engaging activity with my audience. I was able to
sneak that in and that way I could get the
engagement going and not just sharing my story.
(17:02):
So speaking is another way
I wanted to connect with the people. I wanted to share
what I'm passionate about and also wanted to learn
and learn different perspectives from people.
Absolutely. And I think that it also is kind of like
you, you very well mentioned, like anybody can get up there and
(17:26):
just kind of drone on in a monotone voice. They don't
really consider that speaking, that's just reciting things.
Somebody that is good, that they have to make that connection with the
audience. And it doesn't matter if you're talking, you're the most knowledgeable
person. If you don't make that connection, people are going to tune you out
pretty quickly. Absolutely. And so I, especially when I'm teaching
(17:48):
like a, I say a law enforcement class, that's usually what I do. But
you know, if it doesn't matter if it's a group of cops or you
know, somebody from a church or wherever it may be, you have to make
that connection. Or they're not really, they're not going to buy in. Absolutely,
absolutely. The connection is what make them.
(18:09):
They may not even remember you or remember your face, but they
remember the connection that that's being made and the dialogue that
happened. Because people, when people are, you know,
there may be thousands of people or hundreds of people sitting in your
audience, but if somebody feels that like,
hey, I am connecting to the speaker and they are
(18:31):
connecting to me and this exchange is
meaningful, they are going to remember that for a very
long time because it's personal. Now,
absolutely, 100% agree. So let's,
let's dive into some topics real quick and I want to
touch on some things that would be very good for first responders.
(18:55):
Let's talk about how can we improve on decision
making under pressure.
One of the things that I've been
thinking about decision making is especially
for first responders, they do have
(19:16):
to make really, really quick decisions and in a
very pressured situation. I have never been a
first responder. I have seen some, some in action,
but a lot in movies. That's how much you know, my experience
is. But I have read about, read about it and heard from
other people a lot as well.
(19:38):
What I realized is
because you have to make decision decisions really quickly
and the situation is this, this, there can
be so much pressure under the situation. The first thing you probably
need to think about and have not at
(19:59):
that time is clarity, right? Like one
of the biggest leadership skills and traits that
is going to super, that's going to be super helpful is clarity.
And the other thing is confidence, right? Like being
clear and confidently articulating what needs
to be articulated. And
(20:23):
there may be a plan A that was unfolding and people
were going through a plan A depending upon how they are assessing the
situation. But not everything is going to go
for the plan. And in such high pressure situation.
Another biggest leadership opportunity is how
adaptable I am, how adaptable are we as a team
(20:47):
to assess the situation, to make adjustments to the situation and
course correct ourselves. So
having that clarity and whatever that is, right, like whatever the decisions people
are making, really able to clearly articulate that
so that everybody, whomever is in that
scene really understands what's going on, what
(21:10):
their individual part is, what they're supposed to be doing. That's really
helpful. And the leadership is also
shown in not just clarity but your
confidence, right? Like hey, here's how I would love for us
to operate. They may not exactly know how
it's going to pan out, but you do have to show
(21:32):
that courage, right? Like show that, hey, I am confident
in moving forward with that. And last but not the least,
if things are changing, we have to find
a way to help everybody adapt to the
situation and move forward. If we have to take
a new plan forward, we should be able to take a new plan forward.
(21:55):
Those are the three things that really comes to my mind
and this is applicable to first responders.
And I'm just using corporate as an example to corporate leaders too.
Of course, corporate leaders may not go through this day in and day out or
lot frequently like first responders do. But the same
thing. If there is a high pressure situation.
(22:19):
People want their leader to show clarity and confidence and of course
be willing to adapt to situations. Absolutely. And
I think that, to kind of segue into the next topic because I
think they really go hand in hand
in my opinion. Leaders oftentimes are just titles
because anybody can be a leader. Yeah. And you
(22:42):
know, we have to, especially in the first responder world,
that, that, that person with a title is not always going to be there at
that given moment. And so we have to be able to make those decisions
on our own. Absolutely. And to do it confidently. Yeah.
And to have that clarity to be able to make those decisions.
And so I think it's a, it's so
(23:06):
people get so afraid to make a decision a
lot of the times. Yeah. And, and they will just, they'll call that person with
the title and say, what do I do?
Take a deep breath, slow down for a minute and think about
how you should operate. And I think
that's a lot of times I've always kind of ruffled feathers
(23:29):
at places I've been because I respect people's
titles, I really do. But it's just a title
if, if, if you know, you're telling me to do something the wrong way, like
I have enough self awareness that I know I can do it the right
way. And so in such a
paramilitaristic world it doesn't always like lend it to
(23:51):
me being like the favorite person in a place. But
leadership is, anybody can be a leader. And you should really want your people
to be able to make those decisions confidently without
that oversight. Absolutely. I love what you just
said.
Leadership and having a title
(24:14):
are two different things, 100%. And
one of the things that I teach in my
work is for people
with titles to truly
enable and empower. That's a very, you know, it's
a buzzword now, but I have, I'm intentionally and consciously
(24:37):
saying that they really have to
allow their people to make
decisions and
protect the consequences
of those decisions that are being made. Let's say if you are
my leader with the title and you say like,
(24:58):
Pradeepa, you make the decision in this scenario and I make whatever I
think is the right decision. And let's say it doesn't
work per whatever it's supposed to be.
If you come and say like, okay, Pradeepa, it's your fault, you did
that. Here is the consequences of the decision making.
Do you think I will ever make a decision again on my own?
(25:20):
No people will do CYA
because, you know, I've experienced the after effects
of making a decision that went on poorly because I really
didn't have, I thought I had the support from my
leader with the title, but I really didn't
because the time it mattered. Nobody was protecting
(25:43):
me. People fe people, people don't fear decision
making. People fear how
the consequences of a poor decision making from the past
affects them to make new decisions in the future.
Yep, I, I've got a good story for you and I've told it a
(26:03):
couple times on the podcast, but there was an
officer I worked with, he, he was a sergeant and I was a newer officer
at that agency. And he'd been out hurt and
everybody talked golden about this guy. You
know, he was the best guy to work with, he was easy to work with.
And I'll never forget another agency had gotten a vehicle
(26:25):
pursuit, which, you know, those are inherently dangerous. And they
had lost contact with all the officers. And where they were at was right along
our shared border. And everything was under construction.
It was on an interstate, so it was a divided highway. And so I would
have had to go down like two miles, come back through construction
and it was like 3 o' clock in the morning and I could see them
(26:46):
at the top of this off ramp and there wasn't any cars
coming. The shoulder was wide enough for a car to go
up, but I had my emergency lights on. And so I kind of started
slowly going up it because it was quicker to go that way,
go the 500ft instead of going down around.
Unbeknownst to me, this other agency's officer was sitting
(27:09):
blacked out below me in a restaurant. So if I'd have seen that, I probably
would have known everything was okay. But like their dispatch had told us,
hey, we need to check on, we don't know if they're okay. Well, he kind
of got on the radio and called me out and said, hey, there's an officer
going the wrong way on this off ramp. And so when I got down there,
my supervisor was understandably mad, but he asked
(27:30):
me a question. He said, why did you do what you did?
