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 Five Eleven, a company that I've used for well over a decade
and continue to use to this day.
And Five Eleven is offering you guys, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast,
a discount on every purchase you make with them.
Before we get to that code, I want to highlight a couple of products that again, I personally
use today.
One of the most impressive products they just released is their Rush Backpack 2.0.
Now for many of you, whether you're going to the fire station, the police station, whether
you're traveling with your family, whether you're taking training courses, we have to
fly, we have to drive, we have to take trains.
And I have to say, I own multiple backpacks, many of Five Eleven's different ones, but
as far as a day pack, this one was the most impressive.
There are so many different compartments.
The way it sits on your back is incredibly comfortable if you are a concealed carry person.
There's also a spot for a weapon.
So they've thought of multiple, multiple things that a man or woman would have to do on a
daily basis.
That is in addition to all of the products that I talk about a lot.
They're uniforms fit for men or fit for women in the first responder professions.
The footwear that they offer, whether it's the Norris sneaker or the Atlas system that
is designed for foot health and therefore knees and back and hips and shoulders and
neck.
As a civilian, I live in a lot of their clothes as well.
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You can actually squat down in them.
We live in Florida here, so I wear a lot of their shorts, which again, very, very lightweight
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And then moving to the fitness and tactical space, I used to have just a regular weight
vest.
Recently, I switched to a Five Eleven vest and actually bought ballistic plates as well.
My thinking was simply, if I'm going to have a vest, why not have one that protects me
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And that tack vest is trusted by law enforcement all around the country.
So I mentioned they were going to offer you a discount code.
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you will get 15% off not just that one purchase, but every time you visit their store.
And if you want to learn more about Five Eleven, their mission, their products, then listen
to episode 338 of the Behind the Shield podcast with the CEO and founder, Francisco Morales.
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 Fire Lieutenant and the man behind Tip of the Spear Leadership podcast, Mike
Nasty.
Now, in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his early life, his journey
into the volunteer fire service, his 9-11 story, becoming a career firefighter, some notable
leadership mistakes, his powerful mental health story, post-traumatic growth, the creation
of his podcast and so much more.
Now before he gets 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 five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 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 Mike Nasty.
Enjoy.
Well, Mike, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
No, thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
It's definitely an honor.
So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?
Well right now I'm in Frederick, Maryland.
I'm at home in my office and, you know, enjoying my day off.
Beautiful.
Well, I would love to start the very beginning of your timeline then.
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 was born in Tucson, Arizona on Davis Month in Air Force Base.
My dad was in the military and then we pretty quickly moved out to New Jersey and I grew
up there most of my early life.
I moved to Maryland when I was 12, 11 or 12, something like that.
I don't remember anymore.
But you know, my dad was in the military.
I have one sister who's older than me and my mom was that stereotypical stay at home
mom.
So you know, she raised us for the most part because my dad was gone a lot with military
stuff and then he was a cop as well once he stopped doing active duty and then he went
into the National Guard.
When you look back now, what were the pros and the cons of being a military child?
I mean, it stopped fairly early in my life.
I think the pros were, I think that the style in which you get raised, fairly conservative,
fairly strict.
I don't think I appreciated in the moment and you know, back then, but I think as I
got older, it kept me from doing stupid things when I was younger.
You know, the structure was there.
I wasn't really afraid of my parents, but I feel like the structure at home would kept
me from doing stupid things.
I mean, I do a lot of dumb things.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, I really did.
But there's a lot of stuff that you know how it is peer pressured, different stuff with
other kids.
They're getting ready to go do a lot of really dumb stuff and you know, it kind of made me
think to stop in my tracks and not follow them.
And there's a few times where, you know, I kind of got made fun of because I wasn't one
of the guys and all that and it kind of sucked.
But there was a handful of times where they, I don't want to get into the details, but
they went out and they did something really, really stupid.
And thank God I wasn't a part of it because I probably wouldn't be where I am if I was
involved.
I don't know if that makes sense.
No it does.
Absolutely.
Those records follow us.
What about a child's perspective of a father in the first responder profession?
So your dad, there was a cop.
When you look back now with this mature lens, again, what were the pros and what were the
cons?
I think some of the pros were again, like I said before, the structure and the discipline,
which I didn't appreciate till I was older.
And by older, I mean like 18, 19 years old, I think.
And I think some of the cons were just, and I kind of noticed it now when as I get older,
like I kind of sometimes bring work home, not always in a bad way, but sometimes work
crosses into your home life.
And as I get older, that's something that I have to figure out and I'm still working
through is really unplugging and flipping that switch.
And I'm in my late thirties now.
So my dad was similar age when I was growing up.
I was the youngest and my parents were a little bit older when they had me and he brought
a lot of work home in certain ways.
And I wish that wasn't the case.
I'll kind of leave it at that.
It was, I mean, I think everything has its place, but I kind of wish, you know, he would
have left a lot of that at work instead of bringing it home because it affected and impacted
the dynamic at home as well.
I think one of the least discussed elements that I think is really important is how do
we punctuate a shift and that includes leaving it there.
But there's a technology I came across about six, eight months ago called Newcom.
I literally just did one before I sat down and did this interview today.
And you put on this as an up regulation and a down regulation version of it.
The up regulation one I've been using when I'm writing my book and it's phenomenal for
focus and then the down regulation is basically you think of you are trying to simulate asleep,
but it's not a sleep.
You're in this kind of relaxed state that almost almost dances between sleep and awake
and there's a one called power nap.
That's 20 minutes and it is I'm at the fire service now, but if I was still in, I would
hands down do a 20 minute power nap on this app between every single shift and going home
because to feel like you've rested and you basically get like a couple hours worth of
sleep through this thing, but also it down regulates you.
So you were doing God knows what at 3 a.m.
You know, you came back.
You got a little bit of sleep.
Then, you know, if you're in a shitty department, the tones woke you up.
The shift change.
If you're in a good department, they let you sleep.
But either way, and now you've got to go home and you were just, you know, cutting the kid
out of a car.
Now, three hours later, your little boy or little girl is going to run into your arms.
So I think that's a really important conversation of, you know, not just not bringing it home,
but the acute ending of every shift.
What can we do to make sure that when we walk through the door, we're not in the same state
as when we were wearing the uniform an hour before?
I think, you know, and I'm actually glad you brought that up, because I've had this conversation
with a few people.
You know, I think there is a lot of stuff that, you know, makes what we do for a living
difficult.
But I also think, you know, people do need to take the time and actually put forth the
energy and the effort into finding ways to unplug.
So and this is going to sound a little callous, but like what I've learned to teach myself
is to not care.
Right now, as a human being, of course, I'm going to care.
And I guess what I mean by that is I can't personalize it.
Right.
So if you have a seven year old kid that's all jacked up and I have a seven year old
at home, I'm not going to make an attachment, because once you start making that attachment,
that's when it's going to start sticking with you.
And what I've learned was the less I give us the less I the less I care.
And I'm not saying I'm not going to care for you and give be sympathetic, empathetic and
all that.
I'm not saying I won't be that way, because I will be that way, because I feel that in
those tough calls in those moments, especially with people that we work with, you know, because
they're just as important as anyone we ever serve.
If not a little bit more, you know, you're going to have to make that connection.
But when you're able to detach, I think is maybe the word I'm trying to say, which is
a better word.
When you're able to do that and then you think clearly, you're able to be clearer.
So you know, I do think it's a lot of a little bit more on us as first responders and firefighters,
especially company level officers, which is kind of where I'm at.
You know, you have to find your way to detach.
And the more you detach, the more clarity you have in decision making.
And I feel like it's the same when it comes to unwinding from work.
So like, you know, like I said, you know, your your child is sick, really sick or really,
really injured.
And it's terrible.
I completely sympathize with the child with the parent.
But when I when the call is done, calls over, put it behind me, you know, and it's taking
me I mean, I'm not saying I do that really good every time.
But in my 17 years in the department, that's one thing I was taught in the very, very,
very beginning was you can care, but don't become attached.
If that I don't know if that's the right way to say that.
But that's I don't know what a guy teach me that.
And like I said, I don't always do it the right way.
But that's one thing I've really focused on, especially after having a kid.
And we run kids.
You know what I mean?
Like especially the not so great calls that involve children.
Yeah.
The way I look at it is and I've said this many, many times when we're on the call, you
know, I talk about the yen and the yang and it's the kindness, compassion, the soft part
of a human being that pulls us into uniform in the first place.
Now we're in uniform and we're extricate in a family or, you know, pulling out a partially
burned person from a fire.
That's not the time to queen out and, you know, be thinking about rainbows and kittens.
You got a job to do.
But I look at it almost like the in tray out tray.
There's still an emotional cost there.
So if you are diligent on your days off and doing things that ultimately will allow that
emotional response to them be put in the out tray, then you're going to be good for the
next one.
But if you just keep shoving it down and don't do the work to process how you felt about
because you still have empathy for that child, even if it's not your own, you've compartmentalized.
I think that's the big part.
So we become this kind of white circle instead of remembering that we're always a yen yang.
And so if you ignore the black part, the soft part, the yang, then eventually it's going
to catch up with you.
So I think that you're absolutely right, compartmentalization is imperative when we're on scene, but also
being diligent of unpacking that when you're off.
It doesn't have to be specifically, I'm going to think about this kid, but I'm going to
spend time with my family.
I'm going to get outside.
I'm going to make sure I sleep well tonight.
That will then organically allow you to offload what you went through and compartmentalize
because you had to.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, and this is probably something I'm sure you experienced too, like every time I've
ran like a really jacked up call, like a really bad call, someone somewhere cracks, probably
the most inappropriate joke or the darkest humor of the situation.
And I'm telling you right now, I think that is the most therapeutic thing because everyone's
thinking the same thing, especially when it comes to kids.
Everyone's thinking the same damn thing because everyone has a kid that I work with and somebody
makes some kind of inappropriate joke away from the call after the call and they do it
in the correct time.
I want to make sure I make that very clear.
The correct time, they make that dark humor.
I think people need to embrace the dark humor more, especially when it's really timed correctly.
It's not about the joke.
The joke is funny, obviously, but subconsciously, everybody knows what everyone else is feeling
and the joke is kind of the segue to say without saying it because you know how guys are.
I know what you're feeling.
I feel it too.
And we're going to be all right because we're going to get through this together.
Let me crack a joke for you.
That way we all know we're on the same page and we say it without saying it.
Now let's have a good laugh together and move on.
And that's, I think, the important part of the humor, especially the inappropriate humor.
I can't tell you how many times inexperienced people in the fire department come in and
they hear jokes.
They're like, how are you laughing and joking right now?
And so I embrace the jokes.
And I had a conversation with a guy with very little time on and we ran a really, really
bad one of the worst calls I think I've ever been a part of in my entire fire service career.
And somebody cracked a joke and we all kind of chuckled and I kind of grinned and the
guy was a newer guy.
I was working overtime and he was just like, hey, can I talk to you?
I'm like, yeah, sure.
And he's like, hey, so like, do you guys usually make jokes after things like this?
I don't feel like I want to laugh.
And I'm like, hey man, everybody feels the way you do.
This is how we deal with it.
We make jokes.
And then when you go home, when you leave work, you figure out your own way to put it
somewhere.
But you have to add humor into this because like I said before, you know, fire department's
very ego driven and it's a lot of guys, type a personalities that don't open up about their
feelings.
They don't.
That's just how it is.
But it's the way where if you're part of it, you'll get it.
And I think he understood that.
And he kind of was like, well, nobody ever told me this guy's young.
I don't even think he was 20.
He's well, nobody ever told me this is kind of how it is.
And I'm like, here's your first lesson.
Like I'm not saying I'm the guy to teach you everything, but you know, these guys that
cracked the jokes, they're older.
They have a couple of them had more time on than me.
And it's just like, this is how this is how they deal with things, you know.
And of course I'm like, you know, hey, the department has a way, you know, people for
you to talk to.
And I offered the political or not political, the correct officer answer as well to him,
obviously, because the humor again isn't for everyone.
And I respect that.
So, you know, I offered him, you know, the EAP, peer support, all that stuff.
But I explained to him, you know, a lot in the firehouse, a lot of the times, these guys
trying to fix things themselves, just like anything else.
If something's broken, they want to fix it themselves.
And I think it's something we should support because if you, again, like I said, you know,
inappropriate jokes at correct times, right?
Because you can't make the inappropriate joke at the wrong time.
It doesn't work that way, right?
But you know what I'm saying.
And I'm sure a lot of the people that are listening know that what I'm talking about
is, you know, you come back to the firehouse, you're away from the call, you know, all that
and you crack that joke.
It's again, like I said, it's, you know, everyone kind of subconsciously saying, hey, man, I
know what you're feeling.
I'm feeling it too.
Let's have a laugh and let's move on.
And I think it's important.
And I think the kid got it.
And he seemed very receptive to it.
And, you know, I haven't really followed up with him on it to be like, hey, how you feeling?
But like, you know, I see him, I see him kind of regularly and he's always in a great mood
and you know, he loves the job and he's doing really well.
So I guess it helped.
I don't know.
Maybe I should ask.
Yeah, you probably should.
There's a sign.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, it's a good point.
But this is interesting because I heard someone recently, I think they were on the show talking
about how laughter actually down regulates the nervous system.
Like the ability to laugh literally brings you from sympathetic back down to parasympathetic.
And then I was just thinking when you were talking to use an old analogy, because I'm
about to turn 50.
If you think of a record player, when we're coming out of a really, because it's they
are that really fucking sad these calls and you're stuck in sad mode.
And I feel like what a joke does is kind of pulls that needle out of that groove and you're
allowed to reset.
Sure.
And you know, and I think the other context that people listening should understand as
well is, you know, it's just like anything else, you're going to remember the impactful
moments, but there's a ton of great times as well.
Right.
So think of how much fun and how much you enjoy laughing and joking with guys in the
back of the engine bay and all the chucking and jiving and the ball breaking and all that.
So those are high points.
Those are points that you love and you enjoy.
And those are the things that make you want to go to work.
Right.
But those are also the things.
Those are also the things when you're in those shitty moments that you think back to and
make you, you know what, I have this great click with these guys.
And if I'm going to deal with this bullshit, I want to deal with it with them because we're
all in this together and they're going to have, they're going to support me.
I'm going to support them and we're going to have a lot of good laughs.
And maybe I'm lucky in my career.
I don't know, but I feel like there are bad times, but there's a substantial amount of
good times as well.
So when the bad times do come and they will, and they're going to get tough and you know,
this job has a way of giving you a nice sucker punch of reality.
Remember your good times and don't be a negative dweller.
I think that's my biggest message.
I tell people, don't be negative.
There's a lot of self-proclaimed experts out there that talk about all these bad things
in the fire department.
There's a lot of stuff that sucks.
I'm not going to lie to you.
There's there's longish.
The longest days of my life have been on at work and you know, the shittiest times where
things feel like they're hours and not only minutes, like shitty times are at work, but
there's a substantial more amount of good times.
That's why the bad times suck so much is they don't come as often as the times when you're
laughing and joking and having a great time and you know, fires don't ever come anywhere
near as much as you want.
