Leading Through Listening

But I did find out later on that Mark went through the force , completed 30 years there and reached the dizzy heights of chief superintendent . And , by the way , I'm also going to plug your book as well , mark , right ? So there is a book which is a 30 years man and boy reflections of his police career .

I would say , get a listen , have a read of that , guys . I think you'd enjoy it . It's up on amazon . By all means do .

But maybe we'll pick up some of the stuff that mark put in that book , but also some other thoughts , because mark's now moved down from the police to elsewhere working out in I'm going to call it Civvy Street , and Mark can tell us a bit about that . Mark , welcome great to see you .

So I identified policing as what I wanted to do and , um , I got to become a police officer in when I was 22 um , and I always envisaged um being a frontline police officer . I had no view of pushing up through the the ranks at all and I think I was quite effective as a cop and I was , you know , quite busy and did my stuff .

But as time went on , I just had the urge that I wanted to lead people and be a bit more um capable of , uh , influencing things a little bit more .

And I quickly managed to get through all the exams , made my way up through to sergeant , moved from where I started in Basingstoke to Southampton , another relatively quick promotion to inspector , and by now I was thinking , wow , I didn't expect to get that far . This is all a bit serious , you know , and great stuff .

And then I had quite luckily I had quite a few secondments into other specialisms .

I think I was , I was somebody you know , somebody upstairs senior , was helping me out there , I suppose , and I was doing projects , program work and um , then I moved , came back out of headquarters , which is where I was at that point , to become a chief inspector , and over , which was a small um subdivision , but then , uh , became superintendent there before

moving to haven't , which is north of portsmouth . Yeah , very challenging and I did a lot there . That was exhausting time down there but hugely rewarding .

And then and then I ended up as a chief superintendent in the north of Hampshire and that's looking after a third of Hampshire , the whole of the north , from Aldershot , surrey all the way down to Wickham , north of Portsmouth .

So it was a very large area , very busy , and I was responsible for delivering all of the police and operations that happened in that area . So six years I did there , which was exceptionally long most people don't do that long for some reason .

Um , so I was left alone , had a brilliant time , and then , just before I retired , I was put in charge of professional standards , which is complaints and discipline for one of them .

So I had two years there with the task of trying to make them a department that people respected and looked to try and find improvement in behaviour rather than going after people who had just made honest mistakes . It was about trying to weep from the chaff type thing . That was the idea and I think we were quite successful in that .

Those that had committed serious off serious offenses or done just bad people they were kicked out and we managed to sort out a lot of the lower level stuff which historically had been um pursued to the nth degree all the time . So , yeah , it was a task about um going up front and actually using the department to pick up good work as well .

I threw a few people out there by actually congratulating people with saying I saw , you did what you did last night on the streets very unusual . People thought that was really weird . But actually I wanted to reset how we were .

We were there to pick up the good work , because standards is a standard , it's good standards and bad standards , but the history had always been looking at the bad stuff . So , yeah , I think I did that before I retired and it was . It was really great um .

But across all of that police career I was thinking about it before I came on here there's a whole range of leadership styles and um you know , and I I think really you develop it as you go forward . You look at the people who are around you , senior to you , and you're looking at , I really like what he did there or she did there .

I like the fact that some , some people were very um down with the , the staff working with them whilst doing their senior job . I used to think that was really , really great . So I always try to do that . And then the other bit , which I I don't know if it's been picked up elsewhere is when you're working with senior executives from other agencies council .

I used to work with all the council leaders , chief executives , leaders of health and education . That's a totally different skill set . Yeah , to working with the police , because you are actually trying to influence people , um , who you know .

They're there because they have to be there in the meeting , but they don't have to do anything unless you manage to get them to come to the table and offer it . So there was a whole range of skills there that I picked up as I went through as well and mark .

Don't ask them to do anything that you wouldn't do for yourself , and show that as well . Be out there doing it . So those will be , as a sort of at the start , you know , if I was starting out as a sergeant , those are the things I picked up on . And clarity of be clear as a leader .

Be clear on what it is we're trying to achieve and and don't deviate from it due to short term . That's what we're about . Simple , clear vision . That's what I want you to do every day , and , and when you do it , I'm going to be full of praise all over you , giving you a real pat on the back .

And uh , and when you make mistakes , that's what I want you to do every day , and when you do it , I'm going to be full of praise all over you , giving you a real pat on the back . And when you make mistakes , that's fine . As long as it's a genuine mistake , I'll look after you , but don't keep making the same mistake , that sort of stuff .