And so I explained to him why I did what I did.
And he was an old school Marine. I was never in the
military. There's a generational difference on top of that.
And he proceeded to cuss me out in front of a couple
(27:51):
different officers from different agencies and from,
instead of taking that moment to
say, hey, let's talk about this at
a different time and explain his beliefs of Why
I probably should have maybe handled a different way. It would have
sunk in a lot more, but he, he did it in such a way that
(28:14):
demeaned me in front of other officers
that, I mean, it got bad. He was like, why I should write you
up for this? And. But from that moment forward, the way
he handled that, he lost any shred of
credibility out of me. Yeah. To
make decisions, you know, I always was second guessing myself, well, should I
(28:38):
do this? Should I not do this? And
people don't forget how you treat them. And
so it doesn't matter. You could be the best boss ever, but if you came
at them the very first time and, and this was the first night we'd ever
worked together, and I ended up working with him for a couple years, and
it's kind of why I left that agency.
(29:01):
I never forgot it. Yeah. And I. And I don't like,
personally dislike him or anything. Like, it's not, it's not that serious,
but I would never want to work with him again either. Yeah. Yeah. And I
never forgot it. And the way he said that touched
home so much because it happened to me,
you know? It really did. Yeah.
(29:24):
People will never, I mean, people will forget what you
said, you know, you know, what you gave them or not, stuff
like that, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Absolutely. And I think that's a perfect
segue into compassion fatigue for first responders.
(29:45):
That is, I was thinking about this
and, you know, first responders
are very much prone to
continuously acting
selflessly and going from situation to
situation where they are saving lives in most of the cases.
(30:07):
And
that can also lead to some kind of numbness. Right.
Like, you know, let's say people are like dying and, you know, they
have to save. That's their job at the time.
They're seeing so many deaths or so many, whatever, you
know, whatever horrific things that are happening that
(30:30):
can sometimes numb you. And when you
detach, when you, when you numb, when that
numbness happens in here, then
it can lead to detachment of
your connection with yourself and your connection to the
world. And the first thing
(30:53):
that can go away is being compassionate towards
yourself. And when we are not
compassionate towards ourselves,
there's no way we can show the same compassion to anybody
else around us. So, in fact,
that can also be,
(31:16):
you know, not super helpful to be
doing their job as well. So, like, you know, at the beginning you shared, right.
Like, how many people really struggle through,
struggle through going through traumatic situations like this.
And, you know, you talked about the suicidal rates and all those
things because if
(31:39):
we are compassionate towards ourselves,
then we don't think about, you know, doing
harm for ourselves. Yes. So the
compassion fatigue is real. And
how much we expose ourselves to trauma
(31:59):
can very well lead to that. So the way that
I think about this is one,
we need to have an avenue like this to talk about that.
Because you know, this is not a macho thing.
This is not something that we can talk about. I know you,
(32:20):
you talked about a code that maybe it's a
written code, unwritten code, I'm not super familiar with that. But we don't talk
about what happens in work and stuff like that.
I think that taboo needs to be broken. There
has to be places, there has to be
(32:40):
support systems where we are openly
and vulnerably talking about what's
really going on for us. Sometimes,
you know, sometimes some people are even aware of what's going on.
Awareness is the first step. But
(33:01):
what has to happen after we become aware of it?
Right? After we become aware of it. How can I
really cope with this? What are some
practices that I can do? Oftentimes when we don't talk
about stuff, we tend to keep inside.
That itself can be a really, really big bother.
(33:23):
So finding avenues to talk about it in safe spaces
where people are non judgmental safe spaces where
people are openly talking about it. Finding
some avenues to really connect back
because we are the first responders are
(33:43):
so much exposed to trauma related
situations, maybe intentionally
breaking themselves from such situations and really
connecting back to themselves. Not just the work,
because people are all the people
(34:04):
who signed up for being a first responder. I don't think
nobody else, I don't think I don't know much about it, but in
my, my mind this is how I think about it. They do this voluntarily
because they really care and they want to serve, they want to serve the
community. Nobody, nobody says like you have to do
this, otherwise, right? You don't have a choice.
(34:25):
Oftentimes I see that comes from a very deep, deep rooted,
like service oriented mind and heart.
And while serving others can be
really, really rewarding, I also
say this to all the leaders that I work with.
(34:47):
Protect your asset. Protect the asset. You are the asset.
If you don't protect yourself, there is no you to
serve others. So find
ways to reconnect. Right? Like to
start showing love and compassion in whatever way
possible. It doesn't have to be touchy feely if people are feeling that
(35:10):
way. That's not what I'm talking about here. Give yourself some
space. Give yourself Some breather. If we can't
be compassionate and help ourselves,
there is no way we would be able to wholeheartedly
help other people. It has to start with ourselves.
(35:30):
If people are seeing a disconnect between what their heart
desires to do and how they're doing it and how they're actually
feeling it, if there is a disconnect there,
my request and a strong recommendation to all your
listeners is to pause. Right. Like,
really, really pause and ask yourself, like, what's really going on
(35:53):
here? What's the disconnect here? And
if we don't address that disconnect immediately, it's going to
grow wider and wider.
I look at it as you have to refill your
life's gas tank. Yes.
If you don't, eventually you're gonna run out, be stranded.
(36:17):
And I want to touch on something, too. Yeah.
I often see, at least on the
police side, we are so
often used to being the person of authority or
the person in control that we get
(36:38):
very black and white in how we operate.
And I think we often lose sight of
the why we became a police officer in
those moments. And we do lose a lot of the
compassion that we probably should still have.
(36:58):
And I, and I try to, personally, I try
to, when I get in those type of situations, to remember
what if I was in their position? And that doesn't mean
not doing my job, you know, somebody committed a crime,
then, you know, you have to handle appropriately.
(37:19):
But let's just say if it's something minor like a speeding ticket
or, you know, didn't have your seatbelt on. I've
always operated under the assumption of, hey, if
they're not doing this every day of the week, and, you know, they, they haven't
got 10 tickets on the year, maybe a written warning and
an explanation of why you probably should maybe fully
(37:41):
stop at a stop sign or should be wearing your seatbelt is more appropriate
instead of just writing that ticket. Because,
let's be honest, every person has done something that they probably should have been corrected
on instead of having, you know, punitive action taken
instead. And so I always try to remember the why
I became a police officer. I didn't become a police officer write tickets.
(38:03):
I became a police officer to help people. Yeah. And
those are. Those are not mutually exclusive.
And so I always try to, when I'm training somebody
new is, hey, if they need a ticket, then write
the ticket. You know, person's attitude judges that a lot of times,
and you've got a job to do. But also, don't forget the why? Yeah. And
(38:27):
if a person can be cut a break and be taught how to
improve themselves in that process, then take that moment,
just take a deep breath and say, okay, let's
handle it a little bit differently. Yeah. Because I
don't want to ever lose sight of the why I do things.
