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This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.

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I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and have used their products ever since.

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From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female

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responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've worked for.

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Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they are

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also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance Project.

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We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier. I ended up buying real

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ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been my ride or die through

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Murph the last few years as well. But one area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous

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sponsorship spots is their brick and mortar element. They were predominantly an online

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company up till more recently but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the US.

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My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts you see

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online are applied also in the stores. So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every

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purchase that you make but I do want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount

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especially around holiday times. But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order

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or in the stores every time you make a purchase. And if you want to hear more about 511, who they

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stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with

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511 regional director Will Ayres. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is

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James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show former law enforcement

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officer and the man behind Keto 50, Eric Reynolds. Now Eric has an amazing story from his childhood

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growing up as the son of June Hawkins, the Miami-Dade detective that caught Griselda Blanco,

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his own journey into law enforcement, the bank robber that tried to kill him and his partner

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in 2012, the physical and mental rehab of that injury, his own powerful mental health story,

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how he reclaimed his health through ketosis, the carnivore diet, finding his half brother through

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a DNA search and so much more. Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week

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please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,

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leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast

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therefore making it easier for others to find and this is a free library of over 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can

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get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them. So with that being said

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I introduce to you Eric Reynolds. Enjoy.

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Well Eric I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming on the Behind

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the Shield podcast this morning. Thanks for having me James, I'm looking forward to this. Hopefully

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I don't break down crying, I usually cry when I'm talking about the show. I'm sorry for the

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lack of sound. I'm sorry for the lack of sound. I'm sorry for the lack of sound. I'm sorry for the

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lack of sound. I'm sorry for the lack of sound. I'm sorry for the lack of sound. I'm sorry for the

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loss of the air Therefore can't have a appeal to you or to me, thank you for your commentsers.

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Thanks for having me James, I'm looking forward to this. Hopefully I don't break down crying,

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I usually do somewhere in the stories. You are in the right place, I think I've lost

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count of the number of people on here that have cried so you know this is a safe space and let

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me use that term positively not derogatory like it's used these days. So very first question

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an hour on the other side of the mountain from Asheville, North Carolina.

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So we're East Coast, Tennessee, staying on my buddy's farm.

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He's got a little RV hookup.

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We travel full time in our RV for the last four years.

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We doing it pre-COVID.

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Well, we bought the trailer and all that.

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But yeah, we're in Tennessee right now enjoying the nice weather and

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the sunshine and fresh air and vitamin D, you know.

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Well, let's jump ahead. Firstly, Asheville.

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I've been there. It's absolutely gorgeous and climbed up to Chimney Rock,

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which is the famous one in Las of the Mohicans.

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But my son actually has Cherokee blood himself.

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But talk to me about that.

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What I know we're going way, way ahead.

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But what was it that made you decide to get the RV?

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And then what was that experience like during COVID?

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Things happen kind of crazy.

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And I went on a health journey in 2018.

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We started looking at the books, whether I could retire when I turned 50

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or should I stay on longer for like the drop money or, you know,

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now that you invest your pension and get a big payout when you leave.

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And meanwhile, you're sick and, you know, ready to die.

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And she started looking at, you know, downsizing.

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You know, she was like, let's just get smaller.

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We don't need this big house in Palm Beach County, Florida.

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You were most of your paychecks going to a mortgage and, you know, the big,

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you know, you're spending all your money for all these things.

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And while she's a little crazy, you know, we're looking at tiny house shows

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and treehouse shows and stuff like that.

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And, you know, it made sense to maybe retire and then get out of Florida,

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maybe go looking at different areas.

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One of the areas we considered was Asheville.

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I had an evidence background at my police department.

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I was thinking civilian stuff, get an evidence job there.

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You know, we can live in the mountains, fresh air,

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get away from the hustle and bustle of South Florida.

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So we ended up buying a rig and then we went traveling around.

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We left July 2020.

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We had purchased the rig and then everything got shut down for a while.

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Finally got our rig and hit the road.

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And I never towed anything in my life, man.

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It was the most scariest thing.

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You know, I was more intimidated doing that than driving a police car and stuff.

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It was crazy, you know, because I had never done pulling a rig around and backing

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in all the things that people worry about.

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Yeah, that was me. I was worried about every one of them, you know, blowing tires.

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We've gone through it all, you know, and you learn, you get good at it

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and you start to see the different scenes of this country.

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You know, the mountains, the rivers, the oceans, you know, the woods.

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And you really realize there's a lot more out there than what I was doing

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previously in my life, you know, and it's great for my kids.

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So that's pretty much we're already homeschooling.

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It made sense. Hey, let's take a couple of years off.

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I was done with police work.

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So let's see where we're at.

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And now we're looking for land.

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We want a homestead and come become little farmers and stuff like that.

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So brilliant. That's amazing.

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It's funny, because I know a lot of people that have, you know, Winnebago's,

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for example, especially at the height.

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You know, that was kind of the thing when I went to California

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right before the crash, a lot of my friends had Fifth Wheels and Winnebago's

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and all kinds of things.

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But they would sit on the driveway for, you know, 48 weeks of the year.

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You know, and I think this is the application where it makes sense.

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You sell everything up and then you live in that and you get to see the country.

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But I think the kind of projection of all the toys that people should have,

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especially at that particular time where, you know, financially,

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there was a lot of insanity going on.

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You know, there was a lot of crippling by telling everyone that you need to have,

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you know, a Winnebago.

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The other thing is funny when you say about that,

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the number of people that, you know, get given a U-Haul or,

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you know, a Winnebago or something like that with no experience

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on how to drive it. And they may have driven, you know, a Fiat

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their whole life up until that point.

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And it's, you know, we hold the semi drivers are such a high level,

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but you can give anyone a trailer and just wave as they pull it away.

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Yeah, it's terrifying.

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We see all the videos and we've seen people making mistakes

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and even myself not paying attention, driving, you know,

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you know, I don't go over 65 unless I'm passing somebody.

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I try to stay around 60, kind of like with the trucks.

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You kind of blend in with them, you know, like you're in a big herd.

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And, you know, it's it's it can be a little stressful, you know, but,

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you know, speed is not your friend when you're towing, you know.

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And I think people forget that they're towing some.

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They just get caught up.

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And, you know, you don't want that little wiggle in the back

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because things aren't going to end well, you know, and slowing things down.

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I was one of my biggest challenges was slowing the pace of life down,

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you know, because, you know, many years start for me.

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I was working since I was 15, playing high school sports routine.

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Boom, boom, boom, go, go, go.

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And then you get in after college.

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I'm in the work industry and, you know, and then being a first responder

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and being all doing all that stuff.

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And next thing you know, you never slow it down, you know, even vacations.

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You're looking back and when you got to get back.

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Oh, I got to go back Monday or I got it, you know.

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And it was a whole nother mindset, man, of just, hey, you don't have anywhere to go.

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You don't have any, you know, and it took a while.

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I mean, I was pacing around and reorganizing my toolbox or something,

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you know, and just kind of what do I do?

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So not only was that transitioning from the retirement of police work, it was also

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I don't have a house anymore.

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You know, I'm driving around, but, you know, it turned into a great thing.

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I mean, I started meeting cops and retired first responders, military,

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other full timers and people that have been doing it a long time.

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And you start make networking just like if you moved to a new area, you know,

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your friends get along with certain friends and now you become friends with their parents.

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I mean, we have the same thing as everyone else does.

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It's just our neighborhood changes a little bit.

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And we meet up with the same people around the country.

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It's pretty cool. Beautiful.

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Well, you mentioned about childhood.

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So let's go to yours.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,

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what your parents did, how many siblings?

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Oh, boy. OK, so I was born in Key West, Florida.

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My dad was in the Air Force.

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My mom was actually a Florida State art major.

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She got a full ride to Florida State when my dad was in the service,

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when they were dating and then he had a knock on her up.

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They got married. She she dropped out of Florida State.

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And ironically, that's where I was conceived.

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It's always a funny thing because that's where I went to college.

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So I finished the job.

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And it was she became a military wife.

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And after a couple of years, I mean, she was 19.

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He was 19. Things didn't work out.

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And she divorced my dad when I was about four or five years old

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and moved back to Miami, Florida and lived with my grandmother.

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And my mom was Cuban. She was born in Miami.

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My grandmother was born in Cuba.

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So I was raised by the Cuban grandmother while my mom was out there hustling,

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you know, saving the world.

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You know, she ended up going on a date with a fireman.

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She's looking for work.

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You know, here she is divorced in 1974.

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And I'm five, six years old.

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You know, I'm still playing my little toys and stuff.

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And she's trying to hustle and make a living, you know, and

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she ended up applying to be a police officer down in Dade County

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because they had good benefits, you know, and she was just worried about me.

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I got to provide for my boy, you know, and she fell into some interesting

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career path that she I mean, she got involved in so many awesome crimes

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and not awesome crimes, but also investigations of crimes.

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And one of the things she got involved with was the cocaine

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Cowboys, Narcos days when they were shooting people in intersections

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and at malls and stuff like that, because she was fluent in Spanish.

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She was able to do wiretaps or, you know, a lot of translations

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or listen in on stuff, do undercover work.

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And because no one had recognized her light skin complexion as Cuban,

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you know, she just kind of slid right in.

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And here I am, 10 years old.

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My mom's solving homicides, you know, she's in car chases, all this stuff

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I don't even know about, you know, she's not coming home, telling her

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10 year old son that this is going down.

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So anyway, she had a long storied career about 30 years down there in Miami.

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You know, she got married a couple of times, you know, happens to cops or,

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you know, people in our profession, you know, I know first responders

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across the board have a high, high divorce rate and she's got me off

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the Florida state, you know, she figured, all right, I'm done with police work.

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I'm retiring soon.

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And then here I come out of college and I ended up becoming a police officer.

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So in a way she was dragged back in a little bit based on my career, you know,

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but she's had good things, you know, her character is portrayed in the Griselda

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show on Netflix, Detective June Hawkins.

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She's like the star character that's battling Sofia Vergara, who's Griselda

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Blanco, that notorious queenpin of the cocaine dealing days back then.

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So it's pretty cool to be seeing my mom all of a sudden getting phone calls

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from these Hollywood executives, working out contracts and talking to actresses

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about scripts.

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And it was pretty crazy, you know, because we're just, you know, I mean,

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we're not a normal family.

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Trust me, you know, when your mom's a homicide sergeant, it's not exactly

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a normal life growing up, but basically inside the house, we're a normal family.

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So, you know, you got people calling you and they want to know your mom's story.

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It's like, whoa, what's going on here?

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You know, and it was exciting to go back and relive some of those days.

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What was going on?

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00:13:04,200 --> 00:13:08,160
You know, seeing my mom at 30 years old, you know, or an actress playing my mom

225
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:11,200
at such a young age, I was like, wow, look what my mom was going through.

226
00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:14,760
Because I know how hard that job is already just for a man.

227
00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:17,560
And then as, you know, women have their own challenges.

228
00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:22,720
And then back in 1975, when my mom got hired, I can't imagine the challenges

229
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:29,520
she faced and the, you know, criticism and the sexism and just the mental,

230
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:33,360
you know, stress that she had to go through working in a man's world.

231
00:13:33,360 --> 00:13:36,440
You know, and some of that comes out in the show, you know, they had the AC

232
00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:40,000
cranking the AC story and there's some other stories that pop up that they

233
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,800
didn't put in the show, they're pretty gross, but, you know, we'll save that for,

234
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:46,560
you know, sitting around a campfire drinking some beers or something.

235
00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:49,200
But yeah, it was great to see her.

236
00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:52,600
My stepfather is also portrayed in the show, Sergeant Al Singleton.

237
00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:53,600
He's my stepfather.

238
00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:57,240
They got married about 10 years after they worked together, maybe 15 years.

239
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:02,000
They ended up dating and getting married after they worked together previously.

240
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:03,440
So it's pretty cool story.

241
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,280
And that's how I pretty much got in law enforcement.

242
00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:08,680
I'm the third best cop in the family.

243
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:11,480
That's why I tell everybody, you know, and it's tough.

244
00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:13,400
I'm always freaking, was it bronze?

245
00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:14,840
I'm always the bronze, you know.

246
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:20,320
Well, when, when you look back now with this veteran lens that you have,

247
00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:25,000
having gone through your own mental health struggles, were there elements

248
00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:30,640
of your childhood as far as the impact of the job on your mother that you

249
00:14:30,640 --> 00:14:33,640
recognize now with this kind of more mature perspective?

250
00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:35,480
Oh yeah.

251
00:14:35,520 --> 00:14:40,920
There's some serious PTSD, my mom, or let's say undiagnosed PTSD.

252
00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:46,000
She's definitely, well, she's a lot like me because we both kind of have

253
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,920
the same type of trauma from the career, you know, just every day of seeing,

254
00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,080
I mean, she was seeing dead families executed.

255
00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:57,040
And so, I mean, she saw some horrific stuff and at a young age too.

256
00:14:57,040 --> 00:14:59,800
So by the time she was 50 years old, getting ready to retire,

257
00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:03,120
she's seen everything, you know, and she did hostage negotiation.

258
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:07,600
You know, she was involved in the pillowcase rapist investigations in the 80.

259
00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:10,320
I mean, it was just nuts what she had seen.

260
00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:15,040
So, you know, I, I'm very careful when I mention stuff like that to her,

261
00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:19,280
cause I don't want to send it down the wrong, you know, direction, but yeah,

262
00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:25,640
I see it in her, I see this, you know, the short temper, the, just get

263
00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:29,240
hardheaded man, you know, and I see it in her.

264
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:30,800
I see it in her and it's also old age.

265
00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:34,320
I mean, she's getting older now, so too much Fox news, maybe I don't know.

266
00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:39,560
God, Fox and CNN are the enemy of happiness hands down.

267
00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:41,240
All right.

268
00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:43,640
Well, then we want to get to some other elements of your child.

269
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:45,240
While we're on this discussion.

270
00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:49,640
Um, I think one of the least discussed elements of first responder and military,

271
00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:54,560
et cetera, mental health is the formative years, you know, before we ever put the

272
00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:58,800
uniform on, when you look back now, were there any elements of your

273
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:01,920
upbringing you think that contributed to the struggles later in life?

274
00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:06,520
Well, my, I mentioned, my parents got divorced.

275
00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:08,440
My mom had gone through it.

276
00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:13,880
Um, she's, that's her third marriage now, but my dad had, has been married five times.

277
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:18,040
So there was something with seeing pops growing up all the time when I'd have a

278
00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:21,160
new stepmother, a new house, a new car.

279
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:23,520
You know, you keep getting divorced, you keep losing all your stuff.

280
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:25,200
You know, I don't know if they told you that.

281
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:29,000
So he went from having something to nothing.

282
00:16:29,680 --> 00:16:32,400
So that was a learning experience too.

283
00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:36,280
I mean, just to see how he handled relationships, how he handled the

284
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:39,200
divorce between my parents, you know, we were in two different states.

285
00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:43,160
I would go see him the summer for Christmas, spring break, you know, is that,

286
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:48,880
Hey dad, now you try to be full-time dad when you're not around your son, you know?

287
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:51,200
And then here you are getting married again.

288
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:54,960
And then I have through those marriages, I have three, well, that's

289
00:16:54,960 --> 00:16:57,440
in the whole other story at the time.

290
00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:00,760
I had a younger brother, 14 years younger.

291
00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:07,240
And then in his last marriage, he's got, I got a 22 and 24 year old younger than me.

292
00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:08,720
Siblings, a sister and brother.

293
00:17:08,720 --> 00:17:14,120
So we got us four and then we found one through a DNA search that led down a whole

294
00:17:14,120 --> 00:17:16,520
another freaking story about my dad.

295
00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:23,400
So yeah, I know his, his relationships were always, I just think the minute he

296
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:25,360
had a crush on a girl, he just got married.

297
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:26,640
He just didn't want to lose him.

298
00:17:27,120 --> 00:17:31,480
You know, he figured that was a way he could lock them in, you know, control them.

299
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:36,360
Some, some weird psychology that's going on with his own struggles, with his

300
00:17:36,360 --> 00:17:39,120
own relationship with his parents when he grew up, you know, you can see it.

301
00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:42,360
And we saw it going to domestics or you see a kid that you knew at little and

302
00:17:42,360 --> 00:17:47,000
there he is a thug on the streets and you know, you see the family dynamic or whatever.

303
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,680
I could see it in my own history of like, wow, maybe this is why I had a little chip

304
00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:53,760
on my shoulder all the time walking around without dad.

305
00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:58,160
Cause back when I was a kid, it wasn't a lot of divorced kids standing up in class,

306
00:17:58,160 --> 00:17:59,920
you know, Hey, yeah, my parents are divorced.

