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338 of Behind the Shield podcast with their CEO 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,
veteran firefighter and the man behind Hard Knocks Sunday, Marcos Orozco.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the fire service,
the power of pursuing the right department for you, his powerful sobriety story,
the importance of firefighter fitness, the smoke diver program,
the smoke diver programs, his programming Hard Knocks hitters and so much more.
Now, before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on,
subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single 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 Marcos Orozco. Enjoy.
Well, Marcos, I want to start by saying welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Well, thanks. Thanks for having me, James. I really appreciate it, man.
I never in a million years thought I'd be on your podcast.
You're kind of a big deal. So just being on here means a lot and I'm super humble.
Thank you, man. Appreciate the opportunity.
It always makes me laugh when people say that because I'm literally just a firefighter
that's got a microphone. That's it. No different than anyone else.
Come on, man. You got heavy hitters on here like Jock on the big names, right?
So I'm just a nobody from nowhere.
So yeah, we all are, though, if you look at it, we all are.
All right. Well, then we're on planet Earth.
We're finding you this afternoon.
Yeah, I'm in Arvada, Colorado, just outside of Denver, Colorado today.
Brilliant. Well, I know there's a story how you got there and we'll get to that chronologically.
Let's start at the very beginning 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.
Sure. Yeah. So I was actually born in El Paso, Texas.
I have a younger brother who's two and a half years younger than me.
My parents got divorced when I was like four or five.
I ended up living with my dad.
So I grew up with my dad and my brother ended up living with my mom and he grew up with her.
And that's pretty much the gist of it.
My dad worked all kinds of jobs growing up.
He was born in Mexico.
So just being a hard worker and I know that's where I got the work ethic from is him.
He did all kinds of jobs, worked at a quality control
in a place that made like all the meats for all the pizza places that we all know about and everything.
And then he kind of just ventured out on his own with an architect building houses, custom houses.
And then he owned a business in Texas.
They have state inspection where they inspect your vehicles.
So he owns that still to this day.
And my mom was a veterinarian and then she was a professor at colleges teaching like microbiology
and that kind of stuff as well.
So brilliant.
My dad was a veterinarian, a veterinary surgeon.
Yeah. So I grew up around that myself.
Was your mom from overseas as well initially?
No, she was born in Texas also.
Yeah. So like my grandparents are from Mexico.
My great grandparents are from Mexico and then like my great, great, great grandparents
on both sides came from Spain.
I actually have a cool picture.
My great grandfather on my dad's side, he fought against Pancho Villa back in the day.
And I still have this picture and it's an old timey like, I don't know,
Model T car in the background and there's three guys and they have like the bullets across their chest
and around their waist and they got like the sombreros and he's got crazy mustache.
And basically they had stolen the vehicle from Pancho Villa that was loaded with guns and ammunition.
And all three of these guys are just bullets out and guns everywhere.
So it's pretty, pretty cool picture.
It sounds amazing.
What about your dad's immigration story?
I mean, I always say this is this nation was built on immigration.
Obviously, I'm from another country.
Initially, everyone on this show obviously has roots in different places if they go far enough back.
But immigration has become kind of a dirty word, especially if you're talking about Mexico,
the border, people spit that term out.
But this country is full of people from that country that are literally some of the backbones of this nation.
So what was your dad's immigration story and how was he received early on?
I think like anything, I mean, I kind of interviewed him a few years back, right,
and just kind of wanted to hear his story of things.
And, you know, obviously he met resistance, right?
You know, being from Mexico and on all that stuff.
But, you know, he did it the right way, right?
He came over, he learned English, right?
And he became a U.S. citizen, right?
And just just hard work.
And he let pretty much his work speak for itself.
But like anything, man, I mean, we we experience racism so much.
So I can't even imagine being born in 49 and growing up in that, you know,
but obviously he overcame it and did well and didn't doesn't let it bother him.
What do you think is the kind of backstory, the root of that racism to this day
when most of us were born into a generation where we weren't indoctrinated with hate
or we shouldn't have been indoctrinated with hate, maybe some of the chapters further back?
Oh, man, that's a deep question, James.
Where does it come from?
I honestly don't know.
Maybe fear of the unknown, not knowing about that culture of those people, right?
And like you said earlier, like, I mean, you know, it's a stereotype, whatever.
Mexicans are not known to be lazy, right?
We're hard, hard ass workers, right?
You take us out of this country, things are going to fall apart.
But I don't know where it comes from. And it's kind of sad, right? Not kind of.
It is sad. And you think it would be getting better as we're moving further and further along.
But I feel like just the way this country is right now, everything is so divisive, right?
If we can split people up and put them against each other.
I feel like it's it's easier for them to take over.
And I don't know what that means exactly.
And I'm not trying to get them to take over.
I don't know what that means exactly. And I'm not trying to get all like flat earth crazy or anything like that.
Or conspiracy theories or anything like that.
But, you know, it's around us still to this day, for sure.
I just had a guest on Darrell and Mon Jenkins, who he if you have watched the movie Skin,
he was the black guy that helped one of the neo-Nazis escape that kind of gang life and get onto a normal life.
And it was such an interesting conversation with him.
And he thinks obviously a little bit different than me in certain areas.
However, I asked him at the end, you know, because we talked about this divisiveness,
this deliberate kind of pigeonholing of people and setting them against each other.
And I said, how bad is racism actually in this country?
And he goes, it's nowhere near what people think.
And the problem is, is that we keep giving the assholes a fucking microphone and allowing them to project like they talk for everyone.
And the sooner that we can kind of take that back and stop these extremists having such a loud voice,
the sooner we'll realize that we're actually a lot more connected than we think.
Yeah, I believe that. You know, it's always the negative ones that are loudest, right?
Smallest percentage of the ones that are the loudest and they get all the air timer on the news.
And plus, you know, that's what sells, right?
Chaos and disgruntledness sells on the media.
So that's a whole other thing, right?
Yeah, I don't understand how four assholes arguing on a television station keeps you glued to the screen personally.
But you do.
I don't even watch the news.
The only time the news is on is at the fire station and that's literally it.
Absolutely. All right.
Well, then you obviously, you know, fitness is such a nucleus of your world now.
When you were in the school age, what were you playing and doing as far as sports and exercise?
Yeah, so I grew up in Texas and anybody that knows anything about Texas, football is king, right?
My dad wouldn't let me play football in like Peewee League.
So he said once you get into middle school, you could start.
So I started seventh grade.
So I played football, played baseball and I ran track and that was throughout high school, right?
And then I ended up kind of switching gears and I just went only track and I ran track for my freshman year at Arizona State also.
I always ask people that have done a multitude of sports, which by the way, I mean, we'll get into ex-phys in a little while.
But, you know, you listen to all the great coaches now, the multi-sport athlete is the way that you build a well-rounded healthy student athlete, not that specialization.
When you look back now, what elements of the team sports and what elements of the individual sports factored into you being successful in the fire service?
I mean, obviously playing in team sports is huge, right?
In fire service, just learn how to get along with people from all sorts of walks of life, right?
And just learning how to play as a team, as a unit, right?
And that just translates right over to the fire service perfectly, right?
Because we have a bunch of people from all different kinds of backgrounds and different life experiences and we have to learn how to get along with them and play well in our sandbox, right?
To do what we want to do and which is accomplish the goal and put the fire out or win the game or whatever it is, right?
So that was huge integral for me as far as that goes.
And as far as like the individual sport, I think that's definitely helped me with building that mental fortitude that I so rely on now
because I pretty much work out 99% of the time by myself in my garage, no music, just me and my thoughts.
Yeah, we're on shift. We try to work out together and all that stuff or we'll get together, whatever.
But most of the time I'm working out by myself.
So I think that individualized sport helped me with that mental fortitude for sure.
I watched my son run the mile that for the last two years in track.
And, you know, when I was looking at what I was doing at the time, which is jujitsu.
And when you're doing martial arts and we talk about this before you hit record, your motivator is the other person trying to murder you.
So, you know what I mean?
It's pretty apparent. But when you're just running and I always told my son how proud I was of him because he got to a five minute mile in those two years.
I'm like, I know how loud that voice is. It just says slow down.
We don't need to run as fast. I'm tired. My legs hurt. My lungs hurt.
And so, like you said, to create that resilience to push through it, even though everything about your physiology is telling you to stop.
That's a different kind of motivation than me trying to stop someone choking me out, for example.
Yeah, for sure. And you have like, you know, like motivation, I always say, is fickle, right?
It comes and goes. You have to rely on that discipline, right?
What do you want to accomplish? You're going to have to sacrifice what you want now for what you want later, right?
And I think that individualized stuff helps with that, right?
Because at any point you could quit. If I'm working out by myself, I could quit.
If you're running a mile, you could quit at any point. Doesn't matter, right?
But just being disciplined and just, all right, this is what I set out to do.
That's what I'm going to do for sure.
I remember getting laughed at in the YMCA here in Ocala doing a CrossFit and I'd worked out with my crew in California.
That's who introduced me to it.
But then I come over to Florida and no one knows what CrossFit is.
And so these people are just looking at me like I'm a fucking lunatic.
But, you know, that was a beautiful thing as you, you were your own mate of motivator.
Years later, I went to an actual gym and then all I got to do is show up and everyone around me is working hard.
And the coach is, you know, screaming at you. And that's a whole different ball game.
But when, like you said, when it's just you and a workout and no one would notice if you quit or missed a set, whatever it was,
that's a different kind of standard that you hold yourself.
Yeah. And like going back to Jiu-Jitsu every time knowing you're going to get choked out a thousand times, right?
Like nobody likes sucking at stuff and us definitely don't like sucking at stuff.
But the thing that keeps us coming back is how do I figure this out so I don't suck as bad? Right.
And that's what keeps coming back and keeps coming back with Jiu-Jitsu like we're talking about earlier.
Yeah. Get choked every single day by these nerd. I call them nerd assassins.
They look so unassuming. 150 pounds, whatever, you know, and they're just going to tune you up.
Yeah. Yeah. And that man ego inside is like, dude, that guy with the,
this is I know is high at the moment and he's got, you know, ginger hair down to his ass and he murders me every single time.
Shout out to my friend Ryan.
Oh, there we go. All right. Keep doing it, Ryan.
Well, then what about career aspirations? Again, in the school age, what were you dreaming of becoming back then?
Honestly, I wasn't even thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I think I was just so involved with sports.
I don't know. I didn't like I don't know what I thought I was going to become.
And I knew I wasn't going to become a professional athlete.
I don't think I was, I guess, realistic enough to realize that.
But I was just in the moment worried about sports. Right.
And I thought I maybe wanted to be a doctor.
And then when I went to college, like, oh, maybe I'll do a physical therapy thing because I've been working out since I was 12 years old.
