Let This Always Be The Answer | I Was the First FDNY Chief on the Scene on 9/11

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1:09Chief Joseph Pfeifer: If you're hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:28Chief Joseph Pfeifer: On this day 25 years ago, Brian Sweeney was a passenger trapped on hijacked United Airlines Flight 175. He knew something was wrong, but he could not have fully understood that he and so many others were about to be murdered in one of the most hateful and deranged acts of terrorism in history. But in those final few short minutes of his life, he managed to leave a beautiful message on his wife's voicemail. Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I'm on an airplane that's been hijacked. Things don't go well. I'm looking good. I just want you to know I absolutely love you. I want you to be good. I'm so happy this time.

2:06Chief Joseph Pfeifer: Same to my parents and everybody. I just totally love you. And I'll see you later. Bye, babe. Bye, Paul. In book one of Meditations, where Marcus Aurelius catalogs of the most important things he learned throughout his life. He said that he learned from a teacher named Sextus to be free of passion, yet full of love. Imagine the terror of that moment. Yet when you hear Brian's voice coming through the phone, there's not a trace of fear. It's free of passion, free of anger, free of despair, free of everything, yet full of love. Because everything else has been stripped away, rendered irrelevant and insignificant.

2:47Chief Joseph Pfeifer: Pure love, Seneca said, careless of all other things, kindles the soul, makes us selfless, it emboldens us, makes us courageous, inspires us to be strong, instills us with purpose. It doesn't always win, as Sweeney's tragic death reminds us, but it is an antidote to terror and cruelty and evil. It is the thing that keeps going, that lives on after us, that brings meaning and comfort, even in the worst of situations. So today, on the anniversary of 9-11, let us, as Marcus Aurelius said and Sweeney was, let us be full of love. Let us tell those we love that we totally love them. Let us bring love to every situation we face.

3:32Chief Joseph Pfeifer: Indeed, there is almost no situation in which passion helps, but almost every situation is made better when it is full of love.

3:49Chief Joseph Pfeifer: Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Today is the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I remember I was in my room getting ready for school on the West Coast and I was listening to this radio show I would listen to every morning. I could just tell the instant I turned it on that the tone was different. Something had happened. They'd mentioned something about a plane crash. I went out to the living room. I remember we'd just moved to a new house and our cable TV hadn't gotten set up. So we had like a TV in the living room and when we wanted to watch TV, we were waiting.

4:26Chief Joseph Pfeifer: Like we had these like rabbit ears. I remember adjusting the rabbit ears to get network television and watching this somewhat scratchy broadcast of, I guess, I think the second tower, this is between the first and second tower, but I don't remember. And I do, I do remember that I didn't remember, right? Like, and I know how tricky memory can be. So I don't want to sort of paint a scene that I don't have an actual sense memory of. I do remember talking to my father there in the living room and going, I wonder if this will be like Pearl Harbor for my generation. And he said, no, I don't think so.

5:04Chief Joseph Pfeifer: I think this will be an isolated incident. The weight of what had fully happened, I don't think the towers had come down yet. My dad had worked in some terrorism adjacent stuff. He was an explosives expert. And so I think he had an no one understanding that there'd been terrorist attacks before. He didn't know what it was going to be. And I remember a couple of months later, a year later, he said, you know, I remember you said that. And it turns out it was. Like one of the first discussions I remember having with my father where we're sort of both equal participants in what was happening in the world.

5:43Chief Joseph Pfeifer: And then I went to school as a freshman in high school, and some of the teachers had us watching it. Some of them were like, no, we have to do school. I remember that. And, you know, everything that came after remained to come after. That's the thing you have to remember about history is that in the moment, it's just a moment. As it's unfolding, nobody knows where it's going to go. And as David McCullough says, it could always go differently. So today's going to be kind of a special episode. We're going to hear from Chief Joseph Pfeiffer, who was the first FDNY chief to arrive at the World Trade Center on 9-11.

6:27Chief Joseph Pfeifer: He watched the first plane hit the North Tower, took command of the initial response. On that same morning, he also lost his younger brother, Lieutenant Kevin Pfeiffer. He is the author of Ordinary Heroes, a memoir of 9-11, which is a new 25th anniversary edition. And in the years since, he's taken some of those lessons he learned in some of the most extreme circumstances imaginable, along with conversations he's had with leaders around the world. Chief Pfeiffer and Penguin Random House, they were nice enough to share this excerpt, which I appreciate, to make this special episode. And I'll just get into it, right?

