S2E47: Who Helps Those in Law Enforcement

Jan Ferguson is a Speaker, Business Consultant, Board-Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Certified Master NLP Practitioner, and NLP Trainer who served in law enforcement for 32 years. Jan has dedicated his life to empowering individuals to achieve even more in life and business. He has earned numerous awards and certifications including the President's Call to Service Award, the Presidential Volunteer Service Award-Gold Level, multiple insurance designations and numerous other law enforcement awards. Jan is a loving father and husband who has been married for over 35 years. Jan's greatest passion is to empower individuals to achieve next-level success.

Social media and contact information: The best way to contact me is through my personal website at https://janf360.com. There you can call, email, or text me, and find all my social media accounts and more at https://janf360.com

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where sweet, struggling law enforcement people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.

In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?

My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.

Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Jan Ferguson. He has many roles in his life. Husband, father, brother, cousin, uncle, grandfather, godfather. Not the Sicilian type and more. We'll talk about how he experienced traumatic and horrific events as a law enforcement officer and how he found health and healing. Let's talk

 Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Jan Ferguson with us. He is speaker business consultant board certified clinical hypnotherapist certified master NLP practitioner, and NLP trainer who served in law enforcement for over 32 years. Jan has dedicated his life to empowering individuals to achieve even more in life and business.

He has earned numerous awards. And certifications, including the president's call to service award, you can find Jan at https://janf360.com where you can find all of his contact information. Jan, welcome to the show.

[00:02:49] Jan Ferguson: Thank you, Angela. It's really pleasure to be here.

[00:02:51] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I'm super excited because. I have not interviewed someone. I consider a friend in a while. And so it's always interesting. I think there's this idea sometimes that when having a friend that we know all about them. And I know that's not true. I know that you're going to tell me things today that may be surprising that I had no idea that you went through and I'm really grateful that you're willing to open up and be vulnerable about that.

[00:03:25] Jan Ferguson: Absolutely. Yeah. That type of thing can be cathartic even years and years and years afterwards. And I find myself learning a lot more and being more open, as I get older.

[00:03:37] Damaged Parents: Oh, yeah. you said more open. What does more open mean to you.

[00:03:42] Jan Ferguson: Well, having been in law enforcement for over 32 years even before everything that's going on now, which will be cyclical, everybody just like it was with the Vietnam vets coming back, how everybody hated them. And now everybody loves our veterans. It's going to.

be the same way with police officers. I, I know it will be this type of thing is it's cyclical and history of cyclical let's face it. And so, but when it comes down to that police officers routinely in my, experience are very. Introverted with regard to what they let out in public. when the internet and Facebook and all these social medias came up, we were repeatedly told don't go on them.

Don't get involved because something you put in there. Could always be taken wrong. And because technically you're a public figure to a certain extent. People might complain about it and I don't know about where you're at, but I've seen it on news reports all over the place where somebody's. Put something in there and they were there firefighter or law enforcement officer, and somebody took it wrong.

The person ended up the officer or firefighter ended up with either days off suspension. Sometimes they were fired and it was their own personal opinion. Possibly. Maybe they spoke about political things. Maybe it was. A joke. , law enforcement officers and firefighters paramedics sometimes to deal with the tragedy we dealt with at any given time covered it up.

And we were able to live through it by making a joke. And it wasn't a joke at the person or anything in particular, but that type of thing relieves the stress and the tension of the moment. And sometimes that type of thing. I mean, cops ended up being jokers really, and, that type of thing when they write it into a public forum where it's going to be for forever.

So we just have to take a snapshot up and there it is, maybe they meant it. in a joking manner, but somebody else saw it incorrectly. So that's kind of where I haven't been opened because it took me a long time to do anything on social media was a lurker basically. So I knew what my nieces, my nephews, my sisters were doing other than what we talked on the phone.

And so, but now I'm a lot more open with regard to a lot of things. A lot of things are probably still hidden and I realized that is stuff I've dealt with internally, but I just haven't put out there.

[00:06:17] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Did it take a lot of courage or how much courage did it take to start even becoming active on social media after feeling such a need to protect yourself?

[00:06:28] Jan Ferguson: It was hard, really hard. And the way I did it was I can't move my camera around so you could see it, but I've got like a box light here, box light. There are big 18 inch light in front of me circle light. And then I bought a really good camera. I got all that stuff and said, and with positive thoughts on this, if I get this, I've got to use it.

[00:06:50] Damaged Parents: Mm.

