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Now to learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show veteran firefighter and founder of Rogue Firemanship Training, Logan Broberg.

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Now in this conversation, we discuss all things firefighter fitness.

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From the 343 Hero Challenge that we both just competed in, his journey through multiple

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smoke diver programs, training in or out of gear, fire department fitness standards, helping

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firefighters chase their fitness goals and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.

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Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of over 1000 episodes now.

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

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I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Logan Broberg.

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Enjoy.

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Well Logan, I want to start by welcoming you to my home today.

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And we just competed in the 343 Hero Challenge.

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That'd be a good kind of icebreaker to get this going.

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Talk to me about your experience a couple of years ago and then what you witnessed this

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year doing that competition.

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Yeah, thanks for having me and for all your hospitality so far.

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And yeah, the first time I competed was two years ago and it was really great experience.

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It's all for charity.

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And did it with one of my buddies, Pena, and we just kind of went in and just had fun.

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He had never really done a competition like that and I never really had either.

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I do my style of training, I would consider it like cross training.

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I don't necessarily always do CrossFit stuff, but I do a lot of those, you know, methods

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and modalities that they have.

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And then last year I was supposed to compete but I ended up having nasal surgery because

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I had a deviated septum and it just happened to be I still couldn't work out.

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And then shortly after that I ended up injuring my back anyways.

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I was having some back issues.

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I sat out, watched a bunch of members from my department.

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They competed, watched them compete.

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And then this last time, this past weekend was feeling good, so signed up.

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And my buddy who used to work with me in Kissimmee, he's actually down in Miami-Dade now, but

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he's really in the CrossFit.

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He competes at a pretty high level.

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So I asked if he wanted to do a team with me under the Rogue Firemanship team name just

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to kind of help also get the company name out there.

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And it was a really good time.

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I think my favorite part was even though we were all competing, everybody was cheering

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each other on.

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You know, if you weren't warming up for your heat, mostly everybody was on the side cheering

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everybody on and there was people from all over the state of Florida.

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And it's just super humbling, you know, seeing people that kind of have the same mindset.

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They're all, you know, fit or they want to be fit and they're doing it for a greater

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cause just so it's awesome to be part of that.

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People say to me, brotherhood and sisterhood is dead in the fire service.

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I tell them you're just looking in the wrong places.

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I would argue that the hero challenge is one place to go see where it's alive and well.

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100%.

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That's what I've learned in my short career so far is if it's not necessarily within your

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four walls, then you just need to get out your four walls in your department because

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I see stuff happening all the time across the country to benefit, you know, brothers

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and sisters that are going through some hard times.

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Absolutely.

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Well, let's start at the very beginning of your journey.

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And obviously we'll walk into the fire service.

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

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your parents did, how many siblings.

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Yep.

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So I was born in South Florida.

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I grew up in a small town called Oxahatchee.

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Most people have never heard of it.

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So I just tell them that I grew up in West Palm because it was about 20 minutes west

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of West Palm.

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And my mom and dad were, they're still together.

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And I have a little sister.

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She's about four to five years younger than me.

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My mom was a labor and delivery nurse for over 25 years and she worked in a town called

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Belle Glade, which if you're not familiar with that town, it's a pretty rough town.

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It's very low income, a lot of farm workers and sugar cane fields out there.

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So that's kind of what she was dealing with her whole career.

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And then my dad was a police officer for the same amount of time down in Boynton Beach.

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And same thing, there's some pretty rough areas down in Boynton Beach.

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So he pretty much was on the streets his whole career too, was a sergeant, which is like

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equivalent to what a lieutenant is for us on the fire truck.

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And just kind of grew up like a blue collar type family.

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My dad for a few years on the side, he had a masonry business.

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And around that time I was in middle school.

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So he would kind of make me work with him during the summers, busting up concrete sidewalks,

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reforming them and pouring them.

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And his big thing was that if I didn't do good in school, that this was most likely

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the type of work I was going to be doing.

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And I did not really enjoy it.

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I wish I'd paid attention a little more because I definitely could, you know, it'd be better

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to know how to do some of that stuff, but it was just miserable.

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It was South Florida in the middle of summer and I just wanted to get it over with and

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get back home.

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Brilliant.

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So let's talk about your dad first.

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Boynton Beach, we had Hugh Brooder on talking about their recent switch to 2472.

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I don't want to dive into that at the moment, but this is kind of thought that, oh, it's

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a very affluent city and that's how they're able to do it.

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Talk to me about the other side, because most of us, you know, no matter where we work,

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there's the wealthy area and then there's the low income area where you tend to usually

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see more people struggling, the crime, that kind of thing.

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So what were some of the stories you remember him talking about his time in Boynton?

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Yeah, so I think South Florida as a whole, especially in Palm Beach County, it's pretty

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unique because, you know, in the county, there's obviously money.

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You know, you have the town of Palm Beach, which is Palm Beach Island and, you know,

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where Trump and all the other millionaires live.

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But in pretty much every city on that East Coast is you'll have, you know, really nice

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areas more out West is kind of like a more suburban neighborhoods, blue collar neighborhoods.

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But right before you cross the train tracks to get to the beach side is usually in every

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single city along there is, you know, just low income neighborhoods, a drug, high drug

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and high crime rates.

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So my dad, like I said, he worked in Boynton Beach and in that area, they had a street

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called Cherry Hill.

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And that was usually one of the worst neighborhoods in that area.

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And he would just always tell me stories, you know, of things going on.

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Once I got a little older, he would let me do some ride along with them.

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So I would ride around, kind of see what was going on.

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And at the time, there was a big gang issue down there where they had a lot of Haitian

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gangs kind of come onto the scene.

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And the History Channel, they actually did a whole Gangland episode on one of the bigger

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Haitian gangs down there.

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And they were kind of causing a lot of havoc because they were doing a lot of drive by

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shootings at the time.

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And a lot of, you know, innocent people were getting hurt because of that.

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That was interesting when the comments were made about people eating pets.

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And my whole thing was, well, if we're talking about, you know, issues with Haitians, and

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let's talk about, you said the Haitian gangs, because I remember living down in Hialeah

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or living in Pembroke Pines and working in Hialeah, you know, there were certain areas

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that if you went in, you know, you'd be lucky if you got out again.

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So you know, the people that come from such a war torn place and then, you know, implanted

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here and then obviously that criminality comes with them.

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You know, I think that to me is a much more important conversation than maybe, you know,

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one or two examples of maybe a family pet being taken.

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Yeah, 100%.

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I think what's unique about South Florida too, is it's, you know, a lot of people call

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it a melting pot because there's people from everywhere come to South Florida.

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You know, you have the port right there.

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Cuba is not too far away.

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So, you know, over the years, we had a lot of Cuban refugees that would come.

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And so it's just a big melting pot.

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You know, the Haitians were not the only ones causing crime.

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I just remember, you know, there's a lot of news stories because they were, you know,

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they were doing what gangs do.

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They're trying to get territory from whatever other resident gangs are there.

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And they were just very vicious and very, you know, aggressive.

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Yeah.

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Well, I think that's it.

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That's it's not just the Haitians.

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That's the point is that we have, I point this out a lot with, there's this kind of

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negativity towards the police and why aren't they doing enough and why do they look like

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they're going to war the way they're dressed?

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And no one's saying, well, why are our streets so dangerous?

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Why do we have the level of gangs?

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You go to Norway or Portugal, they don't have that.

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They don't, you know what I mean?

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So this is a very, I think to me, a much bigger conversation than, you know, again, like I

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said, a handful of pets go missing is the fact that all cultures and countries and colors

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and creeds, we have them represented because of our illicit drug trade and the prohibition

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of drugs.

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We've created, we've encouraged this criminality on our streets, which then you and I and our

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men and women in law enforcement respond to.

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And then if it doesn't go right, we're the ones thrown under the bus.

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Yeah, a hundred percent.

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You know, and they want to defund the police and they don't really understand what that

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actually means.

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It's really just taking resources that they may have had to help combat these issues.

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It's taking that away because I don't think a lot of people realize that some certain

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crimes require specialty units.

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It's not just your normal street or beat cop that's handling these issues.

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You know, if there's a drug issue, they have a whole narcotics unit that's handling that,

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or they have a whole gang unit.

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Their only job is just to go after gangs and, you know, bust those things up.

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Absolutely.

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Well, switching to the other parent, your mom, labor delivery, working in an area where

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I'm assuming there's a lot of migrant workers.

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What was some of the things or the unique lens that she had working with those communities?

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Yes, I remember her telling me, you know, there'd be 13 year old girls having babies

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and I guess I just very low, low income, high drug rate city.

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So you know, she was constantly delivering drug babies and dealing with that.

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And the biggest thing that always stuck out was just the, you know, they kind of, I don't

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want to say they isolated me from that.

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I was aware of what was going on in the world, but as I got older, I couldn't imagine, you

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know, being 13 years old and being pregnant and giving birth, you know, it's just, that's

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crazy to me.

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And like I said, I think a lot of people, if they're not, if they don't hear about it

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or don't see it, they don't, it's out of sight, out of mind.

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They don't realize these things are happening every day and they're not new issues.

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And you know, sadly it's, she really enjoyed her work because she, she had to be good at

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her job.

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You know, it wasn't in a cush area where they had a lot of resources, you know, in that

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city that was one of the only hospitals out there.

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And then the next hospital over was, you know, 30, 40 minutes over.

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She didn't, she didn't have to deal with some of the trauma stuff.

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Cause obviously she was labor and delivery, but you know, people would roll up to that

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hospital because it was the closest one and you know, there's gunshot wounds and stuff.

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They're just dropping them off at the front door.

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I literally, I had to call that was one of the stories in my new book that I wrote about

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and it was a true story behind the story.

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But yeah, and I mean, you know, blood in blood out, it's all about the homies.

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Well, trust me, you know, when they just throw you out of a car and drive away, there's nothing

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brotherly about that.

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Right.

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With that as well, what about the human trafficking element?

225
00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:02,440
When you look at a lot of the migrant workers now, people don't think that men are trafficked,

226
00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,920
but a lot of this, you know, these workers and these farms and these restaurants, you

227
00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:09,800
know, a lot of them, sometimes there's coyotes and this trafficking element too.

228
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:11,200
Was she ever exposed to that?

229
00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:13,240
I know it's kind of a new conversation these days.

230
00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:14,840
No, not that I remember.

231
00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:20,440
I remember, you know, when I was growing up at the time, you know, it was early, I was

232
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:22,680
in high school, I graduated high school in 2012.

233
00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:27,960
So you figure early 2000s till 2012, the big thing down there, I remember my dad talking

234
00:14:27,960 --> 00:14:31,720
about was the pill mills, you know, and he said you would, you would pull up behind a

235
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:36,680
car and it's like three or four, you know, white guys in it and they have plates from

236
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:40,420
like Ohio and he's like, you just flip your lights on and they'd want to be taken off

237
00:14:40,420 --> 00:14:44,800
because they were just coming down here, hopping from pill from, you know, doctor's clinic

238
00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:49,160
to doctor's clinic, getting the pain pills and then they would go back up obviously and

239
00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:50,160
sell them.

240
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:53,160
And I remember that was a big thing in South Florida as well, where there was like hundreds

241
00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:58,160
of those doctors offices that were illegally, well, not illegally, but that, you know, the

242
00:14:58,160 --> 00:14:59,160
doctors are just making money.

243
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,480
So they're prescribing everybody and their mother, the pain pills.

244
00:15:02,480 --> 00:15:08,360
And then now fast forward 15, 20 years and everybody's addicted to opiates now.

245
00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:10,480
And now that's a whole nother issue.

246
00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:16,000
You know, my dad, he got on in the nineties where it was probably crack was the big drug.

247
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:21,920
And now where I'm working, it's majority, you know, opiates, you know, we're not really

248
00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:27,880
dealing with, I haven't really heard of anybody recently in my career, you know, when I run

249
00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:30,840
on a patient, they're not taking, they're not smoking crack anymore.

250
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:36,080
It's either meth or heroin or, you know, maybe they'll do cocaine, but it's, you know, it's

251
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:41,160
just kind of crazy how the times change and stuff like that.

252
00:15:41,160 --> 00:15:42,160
Yeah.

253
00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:43,160
Yeah.

254
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,960
When I moved to the U S we started off in Orlando.

255
00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:46,960
It's one of the fire academy.

256
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:52,680
And then I went into work for Hialeah when I was down there, my ex, my son's mother,

257
00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:56,400
she got hired in this pseudo doctor's office.

258
00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:59,160
And as time went on, she was like, it's really weird.

259
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:04,920
I've got these people, you know, flying down from New York and Ohio and West Virginia to

260
00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:06,840
come and get these prescriptions from this doctor.

261
00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:11,240
And he's just writing them, you know, all day and they come down and, you know, or we're

262
00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:14,760
like overnighting these prescriptions to people or whatever it is.

263
00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:16,000
And it was that it was it.

264
00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:20,040
And luckily we, she kind of had this moment, which like, this just doesn't seem right.

265
00:16:20,040 --> 00:16:25,880
And she left and it wasn't too long before all the ATF, you know, gangs were, you know,

266
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:27,720
kicking in doors and getting these people.

267
00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:33,080
But I had a guy, San Quinones on the show who wrote dreamland and it's all about that.

268
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:38,080
And once the pill mill shut down, that's when the Mexican gangs started bringing the black

269
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:42,040
tar heroin and you had all these people that were dope sick that were relying on these

270
00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:43,160
pill mills.

271
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:46,800
Not saying that was right, but when it was shut down, you had all these people strung

272
00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:47,800
out.

273
00:16:47,800 --> 00:16:51,640
And so now it was just an easy target for the cartels to come in.

274
00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:57,600
So when we even talk about the whole border cartel issue, you know, our prohibition, our

275
00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:04,520
American addicts that we consume 75% of the world's opioids, you know, that's all because

276
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:09,200
of, you know, Oxycontin and all these things that started this whole, you know, epidemic.

277
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:10,200
Yeah.

278
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:15,120
And it's sad, you know, because you have a normal, you know, productive member of society.

279
00:17:15,120 --> 00:17:18,680
Maybe they have a family, they have a good career, they get addicted to these pills and

280
00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:23,240
then it's just a downward spiral or, you know, some of these athletes, same thing.

281
00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:28,160
Or, you know, we've heard stories of even police and firemen, you know, they get addicted

282
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:32,280
to the pain pills because of an injury and then it just spirals out of control.

283
00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:34,840
So I know three that have died from overdoses from.

284
00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:35,840
Yes.

285
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:36,840
Sad.

286
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:37,840
Yeah.

287
00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:38,840
It's horrendous.

288
00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:40,400
Well, we're going to obviously talk about fitness as well.

289
00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:44,320
So going back to your early life, when you were in the school ages, what were you doing

290
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:47,200
and playing as far as sports and exercise?

291
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:48,880
So I tried baseball out.

292
00:17:48,880 --> 00:17:51,280
I really didn't like it when I was really young.

293
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:54,000
It was very boring to me and it usually is at that age.

294
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:59,120
Now that I realized, you know, unless you're hitting the ball, it's probably not very fun.

295
00:17:59,120 --> 00:18:02,720
So the big sport in my community where I grew up was football.

296
00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,920
So I played football pretty much my whole life, all the way up into high school.

297
00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:13,800
And then nobody really told me that being 110 pounds as a freshman, I was probably not

298
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:14,800
going to make the football team.

299
00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:17,360
So I tried out for the freshman football team.

300
00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:21,600
And that was a really cool experience, though, because they had a very good way of program.

301
00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:24,020
They are very big on strength and conditioning.

302
00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:27,960
So if they said, if you wanted to try out for the freshman football team, you'd come

303
00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:31,000
the summer before school started and work.

304
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,280
They showed you how to lift weights at a full weight room.

305
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:36,760
And they showed you how to lift weights and strength train.

306
00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:38,880
Then you would try out for the football team.

307
00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:40,000
And if you made the cut, you made the cut.

308
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:41,640
If not, you didn't.

309
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:42,720
So I didn't make the cut.

310
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:47,880
And that was my first dose, I would say, of failing something, because I had played rec

311
00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:50,720
sports my whole childhood.

312
00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,480
And you pay to play when you're on a rec team.

313
00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:56,720
You get picked to be on the team, and you play.

314
00:18:56,720 --> 00:19:04,080
So I asked them, what could I do to just help my chances to get on the team next time?

315
00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:07,440
Because they have a freshman JV and varsity team.

316
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:10,840
And they're like, well, you could try out for JVD in the spring.

317
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:15,040
And so I elected to actually be kind of like the equipment manager, which was more or less

318
00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:16,040
a glorified water boy.

319
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:17,040
So I was a water boy.

320
00:19:17,040 --> 00:19:19,160
Well, he ended up playing for the team.

321
00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:20,640
So I've seen the movie.

322
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:21,640
Yeah.

323
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:26,480
That didn't happen for me, because what ended up happening is, when school started, I did

324
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:28,280
the water boy thing.

325
00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:33,000
And that was cool, because they said, if I was part of the team in that aspect, I could

326
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:35,620
get weightlifting class instead of PE.

327
00:19:35,620 --> 00:19:38,980
So my freshman year, I still got to continue weightlifting.

328
00:19:38,980 --> 00:19:43,320
And then a bunch of my buddies tried out for the wrestling team.

329
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:47,240
And the way the wrestling team worked is, you would make the team, no matter what, you

330
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:49,680
would just be JV or a backup.

331
00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:53,240
But if you wanted to be varsity, you would wrestle off for the varsity spot.

332
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:56,280
So once football season ended, wrestling season was starting.

333
00:19:56,280 --> 00:20:00,240
I went into the wrestling room and just fell in love with it after the first practice,

334
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:02,680
because it was just a grind.

335
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:06,280
And I liked that it was weight class based.

336
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:10,240
It didn't matter how big or small you were, because it was all weight classes.

337
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:16,160
So I joined the wrestling team and gave up the water boy thing and never looked back

338
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:17,160
ever since.

339
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,680
I wrestled my whole high school career.

340
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,600
Same thing freshman year, I got pretty much whooped every match.

341
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:26,600
Asked the coach what I could do to improve.

342
00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:30,920
And he told me, well, most kids take the season off to either play other sports or they just

343
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:31,960
take the season off.

344
00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:36,460
So he's like, if you want to get really good and make up time, you just have to wrestle

345
00:20:36,460 --> 00:20:37,460
all year round.

346
00:20:37,460 --> 00:20:39,000
So that's what I would do during the off season.

347
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:44,300
I would go to off season tournaments and off season, what they called clinics where guys

348
00:20:44,300 --> 00:20:48,720
at the higher level, whether it be college or Olympic level would go around.

349
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,200
And a lot of them always came to Florida just probably to make a vacation out of it.

350
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:56,280
You'd pay, they show you a bunch of different techniques and you would wrestle guys from

351
00:20:56,280 --> 00:20:58,160
all over the state and just keep getting better.

352
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:03,720
So my sophomore year I came back, made the varsity team at 119 pounds.

353
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:09,520
Then my junior year, I ended up becoming a captain, wrestled at 125.