7:03Chief Joseph Pfeifer: The first section is going to be from an early chapter in the book. It's read by the audiobook narrator. And then the second is the epilogue, which is read by Chief Pfeiffer himself. You can grab a copy of Ordinary Heroes, a memoir of 9-11. I'll link to that in today's show notes. But here is Chief Pfeiffer's incredible story.

7:31Fred Sanders: Arriving in three minutes, we dismounted the rigs into a glorious September morning. Pristine blue sky, bright sun, mild temperature. summer just heading into fall, one of those top ten days of the year that makes you feel alive, ready to tackle anything. Standing in the street, I pulled out a gas detector about the size of a firefighter's portable radio with a very sensitive probe on the top, which I carried in my vehicle. After a few minutes walking up and down the street, I got a buzzing sound, a hit, over a sewer grate, and a whiff of sewer gas, a normal false positive. I sent some firefighters into basements and nearby restaurants looking for the source, and they found none.

8:17Fred Sanders: As was standard practice, I asked my aide to contact Con Ed to check it out with their equipment. Suddenly, I heard the thunderous roar of jet engines at full throttle. In Manhattan, you rarely hear planes because of the tall buildings. Looking west, I saw a low-flying commercial airliner so close that I could read the word American on the fuselage Racing south above the Hudson River, visible just above the buildings on Church Street The plane zoomed past us and disappeared from my sight for a couple of seconds behind some taller buildings When it reappeared, I saw the aircraft was aiming for the North Tower of the World Trade Center It was 8.46 a.m.

9:07Fred Sanders: I stood on the street and watched as the airplane intentionally crashed into the upper floors of the World Trade Center. The aircraft slammed dead center into the building, the wings carving a huge gash through the upper floors of the 110-story skyscraper. A massive fireball erupted, followed a second later by an ear-splitting explosion. Black smoke billowed from the wound the aircraft had ripped in the steel and glass building. The impact took my breath away. Time seemed to stand still as we watched the flames. Then the firefighters around me erupted in a chorus of, Holy shit! Oh my God! Holy shit!

9:50Fred Sanders: A plane hit the building! In horror and disbelief, I tried to comprehend what I had just seen. One of the tallest buildings in the world was struck by a commercial jet and on fire. Thousands of people were in that building or arriving to begin their workday. We were only a few blocks from the World Trade Center, almost certainly some of the closest firefighters to the disaster. As the closest chief in Lower Manhattan, I knew instantly I was going to be the first chief on the scene and would have to take command. Get back on the rigs, shouted Captain Tardio to Engine 7's firefighters, who grabbed their equipment and scrambled into their places on the vehicles.

10:35Fred Sanders: Lieutenant Walsh did the same thing with the firefighters of Ladder 1. I jumped back into my red SUV, followed by Jules. Go, go to the Trade Center, I told Firefighter Ed Fahey, who that day was driving me for the first time as a battalion aide. His job was to drive with lights and sirens so I could talk on the department radio. I looked up at the smoking north tower and grabbed the radio. I needed to give concise orders to command and control our response. Battalion 1 to Manhattan. Battalion 1, the dispatcher responded. We just had a plane crash into upper floors of the World Trade Center, I said.

11:16Fred Sanders: Transmit a second alarm and start relocating companies into the area. 10-4, Battalion 1. Battalion 1 is also sending the whole assignment on this box to that area. I was informing the dispatcher that the units with me at the odor of gas were now assigned to the WTC. This box referred to the location of the red fire call box on the corner. All the rigs on that box were now heading to Box 8087, the north tower of the World Trade Center. With lights flashing and sirens blaring, our convoy raced south on West Broadway to the WTC. In seconds, my mind flooded with a hundred pieces of information as I thought about my next moves.

12:01Fred Sanders: Biting thousands of fires had taught me to recognize danger, to pick up small details and process them at lightning speed. The more experience you have, the faster you can process the information by matching it to past incidents and envision a possible course of action. But this was a novel event I had to slow my thinking down And anticipate the unexpected That was an American Airlines plane, I said That looked like a direct attack I had no idea who was responsible But I knew it was a terrorist attack I could feel my heart rate subtly increase At the height of the workday There were as many as 40 ,000 people In the World Trade Center complex Hundreds of people had probably died as the plane bulldozed through the building.