I love that. I love that I have
(38:49):
a. Because you mentioned traffic ticket. It's a personal
story. Is it okay if I want to share that? Under the
same lens here, Few years ago, maybe a couple
of years ago, I was taking my, you know, little son, he was back then
nine years, to his doctor's appointment, to
a therapy appointment. And it's one of the
(39:11):
usual roads that I take. And of course, I was
speeding a little bit over. I think it was a 30 zone. I was going
maybe 42, 45 around that I got
stopped. And, you know, the. The
police officer came and he asked me where I was going so
fast. And I was telling, like, you know, I'm little late for my. My
(39:33):
son's appointment, so I have to get there at a certain time,
because whatever. Right. Like. And
what I realized was the. The
compassion that she. He showed me that day, you
know, and he said, like, ma', am, I. I understand,
but don't. Don't do this. He said something.
(39:56):
I don't remember what exactly he said. So I got out with
the warning. It's not about the.
It's not just about the speeding. It's not just about me getting the warning.
I was not trying to get out of the ticket or anything like that. It
was a
compassionate human who was showing some
(40:19):
grace and care
towards me and my situation that day.
And ever since that incident. And I do take that
road quite frequently, Brent, I tell you,
I never, ever have speed up in that road.
Not because there are going to be cops that are going to find
(40:42):
me or give me tickets. It's because of that
compassion. Like, there was something so deeper. That
cop taught me that day, the way that. That
he showed compassion and the way that he, you know, gave me grace.
I will not forget that. It's been two years now. I go. I use that
road a lot. I never speed up when my husband drives the car.
(41:04):
And I always say, like, this is the speed limit. Slow down.
Yep. I love that. And
it's how he handled with compassion instead of just saying,
okay, this is black and white, you know, and you didn't
forget that. I didn't. It's. It's. It's. I will never, ever
forget that. I don't even remember what he said, but how he
(41:26):
made me feel left an impression. I don't even
know his name. I don't even remember how he looks. But
every time I cross that, I go through that
road. Somehow that situation comes into my mind
and I remember his coming kindness.
Like you said, it's the why behind the work. Like, why
(41:48):
did we choose this, to do this in the work first place?
And if we are deviating from that and if, like you said, if you're just
looking at it as a black and white, then it's
probably the right time to pause and ask ourselves, like,
why am I in this? Exactly. I,
I took something that you said just a minute ago and it really hit home
(42:12):
because it's so true. You know, first responders deal with a
lot of things and you know, you do a lot of
leadership and executive coaching and I, I think you'll relate to this
is especially now that I've been working on getting my coaching certification
because I see the similarity so much. But
you go through a, a good coaching session
(42:35):
and you know, it's, you're very involved at the end. You feel
worn out because you're, you're trying to,
you're, you're dealing with their emotions and
you're trying not to. As
a human, you're going to receive some of that energy and it's going to wear
on you. And so you get done with that coaching session, you're like,
(42:57):
man, I'm really tired. Because there's a lot of emotion
involved in those sessions a lot of the time. Yeah, it's,
it's the same way when we go out and deal with a critical
incident or something along those lines, you get
done and you just have that like adrenaline dump and you're like,
(43:17):
what did I just go through? Yeah, and luckily over the
past few years, it's finally started to change a little bit.
And I recently just went through the first part of peer support training
and so a lot of agencies are going to peer support training. But what I
really took away from it was
coaching and peer support use a lot of the exact
(43:40):
same lingo and terms and they actually co. Mingle a lot
because a lot of peer support is actually coaching.
Because as a good leader, you're going to be coaching the people that
you interact with on your shift or, you know, the people who work in your
precinct or whatever the case may be,
(44:03):
career, life, they all intersect, they all work together, they
all work against each other. At some point,
a good supervisor really has to implement those coaching principles
in, to be A good leader, in my opinion. Absolutely.
Absolutely. As a leader, you do take
different stance depending upon the situation.
(44:25):
Right. There is no one size.
Here's the stance that I'm going to take. I always. I often
see myself, I call myself a coach
because it's kind of like an umbrella term. But I don't only
coach. Right. Like, you know, the traditional. I wouldn't say it's not traditional. Right.
Like the how coaching says, like we have to ask powerful
(44:48):
questions. I don't. Right. Like I have my own style. Sometimes
I teach, sometimes I tell what to do. Sometimes,
you know, I ask that. They need to
think for themselves. Sometimes, you know, I have to lay out or give them a
strategy. It really, really depends upon
who that is, who I'm working with, what works for them,
(45:10):
what might be the right thing. And I don't have a prepared script. Right.
It's just my presence and that will guide me to do what's the
best way. Like that, you know,
people, first responders, you have to
assess the situation, assess the people in front of
you. And I don't think there will be
(45:33):
any template or
book that's going to tell you, step one, do this.
Step two, do this. Step three, do this. Step four, do this.
Because those steps probably worked for the person who
wrote that for a specific situation. They handled it
whenever they handled it with the group of people, whomever they are.
(45:56):
But every individual, every situation, every group,
every scenario is going to be very different. And
as leaders, we have to adapt ourselves
to situations and assess the situation quickly.
That way we can bring the best leadership to
whatever is needed at that time. Absolutely. I
(46:19):
think at some point every leader is going to be a coach, they're
going to be a consultant, they're going to be a mentor, they're going to be
a trainer. And they have a lot to overlap,
but they're all each a little bit different roles. And so
I think you're absolutely right. The leader is the one that wears many hats.
Yes. And you got to be proficient, all of them, to be a
(46:41):
good leader. Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the
things that I
latch on to in my line of work is
how can I make this easy for people?
Because we are living in a world where
everything is. Has become more complex.
(47:04):
Everything has become so much information
and there's so much available and
people are overwhelmed with that. Yes.
And for me, it doesn't matter who I coach,
what role they play.
Can I make this a little bit. Can I help them to
(47:27):
make this a little bit easier? What would be the
easiest way to move forward. And
when we come from that place, I think a lot of those
over complexities and our thinking, like I have to do
this and this and this and this. I think those will go away because
(47:49):
like you beautifully articulated earlier connecting with our.
Why like why am I doing this? Why am I coaching
leaders? Why am I coaching first responders? Why am I writing my
blog? Why am I writing my post? You know, what's the purpose
here and how can I in a
simplest of manner do that? Yes,
(48:11):
wholeheartedly agree. Yeah. Well, as we start to wrap up a little bit,
I want to give you a moment to talk about
your website. You've got a leadership academy. You've got
classes specifically tied for women
leadership coaching like you touched on a
little bit earlier. You got a book on infertility and the journey through that.
(48:35):
Tell my audience where they can find all these resources, how they can
connect with you because
I just love picking your brain so much that I think that
my audience would as well. Awesome. Thank
you. Brent. This is such a phenomenal
evening for me just to just to openly talk about the things
(48:59):
that really matters to me and matters to you as well.
People can, you know one of the active platform
for me is LinkedIn and people can find me under the same
name. So I would, you know, if your folks are in LinkedIn, please
connect with me there because I do write a lot and
I talk a lot about leadership
(49:22):
mostly from the corporate angle. But I don't
think it matters because everything that I write is
I personally think it's applied for humanity at
large. So please connect with me
there. I do, I'm on Facebook as well.
