Code 3 up High Street and I am in the bucket again. I can see the accident ahead. Two cars and a crowd of people. The truck driver, who we will call the Little Hippo, pops the air brakes and we hop off getting to work.

In Oakland Fire, the truck driver is an unpromoted position with a ton of responsibility. Little Hippo and the officer go to the two cars and start making the plan. The tiller, me, and the birddog (OFD 4th FF on the truck) gathered the extrication equipment. We quickly establish a cache of equipment and check in with the Little Hippo. “Pop this door and drop the windshield, we are going to have to push the dash,” Little Hippo said, “I am getting inside to cover the patient.”

Now for those of you who don’t know, this is an odd plan. Most often the truck driver operates the tools and the tiller supports. But I didn’t question my driver and got to work. The operation went nickel slick. That day we ended up cutting three people out of two cars. That day we did our job quietly and without praise, the way it should be. We succeeded due to the confidence of Little Hippo.

The Cousin of Confidence

Confidence is a close cousin of Composure, which we explored in the last article. It is hard to have composure without being confident, and confidence in one’s abilities will produce a level of composure.

We can start to see the dance and interplay between the 6 Cs (composure, confidence, concentration, conditioning, consistency, and contemplation), confidence is no different. Peak performance lies in a balance between over confident vs under confident, ego vs self-doubt. Confidence is like a riptide, it is just under the surface unseen, but strong and steady, quiet and humble.

Confidence can pull one through the waves of life past the breakers. The individual must be confident in their ability to execute and perform their skills. Like Little Hippo, the leader must be confident in his or her plan or orders and extend that confidence to the team. A team must be confident in each other’s abilities and knowledge. But confidence never extends to “winning,” only to performance and more importantly, how you and your team performs. Let’s turn back to our story.

After we got back to the firehouse, got everything cleaned and ready to go again, I checked in with Little Hippo, asking why she didn’t use the Hurst and get inside the car. The answer was simple, like so many great bits of wisdom are: “it was the best place for me and you knew what you were doing.”

“I just followed your plan which was smooth, by the way,” I answered. Little Hippo smiled and said, “I know.” Little Hippo not only protected the patient but also guided us while using the Hurst equipment. She was our eyes inside the vehicle, making sure our operations outside the car didn’t cause any more injury to the patient inside.

Understanding Confidence

For all those “new kids,” remember every action causes a reaction. Don’t “push the dash” and crush the patient in the passenger seat. Little Hippo would shout, “Spread. Stop. Reposition. We need blocking here and here.” She was our brains and we were her tools. I would think about this call for years, even to this day. Her nickname Little Hippo came from the Ruby Pitch, but that is a story for a different time. Her wisdom came from a lifetime of high level sports and years as one of the best “trucks” in the OFD. She understood confidence.

The first lesson of confidence is: We cannot be confident in winning. Winning is out of our control. A team or an individual can have the best performance ever, with all 6 Cs in alignment, but the other team or person might just be better. In fact, we often have our best performances at the edge of our ability to win. Could there have been an Ali without Frazier? Winning is a byproduct of peak performance, not a guarantee, and not the other way around.

So then what are we confident in? We must be confident in our own abilities and our team’s abilities. This confidence is built through honesty, mantras and reframing our understanding of nerves or being nervous. As we build confidence, the ability to execute and perform well in any situation increases proportionately. Conditioning, one of our other 6 Cs, plays a huge role in the building and development of abilities and ultimately the level of confidence. However, for now we will focus on honesty, mantras, and reframing being nervous and return to conditioning in a subsequent article.

About Honesty

Honesty at first glance seems out of place in the world of peak performance but let’s look at our story. Little Hippo was honest with the situation and where she was best for the team to perform our best. It would have been nearly impossible for me or Birddog to get into the car and cover the PT due to the nature of the vehicle damage. But more importantly, Little Hippo had the knowledge to guide us from inside the cars. Little Hippo didn’t let her ego get in the way. “Where am I most valuable to this team and our goals?” or “Where can I have the greatest impact?” are questions we need to ask and answer, quickly, in every game, fire, or incident we face.

When one is confident in one’s ability and knowledge, these questions can be answered quickly. However, one can not be confident without honesty at an individual level. At an individual level, honesty will focus our attention on areas of weakness which need development. In general, a lack of confidence in an area is due to a lack of proficiency. We will learn more about this when we examine conditioning, but the first step is an honest self-assessment, so let us start with that.