12:52Fred Sanders: Many others were likely in danger. Of one thing I was certain. We were going to the biggest fire of our lifetime. The biggest fire since the FDNY was founded in 1865. I was in charge of the FDNY response for now. I had to gather situational awareness, inform the dispatcher, request additional alarms, develop a plan, and deploy firefighting resources. As we drove, I watched white and black smoke billowing from the building. After the initial fireball, I saw no more flame. It was difficult to identify exactly which floors were involved, but certainly multiple floors were now internally ablaze, and the fire would quickly spread.

13:38Fred Sanders: Over the years as a firefighter, I had learned how important it was in a crisis to be flexible in my thought processes. I learned when to rely on intuitive gut feelings That wall is about to collapse, get out! and when to switch to deliberate or analytical thinking Especially as a chief, being able to step back and see the big picture is crucial I forced myself into a deliberate calm Though I had extensive experience with high-rise fires and taught the subject at the fire academy none of us had ever been confronted with a massive high-rise fire on numerous upper floors. My focus was, what do I need to do right now?

14:21Fred Sanders: Sixty seconds after giving the first radio transmission, I got on the radio again. Battalion 1 to Manhattan. We have a number of floors on fire. It looked like the plane was aiming toward the building. Transmit a third alarm. We'll have the staging area at Vessie and West Street. Have the third alarm assignment go into that area. The second alarm assignment to report to the building. The dispatcher and the incoming units needed to know what I knew in my gut. This was not an accident, but a deliberate attack by a plane aiming for the building. With those two orders, I'd asked for about 150 firefighters to go to the scene, with two-thirds reporting to me in the building, others reporting to a staging location where they would await assignment.

15:16Chief Joseph Pfeifer: We were in Rome this summer and my family and I stayed in this amazing palazzo that we booked on Airbnb. It had these frescoes that were twice as old as America. Just one of the most beautiful places I've ever stayed in in my life. And in fact, I found out later that the people that owned it were listing their place on Airbnb. They were the third family to ever own it. I just thought it was so cool. By listing it on Airbnb, they were not only able to pay to restore and take care of this incredible piece of history, but they were also able to share it with the world. So if you're planning on being away, if you have a property or an extra bedroom or maybe a vacation home, you should consider listing it on Airbnb.

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17:24Chief Joseph Pfeifer: AI agents work alongside to help you solve problems and handle routine work. And anytime you have a question, you just ask, just like having a conversation with a colleague. NetSuite is customized for a wide variety of industries, so it supports the way your business truly works. Whether that company earns millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars, it's time for NetSuite Next. For the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to netsuite.ai. It's built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. netsuite.ai slash stoic.

18:02Fred Sanders: This is the author, Joseph Pfeiffer. On 9-11, I was called to lead in extraordinary times. Thrust into a world of extreme events, I made critical decisions in the heat of the moment when lives were on the line. My memoir would not be complete without revealing the profound lessons I learned from this unforgettable crisis. Forged in fire, I found that when every minute counts, the three most important leadership skills are connecting, collaborating, and coordinating. These lifelines of leadership allow us to find the resilience needed to lead in a crisis. Connecting to voice, video, and data for situational awareness is the initial lifeline.

18:56Fred Sanders: Information must be shared in real time among agencies and with the public. The old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, is so true. A few seconds of video and voice communications could have made a difference in our evacuation on 9-11. And today, our ability to connect to information is even greater. Agencies can transmit images from helicopters and drones, along with radio messages and building data to each other and to handheld devices at the scene. Since 2002, I've advocated for safety technology to track firefighters inside burning buildings, which could also benefit the public. Imagine being trapped by fire or floodwaters and your phone sending your location to first responders.

19:50Fred Sanders: With so many advances in technology, it's more important than ever to leverage these innovations to connect to information, which helps prevent blind spots about the severity of the incident, its life hazards, and the dangers we face. While connecting provides better situational awareness, collaborating to exchange ideas with others is the second vital lifeline. This reduces the tendency on the stress to engage only with one's own group. In a crisis, leaders must gather near each other and flatten command to encourage communication across different groups and ranks. Effective collaboration involves practicing crisis empathy by understanding your counterparts' objectives and fears, then verbally acknowledging their perspectives and concerns.

20:44Fred Sanders: When people feel included and their voice is valued, we gain insights into the subtleties they observe. Appreciating others and their diverse roles creates an atmosphere of trust for collaborative decision-making to manage the crisis. Once leaders collaborate effectively and empathetically, they must coordinate efforts across multiple agencies, which is the third lifeline. Crisis leaders should ask organizations, what can you do? How much can you do? How quickly can you do it? Leaders can then rely on a network of teams based on location and function to implement tactics, move in the same direction under a unified command, and stay out of one another's way through decentralized control.