But the point that I'm making here is think of having, I'm sure you've been through this
where you're in a bit of a lull, you know, you guys haven't really done a whole lot of
work and everybody's kind of getting on their nerves and then you run a really good fire
or you run a nice reps fire where it's just a room off and everybody gets to stretch their
legs, throw out their skills and get a good, get a good run.
Everybody's freaking happy.
They love it's the best thing in the world.
This, you know, and I hear this a lot, you know, I was bitched about this job sucks,
but damn, this is a lot of fun, right?
We'll just remember those good times.
Stop dwelling on the negativity.
Stop gearing your entire life towards what's not going for you and remember the great things
that you have, you know, it's, and that's the whole point that I'm making is that the
super, super highs are there.
So are the lows, but the highs are so good, I think that if you keep those in your mind
and not only focus on those lows, I think the low times and the, you know, the, the,
uh, the valleys, I guess is a better word than lows.
You know, when you're at your peach, remember your, remember your peaks when you're at the
vow or yeah, remember your peaks when you're at the valleys, right?
And I think people just need to have a better mindset, quite frankly, cause you know, and
again, maybe social media is a little tarnished.
Maybe the podcasting is a little tarnished.
I don't know, but like, you know, maybe, maybe negativity kind of sticks out a little bit
more as opposed to something that you're, you know, maybe you're normal.
I don't know.
And by no means am I, and I knocking anyone, but you know, if all you talk about is negativity
and the bad and how terrible things are, I think you're going to have a bad attitude
all the time because there's no way you can forget the good times.
There's no way you're everything's so bad that that's all you can talk about.
You got to balance it out, man.
You really do.
When I think of loading hose, those are some of my most memorable fun moments after a good
fire or cleaning source.
If you're on a truck that day, but, um, but if you think about it, how many times you
load hose in the academy wasn't super fun then, you know, it was like, fuck, we've got
to do it again.
But now the situation is different.
But I think, you know, when you've experienced a lot of darkness, as you said, where it
can be the actual calls, it can just be the unending shifts and sleep deprivation.
It does make the fun things even more fun.
So just loading up wet hose at three in the morning and you're exhausted, but you know
that you tried and you made a difference in someone's life.
That does taste a lot sweeter because you've known the other side of the spectrum and it
can be a volleyball game.
It can be a crew dinner.
It can be whatever, but I agree with you completely.
And I think that's, that's why these, these conversations need to be nuanced with the,
the good and the bad, because when it's bad and it's preventable, I'm going to be beating
that drum all day long because that's not about the job.
That's about the working conditions and the environment and the toxic leadership and some
of those things that need to change.
And we're going to get into that.
But the profession itself, I couldn't agree with you more.
This is, you will say, Oh, it's a great job in the world.
No, it absolutely actually is like no one else, no other profession in the world.
The people push three numbers on a phone and if it's not involving arresting someone, we
come and try and unfuck your day, you know, from whatever bird in a tree through the,
you know, child got washed downstream in a sewer.
We've got to go find it.
You know what I mean?
So it is an incredible skillset and incredible profession.
And I agree with you a hundred percent that the humor and the sports and all the things
that some people seem to be opposed to, that's how we keep going a hundred percent.
But as far as negativity, I think there's a big difference between bitching and fighting
for solutions to problems.
And that needs to be the kind of understanding of, you know, if you're going to fix something,
then fix it, bring the solution to it.
If you empty bitch, that's just pure negativity.
Yeah.
And I mean, you, you also need to allow the bitching a little bit, right?
It's, it's kind of like being married.
You could be right or you could be happy.
So if you.
Say that you're laughing, so you know exactly what I'm talking about.
So but, but all kidding aside, you know, sometimes they just want to talk and bitch and complain
for someone to hear them say their piece.
Right.
So don't fill that with a false sense of, oh yeah, oh no, I got you genuinely listen.
Give a shit.
I mean, all kidding aside, what I've found is, you know, just like, just, just like at
home, let her say her piece.
I don't necessarily, I may not necessarily always agree, but you're not really wrong.
All right.
You got it.
Yep.
Sure.
Again, you could be right.
You could be happy, I think.
And you can't always fix their problems.
Then that's the point that I'm making.
I say that the right or happy part with being married as a joke, right?
That's obviously that's for humor.
Well, I mean, it's true, but in the context, it was to, you know, in a joking, in a, I
say it in jest, but in reality, when it comes to people complaining, because everyone's
going to hear the complaining, any rank, any department, anywhere, someone always has something
to complain.
And if you're a firefighter, listen to a colleague, you're an officer, listen to a firefighter,
you're a firefighter, listening to an officer, an officer, whatever, whatever, whatever you
want, you're not there to solve their problems.
I don't, I can't change what this, what's, I mean, you know, I mean, if you can change
it, then you probably should.
But what I've always found, especially as an officer is the stuff people are griping about,
I cannot immediately fix or change.
There's nothing I can do.
All I can do is listen, sincerely care, legitimately try to find a problem, offer suggestions,
and maybe even, I don't want to say curb the way they think, but maybe give them perspective.
Because again, it's all perception, you know, because what I think is going on, maybe different
way you think is going on.
If there's no communication from above or whatever, wherever that's coming from, people
are going to make up their own reality.
That's why the biggest failures from leadership, I think, is lack of communication and transparency.
And that's a gripe.
And when people don't know what's going on and they don't understand what's going on,
they're going to make up their own reality.
That's how rumors start.
So communication and listening, that's all you have to do.
So that's the point that I was making about, you know, if people want to complain, just
listen to them.
That's all they want.
They want somebody to hear them.
They want somebody to just genuinely give a shit and listen to what they have to say,
you know, and again, relationship wise, I mean, how many times has your wife been like,
she's venting to you and it's like, oh, well, what do you think?
Well, I don't want to hear what you have to think.
I just want you to listen.
Okay, go ahead.
I don't think, I really don't think it's, I think it's similar.
I really do.
And I've had a lot of success as an officer where, you know, over time, just listening
to people, things start having a weird way of coming back to each other and reconnecting
and like ripples in a pond where if you just genuinely listen to people, you're going to
start hearing a lot of the same things and that can help you as an officer.
If you're not that great, you're trying to find your way.
You're learning how to be an officer, that kind of stuff.
And then I think as a crew integrity part, which is clearly the most important part because
I've been a firefighter, I've been an officer and I feel like when I had coworkers that
listen to me and I listen to them, that's when we start creating that bond, I think.
And then you start creating that bond with guys that you're in charge of.
And you know, when you have an officer and he's listening to you and you can tell that
he really cares, that's when your complaints, you feel more comfortable coming out and complaining.
Not to whine and complain, but well, now I trust you and I feel comfortable talking to
you.
So I'm going to talk to you about my gripes and my complaints.
And I think that's impactful.
I really do.
I think it's the best thing you can do is just as a human being is just listen to people
and they have something to say, especially if they're complaining about it.
Absolutely.
Just so you know, Mike, every time you lean back on your chair, you go away from your
mic and you're super tinny.
Just just just you can't tell because you're in that room, but I can hear it through here.
I'll stay close.
All right.
Well, I want to go back to early life.
Percy, what were you doing as far as sports and exercise?
So I was not going to be a professional athlete, but I enjoyed playing baseball, playing lacrosse
and I did some ice hockey.
You know, it was fun.
I enjoyed it.
But, you know, I played high school, high school lacrosse, I did rec baseball and then,
yeah, like recreational and local hockey.
How did you find lacrosse by my son was actually just talking about it the other day, but it
seems like it's a good mix of a contact sport teamwork, but not such an immense contact
like you would find in hockey or football that would be detrimental to a young athlete.
So the high school, I went to Northern High School in Owings and every year they do like
a recruiting thing.
So like, you know, you do freshman orientation and then the athletic department comes out
and they have all their stuff out there.
Lacrosse season, like, like they have lacrosse tryouts for varsity, but then they'll have
junior varsity announcements kind of thing.
I mean, it's been a while.
I don't know if I'm remembering that correctly, but basically the long story short is you
see flyers and stuff come out beforehand before the season starts because the season was,
should have started, practices started in February and then did strength and conditioning
all through February and March and the first games, I believe started at the end of March
and they ran March to May.
Yeah, like a week or two before the end of the school year is when lacrosse ended.
And that's how I got into it.
It was just stuff all over the walls.
And then one of my history teachers was one of the head coaches and I had him as a freshman
and that's one of the things he brought up in his class.
One of the first days is like, you know, Hey, just so you guys know, spring sports is, you
know, after the new year, I'm the head coach for lacrosse, Mr. Henchcliffe taught American
history and he said, you know, Hey, if you guys are interested, come talk to me.
And I'm like, I mean, I play sports for school.
That's me.
That seems pretty interesting.
But as far as contact, I mean, I don't think it was that bad, but I got throttled a few
times, so you could still get pretty beat up in that sport.
And it's not so much like guys throwing shoulders into your chest or anything like that because
of men's lacrosse, you can check.
So like you can get cross checked, but a legal check is having your hands together and then
hitting someone that's a legal hit.
You know, if your hands are apart, that's a cross check and you're not supposed to do
that, but you can also check the stick.
So as you're running and cradling and this guy's just, I mean, and I had it a few times,
they'll just crank on you with the stick, trying to hit it.
And then, I mean, but they limit it because the referee will be like, you know, it was
always funny when I was an adult, you know, when I was younger, I was laughed hearing
this.
You hear the referee yelling, get wood, get wood, get wood.
If you keep smashing this dude and you keep hitting his body, you're not hitting a stick,
they're going to call you for slashing.
So like, obviously you're going to hit the hands, you're going to hit the wrist, you're
going to hit the arms.
It's part of the sport.
It's not going to happen.
But I think that was their way of stopping the excess because I never, you know, I was,
I played goalie and then a long pole midi.
And so my possession of the ball was not, I mean, you could get checked and hit, but
it wasn't like a guy that was a regular mid midi or a guy playing attack.
So it was a little bit different.
So I was always the one, you know, like I said, long pole midi or long or defense or
bowling where I'm, you know, not really in that position too much, but I was in the position
to, you know, check people and all that stuff.
And I'm smaller, so I didn't do that great.
And I didn't run that fast.
I didn't run slow, but I wasn't, I don't know, man.
I enjoyed playing it, I think a little bit more than I was talented, but they don't cut
people in Southern Maryland sports.
So that was, that was cool.
That's actually a good thing though.
That's something I've observed, just watching sports since I've been a parent here in America
is, you know, you can get in programs where your child may barely play, which to me defeats
the entire purpose of putting your child in sport.
So if you're in an environment, whatever that looks like, where the kids get to play most
of the time, I would say that was a good thing, not a bad thing.
Yeah.
And I think it also depends on the level in which you're at.
I think when they're younger, like my son's seven.
So I mean, when he does recreational sports, if you're paying to be there and it's not
an established competitive league, I think it's okay if you play, I think it's fine if
you play obviously, but like, if you like, there's some travel, like for lacrosse and
stuff like that, you have to try out and then you have to earn your place.
I do still think there's a good thing to being part of a team and then you have a level of
accountability, right?
We want you playing level here.
Well, you're down here and you're not meeting it.
You're not playing.
Here's the option to get up here.
And we have practices three days a week or two days a week and tournaments on the weekends
or whatever.
You need to start creeping up and get more playing time.
But if you don't, you're not playing, even though you're paying the exact same amount
as everybody else does.
If you're not putting in the work, I don't think you should play.
And I think that's a good thing when they hold people accountable and hold a standard,
because when you let standards slack, that's when everything else overall starts to drop
it, it dropped as well.
Now, you know, 10 year old kids playing travel baseball, are they going to understand that
concept?
Probably not.
But I don't think you're ever too young to have a standard that you're held accountable
to.
And then if you don't meet it, you're held accountable as well.
Or you don't get, I don't want to say you don't get what everyone else gets.
That's not the right way to say that.
You don't get what you don't work for, I guess is the best way to say that.
I'm a big, I mean, when they're young, whatever, I'm not a big fan of participation trophies
of any kind in any way.
Even my kid, like, you know, T ball and coach pitch baseball, and he's starting flag football
this year.
You know, they give everybody gets a medal.
All right, that's cool.
It's a time in your life to remember, but that's probably where it's going to end for
me.
I'm not a your second place.
You didn't get a trophy because you don't win the championship.
Oh, well, when the championship, if you want the trophy, if you want it that bad, you're
going to work for it.
I mean, quite frankly, as I don't know, man, I don't know.
Maybe I'm too abrasive, but that's.
I think the danger is because I hear this conversation all the time.
I think the danger is, I mean, you've only one person or one team can win and not giving
everyone an equal award for that.
I totally understand.
But here's an irony.
If you ran the London Marathon, what do you expect at the end of it?
Your shiny little participation trophy.
Did you win?
No, the Kenyan one.
So then why should we give you a medal?
Because you fucking run a marathon.
That's why.
So I think that we can also dissuade children from simply playing sports.
If we're peddling this, if you didn't win, then you're not worthy of recognition, because
I think that kids that wake up every morning on a Sunday and go do a triathlon that don't
win, you know, there's they should be, you know, told good job for that.
That can be a shiny piece of plastic or whatever you want to do.
But you know, understanding that there's a lot of value for showing up, training for
sweating, for bleeding.
And just because you didn't podium.
And let's be honest, in some environments, you're never going to because say you're
a triathlete, your parents can't afford the titanium composite bike with the clip on pedals.
And so you're never going to win.
You know what I mean?
You haven't got an Olympic level coach for you.
You know what I mean?
So I think that we've got to be careful with that conversation, because of course, nothing
should be handed out.
It's the same in the fire service.
I talk about the bar being set high all the time.
You have to earn that.
But does that mean that we don't recognize everyone in the fire academy who passed and
you say good job, you made it through the crucible?
So yeah, I mean, I think I think I know you're going with that.
I think completion is different, though.
So what I mean by that is like a finishing a marathon is an accomplishment.
Right.
Because if you think about it, I can't run a marathon.
I don't know the statistics of human beings that can run a marathon or have run a marathon,
will run whatever it is.
That's an accomplishment.
A 5K is an accomplishment, a 10K is an accomplishment.
The Ironman challenges, those are accomplishments.
Those are accomplishments.
But I think when it's treated in the atmosphere of, well, here's something so you don't feel
bad.
That's different.
But if you're a completion medal, you didn't win, but you accomplish something that's very
difficult.
Not many people do.
And I know where you're going with this.
And I completely understand it.
And I think I think the balance of how to do that is not an answer I have.
I know.
I mean, I know what you're saying.
And I totally respect it.
And I think you're 100% correct.
And I just, man, I don't know the answer to that.
I just know that, you know, I think you just got to meet whatever that is.
I mean, if you want whatever it is bad enough, you're going to do it.
And if you don't, I mean, I don't know.
Yeah.
I mean, I think at the higher, like you said, higher age groups, absolutely.
But there's a real danger of taking away the value of play, playing a sport.
Like right now, my son's playing volleyball, pickup games all over town.
He's not part.
He's not part of the school volleyball team after doing track for two years and didn't
make the cut.
