Every entrepreneur has an origin story. Mine starts not in a garage or a dorm room, but in a firehouse, pulling on gear at 3 a.m. and running toward something most people run away from. I may have left the station full-time years ago, but the firehouse never really left me, and I’d argue it’s the reason Murphy Door exists at all.
With International Firefighters’ Day on May 4th, I find myself thinking less about the fires I fought and more about the lessons they taught me, lessons that proved every bit as essential when I was building a company as they were when I was battling a blaze.
Stay calm when everything is on fire — literally and figuratively
Firefighting trains you to slow your breathing and sharpen your thinking at the exact moment your instincts are screaming at you to panic. That ability to stay composed under pressure is, without question, the single most transferable skill I brought from the firehouse to the boardroom.
When Murphy Door was fighting to survive the early years, through cash-flow crises and supply chain failures, I leaned hard on that training. Panic is contagious and it’s expensive. A leader who can read a chaotic situation clearly and make a decision anyway is worth more than any business school credential.
You are only as strong as the crew beside you
In a burning building, your life depends on the person next to you. That reality forges a level of trust and accountability that most workplaces never come close to. We didn’t just tolerate each other’s weaknesses; we trained around them, covered for them and pushed each other to eliminate them. Everyone had a role. Everyone had to execute.
I built Murphy Door with that same philosophy. I’m not looking for employees; I’m looking for crew members. People who show up prepared, who communicate clearly and who understand that their performance affects everyone else on the team. The brotherhood of the firehouse showed me what genuine professional trust looks like, and I’ve been chasing that standard ever since.
Train before you need to, then trust your training
Firefighters don’t improvise their way through emergencies. They train obsessively so that when things go wrong, the right response is automatic. You build the muscle memory in advance so you don’t have to think; you just act.
Entrepreneurship is exactly the same. The systems, processes and habits you invest in during the quiet periods are the only things standing between you and catastrophe when a real crisis arrives. At Murphy Door, we obsess over preparation: clear playbooks, documented processes and contingency plans. When the unexpected hits, and it always does, preparation is the difference between adaptation and collapse.
Purpose is what keeps you going at 3 a.m.
Nobody becomes a firefighter for the paycheck. When I started, I was earning $6.13 an hour. You do it because the work means something, because showing up matters to someone other than yourself. That sense of purpose is not a luxury. It’s fuel.
The entrepreneurs I’ve watched fail often had great ideas and enough capital. What they lacked was a reason to keep going when the idea stopped being fun. Building a business is long, grinding, humbling work. If profit is your only motivation, it won’t be enough. I still pick up shifts at the firehouse every few months, not for the money, but to remember what it feels like to do work that is unambiguously worth doing. That feeling has a way of recalibrating everything else.
This International Firefighters’ Day, I’m grateful to everyone still running into the buildings the rest of us are running out of. And I’m grateful for everything they unknowingly taught me about building something that lasts. The best business advice I ever received wasn’t in a conference room. It came from a fire chief who told me to always know where your exits are, and to make sure you’ve already planned your next move before the smoke gets thick.
That’s not just how you survive a fire. That’s how you build a company.