3 Cops Talk with Shaun Ferguson: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that, Sparkfire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like The Ops Authority. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down three cops talk. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Sean Ferguson into EO Fire Studios. Sean is a graduate of the Citadel and former United States Army officer serving in Germany in Operation Desert Storm. And today, Fire Nation will talk about how if you're miserable, life is too short to be here.

0:33You don't need approval from people just because you've decided to leave something that made you hate life and listen to the message. Words are words, but you have to dig in to see what it is. If it sounds different the way you're used to, it doesn't mean that you're wrong and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Sean and our sponsors. DTC Pod, hosted by Ramon Berrios and Blaine Bolas, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. DTC Pod is a podcast about all things direct to consumer. Ramon and Blaine cover everything from starting, growing, and optimizing e-commerce stores in DTC brands.

1:09If you're interested in the stories behind your favorite consumer brands, this podcast is for you. One recent episode on how the best brands are built is a must listen. Listen to DTC Pod wherever you get your podcasts. Sean, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. You do not need approval. You don't need approval. So be action-oriented, take action one step at a time. And guess what? What do you think about this quote, by the way, Sean? Ask for forgiveness, not permission. You got to live a little of that, even in government.

1:48We both came from the military. You got to live a little of that because it's like those things that kind of test boundaries, like boxes. They talk about being in the box. You got to test those things sometimes because that's where some of the greatest opportunities occur. And just because somebody else didn't think of it and you did, doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. Lots of value bombs already dropped here, Fire Nation. And as I mentioned in the intro, we're talking today with Sean about police brutality, racial tension, rioting, and more. So let's just dive right into the conversation of you believing we need to get the right people in the room.

2:24What does that mean? Well, to kind of steal from you a little bit, I mean, I'm a police officer. I shouldn't be stealing from anybody, I guess. But to take your idea, like I think about what's our avatar? Like who are we trying to reach? Who are we trying to better understand? And you and I have some similar backgrounds. You know, the military and you try to understand what is being portrayed to you as your enemy. and what I started to realize when we were doing this work and what we're doing with the show and what I'm doing as a police officer is like where am I going where are the people I'm struggling with the most and where are we seeing the most I'm fortunate in circumstances and that's the black male community and that is it anyone that's seen something from Rodney King all the way up to George Floyd and the way the police are portrayed in that and how it's kind of everyone's getting labeled in this and you could say the vice versa about African American men and I just thought that's our avatar in this This is the people, because this is going to be the hardest mountain to climb.

3:18So get to that one first. And people along the way will see that we've got a lot more in common with each other than we think. So there obviously, Sean, needs to be some kind of paradigm shift on how the communities and the police are interacting, you know, especially in certain communities. So what could that look like? Like, where do people start? What do those conversations hold? For the longest time, especially when I first got a job in 2000, everything was still kind of like cloak and dagger. We serve these people and at times treated them like if they know what we're doing, they're going to somehow get the jump on us.

3:54They're going to somehow fool us. They're going to do this and do that. And, you know, to be concerned about that level of population is a very, very small portion of the population. The vast majority of people, even people that, you know, you would think come from communities that don't support the police, actually want us and need us and will tell us that. we ignore that and always worry about the worst and apply it to the you know the grand mal of everyone and and i think that that shift needs to happen on both sides look there are bad players on both but they're really truly within the minority of that and i think that paradigm shift of like labeled and grouping and stepping outside and calling out your own basically what we try to do on our show and give people a forum to do that as well is is probably the best way to start doing that because you're you can't really hold anybody else accountable until you first hold yourself accountable.

4:40That mirror is going to be there, Fire Nation. It's going to be right there in front of you. And Sean, you were bringing that up. It actually reminded me of a story that I don't think I've ever told on Entrepreneurs on Fire, but we're both military vets and we share some similar backgrounds. And I was in Operation Iraqi Freedom, so I was in the Iraq War. And I remember like it was yesterday, I was crossing the DMZ from Kuwait into Iraq and we were all on our M1A1A rooms because I was a tank commander. And so my four tanks were rolling through. And I remember that we got briefed the night before that said, hey, there may be riots.