It was like beat by one kid.
He almost made the cut and didn't.
So he's out just playing and he's having the time of his life.
He's not expecting any medals for it.
He's playing a sport, playing games.
So that's what I'm talking about.
And I'd be honest, he did football, like soccer when he was young and they got like a, you
know, a medal or whatever it was, but he never valued that as, oh, we, you know, we won the
same as everyone else.
It was just, oh, we showed up and we completed the league.
So I think actually a lot of these kids view it as completion anyway.
And I don't really, you know, we talk about this participation trophy.
I haven't really seen that with my own eyes that these kids didn't put any work in and
feel like they won the same as everyone else.
I think there's just, like you said, a completion trophy is what we're seeing.
So I think, you know, and as you're talking, I'm thinking about, you can't see this because
of the camera angle.
But so my kid did six seasons because usually due to a year.
So three years of a tee ball and coach pitch baseball.
And as you're talking, I can see all this stuff in front of me.
And so I got his first little hat, his little tee ball, the ball that the coaches will sign
and all the teams.
And when he sees these things that are in my office and then he, you know, proud dad,
I'm taking those.
You're, you can put the medals in your room.
I'm this is dad's like only kid first case a boy.
I love baseball.
He's doing the same stuff I like.
And he loves it.
He loves the fact that I love it with him.
But I think as you're like, you know, it wasn't about what you got.
You see what you're getting, what you have and you're associating it with a memory.
So like, this is the rep.
This is a medal that I got when I did tee ball with the Reds.
You helped coach.
You remember that time that I was able to hit without the tee.
It's not about the metal.
It's about everything.
It's the association of what that metal brings up.
So I mean, and I just thought about this while you were talking to me, maybe, maybe my perception
wasn't right or maybe my perception was a little bit different or skewed.
I don't know.
That's something I'm gonna have to really think about now because I can tell you when
he walks out to go, cause he, my front door is right here.
As he walks out to go to school and he goes to play or just, I mean, you know how seven
year olds are, it's kids random shit.
He'll just pop up and be like, Oh, Hey, look, that was when I played for the Royals.
Do you remember that Mr. Dustin was one of the coaches and you work with him?
Blah, blah.
And he just blah, blah.
It just goes on for like 10 minutes.
I'm like, I don't remember.
She just, dude, like, I don't remember.
Yeah.
You know, not, you don't understand what I'm saying, but like, he'll start remembering
stuff that I haven't even thought about.
Like I didn't, and the minute he talks about, I know exactly what he's talking about.
And I'm like, how the hell do you remember that?
He goes, no, no, I just do.
That made me remember it.
Or there's a couple of team pictures, like, you know, all this stuff, all the, you know,
all this stuff, but the things up there and it's maybe, I don't know, man, maybe that's
what it's about.
Yeah.
No, I think you're right.
Cause my son, my son's got, you know, Spartan races that we did, the medals hanging up and
he's 16 now, but he's got pictures of his team when he was that age.
And I bet asked him, did we win?
Did you win that one?
He's not going to remember that.
But he remembers the coach.
He remembers who was in his team.
And he remembers that time where he kicked it and went over the goalie's head.
And you know what I mean?
Like, so I agree with you a hundred percent.
That's the value in it.
So that's what you go be careful.
Yeah.
No, I mean, that's, that's, that's a good point.
And I think it's, he's remembering the important things.
It's never the score of the game.
It's always about something associated with it and why he liked it.
So absolutely.
So well, shifting to occupation now, when you were in school age, were you dreaming
of the fire service or was it something else?
So when I lived in New Jersey, I lived in, I lived pretty close to a firehouse and I
used to watch them move the trucks in the mornings and I could hear them on calls.
When they would circle the block to bring the ladder truck around, like they went right
by my house.
So I grew up around it.
I think as long as I can remember, that's kind of all I ever really wanted to do.
Like that was it.
I was hooked.
And you know, there was, I remember seeing shows on TV.
I never watched emergency or anything like that, but like the older document, like the
nineties documentaries with, not William Shatner, who's, who was the guy that did America's
most wanted?
Oh my goodness.
I know I can see his face now, but I can't remember his name.
You know, one was the one whose son was killed.
Yeah.
Son was killed and that's why Adam.
Yeah.
I forget his name, but anyway, he did, he did a documentary where he was at rescue one.
It was like in the nineties.
I remember seeing that.
I think national geographic did one.
There's an old, old, and I didn't find this out until I was older in life, Baltimore city,
one where they were at engine 13.
I think it was engine 13.
I don't remember which ladder truck it was, but yeah, I mean, I remember seeing those
when I was younger and I mean, I was hooked like big time hooked.
And then back draft came out when I was young and I used to watch it or I'd rewind it and
fast forward it and I would destroy the tape and I would get a new one almost every Christmas.
I mean, I was, I wasn't a firefighter for Halloween or anything like that.
I did other random stuff, but I mean, it's something I always wanted to do is, I mean,
I really don't think I've ever wanted to do anything else.
Well, I want to walk through obviously volunteering and then career, but before we do, I heard
you on the size up with Pip and you touched on, you know, a struggle with alcohol a little
bit later in your life.
One of the first respond to mental health conversations that we don't hear a lot about
and yet through 900 plus interviews, I realized is extremely important is the impact of childhood
struggles, trauma, whatever you want to label it on, you know, how we are once you put the
uniform on because life doesn't start at 18, 20, 25, it started when we were born.
When you look back now, are there any elements of your early life that you think would have
contributed to struggling once you put the uniform on?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
I mean, I grew up in a very, very strict household and some other stuff that I really don't want
to get into on here.
And I think it may have affected a lot of it because I think it put me in the mental
space of always wanting to please people, which is tough.
And I think if you're in that space of where all you want to do is please people, make
them happy, you're never going to be satisfied.
You're never going to feel like you're doing enough.
And then that can create a lot of unneeded stress, stress, stress and tension that I
think can affect you later on because there will come a point where you could do absolutely
everything right and bad things are still going to happen and it's going to be your
fault no matter what you do.
No matter how much you like it, no matter how much you don't want it to be your fault,
it's just going to be your fault.
And anyone in your shoes would have still failed.
You can replace yourself with Bill and Bill in that scenario will still fail just like
you did.
But he may not be worried about pleasing people and may be able in his mind to go, hey man,
there's nothing I can do.
It's fucked up.
I messed up and all I can do is move on and learn.
And then he trucks on and moves on and learn.
Whereas I may be more anxious and fret over it and not be able to take a joke and not
be able to look at it and then move on from it.
Even the smallest dumbest things in the world that absolutely no one remembers 10 minutes
afterwards can still affect you and still stick with you.
And you can rack your brain over it all you want.
And it ultimately comes down to how you process it, if that makes sense.
No, it does.
And I think this is the part of this conversation.
I mean, I've had people to kind of show the spectrum.
I've had people whose struggle would just simply be in the middle child.
They had a little boy and then he was the second boy and they wanted a girl and then
they had a girl.
And he, you know, and I saw it with my own eyes years later, I finally met his parents
and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I see the lack of, you know, any sort of parental involvement,
compassion, love, because I saw them at a funeral and he'd lost his wife at that point.
And conversely, if you're looking at the trauma spectrum, I had a boy soldier from Sierra
Leone whose parents were murdered and he was given the option to be executed or be a boy
soldier.
And we think we know which decision we would make and then was addicted to drugs and all
these other things and then was rescued by the Red Cross.
And now he's a UNICEF ambassador to help save child soldiers.
So on paper, two very different types of trauma, but equally impactful on those two individuals.
So, you know, and that, that wanting to please that wanting attention, you know, seeking
love, whatever it is when we're young, that that's that imprints us.
And if it's not something that we process before we enter the position, then it carries
on through.
And now all of a sudden you make a mistake wearing a badge and it haunts you.
Whereas as you said, other people might go, you know, it, it wasn't your fault, like you
said, but to you, it's everything.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of that can attack your confidence.
And I think when your confidence is really bruised or you don't have, or not confidence,
if you're insecure, like you have a lot of insecurities for whatever reason, I mean,
it could be anything you could have insecurities for.
But if you have insecurities, I do think that can play a lot into it as well.
And I think a lot of that does come from the early life stuff, or stuff you learn when
you're younger, before you become, you know, a firefighter or officer or whatever it is.
And you know, me personally, I left my house when I was a teenager.
So being thrust into the world as an emancipated minor makes a lot of things very tough.
Like I'm on my own.
I have to work.
I have to have my own money.
I have to be able to make my own ends meet.
I have to get to school.
I have to do my own homework because there's no one, no one gives a shit if I do it or
not.
Like you don't do it, don't do it, whatever.
You're going to fail school and you're going to be on these.
It's only your fault.
You know, so going, going, excuse me, going to having, you know, a childhood life and
all that stuff.
Then you leave for again, for circumstance.
I'm not going to get into the circumstances, but the circumstances that I was dealt, you
know, the better option is to not be at home, but there is no one to support you now.
It is only you and it sucks.
It's not fun in any way.
It's very lonely and not, not a lot of fun at all.
So that all plays into a lot of stuff.
When I got older, as far as, you know, then on my own, this, you know, I don't want to
have to go through that again.
I don't like it when people leave.
I don't like it when, you know, I feel insecure.
And the insecurity thing is incredibly high in my life as far as, not so much now as it
was a few years ago, but you know, it, it's definitely tough.
And for me to say that, you know, once my life took a different turn and went into the
correct direction and here I am now, if, you know, I would never lie to somebody and tell
them that I'm completely over that.
That's a, that's a bull faced lie.
I mean, there's stuff that I still find myself having to stop and remind myself, you know,
Hey, you don't have to worry about that anymore.
Or you get that.
I don't know how to explain this, but like there's an emotion and a feeling you get when
something comes up that reminds you of those traumatic times.
Like, like it's like a, like a flutter in your chest and almost like a bad taste in
your mouth.
I don't know how to explain it, but like it hits you like, boom, it'll, I mean, it'll
kick you right in the chest.
And you're like, Holy shit.
This reminds me of that.
I remember with that smells or another one.
Like if I smell something from that period, I don't know how I don't, does that make sense?
What I'm trying to say?
You're making perfect sense.
I promise you.
There's a couple of things that I stay away from them, but I know there's something I
can, and if somebody has it in their house or I'm near it and I get that smell, I immediately,
my, my, the hair will stand up on my neck.
I'll get, I'll get a little sweaty.
No big deal.
I can take a breath and I can move on.
But afterwards, after that call or after that situation or after that, wherever environment
I am, I'm going to be thinking about it for the next day or two.
I mean, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I don't.
I mean, I have a lot more things to be happy and thankful for now than I ever did in my
entire life, which is made, makes it easier to bring myself back down off of that.
But it's, it's a very, I'm glad you brought this up.
It's a very unique, it's a very unique thing to feel and to be able to move to, to get
back into control.
If that makes sense.
It does.
I mean, well, firstly, I mean, there's, there's so much association, you know, and then it
sounds like it's a, you know, an adrenal response and anxiety response for a moment.
And what's interesting actually is, is for that particular, if it's, if it's an acute
event, not diet, not delving, but if it is acute event, that's the kind of thing that
EMDR supposedly does well for, which is a, you know, you literally just holding two paddles
and vibrating while you're talking through it to a counselor or they're shining a light
from eye to eye.
And it takes that visceral memory that's still trapped in the front of the brain to
be very kind of, you know, white belt description.
And it allows it to finally become a longterm memory.
But with the imposter syndrome, the insecurity, I think probably what makes it worse is, because
I was thinking, I think you just touched on this with one of the interviews I listened
to before this job, it's healthy to be insecure, to remove everything else from your personal
life out for a second.
If you're not insecure about a profession that, as I mentioned, involves everything
that doesn't involve police work, you know, from, from the EMS to the fire, to the rope
rescue, to the trench, so that you name it.
I think, I think there's, there's an element of it that's actually healthy.
So that can obviously kind of cross pollinate and just amplify an insecurity that's unhealthy.
But I never felt comfortable in the fire service 14 years, because I've, there's so many things
I haven't seen.
I've been on for 14 years.
It was worse when I had 10 years on or five years on.
So there is a healthy element that that humility of, I don't know very much because, you know,
I just went to a rope rescue competition that my friend ran that world.
I mean, blew my mind.
Like I did the two classes, the ops and the tech, but I don't remember shit.
I couldn't string two lines from two buildings and send a gurney over.
There's no way.
So I think that's the other thing that was interesting.
As you've got insecurities within our personality based on what happened to us when we were
young and our journey up to here.
But then you couple it with a healthy feeling of humility, which is really an insecurity
as well.
And those two together are actually quite toxic, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does.
And I think the you're a little insecurity can go a long way because I think it keeps
you honest.
And by that, I mean, it keeps you honest as far as getting out of your comfort zone.
And when people talk about staying in your comfort zone, I think that's kind of what
they're getting at.
You know, your, your comfort zone, you feel comfortable, you know, you never really tested.
I mean, you may get tested, but you may not.
But I think some of the some of the calls that I think were where I got, I don't see
I got the most praise.
I don't know how to say this, but they were like, you know, there's, there's a couple,
there's a fire one time where it was, it got real hairy real fast.
And I remember thinking to myself, you know, I was a little scared, but I was like, you
know what, I know I need my instinct.
Like I just had that knack in the back of my head.
You need to do A, B and C.
And I remember being a little scared.
And I remember, you know, I feel like I felt like this plenty of times.
I think I need to do A, B and C. I'm going to do it.
I fucking do it.
And I boom, boom, boom, boom, everything went according to plan.
And one of the people that I, that I was working with said, you know, thank God it was us.
And thank God we know what we're doing because that could have gone really bad.
And some of the, you know, these people do this, this and this, I'm really glad that
we've talked about this and trained on this and that we were there together because it
could have been a lot worse.
It could have been pretty bad.
And I think what I'm getting at that with that is, you know, getting challenged and
tested and being uncomfortable like that will show your true potential because it's up there.
I mean, if you have it, it's up there.
I really think that.
And I think, and that's why, you know, obviously you're always going to default to your training
and that, you know, you get that, you know, human performance side of it that I don't
know a ton about, but I've been getting into it more and more recently in the last couple
of years.
You know, the whole joke of, you know, if you've ever seen the office where he's, you
know, Dwight, when they're doing the smoke, smoke, uh, or the, they had the fire in the
office, the, um, emergency response that, you know, it's a joke, obviously, but he's
like, you know, let the surge of fear and adrenaline sharpen your decision making.
That's funny to laugh at, but that's not how that works.
Right.
You're obviously, you know, you get into the, I think it's called a condition black.
Your heart rate's over 170 and you get that immediate flight of fight and your brain is
going to turn off.
It's going to turn to liquid.
It's going to run out your ears and all you have to rely on is your training and the people
with you.
So that does, that does happen.
And I think when you allow yourself and you may be able to agree with me on this and maybe
some of the people out there might know what I'm talking about.
Some of the hardest decisions and the rapid decisions I feel like I've been a part of
that I've, that I've done has been in a moment where I'm fighting my brain to take back over.
So everything's doing this.
