I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast
that is Transcend.
Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did
for 14 years.
Suffering from sleep deprivation, body composition challenges, mental health challenges, libido,
hair loss, etc.
Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have
seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely
incorrect all the way to the other way now where men's clinics are popping up left,
right and center.
So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology
and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down
my throat.
Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason
why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.
They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first
responders through some of their therapies at no cost to the individual.
So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood
drawn and a few days later I'm talking to one of their wellness professionals as they
guide me through my results and the supplementation that they suggest.
In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been
very diligent with my health, my testosterone was actually in a good place.
So I went down the peptide route and some other supplements to try and maximize my physiology
knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.
Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies
they offer, they will talk about the pros and cons.
So for example, a lot of first responders in shift work, our testosterone will be low,
but sometimes nutrition, exercise and sleep can offset that on its own.
So this company is not going to try and push you down a path, especially if it's one that
you can't come back from.
So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely
one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.
So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the
Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.
This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.
I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and I've used their products ever since.
From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female
responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've
worked for.
Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they
are also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance
project.
We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier.
I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been
my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.
One area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship spots is their brick
and mortar element.
They were predominantly an online company up till more recently but now they are approaching
100 stores all over the US.
My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts
you see online are applied also in the stores.
So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make but I do
want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount especially around
holiday times.
But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order or in the stores every
time you make a purchase.
If you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen
to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director Will Ayres.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on
the show veteran FDNY firefighter and the man behind Top Floor Tactics, Mickey Farrell.
So in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the fire service,
entering the academy right when 9-11 happened, the heartbreakingly powerful perspective he
had as a probationary firefighter in the weeks following 9-11.
Truck work, vertical ventilation, lithium ion battery fires, 9-11 cancer and so much
more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for
others to find and this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now so all I ask in
return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to
every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said I introduce to you Mickey Farrell.
Enjoy.
Well Mickey I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
James thanks so much for having me on.
So where on planet earth will be finding you this afternoon?
Today I'm in New York City which I like to call my TFT headquarters which is a little
makeshift studio here in New York but it works and that's where I am today.
Beautiful well I've heard you on several podcasts I want to give shout out to Pete Wakefield
from the Firefighters podcast which is the one that I heard you on but I didn't really
hear much about your kind of early life, your journey into the fire service so I would love
to start at the very beginning of your timeline.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what
your parents did, how many siblings.
So I'm an only child so let's start with that.
So with that I had an incredible relationship with my father he became my best friend.
Grew up in a small town right outside New York City in New Jersey, northeast or northwest
section of New Jersey about an hour or so out of the city and my father he was a carpenter
by trade but a volunteer fireman with his passion and that's truly what he did and that's
where I grew up is in the volunteer firehouse so it was we spent numerous, numerous hours
weekends with the families and friends, camping trips so that's all I really knew was the
fire service.
On top of that my grandfather he was a city fireman in the city of Hoboken which is for
you don't know Hoboken it's a city that overlooks New York City it's just one square mile.
Back then it was kind of a tough city today it's kind of been gentrified and cleaned
up but when he was a fireman there they were just as busy as any of the warrior ghettos
and so that was my early introduction to the fire service it was really as far back as
I can remember.
Alright well then interesting perspective right off the bat.
Firstly I had an amazing engineer when I was at Anaheim Fire and he'd been on, god I think
Jerry been on for almost 40 years just it's crazy but he was reminiscing about Anaheim
40 years ago and how all the firefighters lived in the city they did all these things
together when they got off duty and then progressed forward to the kind of generations that you
and I joined a lot of us just couldn't afford to live in the cities that we serve anymore
so some of that community was fractured a bit.
How do you see or how do you compare your time in FDNY now versus that community based
element of your volunteer firefighter dad?
So that's one thing with the FDNY I don't think we ever lost and I think it's dying
in the culture of the fire service in general with that family draw that community beyond
the fire house, beyond the fire floor you know we all want to go to fires but there's
so much more to it so I'm so fortunate to be in the FDNY with that tradition and that
pride and that culture of families we still have the picnics, the dinner dances, the father
son father daughter camping trips, the rafting trips so we still all do those things where
I feel a lot of other departments kind of lost that so again tremendously unfortunate
to have that but the volunteer side of it you never turn it off and then when you go
to work you still never turn it off because you're always bringing it home and it's kind
of moving forward with your family and your family is a very big part of my career.
What is it about FDNY that was able to carry that culture on because you know for a lot
of us it's obviously very very expensive to live in the city itself so I would argue that
FDNY firefighters are more prone to living way outside of where they work yet you've
been able to hang on to that.
Yeah so that is an issue, that is a problem.
People are living an hour or two hours away from the city and they're commuting in so
that does change the element of the events.
We still do like I said the family camping trips and whatnot but the typical boys night
out so they don't happen as often as they once would I don't think.
Softball is still a big thing but then you get the argument of well I live in an hour
and a half two hours from the city why am I going to drive in on my day off to play
softball right so on that side of things I can see how it's somewhat dying but there's
still a core group of really really good and great firehouses that are doing that.
I wouldn't say every single firehouse has that culture but the good ones still have
that tradition.
Where your father worked is it still a volunteer department today?
Yes it is.
So this is what's something that's kind of strange to me again from working for different
fire departments different sides of the states coming from a different country is I totally
understand the application of the volunteer fire service you know when you're in a small
community maybe in the middle of nowhere you know that's who you're going to need on the
occasions that you have some sort of fire.
What I see though in 2024 is a lot of affluent suburban neighborhoods that seemingly should
have a career department but are still relying on volunteerism versus actually putting the
tax money forward and creating a career department.
Yeah so that's something I'm fortunate that I get to travel around the country and speak
and teach and really connect with a lot of firefighters throughout the country.
That's one thing I've seen where the volunteer fire service in certain states within the
country very strong and then you get to other states where it's diminishing and it's just
a matter of time before that volunteerism is gone and they're going to have to provide
fire protection.
It's just again it's a matter of time.
Where I grew up where I am they still have that core sense of tradition pride and training
and moving forward with the volunteer fire service but you're right it is dying and it's
dying a quick death unfortunately.
Well just to kind of look at it from a different lens I mean volunteerism obviously is a big
part of that but also I can't help but feel that some cities and counties are taking advantage
of the fact that people will volunteer rather than give them a wage for what they do and
actually then give them the equipment the training etc that they need to be for example
a suburban fire department.
Yeah and the cost of living is just out of control nationwide guys working two three
jobs to make ends meet so like the old school mentality of you know nine to five go hang
out at the volunteer firehouse spend the weekends there that's kind of dying only because of
the cost of living is so expensive and this is across the nation this isn't just within
the metro areas so that's having a huge influence where we just don't have the guys in those
core towns that once had that steep tradition people are moving out they can't afford to
live there.
Now what about branding I heard you talking to Pete and you were talking about the firehouse
being you know one of the beacons in a community and the bay doors being up and it was interesting
because you were talking to a British firefighter as a fireman as a young boy growing up in
England I don't remember that being the case in the UK I mean a lot of us had paid on call
stations so they were all just locked up unless they had a fire so when we look back at the
old communities and the same could be said about the police officers that used to patrol
the streets and interact with the communities a lot more what mistakes have we made as far
as branding what we do because in 2024 the same questions come up you know why is there
a fire engine on my medical call or you guys just sit around the station playing cards
all day you know there's such a disconnect between what the men and women in uniform
actually do and still what a lot of civilians think we do.
I think that comes just through time we've lost the power of kindness you know kindness
in the fire service truly is everything because the public they don't know what we're doing
when we go beyond that threshold into a fire you know we go to the fire floor and the floor
is above the fire to fight that fire they have no concept what they do have a concept
of is is our kindness and how we portray who we are to them in the public having that that
bay door up in the firehouse it creates it part of the neighborhood we are the go-to
people yes when you're in trouble but it becomes that interaction with the children the kids
the kid comes by he wants his bike tire filled up or his basketball pumped up it's that interaction
and that's what we're losing like with everything even just we're becoming anti-social just
we're stuck in our phones we're stuck in this world of media and we're losing kindness and
I think that's where we're having challenges going into the next generation of firefighting
and I think that's how the public perceives us in a certain way like you said they don't
realize that an engine company will pull up they say we didn't call you we called an ambulance
but we're here to help you you know in your worst possible moment we're here as well and
that goes a long way and I do think that we're kind of losing that sense of of branding like
you said what about the impact of litigation because in my short career really I early
on I was putting in car seats for example and then fast forward a few years we're told
oh you can't do that we might get sued if something happens and the same with you know
kids coming into the fire station like you said to fill up their tires or what if they
blow a tire and then they have a horrible fiery death you know it's all your fault I
can't help but feel like the fear of litigation has also become a big old brick wall to us
simply being community helpers yeah that's a good point and I think that is a problem
as well like at one time you see the old photos from the warriors and you know in New York
City and you would see at a fire 30 kids hanging on the rig you don't see that anymore you
know so you're right and I think that that that's ruining the fire service in the sense
where that litigation or the governmental side of of the job is trickling down into
the actual firehouse into the neighborhoods I think it's important though that we we remember
who we are and we remember that we're in the business of helping people we're in the business
of kindness and when we lose that because of the fear of litigation we're losing what
we stand for absolutely well even I think the fear of litigation paralyzes us I would
say more on the EMS side so as a paramedic for example you know that's why you get these
cookbook medics these ones are right I've just got to do A B C and D because there's
a fear of critical thinking or there's a fear of taking a refusal because that person has
no business going to the hospital but your medical director is like we'll just take everyone
that way we don't you know we don't get sued well yeah but you just flooded people that
shouldn't be in a hospital into a bunch of hospital beds and now you've got critical
patients waiting for one yeah and I I think the system is is incredibly broken because
of that even just the runs that they're sending us on now and that we may classify them as
nuisance runs but in reality they are calls for help but we have to understand that we
can't go on everything we can't be going on a new nosebleeds or or heartburn runs you
know like we got to go on cardiacs and major emergencies as far as the EMS side I think
this system really really is broken and there's no right answer because like you said the
litigation we're in fear of making the wrong decision so let's send them on everything
and let them make their own decisions absolutely well I mean there's always going to be that
one person that dies in the waiting room because they got triage probably you know improperly
there's always going to be that healthy person that dies from whatever virus they you know
say is is sweeping the nation this time that's gonna happen but we can't focus on the anomaly
the same way as you don't eradicate welfare because families abuse it in this corner of
you know of your first due because that happens everywhere but you scrap an entire program
because of a few people that they ruin it or you know I just lost my fucking train of
thought then shit where the hell was I going with that yeah that was right the dying in
the waiting room so this fear of the what if ends up ruining it for a huge amount of
people and so we've got to just put our big boy and big girl pants on and say look this
might happen but this is still at the benefit of 99% of the people and we'll do everything
we can to address that 1% yeah I mean that's the EMSI even on the fire side we're being
held back to make certain decisions this job is full of instinct and I think that when
you take the instinctual notion away from it that's where we make ourselves liable and
it makes ourselves exposed to making those those mistakes we all make mistakes at everything
we do and I think that's from the litigation side of things we have to understand that
we're only human and there's human instinct and everything we do but we have to be able
to trust our instincts in that moment absolutely well going back to your early life then what
were you doing as far as sport and exercise when you were in the school years so I know
I did like every kid you know soccer basketball baseball but I really found a passion for
skateboarding the urban culture it was kind of I was drawn to it I don't know where it
came from I grew up in a small town an hour outside New York City but I think it just
came from being drawn from the influence was so strong having New York City and you know
being the shadow of New York City with that I found music so music was a very very large
part of my life that was right up until I came on the fire department even during to
this day I'm still part of that culture that seat of music but music really allowed me
to identify who I was I feel and express my artistic side and I think skateboarding has
kind of a free will or an artistic side as well that kind of pushed me forward into where
I am today even with the firefighting and you know top floor tactics with Instagram
and now the podcast it all comes from a creative angle and I think that creative angle was
birthed through those early years of skateboarding and music and that little punk rock like urban
scene that I was a part of I've had a lot of people a lot of very successful people
that have come through that kind of hardcore punk rock skateboarding group and it seems
to be you know one of two groups either people that found themselves also in you know drinking
drugs etc but then also that straight edge lifestyle which was kind of new to me so the
first few people told me about it which of those two folks in the road did you find yourself
on?