354
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:13,720
And senior year was still a captain, wrestled at 132.

355
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:19,640
And I ended up breaking the single season takedown record for that year for my school.

356
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:24,720
And my ultimate goal was obviously to be a state champion, but I fell short in that goal.

357
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:30,080
And it really taught me a lot of lessons just about life.

358
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:34,160
Because what was nice about it is when you went out on the mat, it was on you.

359
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:37,240
So if you messed something up, you kind of had to take accountability for yourself if

360
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:38,240
you lost the match.

361
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:43,120
You couldn't blame the ref and can't blame your coach.

362
00:21:43,120 --> 00:21:46,400
But as far as the team aspect, you had to be a good drilling partner and you had to

363
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:48,000
have good drilling partners around you.

364
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:53,600
So kind of like the fire service, it really does parallel because you and your partner

365
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:57,520
may have to go do a single task on the fire ground to get it done.

366
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,200
But you're also relying on your other teammates to get their single task done.

367
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:01,840
And if you don't get that task done, it's on you.

368
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:03,880
It's nobody else's fault.

369
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:05,360
So I really enjoyed it.

370
00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:08,480
And I did a little bit of jujitsu once I got out of high school.

371
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,480
But now I just don't have as much time as I would like now to dedicate to it.

372
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,680
So yeah, when we first met in the three, four, three, immediately I noticed your right ear

373
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:16,680
was slightly color-flipped.

374
00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:18,680
And I'm like, he has to be a grappler at some point.

375
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:19,680
I was.

376
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:23,280
Yeah, it was interesting because I ask a lot of people that about the contrast between

377
00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:25,360
the team sports and individual sports.

378
00:22:25,360 --> 00:22:26,560
And I played both as well.

379
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:32,280
But you can sandbag in a team sometimes and get away with it.

380
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:35,600
There's blaming sometimes, ah, you missed the goal, whatever it was.

381
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:38,600
And this is what I loved about the individual one, which is why I leaned more towards that

382
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:39,720
is exactly like you said.

383
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:45,000
When you're on the mat and you're against that person, you either win or you lose.

384
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,560
And even I remember when I used to be close on points in martial arts, okay, well, that's

385
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:49,560
not good enough.

386
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:50,800
I can't let the judges decide.

387
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:51,800
I need to decide.

388
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:52,800
So I'm still not good enough.

389
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:54,040
It's still on me.

390
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:58,840
So it does definitely carry over to the fire service because yeah, when you're in South

391
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:08,880
Florida going through a collapse maze, it's 110 outside and you're halfway through the

392
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,880
maze for lack of a better word, no one else is coming to help you.

393
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:15,000
It's that little voice in your mind that's either going to get you to panic or to keep

394
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,080
pushing forward and get it done.

395
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:18,080
Yeah.

396
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:23,040
What I really liked about it too is if anybody has ever grappled before, they could also

397
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:27,920
speak to this, but it's probably one of the hardest things physically that you can do

398
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:31,800
because you're using muscles that you're not going to hit while you're in the gym, just

399
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:36,040
performing your normal compound lifts or even your isolation lifts.

400
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:43,040
And it's a huge, you know, cardiac, cardiovascular event to, you know, you're probably at 170,

401
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:47,480
180 beats a minute because you're trying to impose your will on somebody else, get them

402
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:52,400
to quit and get them to allow you to either pin them or take them down and get the points

403
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:53,600
that you need.

404
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:58,560
And the wrestling practices, I remember our coach, he would take us to the track before

405
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:00,840
practice would start.

406
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,280
And I mean, practice started, but we weren't in the weight, we weren't in the wrestling

407
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:04,280
room yet.

408
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:06,640
We pretty much do whatever the track teams practice was.

409
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:11,680
So we would either do run a few miles or we'd run intervals around the track and then we'd

410
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,520
go into the wrestling room, drill our moves for an hour or two, and then live wrestle

411
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:16,520
for an hour.

412
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:20,720
And then three, four hours after school every day, just grinding out in the wrestling room.

413
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:25,920
And then as I got older and wanted to accomplish more, I was even, you know, I was a high school

414
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:28,120
kid waking up early before school.

415
00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:32,040
I'd go run three to five miles every day before school just to try to, you know, get an edge

416
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:38,120
and you know, make myself have a better chance of being successful because, you know, it's

417
00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:43,480
addicting when you want to, you want to win and it's, it's you versus another person.

418
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:47,720
100%. What about career aspirations? What were you dreaming of becoming when you were

419
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:49,160
still in the school age?

420
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:54,360
So my whole life, I pretty much wanted to be a cop because I wanted to, you know, I

421
00:24:54,360 --> 00:24:56,720
heard my dad's stories.

422
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:01,680
My dad was a very well respected leader in his department by his guys.

423
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,920
And at a young age, I even kind of caught on to that just by how they would act around

424
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,360
him and the things he would do for them.

425
00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:12,480
Some of the stories I heard were, you know, instead of just throwing the book at him,

426
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:17,360
he would do what he could as a servant leader and make sure maybe, you know, if they were

427
00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:20,880
a good guy and they just made a mistake and they were honest, you know, he would try to

428
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:26,480
help them out a little bit and not just throw the whole administrative paperwork at them.

429
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,800
And you know, my dad, I looked up to my dad.

430
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:35,360
I still look up to my dad now. He's 6'4", 260 pounds, you know, big guy, nothing at

431
00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:38,920
all. How I'm built guys still make fun of me about that.

432
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:43,640
But yeah, that was my hero, you know, so I wanted to do what he did.

433
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:45,880
And he was especially towards the end of his career.

434
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:47,440
He was really against that.

435
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,640
He could see where police work was going.

436
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:55,960
You know, they didn't have body cams quite yet, but you know, he was on the job before

437
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:56,960
dash cams.

438
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,480
And then when the dash cams came, then, you know, the tasers came about and they could

439
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:05,000
log or they could track, you know, when a taser was deployed and he could kind of see

440
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:12,880
where not necessarily that people were being held accountable, but it was like almost over

441
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:13,880
like too much.

442
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,800
They're overbearing, you know, towards the end of his career, guys were getting complaints

443
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,700
on excessive use of force when it was something they needed to do.

444
00:26:20,700 --> 00:26:25,200
But just because the citizen complains and the chiefs want to appease them or, you know,

445
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:26,880
it gets caught on camera.

446
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:28,880
So he really didn't want me to do that.

447
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,200
And you know, I was like, no, that's what I want to do.

448
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:37,600
And he also didn't want me to go into the military because he had served in the army.

449
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:39,440
My uncle was a Marine in Vietnam.

450
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:44,040
My uncle was like 15 to 20 years older than my dad.

451
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,260
And my grandpa was a World War II veteran.

452
00:26:47,260 --> 00:26:50,200
So he didn't want me to go in the military.

453
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,600
He said enough brobergs have served the country.

454
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:54,400
And at the time, you know, we were over in the Middle East.

455
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,200
So he's like, I'm not raising you to go get blown up over there.

456
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:00,520
Basically is what he would tell me.

457
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,520
Which fair enough, I really had no aspirations to go the military route anyways.

458
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:06,820
I really just wanted to be a cop.

459
00:27:06,820 --> 00:27:12,360
And he sat me down one day and said, you know, he had a buddy that was on the fire department

460
00:27:12,360 --> 00:27:13,360
in Boyan.

461
00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:17,040
And he said, I want you to do a ride along with my buddy Ken.

462
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,160
And if you don't like it after this, then you can go be a cop.

463
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:22,280
So I went and did a ride along.

464
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:23,960
I went in on a Sunday.

465
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:28,680
So I didn't know this at the time, but obviously it's typically a more chill day, you know,

466
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:29,800
for a firehouse life.

467
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,080
But I showed up and we, he went through the whole truck with me.

468
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,080
They were doing their truck check out.

469
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,080
And then we ate breakfast together.

470
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,340
We ran a couple of medical calls.

471
00:27:39,340 --> 00:27:40,560
We ate lunch together.

472
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,120
We did a workout in the afternoon, the gym, and then I ended up going home right after

473
00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:45,120
dinner.

474
00:27:45,120 --> 00:27:47,400
You know, ran some calls in between, nothing crazy.

475
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:55,680
But what really attracted me to the fire service was the camaraderie and like the, just the

476
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:57,600
fact that you're part of a crew basically.

477
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,960
Because when I wrestled, me and my friends who wrestled together, we were all really

478
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:01,960
close.

479
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,640
Like we would go, we'd wrestle, you know, during the week and then we'd wrestle on

480
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,000
the weekends and then we'd pick somebody's house to hang out at that night.

481
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,280
And, you know, we spent all of our time together, almost like a crew.

482
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,160
And I really liked that.

483
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,320
And that's ultimately what attracted me to the fire service.

484
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:21,880
The fact that they could work out on duty, because I was still into fitness then too.

485
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:23,560
And that you had to be in shape for your job.

486
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:25,020
It's something different every day.

487
00:28:25,020 --> 00:28:28,280
You know, it's challenging mentally and physically.

488
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:31,480
And you know, my dad even told me, he's like, when you're a cop, you're in your car for

489
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,640
most, you're shift by yourself.

490
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:38,360
You know, unless it's like a high crime, really busy area, like an LA, you're not, you don't

491
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,200
have a partner, you know, which is wrong.

492
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,880
I've said this with so many police officers, like we wonder why there's issues.

493
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:44,880
Yeah.

494
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:49,240
Because, you know, if either of us is walking down the street and we had to go hands on

495
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,760
with one person versus two, I mean, it's common sense.

496
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,040
There's a lot of people walking those streets that are a lot bigger or just better at fighting

497
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:57,040
than I am.

498
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:01,300
It doesn't matter if I got a badge on my chest, but the moment you have two people, two well

499
00:29:01,300 --> 00:29:03,840
trained people, that's a real force multiplier.

500
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:04,840
Yep.

501
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,160
So I came back to my dad like, yes, this is what I want to do.

502
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:12,200
And so I signed up for EMT school, went to nighttime EMT school.

503
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,760
Cause I was taking some college classes during the day at the time.

504
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:22,720
Got my EMT and then that same guy, Ken, he told me that he did fire school at Wakefield

505
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,760
Lake Tech, which was, I had never heard of like the city to various, but it's in Lake

506
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:28,360
County.

507
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:32,080
And he said they had a program when he went through back when he started, it was like

508
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:36,840
20 years prior at the time, but it was an apprenticeship program where you can live

509
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,320
at a fire station and go to school.

510
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,160
So he called the chief up there.

511
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,280
It was for the Mount Dora fire department.

512
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:50,960
And I got into the fire school at Lake Tech, moved up right after I graduated high school.

513
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,560
And well, I should say it was the spring after I graduated high school.

514
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,340
Cause I had finished one semester of college.

515
00:29:58,340 --> 00:30:01,440
And so I lived in Mount Dora's fire station while I went to fire school.

516
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:03,720
And that really solidified my decision.

517
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:08,240
Cause you know, during the week I'd be in fire school, I'd come back, I'd have dinner

518
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,400
with the crew.

519
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,800
And instead of driving all the way home three hours back to South Florida, I would just

520
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:15,400
hang out at the station for the weekend.

521
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,680
And it really helped me cause they'd helped me with my knots and whatever stuff I needed

522
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:23,040
to pass for fire school and I got to run some calls with them and really see what the lifestyle

523
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:24,120
was about.

524
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:28,400
And then I came back home and at the time it was highly competitive.

525
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:34,540
So this was probably like the summer of 2013, the tail end of the recession.

526
00:30:34,540 --> 00:30:39,440
And I didn't know this, but there had been like hiring freezes for five to eight years.

527
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,480
So it was highly competitive to get a job, nothing like what it is now.

528
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,080
And applied to it, a few different processes.

529
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:52,440
I remember I did a process with Sebring's fire department and I was so naive cause you

530
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,160
know, I never really worked like a real job that had an interview before.

531
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:00,480
I always worked like a lifeguard job or whatever the case was.

532
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:04,640
And I know I bombed the interview, especially looking back now, but it was crazy.

533
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,880
It was for like, I think it was like for nine or 10 bucks an hour for a firefighter EMT,

534
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,520
you know, in a small Sebring in the middle of Highlands County.

535
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:16,280
And it was kind of crazy that I didn't get the job.

536
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:21,040
And so I went back home and you know, my parents were like, well, you might as well, since

537
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:22,760
you're living at home, just go to medic school.

538
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,360
That way you can make yourself more marketable, especially in South Florida at the time.

539
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:31,640
If you weren't a medic, you had to be like a chief son or something to get hired as a

540
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:32,640
firefighter EMT.

541
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:41,720
So what's funny is when I was looking, which was 2004, I went to mid Florida tech Orlando

542
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:46,840
and my son's mother wanted to move down to Miami, kind of pursue the whole entertainment

543
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:48,640
industry down there.

544
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:53,280
And I was told by all the instructors in Orlando, oh, you'll never get hired down South unless

545
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,520
you're a medic and you speak Spanish.

546
00:31:55,520 --> 00:32:00,480
And I went down and the city of Hialeah was just dying for people because they, I mean,

547
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:04,960
it was still competitive, but they weren't as sought after as Miami-Dade.

548
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:09,220
They literally were being paid half what some of the cities around them were.

549
00:32:09,220 --> 00:32:15,000
So I think it was three months I was hired, but it's funny that rhetoric, sometimes it's

550
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:18,960
almost discouraging for people like, oh, you'll never because it's like, well, throw your

551
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:20,240
fricking name in any way.

552
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:21,720
Don't be dissuaded by that.

553
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:22,720
Yeah.

554
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,600
And even the instructors at late tech, they kind of said the same thing, but they even

555
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,960
told us they're like, just apply everywhere.

556
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,640
So I went through medic school, which actually worked out very well.

557
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,600
I started medic school when I was 20 and then I did the, it was about a year.

558
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,520
I went through Palm beach state was living at home so I could just focus on medic school.

559
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:46,360
And I was also volunteering for a small department down there called a North Palm beach.

560
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,160
There are one station department down there and they had a volunteer program, which was

561
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:57,440
really nice because then I could do rides with them and keep my fire and EMT sort of

562
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,000
and it was crazy that I tell some of these young guys this now.

563
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,960
I feel like I'm like, not necessarily that I'm that old salty guy.

564
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,840
It's like, you guys don't know what it's like, but I remember I had to go to those meetings

565
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:10,940
for like, I think it was four to six months before I got on, I would go into my civilian

566
00:33:10,940 --> 00:33:14,720
clothes and just stand around there and watch them do their drill because there was even

567
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,920
a line just to become a volunteer for them.

568
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,600
And the way they did it is as soon as you put your application in, they just told us

569
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:27,000
like, Hey, just come every week and you will just wait till a spot opens up.

570
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,640
So I finally, a couple of spots opened up.

571
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,620
I got in, did that for a year.

572
00:33:31,620 --> 00:33:34,640
And then towards the end of medic school, I had like a month left the medic school.

573
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:40,520
I was actively testing at the end of my medic school because we were in our, they call it

574
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,760
our capstone, but for people who don't know is basically just doing rides.

575
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,880
You're not having to go to class every day.

576
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,520
And Kissimmee gave me my, my shot.

577
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:54,200
So I remember the training lieutenant called me and I was actually at a clinical, such

578
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:55,200
a small world.

579
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,640
I was at a clinical with Palm Beach County doing my ride time.

580
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,840
And one of the firefighter paramedics there, he had just left Kissimmee, like not that

581
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:06,800
long ago and he was at the station when I got the phone call.

582
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,160
So he kind of gave me the scoop on how it was up there.

583
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,000
And I was pretty excited because he was like, yeah, you know, they burn a pretty good amount.

584
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:14,680
They have really good equipment.

585
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:19,000
And he just said, you know, at the time they don't pay obviously what South Florida pays.

586
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,320
That was the only, he even said the only reason he came down to South Florida was just the

587
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,920
pay and he had already kind of missed some of the camaraderie and the brotherhood that

588
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:29,040
Kissimmee had.

589
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:34,400
And I remember it when he called me, the training lieutenant and I hung up the phone, the butterflies

590
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,760
that I had, it was like I had the golden ticket.

591
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:41,840
And I'm sure you felt the same way, you know, when you first got hired, it was very competitive.

592
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,980
So competitive, you know, now we're, you know, there, you see departments are hiring kids

593
00:34:45,980 --> 00:34:50,920
out of high school to like put them through the fire academy and all that on and get paid

594
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:51,920
an hourly wage.

595
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:56,440
It's just, it's crazy, but it's what has to be done right now, you know, because for whatever

596
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:01,240
reason people aren't flocking to the trades as much anymore.

597
00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:05,200
Well, let me, let me ask you that question before I load it and give you my opinion.

598
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:12,000
Why do you think it is that you experienced such competition when you were testing?

599
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:17,800
I mean, only 10 years ago, you know, and when we're seeing what we're seeing now, you know,

600
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,840
we do talk about this a lot at the station and to be honest, I really don't know.

601
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:27,280
I mean, I have my theories, but obviously I don't have enough data to back it up.

602
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:32,660
I don't know if it's more because the, the schools are pushing people to go to college

603
00:35:32,660 --> 00:35:35,360
first and they're not necessarily looking at the trades.

604
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,520
And maybe, you know, I even brought this up in my own department.

605
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,880
I say, why we do these pub heads all the time.

606
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:46,640
We go to the preschools and the elementary schools to show them the truck.

607
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:47,640
And I said, why?

608
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,960
Because we're, we're still having recruiting issues now, but a couple of years ago when

609
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:55,160
we were having them, I said, why don't we do like what the Marines do and go to the

610
00:35:55,160 --> 00:36:01,800
high school or go to some of these sports teams that are at the end of their practices

611
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,140
and say, Hey, you know, maybe you're not going to college for athletics, but have you guys

612
00:36:05,140 --> 00:36:07,840
ever thought about a career in the fire service?

613
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,880
You still get to be part of a team and you can make a pretty good living wage while you're

614
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,440
still living at home with your parents until you get on your feet.

615
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:21,560
And, you know, I want somebody who can work in a team, has some athletic physical capabilities

616
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:26,520
and has maybe dealt with a little bit of adversity when you compete in sports.

617
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:31,280
And I think the other problem in Florida right now too, is for many, many years you had to

618
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:36,720
go get your own education before you could get hired where a lot of States, they will

619
00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:42,400
do essentially like a civil service exam, hire you and then put you through a recruit

620
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:43,400
school.

621
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:47,400
So like, especially right now and now as economy, maybe you're not going to get as many people

622
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:52,640
that are willing to not make a living wage while they have to support their families

623
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,680
to go to school and then they're not even guaranteed a job yet.

624
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:02,560
See what's been interesting comparing and I think, cause I tested 20 plus years ago,

625
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:03,560
it was very different.

626
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,520
Like the internet was still kind of in its infancy then.

627
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,520
And I remember there was one website, it was called like the golden nuggets.com or something.

628
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:16,140
If you were going to do your, the big stumbling blocks seem to be the oral interview.

629
00:37:16,140 --> 00:37:19,600
So it was all these kind of do's and don'ts to prepare you for that.