307
00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:01,720
This is my mom here on career day.

308
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,200
Cause that couldn't come, you know, dad's in another state.

309
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:08,200
So looking back, I'm always like, wow, yeah, that was pretty messed up, but you

310
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:12,000
know, my mom got me in the sports luckily, so I could take out my aggressions on,

311
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:17,360
you know, the football field and, you know, take orders from coaches and other

312
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:18,960
role models that were positive.

313
00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:22,760
So it wasn't like I went the wrong direction, but I know looking back, I

314
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:24,600
fought a lot, I got paddled.

315
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:26,520
That's how old I am at 54.

316
00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:30,600
I was telling somebody the other day, I got paddled by my principal at this

317
00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:31,920
private school we were at.

318
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:33,760
Oh yeah, that's an old another.

319
00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:36,520
It turned out my P coach was a pedophile.

320
00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:39,160
I mean, there are pedophiles everywhere, dude, looking back in the seventies,

321
00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:40,560
cause they didn't have any backgrounds.

322
00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:42,600
I would even look at the previous town you came from.

323
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:43,760
I was crazy back then.

324
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:46,560
So, but yeah, it was, uh,

325
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:50,880
you know, I was sports saved me, you know, and my mom was very involved for

326
00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:55,040
as much as she could, you know, she stayed with it, grades studying, you know,

327
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:57,960
you have chores, chore lists throughout the house.

328
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:01,920
I mean, I know in the Griselda show, they talked about her writing memos all the

329
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:03,240
time, really good memos.

330
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,960
And she left memos all over the house for me, you know, grocery store, cut the

331
00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:08,800
yard.

332
00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:12,840
So she stayed on top of me, the best she could, you know, there's some others,

333
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:15,320
you know, I made some knucklehead decisions, like, I'm going to be a

334
00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:18,320
some knucklehead decisions like everybody that she don't know about, but it's

335
00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:20,040
not no felonies or anything like that.

336
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:25,400
So yeah, I see it, you know, I, and I see now being married and with my wife,

337
00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:30,200
almost 17 years, waiting a long time to get married, cause I wasn't ready to

338
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:34,720
commit and I probably would have made a lot of mistakes, you know, early on,

339
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:38,120
whether it would have been adultery would have been my drinking that made a bad

340
00:19:38,120 --> 00:19:41,560
decision or it would have been something else.

341
00:19:41,560 --> 00:19:45,560
You know, I met her when I was 37 and it was a good time.

342
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:47,920
I was ready to, you know, I was more mature.

343
00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:49,720
I already been a cop for a few years.

344
00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:53,280
You know, I was realistic with stuff and, you know, it was perfect.

345
00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:54,120
I didn't screw it up.

346
00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:57,760
Like, you know, I would have done in my early twenties and, you know, I don't

347
00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:03,160
know if that's life experience or if it's just timing, you know, but I didn't

348
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:07,360
want to repeat what my upbringing was like, not that it was terrible, but it was

349
00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:12,360
just a little bit different and there was a lot of loneliness when you're a kid

350
00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:14,560
getting bouncing around a lot.

351
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:17,800
You're like, you know, so I didn't want that for my kids.

352
00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:21,200
And then we homeschooled them, not cause I was a homeschool proponent.

353
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:25,040
It was just in 2018, we didn't like the direction it was going for my oldest son.

354
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,800
He's like a little active warrior and needs to be outside running around doing

355
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,440
stuff and then he can focus and do some learning and then he's got to run around.

356
00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:32,720
Wow.

357
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:37,120
I mean, this whole saying locked in a cubicle in school all day was not

358
00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:37,840
going to work for him.

359
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,960
And then, you know, obviously we started camping and I retired and then everything

360
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:44,920
just freaking just got so much better.

361
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:48,240
Once I got off the, you know, the rat wheel, you know, the hamster wheel and

362
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:52,400
running in circles, paying this and realizing in the end, I'm just enslaved,

363
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,360
you know, so yeah, there's a lot there though.

364
00:20:56,520 --> 00:21:00,440
No, it's funny when even with the multi-generational trauma, I've just, just

365
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:03,640
about to finish this week, the final draft of my second book, and that's one of

366
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:08,760
the underlining themes because, you know, whether it's the us in uniform itself,

367
00:21:08,760 --> 00:21:12,760
or whether it is the homeless, the addict, the gang member, whatever, you

368
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:17,120
know, it's kind of ironic that we're a very faith-based or supposed to be a

369
00:21:17,120 --> 00:21:21,320
very faith-based country, yet there's such a lack of compassion when it comes

370
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:22,640
to people who are struggling.

371
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,560
So I think these are important things to hear when you go back and you hear that

372
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:30,400
my father was this way and then his father was this way, you start to see

373
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,800
that they're dominoes and the next domino is going to hit the one in front

374
00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:37,680
unless you finally identify it and pull the domino out, you know, out of the way.

375
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:43,280
Yeah, we found out that, I guess we should dive into the brother thing

376
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:49,600
because my dad's dad, so my, I guess my great grandfather had two lives.

377
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:54,440
He had two sets, he had another wife with other kids and that came out in some

378
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:58,000
family tree when I got contacted by another Reynolds family in Maryland.

379
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,200
And they're like, Hey, guess what?

380
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:03,080
And they were like, Oh no, we got a whole nother branch, a whole nother tree

381
00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:09,400
going on over here of people, you know, and yeah, my dad, I mean, you want to

382
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:10,360
talk about my brother?

383
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:12,720
I mean, it's kind of in this LA dynamic.

384
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:19,880
So, um, then back in 2019, I had done a 23 and me a couple of years ago, just

385
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:23,840
before that in 2016, cause they already had my DNA for all these investigations

386
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:27,120
anyways, so I wasn't worried about them, you know, making a clone.

387
00:22:27,120 --> 00:22:28,840
Now I am, but back then I wasn't.

388
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:34,600
So they, uh, you know, I found out my Cuban history through my mom, going back

389
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:38,840
to Spain, you see some, you know, drops in France, and then you see my dad and

390
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:43,920
mom's father's side, which is all English, Irish and the Nordic, you know, up there

391
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:47,720
and all that, the Vikings and wherever the Vikings were attacking or settling,

392
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:49,800
whatever, that's where all my DNA is from all that area.

393
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:51,600
So I was like, ah, cool.

394
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:56,120
You know, and then 2019 I'm at breakfast in July and I get an email from

395
00:22:56,120 --> 00:22:58,640
23 and me says, Hey, you got a family member wants to get in touch with you.

396
00:22:58,640 --> 00:22:59,760
And it's always pretty routine.

397
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:01,840
It's a cousin, third cousin, or some far away.

398
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,440
And then right there in the email, it says, Hey, my name's Dave stall.

399
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:08,160
Corn to 23 and me, you know, we're half brothers.

400
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:10,920
Not only that we're both cops and we both live in Florida.

401
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,160
And he didn't know anything about his upbringing.

402
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:15,920
He was adopted when he was a baby.

403
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:18,040
He ended up growing up in San Diego.

404
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:20,160
He's adopted by a Navy helicopter pilot.

405
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:25,040
And he grew up in San Diego at the base out there surfing.

406
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:26,040
Long hair.

407
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:27,480
I'm like, look at this guy.

408
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,360
He was actually at the same base where Top Gun was filmed.

409
00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:33,200
And since his dad was the officer in charge of the base, lived on the big

410
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:37,080
house, you know, on the hill, he got to like interact with the cast.

411
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:39,000
And he's got, he met Tom Cruise.

412
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:42,000
He's wearing like goose's bomber jacket.

413
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:43,640
And I'm like, what year is that?

414
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:44,240
What year?

415
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:45,800
I'm like, my mom's solving homicides.

416
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:49,920
I'm going to YMCA, you know, after daycare or daycare camps or whatever

417
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:51,320
for kids, you know, after school.

418
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:54,560
And he's on the set with, you know, Top Gun and stuff.

419
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:55,600
So it's like one that bad.

420
00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,920
But we ended up, we ended up hooking up, found out he is a cop in Orange

421
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:02,920
County, which is Orlando area.

422
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:04,800
He'd been a cop a lot longer than me.

423
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:06,600
He was about to retire within two years.

424
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:11,600
And it was just, we FaceTime, you know, looking at this guy, it was like

425
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:15,560
they dropped an A, it looks like my dad, more like my dad than the rest of us.

426
00:24:16,120 --> 00:24:19,400
And like, he got the strong DNA and he got that 18 year old DNA.

427
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,320
I got the 19 and the rest got the weak ass DNA.

428
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:29,080
So, so it was crazy, you know, and then talking to him and like, what's your

429
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:29,680
life about?

430
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,240
And he's like, well, tell me about our dad or something, you know, like,

431
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:34,680
oh yeah, your bio dad.

432
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:35,920
All right, well, listen to this.

433
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:37,920
You know, I got to sit him down because it's not like this.

434
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:39,760
I mean, he's not a terrible guy.

435
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:43,200
He's just, there's been a lot of stories to tell and I had to share the story

436
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:49,360
about, you know, his divorces, multiple marriages and stuff like that.

437
00:24:49,360 --> 00:24:52,560
Some of his own mistakes and, you know, but he's a good honorable man.

438
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,920
You know, he did his time in the Air Force was even a cop in the Air Force.

439
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:01,480
So, you know, here we are surrounded by these law enforcement warrior type of

440
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:04,040
people, always trying to get out there and, you know, make a difference or

441
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:04,800
defend stuff.

442
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,800
So anyways, we ended up meeting my dad, had to call my dad and say, hey, where

443
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:11,000
were you in the fall of 19?

444
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,680
67, you know, he's like, I was working at Zairs in the paint department.

445
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,680
He was kicking with this girl in the lingerie department.

446
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:19,760
I go, guess what?

447
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:24,680
Because she ended up having a baby and he, he goes back and he remembers her

448
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:25,960
saying something about her being pregnant.

449
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:30,320
And then you don't think that would be kind of a pull in conversation.

450
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:32,760
Well, he wanted to marry her.

451
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,160
He goes, well, I guess we got to get married.

452
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:35,480
And then it came back.

453
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:36,880
She came back.

454
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:38,960
No, no, no test or it wasn't pregnant.

455
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:42,240
It came back, no, no, no test or it wasn't positive or whatever.

456
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,120
And it turns out she was actually promised to be married to somebody else.

457
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:46,280
And the whole hit.

458
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,280
So he ended up finding his birth mom, meeting her.

459
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:50,840
He has two siblings on that side.

460
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:52,720
So he's got us four on my dad's side.

461
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:53,920
And then he has two on the other.

462
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,520
So now he's got six and now he's got all these nieces and nephews.

463
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:00,240
So he ran for nothing.

464
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,920
I mean, he's married and his wife has two kids from a previous marriage that he's

465
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:09,320
grown up pretty much as his, but he didn't have this like crazy family tree.

466
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,880
So yeah, that was pretty cool meeting him.

467
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,560
We got we got to go a little bit viral.

468
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:16,600
We got to go on Fox and Friends in the morning.

469
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,640
They interviewed us because 2019 they love first responders, right?

470
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:21,160
And we love you guys.

471
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,000
You know, a year later, they're flipping our cars and shooting us.

472
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,560
Right. So then fired us from taking a vaccine.

473
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:31,480
Exactly. Stuff like that, which, you know, I had retired, you know, so here I am.

474
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:35,840
I'm retiring mentally, find a brother and now we're on Fox and Friends.

475
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:36,920
I'm like, this is pretty cool.

476
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,600
And Dave has been camping for 10 years, living the RV life.

477
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,840
So now we're in discussions, my wife and I are already about the RV life.

478
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:46,680
And here's this guy that drops out of nowhere.

479
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,520
Maybe he's a spy. I got to double check that DNA because everything's a little bit

480
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:54,000
too nice, you know, you know, pull its face off and have been alien head.

481
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,280
I know, right. You're not Dave.

482
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,080
But yeah, he ended up teaching me at a camp.

483
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:00,920
We camped together.

484
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:05,120
I mean, he didn't teach me every day, but he taught me, you know, where to go

485
00:27:05,120 --> 00:27:06,280
and how you do stuff.

486
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,560
And so it's all kind of like that a guardian angel pop up right at the right time.

487
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:12,320
Same time we auditioned for Amazing Race.

488
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:16,080
They contacted us and they loved the idea of two brothers that don't know each other

489
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,320
competing or we're probably going to choke each other out, you know,

490
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:21,160
because I don't know this cat.

491
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,720
We're going to get in some disagreements, you know, on that show.

492
00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:27,040
So we auditioned for that and we were actually going to go out there in December

493
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,160
of 2019 out to L.A. for casting and some stuff.

494
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,280
And then Covid kind of delayed it.

495
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,080
And then once I saw that first police car get lit up on fire,

496
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,680
I remember talking to Dave, I go, I don't think we're going to Hollywood, bro.

497
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,200
I think this ship has sailed and it never came back.

498
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,400
So it's probably for the good.

499
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:47,600
But anyways, all that cool stuff was happening, you know, and that same time

500
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:51,360
that's when I got called from Doug Myra of the Narcos Netflix series.

501
00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:54,920
And he's like, hey, you know, this show called Narcos on Netflix.

502
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:56,080
I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

503
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:57,240
I watch that stuff all the time.

504
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,080
I go, I'm watching Mexican Narcos right now, you know, and he's like,

505
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:01,720
well, we want to talk to your mom.

506
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,480
I was like, oh, I thought you wanted to talk to me and Dave, you know,

507
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,880
because I thought we'd maybe get something, you know, with the two brothers story.

508
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,160
I don't know. We were just caught up in the moment.

509
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,600
And then I end up hooking my mom up with the, you know, Narcos people.

510
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:14,720
And that's how the Griselda show.

511
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:16,880
So all this great stuff's going down.

512
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:21,680
I'm retiring on my 50th birthday, you know, and all during that time,

513
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:22,920
I'm battling heart disease.

514
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,320
You know, this is a whole nother side story that nobody knows

515
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:28,640
what's going on behind the scenes.

516
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:31,360
You know, I was, you know, I don't know.

517
00:28:31,360 --> 00:28:33,840
We want to go back and rewind to the shooting.

518
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,040
But at the time when I was really at my worst, I was about 250 pounds

519
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,880
severely obese from from my I mean, I'm six foot tall.

520
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:46,480
She probably rocking 100, 185 pounds, you know, maybe 200 if I bolt up.

521
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,560
But I should nowhere be near 250 pounds or 250 pounds.

522
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:53,760
So the heart disease, I was getting all the cholesterol talk.

523
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,600
I was getting stents. They want to put stents in me.

524
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:00,920
I had a CAC score for my, you know, checking to see the calcium in my arteries.

525
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,720
And I was 1500, which the top is 400.

526
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,960
So I was just I was getting all this freaking pressure.

527
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:08,480
Oh, don't worry. Now it's 4000.

528
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:12,600
But we can get into that later on my healthy 4000 CAC score.

529
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:14,760
So it's just been crazy.

530
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:18,200
But anyways, that was all going down at that time, you know,

531
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:23,960
and then changing my diet was probably the biggest thing that helped me get right.

532
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:28,640
At least on the right path, you know, being shot in 2012.

533
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,960
That like I said, that was an igniter for a lot of bad habits.

534
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,040
Brought a lot of things to surface and I developed some other things

535
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:36,640
I didn't know I was going through.

536
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,080
You know, if I was already stressed about work, well, guess what?

537
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,880
I'm more stressed about stress about bills are more stressed,

538
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:43,720
stressed about going out in public and more stress.

539
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:49,000
Hyper vigilance was everywhere, you know, and that's what led into more drinking,

540
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,040
more isolation.

541
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:56,800
During my darkest moments, I never really had a thought about suicide.

542
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:58,840
It would pop up because you hear about it.

543
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:00,400
You can't stop hearing about it, right?

544
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,640
Especially in our profession, you know, and we even know people that have done it.

545
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:10,520
So it's just it never was to the point where it was that where I had to go to that point.

546
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,400
And it's probably because I had my wife and my kids.

547
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:14,840
I still had my job.

548
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:16,640
I still had some support.

549
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:18,040
I still had my kids.

550
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:22,200
I still have my job, I still have some support around me.

551
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:26,320
But I can tell you if I didn't, I could see how guys go that go that route.

552
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:27,840
And you can't shut it off.

553
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:29,680
You know, it just is there is there.

554
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,880
You know, in my shooting situation, I came out with Austin Monroe.

555
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:34,880
We came out victorious.

556
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:40,480
We won the battle, you know, and I know a lot of guys get tortured if they didn't win the battle.

