Years ago, I worked for a Battalion Chief who was a great mentor for me. I was a new Captain and didn’t have much support from the other officers on the fire department, let alone support from a Chief officer. But my Battalion Chief gave me some real pearls of wisdom. He had two that stuck with me the most. The first pearl was “Don’t worry, you’ll outlive the bastards.” That was his way of telling me not to worry about all the old school guys I worked with. I would survive them. And I did too.

But the second pearl that I remembered all these years was, “No matter what, make it sound good on the radio.” I didn’t quite understand the lesson he was trying to teach me. But I eventually did understand it. And the story today is how I learned the lesson he was trying to teach me with his simple statement.

After listening to this story, I hope you can appreciate the importance of “sounding good on the radio.”