So it's all about being alongside people , because I genuinely believe and I'm probably a bit naive sometimes , but I think most people come to work to do a good job . I mean , some people come to work to just get some money , but there aren't many of those .

They most people come to work to do a good job , be appreciated and hopefully make a difference , which is where I started from and I honestly believe that's the case .

They want to be engaged , they want to have their leaders listen to them sometimes that would be nice and act on what they say and give the credit to them , because you know you're there to do a job and you're leading , but it's the team that do the work and always reflect that back to the people .

What happened ? What switch flicked , or ?

But , and at the end of that somebody said to me whether I'm a family or something , you ought to take the sergeant's exam , you know , get it done now and then you don't have to restart studying all over again .

Yeah , so I did , and uh , I got through , but by the tiniest of margins , by one percent I think it was something ridiculous across three papers , um , and so I was in . That was me set .

So after that , you know everything , I , every time I went for things , I seemed to get them , I don't know , lucky luck , hard work , um , yeah , that was it really , but it wasn't .

I never had a plan to reach any level , um , but when , when you see an opportunity and you think , yeah , I could do that , there's always one of those things when you're coming up , you look across initially you think , oh , I don , I could do that . There's always one of those things .

When you're coming up , you look across initially you think , oh , I don't know about this . And then you get a bit more competent . You realise actually I'm doing all right here and yeah , they're not all that better than me , you know , you're getting into it and gradually , yeah , no , I think I'm ready for the next level . Level all the time .

So yeah , and along the way you have setbacks . Sometimes you don't get what you want , but you come back and you learn from your setbacks and you keep going .

A chief superintendent is like a sixth line manager , yeah , all right , so , so how many people have you got working for you then ?

And you know I'd fought uh , 14 police stations , six local authority chief execs to work with , and so I was always responsible to the chief at the monthly meeting for all of the police and activity in those areas , whether it's , you know , crime and such behavior , serious incidents , um , but yeah , I used to make it an important part of my week to just turn

up at one of the police stations , not in a preset time or date , and just walk the floor , walk and talk to people . I remember sometimes I used to turn up at the back gate of some of these rural police stations . You could almost hear the scurrying going on inside , seeing you coming up the back there .

But it wasn't to catch people out , although I had fun , fun doing that sometimes , but um , it's to actually talk to people , find them doing their job , what is it that's going well , what isn't ?

And and that was the way I did my business really and I think when you know , obviously at that level you can't get to everywhere all the time , but I wanted people to know that if they had a , an issue , they could always raise it the main , come straight to me and in fact , sometimes it's not the best thing to do it to have it comes bypass your own

line management and go straight to something , but I want them to know that all of my team , my management , are interested in their people and you just let us know . If you've got a problem at home , tell us about it and we'll do all we can to make it work .

I know that the chief superintendent , yeah , what ?

So I had that up on all the walls and I said I want you to make every criminal in this town feel worried that we're on their back , that we're going to be on , and that sort of messaging is what gets to the in there . They're not really interested in pie charts , graphs and percentage per thousand . But I want to know what does he want from me ?

And I said if you go out and really take it to the bad guys in a lawful , proper way , I'm going to back you up and I'll be all . Everyone in this management team will look after you . If you make a mistake , we will deal with it . Um , as long as it's not unlawful , you know . It's just not dead serious .

Um , because I expect you to behave with you know the right way .

But it's all about that sort of stuff and when I was at haven't I mean this , this gets a big workout in that book you mentioned I got there and the cops were telling me uh , we can't go into , um , what was called a big housing estate down there I won't name it here but , uh , because it's too dangerous . Um , we have to go double crewed .

We can't go in use uh , putting phone calls in to trap us in and hijack the cars and all this . And I said I'm not well , I said it , I'm not having that at all . That is not acceptable . So we took that to the troops and said look , we want to turn this around , I'm going to make it happen , but I need your help .

What we're going to do , we're going to retake that place and we're going to take control of it . And um , and what we did ? We ? We took some police officers away from response work and created a proactive team of 16 , two sergeants and 14 .

And they worked that area all the time on mountain bikes , which was new at the time , and we were in the face of this group locked them up , took their houses away from some of the parents of these hoodlums .