557
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,200
You know, maybe they got shot.

558
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:44,480
They did nothing to do.

559
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,440
You know, you walk up to a car and a guy freaking unloads on you.

560
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:54,280
What do you I mean, if you're lucky to survive it, you know, but now you're battling man, you know,

561
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,360
like in football, sometimes I get knocked on my ass.

562
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:58,000
But you know what? You get up.

563
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,280
You got to you're just going to keep getting trampled.

564
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:04,040
And I know it's not the same when you get shot on a traffic stop or something like that.

565
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:09,720
But I can see how it can play on your mind because now you're like, damn, the guy got me.

566
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:11,840
He got me that day. I knew better.

567
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:12,880
I should have done this.

568
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:18,200
I should have done that over and over. And that's what probably would drive me nuts.

569
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:23,440
You know, if just replaying the situation over and over again, because I do it now and I won,

570
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,320
you know, and that's still a battle.

571
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,360
Let me ask you something. Yeah.

572
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:33,520
One of the things that I've observed, because I never got to that dark, dark place either.

573
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:37,880
And, you know, it was definitely a black cloud was a real shit magnet in my career.

574
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:44,000
And when I look back, I am no better or worse than any other person who's ever put a uniform on before.

575
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:51,280
I'm a human being that was born as a crying, pissing poop in a bundle of flesh, you know, and then life happened.

576
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:56,960
And what I am seeing as far as a common denominator between those of us who are able to,

577
00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:03,400
you know, we're going to have highs and we're going to have lows, but we're able to shirk off the very, very darkest of dark.

578
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:10,000
Is that there seems to be an element of trauma or struggles when we're younger, but also an element of healing.

579
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:17,040
And I'll give you an example. I almost died in a house fire when I was four years old and my parents had a frickin horrendous divorce.

580
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:23,040
And then there was another time we were almost killed by a massive wall that fell, crushed the car right next to us.

581
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,560
My dad drove away. So, yeah, there was some there were some things.

582
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:32,560
But I grew up on a farm. You know, my family was intact, even though by the time I got to my like mid teens,

583
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:38,120
I realized that it was kind of a lie. My parents divorce. It was still they were both there in the house.

584
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:44,760
We had dinners around farm tables. We talked, we laughed, you know, nature, healing, all these things.

585
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,880
So I didn't do anything to create that.

586
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:58,120
I was just fortunate enough to be born in that environment where equal and opposite to the trauma were elements of healing that I feel led to resilience.

587
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:02,600
And I think the only difference is that some of these people that really struggle in uniform,

588
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:07,080
that ended up getting buried down and not addressed through no fault of their own.

589
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:11,520
It's just the circumstance. When you look back at your early life,

590
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:21,320
were there elements of kind of equal and opposite healing or processing of some of the bad things that maybe fostered resilience later in life?

591
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:29,400
Well, I was in eight different schools. You know, I was a new kid mid school year once.

592
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,560
You know, I was going to schools in different states.

593
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:34,920
You know, my mom let me live with my dad a couple of years because they said, I want to live with my dad.

594
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:39,080
And she's like, all right, you know, even says in the show, you get to find out what an asshole he is.

595
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:44,560
So that's kind of what her thinking was. Plus, you know, she had her own things going on back then.

596
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:48,880
And, yeah, I would get into fights as a new kid all the time.

597
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:55,240
You know, I was constantly meeting new circles, whether it was new football team, new baseball team.

598
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,400
Then you pulled me out of Georgia. Now we're in a new neighborhood in Miami.

599
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:06,320
You know, and then we move around there because my mom was always up, you know, moving up apartment, townhouse, duplex house.

600
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:10,840
You know, she it was that struggle that she was going through.

601
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:17,960
But every one of those new houses was a new circle to get used to, you know, bullies from the other block.

602
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,880
You know, so I fought a lot, you know, and I wasn't a UFC fighter.

603
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,760
I just street fight. And, you know, I became a tough kid.

604
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:26,760
And, you know, I learned how to take a punch.

605
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:31,080
You know, and that's some of the stuff that I think made me more resilient later, even on the job.

606
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:35,040
You know, you know, not every call goes your way.

607
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:41,600
You know, I would take I try to write good reports, you know, as representation of me when I was in uniform.

608
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:50,480
I helped, you know, I had an honor and that came from my mom and having respect in your, you know, in your work and in you.

609
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,640
You know, you have value.

610
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:59,080
So doing a lot of that stuff was what probably saved me a lot because I was applying when I was in college, I smoked a ton of weed.

611
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:07,200
Right. I wasn't big in the drinking and driving and trying to get, you know, arrested as a college kid and derail my college career,

612
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:09,680
which is nothing but partying at Florida State for six years.

613
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:15,280
I went to, you know, I worked, I went to school, but I didn't learn real life until I got out of there.

614
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:26,800
So getting, you know, I caught shoplifters after college, you know, and I just it was always just stepping up myself, you know, getting up to the, you know,

615
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:32,480
I did the same thing, apartment, let's get a house and just moving up the rankings.

616
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:40,800
And, you know, I when I was talking about smoking weed, I couldn't get hired right out of college because, you know, you touch the stuff and you're disqualified.

617
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,840
You know, even though I knew cops had snorted cocaine and like a freaking this guy.

618
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:51,040
So anyways, I had to wait a while. I started catching shoplifters for a store like a Macy's or something like that.

619
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:59,600
And I was really good at I loved it. Undercover work, playing close stuff, you know, chase guys down, tackle in the parking lots and fight them and stuff.

620
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:04,880
It was just old school as before, you know, liability was like you can't leave the curb or anything like that.

621
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:10,240
And we were like cowboys, man. It was awesome. But they recruited me down and boy, they're like, hey, you keep chasing all these guys.

622
00:36:10,240 --> 00:36:12,880
Once you get a tool belt and a gun and some pepper spray.

623
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:17,840
And I'm like, everyone's disqualifying me for, you know, the drug history.

624
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:22,960
And then I ended up getting a job as a dispatcher. I did that for about six months.

625
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:26,560
And then I got a community service officer job helping out in traffic crashes.

626
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,800
You know, I helped the T.H.I. guys and I would do minor crashes, got my foot in the door.

627
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:35,360
And then after about nine months, I put in my memo and my mom helped me write.

628
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,400
I mean, she's the memo queen and it went straight up the chain.

629
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:42,680
And then next thing you know, they put me in the academy. So I proved myself by that point.

630
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:44,920
But yeah, it was always that's been the story of my life.

631
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:52,160
Where I went, you know, new I remember getting picked last on basketball teams or football teams.

632
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,040
I'm like, all right, you'll see. Yeah, that's all right.

633
00:36:55,040 --> 00:37:01,160
You know, so that fire came from those experiences, of course, being isolated back against the wall.

634
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:03,760
Not that I was in the hood, getting shot at or anything like that.

635
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:12,080
But we had our own street stuff going on that went unnoticed, you know, in suburban neighborhoods, kids coming over, stuff going down in school.

636
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:19,000
I was in YMCA after school camps. I say that there's a lot of freaking stuff that goes on by school buses.

637
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,320
You know, there's all these different, you know, you get on the school bus, you got one badass that rules the school bus.

638
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:26,080
All right. All right. And I got to keep this guy off my back.

639
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,800
You know, I got to keep this guy out of first period off my back.

640
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:32,320
You know, it's just you're in the jungle right off the bat.

641
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,720
You know, you talked about smoking weed.

642
00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:38,320
And it's funny because I had a very similar experience.

643
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:40,960
I weed wasn't really my thing. I tried it, though.

644
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:47,800
But when I was in Japan, I did X and danced a lot, hugged a lot of strangers, had the time of my life.

645
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:53,080
Never miss a day's work. You know, but I was very honest years later on my application.

646
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:59,800
It was kind of a collaborative test down south that they would send all the results to multiple departments.

647
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:04,160
And Miami Beach was there. And so the pre-app said, have you ever tried them?

648
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:06,240
Yeah, I've tried it because honestly is the best policy.

649
00:38:06,240 --> 00:38:09,520
And he literally screwed it up and threw it back at me and goes, you're disqualified.

650
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:13,880
And I'm like, ah, so you have to lie to be a firefighter. Got it.

651
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:16,720
And then from then on, I got through every polygraph and every other thing.

652
00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:19,000
And it's not something to brag about.

653
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:23,320
It's just simply it shows a ridiculousness of the way that we filter.

654
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:29,080
That being said, as we progress now, you know, a lot of things people will be disqualified for back in the day,

655
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:40,400
a lot of things that on cops TV show officers pursued on high high speed pursuit and then a foot chase and then a big old fight for a little baggie of marijuana.

656
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,360
Now we have a very different perspective.

657
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:49,640
So between your mother, you know, addressing some of the more dangerous side of, you know, of illicit drugs,

658
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:56,520
what is yours or your family's perspective of the change in in the way some of these drugs are viewed

659
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:02,040
and maybe the change in the way that addiction specifically is viewed these days?

660
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:08,840
Yeah, she was she was, you know, art major at Florida State, so she wasn't ever too preachy on marijuana.

661
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:12,960
It was like, don't be you know, don't dumb your brain down. You got more important things to do.

662
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:18,040
But the cocaine, heroin, all that hard stuff she's pretty strict about, you know.

663
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:23,160
And when I was about the age where I probably would have been doing stupid stuff like that, Len Bias died.

664
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,720
He was a first round pick of the Boston Celtics.

665
00:39:25,720 --> 00:39:30,440
And supposedly he just did cocaine the first time and died of a heart attack.

666
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,440
So at that point, that terrified me. That scared me.

667
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,720
Knowing now he probably was doing cocaine a lot more than that.

668
00:39:35,720 --> 00:39:38,680
But, you know, I know at that point, I believed it.

669
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:44,800
And the cocaine, I saw it in Florida or down in Boyden Beach where I was all those years.

670
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:50,160
We saw the meth. You know, we saw the heroin, saw the opioid crisis come through.

671
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:55,680
You know, some of the units I was in, we arrested doctors for, you know, part of those pill mills and the pill shopping

672
00:39:55,680 --> 00:40:02,800
and just that whole thing that, you know, that dark side that pharma has all the time that they hide behind.

673
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:06,680
And I never was trustworthy of pharmaceutical companies at all.

674
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:14,680
They're a legalized cartel and they do things the legal way and they're, you know, sometimes illegal way,

675
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,680
because, you know, there's people disappearing and get in the way.

676
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:24,680
Probably I will one day. And what's crazy is I, with the addiction, you know,

677
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:29,680
we would talk to the addicts that would come down from Kentucky doing these pills shopping.

678
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,680
You know, they're going to multiple doctors. You know, they get in front of a couple thousand dollars

679
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:39,680
to come back for all these pills that they're going to, you know, triple or ten times the profits back in that state.

680
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:44,680
And I'm asking these guys, I'm like, so how are you 21 and you're freaking out on disability already?

681
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:50,680
Like I was in a car accident, you know, or one guy was an athlete and hurt his knee or something, you know.

682
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:58,680
And then they gave him the freaking, you know, the heroin disguised as a pill and the kid developed an addiction

683
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,680
and rerouted his whole life, you know.

684
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:08,680
So I'm still, I'm still thinking education is the way I still would go, show people examples,

685
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:12,680
but it's still going to be people's free will. People are still going to end up doing it.

686
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:17,680
And yeah, some people might, if you legalize certain drugs, might go out and try it because it's legal.

687
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:19,680
Well, then if you're still doing that, you're a dummy.

688
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,680
You know, if you don't do the research on something you're going to put into your body beforehand, you know,

689
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,680
and we've all made mistakes with booze and mixed drinks, but at least you know alcohol.

690
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:32,680
You know, most of us probably grew up around it. You know, I'm not growing up around guys shooting at, you know,

691
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,680
heroin and then wondering, oh, well, I would do that if it wasn't illegal.

692
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,680
No, that's not how it works, you know.

693
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:43,680
Think the, you know, unfortunately, the way our government is run and some of the governments we've created

694
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:49,680
within the, you know, the control of the drugs, it's its own moneymaker and they're never going to stop it.

695
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,680
They're all making money on both sides. I've seen that.

696
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:59,680
You know, I've seen it especially in the food industry, you know, the pharmaceutical world got me thinking about my own,

697
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:04,680
my own diet and the own food that I was putting in my body and the FDA, you know,

698
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:10,680
and what do they allow on these shelves for these kids to be like our cereals and the candies and all that.

699
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:14,680
That is pure poison. They allow it because they're getting paid. That's all it is.

700
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:20,680
If they really knew and it was their kids, all this shit in our grocery stores would be pulled.

701
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:23,680
Pretty much 95% of what's in the grocery store.

702
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:27,680
And we're just shoving it down our pie holes, getting fat, getting sick.

703
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,680
And then we go back to our doctor who's just as fat as we are.

704
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:34,680
And he's writing us a script from the billionaire, trillionaire yacht owner.

705
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,680
And he's sitting back as stocks are going good and all this and we're getting fat and sick.

706
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:42,680
You know, that's the way I took it. That that guy made me sick.

707
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:49,680
And the propaganda they pushed on these parents and what even did my own mom because, oh, here's the cereals or here's your TV dinners.

708
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:53,680
It's healthy. It's done. And, you know, our parents were like, you know, we pay taxes.

709
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:59,680
We trust our government, you know, and they they were played flat out lied.

710
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:07,680
We got the fattest country around. We can't even fill up our military, you know, unless they were addressed.

711
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:13,680
Then they let them in. You know, it's freaking insane, you know, and and it's psychological is what they've done.

712
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,680
They it's mental disease across the board.

713
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:24,680
And the minute they get the kid on formula, the minute they get the kid on sugar and some of these other processed foods and then you indoctrinate them in schools.

714
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:30,680
And when do we got these problems? You know, you know, your kid, you come home, try to be a part time parent on the weekend, go to soccer practice with them.

715
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:34,680
That's not going to freaking do it. You know, you got to be there day in, day out.

716
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,680
There's some days you're not there. Well, that's the way it goes because of life.

717
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,680
But you know what? You still got to have structure set up for your child, you know.

718
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,680
And, you know, I know you're talking about my opinion on drugs.

719
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:49,680
I'm still thinking, hey, if you're going to do it, you're a dummy. If you OD, well, you know, we survive.

720
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,680
We keep moving on. You know, hopefully the next person doesn't do that.

721
00:43:52,680 --> 00:44:01,680
I don't think arresting people and trying to make the value of a go up by making illegal and then make you know, for the cartels, the profit is the way to go about it.

722
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:04,680
I didn't do drugs because not because it was illegal.

723
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,680
I didn't do drugs that I didn't want to freaking hurt myself.

724
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:12,680
I don't want to get stupid. I didn't want to get a, you know, crash my car or get a DUI.

725
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,680
That's why there is consequences. That's why I didn't do it.

726
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:19,680
You know, yeah, no, I went off. No, no, it's good. That's good.

727
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,680
But this is why I love hearing all these different perspectives.

728
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:26,680
It's all well and good to stand there in your home and say, this is my opinion.

729
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:38,680
What's really amazing is to ask hundreds of other people about their perspective, especially if they've been in the trenches in the hospitals, in the police or fire or EMS vehicles, you know, and really seeing the impact on families like we do.

730
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:46,680
And I think one of the things that I think is so encouraging is countries like Portugal that have done a decriminalization.

731
00:44:46,680 --> 00:45:01,680
So, you know, you could have a hybrid. You could legalize things that are clearly doing a lot of good, whether it's psilocybin or, you know, marijuana, where ironically the illicit drugs that we used to vilify are now helping a lot of our first responders and military heal from their trauma.

732
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:10,680
But then you have the decriminalization element. You're not going to go into a grocery store and find meth and heroin and, you know, coke. Those are going to be illicit drugs.

733
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:15,680
But if you're caught with a user's amount, then in Portugal, you're not even really arrested.

734
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:21,680
You're literally given an interview where you're explained the resources that are available to you.

735
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:25,680
Therefore, you give the addict their own autonomy to make their own choice.

736
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:38,680
You've removed the fear of arrest, so the stigma, and you've plowed a lot of the money that went into the war on drugs, air quotes, and you put it into mental health counseling, addiction counseling, job creation.

737
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:45,680
Not only does that then allow most of the addicts, you can't save them all, but most of them start getting back on their feet.

738
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:57,680
But now the resources, law enforcement courts, etc., can focus on the people selling drugs and the people smuggling drugs and then all the other crimes associated that we see on the streets.

739
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:07,680
So it's an absolute win-win. But the problem is it takes proactive leadership, and you've got to then address the lobbying that goes against that.