My website is Pradeepa Coach which is getting
(49:45):
re or should I say rebranded now as we speak. But my
it will be the same website Pradeepa Coach. In
there people can find information about all the services and the
programs about my books and everything. Brent,
we talked about my first book and we talked about my last book
on leadership. But there is the second book I think would be
(50:08):
super, super valuable for all your listeners. That's
the book called Loving Myself and you'd and
that was my own personal journey of my own growth.
Learning to first love myself and really
being open and okay with all,
you know, what what we call as you know, not
(50:31):
so great things about ourselves. So it's all very
personal stories. It's very personal insights.
But the beauty about the book is whomever reads
that book, they can apply
my story is my story. But people can see themselves
through my story in their life because there's always that
(50:54):
relation there. And I think that would be a
phenomenal book and a phenomenal resource for all your
listeners, Brent. Loving Myself and you. Awesome.
And can they get that off Amazon or where can they get it? Absolutely. All
my books are available on Amazon. The easiest way is to to get
to all my books is just type my name or if they're interested in just
(51:15):
the title itself. The first book is Infertility Can Suck Less.
The second one is Loving Myself and you. And the latest and the
greatest is Practical Leadership. Awesome. If they want to watch your
TEDx. Is it on YouTube? Absolutely. It is definitely on
YouTube. And again, like the easiest way to get to that is all they can
do is TEDxPradeepa. Mine will be the one that
(51:37):
pops up. I don't think there's any other Pradeepas who have given me.
Well, Pradeepa, you are always welcome back on my podcast.
You have been great tonight and we will wrap up and
thank you for joining me tonight. Brent, it's such a pleasure
and I really, really enjoyed this conversation and thank
(51:59):
you so much for doing this and creating this platform which
is really, really needed. Thank you so much. Have a good night.
Bye.
Guys, welcome to the first Responder Playbook. I am blessed to have
Pradeepa with me today. I'm gonna let Pradeepa
do her own introduction in just a second. So I'm. Because I know I will
not do this justice. But she is a TEDx speaker, a three time
offer author, an executive coach known for
mining diamonds in Leaders with a forward by Dr.
(00:22):
Marshall Goldsmith. Her latest book, Practical Leadership Simplifying
the Complexity equips leaders with tools, insights and
confidence to lead with purpose and effectiveness. Our mission,
to change the landscape of leadership and humanity one bold leader
at a time. Pradeepa, welcome to the first Responder Playbook. Thank
you, Brent. I'm so grateful to be here and
(00:46):
really looking forward to this conversation and thank you so much
for the avenue that you have created
and be able to talk about
bold leadership and topics that are not
often focused for such a
crucial, you know, part of our
(01:08):
society, which is, which is, you know, which who are the first
responders. So, so thank you so much for creating this avenue. I really, really
appreciate you. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm excited to have you.
Yeah. I want to talk about one,
how did you go down the path of writing books?
But two, I think it is awesome that you've done a
(01:30):
TEDX speech. How did you go down that path as well?
Yeah, I'll talk about the book first
and then the TEDx. For
me, I grew up in India and
I did my schooling and my college there in India.
I didn't realize but I realized it now through
(01:52):
reflecting somewhere around like 8th grade
where I was studying, I realized
I really enjoyed writing essays
and I'm not like just reading the
book and reproducing what it is supposed to be.
I had a flair for storytelling back then. I'm
(02:16):
just thinking about it, you know, and I wrote
essays for my language papers and history.
Those are the two. And
for example, we studied Boer war for Africa.
And I still remember how I talked
(02:36):
about the war through my lens, through how
I read it and how I saw it happened
and it got called up. You know, thankfully
Ara, my principal was my history teacher too, my school
principal and I got called out for,
you know, writing that essay and you know, she really
(02:58):
appreciated how I put my
visualization into that work. Back then I never
saw a movie or anything like that. It was all in my imagination.
So fast forward. There is something in me
about writing and expressing myself through stories
because, you know, I feel like I am a big
(03:21):
lover of stories. My grandma and my dad and
my aunt they're amazing storytellers. Like I could, I mean, I
even listened to them telling stories when I was an adult. So, you know,
no shame there. And to me, there is something about
storytelling that connects people. So I kind of, I think I
followed that passion along. But after
(03:44):
getting married, coming to the US and I kind of forgot about
that side of writing. And then suddenly in
2012, 2013, the
workplace that I was working at, they were starting their
corporate blog and they asked me to write something
(04:05):
and I started writing. There
was a topic about servant leadership back then that was really close to my
heart and I wrote a story
because the Persona that I had was a person in my team
who was very much playing that role of servant leader. So I
used her as my main
(04:27):
character and wrote the story around her.
And then I sent it to one of my colleague for just editing
and proofreading, just to make sure everything looks good.
But then to my surprise and
to my fear, I got the article
back completely full of red lines.
(04:51):
And there was so many edits in there, it didn't
look like my article anymore. And there was also
a banter and like a fun comment,
like light hearted comment about the
generous use of the word that I had in my article, the.
(05:13):
And they called me Deepradipa, right? Like they signed
like deepradipa, dear Deepradipa. And
somehow back then I didn't know how to process
that. But it really shook me saying like,
oh my God, I don't think I'm good at this. I'm not going
to write anymore. And I kind of closed the chapter on writing.
(05:36):
Of course I published the blog with whatever comments my
colleague gave me. But then that's it, like I was really scared.
And then it took a really long time, like four. And
until like 2016, I didn't touch, I didn't
write anything at all. My LinkedIn probably would be the,
(05:56):
you know, like how, how I'm showing up on LinkedIn. There
probably would be the best way to assess that.
But then something started changing for
me. My own, you know,
journey with my infertility struggles. There are things that I really
wanted to share. And
(06:18):
speaking is an avenue that I already ventured into.
And I thought, like, how about writing as well? So I
slowly started expressing myself again.
But there's so much of fear now. It was
not just sent to one person who can redline it and just
send it to me discreetly via an email, right? But here I have
(06:40):
to be on a public platform where I don't know how many Connections
I had like back then, 500,000, I have no idea. All
these ice can critique and comment and
what kind of criticism I'm going to get. And that was
quite scary for me, and
I really have to get over that. And
(07:03):
one perspective that I,
after my continuing to grow myself, the perspective that I
decided to take that really helped me with that is
I am not writing to
get awarded in,
you know, for language, right? Like, I'm not. I'm not being
(07:27):
rewarded or awarded for my linguistic skills or
my grammatical skills. I am writing
for a different purpose. I am writing because I'm
thinking. Writing is an avenue for me to express myself, express
my thoughts and in a way that I wanted to
communicate to other people who might benefit from what I'm
(07:49):
sharing. And that
perspective, I kind of, you know,
really held that perspective strongly.
That really helped me come out of the fear that I
had since the blog, you know,
since the blog and the red lines that I got from the
(08:12):
blog. I also
remember during some of my early days,
I didn't have an editor or anything like that. I just write and I publish.
There were a few people who commented on the grammatical
mistakes that I made, and I thanked
them and I went back and changed it because I
(08:35):
really appreciate somebody's taking their time to tell me what
I have to change. And I appreciated that because I saw that
as a learning opportunity and a growing opportunity rather than a
criticism. And that also helped me
tremendously. So that was my start of, like, coming
out of the shell. And I wrote
(08:57):
my first book. And my first book
was literally, I did a video, like
a video of all the topics. I took everything
that I said, converted that script into
chapters, and then had a publisher work
with me to edit those chapters. And then I published my first
(09:19):
book. So, you know, it was kind of like a speaking to
a language. Sorry, speaking to converting them into a text
to, you know, making it a book.
