Learn more about success and greatness and about getting a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certification, as well as being prepared in the backcountry for anything with WMTC instructor Jerome Gabriel. Jerome shares about how the great outdoors can be a great equalizer of people.

It all starts with....failure.

Show Highlights

1:31 - [Ari] Can you please tell us a little more about what you do in the Wilderness First Responder?

2:28 - [Jerome] In any case, the whole goal of the program is just for people to have more confidence when they're outside.

3:25 - [Jerome] My goal by the end of this course is not necessarily that you know and memorize the book and can do everything to exact perfection.

4:25 - [Ari] Can you tell us about your current position with St. Francis and what you do currently?

8:46 - [Ari] Your first Wilderness First Responder Course that you took, what was that like?

13:17   - [Ari] You used very high-quality powdered fake blood, as well as some make-up to create the reality of people who have just gotten battered, bruised, or broken. What are some of the types of things that other instructors use in other simulations to make them more real?

19:52 - [Jerome] A student who comes in on day 1 of this course has already spent 40-50 hours online, training, studying, taking some online tests and exams. So they had this huge knowledge base already.

21:25   - [Ari] What's the biggest emergency that you have ever had to deal with in the field?

26:39   - [Jerome] A classic example of this is an issue called volume shock, where a patient may have injured an internal organ that has a lot of blood flow in it (liver or spleen, etc). They may not be showing any outward signs of injury, there may not be extra bleeding... and all that they're seeing from the outside is a bruise. 

32:56 - [Ari] What are some things that you love about the backpacking culture or general outdoor culture?

35:28 - [Jerome] Yeah, historically, there's just been a lot of barriers to people of color getting into the outdoor industry, and I think the industry as a whole is starting to recognize that.

35:51 - [Jerome] I think, as a whole, the industry is beginning to recognize that there's more to outdoor recreation that just the extreme stuff. 

37:17 - [Ari] When you give the kids the opportunity to enjoy something like the outdoors which is so fantastically beautiful, phenomenal and engaging...But with our current world, we just don't have the opportunity to engage with the outdoors like that.

37:49   - [Ari] Do you have any thoughts on how we can use the same types of concepts and apply them to our lives?

40:20 - [Jerome] The people in my life who have been great were not focused solely on themselves. They knew what they could do, they knew what they were good at, they knew how to lead and to work well. But I would say, 10% of their time was focused on who they were. They spent most of their energy focused on building others up, and I think that’s what made them great.

40:56 - [Ari] How do you personally work towards achieving greatness each day?

41:39 - [Jerome] Every time you meet somebody, they're a new person. I can't inspire one person the same way that I inspired the next. So you gotta learn people, you gotta understand them, you gotta know drives them. And then once you know all of that, then you have the ability to work with them, and then help them to be better.

43:59 - [Ari] Do you feel like there's any way that the wilderness can help people achieve their greatness within them?

44:18 - [Jerome] One thing that I've always enjoyed about the outdoors is it really tends to be this great equalizer for people, because you don't have to be incredibly strong or outgoing or a natural leader to just go out and experience the outdoors. The outdoors treat everybody the same, regardless of who you are or where you come from.

47:49 - [Jerome] I think one of the most basic barriers that we have is a lot of time we get stuck in our own shells, and we like where we're comfortable, we like where we are not really having to expand our social network. One of the most basic ways to expand those is to go learn the name of somebody who you have passed every day, but you don't actually know their names.

49:01 - [Jerome] One of the easiest actionable steps that your listeners could do is...

About Jerome Gabriel

Jerome Gabriel is a faculty member at the University of St. Francis and has been a professional in the outdoor recreation field for nearly 20 years. He has guided in the Canadian Rockies, ran a university outdoor program for over a decade, and now enjoys teaching the next generation of college students the fundamentals of outdoor leadership.

Originally recorded 1/28/2019

Special Guest: Jerome Gabriel.

Links:

• Mass Casualty Blood Powder — this looks like what we used.
• Wilderness Medicine Training Center (WMTC) — Certifying organization for my WFR and Jerome's teaching certificate. Recommended.
• Jeannette Stawski on LinkedIn
• AORE - Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education
• The 10X Rule — book by Grant Cardone