740
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:13,680
The lobbying that goes against the obesity, you know, stopping the obesity crisis by addressing our shitty food.

741
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:18,680
That is where the real kind of cancer is. And I got to talk to Tulsi Gabbard about that recently.

742
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:24,680
Until we address that as a nation, which we can, we can all just stand up and say enough is enough.

743
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:33,680
But until we do, I mean, I just shared a video today of I think she was a 14-month-old fentanyl overdose that they saved, an amazing EMS save.

744
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:39,680
But, you know, that's a freaking 14-year-old that didn't deliberately take drugs. They're just out there everywhere.

745
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:49,680
So until we stand up as a nation and demand a way, a different way, a proactive way of doing it, then we're going to keep burying people. It's that simple.

746
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:53,680
Yeah, I know I didn't, we didn't have a lot of options as police officers either.

747
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:59,680
It's either alcohol or you got to suck it up and tell a doctor you need some help. I mean, what's it going to do?

748
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:07,680
Here you go. And then you're going to hide that from everybody because they're not going to tell people you're on anything, you know, because it could impact your ability to drive or do your job.

749
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,680
So you're not going to say anything. So I always question that.

750
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:16,680
And, you know, I got into marijuana because it was more therapeutic for me when I was younger.

751
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:23,680
I played a lot of football, a lot of head injuries, a lot of undiagnosed concussions because if you started talking about your head hurt, you wouldn't be playing.

752
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,680
They push off the side, you know, go get evaluated. So you suck it up.

753
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:36,680
You know, meanwhile, I got fucking sorry, I got freaking my ears ringing in the rest of the day or the next two days because I want to play Saturday in the game, you know, so all that.

754
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:44,680
So I found it very therapeutic. It slowed me down in college to where I could get, you know, a little bit more manageable of my time.

755
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,680
And it was good for me. You know, I didn't abuse or anything.

756
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:52,680
But then, you know, obviously, you're a cop now. You know, I can't smoke weed.

757
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:57,680
Can't be freaking doing that. And what do you do? You drink. And it's culturally acceptable in our profession.

758
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:01,680
We get around each other. We all see Saturday night. All right, dog.

759
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:10,680
And you all get trashed, you know, because you're so stressed out, you know, and for making decisions all the time and just builds on you, you know.

760
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:27,680
And I wonder, you know, I joke around my camping buddies about coming up with either some type of Rasta 5-0 brand of gummies or some to help guys that would be able to be legal for them to have it in their system, but not on duty.

761
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:32,680
Because obviously that was the thing. You could smoke a joint on Friday and Monday you crash your car, you're going to piss hot.

762
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:38,680
But if you're snorting lines Friday night, you're not going to piss hot Monday. Usually, you know, it's out of your system. 48 hours.

763
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:47,680
So I don't know how you do it. I don't know if they can. But guys need sometimes an escape besides alcohol.

764
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:51,680
You know, yeah, you can gym it. You can do it. And what's the other thing we do?

765
00:48:51,680 --> 00:49:02,680
We eat stuff in our mouth all the time because we're stressed out, you know, stress eating, trying to squeeze in meals, you know, and you're eating that crap that's out there and this is making you fatter and sicker.

766
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:09,680
You know, we had an officer at our department die after five years and he had three pensions. He had the Coast Guard. He had the city pension.

767
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:14,680
And then he went to school board for six years to get vested in the state and he's dead five years later.

768
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:27,680
And that just that bothered me that when I was like, God, man, he worked all them years. I already knew, you know, my, you know, being a cop, I was looking at the heart attack stuff with cops all the time, you know, and God, it just that constant.

769
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:40,680
Every time that alert tone goes off or you're showing or someone doesn't answer there on the radio, you think the worst, you know, all day long, you know, 12 hours a day, you know, for all those years.

770
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:53,680
That's normal, man. You know, our hearts aren't designed for that much pounding. You know, think about you're wearing out an engine, you know, and that's why we drop, you know, by the time we get to that age, 65, 70 years old, we're just worn out, you know.

771
00:49:53,680 --> 00:50:07,680
And I saw it in my own blood work and my own health journey with my CAC score. And I had if I didn't find the ketogenic way of eating pretty much meat and vegetables and getting off processed foods and breads and all that high carb stuff.

772
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:18,680
I probably would have died of a heart attack because I had so much plaque built up in my arteries, you know, that I would have dropped, you know, because now it's hardened up. I've had this massive healing.

773
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:27,680
I'm seeing a really good cardiologist, Dr. Philip Ovadia. You know, he wrote my fixed hearts. He used to be a heart surgeon discovered he was, you know, everything he's been told is wrong.

774
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:34,680
You know, half Moses patients should never have been on his table, you know, because he could have fixed them another way. You know, he fixed his heart.

775
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:39,680
So I did his podcast like a year ago and here I am now as patient.

776
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:56,680
You know, so he's helped me. You know, we discovered we did a whole full panel blood work. We discovered I got heavy mycotoxins, a lot of heavy molds, which could be a lot of the grains I've eaten could be the grains, my meat that I eat possibly in the past.

777
00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:10,680
All the cereals, all the everything I had growing up, you know, the arsenic. I'm sorry. And then I also tested heavy on the heavy metals, you know, so all this stuff is contributing to the heart disease, you know, but, you know, I'm not diabetic.

778
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:20,680
My A1C is 5.3. All my glucose, you know, everything is normal except for the high CAC score. And I know that's from the stress of the job.

779
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:31,680
All those years just boom, boom, boom. And then you got to calm down. Then you're back up. Calm down. You know, imagine living like that. I mean, you take a certain animals and put them in a lab and they're going to die of stress already.

780
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:45,680
Just being out of their environment. So you can imagine how hard it is for us. And, you know, I saw it with that. And then obviously when I started losing weight, the 50 pounds and then 80 pounds just by controlling my diet, with all that, it got my brain better.

781
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:59,680
It made me more focused. I got more positive. You know, I think, you know, I wasn't hooked up to any machines, but when you're feeling better and then you have more confidence in yourself because you feel better, you know, and you're happier.

782
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:06,680
And then, you know, of course I retire and I find a brother and, you know, I'm like, oh, this is for you. Great. You know, just the weight just came right off.

783
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:17,680
Once I gave up the gun and, you know, said I'm done with this career and another 30 pounds came off and here I am, you know, 176 pounds, body fat was 28%.

784
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:30,680
Now I'm 13% and it was all from diet. No medicine, no freaking jazzercise class every day. It was simply watch what I'm putting in my body, weight train specifically like resistance training.

785
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:44,680
I'm not trying to lift, you know, a Volkswagen off my chest anymore. I'm lifting to be physically strong, work on my core because I realized my core was really weak all those years, even though I played ball and I just, you know, it wasn't strong enough.

786
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:50,680
So now I'm doing handstands. I'm doing a lot of different workouts that I never did before. Pull ups was my enemy.

787
00:52:50,680 --> 00:53:02,680
I mean, that's why I never got my patch in elementary school because I couldn't do the stupid freaking pull ups for the presidential test. And now I can do eight to 10 pull ups depending on the day. You know, I'm getting there, you know, and it's insane.

788
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:19,680
And it's all from losing weight, you know, and they pushed the pharmaceuticals down. Every doctor I went to, you know, luckily my wife was very, you know, on the naturopathic side of things and she's like, you can heal your body of the ways, you know, and we did.

789
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:32,680
You know, and that's when I started helping cops and they started nicknaming me five. Oh, you know, keto five. Oh, and it just kind of kept going. And then I started a company from and who knows? And it was all after because I lost weight. You know, started eating more meat.

790
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:43,680
I mean, it's it's so important to hear these testimonies. It's funny when you were talking about the research before one of my friends who's a former Marine recon. Now he's big in the human performance space.

791
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:54,680
He we were talking and we kind of had this realization because he was like, well, is there you know, is there any research that they study the firefighters on these shifts? And I was like.

792
00:53:54,680 --> 00:54:08,680
I think I think I responded and he was like, well, they wouldn't even allow that. So basically, if you set up a lab and you took, you know, X amount of people and you kept him awake for 24 hours every third day, let's say for two months, and then you throw in some mandatory overtime.

793
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:23,680
So every two or three weeks, they did a 48 hours with no sleep. No ethics board in the country would approve that study. Yet that is how we work on in this particular case, how our firefighters work for 10, 20, 30 years.

794
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:35,680
And we wonder why they fall apart, you know, so this is such an important conversation is, you know, people ask, Oh, have you got the research? No, because no one wants to do the fucking research to be completely blunt because they know damn well what the results are going to be.

795
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:48,680
And they don't want to face it. And Boynton, your old department has just recently gone to a very progressive shift where they brought the firefighter work week down to 42 hours instead of 48 and what used to be 56 before.

796
00:54:48,680 --> 00:55:00,680
Insane. So, you know, the environment that these first responders live in sets them up for failure. And then, as you said, now you don't feel well. Now you go to your doctor and they throw drugs at you.

797
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:10,680
No one's telling you about how dangerous a lot of the foods that you think are quote unquote healthy. And now you have this perfect storm and you hit on the nail on the head with the five years.

798
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:23,680
Even though again, there isn't research because again, you know, once we once we retire, we cease to become a statistic. There's no one's counting how many firefighters or cops kill themselves or die of heart disease from the moment we retire onwards.

799
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:32,680
But, you know, it seems to be acknowledged that it's about five years after retirement that a lot of us drop dead, which is extremely unacceptable.

800
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:49,680
So this is why this conversation is so important. If you understand all the things that are set against you and you advocate for the things that you can control and you can change the chances of you having a long healthy career and then a healthy retirement increase exponentially.

801
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:58,680
The job I was telling somebody the other day, I go, you know, when I got shot in 2012 by we didn't get into it, but it was a bank robber car chase.

802
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:03,680
He crashes. He can't get out his door. He opens his door as I'm getting out of my car to see what he's going to do.

803
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:10,680
He starts shooting at me and the other officer hits me twice my foot and nicks my leg. Didn't know it at the time.

804
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:19,680
We just kept firing and then we walked up to the vehicle and finally put him down and actually got a ride from FD and their damn rig.

805
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:25,680
They see wasn't working. Here it is June and it's spitting out frost and they're apologizing like, sorry, man.

806
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:28,680
You know, this is the best we got. This is a truck. They're going to be replacing it now.

807
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:36,680
You know, next year budget, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, man, I get shot and I got to take a ride in a hot ass freaking transport FD vehicle.

808
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:41,680
I go, what about that water? He's like, yeah, you don't want to drink that. I'm like, man, that's the worst.

809
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:48,680
I've heard about helicopter flights, you know, and stuff like this. But what I ended up doing, you know, I dealt with the physical injuries.

810
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:53,680
OK, you know, rehab, you know, you know, my I can't feel my big toe.

811
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:58,680
You know, there's some nerve things up middle of the night. Nerves are like, ah, you know, for no reason.

812
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:08,680
And but then when I started looking at going back out there in the road again, you know, that's when everything got elevated and started getting really stressed out.

813
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:17,680
I ended up in evidence. I thought I was safe and then new cheese come in. Why is there a sworn cop and evidence that doesn't make any sense?

814
00:57:17,680 --> 00:57:22,680
Let's put a civilian in there makes half the money. But that's why we're in there, because the civilians stole the money 10 years ago.

815
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:28,680
So, I mean, you know, I mean, I'm not going to risk my pension. I'm not going to steal anything. So they let me sit in there.

816
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:35,680
But I started looking at PTSD. I knew I was suffering. I needed help. My wife was talking to me about it.

817
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:40,680
I was drinking a lot, just trying to stop it and slow it down. I didn't know what was going on at the time.

818
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:48,680
I hadn't. You know, I just knew I was, you know, like what they used to say, you know, all the Vietnam veterans.

819
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:56,680
And they it was they used to call it a shock back in World War two. Oh, yeah. Shell shell shell shock.

820
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:02,680
That was when I was. Yeah, I was kind of thinking my mom had a boyfriend once he was like dirty hair.

821
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:07,680
He had been he was a bomb squad guy and he had some issues. I was just like, yeah, that's what happens.

822
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:13,680
You know, so. I remember trying to find out how do I get help for this? Like, where do I go?

823
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:24,680
What's the avenue? And a lot of guys don't know. I mean, what do you do? You know, what I did, I went to a boss that I trusted had been in a critical incident himself.

824
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:28,680
And I broke down to him. I just talked to him and I told him everything's going on.

825
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:35,680
I was thinking I was crying because I was getting all this off my chest. And he goes, well, Eric, yeah, I feel for you.

826
00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:44,680
And he, you know, hugged me and he got me into EAP. So I went there first, you know, employment or employee assistance program.

827
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:49,680
So I do that and jumping through ropes with them and they're like, yeah, you got PTSD.

828
00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:53,680
You definitely need to see somebody. I mean, especially when they say, how do you feel back out there on the road?

829
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:57,680
I go, I'm definitely going to shoot somebody again. There's no doubt about it.

830
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:01,680
And they're like, whoa, you know how to get a jury, isn't it?

831
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:05,680
Well, yeah, exactly. It wasn't because I was going to just be shooting right crazy.

832
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:10,680
I just knew I was super focused and I'm going to be faster than I was last time.

833
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:14,680
I'm not going to let the guy shoot me like last.

834
00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:22,680
You know, that's what was going on in my head. So I reach out to luckily I had somebody had given me a workers comp lawyer.

835
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:27,680
It's always worth a sit down with those guys. And I sat down with this guy, told him the situation.

836
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:32,680
He's like, well, you have an open workers comp claim because your foot injury and your rehab.

837
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:38,680
And I filed a claim for the one therapy and those M.F.s, man. All right.

838
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:44,680
So then they bring me in a room a couple of months later, a board room for like four lawyers, workers comp lawyers.

839
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:49,680
They got the little freaking typist, little Satanist.

840
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:55,680
It's good. Write down all the wrong things. Anyways, she you know, they're going to find out if I'm worth it.

841
00:59:55,680 --> 01:00:00,680
Oh, does he really need, you know, you know, I've been shot, killed a guy.

842
01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:03,680
Let's just make sure he needs the therapy. Right.

843
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:14,680
So I felt like I was just, you know, being they didn't they pretty much just made me break down from the whole room going over, you know, everything that's going on and how I was feeling.

844
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:17,680
So then they sent me to an independent psychologist.

845
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:23,680
He finally goes, yeah, this guy needs help. Finally, I get to my doctor that I've been wanting to see on their dime.

846
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:28,680
That was the whole point. I mean, I could have been trying to pay out of pocket, but, you know, this is an injury from the job.

847
01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:34,680
And I didn't know how much this hair therapy would have helped me or I would have been paying for it myself at the time and tried it.

848
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:37,680
Whatever. I would have just done it for my own health.

849
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:43,680
And talking to Dr. Barnett and Palm Beach Gardens, the first thing he says, you have to learn how to dance with this.

850
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:58,680
And I didn't really understand it, but then he explained the central nervous system and the hyper like why you're not sleeping as well at night, why you don't want to go out as much, why you want to kind of keep your family close and, you know, and why everything so aggravated.

851
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:09,680
And he did. And then he would talk to my wife and talk to my kids separately to find out how Eric's doing, you know, to get a whole picture.

852
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:14,680
And that was probably the biggest thing in it. I know the department found out about it.

853
01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:20,680
You know, I had to tell my boss is, hey, I'm going to go see the doc twice a week or once a week for two, you know, whatever it was.

854
01:01:20,680 --> 01:01:23,680
And I saw him for five years until I retired.

855
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:32,680
And that was the best thing I got. I go in there and bitch about whatever is going on in my life, whether it's my wife, my kids, life, work, you know, and all this stuff.

856
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:40,680
And we always get back to me and what was, you know, and that's what he was trying to do, get me back to thinking about me, how we're going to heal you, Eric.

857
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:44,680
And, you know, that's when I started losing weight. He even started looking at some of the stuff I was feeding him.

858
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:49,680
So I'm helping my doctor, you know, lose some weight. Hey, get off the carbs and the rice and stuff.

859
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:55,680
So that was the thing I think I look back that was probably the hardest thing to do was to go get help.

860
01:01:55,680 --> 01:02:00,680
And it's a shame that that's it's that difficult. You know, we're already hard on each other.

861
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:04,680
Macho, we got to be a tough guy, you know, and all this bullshit.

862
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:08,680
But the stuff we see is not normal, guys and ladies.

863
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:15,680
It's not it was these are human made professions, you know, that we weren't supposed to see on a day to day business or day to day.

864
01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:21,680
You know, people getting slaughtered, people car accidents, fucking heart attacks, families crimes, murders every time you get somewhere.