That was the start of my journey. But then
what I also realized, Brent, is the more that I started writing,
the more I started becoming more and more comfortable.
(09:42):
I have to write that first blog that got the red line
to be able to be here and speak about my journey.
Now, 15 years later, and
published my third book and got raving feedback and
a beautiful foreword by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. He just doesn't go around, write
forwards for books. You know, he checks out what I'm working on on
(10:05):
Highway Road. So to me, that was
improvement in progress. I have to.
There is no easy way to get over that. And I know the
reason Why I want to share this story, this backstory is a lot
of people hesitate. A lot of people that I work with, a lot of my
clients, my students, they all hesitate to share online for
(10:28):
various reasons. And one of the reasons is being critiqued and being
judged critically by other.
And what I have come to realize is if
you put anything out there, there's a
percentage of people who are going to love it because they care
for you and they love you and they want to support your work. There's the
(10:51):
percentage of people who's going to, like, hate your work no matter what you do,
how beautiful, how wonderful it is. Even if you are the
Picasso of the world, if you put a painting out there, they are going to
critique you. And then there's the bunch of people in the middle
who just don't care. And I
decided I wanted to serve the people
(11:12):
who see some value in my work.
And there's all these people. I'm just going to thank
them if they choose to respond. And that's pretty much it. I will be
moving on. So for
me to write three books, I have to
write one blog. And for writing that one
(11:34):
blog, I have to write the first paragraph. And for the first paragraph,
I have to write the first sentence. And for that first sentence,
I have to write the word. The. The.
It's the building blocks. Yeah. And
I love that because I actually just got my first article published in
(11:55):
a. A police journal. Awesome. Last
month, and it is very much for me
to come out of my comfort zone. I'm. I'm actually a doctoral student, too,
and I wrote the article. And the gentleman
said, I love him. He was actually one of previous guests, Dan Frazier.
(12:16):
He said, that's a really good academic article, but
you're speaking to a group of police trainers. And it's not sticky.
Yeah. And he's like, it's not. He's like. And he gave me some tips
to redo it. Yeah. To make it stick.
And I'll never forget, for like a week and a half, I just had this
writer's block of, like, how do I want to approach this? Yeah. And
(12:38):
I sat there one night, fixing to go to bed, and I was like, I
know what I want to write about. And I scrapped the whole thing. And I
knocked this new article out in. In an hour, and he read it a couple
days later, and he's like. He's like, I'm not saying your first one was bad,
but for your audience, this is so much better. Yeah. And for
him, for that, I'll Always be grateful because
(12:59):
he. He gave it to me in a way that it made it click to
me. Yeah. To relate to your audience. And it would have never,
you know, I kind of, like you said, you got to start with that first
word, and then you get that first paragraph and your first, you know, blog post,
and then you go to your first article. And, you know, eventually I would. I'd
like to get up to the point where I can write a book. Yeah. And
(13:19):
it starts with those small building blocks to get you there. And,
you know, a lot of my friends in law enforcement were like, man, that's so
cool. You get an article published. And to be honest with you, I'm still right
there because I was like, I never thought I would get to that point.
Yeah. And now I have it out there, and I'm like, okay, what's next?
Let's get the next hurdle. You are. You are an article author now.
(13:41):
There you go. Right. Like, that's how it starts. And I
love what you are sharing. And a lot
of people will have different ideas as to how
to write, how to, you know, especially if you are on LinkedIn,
there's so many people talking about how to write a post,
how to hook, how to have a CTA at
(14:03):
the end, call to action at the end. I mean, like, there's so many
templates and strategies and things like that.
But what I have come to realize for myself is
you have to find your voice. That's something that you
are comfortable with and get really good in
(14:23):
refining that voice. So that when people read your article,
read your story, read your post, they know
that it's coming from Brent or it's coming from Pradeepa,
and they will hear you through your
words. So that's. That, to me, is the biggest thing.
Anything that I write, I will write it.
(14:47):
I mean, now with the help of AI, I can do a, you know, talk
to my. Talk about the article, because I talk a lot and I talk to
my article. I take that and then I edit it and I make it my
own. So there are easier ways to do that now. But
how you wanted to share what is your voice is only
you can do that. Absolutely. 100% agree.
(15:11):
How did you go down the path of speaking and getting into the TEDx?
Yeah, and again, like, my speaking
passion started way in my childhood. My dad is an
amazing orator, and he speaks
so brilliantly. He knows how to make the audience
laugh and, you know, hook them in his
(15:33):
storytelling abilities. So I think watching him grow,
you know, helped Me,
I would say start having the passion for talking and
talking to people. For me, talking is not just about
talking. Talking is about connecting to. That's how
I see it. And
(15:56):
to me, I'm, whenever I'm speaking,
it's not just me monologuing. Even when I'm speaking
within 250 people or whatever that I'm, wherever I'm speaking,
I like to connect with the audience. So the audience are also
interacting with me. And to me, the dialogue
(16:16):
and the multilog really kind of.
I love that part because there is so much
richness in more people talking and
interacting rather than one head
moving their mouth and saying maybe brilliant things. Yes.
I wouldn't, I mean like, yeah, there are brilliant things, but
(16:40):
hearing other people, getting them involved, getting them excited,
that's what I really, really love about speaking. And even in
my TED Talk you mentioned that. Even in my TED Talk I
had an engaging activity with my audience. I was able to
sneak that in and that way I could get the
engagement going and not just sharing my story.
(17:02):
So speaking is another way
I wanted to connect with the people. I wanted to share
what I'm passionate about and also wanted to learn
and learn different perspectives from people.
Absolutely. And I think that it also is kind of like
you, you very well mentioned, like anybody can get up there and
(17:26):
just kind of drone on in a monotone voice. They don't
really consider that speaking, that's just reciting things.
Somebody that is good, that they have to make that connection with the
audience. And it doesn't matter if you're talking, you're the most knowledgeable
person. If you don't make that connection, people are going to tune you out
pretty quickly. Absolutely. And so I, especially when I'm teaching
(17:48):
like a, I say a law enforcement class, that's usually what I do. But
you know, if it doesn't matter if it's a group of cops or you
know, somebody from a church or wherever it may be, you have to make
that connection. Or they're not really, they're not going to buy in. Absolutely,
absolutely. The connection is what make them.
(18:09):
They may not even remember you or remember your face, but they
remember the connection that that's being made and the dialogue that
happened. Because people, when people are, you know,
there may be thousands of people or hundreds of people sitting in your
audience, but if somebody feels that like,
hey, I am connecting to the speaker and they are
(18:31):
connecting to me and this exchange is
meaningful, they are going to remember that for a very
long time because it's personal. Now,
absolutely, 100% agree. So let's,
let's dive into some topics real quick and I want to
touch on some things that would be very good for first responders.
(18:55):
Let's talk about how can we improve on decision
making under pressure.