So as a good question I definitely wouldn't class myself as straight edge but I didn't
partake I should say and only because my main focus in life was to become a New York City
fireman I knew I wanted to be in New York City fireman since I was probably seven or
eight years old even before that if I can remember that I didn't want to jeopardize
it so I found my escape from that scene through skateboarding and music yes it was a big part
of that within the culture but I found my way to navigate the subculture of that society
of just doing my own thing focusing on my future and what I truly wanted to do I remember
being on tour with my band and guys would hang out they would go over the bar they would
do this they would do that I would go find your local firehouse and knock on the door
and hang out like that's where my main focus was I knew that was my passion music was fun
I got to see the country doing it but my main focus and passion was firefighting and I did
not want to jeopardize that.
A lot of us that came in certainly our generation and then before our generation the trades
were seen as a valuable asset to bring in as a firefighter I didn't I would say hand
on my heart I didn't really have a trade but grew up on a farm so at least I knew what
work was I was more of a breaker than a builder to be honest but you know I had that background
were you exposed to carpentry when you were growing up through your dad's work?
I was I started working with my dad when I was a young kid he went on to own a plumbing
warehouse as well here locally in town and I worked in the plumbing supply working you
know growing up cutting pipes, threading pipes so I did work with my hands I wouldn't say
I was very good at any of those things but he did show me the skill and the trade and
ultimately he showed me how more or less to be a man and that was the most thing that
took me moving forward becoming a firefighter it was like I always say if your father can
make you a man I can make you a fireman that's what I tell the young kids when they come
in and he I feel he did a good job of doing that by allowing me to make my mistakes early
on he would give me pressures at job sites like drilling through these cabinets that
are thousands and thousands of dollars and he trusts me to do that and make those mistakes
and then I make mistakes absolutely but it was okay and it was a learning process of
just getting better at what you did with small increments of mistake making.
We're going to jump right ahead because that's a great segue point.
I ended up working for four fire departments and then volunteering momentarily for a minute
to a minute time after I transitioned out of the fire service but it gave me a really
interesting perspective on you know a whole spectrum of teaching styles and individuals
and what I've realized is that of course there should be pressure in training and as you
kind of you know walk you know stand walk run when it comes to fire for fire service
skills the end result should be something that mirrors if not is worse than what we're
going to see out in the street however this screaming at people and belittling people
on the training ground seems to have the complete opposite yet it's a style that I've seen in
a lot of academies and things based on certain individuals.
You are trusted by your father with this very very expensive cabinets and you said when
you made a mistake you obviously it was a lesson an opportunity for a lesson rather
than getting screamed at so how did his teaching style apply to the way you viewed the academy
when you started teaching?
So I think there's a good cop bad cop type of teaching style that we need and that comes
from where I was a instructor where I still currently am pretty I'm here to hear is FDFD
my fire academy and we kind of have I feel they have it dialed in to a pretty good good
cop bad cop and I think that comes from the DIs we have they do a tremendous job of discipline
I don't think that discipline should be coming from an instructor or or someone passing on
the knowledge discipline comes from someone who's more of a disciplinary type image like
a DI we parallel the Marine Corps and what we do as far as the training there so we have
to understand that learning comes from making a series of mistakes and everything we do
and especially in the fire service so allowing each other to make those mistakes comes from
accountability and I think when you own your mistake and you're accountable for everything
you do that's how you progressively move forward but that teaching style that was developed
through the way I have taught my young firefighters did ultimately come from those early days
with my father allowing me to make those mistakes we come back we talk about them and then we
move forward and yeah are we going to make the mistakes again moving forward we might
but it's okay because the more times we make the same mistake the less of an impact it'll
have.
What I've seen in the worst departments that I've worked for I would argue I've worked
one of the best in the country and one of the worst I'll let people figure out which
home is which but is the good department really created an environment where you were almost
encouraged to fail and then you would regroup but then you would also redo the drill again
and again if need to be the bad ones no matter how you did they checked the box all right
we went through that evolution and they just moved on so I really love those environments
where you know as you've been talking about earlier about being a critical thinker where
you're given the courage given the environment if to steal a modern-day phrase almost the
safe space to make mistakes because no one is going to die on a drill ground however
conversely if it happens in real life that mistake that you could have ironed out on
the academy drill ground now got you and someone else killed.
Yeah and I just did a post the other day speaking of you know the training ground is just a
series of dress rehearsals for the fire ground and that's very important to think about
so when you have to make those those dress rehearsals when you get to real life they
have to count those moments have to count but the problem comes how do we introduce
stress into the situation and that's that's a problem we have in training today across
the board is that we can't duplicate stress so there's only so much training we can do
with the mistakes we can make and then we put the human factor like you said into this
and that's we make the real mistakes but that's what the real learning is done once we add
the real stress under human factor and how we how we react to that that's how we progressively
truly and honestly move forward.
Well let's go to your entry to the fire service and I know you've been on about 26 years obviously
it wasn't all with the FDNY then so walk me through where you found yourself first and
what that initial academy was like for you.
So I just went to the basic I was 18 years old I think I was actually 17 when I got in
the basic county academy it wasn't much of learning going on any learning that I really
did there was kind of in-house when you go back to the firehouse I had some really great
mentors at a young age I was very very fortunate a lot of them were career city firefighters
that would come back and they were still volunteering their hometown and that was kind of the culture
and that's that's where a lot of my learning took place.
So that was my early training and then very quickly I moved on to the FDNY when I got
on the job in New York City I was 23 years old so there was very a small gap of me actually
being a volunteer fireman during that time am I a part of it to this day I mean to a
point my dad's very involved still so I still have a love for and a passion for those guys
but I've just I moved on and it comes from a lot from just having a family kids you know
you could you kind of got a prior to what you have time for in life but that early training
did set me over success but it somewhat set me up for failure when I did make it to the
FDNY and going to their academy they do things very different it's almost like I wish I had
no experience going in because they almost had to strip what you learned and then you
have to relearn it their way.
Yeah I can relate to that.
I had the East Coast Academy then worked for Hialeah which is north of Miami one of the
most incredible academies I've had orientations because they hired new certs as well non certs
excuse me so half of us already had our certs so while they went through all the fire and
EMT school they just beat us up on the draw ground for three months and it was phenomenal
then I went west coast and then we'll get into truck work in a minute east coast and
west coast when it came to truck work at least south Florida very very different so now I'm
having to relearn ladder throws and preset hose lays and all kinds of stuff so yeah it's
hard when you're trying to undo things that you've had drilled into you just so someone
else can drill a different way in.
Yeah and I think that's a good thing but that's what truly makes the FDNY the FDNY because
they have a certain way of doing things and there's a positioning factor behind that where
not every department solely relies on the importance of positioning.
I believe the fire ground is very similar to the game of chess for those of you that
study chess where like every move has a reflection to what happens seven moves later and you
kind of have to understand where you fit in in that moment and that's where the FDNY on
the tactical side of things they really really truly and honestly have it dialed in.
So before we progress your journey into the rock and beyond when you look back and the
reason I ask this question is when it comes to the mental health conversation of all of
us anyone in uniform for example an FDNY firefighter who's struggling can say oh well you were
you were at ground zero you were at 9 11 that's why you're struggling now but there's a real
lack of conversation of what happened to us from birth through to when we put the uniform
on or arguably even prior to birth when you look back now were there any elements of your
upbringing that contributed to anything once you put the uniform on?
As far as real life stress?
Yeah just any kind of you know traumas or anything that you know would contribute because
this is a big part of the mental health conversation what happened before you were 20 21 25 you
know that needs to be addressed as well if we have someone struggling 10 15 20 years
into their career.
Yeah you know I've had some death early on in my life with close friends and I think
you know that's something that you know it's funny yes I never really speak about it it
just I just file it it's been filed for many many years but you know I lost some some friends
at an early age and you move on from it.
It's funny I've had the conversation with my wife recently where she's like you look
at death differently and I said why is that she's like you've just seen so much of it
it doesn't even phase you anymore and I guess there's some truth to that but that did start
at an early age like you like you said and you know I never really thought about it in
that angle but I think it does help with our careers and the things we see but again I
don't know if it's just numbing the facts for the long run.
What I found and bearing in mind this is not my great epiphany that I had on my own this
is almost 900 conversations now is when addressed our challenges when we were younger can become
strengths and serve us well in uniform however if left unaddressed and pushed down that's
not saying that's what happened to you they can potentially be an amplifier of some other
things that we see so that I think this is the thing with the the mental health conversation
that post-traumatic growth needs to be really kind of pulled out to the front now we've
got rid of stigma we're all aware this is a thing but understanding that if we have
some things that we discover that we push down if we are able to process that whatever
that looks like from just talk therapy to you know psychedelics or dogs or whatever
it is the other side of that it absolutely becomes an asset but we have to really understand
that if we don't if it stays buried down then it's actually fracturing the foundation.
Yeah and I think with the mental health we've made tremendous leaps with that but I think
there's a fine line we have to be careful where it could be not not getting played out
I should say but it's a an opportunity for advancement for certain people by taking it
and running with it and not necessarily that everyone has has the wrong thing to do or
say but I don't think a lot of it is truly identifying what the real problems are and
moving forward taking people to the next level I think a lot of is for self-gratification
from these companies to come out that really have no education or backing behind what they're
doing but it's a hot topic in itself right now we have to be very careful with that.
Yeah I see that too the predatory you know business practices of some of these people
and this is it I think when you put hope back in that post-traumatic growth now it's not
oh how am I going to live with it it's oh wow you know I can be better version of myself
on the other end and that I don't think it's one of those things where we don't actually
need that many resources we just need to show these men and women that they have this incredible
toolbox and destigmatize some of the therapies it might be psychedelics at work for some
people and it certainly has in a lot of the the uniform profession so well that being
said I know and please correct me if I'm wrong that as you entered FDNY it kind of spanned
to 9-eleven so walk me through you know you actually getting a spot your time in the academy
and then your 9-eleven story.
Yeah so this was a time of the job where it's kind of a gray area it's unspoken of no one
really asked about no one really talks about it because there was only there's only a few
of us that lived it and we don't really talk about it because we were that that we were
on the hump it was always the before and the after and that's how we look at this job it's
almost like before Christ after Christ it's before the Trade Center after the Trade Center
I was the bullseye in the center of it with the generation of the guys that I came on
the job with we were supposed to get sworn in right before the 11th and it got pushed
back because it happened and then we went in a few weeks after we were in the academy
very quickly rushed to the academy and then assigned to our firehouses and that was a
whole different way of this job but no one really speaks of walking into these firehouses
fresh out of Provie school with only a few weeks of training because the training is
23 weeks 18 weeks depending I think we did a total of I don't remember six seven weeks
and then put us right out to the field because they needed us so those moments of walking
into firehouses that lost firefighters that lost officers that lost the heart and soul
of everything they've ever lived for it was a really hard thing to do some of the guys
looked at you and they look to you with disbelief like I cannot believe you're here why would
you ever ever take this job and then you had other guys that completely embraced you and
loved you and cried that you were there and they were so happy that you came because they
never thought anyone ever come again I heard you just touched on that with Pete and it
really resonated with me and it reminded me of if you don't know if you've ever seen the
band or brothers show but there's the one episode called the replacements and these
are obviously men that are filling the roles of people that you know you learn to you come
to know about when it came to the show so as a soldier in this case you know in Europe
you know your best friend has been killed and now another guy shows up so elaborate
on that a little bit more what what was that spectrum of feelings because there's there's
got to have been a dichotomy of relief that another person is here to fill the seat but
also almost resentment that this person is supposedly filling the spot of one of their
close friends yeah so that was that was very real and it depended who you who you talk
to so I kind of lost the experience of being like a young new probationary firefighter
in the New York City Fire Department it's the only thing I ever wanted to do like I
said since I was six seven ten years old it's the only thing I knew and when you walk into
that moment it's like you never truly understand or learned the real firehouse culture the
real right thing to do quote unquote because everybody was mourning and there was no teaching
going on some guys would pull you aside some guys wouldn't even look at you so it was an
emotional rollercoaster every time you went to work but every time you went to work we
were still going out the door and going to fires and learning the fire side of things
but we lost in that translation was the firehouse life side of things that's where the real
challenge was and that's what's something that when I went on throughout my career it
took some time for me to learn what the right thing that was to do I would never would do
the wrong thing but when someone doesn't tell you what the right thing is there's a bit
of a gap there so talk to me about what you observed then from the healing point of view
I mean you were there at the rawest time you know in FDNY history basically how did you
observe you know that your brothers and sisters start to heal after that incredible tragedy
you know we were going to funerals every weekend and if you were in the firehouse you were
at a funeral and that went on for you for still going on to be honest with you but for
those initial few months it was every day the funerals weren't the normal funeral you
would go to because it wasn't the sea of firemen because we had multiple funerals a day we
had to go to and when I say we it was just the fire service not just FDNY because everybody
stepped up and did the right thing from the entire world everyone showed up and there's
something we can talk about later is how I feel we're getting away from doing the right
thing about funerals but that's where I saw healing was those moments after you know the
coalition or the party after there'd always be one it wouldn't be how it was or how it
is today so much but there would still be some camaraderie some brotherhood some social
interaction and you could see they're trying to get back to what the job was about and
as a young firefighter observing this you saw the brotherhood come to life again not
in the most beautiful moments of saving a life or going to metal day and those parties
after that but it just putting your arm around someone and saying it's okay to cry and you
saw these big tough burly guys with these mustaches a lot of them Vietnam vets doing
that and that was a nice way for me to see the job is still alive.