Parents of these hoodlums , uh got got relatives , you know , people who are mums and dads involved in doing things like football teams and getting the kids to do stuff in the local schools who opened at night . So we got them off the streets . Uh , got the local paper to say we won't mention the name of this yobbo group that had a sort of cachet . We would .

I said I never want to hear that name again and their local paper said we won't use that anymore . So over about a year we completely changed it completely and the residents sent me letters that made me feel quite emotional , actually . One of them wrote to say you've given me my life back . I can now go and walk the streets .

I never thought I'd be able to do that again at night . I can't thank you enough now . She sent it to me , but I'm sending that to the troops because that is what you've done for me . I told you we're going to take this , take this place back and we're not having this sort of behavior . But that's what you've done .

You've changed somebody's life and it's that sort of vocational stuff that you get back to people . So , yeah , I think that's . That's the sort of stuff . It's telling a story stories and just saying that I was obviously bound by performance stats and I had .

You know , every month we went through this very big process um , com stat type stuff , which they brought up in new york where you were in front of the chief , had to account for your performance , but that's not what the troops need to know . They need to know we are going after this group . I want you to take that burger out , let's go and do it .

All those drug dealers because we were seeing in where I was up here we had county lines , was the . We were the first in hampshire to see county lines , as is now known . But , um , drugs coming out of tottenham and again , that was all about we're not having that , we're taking them out and we will really go after them , and we did .

We forced them out of hampshire and they went . They went over to surrey , um , but uh , but yeah , it's obviously got a lot worse now . But you know the truth that your management team particularly as I had a chance to select some of mine , I knew that I'd got a good team with me . So , right , this is what we're going to do .

How are we going to do it ? Including me ? But how do we do it ? Rather than telling them what they're going to do , let's harness their ideas and let's get their talent and experience on it .

How did you deal with the leadership challenge in the middle of that because , like neil says , you're like a six-line manager , right , yeah , yeah , how do you deal with ? And also come back to the you talked about you . You were able to select some of your own team , yeah . So what were you looking for and how did you maximize ?

I had my own finance team , I had personnel , so I had a whole you know everything there and I was able to do regular pieces of communication and I'd send an email a week , maybe a fortnight , but certainly always coming back to what what we're doing and all the good stuff and what the challenges are , in a way that I like to think chimed with everybody ,

wherever you were in the organisation . And I also looked every morning for good things to pick up on and I'd get back to people . In fact I'd go and visit some . If it was a really outstanding , I'd go and just turn up and say , look , what a great job team .

Yeah , and you know they used to fall off the chair sometimes seeing me come in with the donuts look that , that was fantastic . And just let you know I've noticed it . So it's complete reinforcement of of what we're doing and just picking up on the successes and building on that . Um and again , that war .

I've always I mean I I think it's the right thing to do . That's why I did it , walking around and catching people doing good stuff . I really go with that . Catching people doing a great job . I think people , as I said , what is the why ? I know Simon Sinek , I always follow what he's about , you know . This is the why . Why do we come to work ?

Well , we pick up some money to look at . You know pay . Why ? Why do we come to work ? Well , we pick up some money to look up . You know pay for your house . You can . I come to work to make a difference , and that I think most people do , when you go to a police sort of job , but sometimes it's difficult to find a way through .

Um , you know , you got to lead people to how to do it and I think that's the job really . So on there , to be the protector from above sometimes to stop stuff getting in the way , yeah , so make sure we keep going forward , even when it's getting tough with resources and look being optimistic all the time .

It's the same in civvy street right in in ordinary businesses , if you can get a purpose that people can get behind , that's not about making the owner money , it's about how you're helping other people . Yeah , it motivates . And um , and albert and I like it's albert's expression and I I am totally buy into it .

Albert used to say all the time you know , one comes into work to do a bad job no , no no , sometimes they need to understand what it is .

So it's personal style and your own personality makes a difference . I think , really , because I've learned the transactional policing way . You know the black white , yeah , you do that . You do that when , in , in matters of operational urgency , you can't have a sort of a conversation .

So , firearms operations and stuff like that , but equally , in the slower time stuff , you've got an opportunity to , um , you know , get your personality over and and and I think my style is different to the majority of senior leaders that I work with , if people have told me that , anyway , I'm on the transformational end of of the spectrum rather than the , um ,

you know , directive way . But I can do both and I will do both and I've definitely done it . Um , but I like to work with through the people all the time . Um , that's where I'm at , I suppose , but I'm not saying anyone else is wrong . But I know that I wouldn't necessarily be the typical police leader but it worked right it worked for me .