5:19There may be like people that are just standing in front of the tanks and doesn't matter who they are. If they're impeding our way, they're putting us in danger because if we're sitting targets, we are potentially dead targets. So you keep those tanks moving. So, you know, I kind of went to bed that night with like this, like just terror that I was going to literally be having to like barrel through, um, just crowds of people with a tank, you know, following orders, which is terrifying. And, you know, but the reality is like, that was what was potentially going to be happening. And it was, it was really scary.

5:51And I will say, fortunately that did not materialize. So that, that rioting crowd was not the case, but that was kind of like our perception rolling through. So I was like, now I'm in Iraq and I'm looking around. I'm like, everybody's the enemy. Like everybody's the enemy. Like that was just my mentality. I'm in Iraq. Of course, everybody's the enemy. And I remember we stopped for an overwatch one night, just like probably like 15 or 20 miles into the country. And I pull on my binoculars and I'm looking around and I had these binoculars. I can look into somebody's house and they're sitting there in their house with their family and they're watching friends and it just was so out of place for me that here's like my favorite show that i watched a million times growing up and here's a show where in my quote-unquote enemy territory and it's a family watching friends laughing having the best time it was so foreign to me i couldn't even understand that that was happening it was like the weirdest thing but then it clicked for me like you know what 99 of people in this country are not my enemy like they're just humans who want of course what they want, which is peace, love, security, protection, family.

6:59And then the 1%, they're the ones that are the reason why we're here. They are bad. They are evil. They are stirring up trouble. They're doing bad things. And so that's one thing I think we always have to remember at Fire Nation is like, yes, there is going to be that 1 % or hopefully sometimes less than that, but you can't extrapolate that against a whole population. So that's just a longer kind of way of saying, Sean, like, if that is the case, then who the heck needs to be held accountable? The fact of the matter is what we get into right now is that I'm willing to tolerate behavior from someone I agree with, even though it might be wrong, more than someone I'm disagreeing with.

7:37So it really, really hurts our credibility as a profession or as a group of people that are opposed to my profession. And I say, look, when somebody's doing something that's really counterproductive to themselves, like individual like addicts or people committing crimes or police officers that are miserable doing the work and our commodity is dealing with people that are down, not people on their best days. You know, people like talk about car salesmen like, oh, I don't want to deal with a car salesman, but at least the car is the end game. And whether you feel you got to deal on it or not, people are in a memorable experience or getting a nice car out of it or whatever.

8:09Like we got to remember that that's not the experience that we have as police officers and accountability from our end, at least on the police side, I've always thought like, if you hate this, why do it? I mean, I know it pays okay and there's security and things like that. But if you're that miserable, life's way too short to be here. And that level of accountability of like, we have to say to each other, just because you got on the job and you cleared, you know, probation in the academy, it doesn't mean it's never too late to just say, look, this isn't just not what I thought it was going to be.

8:38And I'm going to move on. It's not like a failure. Like I said, you don't need approval of people because you decided to leave something that made you just hate life. And when you hate life as a cop, you start taking it out on your product. Your product are people. And there are people that really don't need us. There are people that really do need us when we show up. And it could be everything from addiction, abuse, to this guy's dog keeps going to the bathroom on my lawn. And I want you to fix this for me. Can you do something? And we got to stop looking at it that way. So from my perspective, on my side, I always look internally first.

9:07I say, what am I doing that I can do better before I start pointing fingers out at anybody else? And I think that my partners do the same thing on the show. And I'd say that folks on the other side, let's look at what we can do to fix our little ripple effect before I start worrying about what's going on, you know, like the Greens say, think globally, but act locally. And that's where I look at what we can do in law enforcement. You worry about yourself and the people around you will start to see that. And then, you know, it's kind of, you know, I don't want to say it in a time of COVID, but it's, you know, you can create a pandemic.