[00:06:51] Jan Ferguson: And that, then I said, okay, now how am I going to do this? My wife was already going live with her part-time business at the time, which is now full-time she's also a coach and an energy healer. but I didn't know how I could do it. So then I started with just some very small things, got comfortable with it.

The very first one, I was stumbling and stuttering and. pausing so that it wasn't saying a lot of ums and as an us and all this kind of stuff, but that actually helps me because I got, I watched it and watched it got better the next time. And I don't think I make those type of mistakes now.

[00:07:30] Damaged Parents: That's pretty amazing. So as a law enforcement officer, gosh, I feel like there's this sense of you are being watched all the time and heaven forbid you make a tiny little mistake. And how did you cope with that? I mean, in those moments, how do you cope?

That's a lot of pressure. I mean, I remember when I used to be able to work and I was sitting at my desk and the supervisor wants to come watch and I can't seem to type all of a sudden, you know what I mean? So how did you do that as a law enforcement officer?

[00:08:03] Jan Ferguson: The very first part of my career, I'd say probably, oh, through. I mean, I started in the early eighties and probably through about the time of cell phones, having cameras. That was when it got a lot tougher because that's when people could record you. Out in public, they didn't carry the big VCRs or anything anymore, even the small ones.

And so it was right on their phone. They were able to do it. So the first part was really not a big deal. And as long as you had a good reputation, the person could be making something up, but they knew. Yeah. When your Sergeant, your Lieutenant, whoever else knew that that was not you. And so they usually tell the person, oh, well, I'll talk to them about it or something like that.

And they Would tell you all this, this person complaint, what do you have to say about it And I'd say, Hey, it's made up, that's it. And so, with that in mind, After that I was very lucky. My last 18 years I was a supervisor. And Officer in charge of the information technology unit, making sure the, all the officers and everybody actually in the department had the equipment they needed.

We worked on data investigations. I had another officer with me and then some civilians. And so we were the unit, but the chief had me start that unit. And so luckily. As I grew older, I wasn't out there anymore, dealing with the public as much as I was when I was on road patrol. When I was in canine, this type of thing.

[00:09:35] Damaged Parents: Would you say it was helpful? and maybe in some ways it has been helpful for the law enforcement officers that maybe didn't have those standards, that people do have video cameras now. I mean, I know that's kind of a hot question, huh?

[00:09:50] Jan Ferguson: Yeah. Th there might've been back in the old days, where officers lied and got away with stuff. Because, even I remember a judge when I was in Wyoming and officer out there, a judge, when I first met her, when I first started with that department said, I believe every officer.

When they testify in my court, she said, but if I find out one time, you lied to me, you better have all your T's cross, your I's dotted and basically have a confession or the person standing on the stand with their hand on a Bible saying that they did it before I will, or evidence really rock solid evidence before I will believe you again. And so. The way I always looked at it is there's no need for me to lie. If I make a good arrest, if I have a good case, no matter what the situation was, I don't have to worry about it. I get paid the same, whether I get a conviction or not. And so I'm going to make those good cases. So there were there officers that probably were looking for their numbers or whatever the case might be depending on the department.

Yeah. There are bad apples. Let's face it in every every profession. never saw that as far as for myself. I was real lucky with my department. I spent the majority of my time with down in south Florida. We had a really good department officers got along with each other. No, major animosities, maybe somebody didn't like somebody or whatever, but it never happened on the job.

They were always there for you. You could always count on them no matter what the situation was. And that was a good thing. Nowadays, I'm glad I retired about six months. Yeah. About six months before Ferguson Missouri occurred. And that's when, for whatever reason I think a lot of it was political and I wouldn't even get into that with regard to people distrusting or not liking police officers.

And that it's just gotten worse since then. It seems to be turning around a little bit. Now all the defunding they're refunding again, but they've lost so much in the last two years. It's going to be hard coming back.

[00:11:58] Damaged Parents: Right. What do you think about the refocusing on mental health?

[00:12:03] Jan Ferguson: From a police perspective. I think it's good, you don't want to replace police officers with mental health people because, maybe in addition, you know, have them drive with, somebody with an officer in a, high prone area where that might be where most of the cases are coming from, but Domestics and traffic stops are the two biggest things that get officers killed or injured.

And if you have a mental health person going to a domestic, you're opening a can of worms in my estimation.

[00:12:36] Damaged Parents: What do you mean by domestic? Do you mean like domestic violence?

[00:12:39] Jan Ferguson: Yeah, it could be, it could be started off as a verbal I've had situations where I've seen situations, where it was a verbal domestic, and once we got there and let's say we're maybe there was a scratch on somebody and we were going to make an arrest on the other person. We've actually had the person who was.