Yeah , I mean , that's right , and people , people were , you know , they like , seem to like to work for me as well , and I in the north of the county , which is where I worked , we , we were having a huge loss of staff , people left because it's more expensive to live up here .

Uh , you , if you're down down on the south coast , you've got the boats and the seafront and we'd never get people to stay , but they did my time .

I actually had people wanting to come , rather , which was a weird scenario , we hadn't seen that before and people , once they're in , said I'm quite happy , thanks , so yeah , so that's quite a thing do you know what ?

So I think that's in you as part of your early life and the way you're brought up and doing the right thing , because I think that's in you as part of your early life and the way you're brought up and doing the right thing because I think that's really important is having that , you know , integrity , doing , doing the right thing when no one's looking , that

sort of thing . So , yeah , um , and my school the school I went to were always very strong on turning out people who are good with other people , balance . So I had all that conditioning in my early life . But I do think you can learn some of it , um . But authenticity is hard sometimes .

I think people lose that sometimes , because I think you're authentic in everything you do , um , and it show weakness sometimes , all of those things , um . So , yeah , I think you there is , there is something in that , it's in you . But I think you can come quite a long way with lots of good training and lots of good input .

But I mean , I look at the two or three leaders that I thought were absolutely marvellous and they had a little bit of what I I mean , I probably modelled a little bit on what they did , because I've always done that throughout . I've picked up on people and I thought what would they do in difficult times ? What would they do when I go off and do that ?

But I'm curious as well , mark , because in my experience and I know work , you know , albert and I've worked together for years in our experience is you can set the vision , you can , uh , bring the energy , but how did you ? How did you deal with the people that didn't step up , that didn't perform ?

Because that's how you change an organization as well , isn't it ? You know you raise the standards of those that are below them . So how , how did you ?

So I would , I would support people who wanted to tackle things . I wanted people to tackle poor performance by um . You know so that on the one hand , you're rewarding excellence all the time , every opportunity , but where people are not cutting it , you have to tackle it .

So it's not all friendly , you know , and particularly my yeah , I saw it a lot in my last job really performance tackling the poor , poor people . It's the apples , the rotten apple bit . You got to deal with them , you know . You just got to deal with it hard , as it is , um , and I have you know , that's it .

I've done it with compassion , where I can always do it and try and understand their point of view , but in the end it's not working . You deal with it , right , okay .

Yeah , so you're going through these action plans and setting out an inform , you know , and then it goes from informal to formal too , so it's not fast , but most people , when they realize actually it's getting a bit serious , do tend to fuck up . Uh , you know , um . So , yeah , it is . I'm not saying it's quick and easy , um , but I didn't .

I don't remember having too many dreadful folk or people who weren't cutting it , but we did have a few um . And coming back to that fortunate time I had , I wanted to get a couple of people with energy into my team and I was able to go to the chief and his deputy to say , look , I really need someone who can do this and this is the person I'd like .

Is that possible ? And I got that as well . I mean that's , that's great , because I wanted them . I wanted them to really drive things , you know , and they were really good .

I think when people come into a team that's functioning reasonably well , you can move them to where you want to be anyway . But I did always try to look at skills , who I want , who would be good , who wouldn't be . So , yeah , and I'd always like to let people have a bit of time to get the job done . You don't move people in the first year 18 months .

You need to let them do their job and live with the consequences a bit sometimes and get through .

You haven't got time to hang around , right no , no , no , I mean it was caught .

They were always quite , quite helpful . I'm not sure it was always the case with everybody else , but I always seem to do OK , but you have to . You know I'm not trying to paint it overnight . That happened . It was , you know , over months , where you're looking to get somebody . Yeah , and some of them were people who taught me .

That was it when I was coming up . They were detective sergeants who I followed everywhere and that now they're di's and I'm the chief super and I want you to help me out , and , uh , it was great to do that actually . So , yeah , and they were still the great people they were , so , yeah , and um , yeah , I'm curious , mark , as well .

Yes , but if you've got a leader above you who wants to , how did you manage that ?

Yeah , and uh , trying to think , I had a a thing about um , stop and search at one point where we were using it a lot to stop the county lines and I was being given messages from the you can't keep stopping people of colour , you can't . You've got to stop now .