865
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:25,680
People looking to you to save the day. You know, it's not normal.

866
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:30,680
It beats you down, man. And we see it, you know, and that's why you're doing this for you.

867
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:35,680
An awesome podcast getting the word out there. And I'm just trying to go camping and help guys that I meet camping.

868
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:40,680
And then they tell me to take my flag now and then I lose my shit and I started a nonprofit because of it.

869
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:48,680
So, I mean, it's funny how things work out, how you can change your life and how you can, you know, make some negative things into a positive.

870
01:02:48,680 --> 01:02:56,680
So let's go back to to the kind of the events leading up to the shooting and then kind of where that took you initially.

871
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:59,680
The reason why I say that there's a narrative at the moment that.

872
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:08,680
You know, cops are just waiting, they just can't wait to execute someone, you know, and then if you believe certain news stations, someone of color,

873
01:03:08,680 --> 01:03:17,680
who they're dreaming of killing every day when they get to the station in the morning, the reality is that that individual just had to was forced to take a life.

874
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:21,680
So walk me through kind of that event and then, you know, where did that take you?

875
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:25,680
I mean, it's amazing that you found the therapy and want to explore that a little bit more.

876
01:03:25,680 --> 01:03:34,680
But what was the impact of that event on you, the law enforcement officer that had left your family to go and protect complete strangers that day?

877
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:40,680
You know, it was when I was about 10 years into my career, I was 42.

878
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:49,680
All the FBI averages of cops that get killed are 10 to 12 years. Average age is 42. Family, you know, at least one.

879
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:53,680
You know, I was right in there and.

880
01:03:53,680 --> 01:04:01,680
I. The guy we kill was a black guy, you know, and we were both on paper to white cops, even though I'm Cuban descent.

881
01:04:01,680 --> 01:04:05,680
You look at me, you don't think I'm a free and Cuban, you know, so.

882
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:14,680
That did beat me down to thing and how society and look at this, you know, I remember being at home that night of the shooting and watching the news.

883
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:18,680
I remember Miami Heat lost Oklahoma City in the NBA championship is game one.

884
01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:26,680
They know up sweeping them, but at this point, they lost. I remember being bummed out like, Dan, the day I got shot, my damn team lost the freaking NBA championship game.

885
01:04:26,680 --> 01:04:34,680
So and the news came on and it was like tonight at 11, another officer shot, done, done, done, you know, that's I was like, holy shit, that's me.

886
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:37,680
I was like, let's see what they say. You know, it was just interesting.

887
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:39,680
You know, I've never been on that side of it.

888
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:42,680
And like he's at the hospital now. I go, no, I'm not. I'm at home.

889
01:04:42,680 --> 01:04:46,680
But, you know, it's just listening to their tell the story.

890
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:51,680
And I'm like, man, are they going to tell it right? You know, and then I'm remembering we fired 38 rounds.

891
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:54,680
I'm like, it's a lot of shots over two minutes.

892
01:04:54,680 --> 01:04:59,680
You know, it's a long shooting. If you ever want to see it, it's out there on YouTube, on my channel, or you just Google my name.

893
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:03,680
You can probably find it. And it's a long shooting. There's a lot of stops and starts.

894
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:06,680
I mean, he was trying to clear his weapon and we're just peppering him.

895
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:11,680
And then, you know, I never looked at a skin color at that point. I saw that gun.

896
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:15,680
That motherfucker started shooting, kill me at that point. It was like we got to get him before he gets us.

897
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:22,680
And very primal talk about the darkness. I went to a state where if I was on a battlefield,

898
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:25,680
I would have probably decapitated that dude in that much anger.

899
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:31,680
I would add a sword just like you see those Valhalla freaking Viking crazy battle shows.

900
01:05:31,680 --> 01:05:36,680
I was that enraged, dude. And I can't imagine what those guys went through back in the day,

901
01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:40,680
constantly fighting, you know, day after day and these long battles.

902
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:44,680
No wonder we didn't make it past 30 years old. Right. So.

903
01:05:44,680 --> 01:05:49,680
But I was there and I didn't like that at all. I did not like that going back that I was able to get there.

904
01:05:49,680 --> 01:05:55,680
And I was saying I was almost out of control, you know, and like I said, it's very primal.

905
01:05:55,680 --> 01:06:02,680
And it's a place I've tapped into a couple of times in life, you know, since then.

906
01:06:02,680 --> 01:06:06,680
And I don't like who I am. I mean, the flag incident when they told me to take down a flag

907
01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:11,680
tapped into it again, where I went off the handle really fast on some I was passionate about.

908
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:14,680
So I can't imagine what would happen when someone with my kids or something like that.

909
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:19,680
You know, so it's it's a loaded gun all the time that I'm battling and people don't understand.

910
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:22,680
You got to be careful you're doing without there, you know, in society.

911
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:25,680
You never know where they're at in their day or in life, you know.

912
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:33,680
But I taking a life was a little hard, you know, for a long time because I didn't get in what to do that shit.

913
01:06:33,680 --> 01:06:37,680
You know, and then you start thinking, well, the CF family, does he have a son?

914
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:41,680
I mean, I got two sons. They'd probably be pissed if their dad got killed. Right.

915
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,680
So, you know, you worry about shit like that.

916
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:47,680
And then we got to take a trip off to Washington, D.C.

917
01:06:47,680 --> 01:06:52,680
We got honored, you know, it's awesome. But we were national officers of the month for February in 2013.

918
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:58,680
We were up there with the Boston bomber cops that got those guys and a whole bunch of other hero stories.

919
01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:02,680
It was just bad thing was the administration at the time didn't back cops.

920
01:07:02,680 --> 01:07:07,680
So that was a whole nother thing. But it was so fantastic to be out there and experience that.

921
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:11,680
But it's also traumatic at the same time, because now you're seeing all the widows and, you know,

922
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:14,680
the kids and daughters of officers that have passed.

923
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:18,680
And it was just my mom's got her friend Cheryl Sidon that's on the wall.

924
01:07:18,680 --> 01:07:24,680
She got killed off duty trying to protect her and her friends from getting robbed.

925
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:28,680
She pulled her gun out of her purse and got shot to the neck and killed her a couple of days later.

926
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:31,680
But she's on the wall. You know, all that stuff is still traumatic.

927
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:34,680
Because then you're like, well, why did I survive?

928
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:38,680
So you got the freaking survivor's guilt playing, you know, so that was.

929
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:40,680
Yeah, I went through a lot looking back.

930
01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:46,680
You know, that's probably why I was drinking more to kind of calm the beast, you know,

931
01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:50,680
and then not talking about it enough, of course, you know.

932
01:07:50,680 --> 01:07:54,680
And then sorry, still hits me.

933
01:08:02,680 --> 01:08:09,680
Still gets me. But anyways, and now I'm a dad.

934
01:08:09,680 --> 01:08:12,680
My kids are like, oh, yeah, my dad was a cool cop.

935
01:08:12,680 --> 01:08:15,680
You know, I'm just an old, you know, goofy dad walking around in their mind.

936
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:20,680
You know, I'm not this cool guy as I used to be, you know.

937
01:08:20,680 --> 01:08:26,680
So coming to grips with that took a while, you know, knowing that, you know, I didn't do anything wrong.

938
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:29,680
I did what I was trained for and I would do it again, you know.

939
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:36,680
But as you get in that profession and you're growing in it, you see the sadness of society.

940
01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:39,680
You see the it's not going to change.

941
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:45,680
You see this kid is probably going to be dead in the street in 10 years because you just see the path that he's on and you're helpless.

942
01:08:45,680 --> 01:08:50,680
You know, and that was one, I think, hardest things about that job overall was,

943
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:53,680
hey, we just see the sorrow all the time.

944
01:08:53,680 --> 01:08:56,680
It just never stops, you know.

945
01:08:56,680 --> 01:09:04,680
So that's why I wouldn't when I'm camping and I'm going to different campgrounds and I'm my flags flying and I see people and they start talking.

946
01:09:04,680 --> 01:09:06,680
And we start sharing stories.

947
01:09:06,680 --> 01:09:10,680
You know, like you said, we're all human beings in the end and we all have trauma.

948
01:09:10,680 --> 01:09:16,680
We all have. I mean, everybody I meet so interesting, like where they come from, especially if you're camping.

949
01:09:16,680 --> 01:09:19,680
I mean, everyone's from everywhere. You meet a guy from Alaska.

950
01:09:19,680 --> 01:09:21,680
I mean, we had one of our cops and campers rally.

951
01:09:21,680 --> 01:09:24,680
We had Gwen Grimes, who was on Naked and Afraid for three seasons.

952
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:29,680
She's an Alaska cop, you know, and she's out there surviving off the grid, you know.

953
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:33,680
And you're like, holy cow, man, what an interesting person.

954
01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:36,680
You know, she's had five kids and she's naked on TV.

955
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:38,680
I mean, who would have thought, right?

956
01:09:38,680 --> 01:09:43,680
But in the camping world, there is it is a bond that you're finding, you know, I, you know,

957
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:49,680
I meet these first responders where they're firemen, you know, they could be dispatchers, whoever.

958
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:55,680
We've all gone through it, you know, and when we get together, our little retreats, that's what it's about.

959
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:58,680
We're talking. Some guys are crying. Some guys are just sitting, listening.

960
01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:03,680
They're ready. They're just going to sit there and go fishing and just be at the party, you know.

961
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:09,680
And that's what we do at that end. Try to really address some of the how it's OK.

962
01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:14,680
It's not going to always stop that freaking what you went through, but you just got to dance with it.

963
01:10:14,680 --> 01:10:17,680
Like my doctor told me, and we're here to dance with you.

964
01:10:17,680 --> 01:10:21,680
Let's play some music. Let's freaking tell some war stories and guys get it out.

965
01:10:21,680 --> 01:10:27,680
You know, I did a brief little documentary called Cops and Cabins.

966
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:31,680
It was eight of us went to the cabins in North Georgia. Most of us didn't know each other.

967
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:37,680
One of the guys was a documentary cop that did film and he made a documentary out of it.

968
01:10:37,680 --> 01:10:42,680
And being together with those guys and hearing the stories and the question of the day, you know,

969
01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:44,680
what's the most embarrassing time as a cop?

970
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:48,680
And you're like, oh, boy, and you remember some that you did, whether it's leaving stuff on the car.

971
01:10:48,680 --> 01:10:53,680
You know, mine was locking my, you know, arrestee in the back of a car and I couldn't get him out.

972
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:59,680
And then there was a car chase going on. So him and I were just sitting there looking at each other in a parking lot for a couple of hours.

973
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:03,680
It was crazy. But, you know, you have the saddest moment you had.

974
01:11:03,680 --> 01:11:10,680
He was like the worst boss and we'd have boss stories or, you know, so therapeutic that when I got out

975
01:11:10,680 --> 01:11:15,680
and then the camping incident happened when they told me, you know, I got into that argument.

976
01:11:15,680 --> 01:11:21,680
I remembered the get together. So now that was so then I then turned it into, you know,

977
01:11:21,680 --> 01:11:27,680
I ended up getting suspended from a whole camping club called Thousand Trails because they said I was belligerent to staff

978
01:11:27,680 --> 01:11:31,680
because I gave the guy my two cents about what I thought of his flag policy.

979
01:11:31,680 --> 01:11:36,680
And they suspended me. But then all these campgrounds in New York opened up their doors and said,

980
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:40,680
bring your flag, your rig and your family. You're staying with us.

981
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:44,680
And it was awesome. And every campground we went to, cops are showing up, give me challenge coins.

982
01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:47,680
That's why I started a challenge coin like I sent you.

983
01:11:47,680 --> 01:11:51,680
But it was just like, I was like, wow, this is great. Look at all these cool people.

984
01:11:51,680 --> 01:11:57,680
I go, we should just do this at pro cop or pro first responder campgrounds and turn it into outdoor therapy.

985
01:11:57,680 --> 01:12:01,680
You know, in my event in New York, I got Dr. Robert Kiltz coming.

986
01:12:01,680 --> 01:12:08,680
He's a metabolic health freaking just master. You know, I've got Kevin Donaldson coming out.

987
01:12:08,680 --> 01:12:13,680
He just wrote a book, Man, You're Crazy. You know, he's a cop that's dealt with PTSD struggles.

988
01:12:13,680 --> 01:12:19,680
And he does a podcast called The Suffering. He's coming out to be a speaker for me and camp with his family.

989
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:27,680
You know, and so I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not the dark days are going to get better

990
01:12:27,680 --> 01:12:32,680
if you just, you know, change some things in your life and it may be give up the career to save your life.

991
01:12:32,680 --> 01:12:36,680
You know, I know it's tough if you're your own rookie, you know, you're just starting off.

992
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:40,680
You can't say, oh, I'm done, you know. But, you know, we got a cop that's been in three shootings already.

993
01:12:40,680 --> 01:12:44,680
Then we have 10 years on. I'm like, how's this dude going to make it?

994
01:12:44,680 --> 01:12:49,680
Yeah. Well, we chase as well, you know, this this timeline is dictated by a pension.

995
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:53,680
You know, and I've said this a lot recently. You didn't. I didn't. I certainly didn't get in for the pension.

996
01:12:53,680 --> 01:12:57,680
I don't have a pension now. When I left, I cashed it out to fund this.

997
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:01,680
But, you know, it was never about that. I remember people talking about drops.

998
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:07,680
I'm just like, we'll worry about that later. Like, for fuck's sake, you know, you only got 10 years, 15 years on, you know, let's focus on the job.

999
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:11,680
But there is a kind of half life to it. And everyone's is different.

1000
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:14,680
Some guys, you know, and women last 40 years in uniform.

1001
01:13:14,680 --> 01:13:20,680
And if it works for them and they they have a healthy retirement after, then great. Maybe they don't have kids.

1002
01:13:20,680 --> 01:13:27,680
But, you know, whenever that does kind of wind down, there's almost like guilt and shame if you didn't do 25.

1003
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:34,680
And it's ridiculous. You know, this especially, you know, if the environment is not allowing you to thrive, if it's a very, you know, negative environment,

1004
01:13:34,680 --> 01:13:43,680
toxic environment or just physically a mentally detrimental, then at what point do you take a look in the mirror and go, look, my health, the more importantly,

1005
01:13:43,680 --> 01:13:52,680
my family's health and unity is more important than this job. This job to me, this calling was a hair below my family.

1006
01:13:52,680 --> 01:13:58,680
I love it so much, but it was never above my family. And that's, I think, an important question to ask yourself.

1007
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:07,680
Yeah, I had an older. That makes sure I was on mute. Older cop told me that one time he pulled me aside and goes, see all this, all your friends, all this.

1008
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:11,680
No, it's going to matter when you retire. It's going to be your wife and your kids.

1009
01:14:11,680 --> 01:14:19,680
And then you see it. You see these guys are retired and they may have been divorced and their kids are grown and they're just sitting around crabby, grumpy old men.

1010
01:14:19,680 --> 01:14:30,680
You know, I do want to say you guys on the FD side of things kick ass because I remember I was a rookie. I think it was 2003 Christmas.

1011
01:14:30,680 --> 01:14:38,680
A kid had fell into a pool, a two year old, and he was blue as can be when we got there and we brought him out to the curb.

1012
01:14:38,680 --> 01:14:46,680
And I remember FD got there and they picked him up in the rig and the boss going, Reynolds, get in the back of the rig, because now it's a crime scene.

1013
01:14:46,680 --> 01:14:51,680
Possibly. So now I got to stay with the chain of custody of the evidence, which is the poor kid, you know.

1014
01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:55,680
And I remember sitting in there and that kid looked dead, dude.

1015
01:14:55,680 --> 01:15:00,680
And I was like, oh, my God, Christmas. This kid's going to what had happened with those grandparents for Christmas.

1016
01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:03,680
Well, they have a pool and they're not used to having kids around all the time.

1017
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:06,680
And the kid got out the sliding, you know, typical out the sliding door.

1018
01:15:06,680 --> 01:15:10,680
And by the time they realized that he was floating in the pool and he looked dead, dude.

1019
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:14,680
And they they worked that kid for about two minutes as we were going to the hospital.

1020
01:15:14,680 --> 01:15:18,680
And that kid started breathing, dude. It was the best thing I ever saw.

1021
01:15:18,680 --> 01:15:24,680
So I don't tell a lot of people that because I don't talk to a lot of FD guys.

1022
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:28,680
But that was fucking awesome.

1023
01:15:28,680 --> 01:15:33,680
And I don't even know those guys were because I was still a rookie tripping out like, holy cow.

1024
01:15:33,680 --> 01:15:38,680
You know, so I was still excited to have the gun on my hip.