9:35You know what I mean? There is a sunk cost fallacy that it seems like human beings just have innately. It's like, oh, I've started law school, like on day 10 of law school and I hate it. And I know that I shouldn't be here, but you know what? I paid the semester for tuition. I guess I'm stuck here. So now I'm going to be miserable in law school for three years. I'm going to be a miserable lawyer for 40 years and then I'm going to die. Like, that's one decision you made, Fire Nation. It was a bad decision. Like step back and be like, well, let's reevaluate. This does not need to be a sunk cost fallacy.

10:09Because again, the best investment I ever made in myself, Sean, was literally burning$20 ,000, which is when I walked away from law school. Because I would have been miserable. I would have been bad. I would have not made much money as a lawyer because I would have been terrible and miserable. And here I am in a completely different situation because I said, you know what? That was a bad gamble. I didn't know what I was doing. I wanted to roll the dice and see if this is for me. It wasn't. I'm walking away. So don't have that sunk cost fallacy, Fire Nation. We have some really important things we're going to be talking about when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

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11:18HubSpot's Breeze helps you instantly remix your content, gives you lead scoring to shine a light on your best potential customers, and an AI-curated analytics suite for reports and KPIs. Add this to co-pilots and agents to automate your tasks, and you've got yourself one powerful platform, making your life easier, getting your results faster, and better connecting you to all your data all in one place. Stop spreading yourself thin and start making major moves with HubSpot. Visit hubspot.com slash marketers to learn more. Sean, let's be honest. I mean, man, it is a time when you are just hearing nothing but talking heads on TV, whether it be Fox, NBC, CNBC, MS Fox, whatever those channels are.

12:01I mean, it's just seems to be politics, politics, politics, nonstop. Do politics in your experience divide us? Yeah, I think it's by design, I should say. It is clearly, I mean, you study it. I mean, like I'm like you, you, you create a problem and then you create the solution and you're generally it. And you have to scare people into thinking the people that are exactly like you talked about Iraqis and, you know, people from the inner city versus their police and things like that. And you create this monster that only you as a leader can slay. And it's about making people frightened of things because when people kind of realize like, this isn't something I should fear, they no longer need you.

12:48You know, like your legacies aren't what you put on your wall. Your legacies are organic is what I always say to people. Like, you know, there are people that move on from you and improve upon what you couldn't get right but tried to get right throughout your life and move along with that. But like this idea of division, like anywhere we go, we put faith in like politicians, like single source politicians, like the idea of our government about being, like I only really care about who the president of the United States is. I don't care about who's on my town council, but I care about my guy winning and they're winning by dividing us.

13:17I mean, deeply divided elections, the last, you know, four elections, you look at how close these were for people that actually decided to come out and vote. And I think what's happening is that people are saying, well, this one guy's going to save me. This one gal's going to save me. And it's really not that. You save you. And you look to people that may be able to support some of your vision, whether it be taxes or schools or violence or individual rights, whatever it is that you're looking for more out of that. And you're going to achieve those things because you can hear it in your voice when you do your show.

13:49It's like you talk about it in your book, Like I remember going through those grinds in my life and going, you know, some of the things I stuck with just to see it through. And I knew all along it wasn't going to work. And when I was finally free is when I released myself of that. And I'd say, like, you know, I wasn't afraid of things anymore. I wasn't afraid to let the guy in in front of me. And, you know, when we're merging, like I didn't take it personal that he waited to the last minute to make a decision. And I was just like, dude, he's a dude. He's a man. He's a person. He's got things going on.

14:17I don't know why am I taking it so personal that somebody's doing this to me. and it was because I was just so frightened of things for so long. And then when I finally found my niche, I was like, I don't have to be scared anymore, at least not of that. Now I'm just afraid of heights. I'm older and I'm afraid of heights. I don't know why, but I am. When I was in Australia, I jumped off of a 443-foot canyon bungee jump. It was the highest bungee jump free fall in the entire southern hemisphere. So if you want to challenge yourself and get over your fear of heights, go to Queensland. Sorry, it was Queensland, New Zealand, not Australia.