And I said , well , look , this is my threat , this is what I'm doing and the reason we're doing it . And these are the outcomes , which were heroin , crack , cocaine , firearms , whatever it might be .

So sometimes I had that conflict of they were worried about the way this was playing and I had to stand my ground and say , look , I'll look around the edges , but I'm not going to stop doing what I want . What is the right thing to do up here . So we had that a bit , but no , I don't think I've had interference like that .

But all that really getting in amongst the weeds of what you're doing , no , I think I was given a bit of autonomy really .

Sir andy marsh now , he was my deputy at the time when I was there and every monday I think it was every monday we'd have a phone call pre pre-teams calls , all that a call and he had a team of people around him at 1am with all this performance stuff and he'd be putting me through my paces and after a while he said I'm not going to do this to you

anymore because I think you've earned autonomy . I don't need to follow you around anymore . You know what you're doing . If I find something in the future , I'll come back to you . I don't need to follow you around anymore . You know what you're doing . If I find something in the future , I'll come back to you . But I was the only person who got that .

I was so pleased , and it wasn't me , it was all the other people who were feeding me the data and all that . But yeah , I was quite chuffed with that , because that meant a lot from someone like him , he was one of those people I talked about earlier .

small neighborhoods , but they were in the bottom 20 percent in the country for deprivation under indices . Uh , of a deprivation . I mean that's quite serious for hampshire in lovely hampshire , hampshire in England , to be nationally places at that low . So we went to one of these meetings .

We were sitting there , powerpoints and coffee and tea and all that sort of , and I just said , look , I'm going to say this now what do we want to be remembered for ? What are we doing ? What is it as a group of people in this room ? What do we want to be remembered for when we're old and grey and perhaps no longer here ?

And I said I'll tell you what I want to remember for is I want us to get these three neighborhoods out of this indices of deprivation to where they should be , certainly out of the bottom relegation zone in football parlance , um , and you know , after a few moments of quietness , people silence .

They came with me and we made a big point of writing a plan where those areas got a bit more resource than any other part of the district . So you're putting in more to the places who need it , whereas some of the more you know the nicer parts of where I live and there's quite a lot of them they weren't necessarily getting as much .

So I managed to get to that feeling of vacation , doing the right thing , across into a partnership arena , which is quite an interesting thing , because they I've got no control over these people . I've got no . They are people with their own budgets their own , but they were turning their resources towards it .

And actually we held our meetings away from the council office from there on in . We always held them on the estates and while I made some people who would never normally do it , we all walked around these estates to see it with our own eyes , so that they got to see it .

And I remember some guys , a colonel in the army , never seen anything like um , but it was really important for me that we all got to see it and dealt , dealt with it and we kept to focus on that . That was the . So that's why we meet every time . That's the first thing on the agenda . What we've done and we did .

The outcome of it all is we got it moving up the charts . It's not , it's not gonna , it's never gonna be top , but it doesn't need to have everything broken . Um , and it was particularly important because we have a nepali population here 10 000 nepali folks yeah to all of them at home of the british army being all the shot , yeah , exactly they all .

They were all in these sort of areas and there was a lot of issues around integration and difficulty . So by focusing on that , we actually , by chance , um managed to work on all that as well .

So , yeah , so I was pleased because I moved it away from being a , you know , a quarterly get together , chew the fat , look at some powerpoint slides and to no , we're going out the door together and we're going to deal with this . So that was a good one , and I don't think necessarily that's happened everywhere else .

Um , you can change it , you can try . You know , if you go into it thinking , oh , that's always the way it is , that's it , that's just the way it is , no , it's not . No , it's not exactly , it's not . We're gonna go and sort that out .

And , and I think as well , when you've got the old braid up goal and all that and you're in meets , people do tend to think , oh , we better have a look at that . But it's actually personality saying it . People want to do the right thing . And what do we all want to be remembered for ? That's a really hard , you know .

I want to remember for something decent , anyway , you know , yeah , yeah not for being a man united supporter anyway well , I'm more older shot these days as much . Yeah , yeah , yeah , you said that a few years ago .

But students , they used to go to um , visit to student , calls to students addresses to deal with what they dealt with , but they were just doing it and getting away as quickly as possible . Well , I wanted them to listen to the student because a lot of them struggle . They come from mum and dad first year really struggling mental health as well .