My dad made me a deal because he had gym membership and he would take me and we'd play racquetball or whatever.
I really wanted a gym membership and I had all the cutouts of all these big time bodybuilders and all the workouts and stuff.
And he's like, well, I'll make you a deal. If you go every single day, I'll pay for it.
And then when I told you mentioned earlier, I interviewed him a while back and he's like, you literally went every day.
He goes, sometimes I would take you there and you'd ride your bike back.
Sometimes you would just ride your bike there, work out and ride your bike back.
And he's like, you never missed a day.
So, yeah, again, I thank my dad for that. Just that work ethic and that discipline.
Right. He made me a deal and I stuck to it.
So, you know, it's kind of crazy looking back now.
Absolutely. I know we're going to talk about addiction and sobriety.
So one of the things that's really kind of I've been educated on over the last seven plus years is the impact of our early life on some of our struggles.
Maybe, you know, when we're either in uniform or we're older, at least when you look back now with this different lens that you have,
were there elements of your upbringing you think that contributed to struggling later in life?
Yeah, for sure. Right. Parents getting divorced at four or five years old.
My mom still to this day hates my dad with a passion.
So that was not a good upbringing. Right. Splitting up siblings is never good.
Right. I don't want to get too into that.
But yeah, that for sure messed me up finding out now.
Right. Talking to people and getting talking to a counselor and stuff.
Yeah, for sure. And I'm sure at some point that triggered me into drinking how I was drinking for sure.
You know, but I don't I don't blame it. Everything on that.
I'm sure it was a contributing factor. I obviously had choices every time I chose a drink.
So I'll own up to that. Right. It wasn't anybody else's fault.
Yeah, I always say reasons, not excuses.
You know, that doesn't doesn't mean that you excuse what happened.
But at the same time, if you don't acknowledge that it was a contributing factor,
then that's actually a negative as well.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. And then bartending doesn't help either.
The whole another lifestyle.
Well, talk to me about the college first.
So you mentioned wanting to go into physical therapy.
Where did you find yourself? How far did you go on that journey?
So how I ended up at Arizona State because I grew up in Dallas, Fort Worth area.
I went to Graybond High School. I just want to get out of Texas.
You know, born and raised in Texas.
I just wanted to get out, just go see the world or whatever. Right.
My mom actually was living in Phoenix.
So I went to visit her in the summer, talked to the head coach there at track,
the track head coach, and we agreed, you know, did some stuff.
And he's like, all right, you can walk on and then depending on how you do, we'll give you a scholarship.
So that's how I ended up at Arizona State. Right.
And so I wanted to be a physical therapist.
So I thought I did end up graduating with a bachelor's degree in exercise science and kinesiology,
which was kind of leading me to that physical therapy path.
And once I graduated, I didn't want to go to three years of grad school.
And which is kind of funny hindsight now because I've gone away more schooling to become a fireman and all the classes and everything now.
But I want to change it for the world.
So that's how I ended up not going to PT school after I graduated.
I moved to South Florida in 2003 and was there for 20 years.
What was your experience with the application of what you learned in college to the actual world of coaching and conditioning?
I did exercise physiology, sorry, exercise science sports.
Let me start again. Sports science and fitness evaluation in university in London.
And then at UF here, I did exercise physiology.
And so I had two different establishments, two different kind of perspectives.
But what I personally found is it was uber academic and based pretty much on testing athletes in the lab.
So after four years, it really didn't help me at all when I became a coach or further my skills as an athlete.
What was your perspective?
Obviously, you've been an athlete to this date with the actual knowledge that you gained in that establishment and the application in the real world.
I agree with you 100 percent is I feel like there's a big disconnect, right?
With academics and then the practical side of stuff, 100 percent, right?
Yeah, you learn all like I mean, you go down to the cellular level.
You're learning about the Krebs cycle and, you know, ATP and all that's great.
Awesome. But how does that translate and how do you put that into practice on athletes?
Right. And then especially what we do being in the fire service, that's a whole different ballgame.
You could be the best strength and conditioning coach for NFL, but that doesn't translate to you being a good strength and conditioning coach for firemen or military or police or anything.
Right. So, yeah, I agree with you 100 percent.
Huge disconnect on that for sure.
Yeah. Bottom line.
So how did you find yourself in the world of bartending after you came out of school?
Well, I was bartending in school because I grew up waiting tables in high school and stuff like that.
And then once I was old enough, I wanted to be able to bartend because I didn't want to deal with food.
So I started bartending in college at Arizona State and just moved out to South Beach and then started bartending in South Beach.
And that's a whole another world. And that just wraps you in and the bright lights and South Beach 2003 is way different than it is now.
Way cooler back then. And it just gets roped up into that.
And like I say, it's a whole lifestyle, man. You got cash at your fingertips.
Oh, I blow this money sign. No big deal.
I'll make it tomorrow. And you just up all night, sleep all day, drinking before work, drinking out work, drinking after work.
You know, it was just the whole cyclical cycle of not conducive to being a productive human being.
Basically, I had a lot of fun, but, you know, it wasn't productive.
I'll never forget. I went and worked down there after fire school.
So I moved from Orlando down to South Florida.
My ex wanted to be a famous performer of some sort.
So she thought just move geographically and then she'll get discovered anyway, I digress.
But so I ended up getting hired by Hialeah.
But before I did, I worked for Boucher Brothers and they were the ones that put up all those blue umbrellas and sunbeds all the way down the beach.
There's one one company that I got kind of rumblings that maybe there was some organized stuff behind that whole thing.
Yeah, probably. But I remember, though, because now I'm working in the hotels as well.
So to me, the South Beach was such a facade like that ocean drive was beautiful.
You saw, you know, good looking people and expensive cars.
But once you're there for a while, like, you know, Washington smell like, you know, garbage, you know what I mean?
And then you find out a lot of these cars that actually rented from a rental place.
And so to me, the impression I got that it was very, very superficial and plastic.
What was your experience because you were actually there in a way more than I was?
Yeah, 100 percent. And, you know, you're on vacation.
You can pretend to be anything you want to be. Right.
So you're save up for the year and you go rent the Lambo for a day and you're taking pictures and driving it up and down ocean drive,
like you said, super, super materialistic and super fake South Beach.
Obviously. I mean, yeah. And it just got grunger and grunger as time went on.
And now it's it's so bad, like nobody wants to be in there.
You know, yeah. Traffic's a nightmare even getting there these days, too.
Yeah. Yeah. All right.
So then as you are bartending, was that when you found yourself kind of spiraling with the drinking as well?
Yeah. I mean, like I said, I was literally drinking every day before work, during work, after work,
on my days off with your bartender buddies and you go see your bartender and it's working your friends and yeah.
And it went on for a while. Even while I was in the fire service, I was drinking for a while in the fire service.
And it goes back to like I got a DUI in Arizona in college.
You know, back then, there's not again, not an excuse.
There's no Uber like it is today. If you get a DUI nowadays, I feel like you're just an idiot.
Right. There's Ubers and lifts and there's no reason for you to be driving.
But yeah, I got a DUI back in the day and that pretty much didn't even slow me down.
Like so I was started back on that path. And I mean, we can get into it whenever.
But yeah, I was basically back to drinking and driving and I had to make a decision at one point just to stop drinking.
Well, let's walk through your journey into the fire service then.
What made you aware of that profession? What made you think about that?
And then talk to me about your initial on ramp to your first department.
Sure. So growing up, my mom's best friend's husband was a fireman and they had a daughter that was about my age.
So we were always kind of hanging out in El Paso whenever we'd go there because both my grandparents lived in El Paso.
So we'd be there for Christmas, Thanksgiving every year.
So that was the first time I've seen anybody that was a fireman and you that was my first basically impact of that.
And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool, man. Yeah, but he shows up and everybody's happy.
Right. He's got a cool truck. And, you know, and then just growing up, you know, same same kind of cliche stuff.
You see firemen, everybody's happy, whatever. Right.
And that was my initial introduction to being a fireman.
But I didn't have a burning passion to be a fireman growing up or anything like that.
No family member was a fireman or anything.
And then just bartending in South Beach, like I said, I was bartending for probably three years in South Beach before I was like, man,
I need to do something with my life before I become that 40 something year old bartender at the club.
That's not cool. Right. So I just kind of started doing some research and I was like, you know, firemen.
You know, that was my my she with my buddies.
Dad was a fireman and it was cool. And, you know, they they usually look fit for the most part ish stuff like that.
So I kind of started looking into it. And in Florida, as you know, we have to put ourselves to the fire school,
pay for that ourselves and then go to EMT school ourselves. Then you're eligible to get hired.
Right. So I put an application to Miami Dade College Fire Academy and I got in.
So I went started there in 2006. I went part time because I was like,
I know I'm not going to be able to get up five days a week and be there early because I know you could fail out on demerits for being late.
And I was still bartending. So I was like, I'm going to go the part time route.
And during fire came, I would still bartend or go out Friday night, show up to Academy on Saturday, hung over.
So I was still like kind of start that down road spiral. Right.
Graduated Fire Academy. Some complications happen, too, because of my DUI in Arizona.
I couldn't test with my class. So I actually had to go to Ocala to test, which in Florida,
Ocala is the Florida State Fire College. I know, you know that.
But so I wasn't able to test my class. I had to go test by myself, which was a whole ordeal anyway.
And then graduated, got my cert for the state. And then I went to EMT school that fall,
what Miami Dade College EMT school. And I got hired.
I started paramedic school in January of 07 because in Florida, as you know,
everybody has to be a medic to get hired pretty much, not by choice.
And I got hired with my first department down in the Keys January of 08.
Yeah. And that's when basically as we all know, nobody was hiring in 08 for a while.
Like that was the so first place I applied, first place that hired me.
And then I was there for eight years.
When you were at Miami Dade, was Scott Disbrow, one of your instructors?
Yeah. So I always forget you worked at Hylia and then I remember it.
And I'm like, yeah, all my instructors were Hylia guys. Scott Disbrow was still talking to him.
I'd see him every once in a while when I was still teaching before I moved.
All the Hylia guys like Truncoso, Sherlock, all those Hylia guys.
Yeah. Scott's a good dude, man.
When we got hired and we know we're going to get to this, but, you know,
I was thinking about going to the smoke diver program.
I was just finally pulling the trigger.
I'd made it public just again for accountability, not that anyone gave a shit,
but just so I'd put out there and then I'd tear my meniscus and it's like,
and then I end up transitioning out and my why, my burning why that you need for that was gone.
But I was reflecting back. We were hired in a non-sirup program in Hylia.
But as you said, half the class, we had all our stuff.
The other half were people that was kind of like now, I guess they were.
Hylia specifically was struggling for applicants.
Miami-Dade wasn't because they paid twice as much.
