On a Mission to Develop head, Heart, and Empathy in Police

There are some people that make their work just another thing they have to do, and there are those that make their work something that they want to do. Welcome to Working on Purpose with your host Elise Cortez. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration from those people who have found deeper meaning and personal connection to their work life. It's beyond nine to five. It's working on Purpose. Now Here is your host, Elise Cortez. I'm your host, Elise Cortez. Joining you live from Dallas, Texas, which is home base for me. This program is all about helping people more meaningfully and productively connect with their work and equipping leaders to cultivate meaning and purpose in the workplace to elicit passion inspired contribution, innovation, and persevering performance. So I seek how to bring on guests from a particular perspective, experience, or expertise that I think contributes to or expands this conversation. And as a management consultant and social scientist, I draw the meeting and work and identity research I've been doing over the last fifteen years, as well as from my experienced consulting, speaking, and developing workforces across the globe. I hope you caught the show live. Last week we were on here with doctor Lance Secretan, the author of twenty two books about leadership, inspiration, corporate culture, and entrepreneurship. We talked about his latest book, The Bell Weather Effect, and which he details eight incredibly broken practices that are destroying the corporate world of work and undermine productivity and engagement in the workplace. Very very compelling man with a lot of information and expertise and passion and purpose to draw an incredible conversation with us. This week is Danny Barton, Deputy Chief of Police in the Kapell Police Department here in Texas. We'll be talking about his experience serving on the police force, his perspective and what works well one needs to be addressed, and the way he is working to champion a new way forward in the police force. He joined today from Capell, Texas. Deputy Chief Barton, welcome to Working on Purpose. Thanks for having me a leaf, glad to be here. You are so welcome. I've been looking forward to this conversation and I want to orient for our listeners just a bit of context of how we met. So we were in a psychometric certification session luminous specifically doing introductions, and you know there's a few of us in the room and you're the only guy, and you open that mouth of yours and start sharing about what you're up to. And you had met at hello. So what I really got in your introduction, which we're going to address in this conversation, is you're on a mission. You're building a movement as far as I could tell, and that mission, as far as I could tell, as to transform the way police work is done. Oh absolutely so I first just again thank you for your service and really a pleasure to have you and be part of get to lean in on that work that you're doing. So to give us a little bit for those listeners across the globe who haven't had the chance to meet you as I have, will you share a little bit of your background in general history serving as a police officer, why police work, and just a bit about your background. Well, my background. I got into law enforcement in nineteen ninety one. I was attested with my town, Central Texas, Bran Texas, which is near Texas, A and M. I got hired and I started my career and uh, you know, the web, the ebbs and flows of life led me to Capel in nineteen ninety seven and uh I I left here for a short stant to do some things with my family, but eventually made it back. During my course my time in Brian, I I was patrol offered and some uh some minor Stanson street crimes and actually investigations and things like that. I was a field training officer. And actually when I was a field training officer training young offers, when I really started to study of my vocation and make it a craft. And I ended up in uh Kappel and just dis continued to uh to really look at the way we do things in law enforcement, and they really questioned police culture and and you know why we continue to see things the same way and uh and expect different results. And when I'm getting a little bit of animal health there, but but historic you know, I made deputy chief just this year. Prior to the as I'm usually in the operations, which is patrol and as CID. Yes, I've spent most of my career in those two areas. So you know, those are the people that are touching the people in the community. And so that's kind of it's kind of a background. When I get too detailed, perfect and it's perfect. Now two things really quick. So first, for our listeners who don't know where Capella is, it's a suburb right here outside of Dallas, Texas. So that's if you're wondering where Capella is. And then for us, if you would deputy chief, what does deputy chief entail? I know it's a leadership role, but you mentioned the other when you were at you were as as an officer, it's really operational, So what's deputy chief work entail? So I currently, this is my current position. I'm the operator. We have two deputy chiefs ones in the administrative Deputy Chief je loans operations. I oversee the CID or the Criminal Investigation's Division, which is all of our detectives and that actually has our school resource officers also attached to it. And then I'm also over the Patrol Division, which is all the patrol officers and all the motorcycle officers and canine and things like that. So I just kind of oversee everything, and I mean I'm pretty involved. If you know me, I'm never in my office. I'm always out and about, So that's my I'd say, just I oversee those and I have two captains that answer to me. Each captain is over each of those divisions, and then they have anywhere from three to seven supervisors that work for them, and then all the line officers. Okay, perfect, and then just again for context, the size of the overall police force there and Campo. So we have seventy officers sworn officers, and then we I think we have twelve civilians. Okay, great, just kind of helps our listeners understand scale, et cetera here and kind of what you're up to. Okay, So before we get into some of this work here, I want to again situate. I always like to ask people what it is that connects them to work to their work. So let me ask you what are you most proud of as serving as a police officer. I don't you know, I got into a law enforcement and it was like a lot of officers. A lot of people will be surprised that a lot of police officers never really set out to become police officers and a recruiter almost right, but you know, and I got into it kind of, you know, in a strange manner. But once I got into it, I just absolutely loved what we do. And you know, our role in society is isn't It's enormous and and and when you start to connect with what what you do for a community or for society as a whole, it really it's I saw it in a book one time. It might have been the cover of a book, but they were talking about a sense of duty. And I don't know what it was about law enforcement, but when I got into it, you just you just had this under you know, in an eight sense of duty, that this was what I was meant to do. I was meant to help people in their worst hours, and I was meant to be the person to be called and you know when people needed help, and and just just love every man of that m that is precious, just precious. And I remember our conversation when we met, and I could see that underneath there as you told your story, as you as how you got as how you got into the work, and then really kind of I think how it found you. It absolutely found me. It was I wanted to be a doctor, so I wanted to be a sports uh orthopeter surgeon was was my my super goal. And I had a cousin that was in the FBI, and I just wanted to visit him and uh, and I don't know what happened, but in the course of that weekend I came back. I was like, you know what, I'm going to try this thing out. And again once I got in, there was there was no turning back. M Well, I love hearing those kind of stories, as you know, as a meeting and work researcher and somebody who cares about passion and purpose. I love hearing that and the fact that you're the one that is on the other end of me calling when I need help. That really gives me a tremendous sense of appreciation and comfort. So thank you for that. Thanks. Well, let's talk a little bit about about police work. I think for a lot of people they might not really understand what's all really involved. So first, you know, you talked about it being it's a it's a duty to serve and to I think you said to protect, but just sort of overall, what's what what are what is the police force charge with doing? How do you help? Well, they ea answer, the least is you know, we're serving protect you know, you know the job of a police officer is so complex. It is you know, people call us when when they're scared. People call us when they're in harm's way, and people call us when when they don't know what to do, you know. They we get called for things that have absolutely nothing to do with the law. They just they don't know who else to turn to, so they they turn to us and and uh, and we're tasked with, you know, trying to help them do whatever the issue is. And you know, it's it's it's it's a tough job. It's it's you know, you could be dealing with a person with middle issues, you know, on one call and you get back in your car and you get sent to a juvenile that doesn't want to go to school, you know. And I mean, the the parameters are huge, and it's just you know, it's a it's never dull. I can tell you that, it's but you know, in the in the grander scheme of things, you know, I tell people, you know, as a deputy chief, I get the opportunity to speak to the new guys as are coming down the academy and and I always tell them us, you know, when you when you raise your right hand and and uh, we put that badge on your chest, you're taking responsibility for something that you don't own, and your role in society is owned by the people that you serve, and and never forget that that they're the ones that are giving you permission to be there, their police officers, and that is critical for people to keep in the forefront of their minds. Is we don't it's not about us, It's about the community. And sometimes I think as police officers, you it's like I said, a super complex job and a lot of a lot of police officers do it really well, but it can really that piece, that piece it's about something other than us, could sometimes get away from us. Well, So what I want to get under next then if we can is I knew you've been you were talking about things from your vantage point. I believe from being there in Capel and your work of immediate interaction with officers that you're you interface with, how would you characterize the way police work is conducted today across the nation of the United States. Wow, that's a great question, you know from my vantage point. You know, our society has changed immensely, you know, and every I don't think it's an equer to anybody that the world is changing at such a rapid pace and Unfortunately, I feel like our profession is not keeping up with that pace. I don't know that our profession is taking the right steps. I tell people that I speak with all times, you know, I feel like sometimes we're a little bit off track, and and we're trying to to keep things the way they've always been, so to speak, whether they worked or not. And and again, society is changing. I mean, if you think about it, when I when I got into law enforcement, there was no such thing as an internet. There was no such thing as a cell phone. People really only knew what they knew what they were taught. Today's world, there's money, smarter, it's much faster, it's people know the laws. Everything you do is broadcast sometimes while you're still doing it. You know, we didn't hear in the nineties. We didn't hear about officers being killing the line of duty until weeks later, if we even heard it at all. Today we hear about it before the detectives are even at the scene. I mean, but as a profession, I really feel like we could do a lot better than we're doing right now. And I'm I go out out on a limb saying that it's not a very popular thing to say in our profession, but I'm just too passionate about what we should be doing. I really appreciate that and applaud that I'm right there with you. I love that you're taking a stand, and I want to get a little bit further underneath that. But let's grab our first break here if we can. I'm your host, Alice corps Tz. We run to your Deputy Chief Danny Barton of the Kapel Police Department here in Texas near Dallas. He joined today from the Kapel office. We've been talking a bit about how he got into his work as a police officer and now just starting to get at some of his perspective on what's going on in the police force. And after the break, we're going to talk more about what he thinks is maybe missing and could be improved. Stay with us, we'll be right back. Alice Cortez as a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more, or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. If you're just joining us, my guest is Danny Martin, Deputy Chief of Police in the Coupelle Police Department here in Texas. I'm your host, Elice Cortez. So before the break we were talking, just beginning to talk about that you think that things could perhaps change for the better here within the world of police, and I know you go out and use you speak on this topic, which is again part of what I wanted to service and share with listeners. I think it's amazing work. So let's let's get under the hood a little bit here if we can. What do you think that needs to change about the way police work is being conducted to better serve our communities? Well, I think I think police culture has been broken for a very long time, and I've been I've been in the middle of this culture, uh for a long long time. And you know, if I feel like law enforcement too often they try to find these solutions uh within they circle the wagons and they try to find the answers within their agency or even within the profession. And not all the answers are in there, because the people you serve have a say in those answers. And and we seem to kind of you know, we we put on these you know, town hall meetings, and we do these programs and you know, you know, little forums, you know, to invite community feedback and you know, twenty five people show up if that the people in your communities give you feedback every day, every single day, because every single officer, every single detective, every single person or in the uniform is touching people every day. In Capel, we call it making an impact. You're going to make an impact one way or the other, whether you're waving at somebody when you drive by it, or whether you don't wave the man which you wave, the way you're face. I mean, all these things that you have to keep these things in mind. As a police officers, you're constantly being watched and it's you know, it's not it's not a bad thing. But but but our profession, we don't really change anything. We try to put on these these programs that you know, I think one of the stories I was telling you all when we met. You know, there's agencies in the country that are you know, they're purchasing you know, ice cream trucks, and that's great. You know when you go into these you know, communities and you're hating out ice creams, you know, to eight year old kids and you know, twenty year old kids. But how you treating them when they're eighteen, How you treating them when they're twenty two? You know, what's what's that interaction look like? You know, because trust, trust is every single contact, and sometimes we lose track of that. To me, uh, you know, we compel, we do. We're very very sermal leadership, but oriented you know, it's it's I just sometimes think and you'll you can see it in all the some of the journals are coming out now in policing. Is you know, we we tend this police officers. It's it's easy to fall into this trap, is is you start to objectify people and because they're just another call. You know, I've been to fifteen calls today, I've talked to twenty five people, I've taken sixteen report where's you're just number twenty two or whatever. You know, they just start to become objects when in from their perspective, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to them in their lives. And maintaining empathy, we're showing up with empathy is step one. You know, I'm writing a book right now and I gotta I think there's a sentence in there, and this is I don't know when it happened, but it seems like empathy left the building. And because you know, we you know, and you know from Lumino, you know, we're starting to measure empathy and officers and the empathy is low, and that is you know, that's a function of a whole lot of things. But but again, I really don't think that we were getting it. And I feel like we're trying to just keep things the way they are. And you know, yes, a lot of people support the police, but we can do way better than we're doing, way better. Oh so well articulated. I can't wait to read the book, by the way, so get to it would Okay, Well, my next question then, so I really got this notion of the need to show up. We're in with empathy, empathy, empathy, and it's not really happening, maybe to the extent that it should be. So then I want to go a little step further and ask what's missing in the way police officer hired and developed, the absence of which would make a big difference. I tissue I had. I had a great talk with a chief from another agency today about this very thing. So you know, I again I go back to police culture and and we we we tend to hire, We still tend to look for the same characteristics and people. And to be kind of brief about it, it's you know, your your review boards, and look across the table to these advocates, go, do you think this guy or this girl can handle themselves? You know, in a knock down, drag out fight out there in the street. Can this person tell me to save my life? And and uh, you know that is just old, that is outdated thinking. Policing has come way farther than that. And you know I took over hiring and training uh about this time last year and uh and and I was a captain at the time, and I went to the chief and I said, hey, I'm gonna quit hiring police officers. And he looked at me like I was crazy, and I said, you know what, I'm gonna start hiring for a cultural fit for our department. I'm gonna start hiring servant leaders. I want to hire a character or we can teach them how to be police officers. We can teach them how to fight, we can teach them all those things, but we can't teach character. We can't teach want to. And so we changed our We've got rid of all of our police questions, you know in the in it still goes on today in most police departments. You know, the applicant is faced with all these you know, where are you going to shoot them or not shoot them? Scenarios, which I just I don't see the productivity in that. And the typically there are no win situations. The thinking is is how does this person react to pressure? And you know, I've been a police officer long enough to know that that pressure that apprican is under is nowhere near what they're gonna see in the street. And and I'm not saying that it's better or worse. I'm just saying it's different. And so we stopped hiring using those questions and we went straight to we got a great culture and compel and we started just asking questions that you know, what is customer service to you? What's your communication style? You know, we do put them in some ethical challenges, you know, such as you know you and we're looking for empathy. You know, you get a call to a communion store and the clerk has a lady detained and she's there stealing baby formula for her baby and she's she's homeless as has no money. What are you gonna do? You know? And a lot some of the officers or the candidates will come in and say, well, you know the laws of law, and I'll stop them and say, well what do you want to do? What would you do if you could do anything you wanted, And a lot of them say, oh, I'd try to just buy the formula. And that's what we're looking for. We're looking for people to see they don't see the law. They see people. You know, we have to put plenty people in jail. That's going to happen. That happens, you know, whether we want it to or not. But not everybody needs to go to jail. And you know, we've been incarcerating people in this country for you know, hundreds of years. How's that working out for us? Has it gotten better? I don't think so. You know. So there's a better way to do things, So there's better ways to police our communities, and you know, again that's in the hiring peace. I think we would do ourselves a better you know. And I say this, and you know a lot of police officers don't like to hear this either. Is I don't know that we have figured out how to hire the best police officers, and we don't have We haven't really figured out what the best police officer candidates look like. But I do know that the old style of hiring police officers, in my opinion, is not working out that well. Okay, so now this maybe is a really good time to ask this question. So since we met at a Lumina certification training and listeners you might recall if you heard one of the previous episodes, I was on the air with Rebecca Bales, who was the global US partner and I think European partner for Lumina, talking about that assessment and how we use it to develop leaders. It starts by measuring the presence of twenty four qualities that are claimed by the person taking the assessment. Are those are psychological qualities that roll up into eight behavioral aspects and you get a very robust report across three different personas. You're every day, you're underlying and you're over extended. So how are you using that tool to help your work? So we came across the Lumina assessment. I think we were first showed it four years ago and we started looking into it. And then about two years ago I started getting really involved with with Marcel Rnell here in the Dallas area and we saw something that we think helps. The thing we love about Lumina is it doesn't put you in a box. It doesn't you know, a disk and mark braid. It doesn't say you're of this or you're of that. It's you're you're kind of on a continuum because everybody's got a little bit of all the twenty four qualities in them, you know, and it's through life you learned to, you know, turn them up and turn them down. And and what I like about Lumina is it's a self awareness tool. And the more we started looking at this Lumina and we were thinking about and compared it to what police officers do. We were like, you know, we got something here because Lumina. But if if a police officer has more self awareness, maybe when he sees himself starting to kind of go overboard, so to speak, he can tune that down. You know, we try to tell police officers and the police of carrier. You know, if you if you come to a scene and you know your partner is just amped up and he's making this scene worse, you know, kind of push him out of the scene and then you take over. You know, well that's fine, but the scene's already out of control now. So Lumina gives us the first step in self awareness, and we put all of our supervisors through it, and then we put all of our training officers through it. And then we gathered him in a room and we did a four hour class as we went through their assessment with him. And it was amazing how they responded to this thing. They were they were blown out. Hey, they didn't hear anything they didn't instinctively know about themselves. But then I thought that the best part was, you know, these guys work side by side every single day and every night, and you know. There was a sergeant in one particular class. I said, man, I thought I had more empathy than this, and everybody just started laughing and they were like, no, you don't, you know, And it was in. All I could think of was, man, what a great tool to start uncoverting some of those blind spots that we have about ourselves. And and we're putting the officers that are all going through it right now too. And I really believe this first step of self awareness is it's a piece. You know. You asked me earlier, what's wrong with policing? We have done police officers tactically, they can take care of themselves, probably better today than they've ever done. We know how to shoot, we know how to drive, we know how to fight, we know how to make traffic stops, we know how to search buildings tactically, we call it the hands. Tactically and technically, we know how to do those things and we're pretty decent at it. And but we have spent zero time, especially during my career, working on the officers head and his heart, because we don't want to go there, because that's not very manly. It's not very mucho to talk about your heart to talk about your your intellect or your emotional intelligence, because if if I have to talk to you about emotional intelligence, am I there's a there's an you know, or you saying I don't have any that's why I have to you know, that's that's not what's going on. And that's what we're doing when our officers. And what was funny is we told these the sergeants and the corporals and the training offers who said, take your assessments home and let your spouse read it. And they started coming back from their days off and they were right. My spouse was like, oh my gosh. They that is exactly who you are. And I think that's where it opened a lot of the guy's eyes. A lot of the girls too, was their spouse was like, that's exactly how you act when you're stressed out, and they didn't realize it. And so I think it's really opened up their eyes to the power of self selvi alerness that was beautifully rendered, beautifully rendered, Oh my goodness. And so for the for listeners to kind of put connect all that, seeing how he's using this as a developmental tool, the assessment really helps the participant to be able to see his or her preferred behavior and communication patterns, what he or she does when under stressed, and really what happens in the every day so incredibly illuminating. And so how you're using I think how you're using this tool is phenomenal and it's the way that we often we're back and I talked about this in our conversation, how we use that tool to be able to start that self awareness process you're talking about in order to intervene and develop more helpful behaviors and communication practices to aid the individual to be more successful and in your case, trying to develop and cultivate emotional intelligence, which can be cultivated by the way, So when you know that, but for our listeners who are scratching their heads, yes, we can all cultivate emotional intelligence. So this is where I get to again stand and say, I am such a fan of the work that you're doing, and I so appreciate the work that you're doing. I do see it as a movement. I want to talk more about some of what you're doing to share this messaging with the communities. But let's grab our last break here if we can. I'm a last Cortez, your host who we've been on the air with Danny Barton, who is a deputy Chief of Police in the Capelle Plice Department here in Texas. He joins it today from Kapelle. After the break, we're going to get into some of the work that he's doing to grab this as a foothold and cascade it into other communities. Stay with us, we'll be right back. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. If you're just tuning in, my guest is Danny Barton, Deputy Teeth of Police in the Coupelle Police Department here in Texas. I'm your host, Alice Cortez. So in this last segment here if we can, I want to help our listeners understand really what you're up to and frankly, how they might be able to help you. So one of the things that you said when we met is you go out into various public arenas and you share this message, which is often very largely unpopular because people don't like to hear that they're not doing as well as you think they could be. In it's not a popular message. So will you share a little bit about what venues are you using to be able to cascade your message and into what forums and what is that message that you're sharing? So well, man, a lot of ns here. One one area that I'm that we're really about to really start rolling a lot of this out is through the Texas Police Association. I'm one of the vice presidents of the Texts Police Association. It's it's the oldest police association in Texas, uh and there since eighteen ninety five, if you can believe that. And and and then we you know, I tell people the So myself a Chief Tristan, our current Chief of Police. We we speak a lot outside of the department. We actually, I mean I do a lot of speaking amongst the city, in different departments over what we do here at the cap Police a department, and uh, and how we've done things here for the last eight years, and and and we just tell our story of how we've gotten from where we were eight years ago, which was a pretty uh dysfunctional place, uh, to the to the to the department we are today. And and so we just you know, we uh Robert Greenleaf International Conference was in the Grapevine last year, and uh we took handful of our officers over there, and they gave a presentation on what it's like to work in a servant led organization. And we had the newest guys that we had hired, we had some of the oldest guys on our forest and it was it was I think the crowd was pretty fascinated by their stories of how how we're doing things and compel compared to I will say, what a normal of the police department's doing. So we're all over the place. I mean, that's one of my weaknesses. If somebody calls me and says, hey, we want to hear your story. I'm always he yes. I never say no because I think it's a it's important. I'm not saying capel is you know, the greatest thing, you know since slash spread. But I've seen it work here and we've done an amazing job of transforming this police department. And I really think we're well on our way to the things that I've talked about earlier is is I think, you know, we can change policing even though we're a seventy man police department. It starts somewhere and then we can do it. And it's it's one ear at the time, it's one contact at the time. And again, we speak to a lot of police groups. Uh they're the tougher groups. Uh to speak to leadership groups. But we you know, we stand in there and you know, sometimes I uh take a pretty good hit on my evaluations because it's not really what they want to hear. But it's an important message, and you know, I just hope that maybe when they get home or you know, six months from now, they go, you know, let me think about that. Okay, two things really quick. So I want to make sure we're packed as much as we can for the last bit of time we have together, so to paint the picture for our listeners. Deputy Chief part and so the eight years ago, how would you characterize what you said the department was. I think you said a mess. Now Here we are today, when there's been a lot of change and development and intentional change. What's it looked like? So before and after, I think eight years ago we probably looked like your typical police agency. We had a lot of silos built in, divisions, didn't talk to each other. There was in fighting. We had two separate I'll call them camps, So you had to take a stand either stayed with, you know, one camp or or the other. You know. And uh, if you wanted to be neutral, you just couldn't talk to either side. So very toxic atmosphere. Just that's that's probably the best it was. It was not the best atmosphere, okay. Uh we got a new chief. He came in eight years ago, a Chief Tristan. He brought us this thing called servant leadership, and we started, Uh, we started not only learning about servant leadership, but we started to learn to to We were he was taking us outside of the police department and we were starting to interact with people outside of law enforcement. Like we we participate every quarter with a it's called Servant Leadership Learning Community here in Dallas. And there's several businesses that show up and it's a breakfast, it's a eight some new thing and and uh southwester Aralizers. The air TD industry is a bunch of companies and you set at tables and you discuss leadership issues and organizational issues and server leadership with with these different organizations. And it starts to open the officer's eyes up to oh wow, just because we're police officers doesn't mean that our our problems are any different than Meal sells airlines. You know, it's all the same, you know, because they're people. That's an organization's people and so and then and then we've we spent a lot of time and we do it every day. We talk about our why why every single officer, Why do you get up? Why do you get dressed? Why do you do this job? You know? And they don't always have the answer today, but we tell keep your eyes on, you're gonna find your why. And once you connect with your why, which is your purpose, man coming to work is fantastic. Your worst days are great because you love what you do, you know, and and uh, in you know, in my in my old police days, you know, if I came to work and I got knocked down, I'd go home, you know, just chewing on glass. I'm frustrated at the world. And uh and today I'm like, you know what, I can't take it personal. That person got mad at me, probably wasn't mad at me personally, probably mad at the situation there. And you know, it is frustrating sometimes when life is just hitting you from all sides. And again that's where the empathy comes in. Is you know, you got to keep your mind around the fact that you know this person that's mad at you and is giving you know what for all if not, don't take it personal. People they don't even know you, I mean, so, you know, And and I think that's emotional intelligence. And I think that's that's kind of where we're we've we've come. We're very service. I can tell you a story after story after story of of of things that our officers are doing today that just are mind boggling home the way they I'm not talking about just treating people. I'm just going above and beyond for people. And they really care. And I think that's that's the rule. I mean when I said earlier you objectifying people, I think we've gotten away from that here. And our guys are pretty hold in on you know, these are people, you know, these are souls that we're touching, and they understand it the importance. Wow, that's gorgeous and so compelling. And of course, you know, my world is about how people find their purpose. And I completely agree that it's a whole different world when you are standing in your purpose. And so for our listeners benefit, and obviously I always like to hear this, I mean, what are you standing for, Deputy chief? Parton? What is your purpose? What are you up to? Boy? You know, I think I think this is my purpose. I mean, I think becoming a police officer again because of the way I stumbled into it. Uh. And and and you know I always say, you know, your your life is a culmination of the people who's passed you cross and uh, I've crossed some great paths I have I know some great people that have taught me some great things along the way. And and and law enforcement just happens to be the vehicle. I I love that we get to help people every day. And you know, I have lunch once a month with a guy that has become a great friend of mine. And the reason I met him was we arrested him for DWI and uh. He he his life was a wreck and the night and he can't The reason I met him was he came up here to thank us for arrested him and uh and from that eating, we kind of started a friendship. And you know, he's a great guy. He's a successful person, but uh, you know, life, life was hitting him from all sides, and that that that encounter really turned him around. You mean, yeah, yeah, and we don't know, and we tell our all and we had him meet with the officers that arrested him and he told his story and it was touching. I mean, there's not a dry eye in the room when he's done talking. And you know, we tell our all. We remind him. Look, you don't know how many people's lives you've turned around. You're not just throwing people in jail. I'm not saying to everybody in jail it's saved their lives. But but but you shull, sometimes that's the wake up calls it some people needs. Don't take it lightly. But my purpose is you know, I'm passionate about this. I love police officers at least I think they are some of the greatest people in the world. Yes, the things they sacrifice to give something I miss anyway, that's wonderful. I think it's Yes, it's fantastic. So okay, So you have this vision for a world of police work that is shows up with empathy, uses emotional intelligence, includes the head and the and the heart. So that's part of your vision. So what do what can listeners do to help you? What do you need from from people to help you realize this as a as a widespread landing of how police work gets done, at least across the nation. You know, there's a you know, nationwide, there's a there's a huge organization that I think is getting it right. They're not the most They're pretty popular, but they're not the most popular in law enforcement circles. I think they're one of the best. The police executive research for them, they put out a lot of great stuff. They were instrumental in the police of the twenty first century that came out I don't know, several years ago, three or four years ago, you know, supporting groups like PERFU Texas Police Associations about to come out and and everything I just talked about the Texas Police Associations, we've kind of gone through and rebrand and and we're we're setting our sights on everything I just talked about. Is you know, we want to we want to build the whole police officer and we want those police officers to have good, healthy careers. You know, there's a lot of negatives that come with law enforcement out there. Divorce rates are high, there's there's all kinds of negative him and we can stop it. And I think emotional intelligence and I think getting the right people is one of the key ways. I completely agree, which again, which is why you had me and hello with your introduction, and here we are today talking about this and I'm with you every step of the way. Will help you anyway that I can. You know that, and we'll talk more about that, but we're just to the very tail end of the show, and say, maybe thirty seconds, Jeputy Chief Burton, what would you like to leave our listeners with today? You know, and I don't got thirty seconds. I think everybody needs to understand that you can make a difference in the world, every single person can make a difference from where they're at, and it seems almost crazy to think that, but you know, I wake up every day and I come to work. Yes, I love working for the Copit Police Department, but I want to change. I want to change the world. And I know that sounds a little flighty and kind of crazy, but I know it can be done. It's been done by many and many people throughout history. And if you have a passion, I don't care what that passion is, you have got to stay with it and don't lose it because I don't know if you guys were talking about the paradoxial commandments on here, but you know the world's gonna is gonna fight back, but you just keep fighting and you keep your purpose in front of you and the fight's worth and every day, even on the days when you felt like you lost, that is well waged. Great way to finish the show, Deputy Chief Barton, thank you so very much for your service, your heart, your contribution, and for your work to change the world. Well, thank you, Elise. I'm so glad about you. Me too, Me too. We got more work to do now. If listeners want to learn more, about what you're up to. Where would you have them visit what website? I guess our city's website. Our city's website is it pretty much will can give you an idea of the culture that we have here. So that's what city of Capel COPELTX dot gov okay, Capel TX dot com. Okay, And with that we've got to fly off the air. Thank you listeners for joining us. It's been a pleasure and we'll see you next week. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose, featuring your host Alice Cortez, each week on the Voice America Empowerment channel. This week, find your life's purpose at work