Like I get that television starting, everything starts getting quiet, like real quiet.
Like I don't hear anything in the rate.
I don't hear the radio anymore, even though I know I can, you know, 30 seconds before
I could hear the radio, just, you know, no one, people just don't shut up on that thing.
Like it's like continuously going, you know, the, the, the humming of the engine with thottling
up like that's a constant loud noise and it all goes away and everything gets super duper
quiet and you're only right in front of your hands, only right in front of your face.
But being able to slow down and opening up and re what I'm getting at is regaining control
is very difficult.
And I feel like I've now I have not been as tested as I have when I'm in the situation
where I'm fighting myself for control.
And then once you, and hopefully you're still following on this cause I'm a little off track,
but no, we are once you regain control is like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And I think that's when you kick back over into your training, not conscious thought,
if that makes sense.
You like, you know what I mean?
Like there's shit that I've said that has come out of my mouth, blah, blah, blah, you
know, whatever, whatever.
All right, we do it, knock it out, blah, blah, you know, and I get the whole, you know,
Hey man, that was, that was a good call.
Nice job.
Or, Hey, you walked the dog on that.
Nice job.
And in my mind, I'm like, I don't know where that came from.
Like
There was a couple of times throughout my career where like I said, and did stuff in
the moment I said, and did them.
And I'm like thinking to myself like, Oh man, hope that was right.
But in the end people are like, Hey man, that was a great job.
You know, nice job with this.
I'm sitting there thinking to myself like, yeah, you know, Hey, yeah, that was my decision.
Yep.
And I'm in my mind.
I'm like, what the fuck is that coming from?
Like, you know, and rapid decision-making in that environment is not easy.
But again, like I said, I think that's where it's important when you have that, what we
were talking about earlier.
I also have people I can rely on, right?
So now I'm, you know, as all these perspectives are for the most part as an officer and a
lot of some of it is a firefighter as well.
But like all those environments, it's always been subconsciously, I know, and this isn't
their name.
This is just for ease of conversation.
Rick, Bill and Dave are sharp.
I don't even have to look for them.
They're doing what they're supposed to do.
I know what they're going to do.
We've been working together for six years.
Like we don't even have to talk.
Like I know where they're going to be.
And you know, the second I'm like, I need to go find where Rick is.
Hey LT, where you at?
I am right here.
All right, cool.
And then like, it's a quick two second.
I know where everybody is.
They're all checking in.
We're talking.
We're not touching each other.
We're not within arm's reach.
You know, we're not holding each other's hands, but we know where everyone is at all at the
same time.
So I think that alleviates that stress and all that to where you're able to open your
brain up, make the decision, but still makes you confident enough to get out of your comfort
zone.
I'm uncomfortable right now, but it's okay.
Cause I can, I know I can be uncomfortable because I know if I need to rely or I need
help or I need a decision or I need to make a decision.
I've got all these sharp guys around me that are, you know, we're going to get in.
We're going to get through this together, especially in the team, the team aspect as
the, um, on the fire ground.
Sure. It also will give you the confidence to be able to make the decisions.
Cause it firegrounds dictatorship.
It's not a democracy.
You can take input, but as officer, you have to make a decision.
How are you going to make that decision?
If you don't have any experience fighting fires and being a firefighter for a period
of time, you won't, it doesn't work that way.
It won't work that way.
Right.
But being able to make those decisions and execute relies heavily on your experience
as a firefighter and time in the field, not sitting behind a desk, not in an office, not
working from home all the time because you have that luxury.
It comes from running calls, screwing up and then feeling that uncomfortable feeling, making
that decision that you know, instinctually needs to be made.
You would instinctually make knowing you need to make it.
You make it and it works and vice versa.
And I've learned a lot more from this than I think being successful when you screw it
up and it sucks.
You don't want to be that guy like the, the focus of the fire ground was you screwing
up your assignment and everybody watches you get absolutely wrecked and throttled by the
chief.
That's what I think I've learned the most, especially as a human being, as a man and
as an officer and a firefighter too.
So it's all big balance and all comes in being able to be humble and be able to be, be able
to get out of your comfort zone.
I know I got it off a long, big tangent on that, but I feel like, you know, all that
was incredibly relevant and important for kind of what you asked because it's the, it's
the big broad stroke of the brush of how you're going to react in those situations, not just
as an officer, but as a firefighter as well.
I think.
Yeah, no, I agree completely.
And that phrase, I think the SEALs use it a lot.
You know, you don't rise to the level of expectation.
You fall to your level of training and I think this is why it's so important to have not
just training, but realism in training, you know, and a lot of the box checking that I've
seen in, in the bad departments I've worked for, you're not creating any discomfort, you're
not creating any environment to encourage mistakes, to kind of see where you're at limits
are and get scared and get tired and you know, all these other things on a, on a drill ground
so that the next time you have a fire and let's say you are uncomfortable and hot, well,
the last time you were scared, uncomfortable heart was in training three weeks ago or in
your CrossFit gym last week or whatever it was, you've been uncomfortable and that training
has been frequent.
So when you fall back, the level is still high.
I think one of the, one of the great analogies, I had a baseball player, Logan Gelbrick on
the show and he was talking about a flow state moment in his career, but the way he broke
down how you get to a flow state and people argue, you know, is a flow state really a
real thing?
And he's experienced it as a martial artist, so whatever you call that thing, you have
to have a high level of stress, well, obviously in a fire, that's, you know, check that box.
You have to have, you know, 10,000 hours of practice or repetitions or whatever, you know,
whatever your version of lots of practice, but then you have to have a calm mind and
that's the other big thing and the whole mental health conversation, mental health and performance
go hand in hand.
So, you know, if you have, have got the ability, just like you said, and everything's closing
down and you have the ability to take a moment and take a few breaths and widen that lens
again.
Now you've got that flow state opportunity and that's when you pull these things out
of nowhere and I've had it on, in a medical course, I've had it on, like I said, in a
taekwondo tournament and you look around and go, I don't know how my foot got to his face,
but it did.
That was cool.
Wow.
That worked out great.
Yeah.
And even in this interview, like I'll have conversations.
I'll have conversations about where that came from, but the more people I speak to, the
more ingredients of a cake go into my head.
And then someone says, make me a sponge.
And all of a sudden the sponge comes out.
You know, well, shit, I don't know how that happened, but it's the same concept.
So I agree a hundred percent being uncomfortable, creating realism on the training ground.
So you're closer to what is going to happen out in the real world.
And then repetition, you've got to have those reps.
And if it's with that same crew, that's where that cohesion and trust happens as well.
Yeah.
And, you know, and you mean you could, you might even be able to elaborate on this as
well.
I think some of the bigger ones are the ones that have the least amount of stress.
So I'll give you a little scenario from a couple of days ago.
And so embarrassing, but we did a, we did a drill and one of the things they talked
to, it was, it was about gas emergencies and the, the person leading the drill put a picture
up of a house and it was a split level, right?
And even it was a realtor picture, like where they explain what a house is and it says really
big across the top.
What is a split level?
And they're like, you know, Hey, you know, we're talking about gas emergencies today.
Real quick.
Mike to me, I'm sitting in front of the class.
There's like 20 people.
They're guys I see every fourth day.
I see them all the time.
My battalion chiefs there, my crews there.
Guys I I'm not uncomfortable in front of, because I work, I've worked around for seven
years now.
And as long as I've been in the firehouse on that, he's like, still a real quick size
up and you know, what would you do?
I was like, Oh, no, alpha side split forest style house, attached garage.
I look for gas, walk around, blah, blah, blah.
Well it's not a split for it.
It's a split level.
I don't know why I said split for it.
And I don't remember saying split for it at all.
No one in the room said a word at all.
So we go through the entire drill.
I think besides making the mistake of the building construction, you know, everything
I said I think was correct.
We elaborated on a lot of the things that I said, move forward with it, with the training
and we were there for probably two hours when that was about it.
So the guy instructing I'm very good friends with, I used to work for him when I was a
firefighter.
He's a captain and he shot me a text and he goes split for a split level.
And I texted him and I'm like, what are you talking about?
He goes, the house that I showed you, is that a split for a split level?
I said, I was split level.
What do you talk like?
What?
So then he called me and I'm like, I didn't fucking say that.
He goes, yeah, you did.
He goes, you, it was, it was in rate in writing and you called it a split for you and it was
a split level.
And I'm like, and then I felt that rush.
Like I felt embarrassed.
I felt like a complete idiot.
I've never, I haven't felt that I was so embarrassed, dude.
Like I felt my face turn red and he's laughing at me.
He's like, who gives a shit?
He goes, it is what it is.
He's like, I'm just calling to mess with you about it.
He goes, but I also forwarded you a whole PowerPoint and training on building construction
and you know, the department that I worked for has actually in the general, in our fire
ground, general orders sites that and shows you the difference in a drawing.
So you don't screw it up because as a department, they may, they put that in our general orders
to help people not make that mistake.
And it specifically sites what level is what division and use you, you know, I mean, I'm
sure you understand what I'm saying with that and how we identify what's the first floor
or what's the division one, two and basement, sub-basement, all that, because those can
get wonky with those types, those styles of construction.
So anyway, so of course he sends me all that in our department's attachment for split for
origin split levels.
And it's, you know, I'm like, I didn't fucking say that.
So I go back to my shift and I'm like, I said, Hey, we did this in the drill.
Did I say split for the like?
Yeah.
I'm like, okay.
And then I texted one, you know, I texted one of the other officers that I'm, that I'm
friends with and I'm like, Hey man, did I, he's like, yeah.
He's like, he's like, I figured you just screwed it up and then realized you're an idiot.
And that was kind of it.
He's like, I don't think, I don't think twice of it.
We all kind of giggled and you didn't seem to laugh or even hear anybody kind of chuckle
a little bit.
And we just thought you guys are screwing around.
I'm like, like, so, I mean the whole world kind of, it didn't crash, but like in that
moment I'm like, like, you know, it was, and then it was a totally unexpected situation
where like, I felt my adrenaline start running.
Like, you know, I just, and this kind of touches on what we talked about earlier.
Like, well, am I going to be an idiot now?
Is everybody going to laugh at me and think I don't know what I'm doing?
Do they think I'm an idiot?
Do I think I'm competent?
Did I just ruin my reputation?
Do I have a repute?
Like it's just wild how the things that you least expect can just sucker punch you and
just drop you like a bag, like drop you like a sack of potatoes.
So it's looking back on it now.
It's funny.
You know, this is, it's been two weeks now, but like, you know, people are slowly getting
their licks and one person texted me and I wrote an email to him and I'm like, I say,
man, I was like, I screwed that email up.
It's supposed to say X, Y, and Z.
He goes, oh yeah, just like it was supposed to be a split level and I split for her.
I'm like, that was good.
But even then the little joke, it was funny.
But in my mind, I started, like, I could feel myself getting a little amped up.
I'm like, no, stop it.
It was a joke.
And then that person on their own, I didn't fist or whatever.
They said, well, you know, at least you know what it is and what you're doing when it's
important.
He goes, I'd rather you look like an idiot on a drill and then nail it on a call when
it counts.
I'm like, well, you're not an easy person to impress.
I'll take that.
So there we go.
Yeah.
Well, I want to get to your journey into the fire service.
Now I was looking at LinkedIn, so I want to make sure I've got this correct.
Did you join the volunteer?
LinkedIn's all screwed up.
I don't know how to edit it that great.
I'm not that great on LinkedIn, but it's kind of screwed up.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, no, you're fine.
So if if what I read was correct, it appeared that you joined the volunteer fire service
a month before 9-11.
Is that correct?
Yeah, it was like right around August.
Yeah.
OK.
So walk me through your journey into the volunteer fire service and through a volunteer's eyes.
What was your 9-11 experience?
So I was actually going to try and buy a car and that's how I found the fire.
In the Huntington volunteer fire department, there used to be a dealership right at Cox
Road and Ralph Fort.
Well, it was on the Old Town Road.
So anyway, the same intersection, just two different streets.
But anyway, there was a car dealership there and I bought a S10 for $400.
I mean, I was I just turned 16.
I was about to turn 16 or I just turned 16 and I was going to go buy it.
I used from saving up cutting grass for two or three summers.
I don't remember how long it was.
But anyway, so to go to the car shop, you had to go on the side road, which is Old Town
Road and I passed the Huntington volunteer fire department.
And I remember all through high school, always wanted when I was younger, I wanted to be
in the fire department.
All this.
And I remember guys that I went to high school with were like volunteer fire department shirts
and it never really clicked.
And then all of a sudden it kind of clicked.
And they're like, yeah, we just volunteer or whatever.
And no big deal.
And I was like, all right, well, I wonder if this is one of those places.
Because I didn't really I mean, I under I obviously I know what volunteer fire department
means, but like I didn't know the difference between career.
I didn't know any of that stuff.
I just thought everybody was paid.
Like, I mean, that's honestly what I thought.
And I thought maybe they just had guys that did it on the side or something.
So I walked in, met a couple of guys, you know, got an application joined.
I didn't realize how impactful those people would be.
I didn't realize the ripple effects and, you know, there's people that I'm still very
good friends with to this day, 23 years later and how impactful and meaningful a couple
individuals will be in my entire life that I professionally as a human being, as a man,
I would not be anywhere I am today without them or be joining that department.
I joined.
Like, yeah, you said before 9-11 and the fire department side of me didn't really have a
big impact because I didn't really know anything yet.
I mean, obviously, I understood the impact of, you know, everyone that was killed.
And I feel like and I was a sophomore in high school, sophomore in high school when 9-11
happened.
I had the attachment of feeling like the country was under attack more so than people died.
I mean, obviously, people died.
So I had that human interaction with it.
But you know, as far as the fire service, I feel like I wasn't really part of it to
understand it quite yet.
I think that happened after the one year anniversary where I was like, oh, 343 firemen died and
how horrific that was and the manner in which they got killed.
Like the idea of like not knowing anything about the fire department, not knowing anything
about going into fires yet.
Looking back on it of, you know, a year later, I had EMT, I had my little firefighter one
car.
I went to an actual house fire and then I was able to, I guess, have the ability to
relate not being not in the manner in which they died, but like how real it is that something
could collapse on me and kill me at just a regular house fire.
You know, because you learn about firefighter deaths and all that stuff.
Like you learn that and you just, what I volunteered at, people talked about that.
Like these are the things you have to do because you can get burned or killed and all that.
And I think after that one year anniversary, I was able to, I'm trying to figure it relate
to it.
I don't know.
I don't know how, I don't know if that makes sense, but like relating to the fact that
I'm a firefighter now, even though I'm volunteer and that guy was a firefighter in New York
and he died because he was doing his job as a firefighter.
So it was to me, the connection, there was a little bit of a connection at that one year
part more so than when it happened.
And I think, you know, again, like I said, I don't think I had as much connection as
other people may have.
I was new, but as time went on, every time it comes up, it, you know, it definitely made
me think, but you know, yeah.
When you talk about being emancipated when you were young and then you just spoke about
two individuals and how impactful they were on your life, I think mentorship is a really
important conversation, especially now.
