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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show veteran firefighter and the man behind firefighter craftsmanship, Kevin Housley.
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from his own journey into the fire service, the recruitment crisis, the importance of firefighter fitness, human performance in the first responder professions, psychology, the mental health crisis and so much more.
Before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment. Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find. And this is a free library of well over 1000 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
Now two more things I want to add to the end of this intro. Firstly, my new book, KINDER came out a few weeks ago and I'm working on the audiobook now which will be out in a couple more weeks.
The reason why I'm putting this back on the intro is my Instagram account was just shut down for no reason whatsoever, and there's no way of retrieving it if anyone's had that issue before.
So if you were following me on Instagram or the show on Instagram, you can find us now at BehindTheShield911.2.0.
So yeah, if you were following and you wonder where the hell we went, that's because we got shut down for posting a positivity kindness post.
So I am baffled, but it is what it is. We move on, we rebuild. So without further ado, I introduce to you, Kevin Housley. Enjoy.
All right. Well, Kevin, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to see you again.
So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?
I'm in northern Colorado in a little town called Timnith, just outside of Fort Collins, which is 60 miles north of Denver.
Beautiful. I would love to start at the very beginning of your story. So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
Sounds good. Yeah, I was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. So it's pretty, pretty cool that I get to still, you know, choose to raise my family here and be a part of this community and work for the fire department that I remember visiting as a little kid.
So that's that's a pretty cool little opportunity for sure. And what a great place to currently land. So growing up here in Fort Collins, it was kind of a small town at that point.
And so, you know, just a quaint little community and I have a mom, dad and an older brother and an older sister.
And so, yeah, Fort Collins was home for us and had just an amazing and very lucky childhood for the environment that I was immersed in and the amount of support structure that I had not only at home, you know, with mom, dad, brothers and sister, but also, you know, with sports and friends and the community at large.
So obviously you're up in the mountains, you're close to the ski resorts. So what did your sporting childhood look like?
Yeah. And so we're kind of on the plains of Colorado. So back, back then it was only a two hour drive to get to Summit County, which most people probably recognize with, you know, Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, those big resorts up there a little bit further to get to Vail.
Now, based on the amount of people that have gotten the secret on how cool Colorado is to learn it takes a lot longer to get up there than that. But, you know, we were fortunate where we did get to go skiing every once in a while.
And it was certainly a more affordable sport than it is now. But for me, you know, it was it was the typical sports. I was really, really big into soccer and tennis was another big sport that I played.
I played both soccer and tennis all the way up through high school. But, you know, basketball, football, I wanted to basically play every sport that was available at that time.
And I guess, you know, some of the cool things about back then was, you know, they were city rec leagues. So it was easy to get into a team you played kind of with a neighborhood school.
And so, you know, it wasn't it wasn't kind of what sports looks like today for youth sports as far as club and the cost and all of that sort of stuff. So that was it was just kind of another way to connect with the community and get to meet a bunch of kids for schools.
You know, I got to play for a school that I didn't actually go to. And so once I went to middle school or junior high school, we called it back then and then high school, you know, I knew a lot of kids from a bunch of different schools, a bunch of different diverse backgrounds and things like that.
And sport was kind of that general connector to to what, you know, now we would call community. But just as a kid, those were the dudes I played sports with or, you know, those are the kids that I like to hang out with.
Talk to me about the evolution or arguably devolution of the mass amount of people that you've had coming into your state. I went to Colorado a few years ago, whenever you had like the coldest and winter you've ever had in history of Colorado.
That's when the gearing family decided to go skiing. And we rented a two wheel drive car up in the mountains. The most terrifying drive I've ever had in my life.
But anyway, and the people in the car rental place said, Oh, you need a four by four. I'm like, yeah, sure. Typical sales pitch. And then when I was up there, I'm like, yeah, I need a four by four. But anyway, all that aside, we went to one of the smaller resorts because like you said, of the immense cost of certainly staying on the slopes.
So you mentioned about a two hour drive, you mentioned about affordability when you were young. Talk to me about that change over the last few decades.