14:54Oh, wow. Even further. Yeah, that's the place to go. I've got pictures. I've got video. It was insane. You literally jumped off the edge of the world when you think about it. So there's a quote in White Man Can't Jump where Wesley Snipes says, you're listening to this music, but you're not hearing this music. So what needs to happen so we can start hearing each other, Sean? It starts with just, I want to be heard. You know what I mean? Everybody thinks they have a right to be heard. I mean, I'd rather be understood than just heard. And I have a tendency to throw a lot of words at things, but I'd say break down what this person's really upset about.

15:37Don't throw it into the group. Don't throw it into the dynamic of, like we said about division. Where is it? Where can we meet some common ground and kind of hear like what it was saying. And I was listening to a podcast about the Laquan McDonald shooting. And it was done through NPR at a local station in Chicago. And they interviewed two kids from the inner city and how they felt about the shooting of the subject, Laquan McDonald. And as these kids were talking, although it was maybe a different like, you know, dialect than me, I was like, these kids are saying the same things that I'm thinking in my head.

16:11Like all the media wants to see us as is just this. They just want to see us as they only care about us when we're killed is what the kid said. They only care about us when we're getting shot or we're robbing people. And, you know, you could take it and replace it. And they'd say, well, they only care about the police when we're doing something wrong and not when we're doing right. And I was just like, you know what? For so long, I just looked at the package and just didn't hear what the kid was saying. And I should have just been listening to the message. You know what I mean? Like it's just words are words, but like really dig and see what it is.

16:39And because it might sound differently than you're used to, it doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that, you know, maybe you just got to open up a little bit more and realize, wow, we got a lot more in common than we have against each other. I'd be curious what the average person off the street would say if you just ask them, what do police do? I mean, I think you'd get a handful of answers. I think most of them would be centered around just three or four responses. So why don't I hand over to you and ask you, Sean, what do the police do? I mean, right now as a society, it's kind of like when people don't know what to do, they call the police.

17:17Everything from throwing a milk cart over a dying raccoon all the way up to how do I tell this person that their son or daughter died in a car crash, you know, municipalities away, maybe a nation away or, you know, overseas. That's left to the police officer to get a hold of somebody if the cell phone doesn't work or it doesn't reach or people don't feel that that was a serious call. and somebody's maybe, you know, punking them or something like that. These are the things that we've all got to stand in the middle of. And with time, that kind of wears on you. You don't, they can't possibly create every scenario you're going to be in, in a police academy or a film.

17:54If they did it for television or movies, no one would ever watch them. You know what I mean? Everything, like when you watch these cop shows, you're like, I mean, that might happen to you once in your career. Yeah. And if it went that way, it would definitely be way worse for you than you think, you know, as a police officer. I mean, at least from a liability standpoint and stuff like that. But I'd say understand that when people don't know what to do, they call the police. And if we've never experienced before either, you know, we don't we're trying to do the best we can in an environment that we're not even used to.

18:23You know, I don't know everyone's house. I don't know everyone's dynamic in their home. I come in there and then it's tough because I don't want to start. Oh, yeah, I've been here before. I understand this. I do that. Some of this stuff can become rote for you. But I would say to everyone that understand is that if you don't know what to do, we're people like you. And sometimes we don't know that because we have radios and guns and experience doesn't mean that we can handle it better. And as a police officer, you got to remember that, too, with people like, hey, how can we solve this problem together?

18:47You know, you want to come in there and just take charge. That's great. But we don't know. And it's a unique experience and it's so different every single time you experience like it could be snowing when I dealt with this. It could be raining. It could be the holidays were used to be ruined for me because I would ride around and I look at all the lights in the houses and I'd love it because my kids were. But I always remember, oh, yeah, that's where that, you know, that that person died or that's where that person, you know, was started doing narcotics. We had to come in there and we had to drag him out and his parents were upset or, you know, there was a domestic violence situation in there.