I mean, we have, you know, an environment of division at the moment, an environment
of kind of finger pointing and waiting for certainly the last eight years, someone to
be elected who is a massive disappointment out of 330 million people.
But the answer is obviously each one of us steps up and then is a leader in our own home
and then leader in our community and or firehouse.
And the value of being a mentor, whether it's a sports coach or a history teacher or one
of the members of the volunteer fire department that you work for is such a powerful perspective.
And to me really is the kind of real nucleus of leadership, someone else, you know, making
you a better person.
So talk to me about these men, talk to me about where you were.
And I'm making a massive assumption now, if there was an absence of some sort of, you
know, father figure or male role model at that point, how important was it meeting those
and what trajectory did they send you on?
It was life changing.
I don't think I've been anywhere I am in my life with anything from being a parent to
being any of it would have happened without mentorship along the way.
You know, one of the people I really so we work together now and I'm trying to leave
my department totally out of this.
You know, if he happens to come across this, he will know who he is.
And you know, I've told him this several times.
I his friendship and mentorship saved my life.
And I'm not going to get too much into it, but I'll leave it at that.
Right.
You know, I was a teenager.
He was obviously older.
He was a sheriff in Calvert County at that time.
So he should probably know who I'm talking about now.
Probably everybody else that knows him well as well.
But for some reason, I was a I was a punk kid and he took a liking to me and he was
very hard on me.
And he really helped me with a lot of things.
And I left my house when I was a teenager and I ended up after a period of time, sneaking
into the firehouse night when I'm not supposed to be there because you're supposed to be
18 to live there and sleep there.
And during the week on the weekends, no big deal as long as your parents don't care or
you're emancipated.
And then I think on the weekends you can live, you can sleep there, but you're not allowed
to be there during the week at all if you're in high school.
And you know, somebody may have accidentally left them left me their key card.
So it's unrestricted.
And I would all kidding aside, I go in there, you know, he'd help me out with a few other
different things.
And you know, he was always very, very hard on me.
And he actually in his time as a sheriff, I was on my way to school because I overslept
and I was speeding.
And like, I remember seeing a police car.
I can remember this.
He's probably gonna laugh his ass off.
He was listening to this.
It was a sheriff's car sitting there with its four ways on the hood up.
And it looked like it was on a jack.
And I remember speeding and I'm like, haha, idiot.
And then he just walked right out pointed and pointed over.
And I'm like, fuck.
The second he walked out from behind the car, I knew who it was.
And I'm like, shit, I was like, I'm gonna hear it.
So of course, I have this little lowered Honda and I'm driving like an asshole with loud
music, this typical teenage stupidity.
So I pulled over, turn the music down and he just link.
He's tall.
He's leaned down and just looked at me and I'm like, he goes, you can't finish your education
if you're dead.
And I'm like, Nope.
He goes, we'll talk later.
Go to school.
And I'm like, okay, see you later.
And I drove off and he let me have it.
He comes back.
I mean, I went to school, I went home, I went to the firehouse or whatever.
And he's I remember him saying like, you speed or kill somebody, you're gonna ruin your fucking
life.
He goes, if you want to do stupid things, do stupid things, whatever.
But don't do, he's like, you're gonna do stupid things.
And if you're gonna do something this dumb, it can ruin your life.
Like, you know, what are you doing?
Like what's wrong with you?
And I'm like, oh, he's like, all right, don't speed anymore.
And some other select stuff.
But so there was that.
And then he just, he always kept me on the straight and narrow.
He always had, I don't want to say he always had something to say, but like he always had
an opinion on something.
And you know, we go on a fire or just life stuff and he'd always have advice.
He'd always have, you know, he'd always, I don't know how to explain it, but like he
was that stern father figure that I always kind of wanted that and he provided that.
And you know, there's a lot of stuff that I learned and habits that, excuse me, formed
and some of the lessons I think I didn't realize until I was older and didn't appreciate him
when I was younger.
And I did a lot of stupid things when I was young.
Like I was, I was an idiot.
God, I was an idiot.
I wouldn't change any of it in the past because I feel like where I am now, I wouldn't be
without those mistakes and lessons.
And if I didn't do that stupid stuff back then, and then they kind of, those stupid
memories hibernated for years.
And then like I get to a maturity level now where I'm like, oh shit, wait a minute.
When I was 19, maybe not 19, but when I was a teenager at the volunteer firehouse, I remember
this conversation specifically.
Crap.
That's what they meant.
Like it all like, you know, like, I don't know how to, I don't know if that makes sense
or not, but I mean, this, this guy, he just, I mean, I wouldn't be anything without him.
And I made sure to tell him that.
And you know, it's always great to see him.
He always gives me a big bear hug.
And every time, you know, I see him and, and we, you know, we catch up a little bit or
whatever it's very, it's good.
It really is.
It reminds me how far I've come and that somebody like that, that is not blood related really
cares and wants you to be better than they are without wanting anything in return.
I don't know if that makes sense or not, but he does.
And he knows who he is.
I just, our department's weird with public and social media stuff.
And I just, I don't want to put them in a weird spot because we're supposed to get permission
to talk about our department on stuff like this.
So he knows who he is and he knows how impactful he was in my life.
Well, I mean, I'm, I'm glad I asked that because this is, this is the thing.
Every single one of us has the ability to be a mentor in some way, shape or form as
a guy I follow who teaches kids how to change tires, you know, like basic, you know, dude
stuff as Pat McNamara would say, you know, and I mean, this, there's so many different
ways that you can use whatever you're good at it or, you know, like you said, cutting
grass.
You know, that does the 50 yard challenge Rodney and he's got kids all over the world
cutting grass for free for elderly and military and some other people.
You know, this is it.
So whatever you are good at, you can positively affect your community.
And then so rather than pointing fingers like, ah, this president or this fire chief or whatever,
look in the mirror.
Are you being a good husband and a good parent or wife or whatever it is, and then step outside
your front door?
How can I help?
Where I live this immediate area in some way, shape or form and don't ever underestimate
the impact you have on someone in their life, no matter how short or how long it is like
at all.
And that's one of the biggest lessons I learned from just now reflecting.
And I know something I've thought and I've actually talked to him.
I've talked to him about this is just, you know, don't ever underestimate your impact
on someone else's life, no matter how minor or how minute or how big you are part of someone's
life and that goes both ways, like helping them, mentoring them, teaching them, or if
you're an asshole to them, like you never know what people are going through.
And just a simple, hey, how you doing?
Like a really great example of all this is in my department, which will not be named
to say large metropolitan department in the D.C. metropolitan area.
I'll leave it at that.
We have a guy that works for us now that was a cadet and lived in the first due of where
I work since I've been there.
He's very, very young.
I've been there for seven years.
He's I think 20 or 19 now.
And he came and worked overtime with us as a rookie.
One of the first times he was able to work overtime, came to my fight.
He works a different place on a different shift, came to where I work and we were talking.
He said, yeah, I grew up on this street.
This was my address.
He goes, I remember you pointing at me.
He's like, I remember you coming on calls and I remember how nice you were to my mom.
And, you know, you you guys took time to say hi to me and all that stuff.
I was floored.
And I'm like, I'm sitting there looking at him.
I'm like, I got the hair going up on my neck just talking about it.
I looked at him like, are you serious?
He goes, yeah, he's like, yeah, man, I was a kid.
I used to hide in my room.
But I remember you guys talking to me one of the one of the times you guys let me see
the truck.
And I'm like, well, you're a teenager.
He's like, yeah, I was I think he said he was 13 or 12.
I don't remember.
He's very young.
But either way, I would have never thought twice about that ever.
Incredibly my new calls Chuck and Jive with kids.
You know, hey, man, how you doing?
I always I always find myself when there's kids around, I always talk to them.
You know, I'll make a joke like, you know, obviously, if it's appropriate on the call,
like, you know, that will be taught, they'll be talking to the parents or whatever.
And the kids sitting there and I'll look at him like you stayed in trouble.
Are you staying in trouble?
I was like, are you doing all your homework for school?
Staying out of trouble and they'll kind of like laugh and joke.
And that's it.
I don't think anything of it.
I just I engage them or, you know, something.
And I never thought about it.
And then fast forward.
Yeah, man, I remember this is great, man.
And it really made me want to get into the fire department.
And I was absolutely stunned.
Like it almost it.
It took my breath away to know that somebody had that kind of impact.
And I wasn't emotional about it.
I mean, it's just kind of like it stopped me dead in my tracks.
Like, you know, felt good.
You know, I mean, I mean, you never let the people look for recognition, but we just don't
talk to each other like that.
Like, you know how it is how guys in the firehouse are.
It's just not what we do.
But you know, again, this guy, that was my biggest mentor.
And with this scenario, I haven't called him and told him about this.
We talked about it.
And I was remember I remember him saying, you know, don't ever be don't ever forget
your impact on anyone, no matter how big or how small it is.
And I think that was the biggest lesson as well.
You know, I really do.
The last place I worked for, we seem to get more thank yous and other places that I've
worked.
The previous one was it was a county and, you know, we just show up.
They have no idea who we are, what rig we're on.
But the most recent one, we got more.
And I look back at the thank yous we got.
And we've you know, in 14 years, of course, you've you've saved lives, numerous lives
and extricated people and all the things, rescued animals.
But what I realized is that the common denominator of the thank yous was that you were kind to
the people.
And so when I hear people talk about, you know, customer service and the fire service,
like it's not customer service is just not being a dick, you know, actually being, you
know, caring, having compassion, being kind, finding the humanity in the call.
And we said earlier, obviously about detaching if, you know, someone's bleeding to death
or, you know, full cardiac arrest, you're not singing them songs and reading in poetry,
you're doing your job.
But you know, there are people around, you know, there are children crying that daddy's,
you know, having a heart, whatever it is.
And so, you know, this is the thing with, you know, the whole leadership and customer
service conversation is I don't think it's customer service.
I think it's just diving back into like we touched on earlier, the yin and the yang,
refinding your yin.
Have I got that right?
Anyway, I always like this.
But you know, find that compassion, that soft side, and understanding that that needs to
coexist with whatever the call is and a simple hand on a shoulder or finding a picture from
a fridge during a house fire before you pull ceiling and destroy everything.
Those are the little moments that the people remember.
Yeah, those are the ones that people say thank you for.
It's the human interaction, you know, it and I remember a cardiac arrest I went on.
And the lady was the nicest person in the world.
You know, the I don't remember exactly what age was a guy that died and he had a cardiac
arrest.
And, you know, I remember her saying I said to her, I was like, do you have advanced directives?
And she's like, No, no, no, we, we don't have the and there was the tone in her voice.
And I remember sitting there and I just looked at him like, look, if you have advanced directives,
I said, just remember, I said, I know this is very sad, and I'm very sorry, but the advanced
directives were their wishes.
So that I know you don't want them to die.
But I think it's something you should maybe consider to think about if you have them or
not, because ultimately, you know, they wanted to go peacefully if they wanted advanced directives.
And she kind of sat there for a second, she started crying a little bit.
And she's like, I will we have them, but I want them to live.
And I'm like, I don't think he's going to live.
I don't think it's going to happen.
I said, you know, his disease is very, very advanced.
There's a reason why he made this decision.
I said, but we're going to do what we want to do what you ask us to do.
I just want you to think about that.
And then she goes, why she comes back upstairs and she goes, well, explain to me what's going
on.
So I was like, all right, we're following our protocols.
His heart's not beating.
He's not breathing.
I said, this is how we do our protocols.
This is what we're going to do.
These are the interventions.
And she goes, well, here's his advanced directives.
I said, okay.
So they weren't signed correctly.
They weren't, you know, they weren't done the right way.
They should have been done.
I said, okay, well, we can't use these.
So I was like, this is a paperwork.
This is his will, not his advanced directives.
And she said, oh, okay.
Well, I don't think he has one that.
And I remember thinking to myself, thank God I trust my instinct to just be compassionate
with this woman and explain it to her.
Followed our protocols, did everything by policy and all that.
No big deal.
He passed.
And she's like, you know, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this to me.
And she gave me this gigantic hug.
And I don't like hugging people.
I don't like shaking hands.
I just don't do it on calls to me.
I just, I don't know.
I don't know how to explain that.
I just typically don't shake hands.
I just don't do that.
And this lady gave this gigantic hug and she's like, no one explained this stuff to me.
I thought this meant he has a DNR.
She goes, but I didn't know what it was.
No one's explained it to me.
And I was like, well, this is his will.
You're going to need this.
I was like, but you know, it's not a DNR.
The DNR looks completely different.
And it said on there will like living will or whatever.
And when you read it, it was from a lawyer, not a doctor.
So you know, and I didn't think anything of that call.
Now I just thought that was the end of it.
You know, whatever.
Fast forward like two or three months.
I'm dead dog tired.
I finished a 36 hour shift and I'm leaving my firehouse.
I go to Starbucks right down, not too far from my station.
And I walk in and this lady grabs my arm.
Same lady.
She's like, Hey, do you remember me?
And I'm like, no, she goes, you came to my dad's house.
This was my address.
You were very sweet to me.
You know, I just, I wanted to tell you how much my family and I appreciate this, you
know, that all this stuff has been so upsetting.
We wanted him to live.
And you know, I think it's something that, you know, we, we didn't really understand
how important it was to know the paperwork and you know, it just, it's not something
that anybody told us.
And you know, we're really glad that we didn't tell you to stop your CPR and all that.
And I'm like, you know, yeah, I mean, that's my job.
And that's what I'm here for.
She's like, no, I don't think you understand.
Like, you know, you did everything you had to do and you were supposed to do.
And we knew exactly what you needed to do.
And that it made it easier for us when he died that knowing that he got everything,
he got every chance he had for him to stay, but he just was too sick.
And I'm like, I mean, yeah, sure.
I mean, it's what I'm here for.
Like, you know, that's kind of, it's my job and you know, I'm glad to be able to help
you with that and all that.
What I guess I didn't, I didn't appreciate or understand at that time.
And I do now thinking back about it, it was just how important and how impactful you are,
even if, even though you're there for an hour, a half an hour or 20 minutes or 10 minutes.
Again, like I said before, you know, don't ever underestimate the impact you're going
to have on someone's life, regardless of how long or how short you're in it.
I mean, you know, so I mean, it's a little off topic.
Sorry to get off on a tangent on that one, but that's, that's a call that I kind of keep
in the back of my mind sometimes.
I don't know why either.
It was a very low stress call.
Well, I think it's important though.
I actually wrote a book a few years ago and one of the chapters I wrote about basically
a back to bed call and the kind of every, every chapter is like a short story.
So every chapter then there was a takeaway and the takeaway in that particular one was
aging and how, you know, how we view getting older and compassion.
But the number of times I've gone to a back to bed call and everyone's groaning and I
go, Oh my God, this is going to be bullshit.
But you take a step back for a second and you look at in this, you know, the one I wrote
about an elderly couple and you've got a man who at one point was like you and me, he was
physically capable of protecting his wife, of, you know, taking care of his wife, but
now they're in their eighties and they're frail and she's fallen off the bed and he
can't even pick her up.
So he's riddled with his own shame and guilt.
And then we show up or in this case capable men and you know, she soiled herself as well,
which happens a lot, obviously, as we all know.