So, you know, you can figure out why we had so few applicants.
But so while the non-sirups went through fire and EMT, they just beasted us on the draw ground.
And so when I look back now, it's like, you know,
and I'm going to sit down with Scott and Rick one day and talk about this,
but Mancinelli.
But I mean, it was literally like smoke divers.
We were in gear all day every day.
We PT'd in gear.
We did collapse mazes and the burns were so hot you could barely even kneel down,
you know, the radiant heat through your mask, your eyeballs were cooking.
They had this big chimney where they put freaking diesel and all kinds of shit.
It was, I look back now, probably not NFPA, 100%.
But, you know, it was interesting because that was my,
it wasn't even a class I went to.
That was my first apartment.
So they set that bar so high and they set the misery so high that when I reflect,
was it a smoke diver program?
No, but I think it was a drawn out version of the same thing.
They created a brutal, brutal experience and it spanned the Florida summer too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, those guys are, they used to do gangster stuff for sure.
Yeah, Rick Mancinelli was one of my lead instructors.
We're still friends to this day. He's awesome.
Yeah, I know he's retired.
So it's trying to, I probably just do it virtually now,
but I just want to get the two of them because yeah,
I think that was the only class that was mixed like that.
And yeah, they murdered us for three months straight.
All right. So talk to me about working in the Keys.
I know Key West specifically, the kind of lure around Florida was,
it was a beautiful place to work, but the pay was obviously terrible.
So it's kind of like a retiree spot.
Well, you know, you don't have to name the place,
but what was your experience down there as a firefighter in your particular department?
Yeah, so I got hired. It was in the middle of Keys.
I worked for the city marathon.
I'm not ashamed to say it.
I'm out of where I got hired and got my first opportunity.
So shout out to the marathon guys down there.
Yeah, so I got hired with a city marathon about halfway down the Keys
just before the seven mile bridge.
It was a one station department, four people took care of the city
and there was zero recruit school.
Like when I was there, it's hey, today's your first day.
Come on. And you're just going to on the job learning, right?
And the Keys is a whole different world.
I mean, you've been there, but for those that everybody's like,
oh my God, you're so lucky you're working in the Keys.
Yeah, it's beautiful to visit, but not to work at.
I always say the teeth and shoes are optional in the Keys.
Once you cross that bridge, you know, it's a whole different world to work there.
I mean, we had a lot of fun.
Luckily, I worked with a good crew and we were about training
and we did a lot of training.
I was able to take a bunch of classes.
We were tight with Monroe County training people.
So we got to burn a lot at their burn building.
And like you said, we're putting tires and like everything you're not supposed to do nowadays
and you can't do nowadays, right?
Burning as hot as we could and we're doing as much training as we could
and we're just trying to get by, right?
So I'm super thankful for that.
But it's just a whole different world down there.
Whole different world.
Have you seen the new Roadhouse film?
No. So it's set supposedly in the Keys and it's pretty funny.
Like this beach Roadhouse every single night.
These people are just fighting and everything and I'm like,
it doesn't seem to be the Keys that I remember.
You know what I mean?
It's not Compton.
It's a lot of very old people, you know, listening to Jimmy Buffett
and you know, trying to escape whatever it was further north.
Yeah. The good thing about working down there, man,
like I said, we were four people to the city.
It taught you how to do a lot of work for a good period of time before help arrived.
You had to do work for a long period of time before help arrived because help was far away.
So that was awesome.
So I, you know, we didn't get fires all the time,
but when we did they were usually pretty big and we're doing work for a while.
We had car crashes all the time.
So that was good training, right?
So yeah, I'm super thankful for that because we got to learn how to do work.
Like in Miami-Dade just we always joke they put the fire out because they have so many people that show up
and that exhaust brake puts the fire out, right?
We had to go to work.
So yeah, thankful for that.
How many did you ride on the rig?
Two and two.
Back then.
Really?
Yeah.
So if you want to like, yeah, two and two.
Yeah, I still I mean that that blows me away that we have any departments,
you know, in the 21st century with that kind of staffing.
If you've ever seen it's called Into the Fire,
I think it was a History Channel documentary,
but there's this one guy who I think it was like a mixed department.
So he I think was the full-time guy and then there were volunteers
and he ends up driving an aerial on his own to this apartment structure fire.
There's power lines all over him.
So he can't put the outriggers out and raise the aerial and he's hearing these thuds
and it's his mother throwing her children out the window as she's burning up.
And this guy, this was in the 80s and he's talking about this in early 2000s
and he's just weeping as he's talking about it.
You know what I mean?
So this, you know, one and two staffing on paper, that's all well and good.
But when it's your family in there, you know,
and they can't do the job because you've literally got two people all of a sudden,
you realize that money and currency are two very different things for sure.
Yeah. I mean, if you were like once they got the second station,
you had two people at one station with two rigs.
So like you said, if you're going to fire,
one person would drive the ambulance and one person would drive the fire truck
and then they park it or whatever it was, right?
So yeah, it's crazy.
What was the tax base like? Was it a wealthy area?
Yeah, I know at the same time, right?
There's tons of trailer parks and stuff and then there was like nice area.
So yes and no.
Yeah. I mean, it blows me away.
I've talked about this with people, you know, volunteer,
like if you're out in the middle of the boonies somewhere, I totally get it.
100% get it.
And obviously you need to have federal mutual aid,
but you know, a kind of all hands approach while the people are coming in
makes perfect sense.
But you look at the Northeast,
you've got affluent suburban neighborhoods that are still relying on volunteers
and it's just so backwards.
Yeah. Yeah.
We can go down that whole rabbit hole with that.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Well, what's your thoughts on that?
You know, like you said, like riding,
there's still places that ride three and two, right?
Two on the medic unit and three on the suppression unit, right?
It's insane.
I mean, it's I don't even know how to put it, but besides being insane,
it should be a minimum of four on every suppression unit and three on a medic unit.
We wrote three on the medic unit in South Florida
and that was night and day difference in two.
Obviously one more person.
I'm not even talking about medical calls.
I'm talking about fire calls, right?
You just go to work, right?
So it's just night and day and then how we're supposed to be fire based EMS, right?
And if you're not used to training or not used to running
and a medic unit as searching ahead of the line with a water can,
what are we doing, right?
We're just wasting valuable time.
So you want me to wait outside till the engine arrives and they pull a line,
then we can all go in together.
What if it's two, three, four minutes?
What if that's your family in there?
Then what, right?
So yeah, there's still places that run like that.
So we're, you know, we're trying to change stuff out here in the North area
and of Colorado and trying to implement that fire based EMS first
and let your guys run ahead of the ahead of the line.
Search ahead of the line with the water can.
You're good. Supposed to be thinking fireman, right?
Yeah, I'm not going to go in a basement if it's on fire with a water can.
I understand that, but I could control it.
I can confine it and I could still search the searchable space, right?
I remember a fire.
We were on the rescue in Hialeah and we think we almost like stumbled across it.
So the engine was still a few miles away.
And I forget the lieutenant's name now.
Big kind of burly angry dude with a giant bald head.
But he was stationed to back then.
But there was three of us.
There's a female firefighter and think she was still bunking up.
I think she maybe she was driving.
I forget. And so he and I went in and it was it was a can
and they used to put some dish detergent in there.
And again, bearing in mind, I'm a brand new firefighter.
So I'm not talking this is my hero story.
He was guiding me on what to do and where to hit it and everything.
But it was a fully involved kitchen, all the cabinets and everything
and that one can put out the whole room, stop the fire.
And then obviously we carried on the search and that was it.
And then the engine came and, you know, we walked out, gave him high five
and went back into service.
But it is amazing when you've actually used one on a real fire.
Just how effective they can be, like you said, to a point.
Right. Yeah. And seriously, like that water can is amazing.
Like you said, it could put out so much fire and you can do so much work.
My job when I was on that ambulance was to put the fire out to shut down the engine.
My job. That was my mission.
I want to put that fire and ruin their ruin their day.
Don't worry about pulling the line. We got it.
Right. Obviously, you know, that doesn't go with every fire.
But, you know, that was my mission.
And I had the most like you give me an option to pull a hose line or do truck work.
We called it inside truck work in South Florida.
I'm going to go do inside truck work.
That's what I like. That's what I'm passionate about.
Absolutely. Well, what about the transition then?
What made you move from the Keys further north?
So again, it was just such a small department.
There was no back then.
There was no promotional testing.
It was hey, hey, James, you've been here longer.
So and so just left. We need a lieutenant.
So you're you're it basically kind of thing.
And there was no growth opportunity.
And I don't care about promoting per se, but there was just nowhere to go.
So I was I was like, I need to get out of here.
So finally was hired with the city department in South Florida.
And that was my last department. South Florida was there for seven years,
which was about nine station department. Pretty decent size.
I didn't want to work for like a Miami date or Palm Beach County,
because they're just so big that I could literally you and I could put on a shirt right now,
could show up to a station on shift change and they'd be like, oh, hey, cool.
Wouldn't even know. Right. And I didn't like that.
I want to know who I'm working with.
I want to know if they're good or not. Just just so I know. Right.
Made that transition and it was good for a while.
And then it's just I don't even call them leaders.
Right. Just the people at the top.
It was just such a toxic organization that it was just not healthy.
Luckily, my crews that I work with were awesome.
And we have we had great people there.
They're still great people there. They're moving, promoting awesome people.
So I think it's going to be changing in the next few years
once you get rid of all the people at the top.
But as a whole, it was just toxic breeding toxic, you know, the old timers bringing in the other
the newer guys and they're making them toxic and it was just super toxic.
So my wife and I were out here and we're in Colorado and we're like, what are we doing?
We don't have kids. We don't love Florida.
Hot and humid. 11 months out of your sucks. We don't love the beach.
We love the mountains. We're always in the mountains.
Why not come out here? And that's kind of how ended up out here.
I had zero regrets, zero regrets leaving.
I want to get to the transition because obviously that's something that you and I've got in common
is moving later in your career before we do, though, if I got the timeline right,
were you still in Marathon then when you kind of decided to break off with alcohol?
Doesn't it? Yeah, I was.
Yep, I was still in the keys. I had to do the math.
I got hired in 08 and I became sober in 11.
So yeah, for three years, I was drinking and partying hard.
I mean, I can't tell you how many times I showed up from an all nighter and I'm not proud of it.
I'm not saying it to brag or anything like that.
Yeah, I'd show up drinking all night and just show up to work and just go lay down or get an IV and go go lay down.
Luckily, we were not busy at all.
Some days we wouldn't turn wheels so I could do that and it wasn't putting air quotes anybody in jeopardy.
But yeah, I was still drinking hard for like three years.
So what changed? Was there a pivotal moment or just a slow kind of realization that it was detrimental?