1025
01:15:38,680 --> 01:15:46,680
You know, that shit was so real, dude. And years later, that kid's like 35 year old dad now or something.

1026
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:52,680
You know, it's I want to share that with you. I don't know why.

1027
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:54,680
Well, I'm glad you did.

1028
01:15:54,680 --> 01:16:01,680
I mean, literally, that was what I wrote with this post of them saving this fentanyl overdose, you know, toddler today was just that.

1029
01:16:01,680 --> 01:16:07,680
I mean, I get the the meaning behind it, but it I just can't fucking stand it when people say,

1030
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:17,680
no one's coming to save you, save yourself, because I tell them there are fucking millions of people that train every day that leave their families to do exactly that.

1031
01:16:17,680 --> 01:16:21,680
So should you become a liability and completely ineffective as an individual?

1032
01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:26,680
No. But don't say no one's coming to save you because when you're having your first day,

1033
01:16:26,680 --> 01:16:33,680
there will be police cars and fire engines and ambulances outside your home and the people will be fighting to save your loved ones.

1034
01:16:33,680 --> 01:16:37,680
So we need to look at that as there are fucking people that will come to save you.

1035
01:16:37,680 --> 01:16:45,680
And it's your responsibility to fund them and support them so they are ready when you need them the most.

1036
01:16:45,680 --> 01:16:50,680
Yeah, it's you know, it's another thing that people do that I wish they'd stop.

1037
01:16:50,680 --> 01:16:53,680
It's not bringing us all these cookies and cakes to the department, please.

1038
01:16:53,680 --> 01:17:00,680
You know, you bring us some steaks and pork rinds, you know, they're like, yeah, here's this fattening food that's going to affect your insulin levels.

1039
01:17:00,680 --> 01:17:05,680
It's going to make you fat and slow and then you're going to make bad decisions, going to get you indicted.

1040
01:17:05,680 --> 01:17:08,680
So that's what that bad food is doing to us people. Come on.

1041
01:17:08,680 --> 01:17:11,680
Let's talk about Q2O5O for a second then.

1042
01:17:11,680 --> 01:17:13,680
So all right. Talk to me about the inception of that.

1043
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:20,680
And then what are some of the principles that you'd like to impart on the first responder profession when it comes to their nutrition?

1044
01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:22,680
Yeah, I got into it.

1045
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:25,680
Guys playing basketball with lost 50 pounds. Typical story.

1046
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:26,680
How'd you do it?

1047
01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:31,680
You know, wait, watchers or, you know, work out more crossfit, whatever it was.

1048
01:17:31,680 --> 01:17:34,680
And he had mentioned ketogenic like keto.

1049
01:17:34,680 --> 01:17:40,680
And I thought it was some type of crossfit painful, some I wasn't going to like doing type of exercise, you know.

1050
01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:47,680
He's like, no, you just watch her eating fat and, you know, get rid of the carbs and use fat fat for fuel.

1051
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:49,680
And, you know, I was very I didn't understand any of that then.

1052
01:17:49,680 --> 01:17:52,680
You know, it's funny, I could write a search for him, but I didn't understand anything else.

1053
01:17:52,680 --> 01:17:56,680
Put him in my body or didn't understand how to read blood work.

1054
01:17:56,680 --> 01:17:58,680
You know, those couple of points I try to get to guys.

1055
01:17:58,680 --> 01:18:04,680
And, you know, I looked into I read up on it was this ketogenic way of eating.

1056
01:18:04,680 --> 01:18:08,680
And then I started seeing some stuff how we used to eat back when we were farming and, you know,

1057
01:18:08,680 --> 01:18:12,680
before we got so big in the cities and eating processed foods.

1058
01:18:12,680 --> 01:18:17,680
And I really didn't know 100 percent how much stuff turns into sugar.

1059
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:18,680
That was one of my biggest.

1060
01:18:18,680 --> 01:18:30,680
I didn't know like potatoes, bread, cookies, you know, all this chocolate, all this stuff is going to turn into sugar anyways, you know, and add to your fat storage.

1061
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:32,680
Anyways, I dove in that world. I started meal prepping.

1062
01:18:32,680 --> 01:18:34,680
All right, I'm going to make my food.

1063
01:18:34,680 --> 01:18:38,680
And I was always heavy keto war.

1064
01:18:38,680 --> 01:18:43,680
I would do a lot more meat in my dishes than I, you know, than the recipes I was reading about, you know.

1065
01:18:43,680 --> 01:18:46,680
And I started fasting.

1066
01:18:46,680 --> 01:18:51,680
I would only eat at like pretty much my window was 12 to 5 p.m.

1067
01:18:51,680 --> 01:18:56,680
So I'd get up in the morning and have my coffee and start adding some like bone broth to my coffee, heavy cream.

1068
01:18:56,680 --> 01:18:58,680
You know, I was a cop.

1069
01:18:58,680 --> 01:19:02,680
So Dunkin Donuts coffee was a staple in my career.

1070
01:19:02,680 --> 01:19:08,680
So I do do a shot of stevia, you know, and I was satiating.

1071
01:19:08,680 --> 01:19:15,680
That would I would stay kind of full for a while and I'd hit the gym and then I'd, you know, not eat right away, you know, and I just start getting into some good habits.

1072
01:19:15,680 --> 01:19:18,680
Eating habits.

1073
01:19:18,680 --> 01:19:22,680
And within two weeks, I was down like 15 pounds or something.

1074
01:19:22,680 --> 01:19:24,680
I was like, that's all water weight, you know, whatever.

1075
01:19:24,680 --> 01:19:25,680
And I just kept going.

1076
01:19:25,680 --> 01:19:27,680
And six months, I was down 50 pounds.

1077
01:19:27,680 --> 01:19:32,680
And I was like, holy, you know, I'm 204 now from 250 and guys started noticing.

1078
01:19:32,680 --> 01:19:33,680
They ask if you're sick.

1079
01:19:33,680 --> 01:19:38,680
First of all, they think you got cancer or something like, no, dude, I'm happy as heck.

1080
01:19:38,680 --> 01:19:44,680
And, you know, I bought a little, you know, a step counter, you know, and I was watching my steps.

1081
01:19:44,680 --> 01:19:52,680
And one of the biggest things I did was get a desk that stood up because I was in evidence now and around and sitting down all day typing, getting all tired.

1082
01:19:52,680 --> 01:19:54,680
You know, your body thinks you're getting ready to sleep.

1083
01:19:54,680 --> 01:19:56,680
So your body's slowing everything down by standing.

1084
01:19:56,680 --> 01:19:58,680
I moved around a lot.

1085
01:19:58,680 --> 01:20:01,680
My energy level is better, less back issues.

1086
01:20:01,680 --> 01:20:04,680
I was able to stretch as I'm standing there touching my toes and twisting.

1087
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:09,680
You know, I just stay a little more active and guys start asking me for help.

1088
01:20:09,680 --> 01:20:10,680
They're like, so what did you do? How did you do it?

1089
01:20:10,680 --> 01:20:14,680
And I'm like, dude, you know how bad sugar is like they're drinking a Dr. Pepper.

1090
01:20:14,680 --> 01:20:15,680
I go, let me see the back of that can.

1091
01:20:15,680 --> 01:20:18,680
And I start telling, I go see that high fructose corn syrup.

1092
01:20:18,680 --> 01:20:20,680
Your body doesn't know what to do with that.

1093
01:20:20,680 --> 01:20:21,680
You know, it's not eat.

1094
01:20:21,680 --> 01:20:30,680
I'd rather you drink cane sugar in it rather than, you know, that's why some products in other countries are legal and they're not here because they use the fucking cheap shit that gets you addicted and sick here.

1095
01:20:30,680 --> 01:20:36,680
So start teaching them, sending articles, little group chats, five of them on there and then became like 10.

1096
01:20:36,680 --> 01:20:39,680
You know, and then it's like, well, let me start a little Facebook group.

1097
01:20:39,680 --> 01:20:42,680
You know, five or eight people, you know, one of those.

1098
01:20:42,680 --> 01:20:48,680
And I had some deputies from the nearby agency, you know, tap, you know, wondering what's going on with diet.

1099
01:20:48,680 --> 01:20:56,680
And because, you know, we don't we don't like being heavy in our gun belts and we're already wearing the vest, which is already miserable.

1100
01:20:56,680 --> 01:20:59,680
You know, it's just we don't like looking like fat cops.

1101
01:20:59,680 --> 01:21:04,680
Trust me, we don't, you know, we know how we looked in the Academy and we know how we look now.

1102
01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:06,680
And we see the sizes go up every year.

1103
01:21:06,680 --> 01:21:15,680
So anyways, they started losing some weight and then word got around, hey, you got to go talk to Keto Five-O and evidence, you know, and we're always called Five-O in the hood.

1104
01:21:15,680 --> 01:21:17,680
Anyways, you know, Five-O is here, troll, troll.

1105
01:21:17,680 --> 01:21:23,680
So they just stuck, you know, and then when I was retiring, I was like, yeah, let me just work on a logo.

1106
01:21:23,680 --> 01:21:26,680
And I found one of my old logos is pretty funny.

1107
01:21:26,680 --> 01:21:30,680
It's a thin blue line flag with Keto Five-O and where the stars are.

1108
01:21:30,680 --> 01:21:39,680
And it's kind of funny because now my two passions are Keto Five-O and then I've got this bad boy behind me, the thin blue line flag, part of cops and campers.

1109
01:21:39,680 --> 01:21:44,680
So it's funny. I look back to 2019 when it all started and it grew from there.

1110
01:21:44,680 --> 01:21:48,680
I ended up doing a podcast with Low Carb USA.

1111
01:21:48,680 --> 01:21:52,680
They asked me to come on and talk about PTSD and how the low carb way of eating helped.

1112
01:21:52,680 --> 01:21:55,680
And then he goes, hey, would you want to go to nutrition school?

1113
01:21:55,680 --> 01:22:01,680
We got an online program about nine months long and blah, blah, blah, and cost this and you can do it online.

1114
01:22:01,680 --> 01:22:04,680
I was like, what? Me? I don't know about this.

1115
01:22:04,680 --> 01:22:09,680
I can't even pronounce half the words, you know, in some of the books that I'm reading right now.

1116
01:22:09,680 --> 01:22:12,680
So I ended up doing it. You know, I got outside my comfort zone.

1117
01:22:12,680 --> 01:22:14,680
I did these online classes, you know, group classes.

1118
01:22:14,680 --> 01:22:19,680
I had to, you know, I got my personal training license, my nutrition's license.

1119
01:22:19,680 --> 01:22:23,680
I got my health advocate. You know, I got my health coach resistance training.

1120
01:22:23,680 --> 01:22:29,680
So I ended up doing a lot, you know, at least on paper and then having to, you know, you had to show that you knew what you were doing.

1121
01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:43,680
Meanwhile, training myself, training guys online, training people on, you know, just advice, helping them work out better, you know, and less weight, more reps, type of slower reps, you know, slow is, you know, slow is fast, you know.

1122
01:22:43,680 --> 01:22:47,680
And that was my goal. Hey, I'm just going to be a nutrition guy. I'll be a health coach.

1123
01:22:47,680 --> 01:22:51,680
And, you know, and then we went camping in New York and that's where the flag incident happened.

1124
01:22:51,680 --> 01:22:57,680
And now I'm all over freaking TV because I'm freaking, I'm the guy that was mad about my flag.

1125
01:22:57,680 --> 01:23:01,680
Like, go home and take your flag and go home. You know, sorry, copper.

1126
01:23:01,680 --> 01:23:05,680
But then they had a rally there a week later at that campground.

1127
01:23:05,680 --> 01:23:12,680
And I went back and there was like 50 trucks with Thimble line flags and New York State Police stopped us from the campground and was crazy, dude.

1128
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:16,680
No one got arrested. But it was just like, and then I was like, you know what?

1129
01:23:16,680 --> 01:23:24,680
I'm going to bring the health world into my camping world because everyone I meet that's retired, they're all metabolically sick.

1130
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:29,680
They're all pre-diabetic. If not diabetic, they're all on medications. If not blood pressure, it's cholesterol mitts.

1131
01:23:29,680 --> 01:23:37,680
Get rid of all that shit, you know. So, yeah, that's how it kind of the keto world started really building.

1132
01:23:37,680 --> 01:23:44,680
And now more carnivore. I eat pretty much animal based products. My wife might make sourdough bread and I'll do avocados.

1133
01:23:44,680 --> 01:23:48,680
My kids do blue. You know, everyone's always asking about my boys 12 and 8. How did they eat?

1134
01:23:48,680 --> 01:23:58,680
They're pretty much keto boys. They eat mostly meat. They supplement it with blueberries, strawberries, all, you know, of course, it's, you know, it's a healthier versions.

1135
01:23:58,680 --> 01:24:06,680
You know, we're not just, you know, buying the cheap stuff because we invest in our health. So our our grocery bill is substantial.

1136
01:24:06,680 --> 01:24:12,680
You know, we buy we try to buy shares of a cow or an animal that we have slaughtered, you know, harvested or whatever.

1137
01:24:12,680 --> 01:24:17,680
So we have to do those things because it's, you know, there's just too pricey.

1138
01:24:17,680 --> 01:24:21,680
But it's for our health. It's for my kids health and their future. So they're not metabolically sick.

1139
01:24:21,680 --> 01:24:31,680
So they're not having any mental disease as they get older to whether it just be a normal functioning human being that doesn't need the government to feed them

1140
01:24:31,680 --> 01:24:36,680
and doesn't need modern med to prescribe stuff to them. And they're just going to be educated on it, you know.

1141
01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:45,680
And so that's what's turned into all that hard work craziness in my whole police career. Now I'm driving around in a box that we tow around from campground to campground.

1142
01:24:45,680 --> 01:24:51,680
And we get to see the cool views of this country and sleep in the same bed every night. It's pretty cool.

1143
01:24:51,680 --> 01:24:55,680
When you talk about the price, it reminds me I had Joel Salatin on the show a couple of times.

1144
01:24:55,680 --> 01:25:01,680
And one of his quotes is you think good food is expensive. Have you priced cancer lately?

1145
01:25:01,680 --> 01:25:07,680
And this is it. Again, it's that proactive conversation. A burger shouldn't be 50 cents or a dollar.

1146
01:25:07,680 --> 01:25:14,680
It's a piece, you know, it's part of a cow that was raised for a long, long time and then slaughtered and then, you know, ended up on your plate.

1147
01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:24,680
So that should be more. It's not that it's overpriced a lot of times. It's just that's what it's actually worth for, you know, food that wasn't put through some horrendous factory farming experience.

1148
01:25:24,680 --> 01:25:35,680
So, you know, yes, it might seem a little bit more expensive up front, but think about what you're saving, you know, what the cost is of obesity and all the associated diseases that come with it.

1149
01:25:35,680 --> 01:25:44,680
Yeah, you can get ground meat right now. Grass fed ground beef ground for five or I think four ninety nine or five ninety nine at Earth's Fair.

1150
01:25:44,680 --> 01:25:56,680
That's exactly where I show it. So I'm still wondering where that's coming from. But, you know, we're still looking into that. If we don't get it from a farm that we really know, that's one of the options we do.

1151
01:25:56,680 --> 01:26:04,680
And we'll spend. I mean, we spend our money on meat, man. It's it's satiating. It's good for you.

1152
01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:09,680
You know, I know people, you know, obviously you don't want the factory farming type of meat because even that meats.

1153
01:26:09,680 --> 01:26:18,680
I mean, that's why I got sick. I was eating bad meat. You know, even the chickens you eat are effective. Mike, my kid is a sensitivity to a lot of the chickens that eat any kind of corn or soy.

1154
01:26:18,680 --> 01:26:26,680
It goes it affects him. And I don't think people put in enough of what you're eating, even though you're eating the animal. The animals eating toxic shit. You're eating it too, bro.

1155
01:26:26,680 --> 01:26:30,680
It's going into your body. Well, they're sick, too. I mean, this is what people understand.

1156
01:26:30,680 --> 01:26:39,680
The hormones are accelerating the growth process, but the environment and the unhealthy speed of which they're aging causes disease, which is why I forget the numbers.

1157
01:26:39,680 --> 01:26:52,680
I think that like 90 80 percent or something like that is very high percent of all antibiotics consumed are actually in the factory farms because, you know, so what you're actually consuming is a sick animal.

1158
01:26:52,680 --> 01:27:01,680
And that's why it's on medication. Yeah, I've worked on in our journey the last four years, we worked on some farms for a few months to cover our stay.

1159
01:27:01,680 --> 01:27:10,680
And my kids have been there, you know, gardening, helping with the cattle. You know, we've slaughtered a pig, a bull, plunge of chickens.