And so you take her and you help her get cleaned up and you get her a fresh, you know, change
your clothes.
None of that's in the job description of a firefighter or a paramedic, but it's the right
thing to do.
And you're not thinking, Oh, this is customer service.
No, you're just thinking this is the fucking right thing to do full stop.
And you restore that couple's dignity and you make that lady comfortable and you check
her out and make sure she hasn't hurt herself and you put her back to bed.
And you know, the husband then is, you know, is grateful and he's kind of, you know, his
dignity is restored as well, but there's nothing heroic about that.
No one's going to make a movie about back to bed calls.
But to me, those are some of the most powerful calls because four capable firefighter paramedics
showed up and mitigated someone's worst day and they weren't hanging 12 stories from a
burning building.
Their worst day was the love of his life was lying in her own feces on the bedroom floor
and you were able to fix that.
So that's the thing to me is like when you put the humanity back, it takes away a lot
of that eye rolling and don't get me wrong, this bullshit calls.
I'm totally aware of those, but you know, those kind of calls, it's kindness and compassion.
And the moment you lose that and you're like, Oh, I want to be fighting fire right now.
You're missing the point.
Those people needed help.
And the four of you or three of you walked in and you literally made their worst day
into their best day if you treated it right.
Yeah.
And I think I'm not a super religious person.
I'm not a super like, you know, any of that stuff got kind of guy.
I mean, I have my beliefs, um, you know, of based off experiences, but I think, and I
say this, but I think karma, maybe it's not actual karma, but what I've learned in my
time, especially my time as a company level officer and my time in the fire department,
if you take it call by call and you treat every call and do your absolute best, you
do the right thing, morally, ethically, legally, all that stuff.
And you get, you give your focus onto whatever's going on, sick, dying, dead, it doesn't matter.
And you give it your absolute best and you show up.
I think you're paying into the bank of good karma to where, you know, this fifth call
after midnight or, you know, this call where the guy shit himself and this sucks.
If you just get it taken care of, you do it the right way.
You're going to get that absolute fricking ripper that you want, you know, operational
discipline, being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there over time
will provide you the scenario to get what you want.
I think, you know, I mean, do I want to be third due and do line over ladder to an area
where there's no fire?
Nope.
Have I been third due going to the rear, pulling a line where I didn't think we were going
to do anything?
Then we ended up putting out the entire fire.
It was an absolute kick ass fire.
Yep.
Because if we weren't there in the position to be there and we're all screwing around
doing something else, we may not have had the opportunity.
That's the whole point.
Do the right thing, whether you want to or not, every time and in time, the right things
will happen.
You'll be in the position that you want to be in.
May not feel like it today, may not feel like it tomorrow, but on the macro level, big picture
wise, looking back over 17 years of my career, 10 years of being an officer, it's been that
way and I've been a firm believer in that consistently over the last five years and
in five years looking back, I'm telling you, just do the right thing and everything will
come back to you.
It will.
It really will.
Absolutely.
Well, when you reflect on your time as a volunteer, you entered the service pretty young.
What is your perception now of, there's a few things that seem to come up a lot recently,
a young mind being exposed to some of the things that we see in the fire service and
then in the volunteer setting, another thing that doesn't seem to be discussed or understood
maybe by us in career as much is living and working in the same community.
Maybe seeing classmates, teachers, that kind of thing that you just don't have.
I lived usually about an hour from where I worked most of my career.
What are your reflections on that portion of your fire service career?
I had somebody that I went to high school with, girl I knew.
Maybe I wasn't friends with her or anything.
I knew who she was.
I think I might've had a class or two with her.
I definitely did summer school with her since I didn't pay attention in high school, but
whatever.
She pulled out in front of somebody and she got hit and it killed her, like immediate.
I'll never forget she got blown out of her shoes.
One shoe was still on the gas pedal.
The other shoe was on the floorboard where her feet usually are and she was thrown into
the, she got hit on the driver's door.
So imagine a sedan, right?
Four seats.
She was behind the right rear seat, jammed into the windshield, if that makes sense.
Small, petite girl, I think maybe like five foot, maybe 110 pounds, so it blew her in
there.
I don't even remember if she had seatbelt.
I don't know, but I'll never forget popping my head in saying there's nobody in the car,
but their shoes are there.
And they're like, she's in the windshield and she's priority forward.
And I look over and she's priority for, well, she's underage.
So we break the windshield, pull her out.
You know, it looks like she's priority for, but protocols and everything were so different
back then.
Like everything was different back then.
So we did CPR on her and she died.
And people I went to school with knew that I've worked, that I volunteered in the Homing
Down Volunteer Fire Department.
So then that came up at school.
And some of the conversations were not that fun and not that great.
And they were freaking awkward.
And it is what it is now.
I mean, that was 20 years ago or however long I've been out of high school now, whatever.
Is what it is.
And you know, that's a call that I'll never forget ever.
Like I can remember the smell, like talking to you, I remember the smell of her car.
I remember, you know, I remember everything.
And it's something I haven't thought about in a long time.
And it was tough.
You know, it wasn't easy.
And it wasn't just like the call's over.
So let's leave now.
No, like the call followed me to school and I was just like, fuck man.
You know, but after the call, inappropriate jokes, random foolery, guys acting like nothing
happened.
You know, there's always that pause.
Like, I think that's a respect thing.
Like in the moment of being respectful, especially when somebody's dead, especially when something's
super traumatic or super bad, like really bad in the house, like there's always that
respect.
But when you get back into the rescue squad or the fire truck or the ambulance, it's a
game on, it's dark humor and it's guys fucking with each other.
And that was one of my first big introductions into it.
And that's when I think I started really understanding and laughing about the dark humor and how important
that was.
And then it took me a long time to reflect and learn this, but it was, I know what you
feel like I've been there.
Let's have a joke.
Let's have a laugh.
You know, I'm on this.
I know what you're feeling.
I'm feeling it too, but let's we're, we're going to get through this together and let,
let's move on and have a laugh.
And then this, this will help you heal from it.
I mean, obviously those are inferences.
No one ever said that to me, but that's, you know, that was always my, my take on it.
There was another call where a guy that I was a volunteer in the County at a different
firehouse who I was good for.
I was friends with him and everybody in the car.
I was two of three of them volunteered.
And there was another, it was a third person.
There's three, three in the car, three in the car.
And they went hill hopping.
Do you know what hill hopping is?
You know that.
So you get in the car and you go over a hill.
You speed over the hill and you go flying.
Like you jump the car jumps.
It's called hill hopping.
We did a lot when I was in school and it was in the first due and where I volunteered at
and they went over this hill, they hit the ground.
The guy lost control of the car, went up, hit the embankment, rolled and rolled.
It ejected everyone out of the car.
They actually know there was a fourth person.
There was a girl in there that was not a volunteer.
She's not a volunteer.
She was teenager.
Yeah.
She was dead.
One guy ejected was a volunteer firefighter.
He was dead.
The other one got ejected.
He was alive.
And then there was another girl and I knew this chick.
She got ejected too.
And we get there and it's absolute chaos.
Like there's people everywhere.
There's parts everywhere.
One person's laying on their back just screaming.
And I'm like, Whoa, this is, we show up on the rescue squad.
I'm an officer, a volunteer officer.
This is my first call as an officer, as a volunteer.
And we pop this hill and there's just, there's this shit everywhere.
And people are yelling and they're screaming.
And I kind of figured this was going to happen.
You know what I mean?
It's just, I just, what I learned in the fire department at that point, it's just the way
it is.
And I was in there, I was in the volunteers.
I was a couple of years, maybe five years.
I don't remember how long it was, but anyway, I came to expect this is the kind of stuff
it's going to be.
And I'm like, what is this?
And the one girl comes up and she's like, just yelling and screaming.
I'm like, all right, well what happened?
They're like, Oh, it's Josh.
And I'm like, Josh who?
And she's like, Josh Rappacante.
And I'm like, well, where is it?
And they're like, he's right there.
And she's like yelling and screaming.
She's running around and I'm like, what are you doing here?
She goes, well, I was in the car and I got thrown in the field.
And I'm like, what?
She's like, yeah, I got ejected.
I'm like, well, Jesus Christ, go sit down.
So come up, got Josh that I was friends with.
We hung out.
My friend, Raleigh, we all hung out together, party, drank, all that stuff.
And now he's in the middle of the road, obviously, in my opinion, obviously dead.
And we all were kind of like working on them, kind of doing everything.
The other crew was up with the other guy that I knew they were getting him ready.
He was going to get airlifted.
The girl that was running around, she was going to get airlifted.
They had another priority for obvious party for covered.
And this guy, Josh, who was in my opinion, obvious priority for, but I remember one of
the people there saying, well, out of respect, we need to work him.
And I remember being an officer thinking that's not right.
But I can understand the respect thing of working him.
So I'm like, okay.
And this other person that made the decision has more time on, he was a chief level officer.
So I mean, I kind of thought if it was me, I'd want them to do everything.
I know that's what my family would want.
So I don't disagree with it, worked them, but he didn't make it.
So it was a double fatal.
And I haven't thought about this call in a very, very long time.
And it also reminded me that I'm working in a community or volunteering in a community
where I know a lot of people because I grew up in this community.
I grew up in this area.
Calvert County is not a big place, there's a decent amount of people back then.
I mean, I don't know how populated it is now, but back then there were a lot of people,
but it wasn't a lot.
They could tell you there's 10,000 people live in Calvert County, but everyone still
knows everyone.
Everyone sees everyone.
You know what I mean?
Excuse me, I couldn't go into Calvert County back then without seeing somebody I knew everywhere
I went every time.
Gas station, grocery store, it didn't matter.
So yeah, so back to this call, I didn't expect that.
These are guys that I see and hang out with all the time.
And now two of them are, one of them is dead and the other guy is getting airlifted somewhere.
I wasn't super, super close with them, but you see them regularly, hang out with them
regularly.
We just weren't close, close friends.
But what do I immediately do?
I immediately personify, or not personify.
I immediately become relatable to that because I did the same thing on this exact same hill
with my car.
If I remember correctly, I think I might've done it within a couple of days, quite frankly.
And if I remember right, it was close to his house and I think his family showed up and
he was obviously dead on the road.
So it was just, I remember that being pretty, pretty tough as far as just like one of those
things where you don't really realize what you're getting yourself into until you're
two feet deep or you're 10 feet deep into it or two feet into it or whatever.
And this was the one call where I was expecting joking, dark humor.
And there was, I mean, everybody was just like, you know, so it was tough.
But on the flip side of it, and not to be super negative, on the flip side of it, it
was kind of cool being a volunteer firefighter in the neighborhood and the area that I worked
in because people are like, hey man, I'm proud of you.
You're doing a great job or thanks you guys for what you do.
Like you laugh and joke.
And, you know, I mean, there was a little bit of flirting with some girls on calls.
Like, of course we're going to do that.
You know, like I think I ended up dating a girl that I met on a call that we ran.
She was a hairdresser and she ended up being crazy, but whatever.
But anyway, I mean, you know how they are.
No, I'm kidding.
I met her on a call and it just all kidding aside, like it was, it was funny.
So I remember talking to her.
She was kind of, you know, giggling a little bit and I kind of laughed or whatever.
And I didn't really think a whole lot of it.
And then all of a sudden she pops up on Facebook and finds me and it's like, Hey, I think you
came to my work.
We should hang out sometime.
And that was, I mean, you know, teenage guy.
Like I think I was 16, 17 at that point.
No, I think I was older.
I think I was 19, 18.
Yeah.
She was, yeah.
Cause she was like a few years older than me.
I had to be 18.
But anyway, so we hung out all the time, like, and you know, it was kind of dating this chick
for a while and it was all because of that, you know, back to the volunteer firehouse
friend lifelong friendships that I have are come all back there.
The mentors that I had all come back to that.
And they were all people that lived in the community.
You know, one of the guys that I was pretty good friends with owns a grocery store on
the top of the hill called bones grocery.
You know, like they're, you know, your gross or one guy worked at a bank.
The other dude did construction and then they're all community tied somehow.
And then they hang out at the volunteer firehouses, chiefs and captains and volunteer firefighters
and you know, all that kind of stuff too.
And it was, it was kind of cool.
You get a big mix of the community.
And then I think when you have that and then you go out into your community, you know who
they are, they know who you are.
You get that connection that I don't think you get in a non-community based department.
And why I say that is when you have that connection and you kind of internalize it and you think
of it, you know, it's, it's different.
You know, like it hits different.
I don't know if that's the right way to say that, but like you get a sense of this is
my community.
I'm here to serve my community that I'm a part of, you know, like, you know what I'm
saying?
Oh, absolutely.
And I think there's, there's pros and cons.
Like you said, there's that pride, there's that, you know, service of in your actual
area that you, that you live in.
But then I think it's important that we discuss, you know, the other side of that as well,
that we give our volunteers access to resources that might, they might need because yeah,
if I go from, you know, if I live in Huntington beach, who I did for a while and I work in
Anaheim, you know, I'm at that point, like 20, 30 minutes drive away.
So I'm, you know, I'm not from there originally.
So I'm not running on people I know.
So I can have the most horrific accidents, which we did over and over and over again,
but it's still, there isn't that emotional attachment.
Now all of a sudden I'm a volunteer in New Jersey or Maryland and I'm running on my high
school friends.
That's a very different impact.
And then you add in that I'm also only 17 years old.
These are really important conversations because that will have an impact and services is important.
But what I talk about all the time on the podcast is if we're going to ask, you know,
and I'm a big, I'm a big advocate for making as many fire departments career as well.
Like there's a lot of places now that are hugely populated that rely on volunteers.
I think that's wrong.
You should pay them to be a fire department, you know, personally, but if you live out
in somewhere remote, then we need to take care of them.
You know, you are asking these people to be awake for 24 hours and, you know, and run
on people's worst days.
Then whether it's a work week in the career and you guys do 24 72, I think that should
be a national standard personally.
It's insanity.
Yeah, exactly.
I haven't met a person that hates it yet.
But then the same with our volunteers, the people are going to do it, you know, because
they are truly in a rural area and remote.
Yeah.
Then when they run on for free, we've got to make sure that we as a, as a village, a
town, you know, whatever we're, you know, a township that we acknowledge the impact
of that and we take care of our volunteer first responders.
Yeah, no, definitely.
And I think that connection is something you can still develop over time.
Like the department I work for, I never lived in the county that I work in.
I live an hour and a half out of it right now, but I'm very proud when I, when I go
to where I work in the neighborhood that I'm assigned, I'm very proud of that neighborhood.
I'm proud to be able to help those people.
And you know, I, my whole job is I'm, we're there to help them when they can't help themselves.
And I hear people jokingly say a lot of the times all they need is an adult.
Well, that's you're who they look up to.
I mean, right, wrong or indifferent grown ass man, not being able to do his own thing
or a, you know, somebody that's so sick, they don't know what else to do.
That's just what it is.
It sucks.
Sometimes you're tired and you don't want to do it, but whatever.
I take a lot of pride in being able to be the, I like being the answer.
If that makes sense, maybe that's the right way to, I don't know.