630
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:23,360
And the reality is just be yourself is what it should have said.

631
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:24,360
But that was it.

632
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:25,920
So you Google, what's it like to be a firefighter?

633
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,800
I joke about it all the time.

634
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,820
It was moustaches, the helmets and getting babies out of fires.

635
00:37:31,820 --> 00:37:38,920
If you Google it now, you see not only firefighter, divorce, cancer, suicide, addiction, all the

636
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:44,360
things, but you also can pull up, you know, how much are they getting paid?

637
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:45,360
What are the actual hours?

638
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,120
It used to like not even be on the app.

639
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:51,040
I didn't know what I was going to get paid from Hialeah till weeks into the academy.

640
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:52,720
I shit you know.

641
00:37:52,720 --> 00:37:57,680
So, so now you see it and now you learn about mandatory overtime and you've got these younger

642
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:02,720
generation that have been brought up to understand mental health, to understand physical fitness,

643
00:38:02,720 --> 00:38:03,720
some of them.

644
00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:07,160
And they look at this on paper and they're like, that sounds fucking awful.

645
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:09,800
You know, that the worst case that we're in at the moment.

646
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,560
And so this is what's exciting though, is if you fix those things.

647
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:15,800
And we were talking before we hit record about the 24 72.

648
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,840
If you show these young recruits that actually we're going to create an environment that

649
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,560
will allow you to thrive, not break you down and destroy your marriage.

650
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,420
I think we're going to see a U-turn back to people lining up around the building.

651
00:38:27,420 --> 00:38:31,540
But I think that, you know, the dwindling amount of people that are applicable because

652
00:38:31,540 --> 00:38:36,460
of the obesity crisis, but also the fact that we've done a terrible job telling people what

653
00:38:36,460 --> 00:38:37,460
we actually do.

654
00:38:37,460 --> 00:38:41,240
And we still walk around saying that we have this amazing shift, but we don't, you know,

655
00:38:41,240 --> 00:38:44,940
I think all those have finally come to the critical mass.

656
00:38:44,940 --> 00:38:49,800
And so it's less about Gen Z not wanting to work and more about them actually understanding

657
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,380
what's most important to them.

658
00:38:51,380 --> 00:38:54,960
You know, so we did kind of went in blindly and didn't really question it.

659
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:59,060
And I think now with so many of our brothers and sisters that we've buried, this next

660
00:38:59,060 --> 00:39:02,540
generation is actually coming with fresh eyes going, you know what, you need to fix these

661
00:39:02,540 --> 00:39:05,520
things before we get excited to come work for you.

662
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:10,480
It's not, they don't have service in their horror, but they're also prioritizing their

663
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,460
health and their relationships, which I think is brilliant.

664
00:39:13,460 --> 00:39:14,980
So they're forcing us to change.

665
00:39:14,980 --> 00:39:16,660
Yeah, a hundred percent.

666
00:39:16,660 --> 00:39:17,660
And I agree with you.

667
00:39:17,660 --> 00:39:24,300
I think we do a very bad job of explaining the real expectations of what the job is like

668
00:39:24,300 --> 00:39:25,580
to these younger people.

669
00:39:25,580 --> 00:39:30,140
They think that we just cut cars and fight fire every day.

670
00:39:30,140 --> 00:39:35,820
And I'm an instructor at the Academy as well, and I'm straight up with them.

671
00:39:35,820 --> 00:39:39,780
I said, you're probably going to run four to five calls after midnight and they're most

672
00:39:39,780 --> 00:39:44,320
likely going to be medicals or non-emergency type calls.

673
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:49,100
And if you are not prepared for that, like this may not be the job for you.

674
00:39:49,100 --> 00:39:56,380
You know, it's 80, it's pretty much 80%, you know, medical and maybe five to 10% extrications,

675
00:39:56,380 --> 00:39:59,420
five to 10% fires, if that.

676
00:39:59,420 --> 00:40:02,700
And I'm not discrediting, like, you know, especially in our city, we do still fight

677
00:40:02,700 --> 00:40:05,580
fire and you still have to be prepared for those types of things.

678
00:40:05,580 --> 00:40:10,540
But I think the expectation on the majority of the calls you're going to run every day

679
00:40:10,540 --> 00:40:11,660
is you need to be upfront.

680
00:40:11,660 --> 00:40:17,500
Because I have also noticed that these younger employees of the departments are starting

681
00:40:17,500 --> 00:40:21,380
to complain about the calls a lot sooner than they really should be.

682
00:40:21,380 --> 00:40:25,780
You know, and I have a year or two guy complaining about having to go pick grandma up off the

683
00:40:25,780 --> 00:40:26,780
ground.

684
00:40:26,780 --> 00:40:28,940
It's like, dude, what did you, what do you think we do?

685
00:40:28,940 --> 00:40:30,900
Like, they don't have anybody else to call.

686
00:40:30,900 --> 00:40:33,220
They can't call the cops, right?

687
00:40:33,220 --> 00:40:35,200
They can't call the garbage man.

688
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:36,500
They can't call the electrician.

689
00:40:36,500 --> 00:40:38,580
They got to call us.

690
00:40:38,580 --> 00:40:44,280
And I do try to do a good job of that and outlining it for these recruits.

691
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:49,900
And then it's up to the crews on the department to kind of, you know, keep the culture going,

692
00:40:49,900 --> 00:40:54,460
which I think has also been a, I think it's always been an issue, but it's an issue in

693
00:40:54,460 --> 00:40:58,460
a lot of departments, you know, you can't control where some of these recruits end up.

694
00:40:58,460 --> 00:41:02,140
And then they, sometimes you could have somebody that has a really good attitude and really

695
00:41:02,140 --> 00:41:03,140
wants to do a good job.

696
00:41:03,140 --> 00:41:05,980
And then they just get kind of stepped on and then they get ruined.

697
00:41:05,980 --> 00:41:06,980
Yeah.

698
00:41:06,980 --> 00:41:12,580
I remember my last place, um, multiple people said, Oh, you wait, they'll break you down.

699
00:41:12,580 --> 00:41:14,820
And I was like, how sad is that?

700
00:41:14,820 --> 00:41:15,820
That's terrible.

701
00:41:15,820 --> 00:41:17,780
That's the narrative in this place, you know, and I get it.

702
00:41:17,780 --> 00:41:18,780
I see it.

703
00:41:18,780 --> 00:41:19,780
And they did.

704
00:41:19,780 --> 00:41:21,880
I didn't, they didn't, let me rephrase that.

705
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:23,260
There was that element.

706
00:41:23,260 --> 00:41:27,300
I didn't allow it to adjust my, you know, my direction.

707
00:41:27,300 --> 00:41:31,420
But I mean, in the end, I just decided to step out of that department and try and be

708
00:41:31,420 --> 00:41:32,820
the solution from the outside.

709
00:41:32,820 --> 00:41:35,660
But, but yeah, that is the ethos is that they'll break you down.

710
00:41:35,660 --> 00:41:39,420
And that shouldn't be, you know, if you go to the NFL locker room and they go to the

711
00:41:39,420 --> 00:41:41,500
quarterback, Oh, you just, you wait, they'll break you down.

712
00:41:41,500 --> 00:41:43,100
Like no one would stand for that.

713
00:41:43,100 --> 00:41:45,260
You know, but why is that the norm for police or fire?

714
00:41:45,260 --> 00:41:47,740
It's insane.

715
00:41:47,740 --> 00:41:50,700
So what about, um, the fitness side?

716
00:41:50,700 --> 00:41:54,740
You came from this, you know, athlete background as a wrestler.

717
00:41:54,740 --> 00:41:57,880
What were the standards at the front doors of some of these departments?

718
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:02,500
And then how did you start to become, you know, someone who was a kind of leader when

719
00:42:02,500 --> 00:42:05,120
it came to firefighter fitness?

720
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:11,260
So yeah, I've always been into fitness, especially I was always smaller statured and I looked

721
00:42:11,260 --> 00:42:13,060
at somebody like my dad who was bigger.

722
00:42:13,060 --> 00:42:18,940
So I always wanted to be bigger, especially when I got on the fire department.

723
00:42:18,940 --> 00:42:23,740
Um, at first I had really good cardio because I had wrestled all through high school, was

724
00:42:23,740 --> 00:42:25,540
running all the time.

725
00:42:25,540 --> 00:42:30,220
And then, um, some of my arrogance was like, well, since I've done that for so long, I

726
00:42:30,220 --> 00:42:31,700
don't need to do any more cardio at all.

727
00:42:31,700 --> 00:42:33,820
I just want to look good and get big.

728
00:42:33,820 --> 00:42:36,660
Cause that's what being a firefighter is.

729
00:42:36,660 --> 00:42:39,060
And you just have to be big to get the job done.

730
00:42:39,060 --> 00:42:44,500
So I was only doing lifting and you know, the bro, the bro workouts, you know, the vanity

731
00:42:44,500 --> 00:42:46,940
muscles and stuff like that.

732
00:42:46,940 --> 00:42:52,400
And once I had a couple of years on the job, um, on a couple of fires, I had just really

733
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:56,180
not performed to what I should have been performing to.

734
00:42:56,180 --> 00:43:00,440
And so I changed my training up, especially because, um, I had found out about some smoke

735
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:06,960
diver programs and decided to go to the Georgia smoke diver program in 2017.

736
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:10,220
So at the time I had, uh, it's like a hard in 2012.

737
00:43:10,220 --> 00:43:16,820
So I had like four, maybe four years on and I'd never really been pushed like that.

738
00:43:16,820 --> 00:43:17,820
And so I was unsuccessful.

739
00:43:17,820 --> 00:43:23,300
I actually failed out within the first 30 minutes of the first PT session of the program.

740
00:43:23,300 --> 00:43:29,500
What was it that, what was the, the deficit in your preparation and what was the movement

741
00:43:29,500 --> 00:43:31,260
that you failed on?

742
00:43:31,260 --> 00:43:35,960
So surprisingly I actually, so the, the way they do it for, if you're an out of stator

743
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:41,220
is they let you come take the, the entrance test the day before.

744
00:43:41,220 --> 00:43:45,020
So that way you don't have to fly or drive up there beforehand.

745
00:43:45,020 --> 00:43:49,860
I passed that, but, um, what actually got me, believe it or not, was just body weight,

746
00:43:49,860 --> 00:43:54,580
calisthenics and holds like something that I didn't really put a lot of stock in.

747
00:43:54,580 --> 00:43:56,380
Cause I was like, Oh, I wrestled, I'll be fine.

748
00:43:56,380 --> 00:44:00,380
I've done pushups and, and jumping jacks before.

749
00:44:00,380 --> 00:44:04,360
And you know, I, towards the end of the PT session, I couldn't even hold a pushup anymore.

750
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:06,460
So they just told me stand up, you're done.

751
00:44:06,460 --> 00:44:08,380
You know, you're not even meeting the standard anymore.

752
00:44:08,380 --> 00:44:11,300
So a huge slice of humble pie.

753
00:44:11,300 --> 00:44:15,220
I remember we did an accident interview with one of the ops chiefs cause they run the,

754
00:44:15,220 --> 00:44:17,280
they run an incident command system within the program.

755
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:21,740
It's actually very impressive how highly organized they are.

756
00:44:21,740 --> 00:44:25,940
And um, that chief was like, yeah, I used to, when I got prepped for the program, I

757
00:44:25,940 --> 00:44:29,220
would ride my bike or run to the gym, do my workout and then come back.

758
00:44:29,220 --> 00:44:31,420
And the light bulb kind of went off.

759
00:44:31,420 --> 00:44:35,620
It's like, you gotta do a little more than, you know, just doing a workout.

760
00:44:35,620 --> 00:44:37,120
You got to kind of stack it on.

761
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:42,660
And then shortly after that, I met a really big mentor of mine, Matt McGee.

762
00:44:42,660 --> 00:44:46,900
He's currently a lieutenant for Orlando, but he was a fireman at the time.

763
00:44:46,900 --> 00:44:52,380
And he had gone through smoke diver Florida's program three times.

764
00:44:52,380 --> 00:44:55,580
So he kind of gave me his whole plan on what he did to prepare.

765
00:44:55,580 --> 00:44:59,460
And he also invited me to work out with them one day at his station.

766
00:44:59,460 --> 00:45:03,580
And I've told this story a few times, but we did like a coat and pants workout because

767
00:45:03,580 --> 00:45:05,300
it was so hot that day.

768
00:45:05,300 --> 00:45:07,740
I remember we did this, it was like a five round workout.

769
00:45:07,740 --> 00:45:13,220
It had tire hits, tire flips, stuff that you would see in like a normal firefighter type

770
00:45:13,220 --> 00:45:14,980
of course.

771
00:45:14,980 --> 00:45:18,540
And by round three, I had to like take my stuff off and he wasn't even phased.

772
00:45:18,540 --> 00:45:23,540
So it just kind of like, it made me realize I wasn't where I needed to be.

773
00:45:23,540 --> 00:45:30,420
And training in gear is completely different than actually just being, having a general

774
00:45:30,420 --> 00:45:33,700
physical fitness or physical preparedness because, and there are studies out there that

775
00:45:33,700 --> 00:45:39,060
prove this, you could be a high level crossfit athlete, but if you put them in gear and have

776
00:45:39,060 --> 00:45:45,380
them do any type of firefighter type movements, it's much different.

777
00:45:45,380 --> 00:45:48,240
And they're probably going to even struggle as well.

778
00:45:48,240 --> 00:45:52,260
But there's a little curve there that if they, the more they do it, the more acclimated they'll

779
00:45:52,260 --> 00:45:53,260
get.

780
00:45:53,260 --> 00:45:57,460
And the more fit you are, the easier it is to acclimate is what I'm trying to say.

781
00:45:57,460 --> 00:46:01,500
But if you don't do it at all and you are a firefighter, you're really doing yourself

782
00:46:01,500 --> 00:46:06,180
a disservice because it's a completely different environment, especially if you are in a state

783
00:46:06,180 --> 00:46:12,060
that is hot or hot and humid, because the humidity plays a huge factor as well.

784
00:46:12,060 --> 00:46:13,060
It's fucking brutal here.

785
00:46:13,060 --> 00:46:14,060
Yeah.

786
00:46:14,060 --> 00:46:15,060
There's no question about it.

787
00:46:15,060 --> 00:46:16,060
Yeah.

788
00:46:16,060 --> 00:46:17,220
I try to explain it to some people who aren't from here.

789
00:46:17,220 --> 00:46:20,740
I just tell them like, you could walk outside and take your trash out and you're already

790
00:46:20,740 --> 00:46:21,740
sweating.

791
00:46:21,740 --> 00:46:26,660
And we were talking about the other day, I said the summer actually felt better this

792
00:46:26,660 --> 00:46:27,660
year.

793
00:46:27,660 --> 00:46:28,660
It was hot.

794
00:46:28,660 --> 00:46:29,660
Don't get me wrong.

795
00:46:29,660 --> 00:46:30,660
It was really hot.

796
00:46:30,660 --> 00:46:32,460
I've been getting a lot of rain lately.

797
00:46:32,460 --> 00:46:33,460
It's not quite as hot.

798
00:46:33,460 --> 00:46:39,140
You know, it's in the mid to high eighties, but it feels worse because of how high the

799
00:46:39,140 --> 00:46:40,140
humidity is.

800
00:46:40,140 --> 00:46:41,940
Like you look at the weather, the humidity is like 87%.

801
00:46:41,940 --> 00:46:45,740
And it's like completely different than if it was just hot in the summer.

802
00:46:45,740 --> 00:46:46,740
Don't get me wrong.

803
00:46:46,740 --> 00:46:51,120
The heat index in the summer was like probably 102, 105, but it was just the humidity makes

804
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:52,120
it way worse.

805
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:53,120
It's crazy.

806
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:54,120
Yeah.

807
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:56,420
I got to experience both because I worked for Anaheim, California for a few years and every

808
00:46:56,420 --> 00:47:00,060
time I did my Bloomin orientation or Academy, it was always the summer.

809
00:47:00,060 --> 00:47:04,300
And so you're out there and yeah, it's just kind of like, you know, like you're standing

810
00:47:04,300 --> 00:47:07,380
in front of an oven, but it is that dry heat, you know?

811
00:47:07,380 --> 00:47:10,500
And so you get that evaporation when you sweat here.

812
00:47:10,500 --> 00:47:12,000
It's like sweating in a swimming pool.

813
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:13,180
You're not actually really cooling.

814
00:47:13,180 --> 00:47:17,900
And then obviously you put your gear on, which is designed not to let anything out.

815
00:47:17,900 --> 00:47:19,100
Just yeah, I mean, that's the one thing.

816
00:47:19,100 --> 00:47:22,820
And I did okay when I was on the job, but I noticed that that was the one of the things

817
00:47:22,820 --> 00:47:28,020
that I started losing when I got older as a firefighter is your ability to acclimatize

818
00:47:28,020 --> 00:47:29,220
seemed to diminish.

819
00:47:29,220 --> 00:47:34,180
And I would do Murph in gear and towards the end, and especially when I transitioned out

820
00:47:34,180 --> 00:47:38,260
where my wire wasn't strong to be in gear anymore, you know, I felt that my organs were

821
00:47:38,260 --> 00:47:39,260
literally cooking.

822
00:47:39,260 --> 00:47:43,060
Like I could do the movements, like all of them, the pushups, I've always kind of struggled

823
00:47:43,060 --> 00:47:46,300
with, you know, multiple pushups.

824
00:47:46,300 --> 00:47:50,680
But the pull-ups and the squats and the runs are always fine, but it was the heat.

825
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,920
Same with the stair climbs, you know, trying to get ready when I did, when I was prepping

826
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:58,420
for the smoke diver here before I tore my meniscus, I was doing, you know, all the gear

827
00:47:58,420 --> 00:48:02,580
and we had a 28 story hotel next to my station in my last place.

828
00:48:02,580 --> 00:48:06,580
And we were doing the, you know, the 110 story climb on air and everything.

829
00:48:06,580 --> 00:48:08,300
And it wasn't the exertion.

830
00:48:08,300 --> 00:48:09,300
It was the heat.

831
00:48:09,300 --> 00:48:13,340
And that's like you said, that's a hard thing to control because you either you can or you

832
00:48:13,340 --> 00:48:15,140
can't at the end of the day.

833
00:48:15,140 --> 00:48:16,140
Yeah.

834
00:48:16,140 --> 00:48:22,180
And some of it does come down to mental resiliency because, you know, since I started my page

835
00:48:22,180 --> 00:48:26,260
rogue firemanship, I get questions all the time related to smoke diver stuff.

836
00:48:26,260 --> 00:48:30,260
And it seems like the number one question I get is like, what type of workout should

837
00:48:30,260 --> 00:48:31,540
I be doing?

838
00:48:31,540 --> 00:48:34,540
And it's very hard because everybody's different.

839
00:48:34,540 --> 00:48:36,660
Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses.

840
00:48:36,660 --> 00:48:42,460
So, you know, you may be an endurance athlete, so you don't necessarily need to do as many

841
00:48:42,460 --> 00:48:43,460
endurance workouts.

