Episode 173: Episode 6–3 – Capt. John Lovato, Jr. – Brotherhood Coaching

What makes a team? Its members? Its leader? Its tasks? To be honest, it is all of those and more. It takes training, learning, training some more, learning more and of course, the leader and members sharing their knowledge. 

Capt. John Lovato Jr., has been a firefighter in southwest Florida since 2003, with the City of Ft. Myers Fire Dept. A third-generation firefighter, he started in the suburbs of Chicago; no easy place to learn to be a firefighter! As he learned his craft, he rose through the ranks, now a Captain and fill-in Battalion Chief. 

One of the most important tenets he learned was teamwork, And that means that every firefighter on the team must share in the team’s tasks. As is often said,” Just because you got a t-shirt, doesn’t make you a firefighter!” 

It takes working together, practicing together, learning, and teaching each other. Just like two cogs in a machine, when the gears mesh-up, the machine works well. But if just one cog has a broken tooth, the machine stops…COLD. If firefighting teams stop…danger and disaster may follow!

Listen to his message, then ask yourself, “Am I a true member of a team or am I a freelancer?”

Photo courtesy: NASA/Daniel Casper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons