2023 IACP “40 Under 40” Recipient Myles Cook

00:04
Brent Hinson
Between the lines with Virtual Academy. We all have a story to tell. Hello, and welcome to another edition of between the Lines with Virtual Academy. We are a podcast going beyond the badge to allow members of law enforcement, public safety, and first response a place to tell their stories and also talk about the cases that have impacted their lives. How you doing? I’m Brent Hinson, welcoming you inside another episode between the lines. And while my mother always said I was a jack of all trades, master of none, our guest today has managed to master every path along his career, earning honors and accolades for his work, most recently named as one of IACP’s 40 under 40 for 2023. And Michael Warren.

00:47
Brent Hinson
I can’t tell you how envious I am of that because I always wanted to be one of those 30 under 30 or 40 under 40 list, and they’ve evaded me. I’ve not made it on any list any good list, anyway.

00:59
Michael Warren
Well, Brent, I just want to point out that I’m jealous, and you could just take half of it and I’d be jealous. I’d just settle for the under 40 piece. I don’t need to be 40 under 40.

01:09
Brent Hinson
You don’t need the accolades to be under 40.

01:12
Michael Warren
Under 40 would be much better than where we’re at right now, wouldn’t it?

01:16
Brent Hinson
Yeah, I think so. Every time I see one of those lists, I’m like, what were those lists when I was 30 years old?

01:21
Michael Warren
You will notice that I am also absent from those lists. And we laugh about it, but oftentimes the term overachiever kind of gets a bad rap. But I think a lot of times it gets a bad rap simply because it’s like, man, I wish I could be like that.

01:36
Brent Hinson
Yeah. You know what that is? That means that someone that’s put in the work. That’s what it means.

01:40
Michael Warren
And oftentimes we try to write it off to, oh, they know somebody or they got lucky or whatever, and we just don’t give credit where credit is due.

01:48
Brent Hinson
I think the guests we have lined up today, he’s got his hands in a whole bunch of different fields, and you can see that his work and his dedication has paid off.

01:57
Michael Warren
The length of time is going to be wrong on this thing that I’m about to use, but I think it really sums it up. You guys talk on your music podcast, crossing the streams a lot about the overnight success. After 20 years, people see the end result, and they forget all the hard work that went into it. And I think that’s what we’re going to find out today from our guest.

02:17
Brent Hinson
Yeah, there’s a great line. She’s an overnight sensation after 25 years. That’s how that works, right? They don’t see all the struggles you went through to get to the point where you’re at now.

02:26
Michael Warren
I’m looking forward to the conversation today because I am curious how one even gets considered for one of those lists, so hopefully we can figure that out. But why don’t you tell us a little bit about him and we’ll get started with this thing.

02:41
Brent Hinson
All right. Our guest today started his law enforcement career in 2012 at the Carter County Sheriff’s Office in Elizabethan, Tennessee, where he served in a number of roles, including patrol lieutenant, narcotics investigations, and corrections. In 2019, he became the director and lead instructor for law enforcement and corrections at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, where he developed and taught a training program that has been recognized for its effective merits and was implemented at multiple Tennessee technical and community colleges. He now finds himself as the training coordinator at Walter Estate, where he redesigned the physical training program and transformed the firearms training model, leading to measurable improved outcomes for graduating cadets. He was recently named, as we alluded to earlier, one of the 40 under 40 recipients by the International Association of Chiefs of Police for 2023.

03:31
Brent Hinson
And next year, he’s going to be a featured trainer and presenter at the 2024 Ilita Conference in St. Louis. It is our pleasure to welcome in Miles Cook. Thanks for taking time to join us this morning.

03:46
Myles Cook
Absolutely. Good morning, guys. It is my honor and privilege to be here with you both, and that is the best introduction I’ve ever had.

03:54
Brent Hinson
I do a lot of these introductions. One time I would love to hear somebody introduce me with those kind of accolades.

04:02
Myles Cook
It’s an amazing thing to hear yourself and be thinking through it as you’re doing. That how I did all that. That was the best introduction. I need to carry you around with me everywhere I go, every room, I’ll.

04:13
Michael Warren
Be your Hype man.

04:14
Brent Hinson
All right.

04:15
Michael Warren
You know what, though, Bret? Whenever somebody introduces me, it sounds more like an AA introduction. Here’s Mike. He’s 53, and he’s with us today. That’s the way it typically ends up. Let’s go ahead and get started here. You have a military background?

04:30
Myles Cook
Yes, sir. United States Marine Corps Reserve. I did six years.

04:34
Michael Warren
Okay, I got to pause you, Brent. We got to do better vetting on our guest. Okay. I thought that we had decided no more Marines.

04:43
Brent Hinson
I forgot to put that in the intro because I saw on your LinkedIn, it said part time. So walk me through that. How did that work? Where you were in the reserve part? How did that come about?

04:54
Myles Cook
Yes, sir. So the reserves, that was my enlistment. I joined the Marines later in life, and it was a drive. It was something that I needed to do for myself, I guess you could say, in some ways needed to prove to myself I was raised. My family has a good military background. My brother served. My great uncle was posthumously received the Medal of Honor in Korean san Korea. And so it was something that I needed to do, and I had a good run of success in my career, and I got to be almost I was 28. I’d been with my girlfriend for years, had just married her, and six months after that, I said, there’s something I have to do. And so we got married.

05:37
Myles Cook
Six months later, I was gone for six months for training, and I wanted to be a Marine Corps infantryman. And I knew with my current career and the run of success that I had, I wanted to continue doing that, and I wanted to serve in the reserve component of the United States Marine Corps, and they allowed me to do that.

05:55
Michael Warren
It’s amazing to me, again how many people that we have on this program that have not only a legacy, a family legacy of service, but also multiple ways that they serve the communities. It really is an honorable thing to do that. And I tell people in the class that, listen, if you’re a military vet and you’re in law enforcement, you’ve done two of the most honorable things that you can do in society, and it’s amazing to me that people are still willing and volunteering to do that.

06:24
Myles Cook
Thank you.

06:25
Michael Warren
So, infantry?

06:26
Myles Cook
Yes, sir.

06:27
Michael Warren
Okay, then you and I can talk a little bit, because, Brent, I know this can be difficult to believe. When I became an infantryman, it was a long time before he did.

06:36
Brent Hinson
Really? You don’t say.

06:38
Michael Warren
I’ll just put it this way. Ronald Reagan was the first commander in chief that I served under, so that puts things in perspective, my man. Let me do the math here. He probably was born by then, but he probably doesn’t remember.

06:52
Brent Hinson
Ronnie, you’re not on that 40 under 40 list anywhere, buddy.

06:57
Michael Warren
I’m on some list. It’s got nothing to do with good things. You do this piece right here. And for our listeners, if you’ve never served active duty or in the reserves of the National Guard, it’s a sacrifice, because, especially in this profession, we have limited time off and time with our families. This isn’t in lieu of this is in addition to the careers that are being served. We had a recent guest on Mike Rogers. Who was he was Air National Guard, I believe.

07:26
Brent Hinson
Air Force.

07:26
Myles Cook
Yeah.

07:27
Michael Warren
And I remember that he spent a lot of his weekends off, and we didn’t get a lot of weekends off, but the weekends we had, he often spent at drill, and then he had to burn time. So he know because he wanted to maintain seniority and stuff like that. When he’d go to his two weeks, it’s a sacrifice. But it had to help you in your law enforcement career, the experience that you gained in the Marine Corps.

07:48
Myles Cook
I think so, and it was an interesting experience for me. So, like I told you, it was very different, and I aged out one week into Paris Island. And so at that point in my life, I’d already helped lead SWAT teams and other things and we’re around, I would consider nearly children, 1718 years old and coming in, I decided to enlist. And so I’m almost a 30 year old man with an education and training and I’m a private. And I tell you some of the things that I gained from there would be leadership regardless of rank and checking your ego at the door. Humility, humility. And checking your ego at the door. Maybe two of my greatest takeaways from my time in the Marine Corps.

08:32
Michael Warren
This is something you probably can relate to. When I went to Basic, we had a guy that I think he was about 30 at the time. Of course everybody called him Pops. When you look at that though, people that are that age and are forced to work with kids that are 17, 1819 years of age, that don’t have a lot of life experience, it really is a great leadership test and learning area for you because you have to work with them. It’s not optional.

09:04
Myles Cook
Absolutely. I could not agree more.

09:07
Michael Warren
We’ll talk about where you’re at in your career coming up here, but that certainly had to have had a positive impact on what you do now.

09:14
Myles Cook
Absolutely. In the academy setting, obviously with a wide range of folks from different agencies and different ages and different backgrounds trying to relate and communicate and what we call here inspire and instruct, it’s different for every single person. We’re all different human beings and we react differently to different. So being able to find those things, whether it drives a fire team in the Marine Corps, whether it keeps morale up there or in a law enforcement setting, I think it’s all the same and it’s about finding those individual abilities.

09:50
Michael Warren
I don’t know if you guys saw this, but recently the Air Force, they upped their minimum age for enlistment and they did so in response to a downward trend in the number of people coming to enlist. And the Air Force typically doesn’t have an issue because if we’re honest with each other, from a development standpoint, if you’re looking for a career post the military, it has the most applicable jobs in the civilian world. But they’ve had such a hard time getting people to do it that they upped it, I think to 41 and I think we’ll get into it a little bit deeper.

10:25
Michael Warren
But I think we’re also seeing some of that in our police academies where we get people that they’re changing careers, maybe midlife, something like you with the Marine Corps, it’s just something they’ve always wanted to do and they’ve just said, you know what, if I don’t do it now, I’m not going to get that chance. As the leader of those folks, getting them to work together and to be able to learn together, it has to be trying, but it also has to be very rewarding when it works.

10:52
Myles Cook
It is trying and rewarding and you’re absolutely correct. We’ve got folks upstairs right now that retired out of the army from Fort Campbell, multiple folks, multiple bouts of military service, and then the 19 year old that just found himself wanting to do this. Of course, in Tennessee we’re a residential academy. And that can be trying and it can be trying on different methods of leadership and leadership abilities when you’ve been very used to this command and control and all of a sudden as it’s going to be at your agency, there’s going to be different levels and people responding to different things. And I think it’s a learning curve for everybody here. I’m very proud of what we’re able to accomplish in that realm.

11:39
Michael Warren
Very cool. Well, let’s talk about different agencies. Let’s talk about you coming into law enforcement. How did that law enforcement career, how did that start and where did it start?

11:48
Myles Cook
Well, so it started here in East Tennessee at the Carter County Sheriff’s Office in 2012. I started in Corrections and worked there for about a year and a half, and then it advanced through that before I took the job there. I had previously did my undergraduate and my master’s at East Tennessee State University, and I was able to stay over and teach as an adjunct faculty member there and then begin my career. So I’ve always had a love for teaching others and instructing has been my life’s passion in the law enforcement realm. And so started there and working my way up through the ranks and through different doing different things.

12:32
Myles Cook
So working in Narcotics, working in warrant services, working all the way up to as a patrol lieutenant, I was full time with Safest Streets FBI Task Force, part time with Marshall’s Task Force, and doing a wide range of things there. But it all began in Corrections. Then of course, I left from there.

12:50
Michael Warren
Let’s talk about corrections for a second, if we can.

12:53
Myles Cook
Sure.

12:53
Michael Warren
In many cases that is the gateway for people coming into the profession because in many states there’s a lower minimum age to work in corrections than there is to be a police officer. And so you get people who start there. And we’ve had several guests on our podcast that talked about the corrections world. When you first got into that job, what was it that surprised you most about it? What was it like? You know what, that ain’t the way it is on TV.

13:21
Myles Cook
I’ll tell you, and I tell this story pretty often, so I have a deep love for Corrections correctional officers. I was recently appointed to the Tennessee Corrections Institute, which is the State Board for Corrections making those decisions. And I have a profound respect for the folks that do it. I have a profound respect for the career. It is unbelievably difficult, maybe perhaps the most stressful career that I’ve ever had. And I think it is special because you learn to utilize your body language, your words, all your other abilities when you may be outnumbered one to 60 and you have no weapons per se at your disposal. And it is just your ability to work with and influence other humans. And I think that translates immensely into patrol work and will make you such a better patrol officer.

14:16
Michael Warren
Okay, I’ve got another question, because by the time you got into that part of the career, you already had your undergrad and your graduate degree. In my mind, that would make it easier for you because you have this increased base of knowledge, but you also have a maturity. I mean, when you physiologically, your brain is fully developed at that point, the prefrontal cortex. And it would seem like that for you, having that behind you before you got into the career. And I’m not saying not having it is wrong, but it would seem to me that had to have made that transition into that job. Having to do that type of talking that you’re talking about. It would make it easier or more attainable in a much quicker fashion.

15:02
Myles Cook
I think the levels of that education, I do think just the age and the maturity and the understanding of other humans did make that easier. And what I was going to say, the story that I often tell is I had finished that up. I taught at the university level. I had taught firearms privately. And I get there and I’m thinking in my head, I’m ready. I’m ready for this. Day one, I have to talk a naked guy out of a shower and I find out in about 15 seconds, wow, I’m not ready for this. I’ve still got some growing to do. And it was the human skills and some of that. We always still need to develop those things. First day, that was day one.

15:48
Brent Hinson
I’ve heard some bad first day job stories, but talking a naked man out of the shower, that may top.

15:55
Myles Cook
I can remember vividly. I can even remember the gentleman’s name. I remember it being such a moment in my career, another great moment of like, hey, check your ego. You’re not where you need to be. You’ve got a lot of things to learn and to grow and develop, and you always will.

16:11
Michael Warren
And for our listeners who maybe have not served in law enforcement, I think at some point in just about everybody’s career, you end up having to wrestle with a naked man. And there is no experience, and I’m not talking good experience. There is no experience like that. And they tend to be wet, either from being in a shower like you had or from just sweating. It is scary and humiliating and just mind blowing all at the same time.

16:44
Myles Cook
Absolutely. Everybody’s got a naked person wrestling story. Yeah, absolutely.

16:49
Michael Warren
That is never in the recruitment video. Never. It’s never in the job description. I just want you to imagine you just had this couple of minute long wrestling match with this guy, okay? They’re usually wet. Like I said, there’s nothing to grab a hold of, buddy. Okay? And yet you’re supposed to control their actions and get them into custody. And the only word that I can come up with to describe it is there’s this icky feeling once it’s done.

17:18
Brent Hinson
See, this is why I’m a podcaster. This is why I sit in the comfort of my little chair here, because I’m not like you guys. I’m like ropes on the Goodyear Blimp over here.

17:28
Michael Warren
It’s entertaining. And I want to go back to this for a second to get your perspective, okay? The state of California a couple of years ago, they had introduced a bill that would have required the minimum age for a law enforcement officer to be 25. Or in lieu of that, they had to have an undergraduate degree. And we’ve talked about it a couple of times on the podcast. I can argue both sides of that fence. And your job of training people coming into it and based upon your own experience and your own observations, is there merit to that type of requirement? I’m not advocating for it. I’m just asking, is there merit for.

18:09
Myles Cook
I think and this is just my opinion, miles Cook’s opinion personally, I think there is some merit to it, and I think it is beneficial both in education and age. What I would be leery of doing is setting out a flat rule for things such as that. So we’ve had very young people be here. And as always, age does not dictate life experience. And so there are other avenues other than formal education. There’s other avenues than strictly years lived that can give you life experience. Like I talked, human skills, problem solving, and interacting with humans is our job. And there are other ways to do that strictly than counting years lived.

18:57
Brent Hinson
I think it boils down to even if you have someone that’s under 25 having a good mentor, having a good leader who’s able to see their potential and lead them to where they need to be.

19:08
Myles Cook
Absolutely.

19:09
Michael Warren
But again, one of my heroes, James Mattis, in his autobiography, he talked about how the Marine Corps is the youngest branch. And he says, we’re able to do that because we have such good close supervision of those at the bottom of the organizational totem pole that those 17, 1819 year old Marines, they’re able to do as well as they do because we’ve got good sergeants, good NCOs that are supervising them closely. Perhaps what is missing in law enforcement is that piece right there, that when we get the young folks in, they’re there wanting to do a good job, and they have the capability, but perhaps they’re lacking the leadership that is needed to perform at that level at that age.

19:56
Myles Cook
That organizational culture and leadership and that ability. Man, I hope we get to that, because that I’m excited to talk about.

20:03
Michael Warren
Well, it sounds like maybe you’ve already gotten there. As a profession, we probably need to be doing a little bit better. But you do your correction stint and you make the change over to patrol. What was the catalyst behind that? How did that come up?

20:14
Myles Cook
So I believe that was always my plan, that I wanted to get into law enforcement patrol work and then find other avenues through that I enjoyed. But I truly believe at the end of the day, there is the ability to create good and good change and be a catalyst for good in your community from a patrol position, there’s no greater opportunity to do that.

20:42
Michael Warren
Hey, Brent, I’ve just stumbled across a clue as to why I have never made a list that we’ve been talking about because he started that. Off he goes, that was my plan. And my career has certainly been probably a lot more unplanned than planned. So that’s probably proud of it. More of a, hey, yeah, sounds good, let’s go. But that’s a great way of putting it. The catalyst. We had Jamie Borden on here recently and he talked about his desire to make a change in the relationship between the police and the community. And so he utilized music to do know change comes about, can come about in a bunch of different ways.

21:19
Michael Warren
Taking a bad guy off the street is a way of making the community better, but then also developing a relationship with the kids in the community, with the business owners, that also creates good in the community. And I’m going to get your take on this. There seems to be a big push for well rounded officers. Officers need to be competent in the scope of their job. But it seems like that when somebody is passionate about a very particular part of law enforcement, if we’re able to feed that, then we’re going to get much better results. And the type of change you were talking about is exponentially larger in the community.

21:56
Myles Cook
My take on that, and I could not agree more, that the recruits that I see come through this academy are perhaps different than they were 30, 40 years ago. And I don’t mean worse and in many ways I mean better. There is a sincere desire for service and some of that might come. They do an exercise where they draft up a letter. It’s all confidential. It does not go anywhere except to us. And it’s why it is your Simon Sinek style, why you’re in this career. And it’s not the normal because I want to serve or to help others. It is much deeper than that. And they actually do get deep and then we give them ours because turnabout is fair play. And so we get that from them.

22:39
Myles Cook
And you will see sometimes very happy and sometimes very traumatic backgrounds where all it is a desire for service. And I think it’s crucially important that as leaders in law enforcement, those leaders of agencies, we utilize that and leverage that to set those folks up for success in trying to implement the good that they want to see in the field.

23:07
Michael Warren
Well, it’s been my experience that when we are doing pre employment interviews with people and we will often ask them, why did you want to become a police officer? Why did you want to get in law enforcement? We often take that surface level answer of I want to help people and we don’t dig deeper. And then even more harmful, in my opinion, is that we don’t take that intelligence that we gather during that interview, and if they get hired, we pass it along so that it can be nurtured. And instead, in many agencies we go, okay, there Boy Scout. Okay. I want to help people. Okay. It’s like we discourage that outlook when that outlook right there, that’s what drives positive change.

23:50
Myles Cook
Absolutely. I think we do a very good job of here in driving it, and we’ve revamped our academy’s fundamental behaviors, and I’ll talk about that more later. But here at this academy, we have a specific and I know me personally and my director, Travis Angel, have a personal drive to, number one, help sustain and create the best humans we can possibly create, because that’s what this line of work is. And that is, number one, regardless of whatever dictates the nation or the state has on training hours and training modules in this, creating good humans is number one because that’s what the agencies want and that’s what our communities need. And number two is and if you look at my LinkedIn profile, it says this, to create the most well round, well trained peace officer in the nation.

24:40
Myles Cook
And mark my words, but I will not rest until I’ve done that. That is my objective every day.

24:47
Michael Warren
Okay? What you just said, and I agree with it, but I’m going to play a bit of devil’s advocate here if I can, for a second. What you just espoused right there. To me, it sounds less like a director of an academy, especially the way that basic academies have been historically run. It sounds less like that position and more like the position of a coach. You often hear coaches talk about, hey, listen, winning games, I’m not going to say it’s not important. But what is most important is that I develop these young men and these young women into the best productive member of society that they can be when they leave.

25:26
Myles Cook
I could not agree more. One of my heroes, President Roosevelt, said that a river will never rise higher permanently than its source. And the source of national greatness is in the individual qualities of its citizens. I believe the greatness of law enforcement is in the individual qualities of each and every officer. And we miss that with leadership training at agencies, we miss that. Mark, in a lot of academies, we need to be focusing on those attributes and the individual qualities and abilities of each officers and not so much just the technical abilities on our fundamental behaviors.

26:00
Myles Cook
We have it to inspire, educate, inspect and instruct with professionalism spirit of purpose to demonstrate to cadets through actions the same professionalism and compassion their administrators would expect them to show the communities they serve to train the body to act, the mind to think and the heart to feel. And there’s more on that and you’re right and Brian Willis from Alita posted a thought on that yesterday about maybe some hazing type mentality at academies or hell nights or hell weeks or those ideas and I don’t buy it. Our role here you’re exactly right. Is as a coach, a mentor, a success specialist to help develop and foster what we want to see in our communities from the individual abilities and attributes of each of these officers. And that’s what we try to foster. And we have to show that and demonstrate that upfront.

26:53
Myles Cook
And so we don’t believe in showing disrespect or things of that nature because that’s not what I want you to do. And I’ll give you a good example, and I give it to the cadets. On day one in the Marine Corps, you need immediate obedience to orders. You need to run into a machine gun nest and risk life and limb for this order because that is what is needed. I need peace officers to think. We have seen nationally what happens when you don’t critically think for yourself. Over time we have put critical thinking and decision making and leadership on the back burner at training academies when that should be at the very forefront. That should be the first thing that we should be training.

27:40
Brent Hinson
Do you get 100% buy in from everyone or is there someone like on any team that’s like no I got this, I don’t need to hear this kind of thing. And when you come in contact with those types of people how do you get them to buy into what you are trying to get them to be a part of?

27:55
Myles Cook
So I think myself and our director, Mr. Stanzel, are 100% on board with that what I’ll just call a type of culture. And I think our agencies that send their officers to us, our stakeholders, also understand that culture. And there may be a few instructors who may have felt differently. But I think over the last couple of years with the success of the cadets and the buy in, and I can’t wait to talk about some of our programs here in the buy in and how we change things that they have seen and go, wow, maybe this is a better way, maybe this does make more sense. Maybe this does foster and develop our actual objectives. And I’m probably going to say that ten more times today at least, our actual objectives of what we’re looking for.

28:45
Michael Warren
You. Brought up several things. I have to go back and visit a little bit more. Okay. You talked about our job is producing the best human beings. And I think that it gets lost sometimes that it doesn’t matter how good the training is. It doesn’t matter how high speed the training is or the quantity of training. If you give that to people who aren’t good people, you’re going to get bad results. You may not get it in a week, you may not get it in a month, but eventually it’s going to come out. And in fact, when you go and you look and listen if you listen to this podcast at all, people know that I believe misbehavior bad actors in law enforcement are a very small part of the overall population.

29:32
Michael Warren
But oftentimes they are some of the best trained people that are out there. But they haven’t coupled that training with the culture and the values and the principles, the guiding principles that make them into good humans. You have to start with the good human piece and then you can add in the training piece, can’t you?

29:52
Myles Cook
Absolutely. You have to be this is a religious quote, but it doesn’t have to be. I think most of us would agree, regardless of religion, we’re servant leaders. We are servants for good. And that is number one. Because any training, any skill, anything past that, if you are not a servant for good, then you’re likely some sort of tyrant. Not only can those not be separated, I don’t think you can even build the second half of that before you start to nurture and foster the first half.

30:23
Michael Warren
That’s a great point. And then I’m going to refer back to one of my favorite movies. At least the first half of the movie is my favorite movie, Full Metal Jacket.

30:31
Brent Hinson
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the end of that movie. Yeah, because the halfway point, first part.

30:36
Michael Warren
But there’s a part towards the end of the first half where the platoon is running through a swamp and they’re going on and the narrator, the actor, goes, the Marine Corps doesn’t want robots. And I think that in too many academies, that’s what they’re shooting for. And you are absolutely correct. They fail to start addressing on day one the decision making. In fact, I wrote a class about it here recently trained the 21st century law enforcement professional. It has to focus on increasing critical thinking and adaptive decision making. That’s where the focus has to be. It’s an important thing to know when or how to pull my weapon up out of my holster, put it on target and pull the trigger and hit what I’m aiming at.

31:18
Michael Warren
That is an important skill, but it’s at least as important, if not more important, to know when I should pull my weapon up out of my holster and bring it on target. And we tend to focus on that first piece because it’s measurable, and it’s easy to see when I’ve been successful as a director of an academy. How do you go about implementing that second piece where we’re not producing robots, we are producing good humans that are capable of making decisions that are appropriate.

31:46
Myles Cook
So I’m excited to hear you say that, and I really hope we have time to get into later some of the changes we’ve made at the academy. What you’re discussing, I can think of a couple people off the top of my head. Jesse Curtis out of Wyoming, deputy director out there, talks about in context learning, of course, Chris Butler Fracture Technologies going into for science methods of instruction. Shout out to him. I love his stuff. And it is whether it be motor skill or what we used to call soft skills, which I would call attributes, you have to train those things first. Whether it be the decision to do anything or the motor skill, the visual input decision to do those things have to be trained first. We’re looking right now, and if you give me the time later, we will discuss it.

32:36
Myles Cook
And for our 2024 curriculum. I think nationally there’s a huge focus on that now, thankfully, and we’ve made some great strides here, and we’re looking for some more strides to the future about those critical decisions and all the things you’re discussing implementing those things first and interleaving those things into the training for it to be more effective.

32:58
Brent Hinson
Well, I want to go back to your point, Mike, about know, being robotic in my dealings with law enforcement. Again, I’m non law enforcement, but I’ve had a few dealings on the civilian side. I didn’t do anything wrong. They just came to my house. But they do have this and I think it’s to protect themselves, this personality of no personality. And I think maybe that could be I’m just theorizing maybe the disconnect between law enforcement and society or the community as a whole is we don’t get to see the other side of their personality other than the ones that show up. And just the facts kind of thing.

33:31
Michael Warren
I would put out there. That is a training scar, because I was taught in the academy that having emotions is unprofessional, and that’s simply not the case. We’re emotional beings, and I say it constantly because I think it’s so important. Dr. Henry Thompson in his book The Stress Effect, the goal should be to have emotions without being had by your emotions. So let me give you an example here, all right? I don’t know if you know Tim Tester, Miles, but he’s the director of the academy up Southwest Virginia regional Criminal Justice Academy.

34:07
Myles Cook
I do know him, sir, and we both started out at the same agency.

34:10
Michael Warren
He is a fantastic guy. And here’s one of the things that he’s implemented at his academy that I think is genius. On their Facebook page, they will often put on there, hey, a big thank you. They’ll take a picture, say a big thank you to Bula Baptist Church for providing lunch to our trainees today. Talked to one of their instructors, Tony Sullivan, about it, and he goes, what happened was because, as you said, residential academies are hard, and they’re not a residential academy, but they have residential capability, and some of the people have to stay. So what they did was they started reaching out to churches in the community where that cadet has been hired, and they say, hey, we’re just offering this up to you. Maybe be a sponsor for this kid. Reach out to him because they’re away from home.

34:56
Michael Warren
And he goes, but it also allowed them to start developing relationships with the people in the community before they’re even out in the community. And it’s grown into this thing where you have churches that will bring these potluck type dinners and bring it as a way of serving the entire academy class, but it models the behavior we say we want, where our people are getting into the community and interacting with them. But in many academies, there’s zero interaction with the community. But then when we take them out on FTO, we throw them out there and say, okay, go interact. And we wonder why they struggle with that type of concept right there.

35:35
Myles Cook
I couldn’t agree more. If you’ll indulge me, I would love to tell a story that relates to this and relates to that IACP award.

35:45
Michael Warren
Absolutely.

35:45
Myles Cook
I guess one of my favorite stories to relate to that is when I realized our profession’s, culture, and the quality of the individual officer is kind of supreme in my word packet. And unbeknownst to me, a supervisor, a friend, a mentor that I had, lieutenant Larry Vaughn, had written a letter for me. And it had to do years ago with our area’s first LGBTQ event. And so what it was, multiple agencies had gotten together, come up with this security plan, because there’s plenty of federal agencies involved. And it was a very clear directive that you were not really to talk, engage, touch, do anything. And there were counter protests. There was a very clear directive of that. And again, I’ll mention again, I understand why they said it, but I’m not sure that directive truly met our objectives or our endeavor for that day.

36:43
Myles Cook
And so what I told my team is the same thing after. I thought for myself, if the worst thing you do today is hug someone or show love for your community, then we’ll take whatever lumps come. If that is the worst thing you do today is love somebody else in your community, then we’ll take the lumps. And I think doing that, I think we realized we probably changed a lot officers minds that day. I think we might have made a few thousand friends in the community that day. And it was one of those times where I realized that our culture and that quality of that individual match. Our words have to match our actions, whether it be in training, curriculum, roll call, leadership, or a call for service.

37:26
Myles Cook
And Lieutenant Vaughn, he wrote about that incident, and what I don’t think maybe he understood and I’d like to express this is whether or not exactly in words, at least in actions. He had a big part in helping teach me that he was a naturalist, a big time hunter and fisherman, and he taught me a lot about both of those things trout fishing and law enforcement relating to this story. And that story being part of that IECP award packet, he really showed me, again, it might not have been exactly in words that you are given some level of responsibility and power and influence over an ecosystem for its good and for its benefit, whether it be trout fishing or law enforcement.

38:13
Myles Cook
And if you don’t leave it better than you found it, if you don’t show it love and respect, then not only did you not help, but you actually did it a disservice that has always stuck with me and his lessons, and even just that story has always stuck with me.

38:31
Michael Warren
Man you use some powerful words in there. One of our previous guests, Victor Lauria, he and I have been friends for just about 30 years. We worked together. We were partners. But I’m going to be very blunt with the way that I was raised and the way that I was trained. Man the first time Vic told me that he loved me, in the words of Major Pain, kind of makes me feel funny. I didn’t know how to take that right there. But if I can’t love and express that type of deep feeling for somebody that I say I’d lay my life down for, then how can I truly be the servant for the public that is needed?

39:14
Brent Hinson
Well, I think it makes you vulnerable, especially for officers. That’s something you don’t want to let yourself be as vulnerable.

39:22
Michael Warren
They’ve been trained that being vulnerable is a sign of weakness. Being vulnerable in a physical confrontation, that’s an issue, okay? But being vulnerable as a person, that’s human. And this obviously is not a church service or anything like that. But if we look at the teachings of Jesus where he says, love your neighbor as yourself, don’t love the neighbors that are like you as yourself. Don’t love the neighbors that think like you as yourself. Love everybody. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with what they do. It doesn’t mean as a police officer, you don’t take people to jail when the situation calls for it. And miles. You tell me, do you think that it makes a difference if I do my activities?

40:11
Michael Warren
If I arrest people, take them to jail, if I go on calls, if I talk to kids, if I do that because I love my community, that the same activity looks different than if I do it? Because that’s my job?

40:24
Myles Cook
Absolutely, it looks different. Your behavior and your root. Why? For the reason for doing something will always come to the forefront, and it will always see you through. And I am so glad you mentioned the word vulnerability. And Mike, again, if you’ll indulge me for just a second. It is something that we teach here that is probably very different than most academies. And Mike, I agree completely with you. Physical vulnerability on a call, we beat that through technique. We beat that through tactics. But vulnerability as a leader is necessary, and there’s some great trainings about that out there. And I’ll give you one that will always stick with me, that is personal to me here, and even at times whenever we do leadership exercises with the cadets, I will make note of this and I will share this.

41:15
Myles Cook
Travis Stansel, our director, we both come on a couple years ago here, and I had been told, hey, Miles, as training coordinator, I’m acting assistant director. So that’s practically what it is. The XO to the CEO, that is kind of my role. And I was told, you should put in for director, so I put in for director, and we both went through the process of it. He got it. I got a call and said, are you still interested in the training coordinator position? I said, absolutely. My soul’s on fire. Other than being a husband and a father, this is what I live for, and I’ll prove it to you. And so Travis, the director, Mr. Stanzel, comes out, and he’s going to interview me again with some others. He did so.

41:58
Myles Cook
And this is the point I want to make and this is the point I make about vulnerable leadership. He chose me being and I tell this story because cops love this story, because we don’t always have the gift of great leadership. Always. He chose me to be in that position, being the only person he didn’t know that had applied for that position and the only person that had competed against him for that director’s position decided to hire me on. And then when I come in and said, hey, I have some ideas on ways I really believe that we can improve the training and the culture here at this academy. He handed me the keys and he said, go forth and do good work. That is vulnerable leadership.

42:38
Myles Cook
And if you’re building a team, whether it be here at an academy, whether it be an agency or wherever, that is a requirement. That is a requirement. And that’s a shout out to Mr. Stanzel. And any vulnerable leader out there that will put themselves aside, take a chance, bring something on, and put their team forward to try to make the organization as good as it can possibly be.

43:02
Michael Warren
And when you talk about vulnerable leadership and I didn’t agree with her politics, but in my lifetime. I think I’m reminded of Janet Reno after the Waco incident when she gets up there and she goes, responsibility for this is mine. The buck stops here. Getting on national TV and making herself vulnerable like that, knowing full well that she could end up losing her job. To me, that was an example of someone laying it out there. You have to admire that. And I think people do, even if I don’t necessarily agree with somebody.

43:37
Myles Cook
Absolutely. In our line of work, if you take extreme ownership from Jakov right, and you take any vulnerable leadership from either like Brene Brown or from Simon Sinek, and you can mix those two together, you’ve got a recipe for success. And I think that’s exactly what you’re talking about.

43:56
Michael Warren
If you couple that with the whole idea behind working and developing good human beings and throwing into the mix quality training, that’s where we see change in our profession that is exponential, not just these little steps. That’s where we get these big changes in our profession. Folks, listen to me here, okay? We’re not going to have changes in our community until we have those same changes internally first. You don’t get to impact change externally until you have it internally first.

44:32
Myles Cook
I could not agree more.

44:33
Michael Warren
I’m going to recommend a book here. I’m a big reader for our listeners out there. Corey Newhoff wrote a book called Didn’t See it Coming, and he talks about these seven things that happen to just about every single human being, and yet we’re surprised when it happens to us. And one of the chapters in there was on Cynicism. I cannot recommend it highly enough, especially for those coming into the profession, because if we know something’s coming, gordon Graham told me if it’s predictable, it’s preventable. Well, I may not can prevent it, but I can certainly mitigate that. So let’s transition, if we could, and let’s talk about this recognition that you received.

45:11
Myles Cook
Yes, sir.

45:12
Michael Warren
What is the 40 under 40 that IACP has?

45:16
Myles Cook
So the 40 under 40, the way I understand it, is a recognition for the top 40 up and comers leaders, change makers in the law enforcement realm, obviously under the age of 40. And so this year, I was absolutely blown away and honored to receive that award. I think award winners this year come from eight different countries, I suppose out of 170 possible countries that are involved in IACP and got a chance to go out to San Diego for the conference with that organization and accept that award and awards breakfast. And it was one of those life changing events for me.

45:58
Michael Warren
I want to read from the IACP magazine where it talks about award, and it also has a short bio of the people. But this is how they start out, and I think this is important here. The annual IACP 40 under 40 award recognizes 40 law enforcement professionals under the age of 40 from around the world who demonstrate leadership, exemplify, commitment to their profession, and this is the one I want to hit on and have a positive impact on their communities. And the field of policing don’t necessarily have direct impact on your community anymore because you’re not out on patrol. That’s not your role. But you have impact on the community through the people that come through your academy. And that right there has to be an incredible force multiplier.

46:49
Myles Cook
That is exactly the way I describe it on our orientation day. There is no greater awe inspiring responsibility or gift that I have than to maybe create, let’s say out of 60, let’s say I have an impact on 20 and those 20 go to their agent. The change and the good that 20 officers, we graduate 250 a year, something around there that they have in their communities, the level of change that could impact to me. There is no greater gift that I could be given than that.

47:27
Michael Warren
It’s almost like being a missionary. They often talk about, hey, when you’re going and spreading the word, right? You don’t always see the fruits of your labor. You may not see the direct impact of the fruits of your labor, but then they have impact on somebody at their agency and then that person, it just grows.

47:45
Myles Cook
It grows and it’s a good thing. At this academy, during the last week, we have what’s known as a memorial run and we’re surrounded by some national monuments and some veteran cemeteries. We go for a run up into those and we have a great discussion up there about leadership and what we want to see you do in these communities. And we talk about the servant leaders that are literally surrounding you right now. And we have a few discussions about historical figures that are buried at that location. And I make it very clear that myself and every one of them in a matter of years will be buried just like them, right? And probably I will not have as nice as a headstone. My name will never be remembered. My small acts maybe here will never be remembered.

