Hello again my friends. I have been mulling over the title of this post for some time now. It coincides with the steps that I have to take to pass this upcoming Fire Captain’s test. If you remember in an earlier post I talked about one of my goals is to pass the captain’s test. I also want to continue doing this Internet marketing thing. But I realized that I cannot do both. Thus the title of this post: Nothing Else Matters…Let me explain.
If you don’t know by now, studying for the Fire Captain’s test is the most studying that you will ever do in your life. The fire personnel out there know what I’m talking about, but you civilians have no clue. So I’ll explain it this way: There’s a reason why we firefighters do the things that we do. I mean, we get a lot of flack from the citizens that we protect for breaking windows and generally destroying shit. I know a lot of civilians might complain that we destroyed their property because we had nothing better to do. That’s far from the case.
When it comes to a fire behavior, it only wants to go one place: Up. If we don’t do the things that we do the fire will spread ALL OVER your home and nothing will be left standing. So essentially what we do is let the fire do what it wants to do, and that’s go up. We also give the fire what it needs to survive, and that’s plenty of oxygen. Thus we have to break your windows. Now in doing this we achieve a number of things: we control the fire and where it goes and we open up and make the atmosphere inside more tenable for whoever is in there. Be it firefighters or the residents that could be trapped.
Our first priority is the safety of our personnel on the fireground. So in doing the things that we do we make it safer for EVERYBODY. By breaking windows and opening up the place we avoid the fire spreading to other parts of the building. Because if the fire doesn’t go up, it will spread vertically until it finds or burns its way up. Now you know why we do the things that we do.
That was a brief description of just one of the tactics that firefighters everyday use in the fire service. There are many more, and as a Captain you have to be able to think on the fly. You are in charge of your own crew and you are responsible for them. You have to know which hose line to pull in response to whatever body of fire you have waiting for you when you first pull up to a house fire. Or warehouse fire. Or strip mall fire. Or whatever fire you happen to run into. That’s why you have to know your firematics INSIDE AND OUT. That’s why I have decided that I will have to put Internet marketing on hold…for now.
I love doing the whole I.M. thing. I love the whole idea of making money in your sleep. But if I really want to become Captain, I have to study like nobody’s business. Nothing else matters. Not Internet marketing. Not video games. Not football season,(uhhh!). Not even my personal goal of 10,000 a month before I retire. If I really want to become a Captain of the fire department I have to study everyday. EVERYDAY. There are two parts to the test: the written and the oral. The written is your average multiple choice test. But the oral is where many people fall. I’ve taken this test 3 times before and I’m pretty sure my oral is where I slipped. Because in the oral you have to explain STEP BY STEP what you have and what you are doing. And you can’t do that if you can’t bring it from the top of your head.
I have to know this stuff inside and out. I do know it, but it’s different when it comes to test taking. Some of the things that we take for granted when we respond to everyday emergencies I have to know like the back of my hand. For example, when we respond to an alarm call we put on out gear and jump on the truck and go. But that same scenario is explained a lot different during the oral test. Let me explain to you why.
In the fire service you have two realities: The real world and the test world. In the real world , just like in the example above, you put on your gear, you jump on the truck and go. In the test world as a captain you have to explain EVERY STEP that you take in that same scenario.
You have to say that you are responding with 4 personnel, you and 3 other firefighters. You have to say that all personnel will don their SCBA gear before they get on the truck. You have to say that all personnel will put on their seat belts before the truck leaves the station. You have to say that you and the driver will plot out the safest and most effective route before you leave the station. You have to say that while responding to the alarm you will make sure that your driver obeys all traffic laws while responding. You have to say that when you arrive at the address you will communicate that you have arrived at the address to dispatch and also that you are assuming command and where the command station will be. You have to say all of this because in the test world if you didn’t say it, you didn’t do it! And they takes points away from you for that.
Now because of this as I stated earlier I will have to put I.M on the back burner. I won’t be doing it at all. I know the test is coming up soon because of all the chatter that I’m hearing. As I stated before, I took this test before 3 times and I passed. But I didn’t get high enough score to get promoted. I think I am #32 on the list now. But that’s not good enough these days. To make Captain in my fire department you have to get in the top 10!Hell, it might be the top 5! So that means I have to be flawless. And I can’t do that if I’m worried about my emails, my conversions, my bounce rate and all that other stuff associated with I.M.
Nothing else matters. I have to focus on this and nothing else. Point blank. It’s kind of like preparing for a debate. You can’t talk off the top of your head about stuff you don’t know because it will show. So I have to know this stuff better than I know anything else in my life. That is the only way that I’ll be able to get the score that I want so that I can get the ranking that I want, so I can get the promotion I want. And then once that happens, I’ll come back to I.M.
Am I saying that this will be my last post? Yes and No. If nothing else pops in my mind in the process of studying it will be my last post. But if something comes to me that I want to share with the rest of the world, then no, this isn’t my last post. I know a lot of internet marketers who read this blog are probably wondering why I don’t make my posts more seo friendly, so that the posts can show up in the Search engine results. I could care less about that stuff when it comes to this blog. I write on whatever title comes to my mind. I save those seo-friendly titles for my other sites. The stuff here on this blog is from the heart.
I’ll be talking to you later my friends.
“Whatever the mind can conceive, the man can achieve.” – LL Cool J