842
00:48:43,460 --> 00:48:48,060
Maybe we just need to focus on some strength and still get you in gear and, you know, vice

843
00:48:48,060 --> 00:48:49,180
versa.

844
00:48:49,180 --> 00:48:52,860
But the main thing I tell them is there's really never too much you can do to prepare

845
00:48:52,860 --> 00:48:55,020
for a program like that.

846
00:48:55,020 --> 00:48:57,780
Everybody's going to get to a point where they hit a wall and it's going to be up to

847
00:48:57,780 --> 00:49:00,820
you to decide whether you want to keep going or not.

848
00:49:00,820 --> 00:49:03,700
And it doesn't matter how fit you are.

849
00:49:03,700 --> 00:49:04,700
Everybody's going to hit that wall.

850
00:49:04,700 --> 00:49:07,140
Now, Greg, everybody may hit it at different levels.

851
00:49:07,140 --> 00:49:10,780
You don't want to hit that level like I did the first time I went at 30 minutes into the

852
00:49:10,780 --> 00:49:12,340
program.

853
00:49:12,340 --> 00:49:18,620
But you just have to make the conscious decision that you have to compartmentalize what you're

854
00:49:18,620 --> 00:49:23,580
going through and just break it down to one step at a time or a couple feet at a time.

855
00:49:23,580 --> 00:49:27,620
If you're doing a search evolution or if you're dragging a dummy out, like, all right, let

856
00:49:27,620 --> 00:49:31,820
me just get 10 more feet and then I can stop or I'm not stopping until I at least get to

857
00:49:31,820 --> 00:49:34,180
the door, stuff like that.

858
00:49:34,180 --> 00:49:35,180
And you do that through your training.

859
00:49:35,180 --> 00:49:38,220
You have to do training that is going to push you.

860
00:49:38,220 --> 00:49:43,980
And these 10 minute and wraps, 15 minute and wraps like CrossFit is designed for, isn't

861
00:49:43,980 --> 00:49:45,060
necessarily going to get you there.

862
00:49:45,060 --> 00:49:47,460
It's definitely a tool in the toolbox.

863
00:49:47,460 --> 00:49:50,060
But I tell people you have to be able to be in your gear.

864
00:49:50,060 --> 00:49:53,540
If you seriously want to go through a program like that, you have to be able to.

865
00:49:53,540 --> 00:49:55,860
Always be in your gear for an hour, somewhat comfortably.

866
00:49:55,860 --> 00:49:58,180
Now, I'm not going to lie to you.

867
00:49:58,180 --> 00:50:03,100
Once I hit the 40, 50, 60 minute mark, like I have to dig deep to keep going.

868
00:50:03,100 --> 00:50:08,380
But if you just do a 20 minute gear workout and that's all you do for that day or for

869
00:50:08,380 --> 00:50:12,540
the week, that's not going to be enough to get you through.

870
00:50:12,540 --> 00:50:17,500
What do you tell people as far as the to be in gear to not be in gear?

871
00:50:17,500 --> 00:50:22,540
I'm literally about to interview Diane Carter, who she lost her husband to cancer and she

872
00:50:22,540 --> 00:50:26,540
was one of the first people to be talking about P-Fest in our gear.

873
00:50:26,540 --> 00:50:29,140
And it's a completely legitimate conversation, of course.

874
00:50:29,140 --> 00:50:33,100
But at the same time, the other part of it is that we have to be in gear sometimes until

875
00:50:33,100 --> 00:50:35,780
they figure out getting all that stuff out.

876
00:50:35,780 --> 00:50:37,280
There's a kind of happy medium there.

877
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:41,860
So I've talked to Jon Spur about this and some other people that are known to work out

878
00:50:41,860 --> 00:50:43,020
in their gear.

879
00:50:43,020 --> 00:50:48,660
What is your response about do, don't or a middle ground?

880
00:50:48,660 --> 00:50:54,060
So the first thing I'll say is I'm not 100% expert on the P-Fest.

881
00:50:54,060 --> 00:51:01,060
I've done a little bit of research and from my perspective, it's very hard to know what

882
00:51:01,060 --> 00:51:05,300
to believe because you have one person saying that it can get absorbed through the skin

883
00:51:05,300 --> 00:51:09,500
and then you have another scientist saying that maybe not necessarily it may be a molecule

884
00:51:09,500 --> 00:51:10,500
too big.

885
00:51:10,500 --> 00:51:12,480
So we don't know for sure.

886
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:17,100
And secondly, there are definitely resources out there that if you're not comfortable wearing

887
00:51:17,100 --> 00:51:21,900
gear to work out in that there's one company I've seen recently, they're starting to gain

888
00:51:21,900 --> 00:51:22,900
traction.

889
00:51:22,900 --> 00:51:25,660
It's called Karna Bunker Gear.

890
00:51:25,660 --> 00:51:32,140
It's a guy who saw that as a problem and he created P-Fest free training bunker gear.

891
00:51:32,140 --> 00:51:36,180
So it's obviously not bunker gear you can go into an IDOH with.

892
00:51:36,180 --> 00:51:40,100
But if you want to just train in it and get acclimated to the heat, he actually made it

893
00:51:40,100 --> 00:51:44,020
to where it's almost a little hotter than normal bunker gear because it's not letting

894
00:51:44,020 --> 00:51:47,100
the heat out.

895
00:51:47,100 --> 00:51:53,220
And then the third thing I would say is this is me personally, this is not the department

896
00:51:53,220 --> 00:51:56,220
I work for speaking, this is me.

897
00:51:56,220 --> 00:52:02,540
It's an inherited risk that we may or may not have to accept.

898
00:52:02,540 --> 00:52:08,300
And my priority is being able to operate at a high level on the fire ground when I may

899
00:52:08,300 --> 00:52:10,300
need to.

900
00:52:10,300 --> 00:52:14,500
And to do that, you have to train in your gear.

901
00:52:14,500 --> 00:52:18,220
And what I will say though is there's no excuse for training in dirty gear.

902
00:52:18,220 --> 00:52:21,240
And by dirty, I mean any gear that's been in a structure fire.

903
00:52:21,240 --> 00:52:26,380
So make sure if you go into a fire, I'm very lucky the department I work at, we have two

904
00:52:26,380 --> 00:52:27,380
sets of gear minimum.

905
00:52:27,380 --> 00:52:31,340
So when we come back from the fire, I throw my dirty set in the extractor.

906
00:52:31,340 --> 00:52:33,380
All of our stations have extractors.

907
00:52:33,380 --> 00:52:34,380
I wash it immediately.

908
00:52:34,380 --> 00:52:38,660
I switch into my second set of gear and they let us be out of service so we can shower

909
00:52:38,660 --> 00:52:40,540
and decon and clean all of our stuff off.

910
00:52:40,540 --> 00:52:47,980
I think that's, to me, I think that's more important than necessarily the PFAS conversation.

911
00:52:47,980 --> 00:52:51,980
And also from my research, there's PFAS and everything.

912
00:52:51,980 --> 00:52:54,860
I'm more worried about what am I drinking, what I'm eating.

913
00:52:54,860 --> 00:52:59,020
I think some of that stuff is probably going to kill us more than the PFAS.

914
00:52:59,020 --> 00:53:01,160
But like I said, I'm no expert.

915
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:06,900
It's a risk that I'm willing to take because I don't want to be able to be on a call where

916
00:53:06,900 --> 00:53:10,840
I know I could have pushed a little harder if I was acclimated to my gear and more comfortable

917
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,220
in it versus not.

918
00:53:13,220 --> 00:53:15,260
Now I'm second guessing my performance.

919
00:53:15,260 --> 00:53:19,260
Because like I said earlier in this conversation, you could do all the crossfit and weightlifting

920
00:53:19,260 --> 00:53:20,260
workouts you want.

921
00:53:20,260 --> 00:53:24,460
It still doesn't necessarily prepare you for the demands of being in your gear.

922
00:53:24,460 --> 00:53:25,460
Yeah, 100%.

923
00:53:25,460 --> 00:53:26,500
Yeah, well, it's interesting.

924
00:53:26,500 --> 00:53:31,280
I had a guy, Rob Belot, who was the lawyer, the real lawyer from the Dark Waters movie

925
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:35,660
where they exposed, I think it was DuPont and that's where this all came from.

926
00:53:35,660 --> 00:53:39,780
And yeah, apparently, pretty much all of us have PFAS in us already, sadly, because of

927
00:53:39,780 --> 00:53:42,260
contaminated water and everything else.

928
00:53:42,260 --> 00:53:47,380
But when a lot of that started being a conversation of fire service, what I saw was a lot of finger

929
00:53:47,380 --> 00:53:50,660
pointing like, oh, this is where cancer is coming from.

930
00:53:50,660 --> 00:53:55,100
And my whole thing was, all right, so you're not going to talk about a much more powerful

931
00:53:55,100 --> 00:53:57,740
known carcinogen, which is sleep deprivation.

932
00:53:57,740 --> 00:54:01,500
So you're going to point your finger over here, but you're not going to look in the

933
00:54:01,500 --> 00:54:06,980
mirror and say, we're also probably far more likely causing cancer to our people by these

934
00:54:06,980 --> 00:54:09,380
crazy work weeks and this mandatory overtime.

935
00:54:09,380 --> 00:54:10,660
So that's what kind of sickened me.

936
00:54:10,660 --> 00:54:14,780
Of course, you want to minimize every element that's going to be detrimental.

937
00:54:14,780 --> 00:54:19,780
But if you put on a table, which is more important, the PFAS or the sleep deprivation, sleep deprivation

938
00:54:19,780 --> 00:54:21,300
is the first thing we've got to address.

939
00:54:21,300 --> 00:54:24,780
Doesn't mean you can't simultaneously get gear that doesn't have it in.

940
00:54:24,780 --> 00:54:26,380
But I mean, your AFFF has it in.

941
00:54:26,380 --> 00:54:28,680
I mean, there's a lot of other things that does.

942
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:32,500
But yeah, if you're going to stand on a podium all of a sudden, because you get to point

943
00:54:32,500 --> 00:54:36,940
to someone else rather than to your own department, that's why I think it took off so much.

944
00:54:36,940 --> 00:54:39,300
They got to blame someone else rather than take ownership.

945
00:54:39,300 --> 00:54:44,740
Yeah, that's what I always would scratch my head about too, because even before the talk

946
00:54:44,740 --> 00:54:52,740
of changing schedules, I'd say probably like five years ago, the last three to five years,

947
00:54:52,740 --> 00:54:54,940
the cancer thing has been a big, big deal.

948
00:54:54,940 --> 00:55:00,020
And they've been talking about how dirty gear was causing cancer, which I don't discredit

949
00:55:00,020 --> 00:55:01,020
100%.

950
00:55:01,020 --> 00:55:06,580
But if you look at the statistics, other than the old firemen and the warriors where they

951
00:55:06,580 --> 00:55:11,260
didn't have SCBAs and where they were really burning pretty much every day in multiple

952
00:55:11,260 --> 00:55:18,100
fires a day, we fast forward to now, the statistics show that we are not burning as much, but

953
00:55:18,100 --> 00:55:23,420
the cancer rates are still at the same level, maybe a little higher.

954
00:55:23,420 --> 00:55:26,860
It's probably not the fires we're going to.

955
00:55:26,860 --> 00:55:30,060
That was the thing I always said, I said it's the sleep deprivation.

956
00:55:30,060 --> 00:55:34,620
It's the shift work, which is known as a, I forgot what class and what type it is, but

957
00:55:34,620 --> 00:55:37,820
it's known as a carcinogen, like you said.

958
00:55:37,820 --> 00:55:43,060
And that is something else that we can control when some departments are at least being proactive

959
00:55:43,060 --> 00:55:45,900
and trying to do that.

960
00:55:45,900 --> 00:55:49,980
And it was kind of like the whole, I laughed too, because when the clean cab concept came

961
00:55:49,980 --> 00:55:53,780
out, it was such a knee jerk reaction, they were like, let's just move the SCBAs and the

962
00:55:53,780 --> 00:55:56,020
gear outside of the cab of the truck.

963
00:55:56,020 --> 00:56:02,780
And it's like, if it's all clean, then how is it off gassing and getting people sick?

964
00:56:02,780 --> 00:56:07,580
You know, like people, people don't understand that the clean cab concept also stated that

965
00:56:07,580 --> 00:56:11,660
you needed to have extractors at every station, two sets of gear, and you need to decon right

966
00:56:11,660 --> 00:56:12,660
after a fire.

967
00:56:12,660 --> 00:56:18,220
The, the stuff outside the cab was just another thing you could do, but it wasn't necessary.

968
00:56:18,220 --> 00:56:20,780
It wasn't a thing you had to do.

969
00:56:20,780 --> 00:56:24,260
And I think a department down south, I can't remember if it was Miami day, but it was a

970
00:56:24,260 --> 00:56:25,260
big department.

971
00:56:25,260 --> 00:56:30,300
They actually came out, they went clean cab and then a short time later, they actually

972
00:56:30,300 --> 00:56:33,580
issued a statement and said, we're no longer doing that.

973
00:56:33,580 --> 00:56:34,580
That was a bad idea.

974
00:56:34,580 --> 00:56:37,860
We're going to do two sets of gear and all that stuff.

975
00:56:37,860 --> 00:56:42,180
See, a lot of the, I had the guys that were actually the Swedish firefighters that created

976
00:56:42,180 --> 00:56:46,180
the clean cab, you know, the, the Schleffer model, I think they call it.

977
00:56:46,180 --> 00:56:50,860
And it was really interesting to hear, but when you start hearing this, this, again,

978
00:56:50,860 --> 00:56:54,540
the pendulum swings and you get this epic pushback and then you hear clean cabs save

979
00:56:54,540 --> 00:57:00,360
grabs like you're going to just jump heroically off the rig and just fly into a building without

980
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:01,980
taking any time to size it up.

981
00:57:01,980 --> 00:57:06,500
And you know, I was a tiller man in California or you can't put your pack in the doghouse.

982
00:57:06,500 --> 00:57:08,140
It has to be down there.

983
00:57:08,140 --> 00:57:12,580
And when you do that, you realize that it takes seconds to sling it over your shoulders

984
00:57:12,580 --> 00:57:15,100
and then, you know, throw your mask on and click in.

985
00:57:15,100 --> 00:57:18,940
Meanwhile, your LT is telling you what they want to do or captain in that case, or you're,

986
00:57:18,940 --> 00:57:22,700
you know, just simply sizing it up or, you know, you're the person who was in the cab

987
00:57:22,700 --> 00:57:27,780
is going to obviously be ready a little bit closer than you are or a little bit sooner.

988
00:57:27,780 --> 00:57:31,660
They're grabbing a tool and handing it to you, whatever it is, you've got that moment.

989
00:57:31,660 --> 00:57:35,440
So I actually like the idea of the cab being out because I lived it.

990
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:39,620
And also if you think about it, when, when you're on the way to a call, when is it that

991
00:57:39,620 --> 00:57:40,620
you're not wearing your seatbelt?

992
00:57:40,620 --> 00:57:45,020
So when you're fucking around with your SCBA, if you get into a wreck, what's happening

993
00:57:45,020 --> 00:57:47,420
and that thing is slamming into your bag.

994
00:57:47,420 --> 00:57:50,300
You know, I mean, you're getting hung up on all the, you know, the headphone cables and

995
00:57:50,300 --> 00:57:51,300
all that stuff.

996
00:57:51,300 --> 00:57:55,620
So I actually like the packs being on the outside, you know, now that, you know, like

997
00:57:55,620 --> 00:57:59,180
you said, if you've got an extracted clean set of gear, of course that could be in the,

998
00:57:59,180 --> 00:58:01,580
in the cab if it's clean, it's supposed to be clean, it's clean.

999
00:58:01,580 --> 00:58:06,380
But the pack itself, if you think about it, if you had a normal seat, you stepped off,

1000
00:58:06,380 --> 00:58:11,180
opened a compartment, slung that thing around while, you know, you're surveying the scene

1001
00:58:11,180 --> 00:58:16,820
or waiting for instructions and you're just, just taking it all in, it's seconds.

1002
00:58:16,820 --> 00:58:18,620
It's absolutely just seconds.

1003
00:58:18,620 --> 00:58:22,620
And no one, no one in their right mind is going to leap off a fire engine and go straight

1004
00:58:22,620 --> 00:58:23,620
into a building.

1005
00:58:23,620 --> 00:58:28,180
So there's also that fallacy with the pushback on the clean cab, because it doesn't mean

1006
00:58:28,180 --> 00:58:34,040
it's supposed to be a surgical room, you know, it's just removing some of those, those things

1007
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:35,040
that are detrimental.

1008
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:37,700
And then the pack is so hard to truly decontaminate.

1009
00:58:37,700 --> 00:58:39,620
You can't put a pack in an extractor, you know?

1010
00:58:39,620 --> 00:58:43,520
So if you got the special machines and yeah, but a lot of times we're still just hosing

1011
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:44,520
and scrubbing those.

1012
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:48,100
So I'm personally for keeping those outside specifically.

1013
00:58:48,100 --> 00:58:51,500
Yeah, it's no different than like, you know, we run, we call them rescues, but they're

1014
00:58:51,500 --> 00:58:54,420
ambulances in my city and that's where their packs are.

1015
00:58:54,420 --> 00:58:56,500
They're in a compartment with tools in the tick.

1016
00:58:56,500 --> 00:59:01,900
And you know, I'm currently a driver, but lately I've been riding up as officer and

1017
00:59:01,900 --> 00:59:03,700
same thing, like you said, it's no different.

1018
00:59:03,700 --> 00:59:06,220
I have to, I don't have tools up in the front seat with me either.

1019
00:59:06,220 --> 00:59:08,820
So I have to get out, get my tools.

1020
00:59:08,820 --> 00:59:13,400
And sure, I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be opposed to having an air pack on the outside,

1021
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:18,260
but I want my gear to be able to be in the truck and I can get it on while we're in the

1022
00:59:18,260 --> 00:59:22,100
bay while I'm looking at the notes, hopping the truck, put my seatbelt on and go to the

1023
00:59:22,100 --> 00:59:23,100
call.

1024
00:59:23,100 --> 00:59:25,780
I don't want to have to get off the truck and put my bunker gear on.

1025
00:59:25,780 --> 00:59:30,980
Then my air pack as I have to then go and size the building up, do a 360.

1026
00:59:30,980 --> 00:59:32,740
God forbid there's somebody trapped.

1027
00:59:32,740 --> 00:59:37,180
You know, it's just one less thing that I would like to have to worry about the air

1028
00:59:37,180 --> 00:59:38,180
pack.

1029
00:59:38,180 --> 00:59:40,900
I mean, it's a real deal, but the whole clean captain, there was everything outside.

1030
00:59:40,900 --> 00:59:41,900
Yeah.

1031
00:59:41,900 --> 00:59:43,380
No, I think this is it.

1032
00:59:43,380 --> 00:59:46,700
You know, what works for one place doesn't mean that you have to do it exactly right.