Attacked, maybe had that scratch, jump on our backs and say, no, you're not going to take them. And I became violent at that point. we've had situations where we had one where there was a shooting where the person, it was a husband and wife. And when we got there, No.

I didn't get there.

I'm sorry. it was one of our officers when they got there, the guy came out with a knife. And then started going after his wife again, he didn't inside the house, but when the new cops were there, he thought he was going to be arrested and made it worse for himself. So, it's one of those things that, again, if you have someone who's not trained, maybe they're trained in deescalation, but they're not trained in handling if violence does occur on them or even.

Between the two people involved in the domestic.

[00:13:49] Damaged Parents: Hmm. Yeah, that sounds scary. And probably something that I wouldn't have thought about. If, I think that, you know, in my area, I think they're creating a different, crisis call line for domestic type situations. and at that point, or for people who don't want police involvement, But my concern has always been okay.

That's I understand. And how do we keep those people safe?

[00:14:16] Jan Ferguson: absolutely.

[00:14:17] Damaged Parents: Especially if we're looking at a mental health professional, and even maybe a civilian who is, I can't remember what they were calling it. Someone who was supposed to be trained in or had experience in that type of a situation and maybe had recovered or something like that. Like whether it be homelessness or abuse or whatever. So yeah, I'm actually grateful that you brought that up.

[00:14:42] Jan Ferguson: Yeah, I know when I was on the road, I nevermind did anybody riding with me? Sometimes it made a long night, a lot shorter, or even a long day, a lot shorter. I mean, when I was canine always had my partner behind me, but half the time he was sleeping. if he could drive, I jumped in the back and sleep too, but that never happened,

[00:14:59] Damaged Parents: don't learn, do they?

[00:15:01] Jan Ferguson: No, no, they? don't.

They're they're, they're good at learning what they're supposed to do, but I couldn't get them to drive?

But with regard to having somebody ride with a professional, even if it was a chaplain, for example, or something, sometimes you can just talk things out if the chaplain road, even if they weren't you know, certified in counseling or anything like that, which a lot of 'em were.

But it was always good to have somebody there. And I think. And I, can't say this for everybody, but I don't really think that any officer who really is thinking about the welfare of the citizens would not mind having somebody there to at least start the deescalation or whatever the case might be, but have the officer there for the safety of everyone involved.

[00:15:43] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I mean, it just, it can get scary to the snap judgments that need to be made. Were you ever afraid Of making a mistake like that. And if so, how did you keep yourself in check or calm enough to cope in the moment?

[00:15:58] Jan Ferguson: I can't say that I ever thought I was you're trained you know what to do. That's how a lot of times, officers have to make split-second decisions that courts can Monday morning quarterback for days, months, years, whatever. And so, you do what you think is best.

Sometimes it doesn't turn out that way. I was lucky that I never had a situation. Go terribly wrong or even, partially wrong in that type of situation. But I can see where it does happen, but then there's the ones that are completely atrocious. Like what happened in Minneapolis that should never have happened.

[00:16:36] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I just love how. That you didn't need to experience that and yet can totally empathize with, what has happened and what you have seen. And I couldn't imagine I think everyone was injured in, what has happened in the last few years.

[00:16:53] Jan Ferguson: Absolutely. And you don't when I stop and think about, excuse me, my, career, as far as concerned. And to answer one of your other questions, there's a lot of damage that does happen to police officers, especially, you know, keeping in line with what your podcast is about. I remember this was out in Wyoming and generally our sergeants had

Sundays and Mondays off and have the lieutenants had Saturdays and Sundays off. So very often on a Sunday, then they needed a senior patrolman. And in the agency I was in, we had patrolman one. When you got out of the academy for the first year, Then you had an advanced officer that's was uh, they called patrolman to that had at least between one year and two or three years.

And then you had an officer patrolling three who had three or more years of experience. And I was patrolman three on my shift. so I was the supervisor for all practical purposes. And on a Sunday it was myself and one other officer, it was a small town. We had 35 sworn officers. Eight square miles, population, 10 to 12,000 in the, city.

It was in Wyoming. It was a long route to Yellowstone. So during the summer we had a whole lot more, you know, it probably rose 25, 30,000 at any given time. But during the winter it was usually less. And we got a call of a baby not breathing. And I was lucky that I was about two blocks away it turns out that it was a babysitter 14 year old babysitter.