Yeah, I mean, I like I said, I was drinking and driving spiraling out of control and then one
and you know, just doing the like every time I drank, I blacked out and I wasn't a drinker because I liked the taste of it.
It was if I'm drinking, we're getting fucked up and I'm getting you fucked up and I'm getting everybody around me fucked up and we're getting fucked up.
So what made me what was my basically rock bottom was I totaled my car, totaled my car, crashed into somebody.
Luckily, nobody was hurt in that car.
Luckily, I wasn't hurt.
I mean, fire was there.
Police were there.
I don't know how I didn't get a DUI because I should have got a DUI for sure.
And whatever you believe in somebody or something was looking out for me.
Right. And I got home that day woke up and I was like, I'm fucking done.
I am done. And I was tired of the apology text apology phone calls.
I had to make every day after drinking.
I wouldn't remember anything.
So people would have to tell me all the dumb shit embarrassing shit I did and I had to apologize for it.
And it was just it's just pathetic, literally pathetic.
So that was my rock bottom.
I told my car I was like, I'm fucking done.
And that was it. That was the last time I drank.
What were the tools that you use to allow you to not slip back into that?
Because one would assume that there was some sort of void that you were filling with alcohol when we, you know,
stop whatever our substance or, you know, gambling or whatever it is.
Now the rawness of what you've been escaping is staring straight at you.
Yeah, I mean, obviously there's a lot of shame and stuff, you know, and sobering up, right?
A lot of shame in that. And I kind of did it in an unconventional way and I wouldn't recommend this to everybody.
Like I know people go to AA and it's amazing.
And I've heard great things about AA. Awesome. You do whatever you need to do, right?
I just woke up that day and I said, I'm I'm fucking done.
And that was it. And people know me say I have an addictive personality.
So I think I don't think I know fitness fill that void and fill that gap and not just like bro lifting and stuff.
So pretty much everything I do for the most part is extreme, right?
And anybody that knows me is I'm always down and trying to do crazier and more extreme things.
So for sure, the fitness and the extreme things that I do that version of stuff basically took over my addiction to alcohol.
How do you self regulate so you don't over train so you don't go so far even in the fitness?
Because I mean, that's another area that we can go too far in.
Yeah, so that's a funny question. I talk about that.
If people say you're over training or if you think you're over train, I guarantee you're not training hard enough to over train.
For example, you guys know the Iron Cowboy.
Have you heard of James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy?
So he's the guy that did a full Ironman triathlon every day for 50 days in 50 different states.
Full Ironman. And yeah, he kind of went through some shit,
but he was getting better and he was faster by the end of it.
Just an example of and Goggin says all the time, right?
You are not training hard enough. An hour workout a day is not over training.
So I don't worry about I literally training gear every single day.
I don't hardly ever take a rest day.
And if it's a rest day, I might still run a couple miles or, you know, whatever.
I suck at push ups. I do 200 push ups a day.
Regardless throughout the day, I'm not ripping 200 in a set, but I do 200 push ups throughout the day.
And I don't believe in over training per se.
And I know like sports athletes and stuff, they can get into that kind of stuff.
But I guarantee you in this business, you're not an hour workout a day is not over training you any means necessary.
No, within an hour. Definitely not.
I think the problem that we have to look at in the fire service, though, is if you haven't slept that totally then skews your ability to train.
Well, yeah, 100 percent, right?
A hundred percent. And I lean into that sometimes, right?
Because we're talking about that mental fortitude, right?
So it's easy to come off shift and be like, you know what?
I didn't sleep at night. I'm going to go take a nap and then work out.
Well, depending on what your goal is, for example, if smoke diver is your goal, I tell people lean into that workout as soon as you get home.
Tired, angry, hungry, whatever it is, zero sleep.
That's when you need to lean into that and work out then because you're building that mental fortitude.
And then you can take a nap after right?
Obviously, depends what your goal is or if you got kids at home or whatever.
But use that as an opportunity.
To do something good towards your goal and yes, sleep is a whole other thing, right?
I know you're a huge advocate, which I love about the 24 72.
I've never worked that I went from a 24 48 with the Kelly to now 48 96.
And we could talk about that and how I feel about that.
But yeah, sleeps a whole nother game.
100 percent. Yeah, we'll definitely get to that in a minute.
While you're talking about push ups, though, what made you choose to try the Florida Smite Smoke Diver program
and talk to me about your success in that particular try?
No success. I'll tell you that.
So Florida, Florida Smoke Diver, that's been on my radar since I worked in Marathon.
So going back probably 10 years now,
I had actually signed up and was in the class in Florida and Florida is all on you.
Florida Smoke Diver, it's all in you. I lived in Florida.
It's all on you. So that's how I first heard of Smoke Diver.
And I was in the class and then I got hired with the city department.
So I'm like, hmm, I'm starting.
I probably don't want to risk getting hurt being on probation or right before I go get hired in the new department.
So then every year was always something right something some excuse.
Yeah, I get it. And then a couple years they didn't even do it.
And then one year I finally signed up said, fuck it, we're doing it.
And I went there and failed out in the first two minutes.
Super easy. Now easy 50 push ups in two minutes was the standard.
Now it's like because there's so much interest you have to max reps and they score you and all that.
But back then I had to do is knock out 50 push ups in two minutes cake.
And I didn't practice a lot. I've done it a few times at home and I was like, all right, I can get it.
I got like 53 or whatever. No excuse.
Went there and shit the bed missed it by one packed up all my shit and drove all the way home.
And I was like, this is not happening ever again.
And back then they would run a class back to back.
So I was trying hard to get into that second class and they wouldn't let me which I get, you know, you just failed push ups.
You're not going to let you in this class. Totally get it.
And so that was my first attempt at Florida.
And then I signed up again.
I came here if it was a couple years later and that's when they changed it to having a selection process in September.
Two day selection process for top four to go from Saturday to Sunday top 30 go to the class in January.
And I had already moved a vacation around in Montana that I had with my wife for a gun class.
I was taken in Montana. So I didn't want to slide it some more because of Florida smoke diver.
So then I had already started hearing about Georgia.
So I'm like, F it. Let me see if I can get into Georgia.
And that's when I got into Georgia that following February of 22.
And yeah, that's I went at 45 years old.
I had just turned 45 years old and was successful in that program.
I had Chad Belger on a few times, you know, him in again.
He's got a very, very powerful sobriety story himself, but also, you know,
is a frickin robot when it comes to gear training and smoke diver programs.
And then obviously I had Chief David Rhodes on quite a while ago now and listening to each of them,
certainly Florida a few years ago, the Georgia one appeared to have a little bit more of that kind of firefight survival skills area.
And a few years ago now, it may well have evolved.
Florida seemed to be a little bit more known for that kind of beasting,
you know, searching hours for poker chip type of type of evolutions in your research.
You know, what what have you found?
You know, are the differences between the two that maybe justify doing both?
Yeah, I mean, I have a ton of friends that are Florida smoke divers, man, like Basil.
Like you said, Chad, all those guys, Matt McGee, all those guys, I'm friends with Nate and Nate Stern and all those guys.
Mejia. Yeah, they're just two different beasts.
And I've talked to Baz, who's now Georgia smoke diver and Florida smoke diver.
So he's been to both. I have friends that have done both.
Just to pick their brain, obviously, I say don't give me secrets.
I don't want to get secrets. But what is your opinion?
Right. They say they're just two different animals.
Right. Yeah, I think there's more learning stuff happening in Georgia.
And I think Florida is just like you said, beasting it and suck it up and get it done.
Right. They say Georgia is longer, like 10, 12 hours in gear.
Florida's shorter durations in gear, but the intensity is higher.
That's what I've heard and been told. Also, Florida has terminal objectives every day and they're mostly air consumption based.
So if you suck on air, guess what?
You're not going to be successful and you got to be a really good fireman.
So got eyes on Florida. Yeah, I got I got some unfinished business.
But now that I live in Colorado, I don't know if it's going to be feasible or it's going to be harder to make happen is what I'll say.
But I don't know. I might revisit it someday.
It's interesting as well as its timing to like I said, when I, you know, because I say got her, I had an injury, but then I rehab back to full duty again, like I always do.
So I was actually, you know, able to, if not stronger than before, by the time I built myself back up.
But that why like when I transition out the fire service to do a smoke pipe diver program, my priorities are changed.
And even if you live in Ocala, you have to stay at the college for those five days.
I just left a department. I spent 14 years not seeing my family.
No, that was that was all it took for me. No, I want to be with my son, wake up and have breakfast with him every day.
That's more important than me now than that chip.
So, you know, understanding if that's something you want to do and it's really, really burning in your heart now.
Don't wait. Don't wait because your priorities will change at some point for sure.
And you got to have your mind right, man. Like I have friends that have gone there with their mind not right.
Or they got issues going on at home with their wives or whatever.
And their mind's not in it. You have to be present in the moment.
Like I didn't talk to my wife when I was there. Yeah, we text. I said, hey, I'm just going to text you.
Hey, day one secure. I love you. Good night. Good morning.
I love you. Talk to you later. That was it because I wanted to be in the moment.
Like you talk to like military guys and when they go overseas, they say, I try not to talk to my wife because I need to be in the moment.
Not being worried about what's happening at home. Right.
And you have to have your mind right. Like if you could pass the entrance test, like even bad.
Some of you can pass the entrance test. You're physically capable of doing what's required.
It's up here that's going to jam you up. And most people don't have that mental fortitude and never really put themselves in the fire per se to see if they have what it takes.
And that's why I say, like you said, if you're thinking about do it, you're going to be a better fireman.
Just training up to do it, whether you were successful or not in the class. It doesn't matter.
I know jam up firemen that have never passed a class and vice versa.
I know shitty ass firemen that have passed those classes. Nothing against the program.
Right. Every entity, every unit has those.
Right. Even the freaking seals, the Delta Force, the Green Braids, they all have the guys that shouldn't have passed.
They all have the guys that aren't like the true whatever it is.
Right. But you're going to be a better fireman just training up for it regardless.
Absolutely. So what has been the evolution of your training philosophy?
You know, for example, when I was training for the fire service, it was going to the YMCA and this was pre-crossfit.
So I was just doing the squats, the bench, all the things and lots of calisthenics and then running a shitload and then getting to the tower early and doing extra hose work and the sled and all that stuff and just trying to trying to get myself there.
So because I got into it a little bit later, I think I was 26, 25, 26 months in the academy.
You know, I understood that I was a slimmer guy that I needed to work on some stuff.
So pretty much from there, that's where I kind of dialed in my fitness and then CrossFit came later.
And then I threw some strongman stuff in even later to complement the CrossFit and that served me well to this day, even in Jiu Jitsu.
You come out of the track world, you do ex-phys at school.
You know, what has been the evolution of how you used to train versus how you train now?