48:35
Myles Cook
But if there was good that I could do and pass out to those officers and those officers carry that on and continue that change, then it’s an entire organizational culture change, whether I’m dead in the ground with any headstone at all. You’re exactly right. It’s like missionary work that there is benefit that I may never see. And I’m 100% good with that because I believe in my heart of hearts our culture and what we’re doing here is the right thing for this profession.

49:05
Brent Hinson
Let me ask this question because I feel like it’s the elephant in the room that we don’t talk about. I see people that I think could be potential great leaders, but yet they don’t take that step forward because they say, I don’t want to deal with the hassle because I will be micromanaged. I won’t be given the keys to the car to implement my ideas. And so we have all these people that have the potential to really lead organizations. They just don’t want to put up with the bureaucracy. How do we avoid that?

49:38
Myles Cook
I think if you’ve been given a gift, it is your responsibility to do and I can’t remember the quote exactly, do what you can with what you have where you can. And I think that’s going back to the Marine Corps, that low level, decentralized command. Now, again, whether it be in the Marine Corps, whether it be a shift, whether it be a squad leader, because that’s the way we organize this upstairs with take those initiatives, that good leadership and those good principles and utilize them where you can. Great ideas, great leadership comes from the bottom up. If the structure of your command at your agency or your organization is not ready for that, continue pushing. Give it some time, and it will be or you will be there. But you can always affect change.

50:26
Myles Cook
And in today’s world, with law enforcement, if you want to call that rank, it does not take very long because your advancement is coming quickly with our current numbers. And so I think we just continue to push and strive. And I think the academies are a starting place for that. Brent, where we say again, you being a good human and a good leader and a good steward of your community is number one. And these are some of the things beyond tactics that you need to be focusing on and you need to be spreading that.

51:02
Michael Warren
I think it’s a reframing of the perspective. If you’re a police officer, you’re the chief of the police at that scene, you’re the highest ranking person there, your chief at that scene. Or if you’re a deputy, you’re sheriff of that county on that scene that you’re on, people look to you as the authority. You may not have the formal rank, but people look to you. We reframe that. Then we start to understand the importance of leadership training at those low levels. And when I say low levels, I’m not talking about low levels of importance, low levels of rank people. And Brent, to your point about people not stepping forward, I think a lot of times they’re discouraged bureaucracy, blah, blah, a whole bunch of things. And there’s a class that I wrote called Leading Without Rank.

51:49
Michael Warren
And there’s a point in it towards the end where, you know, people often tell me that I’m foolish because, Mike, you can’t change the world. And they’re probably right, but I can change my world, and I may not be able to change my city, but I can change my patrol beat or I can change this block. And it’s a reframing, and I keep going back to it. But you guys talked about on the music podcast recently, and it’s like how do we define success in the music industry? How do we define what’s a successful artist because the metrics that used to be, they’re probably not relevant anymore because the music industry has changed. What do we consider success at the level in law enforcement?

52:28
Brent Hinson
It starts here and then you can just add blocks to it as you go along.

52:32
Michael Warren
Absolutely.

52:34
Myles Cook
And I love the term reframing and so I was able to present at an idolist conference last year and I’m presenting this year at Alita, as was mentioned and it’s called Objective Driven training. And what it really is looking at training organizational cultures and running through a set of ten to twelve questions that are philosophical in nature, that are technical in nature, that are verse process, that involve theory of constraints and economic theory to actually see what the problem is that maybe you couldn’t see before. And to find out what your actual root objectives are. And one of the basic tenets of it, and it comes from economic theory is how do we reframe that problem. I love that you brought that up because you’re exactly right. There are ways to reframe things. I don’t have control of everything going on in the world.

53:28
Myles Cook
I don’t have control of my agency but I got control of what I can reach 3ft around me and I’m going to do as much good right here as I can possibly do and be the best that I can be right here.

53:39
Michael Warren
Admiral McCraven, the guy is famous for the make your bed speech. Towards the end of the speech he talks about, listen, if we can take what we started today and we can apply it out there then the world will definitely be a much better place than it was when we started. That’s what we should be shooting for and quite honestly, it doesn’t matter what your profession is, it doesn’t matter any of those things. Miles, as we’re starting to wrap things up here, one of the things that it seems to me that being recognized as a 40 under 40, that what it affords you is perhaps a bigger platform from which to speak. I’m all in on what you’re doing in your academy but so it seems like it gives you a bigger platform, a bigger microphone if you will, to spread that word.

54:24
Myles Cook
I think it does. Receiving this award was huge for me personally and I think it highlighted some of the objectives that I envisioned for what law enforcement training should be and what I still want to accomplish. But I couldn’t do it without the support of our adjunct instructors, other full time instructors, my director, other leadership. I never would have been able to accomplish some of these things or been put in a position for that award without the freedom of movement to do so in the help of implementation I wouldn’t been able to. And I think it does give me maybe a better platform to discuss these things. And of course, we’ve discussed, I would think, maybe the more attribute side, but there’s a very technical side. So like you talked about with critical decision making should come first for a lot of technical training.

55:10
Myles Cook
Some of those changes that we’ve implemented, I’m super proud of. But you have to reframe and you have to have an open mind to what your leadership is. You have to have an open mind to what your training curriculum is. That’s one of our fundamental behaviors now. We’re taking a critical look at every single thing we do and we’re saying, hey, is this the best possible product.

55:32
Michael Warren
We can do as a professional? I think we need to start celebrating when people expand their knowledge base. If somebody in our agency goes out and they get a degree in an unrelated field to law enforcement, it still has the ability to make them better police officers. And if we can become that, I saw it described as if we can create a learning culture, then we become a more impactful profession and impactful for the good. And it sounds like that’s really what you’re trying to accomplish in your position right now.

56:09
Myles Cook
I think so. We’ve been able to, I think, affect a lot of good things and it requires what I’ll call open, vulnerable leadership with a critical eye and even just at the very root, being supportive of change. I wrote an article about our changes in our physical training program and there were some very basic objectives that I wanted. I wanted folks to be excited about it. I didn’t want it to be confusing. I wanted all individuals to be able to improve. And so we revamped the way when I taught this as part of our objective driven training problem solving model, some people are blown away and all it is individualized, tailored physical training programs that are linearly, progressive. Literally any physical fitness coach in your community could do that.