21:35Fred Sanders: Incident management teams can facilitate this network approach by creating incident action plans to inform responders about objectives, strategies, and resources. On the morning of 9-11, these three core principles were missing, but even that imperfect response saved 20 ,000 lives. As the towers fell, it demanded a massive response of unprecedented unity from countless organizations, shifting emotions from grief to collective action. On the rubble pile of crumbled concrete and twisted steel, leaders emerged to create a delivered calm, ensuring that responders connected to critical information, agencies collaborated to develop innovative solutions to novel problems, and teams coordinated to carry out those solutions.

22:32Fred Sanders: After encountering extreme events like 9-11, we carry those experiences with us. However, through storytelling of lessons learned, they carry themselves. These same three principles from 9-11 have taken themselves to profound crises, including the historic 2019 fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where leaders made critical decisions to send firefighters into the burning bell towers to save the 860-year-old cathedral. As the spiral collapsed and fierce orange flames raced across the wood-framed roof, General Jean-Claude Gallet, the head of the Paris Fire Brigade, realized that the only way to fight the fire was from the inside.

23:20Fred Sanders: Yet connecting the structural information indicated there was a risk that the multi-ton bells could fall, crushing the firefighters and reducing the cathedral to ashes. General Gallais said, This was the moment of truth, to go or not to go. He later confided in me, saying, At that moment, I thought of you on 9-11, making critical decisions in the World Trade Center North Tower. In a glance, it was clear what General Gallais had to do. He quickly met with President Emmanuel Macron, Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, and other senior officials. He explained the risk and said, we only have 20 minutes for firefighters to put out the flames in the cathedral's towers to save Notre Dame.

24:13Fred Sanders: The decision-making process was collaborative, with religious, local, and national leaders considering the risks and potential outcomes together. President Macron took the general's arm and said, All right, go ahead. With a delivered presence of mind, General Gallet ordered the coordinated deployment of firefighters into the North Tower to save the cathedral. According to Gallet, it was as if we were experiencing Victor Hugo's novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. You can imagine seeing the shadow of the hunchback above the bells. As firefighters climbed the narrow spiral stairs of the bell towers, the lights from the helmets were a flicker of hope as they put out the hot, scorching flames.

25:05Fred Sanders: While the flames were still raging, other firefighters ran back into the cathedral under a rain of fire to rescue Jesus' crown of thorns along with other priceless treasures. Once the fire was extinguished, the rescue relics and artworks had to be safeguarded, leading to coordination between the church and the state for their transport and security. Mayor Hildago offered Paris' City Hall, the Hotel de Ville, as a secure place. She later said, This was the first time in centuries that the religious and secular were together in one place. Ordinary heroes implementing the three principles of crisis leadership saved the cathedral and its relics that night.

25:54Fred Sanders: But these crisis leadership lifelines, honed from the experience of 9-11, are still urgently needed today. The next extreme event looms on the horizon, calling us to respond bravely once again. These lifelines will be necessary whether we are confronted with terrorist attacks, including the use of fire as a weapon, cyber attacks, or perhaps our most existential risk today, climate-related disasters. Our ability to manage the effects of more frequent and extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, flooding, or higher temperatures will depend upon leaders adopting the leadership principles we learned from 9-11.

26:42Fred Sanders: To that end, I have traveled the globe since 9-11, teaching these three principles of crisis leadership at universities, organizations, and government agencies. This journey moved me to design a handheld challenge coin, a tradition often done by senior leaders in the military and fire departments to represent their commands and values, forming a bond among those who possess them. For my coin, with the Brooklyn Bridge and the new One World Trade Center in the background, I carved, The art of crisis leadership is to connect, collaborate, and coordinate, reminding us of our duty to extend these lifelines in dangerous times, preventing the forces of a crisis from pulling us down.

27:34Fred Sanders: I share these insights worldwide with the hope of making a difference, and in doing so, I find it also lightens the burden of knowledge I carry from that day. During a speech I gave at the United Nations to the Global Congress of Victims of Terrorism, I spoke about the courage of our collective voices and put into words what was in all our hearts. We do not ignore the pain of being victims of terrorism. Instead, we give it purpose to bring about change because without purpose, there is no hope. And without hope, there is no call to global action. The purpose of sharing my story and the three crisis leadership principles I learned through 9-11 is the hope that these lessons will prepare current and future generations for the challenges ahead and for the moment when they too may be called to be ordinary heroes in extraordinary times.