One of the things that I've been
thinking about decision making is especially
for first responders, they do have
(19:16):
to make really, really quick decisions and in a
very pressured situation. I have never been a
first responder. I have seen some, some in action,
but a lot in movies. That's how much you know, my experience
is. But I have read about, read about it and heard from
other people a lot as well.
(19:38):
What I realized is
because you have to make decision decisions really quickly
and the situation is this, this, there can
be so much pressure under the situation. The first thing you probably
need to think about and have not at
(19:59):
that time is clarity, right? Like one
of the biggest leadership skills and traits that
is going to super, that's going to be super helpful is clarity.
And the other thing is confidence, right? Like being
clear and confidently articulating what needs
to be articulated. And
(20:23):
there may be a plan A that was unfolding and people
were going through a plan A depending upon how they are assessing the
situation. But not everything is going to go
for the plan. And in such high pressure situation.
Another biggest leadership opportunity is how
adaptable I am, how adaptable are we as a team
(20:47):
to assess the situation, to make adjustments to the situation and
course correct ourselves. So
having that clarity and whatever that is, right, like whatever the decisions people
are making, really able to clearly articulate that
so that everybody, whomever is in that
scene really understands what's going on, what
(21:10):
their individual part is, what they're supposed to be doing. That's really
helpful. And the leadership is also
shown in not just clarity but your
confidence, right? Like hey, here's how I would love for us
to operate. They may not exactly know how
it's going to pan out, but you do have to show
(21:32):
that courage, right? Like show that, hey, I am confident
in moving forward with that. And last but not the least,
if things are changing, we have to find
a way to help everybody adapt to the
situation and move forward. If we have to take
a new plan forward, we should be able to take a new plan forward.
(21:55):
Those are the three things that really comes to my mind
and this is applicable to first responders.
And I'm just using corporate as an example to corporate leaders too.
Of course, corporate leaders may not go through this day in and day out or
lot frequently like first responders do. But the same
thing. If there is a high pressure situation.
(22:19):
People want their leader to show clarity and confidence and of course
be willing to adapt to situations. Absolutely. And
I think that, to kind of segue into the next topic because I
think they really go hand in hand
in my opinion. Leaders oftentimes are just titles
because anybody can be a leader. Yeah. And you
(22:42):
know, we have to, especially in the first responder world,
that, that, that person with a title is not always going to be there at
that given moment. And so we have to be able to make those decisions
on our own. Absolutely. And to do it confidently. Yeah.
And to have that clarity to be able to make those decisions.
And so I think it's a, it's so
(23:06):
people get so afraid to make a decision a
lot of the times. Yeah. And, and they will just, they'll call that person with
the title and say, what do I do?
Take a deep breath, slow down for a minute and think about
how you should operate. And I think
that's a lot of times I've always kind of ruffled feathers
(23:29):
at places I've been because I respect people's
titles, I really do. But it's just a title
if, if, if you know, you're telling me to do something the wrong way, like
I have enough self awareness that I know I can do it the right
way. And so in such a
paramilitaristic world it doesn't always like lend it to
(23:51):
me being like the favorite person in a place. But
leadership is, anybody can be a leader. And you should really want your people
to be able to make those decisions confidently without
that oversight. Absolutely. I love what you just
said.
Leadership and having a title
(24:14):
are two different things, 100%. And
one of the things that I teach in my
work is for people
with titles to truly
enable and empower. That's a very, you know, it's
a buzzword now, but I have, I'm intentionally and consciously
(24:37):
saying that they really have to
allow their people to make
decisions and
protect the consequences
of those decisions that are being made. Let's say if you are
my leader with the title and you say like,
(24:58):
Pradeepa, you make the decision in this scenario and I make whatever I
think is the right decision. And let's say it doesn't
work per whatever it's supposed to be.
If you come and say like, okay, Pradeepa, it's your fault, you did
that. Here is the consequences of the decision making.
Do you think I will ever make a decision again on my own?
(25:20):
No people will do CYA
because, you know, I've experienced the after effects
of making a decision that went on poorly because I really
didn't have, I thought I had the support from my
leader with the title, but I really didn't
because the time it mattered. Nobody was protecting
(25:43):
me. People fe people, people don't fear decision
making. People fear how
the consequences of a poor decision making from the past
affects them to make new decisions in the future.
Yep, I, I've got a good story for you and I've told it a
(26:03):
couple times on the podcast, but there was an
officer I worked with, he, he was a sergeant and I was a newer officer
at that agency. And he'd been out hurt and
everybody talked golden about this guy. You
know, he was the best guy to work with, he was easy to work with.
And I'll never forget another agency had gotten a vehicle
(26:25):
pursuit, which, you know, those are inherently dangerous. And they
had lost contact with all the officers. And where they were at was right along
our shared border. And everything was under construction.
It was on an interstate, so it was a divided highway. And so I would
have had to go down like two miles, come back through construction
and it was like 3 o' clock in the morning and I could see them
(26:46):
at the top of this off ramp and there wasn't any cars
coming. The shoulder was wide enough for a car to go
up, but I had my emergency lights on. And so I kind of started
slowly going up it because it was quicker to go that way,
go the 500ft instead of going down around.
Unbeknownst to me, this other agency's officer was sitting
(27:09):
blacked out below me in a restaurant. So if I'd have seen that, I probably
would have known everything was okay. But like their dispatch had told us,
hey, we need to check on, we don't know if they're okay. Well, he kind
of got on the radio and called me out and said, hey, there's an officer
going the wrong way on this off ramp. And so when I got down there,
my supervisor was understandably mad, but he asked
(27:30):
me a question. He said, why did you do what you did?
And so I explained to him why I did what I did.
And he was an old school Marine. I was never in the
military. There's a generational difference on top of that.
And he proceeded to cuss me out in front of a couple
(27:51):
different officers from different agencies and from,
instead of taking that moment to
say, hey, let's talk about this at
a different time and explain his beliefs of Why
I probably should have maybe handled a different way. It would have
sunk in a lot more, but he, he did it in such a way that
(28:14):
demeaned me in front of other officers
that, I mean, it got bad. He was like, why I should write you
up for this? And. But from that moment forward, the way
he handled that, he lost any shred of
credibility out of me. Yeah. To
make decisions, you know, I always was second guessing myself, well, should I
(28:38):
do this? Should I not do this? And
people don't forget how you treat them. And
so it doesn't matter. You could be the best boss ever, but if you came
at them the very first time and, and this was the first night we'd ever
worked together, and I ended up working with him for a couple years, and
it's kind of why I left that agency.
(29:01):
I never forgot it. Yeah. And I. And I don't like,
personally dislike him or anything. Like, it's not, it's not that serious,
but I would never want to work with him again either. Yeah. Yeah. And I
never forgot it. And the way he said that touched
home so much because it happened to me,
you know? It really did. Yeah.
(29:24):
People will never, I mean, people will forget what you
said, you know, you know, what you gave them or not, stuff
like that, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Absolutely. And I think that's a perfect
segue into compassion fatigue for first responders.
(29:45):
That is, I was thinking about this
and, you know, first responders
are very much prone to
continuously acting
selflessly and going from situation to
situation where they are saving lives in most of the cases.