I think it's the first time I've said it that way, but I like to be the answer.
You know, I take a lot of pride in being able to work there.
And I think, you know, people have their own opinions of the department and what, you know,
all those things, but you know, I've been there 17 years and that's my department.
That's where I work.
Those are the people I serve and those are the people that I help.
And you know, I take a lot of pride in it, even if it's not in such a great period of
time right now, you know, and I think when you have that attachment and you care, you
don't have to live there and you don't have to be from the community to give a shit.
You just have to care.
And I think sometimes that can be lost.
I think people look at it as, you know, they come down to a certain county in Maryland
and they're like, I want to go to fires.
Well, this county goes to a lot of fires.
Let's go there.
Well, that's good.
But that's when people don't have that connection.
Whereas if you're there as a career and you're there 15, 20, 25 years, you know, you may
not be from the community, but this is your community.
And that's kind of the way I look at it.
I mean, there's a lot of cultural things that I was never exposed to until I started working
in my department.
And you know, some people found it funny when I tried different cultural things and, you
know, I was a fish out of water from a lot of them.
And you know, it made me appreciate it more because you understand where they're coming
from.
You understand the cultural differences and how different people and different societies
melt into a community and that you have to know what they expect.
So when you go to answer that call to help them, you can do your best to respect those
things.
Like there's a certain community you have to take your shoes off.
There's communities where women do, men are not allowed to talk to women.
They talk to the husband.
They talk to the son.
That's just the way it is.
And if you don't understand, walk in there and understand that and respect that, it can
create problems.
And when you have that connection of I work here, I've been here for 10 years, 15 years,
whatever, I know this section of the neighborhood is this way and you do it from the from Jump
Street.
That's pride in it.
That's, you know, having that connection in that community that you work, even though
you don't really live there.
When you're talking about all this, I'm thinking about a couple of places where I worked.
So Anaheim, I was at Station One for most of my career.
In Orange County, I was at Station 70 for most of my career at that point.
And you know, you start to know the people, you know, the first you, you know, the roads,
you know, the target hazards, you know, like, for example, Anaheim, there was this mad professor
and he would test all these these products.
So I'm making a new umbrella.
I want to see, will it last for five years?
And he had machines and chemicals and stuff that could do that.
But he also had a young lady living in this factory, you know, and there was bees in the
back and you know what I mean?
So you're only going to know that if you actually work there and do fire inspections and really
invested.
Yeah.
And so when I hear, oh, they're moving people around, they're moving people, you know, to
break up the crews and all that stuff.
I think that is the fucking worst idea in the fire service to move people for the sake
of moving people, because you do build up such a rapport and you know that this is a
Muslim community.
So you're not, you know, you've got to be careful on if you're transporting who's in
the back and what patient contact looks like.
And you've got this community where we've got people that actually speak this language
is going to help here.
You know, we've got a lot of Haitians in Orlando and I speak French somewhat, you know, so
I was able to help a lot of those.
So what is your perspective of that?
Because to me, there's so much value in embedding a crew in an area.
Yeah, no, definitely.
And I think the biggest thing you need to embed in them as well, because sometimes those
movements are going to be out of your control, right?
It's just, it is what it is.
It's kind of, unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast.
But I think when you, the biggest thing to embed before any of that, those scenarios
are, you know, for me, and I mean, kind of speaking for you a little bit as well, because
you worked at Anaheim, I'm a professional firefighter.
Put me where you need me to.
I don't care.
Whatever.
I'm going to do my job.
I'm going to do it the right way.
And if I'm in this scenario where there's a lot of people speaking French, am I going
to learn French?
Probably not.
Am I going to learn the cultural nuances and knowing, you know, the likelihood of young
kids knowing how to speak English and French?
Yes.
Am I going to walk in with the correct body language attitude, a nice smile, good morning,
good morning, and behavior and using that professional firefighter mentality of adapting,
overcome and using my resources and being open-minded, regardless of how tired I am
or how many calls we've had to know to look for those kids.
Hey, little Billy, do you speak English?
Yes, I speak English.
Does your mom only speak French?
Yes.
Can you talk to her in French for me?
Ask her X, Y, and Z. And that's your link.
Hey, you walk in, you read the room.
There's a female and the husband comes to you and steps between you and her and she
starts talking to you and you say, can I ask her a question?
He says, no.
Professional firefighter, adapt.
Okay.
Well, we can't help her if I can't talk to her.
If we can't get any information out of her, it's going to be hard to help her.
Can you at least ask her X, Y, and Z?
Or you can even walk into a situation where they have immediate attitude, don't want you
to be there.
Okay.
They're being very conflictive and they don't let you do anything.
You got to deescalate that situation.
You're a professional firefighter and you have to make the situation work.
It doesn't matter if you don't like the card you're dealt or the card that you're dealt,
it's not fun to deal with.
And I think that's where you start with it is understanding and having that mentality
of, I'm a professional firefighter.
I'm going to make this work, whether I like it or not, whether I have all the best scenario
or not, and I have all the tools in my toolboxes or not.
I may or may not have them.
And when you have that mentality, you can learn how to work through those scenarios
and those cultures.
You can learn the strengths and weaknesses of those you work with and work around every
day.
You know the five guys, the four guys you work with.
You know their strengths and weaknesses.
They know your strengths and weaknesses.
And you figure out ways to balance each other out to where as a team you're successful.
And when you take that mentality and that style, no matter where you put it, as long
as you have like-minded individuals, which I am beyond lucky to have on my shift, you
put us anywhere, we're going to figure it out and adapt.
And I think that's the whole point.
So at the individual level, if you have the mentality of, I'm a professional firefighter,
I'm going to be open-minded.
I'm going to do my best.
Even if they move you around, and even if the guys you work with may or may not be on
the same mental space, maybe your actions can influence them as well.
But ultimately, I think when you default to professionalism and you default to being adaptable
and you default to having the mindset that I talked about, I think that's going to give
you your best scenario and your best chance in the event that they just move people just
to move people.
I mean, I don't agree with moving just to move.
I don't agree with shaking up commands and battalions and shifts just to do it.
I think if anyone that's spent any time in the field not sitting behind a desk will understand
why if you have crews that have a good thing going for themselves, you leave it alone.
Because when you leave them alone, they can make you look good.
They can make your life better and they can make your job easier as a manager and as a
chief, or not a manager, as management.
Because what the public will see is good stuff.
So that makes you look good.
And even probably will make your life easier because now you're not continuously having
to watch over crews that don't know what they're doing, can't jive, they don't mix, and they
don't have the ability to have that level of service delivery.
Absolutely.
So you enter the career, the professional career fire service.
Obviously, we're almost two hours now.
So I'm not going to dive deeply into that.
But what I do want to take away when I was listening to you talking about, you know,
your leadership journey, and obviously you have tip of the spear, excuse me, tip of the
spear leadership going now, I was struck by, I would argue, an essential part of anyone
who stands up and talks leadership.
There's a lot of people that yap on social media, you know, and some of them can't even
own their own fitness, for example.
So when you're up there telling me about, you know, leadership, you need to do this,
it's like, well, let's start in the fridge.
Come back to me when you figure that out.
But you know, this the humility.
It's the fact that, you know, I have I have made all these failures and I've navigated
some of these hurdles and had the humility to reassess and figure out and try and grow
from that.
And someone that really stands out in my mind is Navy SEAL Jason Redman.
He lost an eye in this massive, you know, horrendous firefight where he was almost killed.
And I believe some of his men were killed.
But so you start his book and you're, oh, it's going to be about combat and all this
stuff.
He barely mentions that.
What he talks about is his epic failures as a leader.
And then when you look at them, they're not even that epic, really.
But the humility to have such a powerful story that you could kind of go down that road and
talk about leadership and overcoming the physical and emotional elements of his of his wounds
or his that be wounds.
Yeah, his wounds, isn't it?
Yeah, because I know you don't call them injuries in the military, but it's not.
I mean, this man is so down to earth and so humble and a true leader because he made mistakes
when he was a young leader, as we all do.
So walk me through, you know, kind of overview of your fire service journey.
You mentioned obviously the alcohol as well, so it can include personal.
But you know, what were the lows that ultimately resulted in a growth in your own leadership
and then the desire to actually spread some of the lessons that you've learned and try
and help others in the fire service?
Yeah.
So I think backing up to the book a little bit, I think, Matt, the whole point behind
that book, I haven't read the book.
I know who you're talking about, and I've listened to him on a few different podcasts
and some other stuff that he's done.
And I think it's a matter of what your message is.
And why you're doing what you're doing.
So I think especially social media and you talked about people talking about leadership,
but they can't figure out what's in the fridge.
It's kind of funny to me the way you said that, because I know what you're getting at.
And it's kind of like, well, wait a minute, if you can't take care of yourself, how are
you going to take care of anybody else?
Right.
That's the biggest thing.
I think people find themselves trying to sell a product or push a product, but not understand
what the message is.
And I think when you stand up and you talk about leadership, I hear a lot of people saying,
you should do this, you should do that.
This is what this is.
This is what that is.
And then they start quoting books and they start quoting podcasts and they start quoting
all these things.
All of those things are their perspectives, their experiences.
Their experience isn't going to be your experience.
James can be the brand new lieutenant today on engine one in Anaheim, go through 10 years.
And I could be the new lieutenant on engine two in Anaheim and go through 10 years and
we will be nowhere near each other.
And experience calls, people, interactions, our personal life, my wife left me, your wife
left you.
We're both still married.
Neither one of us got married, but we got kids without marriages and baby mamas and all
that crap.
I think it's all, they're all going to be different.
Oh, everything's going to be set completely different.
And when you have a tone of a book that says leadership is this, leadership is that, this
is this, this is that, and they're niche into military, it's probably going to be relatable
for the military.
Military is similar to the fire department when it comes to the human interaction, when
it comes to humanity, when it comes to how people interact with each other and people
handle stress and death or not death, stress and failure.
When you put off the message of, I'm trying to think how to say this.
When you put off your perspective of this is what I did, I think you will gain more
traction.
I think these are my, this is my experience.
This is the stuff that I've been through.
And when you do that and you're sincere with yourself of what your message is, I think
the audience that you want will connect if they're relatable.
So Jaco is a great one.
I think Jaco hits a lot of humanity stuff, but he's extremely niche into military and
Navy SEAL stuff, which is good for military guys.
May not be great for us in the fire department.
It might, it might not.
But I feel like your experience of what you talk about and how you talk about it will
be your currency for relatability and for people wanting to follow you.
So what do I mean by that?
If I sit here and I talk to you as a guy, I was 17 years as a career firefighter, 10
years of being an officer and I've never been assigned to an office.
I've only worked in the field.
It's going to be much different than a guy that's a chief writing about being a fire
officer in 30 years of his experience and then you read about the guy and he's only
worked in an office or he works in some small fire department, 300 dudes and they don't
go to very many fire, like that kind of stuff.
Like you know who they are.
They're writers and publishers, which is great.
There's nothing wrong with that, but the masses of the fire service, I think are looking for
people that are just like them.
Like who's a regular guy?
Who's a guy that doesn't work in a fire department that runs a million calls a year and a hundred
fires a week?
Like I'm from the Midwest.
That's not going to work.
Like guys from the Midwest aren't going to look for metropolitan fire departments.
They're not because it doesn't apply to them.
Is it cool to read?
Is it very, very good?
It's fantastic and those writers are absolutely amazing.
I'm not saying they're not, but you know, do you really think a guy from Wyoming is
going to want to read about the New York City fire department and how they do stand pipe
operations?
Maybe not because it might not apply to them.
Would a guy from Philadelphia read a book from New York City?
No, because they have their own thing, right?
They're not.
When you dive into leadership and you're like, I am a company level dude.
I've worked on a fire truck.
This is what I do every day.
Any guy that rides a fire truck and is a company level officer, no matter where he is or she
is, is that dude like, oh yeah, I don't.
I mean, I'm not saying tactics aren't important, but yeah, I know what it feels like to blow
an address and completely miss a fire because I made the mistake and now my entire crew
is pissed off at me because I fucked it up for all of us.
There's a lot of officers out there, no matter where they work, how great they are, how many
followers they have on social media in their business or they have sites.
It doesn't matter.
Any officer with a decent amount of time on that's really fucked it up is going to know
exactly what that feels like.
Right?
I mean, that's ultimately what it is.
I think, so like I said, I haven't read that book from Jason Redman.
I think I know what you're talking about, but I've seen him talk.
I know how he carries himself and I think that's where people create that attraction
is that relatability.
In the career side, oh God, excuse me.
I got in over my head very quickly and never really fully appreciated what I got myself
into.
I walked in, I was 28 when I got promoted.
So I was in my twenties.
I just got married.
I just had a kid.
Nope, didn't have the kid yet.
Wife was super pregnant, all that.
And I walked in thinking, well, I'm an officer now and we work here.
You have to listen to me and everything I say is going to go.
So I'm going to show up.
I'm not going to change how I act.
I'm not going to change my demeanor.
I'm going to show up.
I'm going to be friendly with everybody.
I'm going to try and be cool.
I'm going to laugh and joke.
I'm going to make fun of the rookie.
I'm going to tease the rookie and I want to go to fires.
Boy was I wrong.
That is the absolute dumbest thing I ever did in my entire career and I can't believe
it.
And I don't even know why I thought that way.
We had a very brief OCS and we did nothing on leadership.
Officer candidate school was literally the link between being a firefighter and an officer.
So admin discipline, all that stuff.
So in my department, you have to be a paramedic to promote.
So I was on a medic unit for just under a year when I hit OCS that I went acting on
day work.
Day work is 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
You're off on holidays and weekends.
So I walk in the firehouse and there's a young guy there that's been in that firehouse longer
than I've been there.
He's been in that firehouse.
I think at that point was like three years.
So he's the only guy that's really consistently there.
And then there's a rookie and I walk in and I'm like three year dude.
Fuck you know nothing.
Instead of looking at him as an asset and the the go to guy because he's been there
for three years.
He's very sharp.
He's very intelligent.
And even to this day, he is incredibly sharp and incredibly intelligent and it's a waste
opportunity of mine to not appreciate him and appreciate what he had to bring to the
table.
So fast forward.
You know I was there just under two years before I moved to a shift workstation.
And you know we had a lot of problems.
There was a lot of oil and water and there was an opportunity there that I missed out
on where I could feel the tension and I pulled in the office.
I'm like look man like what's up.
And we had a two hour talk after we got off work and it was a great conversation.
It's like look man I don't like this this this and this and I wrote everything down
and I looked at him.
I mean fuck him.
You know dumbest thing in the world.
I don't know why I did that.
And looking back on it, I'm glad I did it only because I learned the lesson later.
Right.
Rather than oh okay I guess you're right.
And then changing everything and then like just going along to get along.
Right.
So I hate the fact that I blew him off but I'm kind of glad the fact that I fell flat
on my face and I'll get into why in a second.
So fast forward.
There's just more and more and more tension and then there's kind of like to the point
where it's like man F this dude I'm transferring.
I'm out.
I can't deal with him anymore.