Oh, man. Night and day, night and day difference. Like you, before CrossFit was a thing.
I would be at whatever local gym and I'd have all my little stations set up.
So I was doing cross training before CrossFit was a thing, you know, jump from one thing to another, no rest and doing that.
Back then, before I became a fireman, no gear.
Yeah, maybe I'd have like a vest on or, you know, get the old school elevation training masks, right?
But now, since I became and the first three or four years, I was not passionate about the fire service.
I did not care about the fire service. I was just telling everybody I was a fireman and that was it, right?
So lately, probably in the last eight, ten years or so is when I started really truly becoming passionate about it.
And what does that translate to on the fire ground?
So then I started tweaking my workouts. Is this going to help me on the fire ground or not?
Bench doesn't help me on the fire ground, so I'm not benching.
Just me, because I'm not lifting to look good. I'm lifting to be able to be able to perform on the fire ground.
So and even then, even like four years ago, my training then compared to now, I feel like has leapfrogged so much.
And that's just, I think, because of the tight crew that we have and the little circle of people that we text and group chat.
And a lot of these are just social media friends until you finally meet them in person and stuff.
And it just keeps leveling up, right? Things that you didn't think you would be able to do, like the McGee workout, right?
Everybody knows that's a hard ass workout. 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, right? Down ups, push ups, four count mountain climbers, four count jumping jacks.
Hanging out with John Spira, he's like, I want to get to 100 all the way to 10, 190, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20.
Never in the wildest dreams would we think of doing something like that. And guess what? Now we've done it.
Hey, let's go do a thousand down ups nonstop and full gear, mask, helmet, the whole deal, hood.
Never would we have thought of doing stuff like that. So just it's just evolved so much.
And again, everything translates back to how does it translate to performance on the fire ground?
So every year I feel like we're just leaps and bounding further and further and doing pushing our bodies further than we thought we could, which is awesome.
I freaking love it.
Is that McGee workout, Matt McGee?
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, I used to work with Matt years ago.
Yeah, we stayed friends online.
Yeah. Yeah.
So he has a workout that started now doing that one regular is kind of like easy, but never like when it first came out, we're like, man, this is a hard ass workout.
Now, what do you do for strength strength?
Because what I found, I mean, I'm a huge proponent of training and gear and we'll obviously get to what kind of gear and if it's clean, all that stuff in a minute.
And ideally one day gear that doesn't have any, you know, anything detrimental already in it.
But there's times to wear gear and times obviously not to wear gear.
And I think, you know, if we go back, I'm just guessing now eight years ago, the Instagram was full of firefighters in full gear doing muscle ups and, you know, all kinds of stupid shit that you would never do on the fire ground and you shouldn't be wearing gear doing.
But, you know, but I love the strong man movements in gear, you know, the sandbag carries the sleds, all those things.
But, you know, then you've got things like Turkish get ups and some of these other things that you can't do with gear on Macy's.
So how how do you build the raw strength, the brute strength to complement that muscular endurance that you're doing with some of your other workouts?
Yeah. So when I say I'm in gear every day, I am in gear every day.
But, you know, I still squat heavy.
I still deadlift heavy.
I have a bunch of sandbags in my garage, so I'll do a bunch of sandbag workouts most of the time not in gear.
If it is in gear, maybe coat and pants.
It'll be a lighter weight, right?
If it's for more reps and like a circuit or something.
But yeah, I still do like the core squat and deadlift heavy because to me having strong legs, as we all know, is the foundation of everything else.
Right. You got weak ass legs.
You're not going to be able to do a lot of work in gear.
Right. And then like lunges, heavy lunges.
Like the other day I was doing lunges with 120 pound sandbag on my back.
Just PT clothes, not in gear.
Right. For the reason, right, you got limited mobility and movement.
So I don't want to be throwing around 120 pound sandbag for a bunch of reps.
So yeah, I do it all.
Right. But you have to be able to do the strong stuff.
But then you have to be conditioned to be in gear for long periods of time.
It's kind of a fine balance as we all know.
Right. I don't want to like I never bench, never ever bench in the Academy we're teaching at.
They were doing bench the other day. So I just jumped on to do it and I got 255.
I'm not proud of that, but for never benching, I'm okay with it.
It's more than me. I'll tell you now.
Right. Like I know there's dudes that bench three, four, 500.
That's great. But let me put you in gear and see how you how you perform in gear.
Right. So and I'm not saying that number to brag.
I'm actually kind of ashamed of it, but I'm just like you do pushups every day.
You're doing all this other stuff.
It's going to translate to strength in those core movements right now.
If you're not squatting heavy, you're not just going to instantly squat heavy, right?
So you have to squat heavy lunge.
I love lunges because it tears your legs up and you get super strong with that.
So yeah, in a nutshell, that's kind of how I keep keep my all-around fitness squared away.
When you talk about the show muscles, I actually wrote about this in my first book.
I remember being down your way and it was one of those I forget what they even call it now,
but it was like the fire test where you do one written one physical
and then they send the results to all the all the departments and mesh test.
Yes, that was it the mesh yet and I'll never forget.
I mean, I'm straight at the Academy and I've gone all the way down to South Florida fish out of water
and these two dudes bright orange, you know, the little tiny tank tops strutting around literally
like farmhouse cockerels and you know, I'm like, oh, they must be amazing firefighters in my naive,
you know, way of looking at it. I knew nothing about the fire service by that point.
I just passed the Academy and that was it done some ride-alongs and I shit you not.
I think it was literally the second or the third, you know,
the floor so two flights of stairs one ten.
This is dry hose that you got on just one bundle one taps out then his boyfriend or whoever it was goes next
and same fucking thing and that is when I was like got it.
All the way that I'd been taught, you know, grew up with Schwarzenegger and all that stuff
when it comes to actually applying into the real world.
Not to say there aren't some extraordinary athletes that look like that that can actually do what they do,
but that the show muscles the bodybuilding, you know, when you add that muscular endurance and that stress,
you know, more often than not, if that's all you're doing to be clear,
if that's all you're doing that, you know, is a complete facade for sure.
I talk about all the time and throughout all my teaching and all academies.
I taught like I don't care if you can bench 500 pounds.
I don't care if you're a CrossFit Games champion.
I don't care. You could be a D1 athlete, Olympic athlete.
I don't care. I care about when I put you in gear.
How are you going to perform? Right?
That's what I care about. And and you know, we talked about D1 athletes.
If you're realistic about it, they've been told they've been awesome their entire life.
They've been babying and catered to their entire life, especially like top tier D1 athletes.
They get everything handed to them. Their laundry is done for them.
Their foods, everything's catered to them.
So when they come into this and it's oh now I'm not very good at it.
A lot of them don't know how to handle that. Right.
And that goes into Smoke Diver too.
A lot of these guys that think they're great firemen and then all of a sudden they're not
and they're around all these other guys that are really good
and you start feeling a little insecure about your abilities
and then it just blows the people's minds. Right.
Absolutely. Yeah, I tell my son that, you know,
I mean, there's very few naturals in the world actually.
I think that's a big big myth in itself.
But being bad at something is a real gift because you've got to work.
And he's you know, academically, he he almost had to go back a year
and he was very, very young for the school year anyway, almost as long as young as you can be.
And now he's in like honors and AP and I'm like because you fucking learn how to work.
And that's why I'm so proud of you. And he's not getting straight A's.
He gets B's and C's sometimes. I'm still so proud of you because you work.
That the letter to me is secondary to the fact that you overcame adversity
and you've got this amazing work ethic now.
No, just learn how to grind. Learn how to grind.
We're not good at anything naturally.
We got to work and work and work and some of us have to work harder than others to be good at it.
100 percent. Well, let's get to gear.
I came from the tropical island of England and moved to the central Florida area
and within a few months was wearing bunker gear and it was the same as you.
I did the nights and weekends one.
So EMT school was first, but then fire school spanned kind of spring all the way through the summer.
Then I get hired six months later by Hialeah, South Florida.
And by that point, we're back in the summer again.
It was fucking brutal for lack of a better word. And don't get me wrong.
I am equally in awe of the firefighters up north that are working in this ice
and the hydrants are frozen solid and there's icicles coming from down their helmets.
But I don't think people understand what it's like to literally cook in bunker gear
until you've worked in, I'm assuming, Texas, Arizona, Florida,
some of these other places.
So you again didn't take your fitness seriously.
Walk me through the journey that you took to start to actually acclimatize in your gear.
Because as you said, you can take someone who's phenomenally fit.
You throw them in gear and then they've got to go 20 floors up to a high rise fire
with 100 pounds worth of gear on them. Totally different story by that point.
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like a cataclysmic event that happened like, oh man, I really suck.
I just started noticing like in the first three or four years,
just you go to a fire and it's like, fuck man, I shouldn't be getting this smoked
or like I shouldn't be burning through my cylinder this fast.
Like what is happening? Right.
And yeah, in the fire Academy, we were in gear all the time, but I don't think it was clicking yet.
You know, I was just trying to I was still partying and I just wanted to kind of coast through
a fire Academy whatever.
But yeah, I think just after a few fires and just being out in the hot sun
and extrications for hours and hours at a time that I was like,
okay, I got to do something about this, right?
Okay, what's my great equalizer gear?
All right, cool. So how do I get better at something?
I'm not good at do more of that thing.
So just getting gear every day, right?
And back then it wasn't every day maybe three or four times a week or whatever it was, right?
Until it just became the norm, right?
And I was, you know, living in South Florida, hot and humid every single day for 11 months.
It's past the heat index that a lot of departments don't even let you train in every single day.
So how do you stay acclimated?
I was in gear every single day at three o'clock in the afternoon, not early mornings or late evenings
because I wanted to be in the shit in the hottest time of the day to just stay acclimated to being in gear.
And I sweat like crazy. You see me sweat.
It looks like I jumped on a swimming pool. There's puddles all around me.
So that's a whole nother factor too, right?
So yeah, I just had to take it literally day by day and okay, I suck at being in gear.
I need to get good at being in gear and just never let off the gas ever since.
Like when I first moved to Colorado, it was January and it was snowing and working out in gear was a luxury
because it was so dang cold outside. So I was like, this is awesome.
This is cake. Now, this is zero factor. Bring me back to Florida now in the summertime.
I might struggle a little bit, but.
Well, you touched on something and I heard you mentioned the same thing on the student of the game podcast.
I have said this exact same thing.
It's always just blow my mind in my last place I worked out was the worst.
Like some of the guys would be watching the thermometer and then they'd be fucking calling up the union.
They're trying to make us train. And I'm just like, you've got to be fucking kidding me.
Every single day is like a hundred and whatever teen in our 10 month summer here.
And then you're going to go into a fire, which last time I checked fire was even harder.
And yet you've got people pushing against that.