(30:07):
And
that can also lead to some kind of numbness. Right.
Like, you know, let's say people are like dying and, you know, they
have to save. That's their job at the time.
They're seeing so many deaths or so many, whatever, you
know, whatever horrific things that are happening that
(30:30):
can sometimes numb you. And when you
detach, when you, when you numb, when that
numbness happens in here, then
it can lead to detachment of
your connection with yourself and your connection to the
world. And the first thing
(30:53):
that can go away is being compassionate towards
yourself. And when we are not
compassionate towards ourselves,
there's no way we can show the same compassion to anybody
else around us. So, in fact,
that can also be,
(31:16):
you know, not super helpful to be
doing their job as well. So, like, you know, at the beginning you shared, right.
Like, how many people really struggle through,
struggle through going through traumatic situations like this.
And, you know, you talked about the suicidal rates and all those
things because if
(31:39):
we are compassionate towards ourselves,
then we don't think about, you know, doing
harm for ourselves. Yes. So the
compassion fatigue is real. And
how much we expose ourselves to trauma
(31:59):
can very well lead to that. So the way that
I think about this is one,
we need to have an avenue like this to talk about that.
Because you know, this is not a macho thing.
This is not something that we can talk about. I know you,
(32:20):
you talked about a code that maybe it's a
written code, unwritten code, I'm not super familiar with that. But we don't talk
about what happens in work and stuff like that.
I think that taboo needs to be broken. There
has to be places, there has to be
(32:40):
support systems where we are openly
and vulnerably talking about what's
really going on for us. Sometimes,
you know, sometimes some people are even aware of what's going on.
Awareness is the first step. But
(33:01):
what has to happen after we become aware of it?
Right? After we become aware of it. How can I
really cope with this? What are some
practices that I can do? Oftentimes when we don't talk
about stuff, we tend to keep inside.
That itself can be a really, really big bother.
(33:23):
So finding avenues to talk about it in safe spaces
where people are non judgmental safe spaces where
people are openly talking about it. Finding
some avenues to really connect back
because we are the first responders are
(33:43):
so much exposed to trauma related
situations, maybe intentionally
breaking themselves from such situations and really
connecting back to themselves. Not just the work,
because people are all the people
(34:04):
who signed up for being a first responder. I don't think
nobody else, I don't think I don't know much about it, but in
my, my mind this is how I think about it. They do this voluntarily
because they really care and they want to serve, they want to serve the
community. Nobody, nobody says like you have to do
this, otherwise, right? You don't have a choice.
(34:25):
Oftentimes I see that comes from a very deep, deep rooted,
like service oriented mind and heart.
And while serving others can be
really, really rewarding, I also
say this to all the leaders that I work with.
(34:47):
Protect your asset. Protect the asset. You are the asset.
If you don't protect yourself, there is no you to
serve others. So find
ways to reconnect. Right? Like to
start showing love and compassion in whatever way
possible. It doesn't have to be touchy feely if people are feeling that
(35:10):
way. That's not what I'm talking about here. Give yourself some
space. Give yourself Some breather. If we can't
be compassionate and help ourselves,
there is no way we would be able to wholeheartedly
help other people. It has to start with ourselves.
(35:30):
If people are seeing a disconnect between what their heart
desires to do and how they're doing it and how they're actually
feeling it, if there is a disconnect there,
my request and a strong recommendation to all your
listeners is to pause. Right. Like,
really, really pause and ask yourself, like, what's really going on
(35:53):
here? What's the disconnect here? And
if we don't address that disconnect immediately, it's going to
grow wider and wider.
I look at it as you have to refill your
life's gas tank. Yes.
If you don't, eventually you're gonna run out, be stranded.
(36:17):
And I want to touch on something, too. Yeah.
I often see, at least on the
police side, we are so
often used to being the person of authority or
the person in control that we get
(36:38):
very black and white in how we operate.
And I think we often lose sight of
the why we became a police officer in
those moments. And we do lose a lot of the
compassion that we probably should still have.
(36:58):
And I, and I try to, personally, I try
to, when I get in those type of situations, to remember
what if I was in their position? And that doesn't mean
not doing my job, you know, somebody committed a crime,
then, you know, you have to handle appropriately.
(37:19):
But let's just say if it's something minor like a speeding ticket
or, you know, didn't have your seatbelt on. I've
always operated under the assumption of, hey, if
they're not doing this every day of the week, and, you know, they, they haven't
got 10 tickets on the year, maybe a written warning and
an explanation of why you probably should maybe fully
(37:41):
stop at a stop sign or should be wearing your seatbelt is more appropriate
instead of just writing that ticket. Because,
let's be honest, every person has done something that they probably should have been corrected
on instead of having, you know, punitive action taken
instead. And so I always try to remember the why
I became a police officer. I didn't become a police officer write tickets.
(38:03):
I became a police officer to help people. Yeah. And
those are. Those are not mutually exclusive.
And so I always try to, when I'm training somebody
new is, hey, if they need a ticket, then write
the ticket. You know, person's attitude judges that a lot of times,
and you've got a job to do. But also, don't forget the why? Yeah. And
(38:27):
if a person can be cut a break and be taught how to
improve themselves in that process, then take that moment,
just take a deep breath and say, okay, let's
handle it a little bit differently. Yeah. Because I
don't want to ever lose sight of the why I do things.
I love that. I love that I have
(38:49):
a. Because you mentioned traffic ticket. It's a personal
story. Is it okay if I want to share that? Under the
same lens here, Few years ago, maybe a couple
of years ago, I was taking my, you know, little son, he was back then
nine years, to his doctor's appointment, to
a therapy appointment. And it's one of the
(39:11):
usual roads that I take. And of course, I was
speeding a little bit over. I think it was a 30 zone. I was going
maybe 42, 45 around that I got
stopped. And, you know, the. The
police officer came and he asked me where I was going so
fast. And I was telling, like, you know, I'm little late for my. My
(39:33):
son's appointment, so I have to get there at a certain time,
because whatever. Right. Like. And
what I realized was the. The
compassion that she. He showed me that day, you
know, and he said, like, ma', am, I. I understand,
but don't. Don't do this. He said something.
(39:56):
I don't remember what exactly he said. So I got out with
the warning. It's not about the.
It's not just about the speeding. It's not just about me getting the warning.
I was not trying to get out of the ticket or anything like that. It
was a
compassionate human who was showing some
(40:19):
grace and care
towards me and my situation that day.
And ever since that incident. And I do take that
road quite frequently, Brent, I tell you,
I never, ever have speed up in that road.
Not because there are going to be cops that are going to find
(40:42):
me or give me tickets. It's because of that
compassion. Like, there was something so deeper. That
cop taught me that day, the way that. That
he showed compassion and the way that he, you know, gave me grace.
I will not forget that. It's been two years now. I go. I use that
road a lot. I never speed up when my husband drives the car.
(41:04):
And I always say, like, this is the speed limit. Slow down.
Yep. I love that. And
it's how he handled with compassion instead of just saying,
okay, this is black and white, you know, and you didn't
forget that. I didn't. It's. It's. It's. I will never, ever
forget that. I don't even remember what he said, but how he
(41:26):
made me feel left an impression. I don't even
know his name. I don't even remember how he looks. But
every time I cross that, I go through that
road. Somehow that situation comes into my mind
and I remember his coming kindness.