1033
00:59:46,700 --> 00:59:51,580
But the principle is as much of that shit out as you can, if it makes sense.

1034
00:59:51,580 --> 00:59:56,180
Um, you, we talked about, you know, the, the humility that you had as far as realizing

1035
00:59:56,180 --> 00:59:59,820
you had weaknesses, um, with the first attempt for Georgia smoke diver.

1036
00:59:59,820 --> 01:00:04,860
So talk to me about how your training shifted and then the success, excuse me, the success

1037
01:00:04,860 --> 01:00:05,860
through the program.

1038
01:00:05,860 --> 01:00:06,860
Yeah.

1039
01:00:06,860 --> 01:00:09,100
So it was a pretty, uh, long journey.

1040
01:00:09,100 --> 01:00:13,660
So in 2017 went through George's program.

1041
01:00:13,660 --> 01:00:15,500
Obviously didn't make it through.

1042
01:00:15,500 --> 01:00:19,780
I came back, um, slowly started changing my training style, started doing more stuff in

1043
01:00:19,780 --> 01:00:26,860
gear and, uh, you know, doing more like circuit training, longer circuits as well.

1044
01:00:26,860 --> 01:00:29,660
Then I met Matt and he kind of showed me what the next level was.

1045
01:00:29,660 --> 01:00:34,500
And he took me under his wing and, you know, I would meet with him some mornings before

1046
01:00:34,500 --> 01:00:38,740
shift to do either a nine 11, start a climb, which, you know, how physically demanding

1047
01:00:38,740 --> 01:00:44,260
those are and, uh, you know, or whatever workout he wanted to do for the day.

1048
01:00:44,260 --> 01:00:47,500
And I liked really training with them because he would never tell me what the workout was

1049
01:00:47,500 --> 01:00:50,620
beforehand like until I got there and I was nice.

1050
01:00:50,620 --> 01:00:54,340
And I joke with them sometimes because I would tell them, I went and sleep the night before

1051
01:00:54,340 --> 01:00:56,260
some mornings before the workout.

1052
01:00:56,260 --> 01:01:00,140
Cause I was like, just anxious about what he is going to put me through.

1053
01:01:00,140 --> 01:01:03,060
Cause they were that, they were that bad.

1054
01:01:03,060 --> 01:01:07,900
And so we fast forward to December of 2018.

1055
01:01:07,900 --> 01:01:12,540
Um, I didn't get into the Georgia program that time they run two programs a year.

1056
01:01:12,540 --> 01:01:16,140
They run it in the spring and the fall, typically as an out of state candidate.

1057
01:01:16,140 --> 01:01:19,780
Um, I applied, I didn't get in for whatever reason.

1058
01:01:19,780 --> 01:01:24,660
And uh, so he made some phone calls and he got me into the Florida program, which was

1059
01:01:24,660 --> 01:01:27,180
running that December.

1060
01:01:27,180 --> 01:01:32,900
And so I go and I wasn't quite training as hard as I needed to, but I didn't know that

1061
01:01:32,900 --> 01:01:36,700
I thought I was doing everything I needed to do, but it's one of those things you don't

1062
01:01:36,700 --> 01:01:38,640
know what you don't know.

1063
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:44,500
So I went to Florida and I remember that first day was just like a kick in the teeth, made

1064
01:01:44,500 --> 01:01:46,580
it through the first day.

1065
01:01:46,580 --> 01:01:56,260
And um, so I wasn't really aware of how to properly eat and hydrate for a program like

1066
01:01:56,260 --> 01:01:57,260
that.

1067
01:01:57,260 --> 01:02:02,020
And at the time I was kind of, I wouldn't say I was trained this way, but most people,

1068
01:02:02,020 --> 01:02:04,700
I think when they do a hard workout, they kind of lose their appetite.

1069
01:02:04,700 --> 01:02:05,700
Right?

1070
01:02:05,700 --> 01:02:08,180
So it wasn't eating nearly enough because I wasn't hungry.

1071
01:02:08,180 --> 01:02:13,340
I didn't bring stuff with me that I could just like chug to get calories in.

1072
01:02:13,340 --> 01:02:15,420
And I had no idea about electrolytes.

1073
01:02:15,420 --> 01:02:18,500
So I'm just, they're telling us, keep drinking water, drink water, drink water.

1074
01:02:18,500 --> 01:02:21,380
You guys should be pissing every five minutes, you know, like, which is true.

1075
01:02:21,380 --> 01:02:23,460
Like you should be hydrating.

1076
01:02:23,460 --> 01:02:25,220
So I make it through the first day.

1077
01:02:25,220 --> 01:02:27,540
Uh, I was kind of cramping up that night.

1078
01:02:27,540 --> 01:02:29,220
Was very uncomfortable.

1079
01:02:29,220 --> 01:02:31,180
Make it to the next day.

1080
01:02:31,180 --> 01:02:34,980
And that morning during one of the PT sessions, we were doing a barricade workout and I just

1081
01:02:34,980 --> 01:02:39,700
had like a full body cramp and it was one of the worst, I'm already a cramper and a

1082
01:02:39,700 --> 01:02:45,180
sweater, but this was one of the worst cramps I'd ever had because my whole abdominal and

1083
01:02:45,180 --> 01:02:47,900
my hip flexors and quads, I cramped up at the same time.

1084
01:02:47,900 --> 01:02:49,420
That's a shitty position to cramp in.

1085
01:02:49,420 --> 01:02:51,580
And that's like an angry croissant at that point.

1086
01:02:51,580 --> 01:02:52,580
Yeah.

1087
01:02:52,580 --> 01:02:56,100
So I basically like, you know, I squirmed around and I'm like on my back and laid out

1088
01:02:56,100 --> 01:03:01,100
and, uh, two of the cadre members, uh, they, they kind of stood over.

1089
01:03:01,100 --> 01:03:05,100
And it was, uh, Basil and another guy named Russ.

1090
01:03:05,100 --> 01:03:06,100
And they just stood over me.

1091
01:03:06,100 --> 01:03:07,100
They didn't yell.

1092
01:03:07,100 --> 01:03:08,100
They were pretty calm.

1093
01:03:08,100 --> 01:03:12,780
And I just stood over me and they're like, Hey man, you can either get up and keep going

1094
01:03:12,780 --> 01:03:16,380
and win, or you could just quit, but you gotta decide now.

1095
01:03:16,380 --> 01:03:17,840
And I'm in, I'm still locked up.

1096
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:24,620
So I roll over, I bear crawl till like, till we finished till they told us to stop.

1097
01:03:24,620 --> 01:03:31,380
And to that point, that was at that point in my life and in my physical, in my, you

1098
01:03:31,380 --> 01:03:35,380
know, physical preparedness and fitness, that was the most I'd ever been pushed.

1099
01:03:35,380 --> 01:03:37,460
And so that was kind of a little bit of a win for me.

1100
01:03:37,460 --> 01:03:39,580
Got through that, finished the day out.

1101
01:03:39,580 --> 01:03:45,180
Um, we did some skills cause they, regardless to, uh, contrary to popular belief, like they

1102
01:03:45,180 --> 01:03:46,760
do teach you stuff in smoke divers.

1103
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:49,140
Some people think that you just get your ass beat the whole week.

1104
01:03:49,140 --> 01:03:50,260
Like it's not like that at all.

1105
01:03:50,260 --> 01:03:52,980
They teach you a lot of stuff.

1106
01:03:52,980 --> 01:03:56,920
And uh, that night during the burn, um, I just didn't have enough in the gas tank.

1107
01:03:56,920 --> 01:04:03,220
So I failed out on the burn and then, uh, took a, you know, went home, took a long hard

1108
01:04:03,220 --> 01:04:05,640
look in the mirror, asked Matt what I needed to do.

1109
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:08,260
And Matt was like, you just need to train harder.

1110
01:04:08,260 --> 01:04:13,180
And so spent a whole year again, training with him, went back to Florida again.

1111
01:04:13,180 --> 01:04:17,140
Cause after, at that point, I kinda, because Florida was so close, you know, it's right

1112
01:04:17,140 --> 01:04:18,140
here in Ocala.

1113
01:04:18,140 --> 01:04:19,140
I live in Claremont.

1114
01:04:19,140 --> 01:04:22,920
It's only an hour drive versus the nine hour drive to Dalton for Georgia's program.

1115
01:04:22,920 --> 01:04:26,960
At that point, I was like, I just want to be a Florida smoke diver because I'm from

1116
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:31,980
Florida and it's not being lazy, but it was just more convenient for me to drive an hour

1117
01:04:31,980 --> 01:04:33,460
versus nine to 10 hours.

1118
01:04:33,460 --> 01:04:36,900
So didn't apply any more to the Georgia program.

1119
01:04:36,900 --> 01:04:41,860
My sole focus was on Florida came back again that next year took a whole nother year to

1120
01:04:41,860 --> 01:04:48,100
train and I made it all the way to the final evolution and came up short and without giving

1121
01:04:48,100 --> 01:04:49,100
it away too much.

1122
01:04:49,100 --> 01:04:53,900
I mean, it's not too much of a secret, but it's essentially a search evolution where

1123
01:04:53,900 --> 01:04:57,580
you end up finding your poker chip.

1124
01:04:57,580 --> 01:05:02,980
And but they tell you if you miss searchable space or you miss a victim, you have to repeat

1125
01:05:02,980 --> 01:05:04,340
wherever you were searching.

1126
01:05:04,340 --> 01:05:09,740
And they got to a point where I was so gassed that I started making some mental mistakes,

1127
01:05:09,740 --> 01:05:11,260
kept having to repeat my searches.

1128
01:05:11,260 --> 01:05:16,080
And before I knew it, I was searching for over two hours and they finally had to tell

1129
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:20,780
me to stop and pull me out because even the one guy who runs it, he was like, dude, I

1130
01:05:20,780 --> 01:05:24,740
thought you were just going to like you were trying to kill yourself.

1131
01:05:24,740 --> 01:05:28,540
But I did, I had that mindset because I knew I was so close that I was just going to keep

1132
01:05:28,540 --> 01:05:31,820
going because you know, I was so close.

1133
01:05:31,820 --> 01:05:36,560
And I, at that point, you know, two and a half, three years of training, like I'm going

1134
01:05:36,560 --> 01:05:37,560
for it.

1135
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:42,100
And they weigh us before and after that evolution and they had me get assessed by the medic

1136
01:05:42,100 --> 01:05:43,500
on on site there.

1137
01:05:43,500 --> 01:05:44,500
He had me step on the scale.

1138
01:05:44,500 --> 01:05:48,420
I think I had lost either like 12 or 14 pounds of water just in that evolution.

1139
01:05:48,420 --> 01:05:51,740
I remember I was the most thirsty I had ever been.

1140
01:05:51,740 --> 01:05:52,860
Like I had the worst cotton mouth.

1141
01:05:52,860 --> 01:05:55,940
I kept telling myself like, dude, you just get through this.

1142
01:05:55,940 --> 01:05:57,460
They'll give you a bottle of water.

1143
01:05:57,460 --> 01:05:58,860
Then you get to go search for your chip.

1144
01:05:58,860 --> 01:06:02,780
Like we're almost there, you know, and they just kept getting further and further away.

1145
01:06:02,780 --> 01:06:07,900
And did I remember I just like when they pulled me out and not a lot of people know this,

1146
01:06:07,900 --> 01:06:12,180
but I was just bawling my eyes out because you know, I never I never pushed myself that

1147
01:06:12,180 --> 01:06:15,780
far and then it was kind of like the Rolodex kind of played in my head.

1148
01:06:15,780 --> 01:06:21,860
I was walking down the stairs of just like all the all the sacrifices and training sessions

1149
01:06:21,860 --> 01:06:22,860
and all that.

1150
01:06:22,860 --> 01:06:31,740
It was just like is a weird moment, you know, and it's kind of funny looking back at this,

1151
01:06:31,740 --> 01:06:36,420
you know, one of the cadre guys, he came up to me right after, you know, I just pulled

1152
01:06:36,420 --> 01:06:37,420
my shit off.

1153
01:06:37,420 --> 01:06:39,740
I'm on the ground in the bay sitting down, you know, still crying.

1154
01:06:39,740 --> 01:06:43,660
He said, hey, man, you come back next year.

1155
01:06:43,660 --> 01:06:48,660
And I just looked at him, you know, and I'm like, no, I'm not fucking coming back next

1156
01:06:48,660 --> 01:06:49,660
year.

1157
01:06:49,660 --> 01:06:55,060
I just sacrificed three years of my life for this, you know, and in the moment, like, you

1158
01:06:55,060 --> 01:06:59,060
know, at that time, I was like, no, I'm not coming back.

1159
01:06:59,060 --> 01:07:03,180
But as soon as I drove home and got home and put in my driveway, it was like, I'm coming

1160
01:07:03,180 --> 01:07:04,180
back.

1161
01:07:04,180 --> 01:07:06,220
Yeah, I just it's just funny.

1162
01:07:06,220 --> 01:07:11,660
I look back now and it is like, you know, it's kind of like the cycles of grief almost,

1163
01:07:11,660 --> 01:07:16,060
you know, so I was kind of like in the angry phase at that point.

1164
01:07:16,060 --> 01:07:22,500
And so same thing, man, I took a whole nother year to train and and I was even training

1165
01:07:22,500 --> 01:07:28,060
with Matt even more like I was going probably once or twice a week to meet with Matt before

1166
01:07:28,060 --> 01:07:30,900
shift or on just depending on our schedule.

1167
01:07:30,900 --> 01:07:34,660
He always had a workout early in the morning because he's a busy guy and he's just

1168
01:07:34,660 --> 01:07:41,700
He's a realtor and he's, you know, got kids and he's a very good father and family man.

1169
01:07:41,700 --> 01:07:43,380
And that's the most important to him.

1170
01:07:43,380 --> 01:07:47,260
So all his training gets done in the morning, like before the sun's up.

1171
01:07:47,260 --> 01:07:50,980
So there are some mornings I have to wake up at 330 a.m. to go drive an hour to meet

1172
01:07:50,980 --> 01:07:53,300
him where he was at and work out.

1173
01:07:53,300 --> 01:07:54,740
But I went and trade that for the world.

1174
01:07:54,740 --> 01:07:58,100
And he's one of my best friends and one of my biggest mentors.

1175
01:07:58,100 --> 01:08:03,440
And, you know, when you when you suffer with other people is when you bond.

1176
01:08:03,440 --> 01:08:09,980
But went back again and this was my third attempt at Florida, fourth attempt overall

1177
01:08:09,980 --> 01:08:15,460
at a smoke diver program, made it to the night before the final scenario and came up short

1178
01:08:15,460 --> 01:08:17,980
and that burn.

1179
01:08:17,980 --> 01:08:23,980
So you know, it was a hard pill to swallow.

1180
01:08:23,980 --> 01:08:28,940
But and even even the cadre and Matt, well, I do that was the strongest you've ever looked,

1181
01:08:28,940 --> 01:08:33,900
you know, and it got to the point where, you know, obviously I wanted to be successful.

1182
01:08:33,900 --> 01:08:36,780
But every year I went back, dude, I got better.

1183
01:08:36,780 --> 01:08:37,780
Like I became a better fireman.

1184
01:08:37,780 --> 01:08:38,940
I became a better leader.

1185
01:08:38,940 --> 01:08:42,980
I was bringing people up around me because whatever crew I was on, I was training and

1186
01:08:42,980 --> 01:08:47,580
I would be able to get them to join me by my various methods that either turn it into

1187
01:08:47,580 --> 01:08:53,200
a competition or, you know, I would I would force me to get down on somebody's level instead

1188
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:58,300
of thinking I was superior to them, of meeting them where they were at and being able to

1189
01:08:58,300 --> 01:09:01,660
motivate and and and get them to be better as well.

1190
01:09:01,660 --> 01:09:05,620
And that was also rewarding because it got to the point where like some of my buddies

1191
01:09:05,620 --> 01:09:09,140
at the department are like, dude, how are you going to these crews and and getting people

1192
01:09:09,140 --> 01:09:10,140
to work out in gear with you?

1193
01:09:10,140 --> 01:09:12,540
You know, it's like, well, one, I'm doing I'm doing it.

1194
01:09:12,540 --> 01:09:15,420
I'm leading by example and two, I'm not an asshole about it.

1195
01:09:15,420 --> 01:09:19,220
Whereas earlier in my career, before I went to smoke, I tell people this all the time.

1196
01:09:19,220 --> 01:09:21,140
I was an arrogant little prick.

1197
01:09:21,140 --> 01:09:26,580
Like I was the type of guy that, you know, if you didn't train or you didn't do stuff

1198
01:09:26,580 --> 01:09:28,820
extra, like you were a piece of shit.

1199
01:09:28,820 --> 01:09:33,460
And now that I'm older and wiser, that's you know, I know that's not the case.

1200
01:09:33,460 --> 01:09:38,300
People have families, they have other jobs like, you know, just because you may think

1201
01:09:38,300 --> 01:09:39,860
they're a piece of shit at the station.

1202
01:09:39,860 --> 01:09:41,540
Does that mean they're a piece of shit husband?

1203
01:09:41,540 --> 01:09:43,460
Are they a piece of shit father?

1204
01:09:43,460 --> 01:09:44,660
Probably not.

1205
01:09:44,660 --> 01:09:51,260
You know, like we have to learn to show some empathy and humanity, I think, you know, and

1206
01:09:51,260 --> 01:09:54,460
it and people are going through things you don't even know about.

1207
01:09:54,460 --> 01:10:00,580
But so fast forward to two years ago was my last attempt at Florida.

1208
01:10:00,580 --> 01:10:03,100
Same thing was the strongest I ever been.

1209
01:10:03,100 --> 01:10:06,900
And I got sick with the flu the night before.

1210
01:10:06,900 --> 01:10:10,260
I remember I went to dinner.

1211
01:10:10,260 --> 01:10:13,580
I had dinner with Tony Gillen.

1212
01:10:13,580 --> 01:10:16,860
Okay, I'm really good friends with him.

1213
01:10:16,860 --> 01:10:18,980
And whenever I'm up here, you know, I try to see him.

1214
01:10:18,980 --> 01:10:21,420
And so I had dinner with him.

1215
01:10:21,420 --> 01:10:24,380
And I remember I told him, I'm like, dude, I feel like shit right now.

1216
01:10:24,380 --> 01:10:28,340
I was congested, had stuffy nose.

1217
01:10:28,340 --> 01:10:32,140
I didn't sleep the whole night before the class because I couldn't breathe.

1218
01:10:32,140 --> 01:10:35,700
And I ended up making it two days through the program before I finally I found out on

1219
01:10:35,700 --> 01:10:37,500
the first burn.

1220
01:10:37,500 --> 01:10:42,100
And but I got a lot out of that because with me being dog sick like that, I had never pushed

1221
01:10:42,100 --> 01:10:44,620
myself that far.

1222
01:10:44,620 --> 01:10:46,460
And I was supposed to go last.

1223
01:10:46,460 --> 01:10:48,420
Well, so I was sick.