The, prison was in town was just outside of our town and the mother. Who lived there was visiting her husband during that time and had a babysitter there, had a two year old boy and a 10 month old baby girl. And it turns out the babysitter had put them both in a tub for a bath, and then went out into the living room to talk to her boyfriend on the phone. The two year old boy came out and said that his sister wasn't playing with him anymore. So she went in and the baby was face down in the water. I got there, grabbed the baby, started doing CPR on the way down the stairs to the second or third floor of like an apartment building. Luckily, the only other officer had just pulled up.

There was no time, even though the ambulance was in town, but it takes three to four minutes for them to get to them back to the hospital, we were right off an exit where the hospitals, the next exit up. Jumped in the back seat of the squad car and told my partner to head for the hospital.

We were in the hospital within probably four minutes of the, call going out and unfortunately, the baby did not make it. And what was really bad about that is, and if anybody's ever done CPR on a drowning victim, what gets into their lungs and their stomach ends up usually coming up, when you're doing CPR and this is before the days of masks and all this type of thing, 10 month old babies, usually still on formula or something like that.

not to shake graphic, but that spit up smell that a baby will give her whatever. I can still, in my mind eye feel that and smell that I was not able, I developed PTSD from that. And to this day, I find it very hard to hold a young baby like that. For fear of they're going to spit up.

and this happened that baby girl right now would be 36 years old. I think about her often and the tragedy of that, which I think amplified, I mean, I'm not a PTSD patient where, I can't live my life or anything like that, but it has affected my life.

[00:20:21] Damaged Parents: how did you keep going and continue in law enforcement after that?

[00:20:25] Jan Ferguson: You just got to, it's like being in war or something I mean, you just gotta suck it up and do it. I mean, I still want it to help people. And it was, it was hard. It really was hard.

[00:20:37] Damaged Parents: So by having that, desire or that calling inside of you to help people kept you helped you to be able to go back and. Continue working.

[00:20:47] Jan Ferguson: Sure. I mean, doctors, nurses, paramedics, they lose people all the time maybe not the same type of situations or some, but they have to go through it. The first couple are the hardest, and luckily I didn't have a whole lot, uh, I think that was probably the well, I've lost some others that were adults that had heart attacks and, that's a little bit different.

This was the totally different type situation. I also had a situation and luckily I didn't have to take action but turns out that one of our own officers was going through a divorce. it turns out that they were separated. His wife worked at the hospital and it turns out that he had he'd been hunting with his dad.

That day was a Saturday. I think I'd gone home for dinner got a call of an assault. A battery turns out that when I got there and I recognize the address, it was her address where, when they moved out from the house together turns out that he had been waiting for his wife to get home from work.

Her mom and dad had come over just to kind of, be with, them and maybe help her out during this time. They had a young, a young boy and a young girl three to six years of age, I think. And he pistol-whipped his father-in-law and kidnapped. His wife, took her to the house when they used to live in together. We stationed around the house. At the time I was a sniper with the SWAT team and I was up on the top of the hill. now I had just had a big dinner of spaghetti and meatballs that my wife had made. And so here I am laying on my chest with this coming up to about here on me. but I was told by my Lieutenant that if he comes out the door with a gun.

That I had the green light to actually kill my friend. And like I said, luckily I never had to, but I still think about that. I could tell you what date it was, the time it was about how cold it was, cause it, was in September and Wyoming and those types of things. Really can affect you mentally, for example.

Luckily, like I said, I've never had to do anything. I had to testify against the officer who let me didn't know me from Adam. When I first went out to Wyoming, he let me stay with him for two weeks till I can get an apartment turns out he did it. Mike Tyson bit off the ear of his estranged wife's new boyfriend.

 my testimony essentially, because I was in that area and that was my call. I essentially sent him to prison.

You

know, these things pile up,

[00:23:17] Damaged Parents: yeah. And as a law enforcement officer it seems like to me that the stress can just become overwhelming and then, it's kind of like going off the edge, if you will. I mean, what would be some things that, from your perspective that might help mitigate things like that happening?

[00:23:37] Jan Ferguson: I was very lucky that my wife was a correctional officer at the men's penitentiary. And my wife has always been my grounding force no matter what. And we've talked things out, that situation with my, friend who actually it wasn't just that, Oh,

I didn't actually finish that. He actually killed his wife and then took his own life.

[00:23:59] Damaged Parents: Oh,

[00:23:59] Jan Ferguson: inside the house, that's why, we finally went in and we found that out. but actually questioned myself. I stayed out all night, was talking to Yeah, I think I can't remember. I think I called my mom. I was talking to the chaplain, you know, this type of thing.

