Fire Rescue International has always been an exciting educational opportunity for emergency service professionals from all over the world. The conference is sponsored by the International Association of Fire Chiefs and designed to utilize experts in the industry to develop excellence in fire officers. For Decatur Fire, this year’s expo will be even more exciting. Decatur Fire’s own Captain Violante has been selected to present her submission, “Winning Psychology of Fire Officers.” In her own words, she describes how her presentation was inspired by a book her nephew read in college.
“The Inner Game of Tennis is a book I read. My nephew is a the state champ wrestler and had to read it in college for a psychology class. As an athlete and fire officer, I saw how the concepts of the book would have helped me immensely had I read it in my youth. The part of the book that applies to fire officers deals with how our two selves communicate with one another and affect our performance. In addition, if we understand how we operate, disciplining, taking command, day to day operations can improve. As a Western culture, we are practice so many catch phrases, like ‘don’t mess up again, come on you can do this.’ Instead of focusing on the emotional side of improvement, if we look at the factual side, and use our training, better outcomes are sure to occur. Does that make sense? We should instead say, ‘I (or you) need to change x ,y, and z to get the better outcome.’ It has nothing to do with who you are as a person. If you begin to focus on insecurities and personal issues, you will psych yourself out and become distracted from accomplishing the task. This is obviously a struggle for me and I work hard in retraining myself.”
This year’s conference will be held in Charlotte, NC from the 26th-29th and Captain Violante has not yet received the exact day for her presentation, but has been awarded a complimentary Core Education or Officer Development pass. When the exact day of her presentation is determined, members of her Decatur Fire family are hoping to make the trip up to support her and cheer her on. She has certainly made us proud by receiving this recognition!