Now, I'm not talking about beasting people without giving them time in the shade and hydration time to adopt the gear.
Sensible, periodized training. But to be averse to rain, to be averse to darkness, to be averse to heat.
When that's exactly when you're most likely to get fires.
And I fought fires and thunderstorms, you know, trying to try not to get shot carrying ladders from place to place.
You know, it is what it is. Sometimes it's just going to suck.
What is your perception, again, of having worked in a state that has some of these,
these, for lack of a better word, shackles that in my opinion completely detach you from what we are going to do
and make the real world harder than the training ground?
Luckily, my department in South Florida wasn't like that, but I was around a lot of departments that were.
And it's irresponsible and naive to think like that, right?
Think about it. You burn, you cook a pizza, 425. I worked at a lot of fire camps in South Florida.
You couldn't burn hotter than 500 degrees.
If somebody was there with a tick or they were watching the thermometer and if it got over 500, guess what?
We're fucking opening all the windows and doors. You can't, God forbid we put these guys into something hotter than 500.
So what's going to happen when they go to their first fire?
It's a real fire and it's 1200, 1500, 1800 degrees. Guess what's going to happen?
They're not going to perform well. It's science, right?
My lecture, I talk about this, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman did a whole study about fear versus stress induced tachycardia, right?
If you're scared shitless and you're above 175 hardware, which is going to happen 100% your first fire
or if you're experienced stuff you're scared of, your cognitive thinking goes out the window.
Your fire motor skills goes out the window. You revert back to that like reptile brain, right?
It's fight or flight or freeze, submissive behavior, right?
That's literally scientifically proven what's going to happen.
So for you to be in a training position, a chief position or whatever and put these as you call them shackles,
which I like that terminology and expect your guys and girls to be able to rise to the occasion and perform.
It's naive. It's irresponsible and basically plain stupid.
It's science based, right? So how do we, how do we, I don't know how to fix that, but how do we make people better?
We have to put them in those conditions, real life scenarios, real life conditions in training, which is controlled.
We're going to have rehab after we have medics on scene or whatever the case is, right?
But we're going to put them in harder situations and hopefully they'll ever experience in real life.
Jaco talks about all the time. He would train his guys leading up to deployment so hard that when they went to frickin war,
it was easy air quotes for them compared to what Jaco put up during training.
I mean, that's like common sense 101. Let's make training harder than real life.
Man, obviously I'm passionate about this, right?
Yeah, so I don't know how to fix it, but we have to be able to put people in these scenarios,
in these situations because you're not going to rise to the occasion.
I don't care who you are. You're not a superhero. It's not happening.
You're going to revert back to what you know, to your training.
And if you've never experienced 1200, 1800 degree fire, guess what?
You're not going to perform well at all. And now you became from being the problem solver.
Now you became the problem. And now you're a liability to the scene, to the scenario or whatever is happening.
And you're not helping the citizens that called you. Not at all.
In my career, I saw again in the worst departments that I worked for, it was just simply box checking.
In, for example, Anaheim, Hialeah, it was exactly that.
We went through, you know, training constantly.
So Hialeah was just that, like I said, smoke diver experience and it was it was periodized again.
So, for example, PT week one, I think we just did it with PT gear and maybe a helmet and gloves or something.
And then, you know, it was your bunker gear. Then it was your pack.
And by the time we're done, we're doing 10 pull ups on air, you know, full gear, go in the collapse maze and just people puking in the masks.
And, you know, it was it was rough. But, you know, again, you go out in the real world and you're like, oh, this is nice that small house is on fire.
And this latter isn't too heavy now, you know, so it does reframe it.
And then Anaheim did a phenomenal job of just that one year probation.
You were scared for your job for three hundred and sixty five days.
And it was again, it was diligent. There was there were tests.
There were you gave classes, you learned building construction, you cut and cut and cut and cut roofs so that you actually were an effective truck company that could go up there,
make a heat hole or a strip if you needed to get off because you understood when to get off.
And so that diligence and training and that repetition created great firefighters,
which then an officer could turn around and go lay the bundles or cut me a strip.
That's all they had to say. And off the firefighters go conversely.
This do it once and check the box and only do it when it's not too hot and it's not raining.
You are absolutely setting people up to get hurt or killed when it comes to the real world.
One hundred percent. And now you have to micromanage everybody, right?
Because you didn't you didn't train me to be a think environment.
You trained me to be basically a robot, right?
Hey, OK. So instead of just saying, hey, inside truck.
All right. Well, I know what that means. I'm going to go do the work. Right.
Well, oh, hey, stretch a line or search the first floor or whatever it is.
Right. And so now you're micromanaging and micromanaging usually comes from a place of distrust and incompetency in your crew and your own skills.
Right. I couldn't agree with you more.
Like you have to train people harder in training and allow them to fail.
OK. Good. This is what you didn't do. Great. All right.
Let's fix that. Now, let's run it again. All right. Cool.
And then we just polish it up, polish it up, polish it up, polish it up until it becomes second nature.
Right. We do a mile ladder throw challenge every year.
And from day one to the end of the month, man, I got guys sending me pictures all sides of the building or ladder on a fire.
They're like, dude, I threw that ladder. I didn't even think about it.
You threw a ladder a mile. That's a long way to throw a ladder.
It's it's I'm really strong.
I want to see this video. Damn it.
All right. Well, talk about that.
But yeah, just being good at the basics, man, and and just under that stressful environment.
Right. Another study that I was reading that I put on my lecture, just putting your gear on increases your resting heart rate by 44 percent.
Just putting it on. Right.
And we all know the people that when they start putting their gear on there, they find every excuse to not put their gear on because they don't want to go to that fire.
Oh, I forgot my mask over here. Let me run over here.
And they're going slow as hell. Man, I put my gear and I'm so excited because I'm about to go do some fun stuff.
I know it's not fun for the people calling on one.
I understand that's not what I'm saying, but I get to go do what I love doing and I get to go do it good.
Right. So putting on your gear should be zero factor.
We have to train people harder in training than in real life scenarios.
We have to. So talk to me about your philosophy on the gear.
What kind of gear are you training in and how are you trying to minimize exposure from the things that we're all fully aware that are detrimental to us when we sweat?
So when I don't I don't train in my front line gear, number one, one, because they're super expensive.
We all know I'm not trying to ruin front line gear and two, that's what sees the actual fires. Right.
I have expired gear or not expired gear grinder gear.
I have a bunch of sets. I still wash them on the regular, but I can't minimize more than that.
I can't minimize what's in the gear.
I know there's manufacturers that make zero PFS free gear.
Great. And we can go down a whole rabbit hole of PFS, but PFS is literally in everything.
I mean all the cool car, hard shit you guys are all wearing all the Gore tech shit, all the hunting stuff that you're wearing, all the nonstick pants.
PFS is literally in everything and the people that are barking so hard about PFS,
I guarantee you they weren't training in gear before they found out about PFS.
I guarantee you that and I guarantee you they're probably chewing tobacco, which is known 100% to cause cancer.
PFS. We're not sure of yet. Right.
The studies aren't out yet on that.
So for me, I have grinder gear training gear and I'm in it every day.
And if you're worried about PFS or whatever the case is, I understand cancer is a huge thing.
But think about all the line of duty deaths.
Most of them are cardiac related. Right. Why?
Because they're out of shape and fat. That's why most of them.
Right. So let's start putting our focus in on getting people fit and not belittling people that want to train in gear.
Right.
And if you're so worried about getting cancer, then this isn't the job for you.
Right. This isn't the job for you.
We took the oath. We swore to protect the citizens, not just get a what is it?
A four day and a paycheck as some people call it.
Right. You swore to protect lives.
Right. That's our number one thing that we're supposed to save lives.
Right. So how do I get good at being in gear?
There is no alternative.
You have to be in your gear. You have to wear sweatpants, sweatsuits, all that.
Okay, it's better than not wearing it.
But again, it goes back to practicing like we play.
Right. You're not going to rise all of a sudden.
You've never put your gear on since the fire Academy.
Four months later, you get a fire and you're just going to expect to be good at it.
It's not happening. It's not realistic.
Scientifically not going to happen.
Right. So me, I just, hey, I took the oath and I'm willing to take the risk.
Right. I'm going to take the risk.
It's my choice.
If you don't want to work out in gear, fine.
But don't put your opinions on other people.
If other people are willing to take that risk and want to get better and be good at their job and be good at this craft, let them do their thing.
The issue I have with the PFAS thing and I had a great conversation with Rob Bellot,
who was the real lawyer in the Dark Waters film that they made.
And that was the real kind of, you know, whistleblowing of the immense impact that PFAS has.
And these are forever chemicals and they're detrimental.
They're in everyone's body now pretty much around the world.
So it's a real thing. And obviously the answer is, hey, is there a way of not putting it in our gear anymore?
However, what I found is in the cancer conversation,
how convenient for departments just point at a manufacturer and go, oh, that's the reason.
And to me, it's like, well, wait a second.
Aren't you working your people 56 hours a week and then mandatory on top?
Are we going to fucking talk about sleep or are you just going to talk about forever chemicals now?
Something you learned about six hours ago.
So this is, you know, it's a good segue to the work week.
This is what infuriates me. We have the mental health conversation.
We talk about what we've seen. We have the cancer conversation.
We talk about clean cab, which again, when people understand what that is,
absolutely has a, you know, has a place in the fire service.
This remove off gassing shit that we don't need to be breathing.
But if we're not talking about the resilience of the human being and even the obesity conversation,
that is also a sleep deprivation problem.
You look at what happens to the endocrine system and we don't sleep.
A lot of our men and women are swimming upstream trying to lose weight,
but they can't because their hormones are completely fucked.
There's a portion of people in the fire service just shouldn't be there.
They just don't want to do the job.
But there's a middle portion that just are just so fucking tired and they're gaining weight
and they're exhausted and you gave them the rest and recovery.
They would be the ones that would probably turn around and go, you know what?
I want to join you in the bay. I feel better today.
So that's the the other conversation with the fit firefighter is given the rest and recovery.
So if you do want to be a hard charger, you're not breaking because if you don't sleep, you don't repair.
So with that being said, I know we're jumping ahead because you've got a new schedule now.
John obviously Spira, you know, work the 2472 when he was in Boca.
Talk to me about your perception of the of the work week through your eyes.
I mean, like I said, I've never worked the 2472, but obviously listening to you a bunch and reading like all the research and stuff.
I know it's better for our recovery.
So I came from a 2448 with the Kelly Day.
You're either coming or you're going on that schedule.
You're either coming off shift or the day before shift.
You're getting ready to go to shift your mind and your body doesn't ever have a chance to kind of just exhale and settle in.
Right. It's just I just got off shift.
I got my ass kicked. So there goes that day.
