Since our formal inception more than a decade ago, the Leadership Under Fire (LUF) team has championed professional reading as a cornerstone of operational excellence. A close study of history’s most effective, mission-oriented leaders reveals a consistent thread: their success is closely tied to disciplined engagement with literature, reflection, and critical thought. In 2022, LUF launched its inaugural online book club, creating a forum for meaningful dialogue, shared perspective, and the kind of intellectual rigor that sharpens decision-making on the fireground and beyond.

In this week’s episode, LtCol Charlie Black explores Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning—a work forged in the harshest conditions imaginable, yet centered on a simple, enduring truth: even in the worst circumstances, we retain the ability to choose our attitude and find purpose. When conditions are chaotic and outcomes uncertain, purpose becomes the anchor, and how we choose to respond defines both our leadership and our impact.

Our guest today is FDNY Lieutenant Mike O’Connell, a 10-year member of the Department. Before being promoted, he served as a firefighter with Engine 202 and Ladder 102 in Brooklyn. Mike is a graduate of St. John’s University and is a member of both the MPI and Leadership Under Fire teams.

This episode is hosted by Jim McNamara. For those tuning in for the first time, Jim is a senior Firefighter at the FDNY and serves as a Human Performance Advisor for Leadership Under Fire. He’s also the principal author of the Leadership Under Fire Senior Man’s Performance Journal. Bob Athanas is our guest in this episode. Bob recently retired after 37 years of service with the FDNY. Bob grew up in Southbridge, MA, and served as a paid firefighter there from 1976-1983. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1983 and served four years as an FDNY fire alarm dispatcher in the Brooklyn Central Office and later the CADO Unit. Bob was appointed as a FDNY firefighter in 1987. He transferred to Rescue 3 in February of 1991 where he would spend the next 29 years of his career. Bob also served as an adjunct instructor at the FDNY Fire Academy and the lead instructor for thermal imager training for many FDNY training programs. He also taught at the FDNY Special Operations Command Technical Rescue School and helped develop the FDNY SOC Advanced Firefighter Rescue Training program. Bob was also a member of the Urban Search and Rescue New York Task Force 1.