Yeah it's something that you know people I don't think can understand that ripple effect
of course we had the day of course you know there was the search on the pile and there
was the rebuilding but to completely gut a fire department of all that knowledge and
experience and in some cases an entire shift in a station I mean the the ripple effect
we're talking decades.
Yeah I mean I did my career in the Bronx which is north of Manhattan it really wasn't affected
by September 11th the special operations commands yesterday were affected but as far as the
regular companies everybody knew someone but those companies weren't wiped out it was Manhattan
stat now in Brooklyn they they were the the burrows that really got devastated and when
I came back to the academy like you said the replacements I went right to an engine company
in Hell's Kitchen which was the midtown west south side of of the city they lost five guys
and the captain and the firehouse that we were assigned to because they were doing work
in that firehouse they lost everybody so I don't know the total amount of guys that were
lost that day from the one firehouse but it was more than you can ever imagine and three
companies wiped out.
The ripple effect is that is that everywhere you go now so now being an officer in Manhattan
I take the details and I do the overtime and the other firehouses and every firehouse
has a memorial and that ripple effect is that memorial every firehouse I go into and I always
always take a moment to pause and say a little prayer and just just reflect for for some
of just for a moment and that's something where we have to keep that alive for the next
generation because now the kids are coming on this job that ripple effect with those
monuments or those memorials we cannot forget we can't forget who those brothers are on
the wall every firehouse I go into you have the line of duty deaths on the wall guys from
the 1800s all the way up to the current day but there's always a special memorial for
their brothers that were lost on September 11th and and we have to maintain those memorials
we have to keep them tip-top shape because for some of the families that's all they have
left so when they do come by the firehouse which isn't so often anymore but when they
do come by the firehouse it has to be presentable it has to be honored it has to be front and
center it's so important to keep telling the story because as someone pointed out recently
that you know all the the young people now that are entering the military weren't even
born when 9-11 happened and now we're losing Vietnam veterans I think we literally got
a handful of of uh sorry not Vietnam excuse me World War II veterans I just interviewed
two of them in November but I mean we're talking about men that are in you know they're
late late 90s early 100s now so clearly obviously they're not going to be around for much longer
too so it's imperative that we tell the story now I think there's there's a kind of resistance
to what someone would phrase as depressing but that's how we learn you know yesterday
was the anniversary of the Parkland shooting here in Florida it's Valentine's Day yeah
but we also need to remind ourselves of these tragedies otherwise they're going to keep
happening and it's the same with 9-11 I actually had the honor of climbing One World Trade
with Rob Jones who's a Marine that was lost both his legs and he bear crawled all the
way up I walked in gym shorts because they wouldn't let me wear my gear because of security
reasons but to watch this guy who'd lost his legs in response to this very attack in the
building that was now built to replace obviously the the towers and then taking my son to the
9-11 memorial it's just it's it is absolutely imperative that we keep telling this story
and if you weren't born I wasn't born you know when World War II happened it's up to
us the the adults to mentor and teach and and explain the why not only the reaction
to the tragedy but to try in some way shape or form be a part of the solution so it doesn't
happen again as well yeah and as far as the rebuilding of of Laurel Manhattan and the
monument and the memorials it's great for people to come and visit and it's a good place
for to learn to educate the next generations to come but what people have to understand
when they come to New York City to visit that and usually it's around September 11th you
know people fly in they do the walks and all the and all the monuments and it's a really
nice day but it's definitely not a party and I went to the 20th anniversary for the sunset
down at the Trade Center at the Freedom Tower and you know I was I was pretty upset I was
disgusted to see how it became a party it wasn't St. Patrick's Day it was September
11th and we can't lose sight that when you come to New York City on September 11th to
show your support to honor those that have fallen it's not one day for us we live it
every day and that's what we have to remember that it's not a party the people from New
York City we live it every day it's not just one day of remembrance it's a day that we
live absolutely well I think Memorial Day is another good example of that yeah it's
all chicken wings and football rather than what we're actually supposed to be remembering
yeah so talk to me then about your journey as a pro be and a rookie firefighter then you
know you've explained the kind of what the landscape looks like you've lost some of these
incredible minds others are so deep in their grief that they're just not mentoring at that
point how were you able to start building yourself as a young firefighter so I often
say that I feel that you know good people gravitate to great places and when I first
got my assignment I did not want to work in an engine in Manhattan it just no it's a flavor
right so every borough has a different flavor that's not the flavor I was looking for my
dream was to go to the Bronx and work work in the engine company in the Bronx now looking
back what a blessing in disguise because I learned so much from those early years from
working with those men that lost their brothers and watching them rebuild and being a part
of that my probie school we had a slogan and every every probie class has a t-shirt they
make at the end and it is we will strive to rebuild what could never be replaced and there's
so much power in that because every one of us in that class we strived as hard as we
could to rebuild what could never be replaced 20 years later as we navigated this crazy
job of ours we remade the shirt and it says we have rebuilt what could never be replaced
and I truly believe that by those firefighters that were coming in that were grieving they
showed us a different side of this job a different side of humanity that allowed us to be different
types of firefighters every firefighter in New York City is educated if they're trained
they go to fires you know they're into the job but there was a very small portion of
us that saw that human grief early on when something that was not even spoken about I
think that kind of molded my career and allowed me to understand going back to the power of
kindness that that truly develops who we are and that was the motivation I had to navigate
my career to the next level which is understanding that kindness truly is the ultimate factor
see that mirror is something I talk about all the time and even in the mental health
conversation when we enter the fire service it wouldn't yeah it's not a deep psychoanalysis
to understand that it's kindness and compassion that sends us into a job where we serve a
job we risk our lives to serve but for some of us that were kind of raised on the boys
don't cry rub some dirt in it you know don't be a pussy kind of mentality and I'm not talking
about you graze your knee I'm talking about raw real a human emotion there was a shift
where I always talk about the yin yang we kind of lost the the black part and end up
becoming a white circle all all hard and I think a good reminder for men that struggle
to show emotion be vulnerable is that it was kindness and compassion it was that soft side
that sent you into the uniform and if you lose that during your career that's a huge
red flag because you've you've got to be able to offload the trauma that we see every day
and you've got to be able to forgive yourself if you made mistakes as well yeah you know
a friend of mine I just heard him recently say something and it kind of struck a nerve
with me he said that don't be a prick and that pricks hide behind insecurities in the
fire service and there's so much truth to that and you can really dive into that and
talk about it that I think a lot of the insecurities that we have as firefighters we hide behind
that fact of that we can't accept kindness when you accept kindness you're vulnerable
right and that's what a lot of these guys that aren't doing the right thing or they're
not navigating their career the right way they're hiding behind something and that's
an insecurity of lacking kindness and I think that kindness to compassion truly ultimately
is what we are as firefighters that's that's the business we're in yeah well I think that's
strength as well like to of course you have to be physically able whether you're you know
making entry in a fire or stopping someone beating up his girlfriend whatever it is that
physicality is important but that kindness that vulnerability that compassion is the
real mark of a man you might back it up with your physicality but that compassion is everything
the the desire to want to help people and use your physicality comes from kindness and
compassion well you mentioned about initially being assigned to an engine crew talk to me
about your journey from engine to truck so the engine company in the fdny it's uh we
have as son may think we're overstaffed but there's an element of understanding that within
the engine company everyone has a role but it's company integrity which is key and that
comes from understanding that the stretch especially in a major city like new york has
to be so dialed in and we can't have any margin for mistakes so with the engine it's kind
of I mean let's be honest the fdny we're we're more of a truck oriented job right but the
engine we they kind of get dismissed many times so the gravitation going from the engine
the truck is it's common but we can't lose sight that the engine company is like the
infantry of the fire service always progressively moving forward there was so much to learn
about that and there were so many mistakes that not so much in stretching the line that
was made but mistakes of just so much understanding where you fit in i guess but the mistakes
have to be very minimal to when you go to the truck and that was something i learned
in the engine company was discipline and how disciplined you have to be to get that line
into position unfortunately we do ems in the engine and that's a big turn off and that's
what pushes a lot of guys away from being in that engine is getting away from doing
the ems runs and because not everybody are paramedics in new york you know we do a different
way we do a cfr like a certified first responder type thing but this system is broken so like
i said earlier like they're putting us on too many runs it's getting guys to leave the
engine too early and when we leave the engine too early we're not understanding timing and
i think timing on the fire ground ultimately is everything and that parlays or that that
parallels the truck side of things is understanding timing is it a recent move that you started
doing the ems response to has that been for a while now no it's been since i've been on
the job it just it fluctuates in the on what on what calls they're putting us on during
covid it was very modified and it almost made sense like listen i have no problem going
on on on any medical run there is i want to help people that say again that's the business
for him but we have to be able to look at things with some common sense here like why
are we putting an engine company out of service for a nose bleed when someone could be having
a heart attack around the corner or the fire gate blowing out three windows and people
trapped and you're stuck in a nosebleed waiting in a nose for 20 minutes i mean the system
is broken uh what's the fix to that i don't know but that's that's ultimately what is
killing the engine slowly one thing positive one thing that came out of covid um was from
what i understand at least then i don't know if that's trying to tighten it up again but
was loosening the um in a virtual medicine element and obviously a lot of people were
doing these you know e-consultations with physicians and i had one guy on the show who
was talking about this technology which i think is genius and i truly think it would
eliminate a lot of these responses that aren't emergencies they're just not an ambulance
should be not going to it but the person calls 911 they go through the series of you know
um emd questions obviously making sure it's not a cardiac arrest or something that warrants
and a 911 response and then they ask the person well we have you know we have an ambulance
we can send to you or we can give you a video consultation with the er physician a lot of
people are going to go oh a doctor oh oh yeah i'll talk to the doctor then and they can
literally you know give them a diagnosis over video again within reason they can you know
prescribe meds to a local pharmacy as you know now uber will send you you know your
meds to your house if you need to and so the febrile two-year-old or like you said the
nose bleed now they've been told to put their head down and pinch and you know use ice or
whatever else and now it's stopped so you haven't woken up a crew for a for a call you
freed up a bed in the er that never got filled with a bullshit call and that person that
called 911 their medical bill is going to be a lot smaller than if they've been transported
that's genius i wish that new york city would adapt that because that really is um that'd
be a game changer really because i mean we have companies doing over 6000 runs a year
and and there's no no relief in sight and i'm not i'm not saying we shouldn't we should
do less we should just prioritize what we're doing absolutely of my whole career i saved
the most lives in a rescue what we call rescue ambulance with fire gear on but the most fun
job i did was a tillerman for anaheim fire department on on the truck company um talk
to me about your experience from you know as you've got this experience now on the on
the nozzle in the engine on the engine excuse me and that transition to the truck what was
your experience initially for that so that was a natural i guess progression of my career
um you know i get to a certain point where you want more right so the engine again i
mean the engine's the job like i just kind of beat up the engine i want to take it back
some things i said there but i kind of beat them up but the engine is the job that's the
core and pride tradition of of of any fire service of that engine company um but you
want a little bit more you want a little bit more responsibility you want to be able to
think on your feet so i see the truck it's more of a dance where the engine's more a
cadence and and that's the difference where when you're ready to go do a ballroom dance
and it's time to go over the truck and that progression from the engine the truck again
comes from understanding timing and with us earlier like i was saying the fmy everything
comes down to positioning and with the truck company you're responsible to make your position
and there's and there's no way about it you have to make that position and that's the
responsibility of the truck which i think draws a lot of guys to the next step talk
to me then about vertical ventilation again i got a interesting perspective we got next
to no roof training in my academy in orlando um i think we cut some pallets in in hialia
and then i go out west and then it's one year of intense you know roof operation training
building construction i mean it was it was absolutely intense and their attrition rate
was 25 so if you didn't make it it was just tough shit you you were gone but then i come
back to florida and i hear people say oh you know we don't get in the roofs here in florida
because our buildings are uh you know lightweight truss construction and i remember thinking
well the whole building is made of wood in in california so you start to see some of
these fairy tales that certain departments tell themselves out of a textbook no actual
real lived experience at all so not so much in fdny because obviously you're being groomed
by the very department that you work for but as you started traveling what is your observation
of some of the different uh perspectives of vertical ventilation you're hearing from some
of these other departments so again this is something i i feel it gets debated often and