And then the next day you're kind of trying to get everything ready or whatever you got to do around the house.
So there's never a rest full rest period on that schedule.
Right. And I came from a department that ran thirty thousand calls a year last year.
So I come to this new department.
They ran seven thousand calls a year.
Forty eight ninety six. Not so bad.
You know, yeah, we may have a crappy night, but it's usually not two crappy nights in a row for the most part.
Right. And then I got four days off.
So even if I get smoked, I got a day to kill and I got three days to kind of just settle in and relax.
Right. Could I do a forty eight ninety six where I used to work?
No fucking way. No way.
We'd be murdered. We'd have zero sleep both nights and you would just be a walking zombie for forty eight hours.
What good is that for the citizen? Not good at all.
Right. And we all know if you're working a forty eight ninety six, you get smashed on your first night.
Your second day is is basically fucked.
And then guess what? Your level of service starts going down.
Right. Zero sleep. Critical thinking.
Your fine motor skills. All that stuff. Cognitive thinking is just shit.
It's it's been like you said, you know, way more than I do about this.
I'm just very, very minimal that I know about the sleep stuff.
Right. But they say it's basically equivalent to being drunk.
Right. So that's how we want our people.
We want our people drunk, responding to fires and saving your family.
No, the answer is no. Right.
So to me, just based on the studies and listening to you a bunch and all the research, 24 72 sounds awesome.
Talking to John Spear, he says it's the best schedule.
Plus, like he says, you're working a forty ninety six. You're kind of pacing yourself.
He calls it pacing for forty eight hours versus you come in for twenty four.
Hey, I'm here for twenty four. Let's fucking do it.
Just let it rip. Right. And just twenty four hours.
Boom. You're done. You go home. You can rest the day and you got two days off.
Awesome. So, yeah, I mean, to me, it makes common sense.
You care about the people you preach about your mission, vision, values that you care about us
and you want us to do great things and give us all the opportunities.
Well, why don't you give us the best thing for our sleep?
A hundred percent. Beautiful. I couldn't agree more.
It's funny because there's a revolution beginning.
It's early, but beginning in Florida and we've got Boynton Beach just went to it.
Gainesville is going in a few months time.
Pasco is going in about a year after that.
And I've had people from all over the country reach out saying,
can you tell me about this again? Can you send me those episodes?
And I'm like, absolutely. I can.
Can I get that research? I love when you're talking about research.
Let me get this straight.
You need me to go to a lab to study whether forty two hours a week is healthier than fifty six hours a week.
Go away and think about that.
I love how you broke it down into eight hour work cycles.
Like when you broke it down like that, I was like genius.
Like that's so genius.
And it's just it's a realization.
I mean, I'm just, you know, all these great minds finally,
it put, you know, actually entered my tiny little monkey mind and I was like,
this is the problem. This is the myth that we've been telling ourselves.
So and even like you said that the first day when we go home, that's not a day off.
It's eight hours. Whatever shift schedule you're working that first day isn't a day off.
So as you said with the 24 72, it's two days that you're getting instead of one.
And I think that middle one would be gold because as you said, you go to bed with your family that night
and you wake up and of course you have things to do, but you're not thinking about getting up at five,
packing all your shit, getting your food, you know, and then getting there hopefully,
you know, 30 minutes an hour before shift change to relieve the poor bastard that just got murdered for 24 hours before you.
So if there's no downside for, you know, you've heard me preach about this,
but even financially these cities and counties are realizing that they're going to save a huge amount of money
by putting in another shift. So, you know, just it's down to just leadership, courageous leadership.
Exactly. Exactly. They're in like, they want to pay the money up front, right?
Like, you know, getting us better sleep. Hey, like you guys always talk about less workmen comp things,
less work injuries, right? I mean, it's pays dividends, right?
That's just like investing in your people, right? Let's invest in their sleep.
Awesome. You're going to get paid dividends on the back end.
100%. Well, another thing that we've got in common is, you know, you,
yeah, you were down in Marathon, you realized that you wanted to kind of broaden your,
you know, your ceiling as it were, raise your ceiling.
Then you got to Florida and, you know, you're starting to have an experience that you're not loving 100%.
So talk to me about how you got to the point where you wanted to make the jump to Colorado
and then talk to me about your perspective of the carrot on the stick that is the pension.
Because I've said, you know, my opinion a lot on this show and I'd never felt,
I never even believed that I was going to collect a pension to be on.
There was something in the back of my mind that they just didn't factor into why I became a firefighter.
But I see so many of our men and women shift from that burning desire to serve
to a countdown app and drop programs and pencial conversations.
So walk me through, you know, your whatever experience it was that made you make the jump
and then, you know, how you perceive that courage at the age that you were to go through with it.
Yeah, I mean, like I said, like again, I was talking to somebody the other day that works in my old department.
They're like, man, you're getting a lot of hate for going on podcasts and telling everybody that this place is toxic.
I'm like, well, one, I never mentioned the place, but two, that's probably because it's true.
Right. And I say I got the good bomb ass firemen that work in that department.
But as a whole, it's a toxic organization. Right.
And I mean, just like little things.
And it became all the time like a common thing we used to say is the roster is not a weapon.
We didn't have a bid system at that department.
They always cried that it wasn't a big enough department to have a bid system, which is not true.
There had been smaller departments with less stations that had bid systems.
They just didn't want to give up the power to move people when they were mad at them or angry at them and wanted to punish them.
So we always joke that the roster is not a weapon. Right.
So that's just one example. Right. And then just over time, right.
Like I was originally going to get vested talking about pensions.
You get vested at 10 years. That was my original plan.
And then, all right, let's make the move.
But after I was there seven years, about like six years, I was like, man, this this is this is not this is not fun.
I mean, I love my crew. My crew is awesome, thankfully.
But it's this is not a good organization to work for.
They give two shits about us. We're just numbers.
They don't care about us. What can I do? Right.
And everybody's like, dude, you can't leave. You got to get at least vested.
And I'm like, dude, it's not about the money.
Life is too short to be working and living somewhere where you don't love number one.
And our careers even shorter.
So why are we going to be chasing the nickel to be miserable to get vested and then get the five year drop and all that shit?
So I said, you know what? Eff it.
And I left at seven years and didn't get vested.
And like I said earlier, zero regrets, not one frickin regret.
I took that money. I invest in the pension, rolling into another investment thing.
Whatever. We're going to see what it does. Right.
I didn't care. But yeah, like you said, you'll see those guys.
They're just chasing, chasing that pension, chasing the money and they're doing this.
Obviously, they don't care about the job. They just want the money. Right.
And we can't change that. But I think it's it's important to point out that, again, life is too short.
And our careers way too short to not be somewhere where you're happy and feel valued.
Just being valued alone, again, pays dividends for the department.
If your department, your chief values you and truly means it,
you will go to the end of the earth for this chief. Right.
Like the chief I have now, I will do whatever is required because that chief has our backs,
loves us all, knows all our names, knows all about our family and does a bunch of little things
that make it known that he cares about us. Right.
So, yeah, like I've had many conversations with people.
Hey, man, Marcos, I'm thinking I'm not happy. Then go. Right.
That old cliche term, change the department or change your department. Right.
If you're trying to create change and you can't change it, go.
But you have to have the courage. And somebody's like, man, it was ballsy for to do what you did.
Oh, you did it because you didn't have kids. So it was easier.
OK, yes, I'll give you that. I didn't have kids.
I had to worry about that. But at the end of the day, if you're miserable, guess what?
It's probably trickling down to your spouse, probably trickling down to your kids
and affecting them negatively in some way or somehow guarantee you that. Right.
Yeah, it was ballsy. But again, I don't have to worry about my fitness level.
They told me worst case scenario, you might have to go to Academy.
OK, 12 weeks of doing basic fireman shit.
All right. No big deal. Zero factor. Right.
So, again, leaning back on that fitness, as long as you're fit and to perform on the fire ground,
you're able to grab opportunities that could be presented to you versus,
oh, I got to train up for the Academy or I got to train up for the CPAT. Right.
So, yeah, I just said, effort, try to make it happen.
We were hoping by the end of 23, this September is when we were here of 22 on vacation.
We're like, oh, let's see if we can make it happen by 23.
By November, my wife already had a job. I said, fuck it. Let's go.
I was like, oh, first I was going to fly back and forth between Caledonia.
She's like, I was like, you're cool with me just resigning.
She's like, yeah, flew out in December, had three interviews,
had a job already after my first interview. And that's where I work now.
I knew this is where I wanted to work. Sold our house in a week.
Easiest thing I'd ever done. Both my wife and I will tell you,
easiest thing we've ever done is move across the country and zero regrets.
So if you're even thinking about it, it's not about the money.
You can't take it with you. Right. You can't take the money with you.
It's all about being happy. So that's that's my two cents on that.
I guess if you want to call it that.
No, but it's an important perspective because you don't hear it that often,
especially someone who's later in their career.
But there's so many people I know that are great, great firefighters.
It's their environment. It's the department that they work in
that is dragging them down, you know, I mean, just over and over and over again.
And so that, you know, people say, oh, the grass is always greener.
Not always greener, but sometimes it is. It's green and lush.
And I think you've got to figure out why is it that I want to move?
And I never forget the bar that was set in Anaheim.
And I didn't dislike Hialeah for anything other than I couldn't speak Spanish.
And ninety nine point nine percent of the calls were done in Spanish.
And, you know, clearly the the at the time, the political environment,
those poor guys were getting paid next to nothing.
You know, and there was, you know, that you could feel it.
You could feel the tension.
And they were, you know, the morale wasn't good at that time.
So I had an opportunity to go out west and I did.
But it was just night and day.
And then, you know, the Hialeah firefighters I served alongside are phenomenal.
Because I always say despite the department, there's still an incredible fire department.
That's that really says something when you had zero support back then.
But the bar was so high in Anaheim that you were excited.
You were like, oh, my God, I could get fired like for a whole year.
And I see some of my classmates getting let go, let go, let go.
The 25 percent of us would be gone every year of the new hire class.
So that's, you know, but it it really did pull you in.
And like you said about the trust, like the people running training
were other firefighters and engineers and captains.
You know, it was it was totally hands off by the upper administration.
But I couldn't have been happier, you know.
And then sadly, what happened for me is I was chasing that dream department after Orange County was
it was a mixed bag, some phenomenal firefighters in that department.
But again, you know, the the leadership side has gone up and down.
Chief Drozd was there for a while.
It was awesome. And then they threw him out and it's shit again.
And then the last place I worked for couldn't have been further from Anaheim,
the other end of the spectrum, you know.
So it's heartbreaking as well. When you found that good one,
it was geography that took me back going back after we have my son back to Florida.
But, you know, but it's like you said, it's not scary.
If you are if you are unhappy, that's your answer.