I was where you had mentioned, I just kind of in a way, broke down. But I didn't. uh, It wasn't a bad thing. And then, went back home. The next morning, spoke to my wife, had been up in the car all night and we worked out and know, like I said, she's always been there for me. And so after that, I realized that, you, know, when cops get together and have, drinks at the bar after shift or whatever, I never did that. I never got an ulcer, like a lot of cops do because I didn't take my work home with me.

[00:24:47] Damaged Parents: it sounds like you, processed it, like you were able to better integrate it.

[00:24:52] Jan Ferguson: I accepted what I could and spoke to my family about what I couldn't

And talking it out really helps. And when you have somebody that loves and cares for you is better really than any counselor. uh, So we were able to do that when she had bad days, it was the same thing. Being a female in any type of law enforcement was hard for her.

And we had to talk it out when she had those type of incidents, not incidents that were similar to my, for example, but you know, the, especially out in Wyoming, the good old boy. Type of situation where you're not a part of the team cause you're a girl. And so we would talk that out as well.

And so, Yeah,

we've had, we've been married 36 years now. We've had a lot go on between all these things and still, we're best friends and it has, particularly helped.

[00:25:45] Damaged Parents: well, it sounds like having that connection and that safety and connection with your wife actually helped in a lot of ways. And you know, not only did you have safety and connection, but then that I'm thinking that probably helped give you the self-esteem to be able to go back out and handle these situations.

[00:26:05] Jan Ferguson: Yeah, it did. you know, and it's helped even since then. Even, You can take the cop off the road, but you can't take the cop out of the cop. And so, she tells me a lot of times don't be so analytical. Well, I am just because I've always been, I'm a type, a personality and that's just me.

I'm analytical, I've done programming, things like that. As a police officer, you're on a way to call you're thinking, what if situations, what if the person has a gun? What if a person has a knife? What if the baby isn't breathing? A lot of what ifs. So you're prepared mentally. I was taught that by my first field training officer and it was the best advice I ever got.

[00:26:44] Damaged Parents: So with like a lot of what ifs to the negative though, not to the positive, right? Like, or was it both?

[00:26:50] Jan Ferguson: It's both, what happens if, when you get there, everything is fine, you're prepared for the worst, but what happens if it's good? How do you let yourself down after that? Because the adrenaline's obviously. Especially, if you're going code three to something or whatever, you have to pay attention to what you're doing.

Thinking about all this listening to radio traffic. There's so much involved as you're going to something. so yeah, it, helped tremendously. Like I said, but what I did was I didn't go out with the guys. I think I did it maybe twice in a 32 plus year career. And that was when I was down in Florida. What I did was I went home to the people I knew that loved me and wanted me to be with them. I didn't fall into that because what's going to happen at those kind of events. They're going to be talking about. the jerks they dealt with they might make fun of victims, which isn't a good thing.

Usually when we made jokes as well was a generic type thing, the bad guys in general, not any specific one. I'm proud to say that I've arrested people before that it was one situation. Arrested somebody so many times in Florida, that when I came off the road, he asked the supervisor that was driving by.

He only knew me, but he couldn't remember my name. He knew my squad car number was one 12 and all he kept on asking whenever he saw the supervisors, yo where's one 12. And um,

he respected me because I respected him. Sure. He committed a crime, but I treated him like a human being.

[00:28:19] Damaged Parents: Would you say in some ways that you had to dig down? I don't know if dig down is even the right word, but what would you say about love and the people you arrested in and was there room for love in you in your heart to, to love these people that you were arresting?

[00:28:38] Jan Ferguson: There were some people that you rested that, maybe just something really heinous and it was really hard to do that. But I have a faint, you know, you're a person. I need to treat you. As if I was in the same situation, you know, the golden rule, the way I would want to be treated, I don't want to be thrown around or hit or any number of things. So I would never do that above and beyond the fact that not only is it against the law and that type of situation but a, person's a person. Okay. They made a mistake. Maybe they made multiple stakes in their lives, but I'm only dealing with this one and so I had to deal with it that way.

[00:29:11] Damaged Parents: So it may be, it was the love for humankind and not love for what the person did.

[00:29:18] Jan Ferguson: Yeah.

more so I think, at least an understanding that people are human people make mistakes. Heaven knows I've made my, everybody has made Their share of mistakes one way or the other professionally, personally, every way you can think of. and so w with that, you, you have to stop and think, again, how would I want to be treated?