1160
01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:15,680
I mean, I'm not into the chickens like they are. I mean, my kids will walk around with their heads on their fingers playing puppets.

1161
01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:22,680
You know, I mean, they're they've already been used to it now. I'm still like, oh, still a little crazy to me.

1162
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:27,680
You know, I'm a suburban kid in Miami. I'm not used to playing with the heads of bodies, but they think it's cool.

1163
01:27:27,680 --> 01:27:31,680
And at least they understand where their food's coming from, how hard work it is.

1164
01:27:31,680 --> 01:27:35,680
And that if it is really cheap that you're getting it, what is it?

1165
01:27:35,680 --> 01:27:39,680
You know, they've diced up our food with so much fillers compared to what it used to be.

1166
01:27:39,680 --> 01:27:45,680
It's no different than a cartel dicing up the cocaine or heroin with this extra crap. It's all they've done to our food.

1167
01:27:45,680 --> 01:27:50,680
You know, I mean, you're not even getting meat in half the time, you know, when you're ordering this out.

1168
01:27:50,680 --> 01:28:01,680
And that's the I had a lot of fast food, man. Looking back in my life growing up, I mean, our high school, whatever we would have buy one Whopper, get one free.

1169
01:28:01,680 --> 01:28:07,680
And we all mad dashed a freaking Burger King at lunchtime. Our Whopper coupons.

1170
01:28:07,680 --> 01:28:13,680
You know, it's just you see it and they make money. And now I know I know the secret and they're not going to get my family or my kids.

1171
01:28:13,680 --> 01:28:19,680
You know, and anyone I can tell, I'm going to tell them every time I go. They don't care about you. They care about profits.

1172
01:28:19,680 --> 01:28:23,680
Tobacco bought the food industry. What do you think is going to happen?

1173
01:28:23,680 --> 01:28:28,680
The same people that told you that smoking wouldn't kill you on our food.

1174
01:28:28,680 --> 01:28:35,680
Where do you think we're going with this? I mean, it's common sense. It's an organized crime. I see it. I've been in this class. I've seen this.

1175
01:28:35,680 --> 01:28:39,680
Well, one more question on nutrition before we go to some closing questions.

1176
01:28:39,680 --> 01:28:46,680
You touched on the fact that as far as the relationship between ketosis or a healthy body weight homeostasis,

1177
01:28:46,680 --> 01:28:53,680
however you want to kind of label it and good mental health or the impact on mental health. So expand on that.

1178
01:28:53,680 --> 01:28:58,680
Well, I don't think people directly know that in your stomach, it's a direct line to your brain.

1179
01:28:58,680 --> 01:29:10,680
You know, so if your stomach is all jacked up on stuff because you're not feeding it right, you know, maybe you need a little bit more of coleslaw or some.

1180
01:29:10,680 --> 01:29:18,680
Hey, I was thinking like fermented vegetables and stuff like that. So I know that.

1181
01:29:18,680 --> 01:29:26,680
With our own kids, you know, by sampling with diet by accident, you know, let them have a slice of cake or let them have that pizza at a party.

1182
01:29:26,680 --> 01:29:33,680
I would see what it would do with them, you know, not only the highs, but the lasting effects for a couple of days.

1183
01:29:33,680 --> 01:29:37,680
It's like a hangover they would have. And I'm like, this is just food. It's not even like alcohol.

1184
01:29:37,680 --> 01:29:47,680
Like that was used to that. But to see a food hang hangover or sugar hangover or carb overload hangover affect my kids was an eye opener.

1185
01:29:47,680 --> 01:29:53,680
And then when people don't realize why there's so I mean, you call it hangry, right?

1186
01:29:53,680 --> 01:30:04,680
You get angry because you can't. Well, it's probably because you're not eating substantiated food, you know, or good enough satiating food enough of the time.

1187
01:30:04,680 --> 01:30:08,680
Because when you're eating the carbs, you burn right through and you're hungry again.

1188
01:30:08,680 --> 01:30:12,680
I think of it like Kindle. You're just burning a little bit of leaves or trash or something.

1189
01:30:12,680 --> 01:30:17,680
You know, you need some long lasting that's going to hold you, you know, and people worry about meat being too.

1190
01:30:17,680 --> 01:30:22,680
Oh, it takes too long to digest. It's supposed to take a while to digest.

1191
01:30:22,680 --> 01:30:27,680
You're not supposed to have your metabolism go in high speed all day long. That wears out metabolism.

1192
01:30:27,680 --> 01:30:31,680
You can't do the other things your body needs to do. Your body needs to heal in other ways.

1193
01:30:31,680 --> 01:30:39,680
It needs to process toxins in your body and these are releases toxins and needs to strengthen muscles and needs to, you know, do so many changes in your body.

1194
01:30:39,680 --> 01:30:47,680
If you're constantly eating and keeping your metabolism jacked up and you're why do you think your stomach just gets tired?

1195
01:30:47,680 --> 01:30:54,680
That's supposed to be working all day long like that, you know, and when you eliminate a lot of the processed food and you eat a healthier, cleaner diet,

1196
01:30:54,680 --> 01:31:01,680
you will not only notice your energy levels will go up because you're eating better food, you're going to be more, you know, you got to get your sleep.

1197
01:31:01,680 --> 01:31:09,680
I mean, there's a whole pillar of things you got to do. Get in the bed, you know, turning off the blue screens and, you know, getting up at a routine,

1198
01:31:09,680 --> 01:31:18,680
normal routine and having the same habits and, you know, I get up, I make my coffee in the morning, my little bone broth combo

1199
01:31:18,680 --> 01:31:27,680
and then I ease into the day and then I get into what I'm going to work out, stretch, do some, you know, you got to find that happy balance

1200
01:31:27,680 --> 01:31:31,680
and you're not going to know what you're really doing until you get your diet right. You're going to be too focused on this.

1201
01:31:31,680 --> 01:31:36,680
You're going to be depressed about this. You're going to be just up and down all day long and you're never going to get anything done.

1202
01:31:36,680 --> 01:31:41,680
How many times have you done that? You walked in a room and forget what you're doing. You know, now I walk in a room and I know what I'm doing.

1203
01:31:41,680 --> 01:31:50,680
I might forget, you know, something else I was trying to do at that moment. But yeah, everything gets better. Your memory, your,

1204
01:31:50,680 --> 01:31:58,680
my biggest thing was I wasn't intimidated to try new things anymore in a lot of ways. You know, I got out of my comfort zone, did some things.

1205
01:31:58,680 --> 01:32:06,680
I'm like, you know, let's try it. Let's go to nutrition school. Let's learn, you know, about amino acids.

1206
01:32:06,680 --> 01:32:13,680
I used to never really know what the heck it was, you know, and now I'm driving a truck and trailer. I never did that before.

1207
01:32:13,680 --> 01:32:19,680
You know, I'm living, I never worked on a farm, you know, not this guy, you know, but everything's, you know, you never stop learning.

1208
01:32:19,680 --> 01:32:29,680
I know it sounds like a cliche, but the more you keep trying to improve yourself, whether it's mentally, physically, socially or whatever you're trying to do.

1209
01:32:29,680 --> 01:32:33,680
I mean, it changed my life. I changed my diet. That's the biggest thing.

1210
01:32:33,680 --> 01:32:41,680
Nobody else helped me with the pills. None of the pills helped. None of the exercise until I got the food right.

1211
01:32:41,680 --> 01:32:50,680
You know, that's what it was for me. And, you know, fat is good people. Fat fat is bad.

1212
01:32:50,680 --> 01:32:54,680
Brilliant. Well, I want to shift to some closing questions so I can be mindful of your time.

1213
01:32:54,680 --> 01:32:59,680
The first one, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend?

1214
01:32:59,680 --> 01:33:04,680
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.

1215
01:33:04,680 --> 01:33:09,680
Books. All right. One is Big Fat Surprise Nina Tyshultz.

1216
01:33:09,680 --> 01:33:18,680
It's all about the sugar industry and how they fudge numbers and bribe Harvard scientists to say that fat was bad and that sugar wasn't.

1217
01:33:18,680 --> 01:33:24,680
That's one book. Lies My Doctor Told Me by Dr. Ken Berry.

1218
01:33:24,680 --> 01:33:29,680
All those little white lies from doctors all these years.

1219
01:33:29,680 --> 01:33:42,680
And the other book that I read that was really opened my mind to how agriculture in a lot of ways has been damaging us as a species overall.

1220
01:33:42,680 --> 01:33:48,680
Not total agriculture, but just this organized industrial agriculture that we've gotten into.

1221
01:33:48,680 --> 01:33:52,680
And it was The Carnivore Code by Dr. Paul Saladino.

1222
01:33:52,680 --> 01:34:01,680
And it pretty much goes back to looking at how tribes lived back when we were hunter gatherers and how there was a lot more leisure time.

1223
01:34:01,680 --> 01:34:06,680
And there was more, you know, life, even though it was hard, it was simpler in a lot of ways.

1224
01:34:06,680 --> 01:34:15,680
And they can even show it by digging up the bodies and the DNA and the bones that they're looking at of how we went to more of a plant-based diet back then.

1225
01:34:15,680 --> 01:34:17,680
And we're just not as physically strong.

1226
01:34:17,680 --> 01:34:23,680
I mean, we got to this point by eating meat, people, you know, and just global warming.

1227
01:34:23,680 --> 01:34:26,680
Look where the money is. Just follow the money, people.

1228
01:34:26,680 --> 01:34:29,680
Follow where the money is at. And that's going to show you your answer right there.

1229
01:34:29,680 --> 01:34:34,680
I mean, if there's money to be made in controlling the climate, they're going to do that.

1230
01:34:34,680 --> 01:34:42,680
When I look at the carnivore diet specifically, the one issue I have with it is if you go back far enough in time,

1231
01:34:42,680 --> 01:34:47,680
there was a long, long time where homo sapiens weren't able to hunt yet.

1232
01:34:47,680 --> 01:34:52,680
We hadn't developed tools. So arguably foraging would have been our main thing.

1233
01:34:52,680 --> 01:34:59,680
And then probably scavenging meat that had been killed by something else, which I think is why the bone broth and some of those things work and collagen.

1234
01:34:59,680 --> 01:35:10,680
What is the conversation on that as far as, you know, our supposed leaning into meat when if you go far enough back,

1235
01:35:10,680 --> 01:35:13,680
we probably weren't eating a huge amount of meat a long time ago.

1236
01:35:13,680 --> 01:35:18,680
Well, how far back can we go? I mean, religion tells you one thing.

1237
01:35:18,680 --> 01:35:23,680
Science tells you another thing. And then they fight amongst each other because they can't agree.

1238
01:35:23,680 --> 01:35:30,680
And I don't think either one's right. I think we go through stages and there's times, obviously ice ages that we've gone through

1239
01:35:30,680 --> 01:35:36,680
to where maybe a heavy seal diet was what's got us through it.

1240
01:35:36,680 --> 01:35:45,680
You know, and there's other times where maybe we were able to ferment foods and like you said, scavenge and hey, I could catch some animals right now without tools.

1241
01:35:45,680 --> 01:35:49,680
I mean, not a whole bunch of them, but there's a few like trust me, I can get.

1242
01:35:49,680 --> 01:35:56,680
And let's not think about the horrific things humans have done throughout history, eating each other.

1243
01:35:56,680 --> 01:36:00,680
You know, they don't like to talk about it, but we did it, you know.

1244
01:36:00,680 --> 01:36:07,680
And I know for me, if you are struggling with your weight and you got a lot of metabolic issues,

1245
01:36:07,680 --> 01:36:11,680
if you can at least start off with something that's at least very minimum.

1246
01:36:11,680 --> 01:36:17,680
And that's why carnivore got so popular because your elimination diet, you get rid of all the bad shit,

1247
01:36:17,680 --> 01:36:21,680
a lot like what people do with, you know, going vegan when you get rid of meat.

1248
01:36:21,680 --> 01:36:28,680
You know, they're also getting rid of the seed oils and some of the sugars and some of the processed foods that's contributing to their decline in health.

1249
01:36:28,680 --> 01:36:37,680
And the minute I think you find your balance, you know, meat does really well for me.

1250
01:36:37,680 --> 01:36:40,680
You know, I know my wife can't eat as much meat as me.

1251
01:36:40,680 --> 01:36:43,680
You know, she she has more of the Mediterranean diet.

1252
01:36:43,680 --> 01:36:49,680
Maybe she wants a little more fish in there rather than the red meat.

1253
01:36:49,680 --> 01:36:57,680
I just it's all you got to do is go to a freaking dialysis place and see all that plant based food that those guys are eating.

1254
01:36:57,680 --> 01:37:03,680
That's what's in the bag. And if you give someone some chicken or some steak, there's hardly anything in the bag.

1255
01:37:03,680 --> 01:37:06,680
Your body absorbs as much of that as you can. And that's the key.

1256
01:37:06,680 --> 01:37:10,680
You got to get all the freaking waste out of the food, all the fillers.

1257
01:37:10,680 --> 01:37:14,680
You know, people are so crazy. You know, you know, who hasn't had fiber in like four years?

1258
01:37:14,680 --> 01:37:18,680
This guy. And you know, doesn't have a problem. This guy.

1259
01:37:18,680 --> 01:37:23,680
So, I mean, it's crazy that they end in the fluoride in the water. Don't even get me started on the water.

1260
01:37:23,680 --> 01:37:25,680
That's another thing you got to watch out there. Poisoning is in the water.

1261
01:37:25,680 --> 01:37:29,680
My heavy metals is from the water supply. I'm guaranteeing that.

1262
01:37:29,680 --> 01:37:37,680
But yeah, I you just got to get off the fast food, get off soda fast food right off the bat and you'll already get better.

1263
01:37:37,680 --> 01:37:42,680
You'll see your health improve automatically. The sodas are sugar water. You're not getting anything from it.

1264
01:37:42,680 --> 01:37:48,680
It's addicting. They're not even using sugar in it. They're using the high fructose corn syrup, which is freaking toxic.

1265
01:37:48,680 --> 01:37:56,680
And I could go on and on and on about the nutrition and, you know, how I want to just do you know, in the history of the FDA,

1266
01:37:56,680 --> 01:38:02,680
there's only been two of their board members never take a job with big food or big pharma.

1267
01:38:02,680 --> 01:38:04,680
Oh, it doesn't surprise me. Look at OxyContin.

1268
01:38:04,680 --> 01:38:07,680
In the history. So that's the kind of shit I'm getting into now.

1269
01:38:07,680 --> 01:38:13,680
I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to be knocking on some doors or be in Washington one day, but then they'll arrest you and say you started a riot.

1270
01:38:13,680 --> 01:38:18,680
But there's got to be some going on. I mean, the food in these school systems is shit.

1271
01:38:18,680 --> 01:38:21,680
The food that they give to the freaking poor is shit.

1272
01:38:21,680 --> 01:38:24,680
You know, the food that they give to our military is crap.

1273
01:38:24,680 --> 01:38:29,680
You know, you see it all along. Wherever big food has their hand, they got it in everything.

1274
01:38:29,680 --> 01:38:33,680
You know, let's donate to Haiti. Poor people. Let's send on a bunch of shit.

1275
01:38:33,680 --> 01:38:37,680
You know, it's just crazy. That's all that food is to me.

1276
01:38:37,680 --> 01:38:41,680
And, you know, it's they're looking at just getting full for the day.

1277
01:38:41,680 --> 01:38:44,680
Oh, well, they'll tell me that they'll go to bed with a full tummy.

1278
01:38:44,680 --> 01:38:49,680
Yeah, go to bed with a full tummy. A metabolic disease is what they're going to bed with, you know.

1279
01:38:49,680 --> 01:38:52,680
And I know there's it's expensive to help people.

1280
01:38:52,680 --> 01:38:59,680
And I know they're trying, you know, and it's just you can't, you know, unload a bunch of freaking cows off a ship in those situations.

1281
01:38:59,680 --> 01:39:07,680
You know, I know there's realistic things you can do, but, you know, the amount of meat that they're destroying out here in these factory, you know, destruction.

1282
01:39:07,680 --> 01:39:13,680
I just think we can do a better job of feeding people in this. You know, it can be a little bit better managed overall.

1283
01:39:13,680 --> 01:39:23,680
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is my criticism during the pandemic, because we have the perfect opportunity to address a lot of these things, to support local farmers, to put real food back in our kids' schools

1284
01:39:23,680 --> 01:39:34,680
and take the soda machines and fast food companies out, you know, to put PE programs back in, to pedestrianize local areas, to put more equipment, you know, in parks.