1224
01:10:48,420 --> 01:10:51,860
Didn't make it was I was a little upset and heartbroken about that because sometimes you

1225
01:10:51,860 --> 01:10:52,860
get unlucky.

1226
01:10:52,860 --> 01:10:57,420
And, you know, a whole year of training just to get sick kind of felt like I was a little

1227
01:10:57,420 --> 01:11:06,980
robbed and you know, I remember earlier that year, me and my wife had a miscarriage.

1228
01:11:06,980 --> 01:11:12,060
And the baby that we would have had was supposed to be born the week of smoke diver.

1229
01:11:12,060 --> 01:11:17,380
And so I kind of my way of dealing with some of the grief was I just kept training even

1230
01:11:17,380 --> 01:11:19,140
harder.

1231
01:11:19,140 --> 01:11:24,740
And I'm a I'm a big believer in like, you know, things are supposed to are meant to

1232
01:11:24,740 --> 01:11:27,220
be are meant to be.

1233
01:11:27,220 --> 01:11:31,740
And the fact that the baby wasn't born wasn't gonna be born that week.

1234
01:11:31,740 --> 01:11:36,340
I thought, well, maybe it's God saying like, hey, this is your time to be a smoke diver.

1235
01:11:36,340 --> 01:11:38,940
You know, you've been putting in a lot of time.

1236
01:11:38,940 --> 01:11:42,620
You know, sadly, you know, we're still we still grieve that we lost the baby.

1237
01:11:42,620 --> 01:11:43,620
It was very hard time.

1238
01:11:43,620 --> 01:11:44,780
My wife took it very hard.

1239
01:11:44,780 --> 01:11:52,420
But me personally, the way I I dealt with the grief is I just focused more into my training.

1240
01:11:52,420 --> 01:11:55,460
And that's what helped me.

1241
01:11:55,460 --> 01:11:56,460
So that was kind of hard.

1242
01:11:56,460 --> 01:11:59,740
And I kind of got home and told my wife, Lindsay, like, you know, I think I'm just done with

1243
01:11:59,740 --> 01:12:00,740
this smoke diver thing.

1244
01:12:00,740 --> 01:12:02,020
Like, it's it's not meant to be.

1245
01:12:02,020 --> 01:12:07,060
I've been training at it for, you know, that was my fifth attempt overall, you know, almost

1246
01:12:07,060 --> 01:12:08,460
five years of hard training.

1247
01:12:08,460 --> 01:12:10,400
Like, you know, it is what it is.

1248
01:12:10,400 --> 01:12:15,500
And then I kind of forgot that I was on alternate list for Georgia and like a week or two later,

1249
01:12:15,500 --> 01:12:18,220
they emailed saying it was a spot open.

1250
01:12:18,220 --> 01:12:19,700
So I put my name in like, hey, I'm interested.

1251
01:12:19,700 --> 01:12:21,820
And they're like, oh, you were one of the first ones to reply.

1252
01:12:21,820 --> 01:12:22,820
So you're in.

1253
01:12:22,820 --> 01:12:30,260
So less than four weeks later after that Florida program, I went to Georgia and was ultimately

1254
01:12:30,260 --> 01:12:31,780
successful.

1255
01:12:31,780 --> 01:12:37,500
And my wife, it was funny, I FaceTimed her the night before the final and the final day.

1256
01:12:37,500 --> 01:12:40,980
It was like, hey, you know, I made it to the final day, feeling pretty good.

1257
01:12:40,980 --> 01:12:44,100
And she's in our kitchen like, oh, man, it's great.

1258
01:12:44,100 --> 01:12:47,700
And I go through the final day, go through the final scenario.

1259
01:12:47,700 --> 01:12:55,820
I I'm in there with the current smoke daddy, Casto, and then Chief Rhodes is also there.

1260
01:12:55,820 --> 01:12:59,220
Chief Rhodes shakes my hand, gives me a challenge coin.

1261
01:12:59,220 --> 01:13:03,340
And he says, you know, before you before you walk through that door and become a smoke

1262
01:13:03,340 --> 01:13:05,940
diver, you have to do one final search of this room.

1263
01:13:05,940 --> 01:13:09,980
As part of that, I was searching for my nuts and bolts.

1264
01:13:09,980 --> 01:13:11,540
And my wife is pretty small in stature.

1265
01:13:11,540 --> 01:13:13,980
You know, she's like 410, 411.

1266
01:13:13,980 --> 01:13:17,580
And she steps to the side and she's standing right behind him.

1267
01:13:17,580 --> 01:13:22,460
And I remember just like immediately breaking down and I hugged her and luckily I have some

1268
01:13:22,460 --> 01:13:24,300
pictures of it and video.

1269
01:13:24,300 --> 01:13:27,580
And I just remember telling her like, thank you for putting up with all my training for

1270
01:13:27,580 --> 01:13:29,380
these for all these years.

1271
01:13:29,380 --> 01:13:38,460
And it was it was pretty nice to have all that training finally have a little bit of

1272
01:13:38,460 --> 01:13:40,340
an exclamation point at the end of it.

1273
01:13:40,340 --> 01:13:47,180
I hate to say that getting a patch or a coin, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things,

1274
01:13:47,180 --> 01:13:51,500
but it is nice when you are successful and finally see things through.

1275
01:13:51,500 --> 01:13:53,100
Yeah, that's amazing.

1276
01:13:53,100 --> 01:13:57,900
Yeah, I had Chief Rhodes on the show, Todd Edwards, some of the Georgia guys.

1277
01:13:57,900 --> 01:14:01,740
And then I had obviously multiple people from Florida as well.

1278
01:14:01,740 --> 01:14:04,340
And they do sound like two slightly different programs.

1279
01:14:04,340 --> 01:14:09,020
So with all that preparation, chasing the Florida one, how prepared did you feel for

1280
01:14:09,020 --> 01:14:11,060
the Georgia one in the end?

1281
01:14:11,060 --> 01:14:15,420
So I felt very prepared, at least physically and a little bit mentally, because you know,

1282
01:14:15,420 --> 01:14:17,740
I had been pushed pretty hard before.

1283
01:14:17,740 --> 01:14:22,020
So when it started to get hard in the Georgia program, it wasn't an unfamiliar feeling.

1284
01:14:22,020 --> 01:14:27,380
Because I get the question all the time, people ask me, oh, what's which one is easier?

1285
01:14:27,380 --> 01:14:31,100
And I don't really feel comfortable saying one is easier than the other, because they're

1286
01:14:31,100 --> 01:14:32,540
just different.

1287
01:14:32,540 --> 01:14:37,820
The one thing I will say, though, is that Georgia, you have more opportunities if you

1288
01:14:37,820 --> 01:14:42,860
mess something up to redeem yourself versus the way that the Florida program is laid out,

1289
01:14:42,860 --> 01:14:48,220
because you're basically burning every single day and you have a high chance of if you're

1290
01:14:48,220 --> 01:14:52,740
not going to make the objective, it's going to be probably during a burn, that you're

1291
01:14:52,740 --> 01:14:57,460
not going back in to redeem yourself because you're getting pulled out and it's bad.

1292
01:14:57,460 --> 01:14:59,660
You're already set of smoke.

1293
01:14:59,660 --> 01:15:01,540
They're not putting you back in another burn.

1294
01:15:01,540 --> 01:15:04,020
There's no way because of how hot it is.

1295
01:15:04,020 --> 01:15:05,380
So that's the only difference.

1296
01:15:05,380 --> 01:15:09,540
But I would say both programs more or less teach the same things.

1297
01:15:09,540 --> 01:15:15,540
It's just a different structure and it's organized a little differently.

1298
01:15:15,540 --> 01:15:20,380
But I tell people all the time, if you're interested or thinking about going, you should,

1299
01:15:20,380 --> 01:15:23,140
because they do teach you things and you're not.

1300
01:15:23,140 --> 01:15:27,700
The problem, I shouldn't say the problem, but when you go to conferences or you go to

1301
01:15:27,700 --> 01:15:33,020
a class and you're learning a skill and then you do a scenario later that day to practice

1302
01:15:33,020 --> 01:15:35,740
that skill, it's still valuable and it's still good.

1303
01:15:35,740 --> 01:15:39,460
But it's not the same as when you're super smoked and super tired.

1304
01:15:39,460 --> 01:15:43,500
And Chief Rhodes has even said this multiple times for the Georgia program.

1305
01:15:43,500 --> 01:15:48,100
It's about day three is where people are getting what they came for.

1306
01:15:48,100 --> 01:15:53,380
All the evolutions and the scenarios you do in a smoke diver program are extremely basic,

1307
01:15:53,380 --> 01:15:57,860
but they're trying to get you to the point where you're extremely exhausted and fatigued

1308
01:15:57,860 --> 01:16:02,340
to where now you're having to make multiple decisions under stress and then still be successful

1309
01:16:02,340 --> 01:16:05,340
is where you're getting what you came for.

1310
01:16:05,340 --> 01:16:06,340
Yeah.

1311
01:16:06,340 --> 01:16:07,340
It's like that one phrase.

1312
01:16:07,340 --> 01:16:09,540
I think they think it was customado, wasn't it?

1313
01:16:09,540 --> 01:16:11,540
Tyson's trainer that originally said it.

1314
01:16:11,540 --> 01:16:13,380
Everyone has a plan till they get hit in the face.

1315
01:16:13,380 --> 01:16:14,620
Yeah, exactly.

1316
01:16:14,620 --> 01:16:15,940
Absolutely.

1317
01:16:15,940 --> 01:16:19,820
What about then mentally, you finally, I mean, that's such a crucible.

1318
01:16:19,820 --> 01:16:22,860
I've had people on here, Julian Serrano, some other ones that obviously didn't make it the

1319
01:16:22,860 --> 01:16:30,500
first time, but no one has had that five year, six try journey that you've had.

1320
01:16:30,500 --> 01:16:31,980
You finally get there.

1321
01:16:31,980 --> 01:16:35,920
What are those weeks and months like for you later when that thing that you've been chasing

1322
01:16:35,920 --> 01:16:38,180
for so long has finally been achieved?

1323
01:16:38,180 --> 01:16:43,540
Yes, I would say mentally I was on a high for probably like, I'd say a month.

1324
01:16:43,540 --> 01:16:44,540
I was pretty stoked.

1325
01:16:44,540 --> 01:16:49,140
I was still training though, like as soon as I got back, I was still in gear and training.

1326
01:16:49,140 --> 01:16:57,260
And then once that high kind of wore off, I was looking at Florida again.

1327
01:16:57,260 --> 01:16:59,780
It's kind of just, I think a lot of people don't understand it.

1328
01:16:59,780 --> 01:17:02,820
Even some people in my family, they had made the comment like, well, you're already a smoke

1329
01:17:02,820 --> 01:17:03,820
diver.

1330
01:17:03,820 --> 01:17:05,900
Like why you need to go to Florida?

1331
01:17:05,900 --> 01:17:09,260
And for me, it's just unfinished business.

1332
01:17:09,260 --> 01:17:11,740
I was always raised by my hardworking parents.

1333
01:17:11,740 --> 01:17:16,140
Like you don't quit anything and you see it through till it's done.

1334
01:17:16,140 --> 01:17:23,460
And also another part of it is I've gained a lot of friends and relationships from going

1335
01:17:23,460 --> 01:17:29,220
to Florida so many times and those guys making it through that I just want to be part of

1336
01:17:29,220 --> 01:17:31,900
the club, man.

1337
01:17:31,900 --> 01:17:36,980
Not that they don't accept me now that I'm not a Florida smoke diver, but it is different

1338
01:17:36,980 --> 01:17:39,900
when you get to be on the other side.

1339
01:17:39,900 --> 01:17:42,340
Especially when you got so close so many times.

1340
01:17:42,340 --> 01:17:43,340
Yeah, exactly.

1341
01:17:43,340 --> 01:17:47,420
And I've talked to Basil about this before too, and he even agrees that luck does play

1342
01:17:47,420 --> 01:17:53,300
a little bit into it and it does suck when you're a little unlucky.

1343
01:17:53,300 --> 01:17:56,500
But that's the other thing, I know I'm capable of doing it and honestly, I just enjoy the

1344
01:17:56,500 --> 01:17:57,880
training leading up to it.

1345
01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:02,140
And I enjoy the program because you're not getting that type of training anywhere else.

1346
01:18:02,140 --> 01:18:06,380
When I do training at the department, like I said, you're always fresh or it's the same

1347
01:18:06,380 --> 01:18:10,660
training that you've been doing the last three years in the same burn building that you're

1348
01:18:10,660 --> 01:18:14,740
not getting stimulus out of that.

1349
01:18:14,740 --> 01:18:21,980
So I was supposed to go last January, but I had a pretty significant back injury, which

1350
01:18:21,980 --> 01:18:25,060
that was a whole nother round of adversity that I had to get through.

1351
01:18:25,060 --> 01:18:26,460
How did you get through that?

1352
01:18:26,460 --> 01:18:29,420
Did you have to have surgery or did you manage to PT?

1353
01:18:29,420 --> 01:18:32,500
So luckily I didn't need surgery.

1354
01:18:32,500 --> 01:18:37,020
I don't know exactly what did it, but I started having some pain in my back and it started

1355
01:18:37,020 --> 01:18:41,980
kind of like in the lower right side where your, where your glute kind of meets the lower

1356
01:18:41,980 --> 01:18:42,980
back.

1357
01:18:42,980 --> 01:18:47,060
And I was not really paying too much attention to it because I had strained my back before

1358
01:18:47,060 --> 01:18:48,640
and it kind of felt similar to that.

1359
01:18:48,640 --> 01:18:52,820
But then as time went on and I kept training, I kept the pain kept traveling down lower

1360
01:18:52,820 --> 01:18:54,220
and lower.

1361
01:18:54,220 --> 01:18:57,300
And then finally I would just woke up one morning after doing a pretty hard workout

1362
01:18:57,300 --> 01:19:02,820
the day before and I woke up, I felt a little bit of pain.

1363
01:19:02,820 --> 01:19:03,820
I took a hot shower.

1364
01:19:03,820 --> 01:19:05,100
That didn't really help.

1365
01:19:05,100 --> 01:19:10,500
So I took my massage gun and I massaged the back of my, where the pain was.

1366
01:19:10,500 --> 01:19:15,940
And when I did that, it like was like an explosion went off in my back and it was 10 out of 10

1367
01:19:15,940 --> 01:19:16,940
pain.

1368
01:19:16,940 --> 01:19:21,660
I was on the floor and it was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life.

1369
01:19:21,660 --> 01:19:26,840
And I crawled to the bed, try to get in the bed to get comfortable and nothing was working

1370
01:19:26,840 --> 01:19:29,660
to alleviate the pain.

1371
01:19:29,660 --> 01:19:35,860
And luckily I had some leftover painkillers from my nasal surgery that I had a few months

1372
01:19:35,860 --> 01:19:36,860
prior.

1373
01:19:36,860 --> 01:19:41,180
I took one of those and about 30 minutes in it barely masked the pain.

1374
01:19:41,180 --> 01:19:45,260
Like it just made it somewhat more to where I wasn't squirming around in the bed.

1375
01:19:45,260 --> 01:19:50,100
And what ended up happening is I had an L5 S1 disc herniation that was impinging the

1376
01:19:50,100 --> 01:19:52,040
sciatic nerve.

1377
01:19:52,040 --> 01:19:57,760
And so sitting was like the worst and then driving to work was even more painful just

1378
01:19:57,760 --> 01:20:01,060
because of that like nerve floss where my foot was on the, it was my right side.

1379
01:20:01,060 --> 01:20:02,460
So my foot was on the gas pedal.

1380
01:20:02,460 --> 01:20:08,100
And so I had to call out of, I called out of work for like two shifts and I finally

1381
01:20:08,100 --> 01:20:12,380
got to the pain to where it was tolerable, but I could barely bend down and touch my

1382
01:20:12,380 --> 01:20:17,900
knee and I was pretty much just like limping into work, told my Lou like, Hey, look, if

1383
01:20:17,900 --> 01:20:20,140
we have to pick somebody up off the ground, there's not much I can do.

1384
01:20:20,140 --> 01:20:21,140
I said, I can throw a ladder.

1385
01:20:21,140 --> 01:20:22,140
I was driving at the time.

1386
01:20:22,140 --> 01:20:24,900
So I was like, I'll, I'll hump some hoes and throw a ladder.

1387
01:20:24,900 --> 01:20:28,660
But you know, and eventually it started feeling a little better, but not to the point where

1388
01:20:28,660 --> 01:20:29,660
I could work out.

1389
01:20:29,660 --> 01:20:41,220
So I went and saw a spine surgeon and so he sent me to get an MRI, came back and he said,

1390
01:20:41,220 --> 01:20:46,340
you don't need surgery luckily, but he said he recommended steroid injections.

1391
01:20:46,340 --> 01:20:50,900
And so I did my research on the, I think it's like a corticosteroid and I really did not

1392
01:20:50,900 --> 01:20:53,460
like the results I was seeing on that.

1393
01:20:53,460 --> 01:20:57,820
I was seeing a lot of people would have to go back for multiple injections and that I

1394
01:20:57,820 --> 01:21:03,260
was reading online, the multiple injections can actually lead to degeneration.

1395
01:21:03,260 --> 01:21:04,260
So I didn't like that at all.

1396
01:21:04,260 --> 01:21:10,740
I kind of Googled like, you know, what else can you do for a back injury and a clinic

1397
01:21:10,740 --> 01:21:15,460
over in Winter Park called Regenexx popped up and they offered PRP injections.

1398
01:21:15,460 --> 01:21:18,180
So I went there and I really liked the doctor there.

1399
01:21:18,180 --> 01:21:20,140
His name was Dr. Torrance.

1400
01:21:20,140 --> 01:21:24,380
He actually bounces between the Tampa, St. Pete and Winter Park area because he's a specialist

1401
01:21:24,380 --> 01:21:25,380
for the spine.

1402
01:21:25,380 --> 01:21:29,100
But I wrote, what I really liked about him is he was very fit and he was like a cross

1403
01:21:29,100 --> 01:21:30,100
fitter.

1404
01:21:30,100 --> 01:21:33,340
So he knew exactly kind of what I was going through.

1405
01:21:33,340 --> 01:21:37,300
You know, I was, I want to say I was depressed, but I was slightly depressed because I couldn't

1406
01:21:37,300 --> 01:21:38,300
work out anymore.

1407
01:21:38,300 --> 01:21:43,860
You know, gained some weight was pretty much stuck on the couch on my days off.

1408
01:21:43,860 --> 01:21:45,420
And so he recommended the injections.

1409
01:21:45,420 --> 01:21:49,200
I got those the first week of January.

1410
01:21:49,200 --> 01:21:52,940
And he pretty much said like, Hey, it'll take about 16 weeks before you're like back to

1411
01:21:52,940 --> 01:21:55,060
a hundred percent.

1412
01:21:55,060 --> 01:21:57,820
And within like two to three weeks, I started noticing results.

1413
01:21:57,820 --> 01:22:01,900
I went to physical therapy, which I was a little disappointed in the physical therapy.

1414
01:22:01,900 --> 01:22:03,260
It was kind of a joke.