I mean , that was , that was a big thing . So I want them to really get to know the students spend a bit of time there , look to um , divert them into other things . They've got financial problems , emotional . So I've got them to become a bit more holistic in the way they approached each call . They went to um and gradually they were a good team anyway .

But again , we had some good people and some people who were just known to be awkward . Well , I dealt with them fairly quickly , uh , and we had quite a few long standing issues that were just the way they were . I won't necessarily rehearse them all here , but no , no , we're not doing that any that . We're not doing that anymore . That is ridiculous .

Jobs that were given to security that weren't their job . They had exam papers . After the exams were taken , the invigilators would bring them into the security control room in carrier bags and drop them on the floor and go home . And so at the control room where we sat , it's just got all these papers all night in there , which is health and safety hazard .

The integrity of the exam papers was lost . So I stuck within days I'd sorted that out and we were just not doing it anymore . And people see you saying , well , we always thought that's what we're gonna have to do , that . They see you fix it , we'll go with him . He's getting a sort all the things we were being put upon for .

We'll follow him , we'll take on his ideas , and so over time we did really well and they were rated the top security team in the UK .

But that was very much the case when I got there , but we were six or seven years of that , and that comes from students filling in a survey in their third year saying how safe they feel and how well looked after they are . But I just think people , if they know what you want , and I again , I did exactly the same stuff . I didn't change my style .

This is what I want you to do every time . Um , yeah , so it seemed to work again yeah , I think .

That's a health and safety hazard , for one thing , having trip over bags of exam papers and we only had to lose one of those papers and your reputationally , we'd be shot , wouldn't we ?

and that's somebody's , that's somebody's work , you know but , yeah , yeah , it's just weird how they got into that position , really , but , um , but it had been the case for decades apparently , so it's interesting there's a theme that runs through .

New uniform couldn't get any new uniform . We got new uniform . We got them all the equipment they are and they thought , well , actually , no , he's a good , he's doing it , he's getting a grip , and I think people like to see that and I'm not one just to keep doing it the way it's always been done .

If it's not working , you've just got to get on and sort it . Yeah , Interesting .

So , okay , but I do my best to engage and do my stuff , but it's not , it's not my comfort zone . I like to have people and I like to work with my team and get that , but that's just . You just got to adapt your style a bit , haven't you ?

Yeah , the clarity of purpose and directions just stood out there . And having that vision , yeah , um , keep the bureaucracy and the the unnecessary stuff that's not going to help your team above your team . Yeah , and don't bring that down to them . Yeah , catching people doing things right I love that expression .

That's a really great expression , but it's looking for role models that you can copy and model and think you know what would they do in that situation ? Yeah , performance , manage properly . Don't step away from that or avoid it , because it's easy to be a nice manager , but to be a good one , no , no , no definitely not .

You've captured everything that mark's just taken us through and all the highlights , right yeah , mark mark did at one point touch on on you know , showing your openness about your weaknesses and stuff yeah um , and and , and I would have thought that wouldn't have been so acceptable in the force to show a weakness , right , but it's a key attribute of a leader ,

right .

And the guy said to me uh well , not really . My wife's just got cancer , she just found out . And you , so you're not really able to just leave the building . So you know , but I went and I , you know , we spent an hour talking about it and so it's that sort of stuff .

So I want , you know , I expect people to be like that and behave like that for each other , because , yeah , it's not a great , but it's one of those things where , if you didn't say anything , if you just walk out , yeah , yeah , you wouldn't have picked that up .

Um , I think that's really important and I always make a point of making sure everybody the nasa principle thing , that that that is really important , yeah , yeah yeah , I'll tell you what's interesting as we come to wrap up here .

When you have to go to work and get into a uniform , you don't need to be someone different , right you ?

It's so tiring being somebody you're not yeah , yeah so , um , you know you are who you are , waltz and all , and you have your strengths and your , and you try to make the best of it . Really , yeah , great insight .

So mark's book 30 years , man and boy reflections on my police career is on amazon because I've got it up here , yeah , yeah , and so if you want to find out more about mark's experiences and I always find whenever I talk we didn't get a chance to ask this question , but whenever I talk to people who are ex-police officers , there's always a great funny story

and I'm sure there's some funny stories in there , yeah , as well oh yeah yeah , yeah , yeah , yes , it's good .

Thank you so much for for joining , for for all the listeners , um , you know , please leave your comments in the you know below or on the podcast platform you're listening on , and please let us know your thoughts on what you've heard on this episode today and we'll see you on the next one .