56:58
Myles Cook
And so when the recruits show up day one, I have their initial scores based on their test, on their PT test, and I put it into an Excel doc. And it’s one of those things it’s really hard to explain to somebody 40 years ago why someone doesn’t need to run until they throw up because they’re never going to get better, and why platoon formation runs only makes the fastest person slower and it crushes the person back here in the back. And so these recruits show up every day with the knowledge of what they’re going to do, what’s expected in nine weeks? Actually, we test eight weeks. In eight weeks, we returned an average 34% to 38% improvement in every cadet across the desired ranges of testing. And it’s not a complex thing. It is really unbelievably simple that almost any coach could do.

57:49
Myles Cook
But you have to be willing to change.

57:52
Michael Warren
You have to be willing to recognize that, hey, there. Probably is a better way and then have a willingness to go out there and find the better way. And here’s the vulnerable piece be willing to fail, because what I thought would work may not have the intended results.

58:08
Brent Hinson
Well, the best thing I’ve ever heard is learn how to accentuate someone’s positives and hide their negatives and then that’s how to make them a better.

58:16
Myles Cook
Absolutely. That willingness to take a risk and try something because you believe it will better. I know on our range, I’m very proud we graduate. I’m the range master, and I come from a background of competitive shooting. And we have improved to the point where every person that I’ve graduated since I’ve been here, we have a 98.5% A rating by the time they graduate. It is very good. But it took some changes. We took a critical look at our objectives and what we wanted, and we figured out, and I’ll give you a great example of what I mean just by words. I want you to try to do something and speed up your trigger in going through these processes. And my God, I know you’ve heard the words because they’re sit on every law enforcement range. Every bullet has a lawyer’s name attached.

59:04
Myles Cook
Now, that’s true in the real world, but it’s not true in training. So what I’m saying to you is be very conservative on that. Never speed up and never try anything outside the realm you’re not exploring, you’re executing. And so into the 2024 curriculum, we’ve teamed up with, I’ve been in discussions with Billy Barton from Spec Train, gil from Fortitude Consulting and David Wampler from Wampler Dynamics, some of the absolute best performance and shooting instructors in the world. And I’ve relentlessly been in contact with Chris Butler and those folks and some of the researchers with the most up to date methodology on skill acquisition, motor skill acquisition and retention. So my objective now is to mail the world’s best performance shooters and the best motor acquisition and retention folks into a handgunning program that works for us and our unique constraints.

01:00:06
Myles Cook
But you have to be willing to seek improvement. You have to be open. You have to step outside the box. You have to realize that maybe saying, hey, equal height, equal light, press and pin the trigger is not the only way to operate a handgun. And you just got to be open to that. And you’ll be amazed and this is kind of what we teach. You’ll be amazed at the benefits you gain from that.

01:00:31
Michael Warren
And we’re wrapping things up because we’ve been going here and I could talk for a long time, but I just want our listeners to consider this. If you go and you look at the way that police academies were historically run, what we learned about physical fitness was we have this saying that, hey, you need to be physically fit in this job in order to do it correctly. And you do. But then what do we turn around and do in our police academies? We turn around and use physical activity as a punishment, and we punish people with it. And it’s like we wonder why people lose their physical fitness after the academy. Because it was always associated with negative. There was nothing ever positive associated with it. And so we have to be careful because that has lifelong implications with those officers.

01:01:18
Michael Warren
And then just going with what you just said right there, and both my younger sons are into sports right now, and I am constantly preaching to them. So, listen, you level up in practice and you play level, okay? You level up in practice. You practice against better competition. You go against bigger kids. Both my boys are into wrestling. You wrestle against kids that are older and heavier than you, that have more years of experience than you. That’s what you do in practice. So that when you get to a tournament and your wrestling level, it’s going to be easy for you. And I would be willing to bet that your academy is not easy. It’s not designed to be easy. It’s designed to be challenging.

01:02:00
Michael Warren
But the challenges have to produce good results in order for us to take those good human beings with good training and have change in the community.

01:02:10
Myles Cook
I completely agree, and I’m so glad you brought that up. I don’t have any statistics on it, but I have an unbelievable number of graduating officers that reach out to me for further PT programming, and I give that to when they leave here with that. And there is some amazing anecdotal stories of not being able to run one lap. And now that you send me a message and running five K’s every weekend and they’re so excited about it because they can see their progress, I literally give them an Excel sheet numerically stating their progress. And you mentioned buy in earlier. There’s a ton of buy in that carries over from there into their agencies.

01:02:49
Myles Cook
In the realm of physical fitness, which I’m a big believer in, it has just done amazing things because we have finally matched our methods to our objectives, where before you all want them to be fit, but my methods didn’t make sense, I’m going to punish them with it and make them despise. Not it’s so glaringly obvious, right? That is not the way, as our.

01:03:11
Michael Warren
Friend Brian Willis likes to know, there’s a big difference between get to and have to. As the trainer, we get to frame that for the people that we’ve been entrusted with. Miles, man, it sounds like you were doing fantastic work. And one of these days, because, you know, I love that part of the country, I’d like to stop by and see you guys and hang out. I’ve met some of your instructors at Aelita. I’d like to come by and see what it looks like because it sounds like it’s working out in a fantastic way for you.

01:03:42
Myles Cook
Yes, sir. Any of you are welcome anytime, and we would love to have you.

01:03:46
Michael Warren
Congratulations on the recognition. Very well deserved. And I’m appreciative when people like you are given that platform. Go and do good things with it.

01:03:57
Myles Cook
Yes, sir.

01:03:57
Michael Warren
Hey, Brent, my biggest takeaway on this one right here, good human beings has to come first, and that’s a great way of looking at things.

01:04:06
Brent Hinson
Yeah. I mean, he lives the lifestyle, and you can tell and again, we talked about this 40 under 40 honor that he received. We’ve got some information on that in the show notes section of this particular episode. You can find that in the episode page on our website. We always put additional links in the episode page. You can find that at between the lines of the virtualacademy.com miles, I know you’re a busy guy. You got stuff going on. And we do not take for granted that you let us take an hour of your time. So thank you so much for joining us.

01:04:34
Myles Cook
Thank you, bro. And it has been my honor.