1415
01:22:03,260 --> 01:22:07,540
I hate to say it, but once I went there a few times, I told him, I'm like, just give

1416
01:22:07,540 --> 01:22:09,500
me the, give me the plan and give me the exercises.

1417
01:22:09,500 --> 01:22:12,740
I'll just do this at home because I have a full garage gym at home.

1418
01:22:12,740 --> 01:22:13,740
And so I did that.

1419
01:22:13,740 --> 01:22:16,340
It didn't, it helped a little bit, but not as much as I wanted.

1420
01:22:16,340 --> 01:22:22,140
It was really just the time is what I needed to heal and no shit.

1421
01:22:22,140 --> 01:22:26,340
Like he said around the 16 week mark, I finally woke up in the morning with no pain because

1422
01:22:26,340 --> 01:22:28,980
it's, as the time went on, I was getting less pain.

1423
01:22:28,980 --> 01:22:31,820
Like the more I moved around, it wouldn't feel bad during the day, but the morning would

1424
01:22:31,820 --> 01:22:32,820
be bad.

1425
01:22:32,820 --> 01:22:35,180
So I was pretty much taking Tylenol like every day.

1426
01:22:35,180 --> 01:22:38,900
I mean, I was taking Tylenol around the clock, like thousand milligrams at a time to the

1427
01:22:38,900 --> 01:22:43,600
point where I finally got to that 16 week mark, didn't have any more pain at all.

1428
01:22:43,600 --> 01:22:48,020
And now I'm like, you know, I'm almost 10 months post that injection.

1429
01:22:48,020 --> 01:22:49,180
I'm pretty much back to a hundred percent.

1430
01:22:49,180 --> 01:22:53,900
I mean, I think he saw me competing at the three, four to three and gave me no issues

1431
01:22:53,900 --> 01:22:57,140
other than just being able to go sore the next, you know, that night and the next day.

1432
01:22:57,140 --> 01:22:58,140
Brilliant.

1433
01:22:58,140 --> 01:23:01,300
I know talk to me about foundation training too, cause I did that.

1434
01:23:01,300 --> 01:23:07,340
When I hurt my back, it was, God, we must be at least I think 10 years ago.

1435
01:23:07,340 --> 01:23:10,020
And that was, was incredible for, for healing.

1436
01:23:10,020 --> 01:23:12,020
So did you incorporate that during that time?

1437
01:23:12,020 --> 01:23:16,660
Yeah, I was doing that like once a week because Sparrow had sent me a video that he shares

1438
01:23:16,660 --> 01:23:17,660
with his Patreon community.

1439
01:23:17,660 --> 01:23:21,060
Like once a week, they have a free YouTube, but I think it's like a 10 minute.

1440
01:23:21,060 --> 01:23:22,060
Yeah.

1441
01:23:22,060 --> 01:23:23,060
12 minute foundation.

1442
01:23:23,060 --> 01:23:24,060
Yeah.

1443
01:23:24,060 --> 01:23:25,060
Like a weekly thing.

1444
01:23:25,060 --> 01:23:26,060
And that helped a lot too.

1445
01:23:26,060 --> 01:23:30,460
And just, you know, as I get older now, I realize I have to actually warm up before

1446
01:23:30,460 --> 01:23:36,180
workout and stretch and not be as hardheaded and listen to my body more.

1447
01:23:36,180 --> 01:23:39,980
Cause before I was like, I just, you know, I got to stack it all and I got to just keep

1448
01:23:39,980 --> 01:23:40,980
pushing through.

1449
01:23:40,980 --> 01:23:46,820
And now I'm a little more intentional with my training and I pay a lot more attention

1450
01:23:46,820 --> 01:23:51,540
to my body because if I get, I realized, you know, I pushed myself that one day and maybe

1451
01:23:51,540 --> 01:23:54,940
if I would have just backed off for a few weeks, I would have probably been fine to

1452
01:23:54,940 --> 01:23:59,940
go to Florida and not, I mean, I couldn't work out for almost two months.

1453
01:23:59,940 --> 01:24:04,940
So you know, it's kind of like a, in hindsight, it's always 2020, but it's like, okay, I could

1454
01:24:04,940 --> 01:24:08,260
have just maybe backed off a little bit and still kept my physical fitness to where it

1455
01:24:08,260 --> 01:24:14,660
was and, and continue to gradually get better versus I took off almost two months, which

1456
01:24:14,660 --> 01:24:16,660
I got it back pretty a lot quicker than I thought.

1457
01:24:16,660 --> 01:24:21,860
But I mean, the first few weeks of getting back into it kind of sucked, especially like

1458
01:24:21,860 --> 01:24:23,100
the first few runs I did.

1459
01:24:23,100 --> 01:24:26,420
It was like my calves had never known what running was ever.

1460
01:24:26,420 --> 01:24:32,540
Well, I think as I've got older, I realized that that whole less is more, is really a

1461
01:24:32,540 --> 01:24:36,460
real thing, especially as you are aging as well, you can, you know, destroy yourself

1462
01:24:36,460 --> 01:24:38,380
when you're young and get away with it.

1463
01:24:38,380 --> 01:24:42,300
But if you look at the martial arts community, they're doing a lot less full contact sparring

1464
01:24:42,300 --> 01:24:43,300
now.

1465
01:24:43,300 --> 01:24:45,980
If you look at strength and conditioning, you don't need to drive yourself into the

1466
01:24:45,980 --> 01:24:46,980
ground.

1467
01:24:46,980 --> 01:24:50,500
And I've done, when we did the three, four, three this year, I've just been doing Wolf

1468
01:24:50,500 --> 01:24:51,680
Brigade programming.

1469
01:24:51,680 --> 01:24:53,420
So it's not CrossFit style stuff anymore.

1470
01:24:53,420 --> 01:24:57,500
I haven't done that for at least a year, but it's a lot of Maces and kettlebells and there

1471
01:24:57,500 --> 01:25:03,420
is, you know, a Metcon element to it, but it's very strict strength movement.

1472
01:25:03,420 --> 01:25:09,060
And it's served me for about 50 years old, I'm still competing with the young lads and

1473
01:25:09,060 --> 01:25:12,540
we didn't obviously podium, but we ended up in the middle of the pack in the end.

1474
01:25:12,540 --> 01:25:14,140
And it's just kind of cool to see that.

1475
01:25:14,140 --> 01:25:20,300
Okay, well, you know, you don't have to murder yourself with Murph every day to still be

1476
01:25:20,300 --> 01:25:24,620
functional and pain free at 50 years old and still be able to do the job.

1477
01:25:24,620 --> 01:25:26,980
Yeah, like I said, there's a time and a place.

1478
01:25:26,980 --> 01:25:29,940
You just have to be intentional with what your training is and your goals.

1479
01:25:29,940 --> 01:25:33,540
And, you know, I'm big on like active recovery days now.

1480
01:25:33,540 --> 01:25:38,540
And so for that, I'll do either rucking or a walk or I'll get on my exercise bike and

1481
01:25:38,540 --> 01:25:39,540
just ride that.

1482
01:25:39,540 --> 01:25:45,500
And I've been doing a lot of zone two running too, because before I would just run all out.

1483
01:25:45,500 --> 01:25:47,180
And it's like, that's not always the best either.

1484
01:25:47,180 --> 01:25:51,060
You know, there's a lot of benefit in the zone two running and slowing down a little

1485
01:25:51,060 --> 01:25:53,740
bit, but you're still moving.

1486
01:25:53,740 --> 01:25:57,700
And then same thing now, you know, almost every shift I get in gear and do a gear workout.

1487
01:25:57,700 --> 01:26:02,460
And but yeah, just it's been a it's been a humbling experience.

1488
01:26:02,460 --> 01:26:07,940
And that was the other thing I tell people too, is like before I had my back injury,

1489
01:26:07,940 --> 01:26:10,980
I don't want to say I was taking training for granted, but it was starting to feel kind

1490
01:26:10,980 --> 01:26:11,980
of like a chore.

1491
01:26:11,980 --> 01:26:13,980
I was kind of getting a little burnt out with it.

1492
01:26:13,980 --> 01:26:18,420
And then when it got completely taken away, now my mindset is whenever I do a workout

1493
01:26:18,420 --> 01:26:20,780
or whenever it's like getting hard, it's I'm just grateful.

1494
01:26:20,780 --> 01:26:26,380
I'm just grateful that I'm able to, you know, sign up for a CrossFit competition and compete

1495
01:26:26,380 --> 01:26:30,740
and and not get hurt and be able to enjoy it and have fun.

1496
01:26:30,740 --> 01:26:31,740
Absolutely.

1497
01:26:31,740 --> 01:26:37,300
Well, I want to get to the the firemanship, but just before we do, you touched on again

1498
01:26:37,300 --> 01:26:41,300
about, you know, the guy, for example, doesn't seem to want to work out his piece of shit.

1499
01:26:41,300 --> 01:26:46,740
You know, that there is that element, especially when when you have owned your strength and

1500
01:26:46,740 --> 01:26:49,420
conditioning despite the environment that you're in.

1501
01:26:49,420 --> 01:26:52,740
So you have, you know, these deconditioned guys that sit in the lazy boy and say it's

1502
01:26:52,740 --> 01:26:54,020
always the fit guys to get hurt.

1503
01:26:54,020 --> 01:26:56,340
I mean, I've heard it my whole career.

1504
01:26:56,340 --> 01:27:01,500
But there's a there's obviously, you know, a two part element of this conversation, ownership

1505
01:27:01,500 --> 01:27:03,340
is part of it, but also the environment.

1506
01:27:03,340 --> 01:27:07,700
And I teach a free class in Iron Legion here.

1507
01:27:07,700 --> 01:27:09,460
And it's really hard to get people to come.

1508
01:27:09,460 --> 01:27:13,660
It's free for fire police, military corrections, dispatchers.

1509
01:27:13,660 --> 01:27:17,380
But up here, they're 56 hours a week, constant mandatory.

1510
01:27:17,380 --> 01:27:22,260
So the other side of it is that, well, if when they get to go home, they just want to,

1511
01:27:22,260 --> 01:27:23,540
you know, go home, be with their kids.

1512
01:27:23,540 --> 01:27:27,540
They don't want to be, you know, working out in a CrossFit gym.

1513
01:27:27,540 --> 01:27:32,660
So I think this is the other part of that 24 72 conversation is when you give them more

1514
01:27:32,660 --> 01:27:36,300
rest and recovery, then you can put that bar back.

1515
01:27:36,300 --> 01:27:41,820
So with that being said, you know, let's say, for example, your department shifts to that.

1516
01:27:41,820 --> 01:27:45,740
What are your thoughts on fitness standards in the fire service?

1517
01:27:45,740 --> 01:27:49,620
Because to me, I have special forces soldiers, I have ocean lifeguards.

1518
01:27:49,620 --> 01:27:52,780
I was a lifeguard myself for quite a while too.

1519
01:27:52,780 --> 01:27:55,860
If you don't hit that bar every year, you just you're not a lifeguard anymore.

1520
01:27:55,860 --> 01:27:57,320
It's just that simple.

1521
01:27:57,320 --> 01:28:00,460
But police and fire, you know, where lives are at stake.

1522
01:28:00,460 --> 01:28:06,500
Admin unions are so much resistance to a simple fitness standard and one that, you know, you

1523
01:28:06,500 --> 01:28:08,100
don't have to reinvent the wheel.

1524
01:28:08,100 --> 01:28:12,260
A CPAT, the fire sled version of it, something that's functional with tools that we have

1525
01:28:12,260 --> 01:28:17,420
to use is fair for men, women, you know, 1850, whatever it is.

1526
01:28:17,420 --> 01:28:23,180
So what is your kind of overall philosophy on a fitness standard in our profession?

1527
01:28:23,180 --> 01:28:29,820
Yeah, I think there should definitely be some sort of fitness, either agility test or assessment

1528
01:28:29,820 --> 01:28:32,340
every year that you have to complete.

1529
01:28:32,340 --> 01:28:36,620
So we just implemented one like a year or two ago in our department.

1530
01:28:36,620 --> 01:28:43,380
And like you would expect, we had a lot of pushback from, you know, the union and it

1531
01:28:43,380 --> 01:28:44,380
is what it is.

1532
01:28:44,380 --> 01:28:48,060
So I think there should be some sort of assessment.

1533
01:28:48,060 --> 01:28:52,500
And before that, I would have family members or friends who are not in the fire service,

1534
01:28:52,500 --> 01:28:55,820
they would ask me like, oh, you have to you have to be fit to do the job.

1535
01:28:55,820 --> 01:28:59,380
Like, don't you have to do an annual assessment every year?

1536
01:28:59,380 --> 01:29:04,660
And I'd say no, we currently at my department, you just have a pre hire physical agility

1537
01:29:04,660 --> 01:29:05,660
and that's it.

1538
01:29:05,660 --> 01:29:09,980
And that's the case in a lot of departments and the look of shock on their face.

1539
01:29:09,980 --> 01:29:11,620
So it just made me laugh.

1540
01:29:11,620 --> 01:29:14,540
And it was always frustrating to me.

1541
01:29:14,540 --> 01:29:17,900
But, you know, at the end of the day, and I tell the new guys this too, is you can only

1542
01:29:17,900 --> 01:29:20,900
control what you can control.

1543
01:29:20,900 --> 01:29:28,220
And the greatest way to create change or change the culture in your department is by doing

1544
01:29:28,220 --> 01:29:30,940
it yourself and then with your crew.

1545
01:29:30,940 --> 01:29:35,060
And eventually, you will change the department because what ends up happening is if you have

1546
01:29:35,060 --> 01:29:39,740
a crew culture where everybody knows on the crew that when you guys show up, you know,

1547
01:29:39,740 --> 01:29:43,620
you're going to eat together, you're going to do all the chores together, you're going

1548
01:29:43,620 --> 01:29:47,220
to hang around the kitchen table or on the front bumper.

1549
01:29:47,220 --> 01:29:51,340
And you know, you're going to work out or do some sort of training together that day.

1550
01:29:51,340 --> 01:29:56,740
Then whenever things happen, such as promotions, or, you know, shift changes, or maybe some

1551
01:29:56,740 --> 01:30:01,620
people leave and they have to go fill a spot somewhere else, whoever gets moved, they're

1552
01:30:01,620 --> 01:30:03,880
going to go to that new crew.

1553
01:30:03,880 --> 01:30:06,580
And then they're kind of like your ambassador.

1554
01:30:06,580 --> 01:30:11,340
And hopefully they continue doing what you guys were doing on this crew, they create

1555
01:30:11,340 --> 01:30:14,460
some buy in over there, and then they're able to change that crew.

1556
01:30:14,460 --> 01:30:18,180
And then over time, it's like a domino effect.

1557
01:30:18,180 --> 01:30:21,580
And I get that question all the time too, because people have asked me how have you

1558
01:30:21,580 --> 01:30:22,860
been able to do it.

1559
01:30:22,860 --> 01:30:25,860
And it's kind of simple, not easy.

1560
01:30:25,860 --> 01:30:28,420
You know, you just have to start with yourself.

1561
01:30:28,420 --> 01:30:32,900
And then when people see you doing stuff in the bay, be welcoming, say, hey, come join

1562
01:30:32,900 --> 01:30:33,900
me.

1563
01:30:33,900 --> 01:30:34,900
I just don't want to be alone.

1564
01:30:34,900 --> 01:30:35,900
Like, you know, I'm doing this workout.

1565
01:30:35,900 --> 01:30:41,940
One of my favorite workouts to get people involved is I'll set up an O course type workout.

1566
01:30:41,940 --> 01:30:45,260
You know, there'll be four or five different like skill stations, if that's what you want

1567
01:30:45,260 --> 01:30:47,420
to call it, or workout stations.

1568
01:30:47,420 --> 01:30:50,820
And I'll just put a clock on for a minute or two for each station.

1569
01:30:50,820 --> 01:30:53,740
And it'll be, you know, a 15 to 30 minute workout.

1570
01:30:53,740 --> 01:30:58,460
And that way, if you're doing tire hits, if somebody who's very fit wants to do a thousand

1571
01:30:58,460 --> 01:31:01,380
tire hits in that two minutes, it doesn't matter because there's only one person at

1572
01:31:01,380 --> 01:31:02,380
that station.

1573
01:31:02,380 --> 01:31:03,900
You don't have to worry about overlap.

1574
01:31:03,900 --> 01:31:05,540
Everybody's kind of focused on doing their own thing.

1575
01:31:05,540 --> 01:31:08,300
They're not watching what the other person's doing.

1576
01:31:08,300 --> 01:31:09,700
And it's to their fitness level.

1577
01:31:09,700 --> 01:31:12,140
You know, I tell people to like, you don't have to be in your gear.

1578
01:31:12,140 --> 01:31:16,260
How about you just put your air pack on, you know, and start there or just put your coat

1579
01:31:16,260 --> 01:31:17,260
on.

1580
01:31:17,260 --> 01:31:20,780
And, you know, it's kind of a I don't know where I heard this quote, but I've heard it

1581
01:31:20,780 --> 01:31:25,540
a lot of times and they say, you know, to have a high standard for yourself, but be

1582
01:31:25,540 --> 01:31:30,860
tolerant of others and then, you know, get them elevated to that standard.

1583
01:31:30,860 --> 01:31:36,020
So but going back to the original question on yearly, you know, physical assessments,

1584
01:31:36,020 --> 01:31:41,740
I mean, I'm sure, you know, my take on it, but it's not as easy as somebody wanting that.

1585
01:31:41,740 --> 01:31:42,740
There's a lot of implications.

1586
01:31:42,740 --> 01:31:46,380
You know, the union doesn't want people to lose their jobs.

1587
01:31:46,380 --> 01:31:48,420
Admin doesn't want people getting hurt.

1588
01:31:48,420 --> 01:31:51,420
And so there's a lot of red tape involved with that type of stuff.

1589
01:31:51,420 --> 01:31:55,580
It's interesting because I've seen the pushback on the shift change, you know, the shift schedule

1590
01:31:55,580 --> 01:31:57,260
change and it's the same with this.

1591
01:31:57,260 --> 01:32:01,620
If you take a step back and think that you're opposing the things that allow you to perform

1592
01:32:01,620 --> 01:32:06,860
as a firefighter and also contribute to you having a healthy retirement and you're opposing

1593
01:32:06,860 --> 01:32:09,740
that, it's such a backward way of thinking.

1594
01:32:09,740 --> 01:32:12,260
And this knee jerk about, oh, they're trying to take our jobs.

1595
01:32:12,260 --> 01:32:18,500
Of course, if when you finally get to implement an actual, you know, punitive fitness standard,

1596
01:32:18,500 --> 01:32:22,020
there needs to be an on ramp session of, you know, a year, two years, whatever it is to

1597
01:32:22,020 --> 01:32:25,820
allow these people that have been deconditioned to get back to where they need to be.

1598
01:32:25,820 --> 01:32:30,540
And like I said, coupled with a work week that encourages them to be fit and gives them

1599
01:32:30,540 --> 01:32:34,940
the energy stops destroying their hormones, you know, all these things.