Little Hippo had spent decades assessing herself and building confidence, a painful process. Through this arduous journey she developed a level of confidence that few ever reach, the place where one has nothing to prove. She was the riptide. This confidence is why we didn’t question Little Hippo, why we followed her orders and plan, and in a very real way it is why those trapped people lived.

-Individual confidence produces leaders and leaders produce high-functioning teams. This is who the Little Hippo is and why we listen (leadership is not a badge). It is the level of confidence I still aspire to. This aspiration has led me to search for other ways to increase one’s confidence besides an honest self-assessment. The use of mantras is one such way.

Using Mantras

Mantras may seem like New Age woo-woo magic to most firefighters, but they work. Not only do they work but science now has evidence that points to the changes in brain structure in those who use mantras.

In a 2009 study, the NIH (National Institute for Health) indicated that those who practice mantras performed better in stressful situations. Subsequent studies have proven that mantras reduce the levels of cortisol in the brain, literally changing brain chemistry. Remember the article on composure looked at visualization and the power that held, and mantras are the other side of that coin. One builds composure and the other builds confidence.

Mantras, like visualization, help to rewire and reprogram our brains but it takes constant and repeated effect. But unlike visualization, mantras can be used in the moment. Mantras can be used when confidence starts to slip in the game or on the fireground. Mantras reduce cortisol, which reduces the stress response, which will allow us to concentrate better, which produces confidence. Here are a few Mantras that have been effective for me over the years:

  • It’s like me to perform well
  • Under pressure I execute. I perform
  • I find solutions to hard problems
  • Those that stop fail. I don’t stop
  • Nerves are normal
  • Nerves are my body getting ready to perform at its best. Without nerves, I can’t be my best

Try out mantras. Make them personal. Use them often, reprogramming the brain takes time but you are worth the effort.

The Link Between Being Nervous and Peak Performance

Finally, we turn our attention to why nerves or being nervous is important for peak performance. Far too often people associate nervousness with low performance. “Don’t be nervous, you will be fine,” or “you have nothing to be nervous about” are lines I am sure we have all heard.

Most of us see nerves as killers of confidence, nerves shake our belief in our ability to perform and eliminate our ability to execute. But what if I told you this is only part of the story? That we have been missing the other half of the story? What if I told you that when one gets nervous the adrenaline coursing through our body is the reason for the nerves and the changes in physiology we experience. Imagine there was a pill you could take without side effects. This pill would change your physiology, getting you ready for a peak performance. Taking this pill would:

  • Increase strength
  • Increase stamina
  • Increase visual acuity
  • Increase auditory processing
  • Increase energy
  • Increase pain tolerance
  • Increase cognitive processing and decision making
  • Increase available ATP
  • Increase cognition
  • Decrease need for food, making stored energy reserves available
  • Decrease need for hydration

Would you take it? The answer is easy: yes. These are the physiological changes that occur in our body due to adrenaline. Our body is wise, it knows how to shift our physiology, making peak performance possible. Without the nerves there is no best. That needs to be repeated: Without the nerves there is no BEST.

In the Shadow

There is a shadow side to the increase in adrenaline and nerves. I have been in the doom cycle of nerves and self-doubt. It goes like this: adrenaline increases nerves, which leads the mind to doubt performance (because that is what we have been taught), the doubt leads to more adrenaline and more nerves, and the doom cycle is off and running. It took me years of training the mind to understand that nerves are my body’s way of getting ready. I needed to develop confidence in the wisdom of my body. I did this through education and mantras, which you now have. Changing decades of neuroprogramming is not easy but the rainbow on the other side is worth the effort.

More than a decade later in my career I would find myself at a multiple-vehicle crash with multiple PT trapped. I was the truck driver with a new crew this time and I remembered what Little Hippo did all those years ago. I laid out the plan and got into the car. As the two new kids used the tools, I guided them, just as Little Hippo did for me years ago. My knowledge was my biggest attribute.

I had two monster new kids, so they worked and I guided them. A lesson in confidence learned from Little Hippo. Confidence of all the 6 Cs might be the most misunderstood and faked. Fake confidence and ego are everywhere, but when true confidence walks into a room, we all know. Confidence is quiet, focused, and calm. It has an aura of inevitability because those who possess it know they will perform well and execute regardless of the situation. It is humble and lacks the aura of inexperience found in so many. Confidence just IS.

Enjoy, and as always I offer what has worked for me in hope that it will guide you in your journey. Turn in next for concentration.