1285
01:39:34,680 --> 01:39:43,680
But none of that happened. Zero. You know, and now we are fatter and sicker than we ever were after, you know, a virus swept through that showed us the mirror.

1286
01:39:43,680 --> 01:39:49,680
They held it up in front of our face and said, if you are sick, you're going to die. This is going to kill you.

1287
01:39:49,680 --> 01:39:55,680
But the takeaway was vaccines, then let's not talk about vaccines anymore. Then let's just move on.

1288
01:39:55,680 --> 01:40:00,680
You know, and it's disgusting because the answers are so simple. And we did it 100 years ago.

1289
01:40:00,680 --> 01:40:11,680
There was real food in schools. They were out playing all the time. And then we created this industrialized system where children are, you know, basically, as you said, you know, sitting for hours and hours and hours.

1290
01:40:11,680 --> 01:40:18,680
Like, I remember my little boy when he was about eight or nine doing a three hour FSA test in front of a computer. What the fuck is that?

1291
01:40:18,680 --> 01:40:26,680
You know, so this is the problem is that while people are making money on the food and on the pills because of the disease that we get from the food,

1292
01:40:26,680 --> 01:40:30,680
we're going to continue to see this happen. You know, this get worse and worse and worse.

1293
01:40:30,680 --> 01:40:38,680
But I optimistically I'm hoping that we're the beginning of a revolution where people are finally starting to see behind the curtain now and go, you know what?

1294
01:40:38,680 --> 01:40:47,680
This isn't working. We need we need to start changing it. And it's still a small group that's thinking that way. But I feel like it's slowly snowballing.

1295
01:40:47,680 --> 01:40:56,680
Yeah, there's something going on. All the mama bears got pissed off when they told them they had the Vax or kids and that just shook them all. And they're like, no, no, this doesn't happen.

1296
01:40:56,680 --> 01:41:03,680
And now they're peeling back the layers on, obviously, the food industry, the vaccine industry, everything.

1297
01:41:03,680 --> 01:41:09,680
I mean, I couldn't believe in Florida. They were shutting down beaches and freaking parks.

1298
01:41:09,680 --> 01:41:18,680
I'm like, this is insane. Well, the virus could defy airflow. That was what made it unique. It could just stop midair and just suck to your face.

1299
01:41:18,680 --> 01:41:22,680
So that's why the beaches were so dangerous. All the dolphins died from what I heard.

1300
01:41:22,680 --> 01:41:26,680
Yeah, it doesn't stop you through the Taco Bell drive through, though. No, no, no.

1301
01:41:26,680 --> 01:41:32,680
Those are essential workers. So we've got to keep those open. And the COVID never is impacted by alcohol for some reason.

1302
01:41:32,680 --> 01:41:39,680
So they let the alcohol go. We don't want you to leave the house. So we'll deliver fast food and alcohol to you while you watch Tiger King,

1303
01:41:39,680 --> 01:41:44,680
because that's going to improve your mental and physical health and strengthen your immune system.

1304
01:41:44,680 --> 01:41:50,680
I can mark myself safe of Tiger King. I never saw it. I heard so much about it.

1305
01:41:50,680 --> 01:41:56,680
I didn't even have to see it because every day or whatever I was listening to, whatever talk show, they were giving me updates on what was happening anyway.

1306
01:41:56,680 --> 01:42:05,680
So I guess I was involved in it without watching it. Oh, that show. Yeah. I mean, it's been it's been a crazy ride, man.

1307
01:42:05,680 --> 01:42:14,680
I mean, just figuring out stuff along the way from my own nutrition and obviously pharmaceuticals and how much control they have.

1308
01:42:14,680 --> 01:42:19,680
And then listening to like minded people and just discussing topics like, why do you feel like that?

1309
01:42:19,680 --> 01:42:26,680
Why do you feel this? And just having regular conversations we used to have before people got so I don't know.

1310
01:42:26,680 --> 01:42:34,680
It's like you got to pick one way or the other. And there's a lot of sometimes I feel a little bit on this side about this.

1311
01:42:34,680 --> 01:42:39,680
And I'm not directly down the middle, man. It's just so crazy how they separated us so much.

1312
01:42:39,680 --> 01:42:48,680
But yeah, the job that, you know, even though I did only 19 years, it was it was a blast.

1313
01:42:48,680 --> 01:42:53,680
I mean, that's all I ever once I started to be a cop and wanted to become one.

1314
01:42:53,680 --> 01:43:01,680
I loved it, man. When I put that uniform on, when I got to go to calls and help people and catch the bad guy, that's all I want to do, man.

1315
01:43:01,680 --> 01:43:07,680
You know, and then it became so political. What shift? What boss? What unit you're going in?

1316
01:43:07,680 --> 01:43:17,680
What pension? What car you got? You know, what girl you're dating or whatever crap was going on in our department just became what a cancer, you know?

1317
01:43:17,680 --> 01:43:23,680
And to this day, you know, I remember another cop was like, you're only going to be friends of maybe one or two guys after you leave.

1318
01:43:23,680 --> 01:43:27,680
I mean, you're going to end up making new friends. And that's what's happened.

1319
01:43:27,680 --> 01:43:34,680
I've made better friends in the last four years of camp. And, you know, and they a lot of them were cops in other agencies.

1320
01:43:34,680 --> 01:43:38,680
It's just, you know, sometimes that agency, you don't want to see those guys in your agency.

1321
01:43:38,680 --> 01:43:43,680
Maybe it reminds you of the fucking shit storm you were in, you know, and or you didn't like him.

1322
01:43:43,680 --> 01:43:49,680
Anyways, he got promoted and became a freaking, you know, a dick sporting goods.

1323
01:43:49,680 --> 01:43:56,680
All right. Well, the next closing question, is there a film or documentary that you love to recommend?

1324
01:43:56,680 --> 01:44:01,680
Yeah, fat fiction. It's also magic pill. That's another one that got me started.

1325
01:44:01,680 --> 01:44:06,680
Yeah. Oh, another another great series is the Griselda show on Netflix. No, I'm just kidding.

1326
01:44:06,680 --> 01:44:16,680
I was just made as a promo. I do have a you know that they have a little Eric in that show for a brief scene when he's given his mom shit about.

1327
01:44:16,680 --> 01:44:22,680
She's left a gun in the glove box of the car and.

1328
01:44:22,680 --> 01:44:27,680
He'd only meet that kid. They need to work on him.

1329
01:44:27,680 --> 01:44:30,680
That's what I remember, like, oh, he's not a meat eater.

1330
01:44:30,680 --> 01:44:33,680
But yeah, it's been a fun ride, man. It's been interesting.

1331
01:44:33,680 --> 01:44:45,680
And, you know, and to be now in this world of talking to people about it and, you know, doing online stuff and trying to make things happen, you know, is a whole new world for me.

1332
01:44:45,680 --> 01:44:49,680
You know, I wasn't ever looking to do this. I wasn't looking at social media.

1333
01:44:49,680 --> 01:44:52,680
I wasn't I just want to retire and go camping there.

1334
01:44:52,680 --> 01:44:56,680
Yeah. And now, you know, this has been put in front of me for a reason.

1335
01:44:56,680 --> 01:45:02,680
And, you know, getting phone calls from guys I've never met that have either seen the documentary we did on cops and campers.

1336
01:45:02,680 --> 01:45:07,680
You know, getting together and wives calling me and saying, hey, he needed this.

1337
01:45:07,680 --> 01:45:10,680
He needed something. You know, there were he was in a funk.

1338
01:45:10,680 --> 01:45:18,680
You know, now he's going fishing every other weekend or, you know, you start making trips with other people that you get along with and you're supposed to enjoy life.

1339
01:45:18,680 --> 01:45:25,680
Right. Not supposed to be stuck in your house all miserable watching Fox News or CNN, you know, and, you know, hate in the world.

1340
01:45:25,680 --> 01:45:28,680
You know, people are good overall, man. If you get out there, you'll see it.

1341
01:45:28,680 --> 01:45:34,680
You know, been stuck in your neighborhood all the time with the same people. You're going to get the same shit over and over again.

1342
01:45:34,680 --> 01:45:47,680
Speaking of TV shows, when you were talking about almost being on The Amazing Race and then obviously all the riots happened, I could just imagine that there were probably some execs going, what about The Amazing Race Wars?

1343
01:45:47,680 --> 01:45:51,680
Could we make that work? There you go.

1344
01:45:51,680 --> 01:45:54,680
It's got to be a way of profiting from all this just is trouble in the country.

1345
01:45:54,680 --> 01:45:59,680
How can we turn it into a TV show? You have to do.

1346
01:45:59,680 --> 01:46:03,680
Yeah, it had to be the Amazing Race, but it'd be like Chicago style.

1347
01:46:03,680 --> 01:46:08,680
And now you're running. Try not to get hit with freaking pipes and sticks. Yeah, exactly.

1348
01:46:08,680 --> 01:46:12,680
That would be the most appropriate South Park-esque show for sure.

1349
01:46:12,680 --> 01:46:23,680
All right. Well, then next question. Is there a person that you'd recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?

1350
01:46:23,680 --> 01:46:32,680
See, this is interesting because there's some people that are already known and then there's people that could be a diamond in the rough.

1351
01:46:32,680 --> 01:46:37,680
I'm thinking about. Let me think.

1352
01:46:37,680 --> 01:46:42,680
I was going to say my mom. That's easy. That's an easy answer.

1353
01:46:42,680 --> 01:46:50,680
I would say the guy that's coming to mind right now is Dr. Sean Baker.

1354
01:46:50,680 --> 01:46:53,680
I recognize that name. Remind me who he is.

1355
01:46:53,680 --> 01:46:59,680
He's a carnivore MD guy. He's always eaten. He's like six, five, six, six.

1356
01:46:59,680 --> 01:47:04,680
He's got like a world record at like fifty six years old for rowing or something.

1357
01:47:04,680 --> 01:47:13,680
But he was actually a doctor in New Mexico and they didn't like him talking all this nonsense about healing people without them, you know, cutting into you and making a profit.

1358
01:47:13,680 --> 01:47:22,680
So they pulled his medical license. So now he's like a huge doctor star in this keto carnivore world of help.

1359
01:47:22,680 --> 01:47:27,680
He's been on Rogan a couple of times. He he's really big out there.

1360
01:47:27,680 --> 01:47:36,680
And, you know, obviously in the proper way to raise animals and, you know, regenerative farming and stuff like that, you know, obviously.

1361
01:47:36,680 --> 01:47:49,680
And he's just a voice that is on our side about just eating clean meat and vegetables and not being a sucker for, you know, processed foods and the medical system.

1362
01:47:49,680 --> 01:47:57,680
So he's a voice for us out there. That's pretty powerful. And he loves first responders, I think, is a military guy as well, if I'm not mistaken.

1363
01:47:57,680 --> 01:48:02,680
He's always supporting so many different groups. It gets hard to keep up with sometimes.

1364
01:48:02,680 --> 01:48:08,680
But, yeah, I would talk to that guy. He's full of all kinds of cool information and you should get Joe Rogan.

1365
01:48:08,680 --> 01:48:13,680
I that'd be a twist. I'm still trying, you know, Joe, to flip it backwards.

1366
01:48:13,680 --> 01:48:23,680
Joe has never had a career firefighter on his show over 2000. So, you know, I mean, it doesn't have to be me, but I would love to to be a voice for our profession

1367
01:48:23,680 --> 01:48:27,680
and kind of pull the curtain behind or back for him on that.

1368
01:48:27,680 --> 01:48:34,680
You know, first responder community that we have, I know that several of the firefighter crews saved his house in California a few years ago,

1369
01:48:34,680 --> 01:48:39,680
and I know he did a big kind of cookout for them after. So I know he's got a lot of admiration for that.

1370
01:48:39,680 --> 01:48:46,680
And he's had a couple of people that were firefighters for a heartbeat, but never like, you know, really spoken to a career firefighter before.

1371
01:48:46,680 --> 01:48:48,680
So I would love to get him on the show.

1372
01:48:48,680 --> 01:48:57,680
But conversely, it would be great to be a voice for this profession on such a large platform to educate the masses on what we actually do and what we see as well.

1373
01:48:57,680 --> 01:49:03,680
I think our perspective on how our country actually is is invaluable.

1374
01:49:03,680 --> 01:49:09,680
Well, I'm going out to Austin in the end of the month. I'm going to the mothership for a comedy show.

1375
01:49:09,680 --> 01:49:16,680
Oh, brilliant. I definitely if I see I'll put a good word in for us, all those first responders that he needs to have a first responder week,

1376
01:49:16,680 --> 01:49:21,680
maybe knock out five of us needs a crazy dispatcher in there.

1377
01:49:21,680 --> 01:49:30,680
You know, you get some crazy corrections guy, you get FD guy, you got to get those all you rescue guys are saving people off of mountains and shit.

1378
01:49:30,680 --> 01:49:33,680
You know, that stuff is always fascinating. All those guys.

1379
01:49:33,680 --> 01:49:37,680
He's got tons of material if he gets you guys on there, you know, tons of good stuff.

1380
01:49:37,680 --> 01:49:41,680
Yeah, I mean, I mean, he gets the he gets the military veteran guys on there a lot.

1381
01:49:41,680 --> 01:49:52,680
You know, he's had a few couple of cops here or there. But yeah, I think hidden home getting these people that are at home will be a interesting conversation for him to have.

1382
01:49:52,680 --> 01:49:58,680
100 percent. Well, the very last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find you and all of your platforms.

1383
01:49:58,680 --> 01:50:03,680
What do you do to decompress these days? Decompressing.

1384
01:50:03,680 --> 01:50:13,680
So I do dabble in CBD to calm my central nervous system down. I do use this. I like commercial cardiology coffee.

1385
01:50:13,680 --> 01:50:17,680
No, but it's actually a low mold. You know, there's no toxic anything in it.

1386
01:50:17,680 --> 01:50:21,680
That's one of the things I'm trying to do is get I'm detoxing right as we speak.

1387
01:50:21,680 --> 01:50:29,680
I'm taking all my little pictures and stuff that my wife's little serums I got to take to get my body.

1388
01:50:29,680 --> 01:50:35,680
I was having a methylation issue. So some of the way I was processing and also, you know, detoxing was an issue.

1389
01:50:35,680 --> 01:50:45,680
So we're trying to eat right and clean. But the only thing I'm pushing is, of course, my cops and campers, you know, nonprofit to try and sponsor cops to get out there.

1390
01:50:45,680 --> 01:50:51,680
Maybe ones that have been in a tragic situation. They need a weekend away. And we we have an event or we're going to have one.

1391
01:50:51,680 --> 01:50:58,680
You know, we cover their trip and stuff like that. Obviously, food therapy is stuff with all that money goes to.

1392
01:50:58,680 --> 01:51:04,680
The other thing is with you can find that cops and campers dot com and then anything keto five related.

1393
01:51:04,680 --> 01:51:09,680
I'm out there on social media. You can find us that way and join our groups and our chats.

1394
01:51:09,680 --> 01:51:17,680
And you can even reach out directly to me. You know, I'm always taking calls and messaging and people from all over the world.

1395
01:51:17,680 --> 01:51:23,680
You know, New Zealand, I've even reached out and be like, hey, I heard you on the plant free MD show or something.

1396
01:51:23,680 --> 01:51:28,680
I'm like, oh, that's cool. You know, and then we start, you know, they had a high CAC score or something.

1397
01:51:28,680 --> 01:51:32,680
You just start something's gone with everything that I've gone through. Someone's gone through it.

1398
01:51:32,680 --> 01:51:37,680
They've either had a founder brother or sibling. They've had cancer. They've had heart disease.

1399
01:51:37,680 --> 01:51:41,680
Not that I have cancer, but we all know someone and gone through it.

1400
01:51:41,680 --> 01:51:47,680
It's just been such a great platform to get out there and talk to people. And if you're you need it, hit me up, man.

1401
01:51:47,680 --> 01:51:49,680
I'll talk to anybody.

1402
01:51:49,680 --> 01:51:57,680
Beautiful. Well, Eric, I want to say thank you so much. The first time we sat down, I think, where the where your camper was wasn't in a great place.

1403
01:51:57,680 --> 01:52:00,680
We had to reschedule, but this has been an amazing conversation.

1404
01:52:00,680 --> 01:52:08,680
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and for your courageous vulnerability when it was coming to talking about some of your struggles as well.

1405
01:52:08,680 --> 01:52:11,680
So thank you so much.

1406
01:52:11,680 --> 01:52:15,680
All right. Thank you. And as my son always says, he says cops and Pampers.

1407
01:52:15,680 --> 01:52:19,680
That's his little shout out. But yeah, thank you, man. Thanks for having me.