i think that people that are debating it don't truly understand the concept of science behind
it we always hear the term coordinated attack but i'm not sure that people truly understand
or can accept what we're in coordination with again going back to timing everything in life
as well as on the fire floor floors above from the engine to the roof man it's about
timing but timing is incredibly hard right so we always hear the argument about staffing
so that kind of for me makes me look at when we're putting members on the roof but we're
not getting that first line into operation it makes me question that just a little bit
so through my travels we'll talk and people have this truck culture quote unquote but
they're not understanding the truck mindset that sometimes venting entering and searching
the most occupied areas in these buildings will save more lives than cutting any hole
in a roof that's not timed or coordinated properly again going back to timing so traveling
around hearing that i get a lot of the questions back to me saying well how come new york city
how come you guys don't cut peak roof private dwellings and that's my exact answer i think
it's about timing and then they talk about staffing well you're the most staff department
in the world and exactly right and we're still not putting the man on the roof because we
feel that we can't time it properly and we can save more lives by ves in the most occupied
areas time and place for cutting a peak roof private dwelling absolutely but i don't think
that every fire needs to be cut and i'm traveling around like you said i'm seeing people cut
roofs where they don't have to be cut a lot of times water is on the fire and then you
see them cutting the roof again sometimes we need to cut that roof but i don't think
it's as often as we're seeing guys do it i've seen a complete aversion to cutting a tool
and again you know depending on the fire depending on on the the building construction you know
i've seen i've been on the nozzle while the truck ops have been working and all of a sudden
you can just stand up it's incredible you can see everything and then vice versa obviously
i've been on the roof when you know ball of fire comes out and we're helping out the guys
below us but what blows me away is this kind of black or white oh we don't do vertical
ventilation but then they'll still put two companies under that roof rather than as you
said coordinated wise if the fire's not ready out give them a chimney get rid of a lot of
that super heat a gas and uh and smoke so therefore now you've made it you know much
more tenable hopefully for a victim if nothing else for the crews inside yeah so backing
up we cut flat roofs we just don't cut peak roof so we're always putting at least two
roof men on the roof for a flat roof um taxpayer commercial building uh a multiple dwelling
a private dwelling anytime we have a flat roof we're cutting that roof the fire's on
the top floor that's very important that we're doing that like you said we have to vent that
allow the companies to get in the position and put water on the fire again the timing
is very important though so uh that's why again going back to positioning and how important
that is i don't think that we can truly coordinate this attack if we're running certain departments
that don't have rotting positions with assignments are already um pre-planned before you arrive
you can't get there and say what do you want me to do chief oh i want you to cut the roof
that should be something where you're off the rig and you're already on your way to
cut the roof before it's even considered you know what i mean so i think that's another
thing that we're losing sight of is that people want to have this quote unquote truck culture
we need the truck mindset to understand we need to gain position on the fire in a timely
fashion and then do your duties but understanding your duties before we get there is very very
important the best department i worked for was anaheim and they actually work very closely
with you guys a lot of things that we did there were learned from you you know and we
had rotting positions and we and we just drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled and i
think that's the missing piece if you're going to have a truck company you've got to understand
that that's a full-time job with a huge amount of you know hard training there's no way you
know climbing climbing aerials and getting up there with saws and and pounding your way
to to make a heat hole or strip whatever it is you're doing you've got to actually do
those those over and over and over again and they had a training tower and we would cut
you know multiple times a month over and over and over again the worst place i work for
we had the station that had the engine and the truck and you would basically if they
needed a truck you put your gear on that truck i never had any training at all any sort of
truck company operations the only way i would have not died is what i've been taught prior
to that so those are the two spectrums that i see if you're going to have a truck company
you've got to understand the high high level of training that you need to be effective
on that vehicle you know we always talk about work life balance and this is something that
gets thrown around often i say oh we gotta have a work life balance i don't believe in
that when you're a fireman you're a fireman and you're through and through um yeah you
need to spend time with your kids and your wife here and there you got to turn it off
but for instance this morning my firehouse they had a fire there was a photo of our outside
vent firefighter on the fire escape fire blowing out the windows and they had five guys to
my firehouse send me the picture what do you think and we start a conversation and we're
talking about it none of us are at work we're wishing we're at work right now we're missing
the fire but we're talking about the fire that's important so you say the training you
know and the drilling it never truly ends and especially more so when you're in the
truck because it is about the position you can always have the conversation how would
you get here or what would you do to get there and then when you get there it's always the
same job when you get there as far as breaking the window cutting the roof whatever it is
as far as the science of ventilation but the mission of getting there that's something
that can always be debated and that's important we do that and it's important we talk about
that because that's where there's room for mistakes and that's where mistakes are made
but those are okay mistakes to make as long as we identify them and discuss them and then
collectively move forward from that going back to the engine no room for mistakes we
can't stretch short we have to get water on the fire so that's the difference between
the two but talking about getting that position is incredibly important.
I've heard you talk about this and I know this is one of the topics that you teach in
you know top floor tactics but again when you've done four academies east and west coast
you get a you know slightly different gypsy view of the fire service than someone who
you know got hired in one place and stayed their whole career and for example the way
that we were taught to raise a 24 in Florida was you kind of lay it on the floor you pick
it up suitcase carry you lay it flat on the floor again in front of the building and then
you raise the rungs up and then you turn it and all these things and then you go to California
and now all of a sudden you're taught high shoulder throws and all these things and you
realize how much more versatile are there and how unrealistic that academy where I was
taught was in the real world because there's no place with nothing in the way of a building
you know there's cars and hedges and fences and all these things and then you know you
look at even car fires like for the my whole career it was we put water on a car well that's
a class b fire with a metal frame it's tires and fuel tanks and all the things so there's
a disconnect sometimes I think between the academy in the real world another one Hialeah
did really well which is the one I work for in Miami their tower was chock full of they
had cupboards in there they had furniture and all kinds of stuff so when you were doing
hose management you had to truly manage the hose around all these obstacles and stairs
and corners whereas a lot of the other academies it was a big empty concrete room with a pallet
and a bale of hay and you know congratulations you just put the fire out so that was a huge
monologue to set up the question but talk to me about what you've observed between academy
and real world and are we setting our young recruits up for failure by the way that we're
teaching sometimes absolutely I think we are and I think that's a problem now I don't know
if there's a solution to as far as the academy side because I don't truly believe in the
conversation a lot of times you have as an instructor with the students saying okay we'll
learn this for the test and when you get to your firehouse you're going to learn the right
way to do things they'll show you how to do it is your truth to that unfortunately yes
but I don't think that's the right way to doing it because not everyone has the opportunity
to go back to that firehouse with those motivated young and guys with tradition pride training
all these things not everyone has that ability to go to that busy firehouse not everyone
has the ability in the volunteer world to go back to your hometown if that hometown
department doesn't have these these good training mechanisms in place you're lost it's a dead
end street especially for a young motivated firefighter so I think we are setting up our
firefighters for failure you mentioned the latter I think it's a great example what we're
not teaching and with all these hands-on academies or these hands-on excuse me the hands-on conferences
are great and they're all over there they're all over the country I think it's a good thing
for the fire service but we have to be careful when we're going to these hands-on training
that we can't lose sight of the theory behind the task we're doing going back to the ground
ladder like you said testable points logically speaking 75 degree climbing pattern fly out
things we get tested on in real life instinctual notion human instinct very very different
and I think that's something we have to talk about more so is that that ground ladder that's
simply a bridge to gaining position on the fire the task is not throwing the ladder the
task is getting into that building and doing your search coming back out that building
if you have to sometimes head first if fire chases you know or risking you civilian portable
ground ladders are for the brothers and sisters yes on arrival for civilians but that changes
very quickly again time is a tool in everything we do I think that's got to be drilled at
the young firefighters or two if as well as if we can manipulate time and use it as a
tool everything kind of falls into place but we can't get caught up in having to throw
that ground ladder at 75 degrees because maybe you can't do it because there's a parked
car or there's an alley or there's some wires get the ladder up again it's just a bridge
to gain position on the fire forcible entry we have the door props great mechanism or
tool to learn the theory of how to force the door how to hold the tool but what we're not
discussing is 10 feet inside that door that's ultimately what we're there to do that door
isn't the task the task is to gain position on the fire that task or that ability to force
the door you're just conquering the obstacle you know there's a quote out there obstacles
the way forward that's a stellar quote but it really in the fire service everything is
the obstacle is the way forward if you're going in that window taking that window that
jumps the obstacle to gain forward position on the fire forcing the front door it's the
obstacle to gain forward position on the fire and that's something we're not teaching or
talking about in the fire academies or in the hands-on conferences I see a lot of shiny
object videos of dudes in gym shorts and the helmet because I've got to make sure everyone
knows they're a firefighter doing a door prop and then that's it then they stop and it's
the same way I feel about you know high-rise training and all these other ones what we're
missing is the discussion also on firefighter fitness and strength and the incredible you
know suffering that you experience in full gear with a pack because I mean the heat the
inability to offload heat is a big part too so everyone can look great on Instagram when
they're you know in their gym shorts like I said just work on a door prop where I want
to see is all these guys you know okay well now show me this after you've climbed 20 stories
you probably still do it who knows but simulate the work that it would take the stress you
know of doing whatever you did up to that point because doing it fresh not wearing your
gear is not simulating anything now again you know crawl walk stand excuse me call or
run of course if you've never done it before do it in little gear but if we're really simulating
what we're going to do in the real world then fucking simulate it properly yeah I did a
drill the other day in the firehouse I had the kid go on the rower he rode he got his
heart rate way up then we had him get dressed I didn't have worked out in the in the gear
I don't believe in that so much but and then we had him put the gear on and then I had
him follow me around the firehouse as we're walking to the fire building developing that
tempo that flow that cadence right those are the important things that we don't necessarily
learn the fire economy and if you don't have the right people teaching you when you get
to the fire ground when you get to the firehouse you lose it you never truly you don't lose
it you never learn it in the sense and or if you do have it you tend to lose it eventually
but having that temple now the heart rates up we have the temple of working together
I say okay now force the door and he forced the door and he had that tempo within it and
he blew the door and he did fine and then we talked about 10 15 feet inside the door
and that's what we have to get to so like you said I think the door prop is a good thing
to develop the mechanics of the tool but it's not necessarily a good tool for talking about
what we're doing next and that's what we're setting the firefighters up for failure because
like you said they're wearing gym shorts and a helmet and that's it they're not getting
the heart rate up we're not introducing real life stress again the stress is everything
and really hard to duplicate in training but by getting that heart rate up allows you to
work on the ability to breathe lower the heart rate and think clearly what is your whole
ethos when it comes to fitness in the fire service well I mean I'm an avid runner and
CrossFit's big guys are always throwing weights around I'm not really too into like lifting
the weights type thing but I think if you're doing anything physical it's good and I think
that we've lost the sense that how important it is because we've lowered standards across
the board and that's the bottom lowering standards to get on the job it just that's going to
trickle down effect when you get on the job and into the firehouse eventually your standards
become lower and lower and lower so fitness on the job that means tremendously important
but again not so much throwing the weights around but getting the heart rate up where
I can walk up 30 floors and force the door if I had to because I trained to do that and
I think we have to instill this into the young guys coming on the job it's not necessarily
about how much weight you can throw around but it's more so about getting your mind in
key with your body that's the main thing is that fitness isn't only about physical it's
about getting your mind in line with your body that's what I found I did CrossFit for
about 16 years I've kind of tapered off into a different kind of medium now but to me you
know you don't want to be doing a hard workout all the time especially if you just come off
a shift and you're tired you know that should be a kind of deload day for you but if you
go to the pain cave once a week once every 10 days you know when you go to that redline
workout and now you're tested in gear well the last time you were in a really shitty
place was a week 10 days ago but if you become you know a lazy boy surfer and now you have
a life-threatening event and the last time you fucking was scared and tired and your
muscles were burning was in the academy there's a high high chance that you're not going to
make it home to your family yeah and I think another thing that is important is be able