If it's momentary, then yeah, take some time, you know, reevaluate.
Think about, you know, can I change stations? Can I change crews?
But if you are dying in that environment and you want to be along other people
who think the way that you do, there are, you know, thousands of fire departments
in this country, you know, go out there and make it happen.
Yeah, you can you can only be positive for so long, right?
Like being around negative people every single day starts wearing on you.
And I've seen some great ass firemen just get pretty much smothered down
with the negativity and the toxicity in departments, right?
And you take them out of that, put them in another department and boom,
it's like they flourish all of a sudden, right?
And it was there the same firemen. It's just that environment they're in, right?
And I can't tell you how many times after talking a couple times online
and just people, hey, this is what's happening.
I'm like, if you're even thinking about it, there's your answer, right?
There's your now if you just had a bad day or whatever.
Yeah, like you said, take some time, evaluate what's really happening.
But if this is like a burning thing, you're constantly not happy.
You're dreading coming to work every single day.
This is the coolest job in the world for people like you and I.
It's not for everybody. That's number one.
We have to stop telling everybody that they can do this job for sure,
because this is not for everybody.
But for people like you and I, this is the best job in the world.
I shouldn't dread coming to work because I hate the people I work with
or I hate the people I work for.
You should love coming to work every single day.
Yeah, we all have our bad days. I get it.
I understand that.
But man, nine day difference coming out here versus where I used to work.
Night and day difference.
100 percent beautiful.
All right. Well, then I want to get to hard knocks hitters.
So we walked you through your kind of fitness journey.
You know, you've done the Georgia Smoke Divers, you've done a hundred mile run.
So you've you've kind of really explored a lot of areas
when it comes to strength and conditioning.
You've got exercise physiology background from a higher education perspective as well.
Talk to me about what you what made you finally put out programming for the fire service.
So I've been personal training,
teaching boot camps, even got my CrossFit level one coaching, whatever that means.
You go to a weekend class and now you're a coach.
Kind of a joke. But so I've been teaching for a long time in the fitness industry, right?
Group fitness classes and all that kind of stuff.
And I've been doing online custom, like one on one training for people for a while.
And I've been kind of thinking about putting out a set program.
Like my hard knocks hitter program and talking to my buddy Logan Broberg.
He kind of encouraged me to do that.
He basically walked me through how to set it up online and all this stuff.
So I had the website and all that stuff.
And and basically it's a 12 week program, five workouts a week, mostly gear based.
And when I say gear based, it's mostly coat and pants because not everybody has an air pack.
I understand that. And the whole point of this program is to improve fire ground performance.
Right. So you're not going to bench.
We're not going to do bro lifts. None of that stuff.
We're doing. Yeah, we're going to squat heavy.
And by heavy, I mean three sets of 20 reps.
That's which I love with three sets of 20 reps.
People are like, dude, most I've ever done is like 12.
Yeah, we're going to get you strong.
We're going to get your leg strong because that's the foundation for carrying all the stuff.
Right. And the great thing about my program is it could be from somebody starting out working out today.
Day one. So it's scalable up and down.
Right. So you can start and we call it slick.
So PT clothes. So you could do everything slick if you wanted minimal equipment is needed for it.
And I got smoked.
Everybody's are on the program.
So they scale it up.
So they do everything full gear boots, pants, coat, helmet, gloves, mask, hood, pack, the whole deal.
So and like if people join and they're just getting into their fitness journey,
they go through the 12 week program.
You just pay it once to one time fee. It's not every 12 weeks.
You got to pay this thing.
It's 50 bucks.
Eighty four cents of workouts.
One of my friends broke it down for me.
I hadn't even broke it down to that.
And then you just start over again and then you start leveling up your gear.
Right. So that's kind of where it came from.
That's where I started.
I think I put it out like in November, December after Logan helped me put it all together.
I've had hard knocks Sunday forever.
It started out back in like 2011.
I was throwing on free boot camp every month at local gyms,
just promoting local gyms around the area in South Florida where I was at.
And that's where that hard knocks Sunday came from because it was the third Sunday of the month.
And I kind of just kept that.
So, yeah, that's in a nutshell what it is.
It's that 12 week program.
And then pretty soon I'm going to put out a calisthenics only all gear workout
because some of my smoked our buddies like,
dude, you know what you need to do is put a 12 week calisthenics only full gear for all the workouts.
I'm like, all right, we'll probably do that then.
And again, that can be scaled up or down too.
Right.
So you could do it anywhere the hotel you're traveling whatever.
And the reason I wrote mine with minimal equipment is because I wanted most people to be able to do it.
Not everybody has a bad ass home gym like I do.
Where can people find that?
So if you're following me on Instagram, it's hard knocks Sunday dot com.
There's links in my bio for that or just hard knocks Sunday dot com.
And then like I'll take it all my programs, all the merch, I call it whatever stickers.
We got hats.
We're about to get shirts made and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, hard knocks Sunday dot com or just hard knocks Sunday on Instagram and then the links in the bio too.
So brilliant.
All right.
I want to throw some quick closing questions at you if you got time.
Yeah, I got all the time, whatever you need.
Brilliant.
All right.
First one, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
Yeah, 100 percent, man.
One of my favorite books is called The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.
I freaking love that book.
For those of you who haven't read it, he talks about how everything in our life is designed to make our lives comfortable, right?
Air conditioned seats, heated seats, heated steering wheel.
Everything in our life is created for comfort.
Drive-throughs like now Zoom, right?
Everything's about comfort.
And he goes back to the samurai days and it's called a misogi.
And what it is is you do, he does one a year and there's only two rules for this thing.
You can't die doing it and you got a 50-50 shot of finishing it.
So everybody's misogi is going to be different, right?
Somebody's misogi might be doing a 5K.
Awesome.
Whatever, right?
My misogi, some of mine were the 100-Miler, Georgia Smoke Diver.
So those are some of mine.
But yeah, I love that book because it just resonates so hard that everything in this life and our minds want everything to be easy, right?
So it's just going back to that mental fortitude and just doing hard shit.
Doing hard shit makes us stronger physically and mentally.
So I love that book.
I mean, that's probably one of my favorite books.
Obviously all the Jockos, Skoggins books, all those guys.
Endure by Cam Haynes is great.
Nick Gleyber, he won Objective Secure.
He's the Green Bray that lost his leg and freaking full comeback.
The only guy ever to freaking come back to active duty in SF with a missing leg.
Like if that doesn't tell you about his strength and mental fortitude, I don't know what it does, man.
So if you feel sorry for yourself, read some of these books and you'll be all right.
Absolutely. Yeah, Nick Gleyber is someone I still want to get on.
I had Michael Easter on probably like a year ago now.
But it's funny when you're talking about the rules of misogi, I feel like that's what Pfizer did when they made their vaccines.
Try not to kill anyone and it can work 50% of the time.
Yeah, that's about right.
All right. Well, then next question.
What about movies and documentaries?
Man, one movie I my wife and I love and totally caught us off guard.
It's called Peanut Butter Falcon.
I don't know if you've seen this or not.
It's about and this actor is he's I think he has Down syndrome.
So don't don't kill me if I get it wrong.
But he has some kind of disability and he plays basically the gist of this movie is he didn't have a family.
So the system put him in this old person home for some reason.
He was the only disabled mentally disabled adult in this.
But everybody else was just old.
And then basically he escapes.
And I think it's Shia LaBeouf that's in the movie also.
And he basically finds him and Shia LaBeouf is kind of like this piece of shit kind of guy.
But he somehow finds this guy and then takes him under his wing and basically cares for him.
And it's just funny and like pulls at your heartstrings and totally caught my wife and I off guard.
And now we've watched it several times.
So Peanut Butter Falcon, man.
If you haven't seen it, it's a great ass movie.
I've never heard of it.
I'm going to have to watch it.
But that reminds me of when whenever I got hurt as a firefight, you'd find yourself in a physical therapy place.
Just you and a bunch of old people in Ocala.
So I can relate already.
Yeah, that's where I was at 3D Surgeon 2019.
I was like, can you send me to somewhere where they train athletes, not old people, please.
They were sweet.
They have some sweethearts.
But yeah, they didn't understand, you know, the people working there, the demands that we needed to get to.
So I have to guide them.
All right.
Well, the next question, is there a person you'd recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
Yeah, 100 percent.
So my buddies, Jesse and Micah Horton from Horton and Horton H and H.
I was actually I was on their podcast.
Their podcast was the first one I ever did.
They're outside of Reno.
Jesse and Micah Horton, man.
Those guys are passionate about the fire service.
Love teaching, love training.
I went out there.
They do Jiu Jitsu.
They're just savages and just good ass solid real people.
So I would definitely recommend you having them out for sure.
Are they Jesse and Micah, they related?
Yeah, they're brothers.
Okay.
I want to assume that they were both males, you know, it could be.
All right.
Yeah, Jesse and Micah Horton.
So Jesse's the older brother, but he's been in the fire service less time.
Micah is the younger brother and he's a battalion chief.
They work the same department.
And yeah, they're just they're just awesome real dudes and love it.
Love the job.
Love the profession.
Love sharing knowledge and great dudes, man.
Fantastic.
I would definitely recommend getting them on them and him and Logan Broberg, man.
Logan Broberg is another great dude.
Good friend of mine also.
Yeah, you know, I've never actually met him, but he comes up all the time.
We've got a lot of mutual friends and I know in all of the smoke diver pictures,
he's there, you know, used a lot.
So yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Well, then the next question or the last question actually, what do you do to decompress?
Well, now that I live in Colorado, I have the luxury of hey, you want to go snowboarding
like we went snowboarding last Wednesday, the Wednesday before just getting away,
just getting on the mountains in the summertime, love hiking things like that.
And just working out working out gear.
That's that's my if I don't work out like if I miss a day, maybe I never miss two days.
But if I were to miss two days, it wouldn't be good.
Or so that's just for my own mental sanity is like that's my fix, right?
Working out just doing hard shit and struggling and suffering.
Brilliant.
Well, Marcus, I want to say thank you so much.
It's been such an amazing conversation.
I like, you know, when I have someone like you, we can really kind of pull pull the bandage
off the whole fitness thing.
I mean, to me, it's insane that, you know, we have I've got all these operators that
have been on from the British Special Forces and the US and Australian and then you got
Ocean Life Guards and every single one of them is held to an extremely high standard.
But when it comes to fitness, fire, police, EMS, we not only don't have one, we have unions
that will even actively oppose it.
So it's always important to have the conversation about where the bar should be.
And if it's not there, where it should be put back to.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time today and coming on
the Behind the Shield podcast.
Hey, James, like I said, man, I'm super humbled that you even invited me and asked me on here
and I really appreciate your time.
Seriously.
So thank you.
It's with pleasure