How will I feel after this is done? If I treated somebody really badly, throw them around in the cell, whatever, even if it didn't leave any marks or anything like that, I couldn't looked at myself in the mirror after that.

[00:29:51] Damaged Parents: Hmm.

[00:29:52] Jan Ferguson: and that's where I think a lot of cops have problems after that, whether they'll admit it or not, because they may not be very proud of themselves. And in that type of situation you know, again, with, way I would think about it you can become relatively damaged. In your future life, even after you leave the road. And I think that's why possibly, and I I'm certainly not a psychiatrist or anything. Why cops sometimes even after they leave the job, they don't have anything left for themselves.

Cause they didn't have family or they're divorced and never got remarried and all these things that they've done, where they end up committing suicide. Because

maybe they can't deal with what they've done. Maybe they can't deal with, not having the regiment that they had when they were working. Uh, you know, This just as a law enforcement, it could be any, any job, but, and I'm not certainly saying that they did it because they did bad things. That's certainly not a, that might be a one in a hundred case type of situation. And again, like I said, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I can't imagine where somebody, if they have a soul and a heart where they could live with themselves in the future, having known and thinking about what they've done, if they did bad things.

[00:31:08] Damaged Parents: Right. And not have a, for lack of a better word repented or forgiven

[00:31:13] Jan Ferguson: Yeah,

[00:31:14] Damaged Parents: and, and really going deeper. If, gosh, I'm not sure how I want to ask this question. You know, I always ask for three tips or tools towards the end of recording and I'm thinking to myself, okay. Would it be three tips or tools for someone in law enforcement?

Who's got. 1520 plus years to go, like maybe they're at the beginning of their journey. Would it be three tips or tools for those that think law enforcement needs to go away? Or what, what, or would it just be three tips or tools? So I'm going to throw all those ideas out there and I'm going to let you choose three tips or tools that you think may be any one of them can use.

I don't know. Just let's just go with it.

[00:31:53] Jan Ferguson: Okay. Yeah. Nobody's ever asked me that before. So that's that's really tough for me as well. Probably number one. And I think I mentioned this on a previous podcast when somebody asked me something similar, everything that seems to be going on now, I truly believe, as I mentioned earlier, it's cyclical. If you're out there doing your job. And doing it the way you were trained, I don't think you have to worry about what's going to happen. Things might get a little lean, maybe the, you won't have the budget that you have now. And so you might, they're going to change the rules and all, but just know what the rules are and do what you can do within those rules.

It will be cyclical. Hopefully it'll turn around before your end of your career, unless you're just starting. But no that it's not personal against. Probably number two tip would be, be true to yourself. It kind of a little bit of what I just mentioned on the first one. if you have a good heart and a good soul know that you're truly out there.

I mean, when I, when I interviewed, when they asked me why you want to become a police officer, I said to help people. And they actually laughed at us. That's what everybody says. So they can get the job. And I said maybe, but I really mean it. And and I truly did. And I still do, which is part of what I do now that I'm retired, coaching and being a hypnotherapist.

I still want to help people. I always have always will. So they put me on the ground Or until I, as long as I'm able to, to meet with people and do things. And so if you truly know that you're good at heart and you're good in soul and you truly want to help people, you'll be good.

And probably a third one would be don't, don't get caught up in the job, do the job, do it with empathy. I'm not saying don't go out with your friends afterwards or anything, but don't get bound up in your job. Don't bring it home. If at all possible I did. And it's not a good time. And I only did on several occasions.

Number one being, the one I mentioned about when I stayed out all night and was talking to people, cause I didn't know, how to continue and maybe was continued being a cop. Definitely not continue to being a person I wanted. It.

was never, that was never in my mind. But just, find people that you can tell anything to. A spouse, a best friend, a counselor, or a pastor, anybody that you can really talk to that is not going, that has your best interests at heart. That's not gonna be a fair weather friend or something along those lines that can really tell you what they think and tell you about yourself.

 Which is, I've been very lucky that I was able to do all three of those things and it really got me through it.

[00:34:46] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Jan, thank you so much for your story today. Thank you for coming on. As a guest, you can find Jan at https://Janf360.com. Where all of his contact information is. Thank you so much for being on.

[00:35:00] Jan Ferguson: Thank you, Angela. it's been a pleasure.

[00:35:02] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of relatively damaged by damaged parents. We really enjoyed talking to Jan about helping. He really believes people will come to trust law enforcement again. We especially liked when he spoke about the real challenges of being a law enforcement officer.

To night with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then