to communicate under stress and that comes from fitness that comes from getting your
heart rate at a working level something I do is when I go for a run mile one I'll give
a mayday it's usually a labored mayday while at mile one mile two I'll give a mayday again
somewhat labored but better mile three give the same mayday and usually around mile three
it's dialed in the tempo is perfect and it sounds crystal clear but that comes from understanding
that getting the heart rate low now I think that we operate on the fire ground around
mile and a half to two miles consistently so that's where we have to be able to control
our heart rate to be able to speak clearly in the time of distress what about breath
work this is one of the biggest kind of aha moments for me was how little we talk about
the breath in one of the only professions on planet earth where you have a finite amount
of air strapped to your back so when you think about you know whether it's yoga meditation
you know whatever it is skip breathing but that needs to be in my in my career is at
the forefront of what I did for exactly what you said even in the CrossFit world I love
the emoms every minute on the minute which should be about 30 minutes excuse me 30 seconds
work but then 30 seconds of rest and it might be 10 15 20 minutes of that but every 30 seconds
you're working to down regulate again to get ready for the next round so what is your perspective
of the importance of as you said breath and heart rate so again this is something I feel
that we're failing young firefighters from day one we teach in the academy how to force
door stretch hose post yearlings fire dynamics fire science we're teaching all this but we're
not teaching us how to breathe like firemen and that's what it blows my mind it truly
does so a lot of times during my lecture I'll take the most senior salty guy in the room
right and then I'll point the young kid the CrossFit kid and I'd say I guarantee you this
salty firefighter will outlast your cylinder I don't care if you can run 40 miles you've
done three ultras in your life because he taught himself how to breathe like a firefighter
it took years to get there but he understands it if we could teach these young firefighters
from day one how to breathe like firefighters I think will save so many lives moving forward
we'll be able to think clearly on the fire ground by getting the heart rate low and thinking
skip breathing like you mentioned skip breathing that's that's probably my go-to under stress
I like box breathing going about your day going about stretching a line forcing the
door if you work on on box breathing allows you to lower the heart rate just a bit but
under distress giving that skip breathing which is simply breathing in holding breathing
in again slowly exhaling two or three cycles of that can truly allow you to lower your
heart rate think clearly and get out of the building alive under stress so one more area
when it comes to the academy in the way that we're teaching again I realized looking back
and let's use the EMS side for a second as a paramedic I was taught okay you know you've
got this heart arrhythmia I'm going to give this drug I'm going to give you know this
kind of electric therapy and then we go through and at the end okay we've got normal sinus
well great and again as a teaching tool obviously you've got to teach sequences what I realized
though is that we do a terrible job for setting our men and women up for the failures that
we're going to say and when I say failures I'm not talking about failures as far as what
we did but the fact that especially on the medical side a lot of people don't make it
and so I feel like this expectation of you know you got the baby out the fire or you
got the cardiac arrest back that sometimes we do a disservice with that kind of 100%
success rate rather than taking time to have a discussion to be like just so you know if
the conditions are like this you know you're going to do the search but there's a high
chance that you're actually going to be doing a body recovery or if you're doing you know
cardiac algorithms just know that only 5% of people are going to make it from this so
that way they kind of have a preface of they're not feeling guilt and shame because well in
the academy I saved them every time and now I'm losing them.
Yeah that's a good point and you know that's something we're not doing a good job on in
training I feel and that's something you brought to light for me is the thing about that with
making the search finding a victim and then bringing that victim out or sustaining them
in place until we get water on the fire whatever your tactic is in the moment but that's something
that we're not talking about is what happens the calculation or what happens the percentage
of survival rate but that yeah again I think we're failing in our training from early from
day one to being honest and truthful with people as far as what you signed up for and
that trickles all the way back to what you were talking about earlier as far as the mental
health side of this is sometimes we have to remind people what we signed up for and I
think that's kind of lost as well could be glorified as a good schedule benefits pension
all these things but truly what you signed up for is to come to help people in the worst
time of need but what's that percentage of people that aren't going to survive that moment.
Speaking of schedule this is a point that I harp on a huge amount and it's good to have
someone from FDNY to talk about this too.
How many hours do you a week do you guys work as far as the basal level of hours?
I guess it's 48 hours so we do 224 tours a week.
Okay so I understood it was 42 or 40 is that with extra bits then or is that your flat
rate?
That's flat rate so we'll do a 24 two or three years off another 24 and then with that you're
always working overtime in between all that.
Okay because the reason that you know I'm asking this as again through this bizarre
gypsy experience and then 900 conversations I started realizing how much sleep deprivation
was contributing to all the things whether it was weight gain and heart disease whether
it was cancer suicide but then also you know our ability to think clearly to breathe properly
to do you know to be effective on the fire ground itself so my goal is to create the
24 72 as the industry standard across the board which should be a 42 hour work week
which would give our men and women you know three not even three days off because that's
the wrong way of putting it you know that second day you've already worked eight but
give a full 72 hour period between shift and shift.
So what is your perspective of the impact of work weeks and or sleep deprivation through
your experience?
So I think sleep deprivation this is something that it's a hot topic I guess you would say
everyone's talking about it but there's a lot of truth behind it and the older I've
gotten I've realized it is affecting me at home it's affecting me at work I just can't
seem to recover after a busy night.
Then this goal goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the engine company getting
beat up doing 6,000 plus runs working 24s and then you get the argument coming back
well they did it in the war years they did those those runs and those and those and those
fires and everything else but they were going to fires they weren't doing all the nuisance
runs they weren't wearing bunker gear and they weren't working 24 hour shifts they're
working a nine hour day going home working a nine hour day going home coming back a day
and a half later working 15 hours going home coming back the next night working 15 hours
then having three days off.
That works but that doesn't work with life today.
So that's where we've kind of got lost runs are still going up we're wearing the bunker
gear and we're not sleeping and I could feel it and like I said it's affecting everything
across the board from home life to work life and I don't know how you get around it I really
don't you know when I when I got to the spot I'm in now the captain who was retiring gave
me a piece of advice he goes I know you want to hang out with the guys in the kitchen he
goes go to bed early because you never know where you can sleep next and I haven't really
listened to his advice but it's starting to catch up with me now where there's so much
truth behind that.
Well my old argument I mean firstly from a budgetary point of view and it's interesting
here in Florida we the dominoes are falling now and we've got with one one department
has done it for a long time another department went to 2472 just 18 months ago city of Gainesville
UF they are going to it this September and then Pasco County which is near Tampa is going
to it basically in like a year year and a half from now and the reason that those counties
and cities are shifting is not because of the goodness of their heart they value their
firefighters some in that board I'm sure do but it's the the money side so what is happening
as we are breaking down our firefighters there is a financial consequence you know workmen's
comp overtime fill in the fill in the gaps lawsuits from mistakes we make you know I
mean you know hiring more people and then god forbid you have a hiring crisis now people
are walking out the back door and it's like 20 grand per firefighter that you're training
so you've got all this money just bleeding out the back the answer because things have
shifted because we're not sitting around smoking cigars and you know petting the dalmatian
anymore is to give these men and women more recovery rest and recovery in between because
to me it's insanity that the people that we call 911 for that get up from a you know dead
sleep or whatever it is literally jump on a rig drive to our home and then make entry
looking for our five-year-old is sleep deprived you know overworked under slept and yet the
person that bags our groceries in the grocery store goes to bed you know every single night
so if we're going to ask our men and women to do what they have to do in 2024 we have
to create an environment that allows them to thrive rather than as we all know die within
five years of retirement yeah that's powerful and you know there's an old slogan that floats
around the fdmi is that the best tool in the fire ground is a well-rested firefighter and
it's something we always laughed at but there's so much truth behind it when you really analyze
it and think about it that is the best tool is if you're well rested you can think clearly
right you can make the right decisions and you can perform absolutely well another area
of expertise that i know you teach on is search and again in the spectrum of departments i
will give full credit to the city of hialia for i would argue the best search training
i've had in my career and the best you know again hose line advancement and management
and all those things too they were phenomenal what are some of the common not even mistakes
what are areas that you find that you're able to add value for departments when it comes
to search you know outside of the fdmi is what i think going back to what you were asking
about the disconnection between the fire academy and real life and i think that what we're
teaching nationwide is that the first thing we're searching for is that fire but we're
not really talking about it it's common sense we got to find the fire but that's number
one search on the fire floor we have to locate that fire first now we're never dismissing
any life in that travel looking for that seat of the fire but water on the fire saves more
lives than anything else this is common sense so we have to understand the game position
on the fire find the fire now direct that engine company into position then we start
our search from the seat of the fire away towards the way we entered again mind mapping
the details mind triggers as we're looking for the fire all the things that are very
important again never dismissing that search for life but fire is priority now going to
the floor above that search starts at the threshold once we pass that threshold of going
above we're searching for life then fire travel however we have to focus our search above
the fire below yes we're searching our way to that area but we want to focus our search
on the fire area that is above the seat of the fire below now I said life first on the
floor above yes but we have to look for fire travel and this is where I can see we're going
to multiple alarms nationwide too often and too quickly because we're not opening up quick
enough and often enough we have to open up and look for that fire travel so many times
you see one room fire on the first floor then you have fire on the cockloft because we didn't
open up the pipe chases early enough it's just basic as that but again just to kind
of recap that fire floor we have to locate the fire first direct the engine into position
floor above the fire our search starts at that threshold and I think that's kind of
where we've lost track of teaching and what the right thing is to do on the fireground
it seems again going back to the academy where I've seen it taught poorly is you know you've
got you two guys searching men and women searching and you're doing a right-hand search for example
and that you're not going to have because this is a concrete training tower you're not
going to have a freaking you know inferno to navigate so like oh do a right-hand search
and you go all around the building and you come back well what if you know there's a
massive fire in a way and you don't have a hose line because you're searching how do
you navigate from one corner to the other you know so that again there's this disconnect
you send someone in and they had to stop searching because they did reach you know a room of
fire or not stop but have to understand how to navigate around like you said to continue
that perimeter and I don't think that's taught very well either no that's what we have as
as the can firefighter right two and a half gallon water can it's not for extinguishment
it's for confinement and that's what we have to really zone in on that where you know these
firemen think that they carry the can they're going to put the fire out before the engine
can get there like it's some kind of competition in reality you're just holding back that fire
to exactly what you said how we want to pass that fire and search the rooms beyond the
fire traveling around like you said what I've noticed is that people are searching behind
the advancing line we have to be searching ahead of that line ahead above and beyond
is where we are saving lives once we put the fire out either then at this point searching
for dead people we have to get there ahead of that line locate that fire and search your
way back as that engines going into position but that can man holding that fire back is
incredibly important and we give the young firefighter or the probe we the can that's
kind of how it works I don't think we're doing justice of explaining the importance of that
position and truly what's going on that's something that has to be discussed at roll
call and on the fire floor right before you make entry into that apartment or on the front
steps if you're in a private dwelling what that role is to a young firefighter you explain
to him brother if we find fire I want you to hold it back I'm gonna pass you and search
those rooms beyond you have to have that conversation you also have to tell that young firefighter
that if you were running low on water in that can and your can is starting to be overtaken
by the fire you have to let us know because now we have to start making moves to get out
alive from the second means of egress or whether taking a door off the hinges and holding
that fire back to get back to that point of egress but it's very important to communicate
and be on the same page I remember working for Hialeah and I was on the rescue again
it's a three-person ambulance and we got toned out to a house fire we were first on scene
and they would put detergent in their can as well we went in and again it wasn't to
beat the engine but we went into search and ended up it was a fully involved kitchen and
ended up putting the whole thing out with the can and it was only then that I realized
how like you said you're not trying to extinguish the whole fire but how much a can can actually
do if you use it properly yeah it's a whole movement out there I guess you say about can
confidence that's a great class if you do see that be sure to get involved with that
class and talk about it and get the hands-on training because it's one of those things
that you only gain through experience like you said you have to start going to a couple
of these fires and applying the water from the water can and seeing how much fire you
can actually hold back or extinguish but that's something that only comes through experience