1600
01:32:34,940 --> 01:32:39,840
But once you've got to that point, you know, you've got to understand that there is no

1601
01:32:39,840 --> 01:32:42,460
downside to a fitness standard, especially if it's a fair one.

1602
01:32:42,460 --> 01:32:45,700
Like I said, you use, you know, ladders and hoes and dummies and all the things that you

1603
01:32:45,700 --> 01:32:48,260
would have to do in an actual fire.

1604
01:32:48,260 --> 01:32:49,260
That is what makes it fair.

1605
01:32:49,260 --> 01:32:55,700
You don't have to do max jump test and deadlifts and things that, you know, don't really carry

1606
01:32:55,700 --> 01:32:56,700
over, you know.

1607
01:32:56,700 --> 01:33:00,580
So, but I think that's what's going to be nice to see hopefully go hand in hand with

1608
01:33:00,580 --> 01:33:04,460
this improved work week is putting the standard back up because when you're talking about

1609
01:33:04,460 --> 01:33:10,180
the recruitment side, young driven firefighter recruits want to go to somewhere that they're

1610
01:33:10,180 --> 01:33:14,200
held to a high standard, somewhere that's a challenge, you know, and if you're already

1611
01:33:14,200 --> 01:33:18,340
fit when you walk through the door as a young recruit and you then see, okay, every year

1612
01:33:18,340 --> 01:33:22,980
I'm going to be held to the standard, then 20 years later, 25 years later, hopefully

1613
01:33:22,980 --> 01:33:28,540
healthy, 55, you know, whatever your old firefighters are then going to have an amazing retirement

1614
01:33:28,540 --> 01:33:33,580
versus, oh, the fittest ever was, was in the academy, which is a really piss poor thing

1615
01:33:33,580 --> 01:33:38,380
to do to hear from someone who's been on 15, 20 years and now they're on statins and a

1616
01:33:38,380 --> 01:33:42,020
CPAP and all this thing because no one ever held them to a standard.

1617
01:33:42,020 --> 01:33:43,020
Yeah.

1618
01:33:43,020 --> 01:33:45,340
And like you said, you know, changing the work schedule.

1619
01:33:45,340 --> 01:33:52,180
I think that's the other thing is right now the biggest issue, at least in the, you know,

1620
01:33:52,180 --> 01:33:57,700
central Florida area is recruitment and, and, and retaining firefighters.

1621
01:33:57,700 --> 01:34:04,680
So if you go to a more desirable schedule, you're going to have a line of recruits lined

1622
01:34:04,680 --> 01:34:06,180
up at the door to get in.

1623
01:34:06,180 --> 01:34:11,140
And you know, like right now, a lot of departments are having issues just putting asses in the

1624
01:34:11,140 --> 01:34:12,140
seats.

1625
01:34:12,140 --> 01:34:14,700
So they definitely don't want to get rid of anybody because then it just exacerbates the

1626
01:34:14,700 --> 01:34:15,700
problem.

1627
01:34:15,700 --> 01:34:20,140
So changing the work schedule, you're going to have a higher quality candidate, more candidates

1628
01:34:20,140 --> 01:34:22,860
going to be wanting to work there, be held to a higher standard.

1629
01:34:22,860 --> 01:34:28,260
And then if the person who is on the department doesn't want to, you know, fix the issues

1630
01:34:28,260 --> 01:34:32,940
that they have, that's what fire prevention is for.

1631
01:34:32,940 --> 01:34:41,480
So like I said, it's such a deep rooted issue that has so many, you know, red tape government

1632
01:34:41,480 --> 01:34:42,980
type stuff that blocks it.

1633
01:34:42,980 --> 01:34:43,980
Yeah.

1634
01:34:43,980 --> 01:34:47,500
Well, I mean, I really, I'm, I'm excited because once you've created an environment that allows

1635
01:34:47,500 --> 01:34:50,220
people to thrive, then you can start addressing these.

1636
01:34:50,220 --> 01:34:53,820
And like I said, to be fair, now these people are rested enough where they start feeling

1637
01:34:53,820 --> 01:34:57,420
better and start actually wanting to get back to where they were.

1638
01:34:57,420 --> 01:35:01,920
So I think it's a very positive, you know, potential movement there.

1639
01:35:01,920 --> 01:35:07,060
So let's talk about rogue firemanship then you've gone through this incredible journey.

1640
01:35:07,060 --> 01:35:11,520
And I'm so glad that we kind of traversed this smoke diver path that you took because

1641
01:35:11,520 --> 01:35:16,740
it kind of illustrates the, you know, the depth of your training and, you know, the

1642
01:35:16,740 --> 01:35:18,460
dos and the don'ts, all those kinds of things.

1643
01:35:18,460 --> 01:35:22,700
So what made you create your own company and let's talk about what you offer.

1644
01:35:22,700 --> 01:35:23,700
Yeah.

1645
01:35:23,700 --> 01:35:27,180
So it kind of just started because a couple of my buddies are like, you know, you're always

1646
01:35:27,180 --> 01:35:32,220
posting on your personal social media, you know, about stuff fire related.

1647
01:35:32,220 --> 01:35:35,500
They're like, you know, you should make a fire page.

1648
01:35:35,500 --> 01:35:40,380
And I've been kind of kicking the idea around for a few years, but just never really knew

1649
01:35:40,380 --> 01:35:41,380
what I wanted to do.

1650
01:35:41,380 --> 01:35:45,980
So then last December, I finally just pulled the trigger before my daughter was born.

1651
01:35:45,980 --> 01:35:50,180
I came up with the company and a broke rogue firemanship.

1652
01:35:50,180 --> 01:35:56,100
And the reason I chose rogue is because I feel like I've always been, I've kind of always

1653
01:35:56,100 --> 01:35:58,540
had a, like a rogue mentality.

1654
01:35:58,540 --> 01:36:06,500
I'm never always gone with or conform to like the norm or what, you know, the, the status

1655
01:36:06,500 --> 01:36:08,400
quo is that's never been enough for me.

1656
01:36:08,400 --> 01:36:11,020
Even growing up, you know, I skateboarded as a kid.

1657
01:36:11,020 --> 01:36:15,500
So kind of that type of, I don't want to say rebellious, but you know, like skateboarders,

1658
01:36:15,500 --> 01:36:20,500
DMXers, motocross guys, they're not, their, their way of thinking and what they stand

1659
01:36:20,500 --> 01:36:25,780
for is not quite normal to what, how normal society operates or normal like sports teams

1660
01:36:25,780 --> 01:36:26,780
operate.

1661
01:36:26,780 --> 01:36:31,060
And then, you know, wrestling, it's not a very, it wasn't very popular when I went through

1662
01:36:31,060 --> 01:36:34,780
school, you know, it was either football or baseball.

1663
01:36:34,780 --> 01:36:39,700
And then, you know, coming up through the fire service, I was going to conferences,

1664
01:36:39,700 --> 01:36:42,020
taking classes, going above the minimum standard.

1665
01:36:42,020 --> 01:36:45,620
And that was kind of always considered like rogue, right?

1666
01:36:45,620 --> 01:36:52,020
You're not doing what is normal, I guess, in your own four walls of the department.

1667
01:36:52,020 --> 01:36:57,760
And as far as firemanship, I just always loved how firefighting is, I think it should be

1668
01:36:57,760 --> 01:37:00,020
like a, it is an apprenticeship.

1669
01:37:00,020 --> 01:37:04,660
It's a craft and it's no different than if you want to be a journeyman, you know, plumber

1670
01:37:04,660 --> 01:37:07,500
or electrician or journeyman iron worker, right?

1671
01:37:07,500 --> 01:37:10,340
There's levels to it and it's a craft.

1672
01:37:10,340 --> 01:37:15,660
You know, if you don't know the basic fundamentals, it's going to make it very hard for you to

1673
01:37:15,660 --> 01:37:22,100
rise up to the ranks and be a effective leader because you can, sadly, in the fire service,

1674
01:37:22,100 --> 01:37:24,900
not necessarily be a great fireman.

1675
01:37:24,900 --> 01:37:28,060
And you can end up in a company officer role just because you happen to test well that

1676
01:37:28,060 --> 01:37:29,060
day.

1677
01:37:29,060 --> 01:37:34,740
And you just, you know, learn how to do, say, some checkbox tactics on a piece of paper

1678
01:37:34,740 --> 01:37:39,180
and you know, you get the job and now you have a pro be under you that you have to now

1679
01:37:39,180 --> 01:37:43,700
teach to be a good fireman, which you never took the time to do that.

1680
01:37:43,700 --> 01:37:48,300
And it's a problem I've seen in every department, you know, not necessarily just mine.

1681
01:37:48,300 --> 01:37:54,140
So I created the page and just kind of as an outlet for me to, you know, express my

1682
01:37:54,140 --> 01:38:01,420
experiences and my opinions on things in the fire service and things I've encountered.

1683
01:38:01,420 --> 01:38:06,540
And I also wanted to do like fitness programming for firefighters because I noticed even when

1684
01:38:06,540 --> 01:38:13,060
I was coming up, not a lot of firefighter fitness programs, I say that like in quotations

1685
01:38:13,060 --> 01:38:14,900
actually had anything in gear.

1686
01:38:14,900 --> 01:38:19,580
It was a lot of like CrossFit style workouts, lifting, sled pushes and slide drags, which

1687
01:38:19,580 --> 01:38:24,820
like I said before, those are all great and will help get you prepared for the job and

1688
01:38:24,820 --> 01:38:27,800
not quite like working out in gear.

1689
01:38:27,800 --> 01:38:32,540
And before that, I was always on my personal page was always posting whatever workouts

1690
01:38:32,540 --> 01:38:37,340
I was doing just to share with people and I was always getting people you know, that

1691
01:38:37,340 --> 01:38:39,300
would mess with me like say, Hey, I just did that workout.

1692
01:38:39,300 --> 01:38:40,860
Thank you for sharing that.

1693
01:38:40,860 --> 01:38:45,100
And you know, they would say them and their crew got it done, which was always so rewarding

1694
01:38:45,100 --> 01:38:46,260
to me.

1695
01:38:46,260 --> 01:38:52,020
So I just created the page to just kind of separate my personal social media from that.

1696
01:38:52,020 --> 01:38:53,660
And it's really taken off.

1697
01:38:53,660 --> 01:38:55,860
I've had a lot of help.

1698
01:38:55,860 --> 01:39:00,440
John Sparrow from Fit to Fight Fire and Marcos Orozco from Hard Knock Sunday.

1699
01:39:00,440 --> 01:39:05,720
They have been with me since its inception and really helped me, you know, get it off

1700
01:39:05,720 --> 01:39:06,720
the ground.

1701
01:39:06,720 --> 01:39:10,380
We pretty much text every week and kind of share ideas.

1702
01:39:10,380 --> 01:39:14,380
And my favorite thing about that is we're all I guess you could say like in the firefighter

1703
01:39:14,380 --> 01:39:17,820
fitness space, but it's not really a competition.

1704
01:39:17,820 --> 01:39:21,100
Like we just care about people getting more fit.

1705
01:39:21,100 --> 01:39:26,300
Like I have a couple buddies down in the southwest Florida area, the Naples area, Mason and

1706
01:39:26,300 --> 01:39:28,100
Remy they're both Florida smoke divers.

1707
01:39:28,100 --> 01:39:31,180
They created a page called firefighter endurance and same thing.

1708
01:39:31,180 --> 01:39:34,900
They post firefighter workouts every single day.

1709
01:39:34,900 --> 01:39:36,740
And I've tried to I've helped them.

1710
01:39:36,740 --> 01:39:41,020
I share their stuff every day and they've asked me stuff and I just gave them my opinion.

1711
01:39:41,020 --> 01:39:43,380
And it's not it's not a competition to me.

1712
01:39:43,380 --> 01:39:49,180
I just want the fire service as a whole to get more fit and whether they like John Sparrow

1713
01:39:49,180 --> 01:39:53,780
style Marcos style, the firefighter endurance style or my style.

1714
01:39:53,780 --> 01:39:54,780
I don't care.

1715
01:39:54,780 --> 01:39:58,060
I just, you know, I'm making a little bit of money, but it's not about the money.

1716
01:39:58,060 --> 01:39:59,060
It's not about the money.

1717
01:39:59,060 --> 01:40:02,060
It's just, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just

1718
01:40:02,060 --> 01:40:03,060
trying to get people to get better.

1719
01:40:03,060 --> 01:40:04,060
And like I said, it's been very rewarding.

1720
01:40:04,060 --> 01:40:08,420
I started it last December and the page has really taken off and I get messages all the

1721
01:40:08,420 --> 01:40:11,780
time of guys, you know, they'll take a picture with their crew and they did one of the workouts

1722
01:40:11,780 --> 01:40:15,340
and they're like, yeah, before the crew never wanted to work out and now they're working

1723
01:40:15,340 --> 01:40:19,380
out with me and kind of going through the same things I had gone through.

1724
01:40:19,380 --> 01:40:24,660
And it's just rewarding to see that they're also having an impact on their crews through

1725
01:40:24,660 --> 01:40:25,660
the page.

1726
01:40:25,660 --> 01:40:26,660
Beautiful.

1727
01:40:26,660 --> 01:40:28,420
And you're offering an actual workout program too.

1728
01:40:28,420 --> 01:40:29,420
Yeah.

1729
01:40:29,420 --> 01:40:31,060
So I offer three different ones.

1730
01:40:31,060 --> 01:40:36,860
I have a 12 week program that is, uh, it's called the rogue operator and it's very similar

1731
01:40:36,860 --> 01:40:37,860
to how I train.

1732
01:40:37,860 --> 01:40:41,700
It was just kind of my style of training that I put together on a 12 week program that somebody

1733
01:40:41,700 --> 01:40:43,980
can follow from start to finish.

1734
01:40:43,980 --> 01:40:49,940
And I also offer a monthly training program that is, um, kind of the same style as the

1735
01:40:49,940 --> 01:40:54,360
rogue operator, but it just continues on, on a subscription subscription basis.

1736
01:40:54,360 --> 01:40:58,980
It's four to five workouts a week mixed in strength, strength and conditioning and, uh,

1737
01:40:58,980 --> 01:41:00,140
gear workouts.

1738
01:41:00,140 --> 01:41:01,260
That's 20 bucks a month.

1739
01:41:01,260 --> 01:41:06,700
And then, uh, for people who are wanting more than just like the preset workouts, uh, I

1740
01:41:06,700 --> 01:41:08,180
do one-on-one coaching as well.

1741
01:41:08,180 --> 01:41:12,440
So I have a couple of guys that they're going through some of our programs, uh, in different

1742
01:41:12,440 --> 01:41:14,100
states as well as Florida.

1743
01:41:14,100 --> 01:41:16,280
So I'm writing workouts for them.

1744
01:41:16,280 --> 01:41:21,300
And I've even had some people that they just wanted to pass their firefighter, uh, new

1745
01:41:21,300 --> 01:41:25,760
hire physical or a CPAT and I've helped some people do that as well.

1746
01:41:25,760 --> 01:41:26,900
So it's kind of crazy.

1747
01:41:26,900 --> 01:41:31,580
I was looking at the analytics the other day and between all the, between those three programs,

1748
01:41:31,580 --> 01:41:37,660
I've helped so far over 200 firefighters and it's been over only coming up on 10 months

1749
01:41:37,660 --> 01:41:38,980
now.

1750
01:41:38,980 --> 01:41:41,460
So that's been super rewarding and awesome.

1751
01:41:41,460 --> 01:41:42,460
And it's crazy.

1752
01:41:42,460 --> 01:41:45,660
You know, people are talking to me and stuff that they're doing or, you know, they'll buy

1753
01:41:45,660 --> 01:41:46,660
a hat or a shirt.

1754
01:41:46,660 --> 01:41:51,740
And it was funny, I was packaging some stuff to send and my wife was looking at the labels

1755
01:41:51,740 --> 01:41:54,980
and she's like, you're sending this to Canada.

1756
01:41:54,980 --> 01:41:57,940
And like I said, dude, I'm nobody from nowhere, man.

1757
01:41:57,940 --> 01:42:01,980
It's just humbling that somebody all the way from Canada, I saw the page and wanted to

1758
01:42:01,980 --> 01:42:07,420
buy a shirt or a hat or, you know, it's some people, you know, they give social media a

1759
01:42:07,420 --> 01:42:10,300
bad name, but I think it can be used for a lot of good as well.

1760
01:42:10,300 --> 01:42:11,300
A hundred percent.

1761
01:42:11,300 --> 01:42:12,300
Couldn't agree more.

1762
01:42:12,300 --> 01:42:15,340
So for people listening, where can they find the site and the page?

1763
01:42:15,340 --> 01:42:19,020
So the Instagram page is a rogue firemanship training.

1764
01:42:19,020 --> 01:42:22,740
And then it's also a Facebook page is rogue firemanship.

1765
01:42:22,740 --> 01:42:27,340
And then I have a website as well, rogue firemanship.com.

1766
01:42:27,340 --> 01:42:29,700
One more question before we close out.

1767
01:42:29,700 --> 01:42:33,180
When will your next attempt at the Florida smoke diver be?

1768
01:42:33,180 --> 01:42:36,620
So I'm actually going in February of 25.

1769
01:42:36,620 --> 01:42:41,860
I just did the tryout in September and I got in, I competed with over a hundred candidates

1770
01:42:41,860 --> 01:42:44,100
and was lucky enough to get in.

1771
01:42:44,100 --> 01:42:46,140
So feeling good.

1772
01:42:46,140 --> 01:42:50,460
Feel stoked to give it one more, one more shot and I'll be back in February.

1773
01:42:50,460 --> 01:42:51,460
Amazing.

1774
01:42:51,460 --> 01:42:54,660
Well, I want to thank you so much, firstly, from driving all the way up to Ocala, but

1775
01:42:54,660 --> 01:42:56,860
secondly for sharing your story.

1776
01:42:56,860 --> 01:43:00,780
Obviously we focus a little bit more on the fitness stuff today, but I think it's, it's

1777
01:43:00,780 --> 01:43:04,580
really important that we kind of put that front and center because this goes hand in

1778
01:43:04,580 --> 01:43:08,300
hand with the cancer, the mental health, all the other things, you know, we know that exercise

1779
01:43:08,300 --> 01:43:12,340
is not only important for our performance, but our longevity as well.

1780
01:43:12,340 --> 01:43:17,180
And this unique path you've been on, you know, and the humility to talk about, you know,

1781
01:43:17,180 --> 01:43:20,180
the failures and I don't perceive them as failures.

1782
01:43:20,180 --> 01:43:24,500
The journey you've been on is really the success, but you know, this dogmatic chasing of the

1783
01:43:24,500 --> 01:43:27,700
Florida smoke divers is a, is a powerful part too.

1784
01:43:27,700 --> 01:43:31,020
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on behind

1785
01:43:31,020 --> 01:43:32,020
the shield podcast today.

1786
01:43:32,020 --> 01:43:33,020
The problem, thanks for having me.

1787
01:43:33,020 --> 01:43:43,620
It's been an honor.