19:18And you got to remember that those are the things that police officers experience and deal with. And at times, you know, we haven't always had the right avenues to deal with that stuff, but we're getting way better at it. And I'd say long story short, I guess, is we do the things that people don't know what to do. You know, if we landed UFOs, you wouldn't call your National Guardsman. You would probably call a police officer if that ever happened. And that's kind of the perspective I would give to people. Like, we're not sure either, but let's work on this together and make sure that we can get through it.

19:43Sean, this is a tough subject, obviously. I will say, having lived for 13 months in a policeless state known as Iraq, I can tell you that a lot of people I don't think really understands what devastation can happen when there is no police force to be there and to hold people accountable and all these different things. So it's definitely something for people to think about, but obviously this is a tough subject. There's always room for improvement and in some cases, massive improvement. So why don't you take the mic here as we close things down and share with Fire Nation what you want us to know, the key takeaway you want us to have from this entire conversation.

20:24As you've said, we both have something in common. And like you talk to people about the military, no matter what's going on on the street, it's something that we have in common. It's a common shared experience. And it's a way that you can relate to an individual. And a lot of veterans suffer from things, you know, PTS, addiction, things like that. But it's always one thing that I could always like, no matter how bad the individual was having in a day, we could start talking about our unit and what we experienced. And some of it was very similar. And it was very helpful in that sense. And I'd say that people don't understand what we do because we don't let people in as a profession.

20:59And we all need to get better about understanding that very few of us actually do the work. And, you know, there's 600 ,000 police officers in the United States of America. And out of that number, only X amount of them are actually working every single day. And we have a lot of good interaction with the public. But we've got to get way better about, you know, our commodities is people. And that's where entrepreneurs can really grow. We have a need for that in law enforcement. And because you're not going to maybe make millions doing what you're doing in law enforcement, you can help create an environment where people can go out and make millions and become entrepreneurs.

21:32And, you know, if you give this idea of, hey, look, this is not an ideal situation, but I can hopefully be a gatekeeper for you to, you know, see that you can move beyond this. You can do much better. And as a police officer, understand that our product is people, our avatar, as you say, is, you know, what am I dealing with here? Who am I trying to appeal to at this very moment? Like you talked about going that, you know, mile in and an inch wide. And we got to look at that like every call. When I heard that, I was like, oh my God, that's how you handle a call. And that's what I'd say to police officers.

22:06Like that's the call. That's as far as you got. You can't apply it across a wide swath. You got to apply it to this inch of terrain that we're on and understand that common experiences is what behind us and you can't really make it like, well, you know, I've done this a million times. Each dynamic is different and you got to kind of work with that and understand each and every person you're dealing with. And hopefully we can improve the profession one person at a time, one inch at a time. Well, I'm honored that my book and some words that I may have said have helped you and your cause and really make positive progress in this world that we live in.

22:45So thank Thank you for sharing that. That's very meaningful. And how can Fire Nation maybe learn more about what you do and what you're talking about and connect with you going forward? Please start with our podcast. My partners and I, Chris and Scott, we have a podcast called Three Cops Talk. Or we have a, you know, you can reach us through email the same way. If you have any ideas for a show or anything you would want to throw at us or you'd like to hear more of, it's three, the number three, copstalk at gmail.com. and our website is www.3copstalk.com. And it's the three that is the number three.

23:20So you can reach out to us, let us know what's going on. We're always looking for different topics. It's not just geared towards cops, it's geared towards improving relationships with cops, better understanding us and us better understanding you. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with SF and JLD today. So keep up the heat. Head over to eofire.com, type Sean, S-H-A-U-N, in the search bar, and his show notes page will pop up with links to everything we talked about here today. And Sean, I want to say thank you for your service.