in training yes you can recreate it but again having that stress factor of moving on and
above and beyond you kind of eliminate that during the training unfortunately but it's
something that needs to be spoken about before you're in that position speaking of can confidence
eric weaton was on the show with jim walsh a while ago now and he was at the orlando
fire conference a few years ago and I took his v es class and by that point I think I've
been on for 13 years and never had a v es class before and was blown away how much sense
it made like you said you close the door now you have this one room you you've searched
from the outside you know where your egress is you know you have people waiting if you
find someone I love that idea so again through your perspective how how much is that being
taught and used outside of fdny because I mean it like I said it took me 13 years to
come across it myself so v es you know the fire industry I should say they love acronyms
they can test you on them they can rewrite books they can remake acronyms to resell books
right so v e i s vent enter isolate search so this blows my mind because we're setting
up again the young firefighters coming out to believe that vent enter isolate search
is a type of search search is search that acronym is simply just a path of getting position
on the fire and that's what we're not teaching what's the number one thing we do and that's
save lives so why in the world will we take an acronym and put the word search last to
that acronym I know when I get there to fire when I had the ov or I was the outside vent
and that break hits boots on the ground my search starts then I'm sizing up the building
anyone on the fire escapes anyone jump into the bushes anybody in the garbage cans that
maybe fell out the window make the turn now I go down the alley down the exposure anyone
in the fire escapes area anyone showing out a window I'm searching my way to my point
of entry now we make entry vent enter isolate so I vented I entered now it tells me to go
isolate so if conditions allow me to continue my search why would I ever abandon my search
to close the door search your way to the door because the main thing we're doing is searching
and search starts on boots on the ground now you get to the hallway they say take your
tool sweep that hallway maybe you get someone maybe you don't then you isolate then you
continue your search back to the window you came in the acronym states that pretty bluntly
in real life you search with your hands that's it so when you get to that hallway you commit
to that hallway at least the body's length left or right now let's say you find a victim
you drag that victim back into that area now we isolate that room and you realize that
you have the head of just say a 30 year old woman for example it's 3 a.m. and when you
were doing your search you mind mapped at the details of that room that you were in
an adult's room there was no crib wasn't a twin bed was in a small dresser you could
tell you were in a master room or an adult's bedroom 3 a.m. you have her head in your lap
where's she coming from probably coming from the kids room commit to that hallway thoroughly
search the hallway for any kids that might have been in her arms that fell to the ground
you find one kid there's probably another flip the script same scenario you commit to
that hallway you pull her back in you isolate the room now you realize you have the feet
of a 30 year old woman same scenario where's she going probably going to the kids room
make the push down the hallway and commit to that room and search for the kids so when
we put the acronym event enter isolate search and we explain that this is a form of search
we're losing common sense on the fire floor common sense is middle of the night you find
someone where they doing where they going there's a reason they're out of bed and there's
a reason why they're going somewhere reanalyze the situation in the moment what about tick
I again for most of my career it was it was searching and you know and then the officers
had a tick and so it was slowly kind of introduced and there was a time I remember in Anaheim
where it was the winter so we'd make entry on the training burn all of a sudden the tick
was spaz out because it went from you know whatever it was 30 degrees to 400 and so for
me I ended up preferring the option where someone is at the door holding a tick someone
else is actually doing a full search because I for me it was like that kind of night blindness
through night vision goggles if I was staring at a screen it was hard for me to then map
out the picture in my mind so what is the kind of dynamic that you like as far as tick
usage so the FDY the officers carry the tick firefighters don't so I don't have a lot of
experience with it I'm gaining experience I got promoted later my career obviously so
but for the past few years or past couple years that I've been carrying one I've learned
quite a bit to really adapt to it and use it not only for finding the seed of the fire
I mean a great move to do which gets overlooked through training I think a lot of times is
when you have that tick and we're searching for the fire now I truly believe when you
force that door we treat the fire apartment like a fine bottle of wine you pause you get
low you let the apartment lift you check out layout for victims see the fire where you're
going left to right but now with the tick it's a game changer so if you don't carry that
tick that's the moves you have to do you still have to rely on getting low and looking what
you still do with the kick the tick but now taking a few steps inside that door and turning
taking that tick and holding it up to the door where now the smoke is venting you can
really see velocity of smoke and that can give you a directional point to what way the
seed of the fire is by seeing what way more velocity is coming with that smoke inventing
out that main door that's your point of going to find that seed of the fire we had a fire
the other night it was funny you said like leaving a guy at the door I had my tick we're
doing our search I have my irons guy he searched in the bedroom I come in behind him and he's
like I'm trying to get to the bed but there's all this clutter here and I already searched
the bed with the with the tick I can see the entire room that no one's in that bed and
I said to him it's negative there's no one in here there's no one in here he goes I'm
trying to get there now we're having a discussion in the moment like searching this bed I just
grabbed him I go look and I put the tick up to his mask and he looked he goes oh look
at that I go yeah it's a lot easier right so it's almost like we're cheating but it's
a great tool to have and it just comes with practice and reputation just understanding
how to use the tool I'm fortunate enough to have a dear friend and mentor that kind of
like wrote the book for us on it so I'm constantly picking his brain and he's kind of guiding
me and teaching me how to use it the right way it's one of those things you can get a
great digital camera and never take a great photo but once you learn how to use that camera
you can understand like the true art of it and there really is an art behind it but it
gets overlooked through training I think a lot of times yeah what I've seen is pretty
much the way that we searched before you're just given the tick to hold now and I don't
think that's you know the right way of teaching it you hit on an interesting point and it's
I remember again I was never a great firefighter I had 14 years on the last five was in a department
that basically almost never got fire it was very lucky in the nine before they'd get a
decent amount but I mean nine compared to 30 is a very small career when it comes to
fire specifically but there's a term that the military use a tactical pause where you
just stop for a moment and you just kind of talked about that looking for the direction
of the the heat and outside of that there's this kind of you know clean cabs stops grabs
mentality where kids supposedly are going to fly off the fire engine right through the
door and then go save someone and I think that this this ability to just stop and I
always found this on the nozzle again I was not a great firefighter never on long enough
to even discover if I was going to be a good one but I remember people freaking out going
just you know flow water flow water I'm like just fucking calm down I can see the fire
I knock it down and then I shut the bail down for a moment and just see what it does because
am I advancing to another area another room but just mindlessly spraying to me was counterproductive
so talk to me about the tactical pause the importance of a firefighter again going back
to the breath we're in the fire you know we have a have a job to do but trying to give
yourself a few moments that then will in turn save a lot of time once you assess the situation
properly.
Everything you just said there's so much behind and that's kind of where I feel true true
professionalism in the fire service comes from is understanding that there's a tempo
and a flow to everything you do and that tactical pause can align that flow state in every fire
because every fire has a different tempo but unless we take a moment to pause take a breath
and kind of find the tempo of that fire we'll never truly be doing the right thing or being
being in the same flow state formula we need to be to accomplish our tasks there's micro
pauses right everything we do from you get off the rig you take a pause you size up how
am I getting to the roof you get to the door quick micro pause tactical breath how am I
sizing this door up everything we do we should be pausing it's not just the first pause when
you pull up and size up it's every task we do you take a breath or every time you think
you need to take a breath you need to take one you know everyone knows the OODA loop
observe orientate decide then act that I added two of the more for the fire ground though
I think pause and breathe are very important to align that to make the right decision so
everything we do and I teach with all my guys is the first thing we do is pause and take
a breath and that pause could be a split second and that breath could take three seconds however
it's important we do it at every task we do for one to lower your heart rate and think
clearly but number two this job is all about instinctual notions especially in the truck
company and we have to be able to trust our gut our gut is right probably 99% of the time
but that 1% of the time it's not and by pausing you can realign that decision with making
the right one I want to get on to the lithium-ion battery conversation and then do some closing
questions but just before we do you just mentioned that you're not a fan of working out in gear
I'm not a fan of working out in gear of course we have to do physical things in gear sometimes
otherwise we're not going to create that resilience in the very uniform that we have to wear but
you know carcinogens now PFAS and these other things that we're learning about common sense
dictates that if you can exercise or train without gear a majority of the time that's
going to be safer so what is your perspective not only on training and gear but on the and
the clean cab makes it sound like it's some you know surgical environment ready for brain
surgery I'm talking more about minimizing the potential carcinogens in our day-to-day
space so something I've noticed recently is that every fire we go to whether it be one
room to a multiple alarm the guys are setting their gear out to get cleaned religiously
I'll come into work I'm working tomorrow I'll come in they had a fire today I guarantee
you there's a line of bags of gear getting sent out that was never ever ever the culture
in the FDY we've been sending out twice a year and guys would hide the gear and send
out the same gear for years upon years upon years because we like the way it fit it was
broken in I like to see the way we're going I wish it was more of a more of a culture
when I was younger same thing as wearing the mask you know we're so quickly to take that
mask off at a fire we got to leave it on it's a cultural thing as far as working out I just
I think it's very unprofessional that's just I there's no scientific analogy on that for
me I just think it's kind of just it's kind of goofy I don't know we're firemen we're
professionals we should be up to shape you don't see like professional basketball player
or football players you don't see them out there in their uniform running around working
out on their days off I just don't understand it it's about game time decision making it's
about being professional when it's time to do your job and that all leads up to just
being in shape always always working for the next best thing you should always be training
for that race that's never coming but not necessarily wearing the race gear if that
makes sense I mean there's that's just a pet peeve of mine but the culture of the clean
cab I mean I don't have too much experience with the clean cab I hear about it I've read
a little bit about it that doesn't affect or I and that doesn't affect my world at all
is there value in it yeah I'm sure for the future of of your health but we have to understand
again what we signed up for this is what we signed up for it's a dirty job there's no
way around it I don't understand the clean cab in general I mean is what it's like you
put the gear in a different box or something you get in the up to the fire and then you
get dressed is that what the clean cab initiative is or no I think because you have again a
spectrum of interpretations I had the two Swedish guys that had the actually are the
founders of the actual clean cab but if you're taking principles you start with clean gear
so your your men and women that are bagged their gear they're getting on the rig with
clean gear so that goes on the rig just like normal what was a real aha moment for me is
as a tillerman in California you can't have your pack in the doghouse so your pack has
to be in a compartment down I realized just like you said tactical pause getting off the
rig assessing you know the building and I wasn't an officer so I'm waiting to be told
you know what to do I mean obviously we're gonna grab the tools that I would always grab
but what is my captain gonna tell me to do but six seconds that pack is snapped in and
I'm ready to go I mean literally it's ridiculous how quick it is to throw a pack on your back
so removing the carcinogen filled pack after a fire and having that external I think is
actually a very good idea so it's just a case of whatever would be off gassing in the cab
let's not put that in the cab so that's that's the simple concept and then you know they
bag it up god forbid you get you know a still alarm on the way back to the station then
you might have to open that bag and throw your shit back on but you know what's gonna
happen is you're gonna have two sets of gear you switch them out you someone off as you
said and I don't care what anyone you know most of the country says the chances of most
departments getting two three four fires back to back in 2024 are pretty slim so it's really
about like you said that long term what are you or is your health gonna be look like what
are you gonna be bringing on your clothes back to your wife and your kids you know through
that contamination so that gross contamination of not putting gear on that you just had in
a fire back into the cab and then not bringing the packs on that would that would make a
huge dent in my opinion no I think there's a lot of truth to that and anyone who's fighting
that I mean it's just being stubborn and it's not moving forward with the fire service and
not using what we've learned to save our lives moving forward that's pretty much the movement
in New York City I mean guys like I said guys are sending the gear out constantly we're
not wearing gear in the kitchen anymore we're not wearing gears in the bunk room anymore
that was always a thing early on when I came on the job people walked around the bunker
gear in the kitchen we ate dinner in the kitchen sometimes with the bunker gear on that's like
absolutely off the table now you came a walk in the kitchen you know so we're making the
right steps even though people may not think we are see that's just funny how you hear
about the clean cab and I thought it's something totally different I never did any real research
on it but we're already moving in that direction be doing the right thing and I think it's
a good thing really we have to start talking about what's inside the gear though right
isn't that what they're saying now it's causing the cancer and that's probably why we shouldn't
be working out in our gear yeah no the PFAS is part of the conversation but it's interesting
because for example the IAFF grabbed onto that because then they just get to point at