Like you said, it's the why behind the work. Like, why
(41:48):
did we choose this, to do this in the work first place?
And if we are deviating from that and if, like you said, if you're just
looking at it as a black and white, then it's
probably the right time to pause and ask ourselves, like,
why am I in this? Exactly. I,
I took something that you said just a minute ago and it really hit home
(42:12):
because it's so true. You know, first responders deal with a
lot of things and you know, you do a lot of
leadership and executive coaching and I, I think you'll relate to this
is especially now that I've been working on getting my coaching certification
because I see the similarity so much. But
you go through a, a good coaching session
(42:35):
and you know, it's, you're very involved at the end. You feel
worn out because you're, you're trying to,
you're, you're dealing with their emotions and
you're trying not to. As
a human, you're going to receive some of that energy and it's going to wear
on you. And so you get done with that coaching session, you're like,
(42:57):
man, I'm really tired. Because there's a lot of emotion
involved in those sessions a lot of the time. Yeah, it's,
it's the same way when we go out and deal with a critical
incident or something along those lines, you get
done and you just have that like adrenaline dump and you're like,
(43:17):
what did I just go through? Yeah, and luckily over the
past few years, it's finally started to change a little bit.
And I recently just went through the first part of peer support training
and so a lot of agencies are going to peer support training. But what I
really took away from it was
coaching and peer support use a lot of the exact
(43:40):
same lingo and terms and they actually co. Mingle a lot
because a lot of peer support is actually coaching.
Because as a good leader, you're going to be coaching the people that
you interact with on your shift or, you know, the people who work in your
precinct or whatever the case may be,
(44:03):
career, life, they all intersect, they all work together, they
all work against each other. At some point,
a good supervisor really has to implement those coaching principles
in, to be A good leader, in my opinion. Absolutely.
Absolutely. As a leader, you do take
different stance depending upon the situation.
(44:25):
Right. There is no one size.
Here's the stance that I'm going to take. I always. I often
see myself, I call myself a coach
because it's kind of like an umbrella term. But I don't only
coach. Right. Like, you know, the traditional. I wouldn't say it's not traditional. Right.
Like the how coaching says, like we have to ask powerful
(44:48):
questions. I don't. Right. Like I have my own style. Sometimes
I teach, sometimes I tell what to do. Sometimes,
you know, I ask that. They need to
think for themselves. Sometimes, you know, I have to lay out or give them a
strategy. It really, really depends upon
who that is, who I'm working with, what works for them,
(45:10):
what might be the right thing. And I don't have a prepared script. Right.
It's just my presence and that will guide me to do what's the
best way. Like that, you know,
people, first responders, you have to
assess the situation, assess the people in front of
you. And I don't think there will be
(45:33):
any template or
book that's going to tell you, step one, do this.
Step two, do this. Step three, do this. Step four, do this.
Because those steps probably worked for the person who
wrote that for a specific situation. They handled it
whenever they handled it with the group of people, whomever they are.
(45:56):
But every individual, every situation, every group,
every scenario is going to be very different. And
as leaders, we have to adapt ourselves
to situations and assess the situation quickly.
That way we can bring the best leadership to
whatever is needed at that time. Absolutely. I
(46:19):
think at some point every leader is going to be a coach, they're
going to be a consultant, they're going to be a mentor, they're going to be
a trainer. And they have a lot to overlap,
but they're all each a little bit different roles. And so
I think you're absolutely right. The leader is the one that wears many hats.
Yes. And you got to be proficient, all of them, to be a
(46:41):
good leader. Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the
things that I
latch on to in my line of work is
how can I make this easy for people?
Because we are living in a world where
everything is. Has become more complex.
(47:04):
Everything has become so much information
and there's so much available and
people are overwhelmed with that. Yes.
And for me, it doesn't matter who I coach,
what role they play.
Can I make this a little bit. Can I help them to
(47:27):
make this a little bit easier? What would be the
easiest way to move forward. And
when we come from that place, I think a lot of those
over complexities and our thinking, like I have to do
this and this and this and this. I think those will go away because
(47:49):
like you beautifully articulated earlier connecting with our.
Why like why am I doing this? Why am I coaching
leaders? Why am I coaching first responders? Why am I writing my
blog? Why am I writing my post? You know, what's the purpose
here and how can I in a
simplest of manner do that? Yes,
(48:11):
wholeheartedly agree. Yeah. Well, as we start to wrap up a little bit,
I want to give you a moment to talk about
your website. You've got a leadership academy. You've got
classes specifically tied for women
leadership coaching like you touched on a
little bit earlier. You got a book on infertility and the journey through that.
(48:35):
Tell my audience where they can find all these resources, how they can
connect with you because
I just love picking your brain so much that I think that
my audience would as well. Awesome. Thank
you. Brent. This is such a phenomenal
evening for me just to just to openly talk about the things
(48:59):
that really matters to me and matters to you as well.
People can, you know one of the active platform
for me is LinkedIn and people can find me under the same
name. So I would, you know, if your folks are in LinkedIn, please
connect with me there because I do write a lot and
I talk a lot about leadership
(49:22):
mostly from the corporate angle. But I don't
think it matters because everything that I write is
I personally think it's applied for humanity at
large. So please connect with me
there. I do, I'm on Facebook as well.
My website is Pradeepa Coach which is getting
(49:45):
re or should I say rebranded now as we speak. But my
it will be the same website Pradeepa Coach. In
there people can find information about all the services and the
programs about my books and everything. Brent,
we talked about my first book and we talked about my last book
on leadership. But there is the second book I think would be
(50:08):
super, super valuable for all your listeners. That's
the book called Loving Myself and you'd and
that was my own personal journey of my own growth.
Learning to first love myself and really
being open and okay with all,
you know, what what we call as you know, not
(50:31):
so great things about ourselves. So it's all very
personal stories. It's very personal insights.
But the beauty about the book is whomever reads
that book, they can apply
my story is my story. But people can see themselves
through my story in their life because there's always that
(50:54):
relation there. And I think that would be a
phenomenal book and a phenomenal resource for all your
listeners, Brent. Loving Myself and you. Awesome.
And can they get that off Amazon or where can they get it? Absolutely. All
my books are available on Amazon. The easiest way is to to get
to all my books is just type my name or if they're interested in just
(51:15):
the title itself. The first book is Infertility Can Suck Less.
The second one is Loving Myself and you. And the latest and the
greatest is Practical Leadership. Awesome. If they want to watch your
TEDx. Is it on YouTube? Absolutely. It is definitely on
YouTube. And again, like the easiest way to get to that is all they can
do is TEDxPradeepa. Mine will be the one that
(51:37):
pops up. I don't think there's any other Pradeepas who have given me.
Well, Pradeepa, you are always welcome back on my podcast.
You have been great tonight and we will wrap up and
thank you for joining me tonight. Brent, it's such a pleasure
and I really, really enjoyed this conversation and thank
(51:59):
you so much for doing this and creating this platform which
is really, really needed. Thank you so much. Have a good night.
Bye.
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Dateline NBC
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New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!