And so I remember talking to another officer that's a friend of mine that I was his I was
a firefighter for him when he was a lieutenant and now we're peers rank wise not time wise
but rank wise.
And I was like yeah man I had this problem with this dude and blah blah blah.
I was like well did you ever think maybe you're a piece of shit and you suck and you're the
problem and I'm like no.
He is all right well then tell me why you're correct and why he's wrong.
Okay.
Yeah.
He's like no.
He's like look man people talk and you.
You suck.
You're doing shitty and you need to really get your shit together.
And our department had never had formal leadership training.
Like there is no structure there is no class.
There is no leadership 101 for X Y and Z fire department.
There's no such thing as that unfortunately.
And so I go into take leadership under fire and I walk in day one and guess who's there.
This guy and I remember saying something to him and he's like yeah you suck.
You didn't listen and it seemed great when we had that chat and then you did absolutely
nothing you said you were going to do and you had an attitude.
So quite frankly I don't really give a shit what you have to say.
That was like a sucker punch right in the frickin teeth.
Like Jesus what the fuck.
So I went through leadership under fire.
I realized had a ton of shit to work on and I sucked at everything I did.
I was terrible.
I really was.
And I think I got stressed out over it so I started drinking more had a little come
to Jesus talk with my wife and it was kind of one of those.
So like either you fix this or we're going to have an issue.
And it was I'm not going to get into what she said but it was basically an ultimatum
and that was kind of the end of it.
I got it fixed kind of worked through it and move forward and I just and I got put in a
new station.
I thought I knew what I was doing and again I was wrong and I guess I realized not wrong
but I thought I had the leadership thing figured out what I realized was I'm just inexperienced
and I was screwing up a ton of stuff and everything that could go wrong went wrong.
Like I was just everything I was doing was just not firing.
It wasn't jive and nothing was working.
And then so I didn't know what to do.
And I think I would with the biggest impact on me was the leadership under fire class
because I revisited a lot of the curriculum and then I started understanding why how important
the reading list was.
And I don't think I appreciated that in the moment of the class.
So then I started reading.
I started listening to podcasts and I started actually really just years of trial and error.
Like let me go try this.
All right.
Well that blew up my face.
That didn't work.
Let me try that.
All right.
Well that worked.
And then it got to the point where so we have a bid system.
So like it's all given out by seniority.
So like if you want to work at engine one on a shift and five people bid but you have
the most seniority you go to a shift at engine one.
So my entire shift left.
What does that say?
So that's a huge kick in the gut as well.
So then I really started diving into I need that I need to fix things.
And sure enough a fire happened and I don't I really don't want to get into it too much
just because of the details.
But and we'll talk after about that one because I do want to actually kind of talk to that
one talk to you about that one.
But the most impactful and worst fire of my entire career happened.
And then I mean I hit rock bottom with a lot of things.
And I think it all kind of clicked with fuck it.
I can only head up.
I can only go up from here.
I got a new shift like more guys came like you know they replaced them with different
guys and you know trial and error.
I got hammered for some stuff that I did.
I did a lot of stupid things.
I made a lot of a lot of mistakes and you know the group of people the group of individuals
that I worked with would hammer you but then would also provide advice or like you know
yeah you fucked this up.
Did you ever think about that?
And instead of having an ego and saying fuck you or whatever I actually stopped and I thought
about it.
And then every mistake that I made I stopped and focused on it.
Okay I did A B and C. What was wrong why was it wrong?
Okay now how would I fix this next time?
And then I would just write a little note like I have a I don't have my phone with me
but on my phone I'll have a little fire log a little picture what I did right what I did
wrong and then I would revisit it.
And I started doing that over time or I made a dumb mistake and somebody's like why don't
you try this?
Okay firefighter not that I'm not saying you know an officer is better than firefighter
but the point I'm making is listening to your guys.
A firefighter says lieutenant you really suck on the area you should make your own maps.
I had an officer that tried that and said me being like whatever dude I went and made
maps from my first through fourth alarm box district.
I drew little notes I have little highlights in there to separate the streets that I continuously
screwed up.
I have running routes from on every map page for all four first dues from the firehouse
because I was screwing them up at three o'clock in the morning when I was exhausted and the
guys driving did a great job.
However there comes a point where they're going to need help as well.
So yeah they can get you the majority the way there but the fine minute needs to be
me because I have a map in my face and a cell phone as a resource.
There should be no reason it doesn't work right.
You should be able to get there the right way every time and then paying attention knowing
the knowing the right things.
So I did it.
Fast forward a couple years that person came to me one day and was like you know it was
kind of it is kind of nice when you you know you go through a frustrating moment with you
as an officer and you know you got a suggestion and then watching you every day we laugh and
joke and fuck with you and bust your balls about those dumb maps you carry every day.
But he goes but looking back on it's kind of nice that you listen to it because there's
a lot of times where those maps save my ass and I made sure to tell that guy you know
thank God you told me to make these maps because I think I would have fucked this up if I didn't
have this map here and we didn't run this.
I didn't make this note to have it saved and I flipped to the map page and I remembered
exactly what we were running with the exact address and what the nuances for that address
and then a ton of small victories.
So the most impactful fire of my career and just for the sake of names Smith Street right
and that's not the real name of the street anyone's listening to this who knows me they
know what that street is Smith Street was a terrible fire.
Everything that went wrong could go wrong.
Everything was fucked up from the jump.
It was just absolutely terrible and embarrassing.
Ten houses down we'll call it a quarter mile two blocks was another fire on Smith Street
and we walked the fucking dog on that fire and that fire went fantastic and my guys did
freaking good and it was awesome and it was a good fire to boot and so that's Smith Street
good Smith Street bad and that's now a joke as well but I'm laughing at these jokes right
and it just it's re-emphasizing those scenarios and what I've learned is over time as those
things go on they're going to know your weaknesses and your strengths and I think when you start
making that turn to the right way I know you're half asleep at three in the morning make sure
you turn to page four it's going to be in the middle.
Thank you.
I just you just kind of grin and say thank you or my personal favorite was we ran a fire
and again three o'clock in the morning and I'm like the guy knew where he was going and
I didn't really say anything I don't even know why I got my gear on I just sat there
I was half asleep we got our app we absolutely got crushed that shift and we turn the corner
and I'm like hey you're going to lay out here we're going to do this I want you to pull
past we're going to pull a line it's going to be the it's going to be the it's a duplex
can be the one on the left we're going to go through the front door let me do a 360
because they're saying it's in the basement.
So the joke was oh this is where nasty woke up like you know what I mean but it's I don't
know man I don't really know how to put that into words but you know once you make that
turn and you start having those successes you're it's it's the human interaction it's
it's it's the rapport that you're building it's it's the mutual respect it's it's the
humility it's knowing you're not going to be right all the time it's knowing you're
going to piss people off but you're not going to sit there like a puppy dog because you
pissed them off you get you piss them off you screw up they're going to be mad at you
and you just move on you do the right thing all the time you treat them correctly you
treat them with respect and vice versa as the officer you're able to go they're saying
we want it we're going to do a B and C no you're not doing a B and C you're doing D
E at ABC yeah D E I just forgot the other we're not doing ABC we're doing XYZ they want
that as well so when you have that ability to do all those things I believe you would
be a successful leader because you're earning their respect over time trust is trust it
takes time don't rush it so all these things that I brought up all this big whirlwind what
I've learned is when I did this when I did this podcast I actually I got hurt at work
I herniated two discs in my neck and I was off for like four or five shifts and some
other stuff some personal stuff happened a major personal life event and I had time where
I was just I wasn't alone but like my wife went to work kid went to school and I'm at
home like I'm off work I remember my routines fucked up like I'm all by myself and you know
I was like I'm gonna you know I was taught I had therapists a therapist and she was just
kind of like you know why don't you write just write about something that you like can
be anything in the world whatever you want I don't give a shit just write writing writing
writing writing what I'm finding out was I started writing about leadership and the mistakes
that I made what I've learned the good things the bad things all those things and everything
in between and because I was bored I'm like let me just start an Instagram so I threw
a bunch of stuff up I don't even remember how to put the spirit leaders I think it's
popped up in my head I think I think I was what I don't remember the name of the movie
I was watching a movie and they were joking around about they were gonna be the first
ones to do something I don't remember what it was and they're like yeah you're the tip
of the sword you're the first ones are like no tip of the spear is that not the sword
is the tip of the I was like it's kind of ironic that that popped up in this this movie
popped up it's like hmm tip of the spear leadership yeah it's cool so I literally just
I started it through a bunch of pictures up I started brain dumping like just random things
that I would think I would put into voice text voice to text on my phone like and I
even do that now I'll read something or you know whatever like while we were talking I've
been writing stuff down like I might even I don't know something that it might kick
my memory off but if I have something an idea that just randomly pops in my head I'll stop
what I'm doing I'll do a voice to text I'll save it I'll come back later and that's what
I've always done and so I started posting those and it started gaining traction and
it blew up really fast unexpectedly and it was it was very interesting and then I started
using it as a tool to develop my leadership I think it went well I think there's some
things that didn't go that great but I talked to all these guys about leadership and their
experiences and then I get to go take ideas and things and thoughts and I go to work and
I put them into practice some good or some things worked out some things didn't work
out then I had an event at work that I ended up getting suspended over that I think this
podcast this journey this situation and everything put me in the position to have the confidence
to know this is going to get be against policy it's going to be bad here's the right way
to do this because it's against policy I'm going to execute it and I have the confidence
because I know I'm right and that took me a long time to do that because I'll be honest
with you if this call if that scenario happened two years before I may not have done the same
thing if it would have happened and I never started my podcast at all and had the opportunity
to learn from other people and put things into play and do my best to be a better officer
with confidence and competence would I've been able to do it maybe not I don't know
but what I do know is I was in the position where I had the confidence the competence
and I knew the guys with me would support my decision because it's a decision that you
have to make at the street level from having experience in the street in the field as a
firefighter in the field as an officer in the field and I executed it and it blew up
I got suspended and everything kind of went the way it went administratively it is what
it is it's in the past administratively it didn't look good it wasn't right in their
eyes in reality morally ethically it was right and I know what I did was right and it was
kind of I don't see the precipice or the the the peak of my leadership because I don't
know if that's really happened yet or not I don't know but what I do know is that was
one of the biggest tests of my abilities as an officer unexpectedly that happened and
I executed it correctly I think regardless of what administration thinks regardless of
you know the public eye I think I I think I executed on that one the way it should have
been done on a moral level so it all interconnects interwebs I mean it's all there man it really
is and I know I was I know I just talked for a long time but you know that's kind of where
I'm at and that's kind of my whole point of all of this is I'm just a dude that rides
a fire truck I don't sit in an office I don't run to light duty I don't do any of that stuff
I just I go to work I use my leave I enjoy my leave I enjoy my days off and I enjoy my
swaps and I'm gonna throw a sick grenade to take a day off I'm gonna do it and you know
I mean I'm gonna follow departmental policy but you know I just that's kind of where I'm
at and I think that's why I've gained success as an officer more so than the podcast thing
is because you know ultimately it's all a matter of just doing the job and executing
it correctly and I think that comes from the human element and from continuous learning
continuous training and never stopping the training and always evolving from your last
mistake or your last triumph for the better and I think you know going back to this Jason
Jason Redman guy and the leadership books and and all those things I talked about in
the beginning the experiences are always going to be different because my experiences will
never be yours so when you don't get caught up in what they do in x-city or x-department
and you look at it at the personal level I think that's where you get the biggest success
and why people like that are so successful with the everyday human is because it's the
human level at that at that that personal level of you as a human being trying to lead
others having the humility and truly giving a shit about those under your command and
and I think when you speak to you speak to it especially like with my podcast and my
and social medias I look at it as this is a lesson that I learned and I just put it
out there I'm not trying to sell you a book I'm not trying to sell you a t-shirt I'm not
trying to sell you an ideology I don't care about the NFPA I don't give a shit about how
you force your doors keep yourself prepared and ready to do your job and you do your job
when it's needed and be relayed reliable and be present that's all I care about ever you
do it I don't give a shit that's your job you do it yourself but I do think at that
personal level I think that's where the success comes from you know I think you know this
is my story this is how I work this is how my brain works does it relate to you maybe
I think it does a lot of people are really relatable to what I put off because even though
we don't work in the same department you know how it feels to be an officer and like I said
before what it feels like to blow that address there's no one to blame but you and it's you
and when you suck you need to own it and I sucked bad and I just take every day and call
by call and learn that's all I do man.
Beautiful well again I think your humility and your transparency is what people need
to hear and when I wrote my book it was exactly the same reason as what you're talking about
now I wasn't at the World Trade I wasn't at the Vegas shoot and I wasn't at Grenfell
fire in London I wanted to write for the other 99.9% of the fire service and I'm not you
know those are all powerful stories need to be told but what about the average person
we all see horrible stuff we all experience sleep deprivation we all have sometimes toxicity
at work you know let's talk about the average person and the human experience in uniform
so it sounds like you know a valuable perspective so for people listening where can they find
you on social media and then what about the podcast.
So if you search tip of the spear leadership it's going to come right up on Instagram you
can search Michael nasty on LinkedIn tip the spear leadership on Facebook will come to
my group it's a private group because I have a lot of spammers and I don't have it but
it had a lot of spammers when I first started it so I had to change it to private just follow
and I'll you know obviously I'll accept it but yeah and then the podcast just search
tip of the spear leadership on any podcast platform that you listen to it should be it
should be on all of them but I have the most followers listener and everybody's on Spotify
and Apple so if you just search tip the spear leadership podcast it's going to come right
up there's only one that I know of I've never had anything else come up so that's the best
place to find me and I'm pretty good about answering Instagram Facebook and some of the
other stuff is kind of hard to follow like LinkedIn's hard to I don't know it's kind
of tough so I'm still trying to figure it out a year later but that's the best place
to find me.
Brilliant well I just want to say thank you so much I mean we've been all over the place
from lacrosse to leadership and everything in between but it's just been such a an important
conversation and like I said that that courageous transparency that humility I think is really
important as well because that's how you grab someone by the throat when you've made mistakes
and you own it and you even talk about the impact of those mistakes you know and how
it bled into to family life and almost threatened a marriage for example these are all invaluable
elements of the fire service conversation so I want to thank you so much for being so
generous with your time and coming on behind the shield podcast today.
No absolutely thank you for having me it was truly an honor and you know if I could say
one more thing before we go.
Please.
You know again like I said before don't ever don't ever underestimate your impact on anyone
else and I think the biggest impact you can have on other people besides how you treat
them that's a given is how you carry yourself and how you treat yourself so if you treat
yourself like shit you don't take care of yourself you don't eat where you're supposed
to you don't exercise you don't PT at work you don't do any of those things people are
going to see that and how are you going to take care of me if you can't take care of
you that's the most basic thing in the morning I had people I had somebody that I worked
with she is a grown adult and she could not show up in the correct uniform the most basic
thing you can do is get dressed in the morning and come to work on time and you can't do
that how can I trust you to do something that could kill you could kill me or could kill
other people so that's kind of it that's kind of the biggest thing I think when it comes
to that so I just wanted to say that before we left.