another company let's also talk about the work week which is really killing a lot of
our men and women because it's literally destroying us from the inside PFAS I don't want that
shit in my gear I'm not saying that we should have it but if we have we're truly going to
have the wellness conversation the work week needs to be front and center and then we can
start chipping away at the other stuff yeah work week and managing the nuisance runs when
I say nuisance just not the call takers not doing their job more or less so what it comes
down to we have to start with the call taker and then deciding what runs or what calls
we're sending companies on because you're sending them on everything is they don't want
to do their job so that's where it starts and that's where the the sleep comes next
after that you know so it all starts from that initial call taker I feel like and that's
where we could probably hone in and maybe try to change it moving forward yeah absolutely
all right well then one quick area before you go to closing questions another thing
that I really I kind of transitioned out right when this became a thing but talk to me about
lithium ion batteries in vehicles and fires that you you know what are some of the things
that you're talking about and educating the fire service on when it comes to that topic
so full disclosure I really have no experience when it comes to the vehicle fires what I
have experience with is micro mobility vehicles inside structures hoverbirds skateboards e-bikes
these are the fires we're seeing in New York City we're not so much seeing the e-b fires
just a matter of time but it's coming the experience I do have is though from going
to these fires and we go to them often we're at the point now we're going to these fires
on a daily basis citywide is it changing our tactics not necessarily changing but we have
to look at things a little bit differently we have to pay attention to details right
I always say the devil's in the details but we have to realign ourselves of what we're
doing as simple as the backup line how often do we go to a fire and we stretch a backup
line now the books are written that the first backup line is to back up the first line and
once we realize that line is making progress we can reposition that line to the floor above
or wherever else the interest commander feels that line should go one step further we go
to a fire one room fire water on the fire whatever it may be a lot of times that backup
line isn't even charged it's not ready to go we have to start thinking about things
differently in the sense that every time we go these lithium ion battery fires it's not
necessarily the battery that caused the fire but we can have a device in the home in the
apartment that is thermally loaded because of the seat of the fire putting the heat onto
that battery and then having that throw a runaway when it's running away it could fail
at any time if it fails behind the advancing engine well now we have the engine company
with a line burn through and people trapped beyond the fire that's something we have to
talk about having that backup lines charged and ready to go to work at all times head
on a swivel so something that was so quick to be moved to the floor above for maybe a
little bit of extension i think that having that line in place is so important as well
is now talking about getting above and opposite the fire a lot of times people are putting
these e-bikes right inside the apartment door they're failing they're pushing people to
windows and they're jumping out windows we have to have the conversation of how are we
getting these people out now the roof rope rescues right not every department is carrying
a life-saving rope for staffing for the right off the bat staffing is an issue right so
how are we getting a guy on the above in a fireproof building or on the roof of a non-fireproof
building with a rope and how are we going to deploy that well that's something we have
to kind of delegate manpower we have to start looking things again a little bit differently
because when these devices are failing against pushing civilians to windows we have to be
able to get them from the opposite side that's from a portable ground ladder if it's out
of the reach of the ladder out of the reach of an aerial but in the rear we have to be
able to drop down from a below and get them it's just a matter of time before your department
sees it you may think it's big city problems i'm telling you it's not a big city problem
it's coming to any suburb or rural town near you it's just a matter of time what about
extinguishment have there been any advances into how to actually extinguish the fire or
is it really at this point just getting the people away from it so extinguishment is just
copious amounts of water we have to flow a lot of water the only thing we found to this
point to stop the runaway is cell block which is an agent that you call it over packing
you put it into a drum you over pack it and it leeches the heat out of these batteries
and thermal runaway the key with that is though we have to understand that we have to dismantle
the module and take the actual cells and then leech the heat out of the cell if you put
the module in you can't it won't cast around that cell and properly leech it and then we're
seeing fires that are in the containers exploding later on not so much within the job but if
you hire a private agency these are kind of the corners they cut out of i don't know if
it's laziness or lack of education but that's the problems we're seeing when you bring in
outside agencies to do your over packing one thing that i wanted to slide in before we
go to closing questions i meant to earlier you in the conversation with pete talked about
um the kind of the way that fdny was received post immediately post 9 11 versus you know
20 plus years later um you touched on covid 19 mandates and it's funny i've got a a bit
of a cold now so i'm going to call it sebastian 12 because it seems to be trendy now to name
your viruses um but you know it's an important conversation joking aside is you know one minute
we're revered the next minute you know john stewarts on tv begging to just get these and
obviously not not just him he was the voice of fdny begging to get the coverage for the
men and women that were dying from cancer from 9 11 related illnesses you also talked
about the way that funerals were done before so just before we go to the closing questions
talk to me about that you know what what have we lost as far as um the recognition of the
sacrifices then and that continue to happen and how can we bolster the brotherhood and
sisterhood and and refine that connection with the community so that we're back to the 9
12 that we all romanticize about
it's a good question the challenging question as far as from the public's eye because we
really can't dictate what the public perceives of us but i think that starts with going back
to the power of kindness when we start allowing ourselves to be kind to the public and interact
with them and not be so anti-social i think we can draw that back in i don't think it's
necessarily just a sense of hate towards us i think it's that when you put down that big
door and you isolate yourself they forget who you are until something bad happens it's
like anything else so i think by just going back to being kind to people interacting with
the public bringing the kids in and talk with them i think we can build back that love for
the fire service internally though this is the problem i think that covid we we got away
from traditions and this was something i talked about in the firehouse with the guys was saying
we can't lose sight of traditions because we were going to funerals but we weren't allowed
to go to funerals so we would do a modified funeral more or less we lost sight of doing
our memorial day our medal day all these things they cancelled because of covid like they
cancelled the world with that we lost traditions and we it was so incredibly hard to keep that
and maintain the young firefighters understanding that these traditions are important we've
used these we've done these traditions for many many years and just because the government
and the administration steps in and tells us we can't we have to remain diligent and
do it we have to keep going forward with this job that's very very important funerals for
example though and just to circle back i brought it up earlier a little bit i feel that just
across the board in the fire service not covid related just like everything else we're losing
tradition and i think that funerals are something that's very important that we have to maintain
you know we all have like the dinner dance committee we have the softball team the hockey
team everyone's got some kind of committee or responsibility in the firehouse and i challenge
a lot of the younger and smaller departments out there maybe to come up with the funeral
committee and then you represent your department and you go to the line of duty deaths let's
start county-wide right and then you build up you have a couple fundraisers and then
it goes statewide and then it goes across the nation but that way you can represent
because i honestly feel if you take care of this job it'll take care of you tenfold but
it starts from doing the right thing from the beginning so we can't lose sight of funerals
funerals are not an option it is mandatory absolutely and this is why i started this
podcast is the other side that conversation is how do we reduce the amount of funerals
you know i've always said we're very good when we do a full you know regalia full funeral
but it's to the point where i can't stand the sound of bagpipes now because i've been
to so many it's just the inception of this so how do we also you know work on the things
that are actually killing us we focus so much on the operations side and rightly so but
the work week you know the mental health all these other conversations you know the the
cleaner cabs i mean all these also are going to lead to less funerals which needs to be
part of the conversation too yeah absolutely so talk to me then you know
now you know you've you've led us through this this story career up to this point what
made you decide to to want to get out there and teach and tell me about the creation of
top floor tactics so that's a great question actually and i get that often and the response
really isn't when people want to hear but there's really no nothing special about it
i kept a journal as a probie in the new york city fire department we had to keep a journal
from day one and you write all your experiences your reading lessons and all these things
for your first year and then the officer signs off on it then the chief would come by and
he reads it he signs off on it and it's just it's a nice little thing we do as far as training
to stay into the job stay motivated and have some a bit of accountability for yourself
in your first year for me i kept it throughout my career and i didn't only write good points
i wrote a lot of my mistakes down and i have books and books and books of mistakes and
i compiled them all together and that's pretty much how i move forward through my career
around 2017 2018 i kind of hit a like a lull in my career not that things were were bad
per se i was just a little burnt out i mean i'll be honest i think it happens to all of
us we just don't all admit it um kind of messing around in social media i never followed any
social media accounts as far as firefighting i didn't even know they existed it was a subculture
of society i knew nothing of and i came across some stuff and i was like oh wow this is pretty
good it kind of gave me a little rebirth to just kind of see that there was more to this
job than what i just had in the fdny now again things were incredibly good i was just kind
of in a lull um so seeing what was out there i said you know what i can do this so i compiled
these notes and put them into a series of posts i put them into a series of posts and
then with that i create a top four tactic because i did it through a an alias account
because when i did it i put it i started around 2018 and social media was not accepted in
the firehouse it's fucking in accepted in the fire service especially in in my job um
i felt that i'd navigated it properly over the years and i think there's something to
that but now it's common like the job's using social media so for the first few years it
was it was a fine line to walk and now moving forward it's opened up so many doors for me
and it's just i think the main thing is from the people that follow me i think understanding
humility and that's was my ultimate goal was to teach young firefighters that aggressive
firefighting isn't necessarily about being aggressive or or over the top firefighter
it's understanding that aggressive firefighting comes from a series of mistakes that we make
and we compile them all together that's where confidence comes from that's where education
comes from and that's where the true understanding of this job comes from and i put into social
media and that allowed me to go out and eventually speak talk to me more about humility i feel
like that is an area that's missing quite a bit in the fire service and again not everyone
boots on the ground but more so as you start seeing you know bugles on collars and there
are some phenomenal officers slash leaders out there but there's also a lot of people
that have the pieces of paper but their egos are so fragile that they're not listening
to their men and women on the ground there's a huge disconnect so how does a young firefighter
or someone who's progressing through the ranks retain that humility in this profession
how do you retain that's a good question i think i mean that's my that's my number one
goal is is to have this next generation understand that we're human and there's a human side
of this job that that we kind of try to mask through type a personalities and and the farther
you get i feel like the more disconnected you are from what's going on like you said
boots on the ground the farther you go up the rank you're not in tune with the guys
in the firehouse and the true problems and mistakes being made there on on every level
um i just hope that moving forward that the generation coming in now can understand that
that human factor truly is a part of this job and that we aren't robots the fire academy
is doing a disservice right training these young firefighters to become fire robots coming
out into the neighborhoods making your mistakes in real time that's what's going to make
you a great firefighter and i think that if we can train the kids coming on now that it's
okay to make the mistakes compile them together and then move forward i'm hopefully that they
will carry that through their career as they rise to the ranks and kind of change the culture
of the fire service so talk to me about the different classes that you offer through top
floor tactics so i have a it's called fire academy to the fire floor why the disconnect
and that's like my that's that's my heart and soul that's everything i put into it you
know that's pretty much the journal of mistakes that i made i put into a lecture in a class
with uh fire there was a close call situation and that kind of sets the tempo of the class
and it kind of goes throughout and now this class is a bit unique because it's broken
down from your first day through your first fire your second fire your fourth fire your
tenth fire your 12 flyer so everybody can relate to the class from their own experience
because my experience is different than your experience and so forth and so on but when
you sit in the class it really speaks to you because you can relate those times in your
life to what's being said in the program um i also offer lithium-ion battery fires understanding
a modern fire in a tactical sense that class is pretty much it's being built every day
uh we're going to these fires we're learning new things every day this is a true class
that is built on experience um there's a lot of classes out there given through like the
ul and whatnot this is not a hazmat class by any means i don't sit on any discussion
boards or nfpa or any of that stuff it just comes from going to the fires kind of compiling
these ideas that were coming up in real time and putting it all together um that's a class
i love to give and it's it's it's picky at momentum because people are looking for answers
and unfortunately with the fire service i think across the board we're reactive rather
than proactive and it's going to take a matter of a fireman getting severely hurt or killed
for our job or or job in general the fire service to start looking at lithium-ion battery
fires from a tactical sense a little bit more serious and that's where this class kind of
fills in those gaps as we're sitting here i'd literally about two hours before we sat
down i saw la had i think it was seven firefighters hurt and one of the i posted just that that
did it happen i didn't have any video or anything and one of the la firefighters sent me a video
which i you're not going to repost because it was literally of the incident and there's
a firefighter down in the video but this is the thing i mean some of these chemicals some
of these batteries i don't know exactly what the backstory was of that particular vehicle
but the dangers are so severe and what might look like a you know seemingly for example
easy routine car fire now could be something that explodes and you know takes out several
firefighters on a crew yeah and there's and there's two ways to look at that yeah the
ev fires that were no responding to these these electrical vehicle fires but something
that's not really being spoken about is the underground world of battery making and with
that there's a delivery network system especially in the inner cities where post covid when
these stores came in and they closed down they got smart and realized well we could
develop these ghost kitchens where we don't necessarily need to have the storefront because
when the government came in they closed the dining room but those kitchens remained open
and they still made food but they were delivered right take out and delivery the ghost kitchens
were now made because they say well we don't need to have this the storefront we don't
have to pay the overhead we can just have a basement apartment kitchen and have it picked
up and delivered so with that the delivery network system within the five rows especially
is rampant so we have people charging batteries in apartments and then delivering these batteries
to all the restaurants in the area or all the delivery networks in the area and that's
where we're seeing the problem so you could go to a routine car or van fire and it can
be loaded with with hundreds of pounds of lithium ions so essentially you're going to
a bomb yeah yeah well i appreciate that perspective well that's what you're teaching then to talk
to me about the podcast when you were talking to pete i think you were about to launch it
so kind of how have the last few weeks been and we talked before we hit record let me
know what are some of the road uh blocks that you found so far man there's so many roadblocks
so anyone who thinks podcasting is easy and they're going to start a podcast there's so
much to it and it's like i constantly say like fall in love with the process of like
becoming a firefighter don't rush the process and i'm trying to remind myself not to rush
this and to take every moment and learn because of course you want to start and have it run
perfectly but you've been doing this what seven years you said yes so so i'm up to episode
eight comes out tomorrow to come out this friday and uh i'm forever grateful for germy
you know germy and uh for germy dines to bring me on the national fire radio platform and
he's kind of guiding me because he has experience with this obviously he's been doing it for
years as well um it's been a challenge but my main goal is to push the issues and topics
of of the tactics side of this job i feel a lot of times podcast hosts an interview
type situation the podcast host is just simply trying to prove his guest right and i will
not necessarily want to prove anyone wrong but i want to have an intimate conversation
or topic on the tactics that we're debating in the fire service and that's where ultimately
i want to get to uh it's coming i promise it's just a matter of time to get there i've
kind of worked through the software the networking system of this but uh every day i get a little
bit better and i'm starting to figure this out so uh stay tuned there's more to come
and for those of you that have tuned in i appreciate it and thank you and hang in there
it's coming so what are some of the roadblocks that you've hit cameras software the board
i mean there's always something coming up but mainly beyond the technical beyond the
equipment right sitting here and talking to a camera is incredibly hard having conversations
a bit easier but just talking to a camera and having a bit of spoken word of dialogue
it's challenging so i do it but like they've been short episodes they've been five 10 minutes
at most one coming out that's i think 20 minutes it's slowly building as i gain confidence
on how to do it i guess and kind of feel comfortable in the moment like everything else it takes
time as a young firefighter you're never truly comfortable until you get a couple fires on
your belt a few mistakes so i'm getting a few pockets out of my belt a few mistakes
have been made and i'm hopefully progressively moving forward with this but that's been the
main challenge is not so much the equipment but gaining the confidence to do it yeah you'll
get there i mean i seven years and almost 900 episodes later i still fumble all over
the intro this week is so and so and this is what it's about and i yeah and then when
i do every so often i'll do a little instagram video it's the same thing you know what you
see is probably take 12 so uh yeah just i think that's just part of being a human you
know and i think uh the people that are in the entertainment industry might be able to
do it a little bit better but i think if you look behind the scenes of most of them they're
doing exactly what you're already doing now yeah you know the difference between written
word and spoken word is that when you read something you can kind of perceive what you
want to believe in it but then when you hear someone or look at someone talk to you and
you hear the spoken word well there's no room for debate really it's kind of it is what
it is and that's the challenge is that i love written word like writing is my passion um
and i'm very dialed in inaccurate with my writing i feel it's just my style now that's
kind of verbal to put it into verbal and to speak it to you that's where the challenge
lies of just trying to understand what i'm saying and how important it has to be and
how dialed in and it has to be because there's no room for debate absolutely well that's
a good segue the first of the closing questions is there a book or are there books that you
love to recommend it can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated
you know i don't read much as far as firefighting uh if any at that matter i can't think of
any recent firefighting book that i read probably in 10 years other than study material um but
i do like to read sports book positioning books i just read um mastering the game of
hockey now i don't play hockey but i relate that to the positioning on the ice how you
look at a fire building and you position your firefighters into the fire building uh i think
there's a lot of a lot of connection to that i do like um recently i've read some jaco
which i know it is what it is but i it's very easy read and i've kind of dove into that
i think that leadership is overplayed and it's drawn out and it's watered down i think
jaco is a nice way of just keeping it real but i think what we're losing in leadership
not to get off the beaten path but there's a lot of these leadership books that people
recommend we have to understand that leadership comes from within and it comes from a series
of making mistakes as well but also a series of love and understanding your people and
that's nothing a book can can teach you you have to make these decisions on the fly you
have to learn from doing it you can't read a book on leadership i know it's a hot topic
right now but um so i don't really go down the path of like the leadership side of things
again i just kind of keep it simple uh read some sports books and uh current events as
well like if you read the new york times if you read any local paper you can kind of see
what's going on in in your neighborhood and that kind of affects what goes on in real
life on the fire ground i was thinking about this recently you know you obviously if you
follow certain fire pages you see you know chiefs organizations giving out leadership
awards or whatever and i was just thinking you know if you receive leadership awards
and your men and women are working 56 hours a week plus mandatory overtime you probably
need to give that fucking award back so you actually sort it out that's that's my my my
perception you know there's a lot of hats on the back and you know we've got to wait
for them to walk the walk i'm on the same page with that brother trust me all right
what about films and documentaries that you love film i'm a big 80s guy but i love any
old 80s movie but um documentaries you know i grew up watching the uh the brothers in
battle one for the fdny and then also there's a um one i think it was called rescue three
nasa geographic did it but that's a great one and they're two classic documentaries
on the fdny so for those of you that have never seen it and you want to see what the
fdny was in the earlier years it's not so much up to date today uh they were filmed
in i guess probably the late 80s but kind of like that was what i always wanted to do
that were they were my heroes they were my new york yankees were watching these five
and and i'm so blessed now that a lot of these guys that i'm friends with now so it's just
it's pretty amazing but as far as documentaries uh i will go down the buff route and say those
are two that i really really enjoy total tangent from a question didn't ask you earlier i had
al benjamin on a while ago now kind of rescue one legend and uh senior man his whole life
and i never rose above firefighter partly from geography but the other part is i just
loved going in i didn't want to be in some of these roles a lot of times the engineer
was pumping you know the lt or captain was outside so i just still loved the job of the
firefighter just talk to me quickly about the senior man because what i think we have
a lot in the places where i've worked we are you know woefully understaffed so therefore
you've got a lot i mean some of these departments you know 50 has got five years or less on
now and so there's a rush then to promote to get off the rescue or the engine like you
said they're running their ass off on ams calls and now you've got an engineer with
two years on the job you're an lt with three years on the job but some of my best mentors
that weren't officers were senior firefighters that i looked up to incredibly so just kind
of talk to me about your perspective of the senior firefighter role just a quick story
of al benjamin it's a story that i've never really told anyone but since you brought his
name up i was a young firefighter working in manhattan we were at a fire i think it was
a sub seller in the church i'm a pro be i'm standing there and there he was and now
going back to the power of kindness i say this man did something that day for me that i'll
never forget and here i am over 20 years later telling you the story and he he did nothing but
just be nice to me he's a guy in rescue one i'm looking up to this giant right everyone knows
who he is he's the face of rescue one and he sees me just staring at him in the moment and like it
was kind of a fire that there was it was an outside fire and we they had the jackhammer this piece of
slate away the access of the sub seller below and he sees me standing there and he pulls me over and
says seems like you want to learn something kid i said yeah and he and he showed me how to do it
and he got my hands on the jackhammer then i was working with them it was a matter of probably
like three minutes of of my career but it was three minutes that i hold very dearly to me because in
that act i knew that to be a kind firefighter will make you a professional firefighter and that's
something i learned from him so that's it i mean that's the senior man i think that
kindness i keep going back to kindness but that's very important because
being the senior guy a lot of guys think well if you're just a prick or you're just an asshole more
or less you're the senior guy that's not the case because and it's also not the guy with the most
time it's the guy that understands of doing the right thing on the fire ground of course but more
so on the fire and in the firehouse doing the right thing behind the scenes that's the senior
man it's not something that's appointed it's something that you earn and that's what we have
to understand that it's not always the guy that has 25 years 30 years it could be the guy with 18
years but he's doing everything right and he's the guy people are drawn to absolutely i mean
al was so humble it's funny because someone told me a very similar story they had one interaction
with him i forget who the guest was now obviously someone either from fdny or the ems side i'm
trying to remember but it was the exact same thing it was a moment and they said in that moment he
was super kind to them and then you contrast that with as we touched on the kind of asshole so-called
i'm using air quotes salty firefighter who's just a fucking dick and you know you got these young
guys all these fucking young guys these days and the actual answer is well okay you grew up you
know son of an accountant and a computer programmer you don't understand how to put a saw in a blade
on a saw but you're phenomenal and you can help me with my phone however let's go and show you how
to put a blade on the saw like i said i grew up on a farm so i didn't understand building construction
i didn't understand you know my way around a car for example but i could drive a tractor and a dump
truck and you know muck out stables so i had things that i did know and things that i didn't
and the real mentors in my life are the ones that simply said let me show you now if i had no desire
to learn then i'm a turd and i need to get out but if i'm trying to become a better version of myself
the senior firefighter or engineer you know lieutenant captain whatever rank
that's worth the shit is the one that says oh you don't know well let me show you and then it's up
to us obviously the young firefighter to show them that you're willing to learn you're willing to keep
trying it until you get it right yeah and that's exactly what he did in the moment was just give
me an opportunity and that's all it took was one opportunity to show me what the right thing was
to do in this job well speaking of amazing humans is there a person that you recommend to come on
this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders military and associated professions
of the world i do i'm not sure he would do it he's a pretty humble guy but uh he's a dear friend of
mine his name is pete partridge he's a special operations retired chief at a nork fire department
now nork fire department is a city outside new jersey you probably know nork airport but he was
there all through the war years and it was overshadowed through the fdny obviously but those
guys were doing just as much work as anyone and they are probably some of the best most incredible
firemen you'll ever meet but this guy lives and breathes this job and he's just a tremendous man
so i think he would be a great guest and there's so much he's like a time capsule he has so much
information um i think it would be a great great guest to have beautiful well if you're willing to
try i would be honored to have him on so it's an open invitation i'll give him my best shot but i'm
not sure he'll do it you never know all right well then the last question before we make sure
everyone knows where to find you and all the the other sites what do you do to decompress
i guess i know running i love to run after a long 24 even if i'm up all night i go out for a nice
long run central park clear my mind um i guess running is decompressing for me again also
spending time with my family but that moment of running is like you kind of lose everything
you think clearly and you know it's just it kind of grounds you for real life beautiful well as far
as top floor tactics and the podcast where are the best places for people to find those online
uh you could just do on instagram you know top floor tactics and then in my websites top floor
tactics.com and the email is linked to that or you can it's top for tactics at gmail.com
and the podcast is a view from the top floor yeah the podcast is a view from the top floor
and that's on all your major uh podcast platforms beautiful well mickey i want to thank you so much
we've been all over the place i don't have in-depth operational conversations because i just don't
feel like i was on the job long enough to really start unpacking things and offering my advice
but uh you know in this kind of gypsy kind of career i had it gave me some interesting
perspectives but i want to thank you so much not only for imparting some of your wisdom but also
just being so generous with your time and coming on the podcast today absolutely james i'm really
honored to be on the show so thanks for having me on