Yeah, you know, I mean, with people and it outpaced kind of the infrastructure. I mean, the roads are essentially the same size as what I remember as a little kid right into the back of the Jeep or whatever.
And so there's just a lot more people just takes a lot more time. And I mean, what a cool, just a cool natural resource that we have right here that you know, I can look out my window right now and see a 14,000 foot peak, and it's not a ski resort, but it's you know, we're just immersed in that mountain
culture, essentially here in Colorado, which is a great, a great thing, especially the part of the Colorado that we choose to live in. So,
I mean, the winter sports are fun and the mountains are amazing and we all feel different when you're outside right like you just talked about you know off camera doing some yard work you feel different outside even though you're in Florida, doing some nice
hot humid sweaty yard work, then you do when you're sitting in your office, recording a podcast you know so like being outside and that's just kind of like a cultural tenant for a lot of us that live here in Colorado, even for the farm country folks
right they spend all day outside out on the eastern plains of Colorado, but they're, they're out there working in the dirt. And so, there's, there's a lot of value to that and we might chase a tenant in relation to humor performance as far as like, you know why being
outside really really can help you.
But yeah, for all of the, all of you listening today hopefully you're listening to this while you're outside you know being outside is a great thing to be and it's a funny story you told they're like a true Floridian right of coming to town.
It's just you're trying to upsell me even though it was probably the same price to rent a tenant.
It was a shit load more, a shit load more which is why I was skeptical.
So yeah, choosing the almighty dollar didn't work out in your favor I'm glad it worked out for you guys but yeah that was a nasty winter I know exactly what winter you're talking about it was a rough one for sure.
And for us in emergency services we stood outside on the pavement a lot during that winter with lots of car crashes from probably Floridians coming up and crashing their two wheel drive cars.
You know, but so I don't know if I answered your question but I'm a big fan of being outside if I can you know we, even if it's just going for a walk in the neighborhood or jumping on the bike with the kids or whatever you know it's, I don't get to spend as much time
outside as I like or probably should but it's certainly always an underlying ten of what we try to do.
Let's unpack that for a second because you talked about being outside and human performance. I commented and had guests on the entire length of the pandemic, and I was always standing in the middle saying, you know, we need to make people healthier, whether you
believe in the virus whether you believe in the vaccine whatever it is it all still circles around the health of the individual. And when a lot of people were told to, you know, stay inside, don't be around your community, eat fast food drink alcohol is delivered to your
house and binge watch Tiger King.
In my opinion, you couldn't have given a worse set of instructions to get a society ready for a virus that is going to get them whether they like it or not it's not hide and seek it's not how viruses work.
And the outside element.
You know you have you know the beaches and the parks and all these areas that were closed which is insanity. So talk to me about, you know, your perspective on simply being outside on performance and on mental health.
You know for us and in the stage that we were at it with our family dynamic. My wife and I have three young kids, and they were obviously a lot younger four years ago than they are today and so we spent probably most of our time outside even though it wasn't
necessarily like with other people you know that was it that was a really unique time for us and we got very lucky you know that we didn't have high schoolers or you know kids in college or anything like that as far as you know what happens when you
quarantine that age of human.
And because we're social beings right like you have to be connected with one another.
And so my wife is an internal medicine PA so she was going to work. She did some stuff virtually but then you know there was this bridge gap of in clinic, and not everything was because you can't do all medicine virtually by any means you have to see people at
times.
And then with me as a firefighter we were going to shift right and so we had everything was different obviously we're not going to get into that stuff but I think you know that outside that outside thing we probably increased our outside
amount of time.
Based on the time of year and whatever the weather was doing.
Just as a family because we had those young kids and right they were going completely bonkers. And so, you know, we at that time we had bought a trampoline.
And so we spent a lot of time jumping on the tramp, you know, and I felt all my aching bones and joints for sure. But, you know, riding bikes or going for walks or playing out back in the green space you know throwing the football or whatever and so we spent a
considerable amount of outside time.
And then once you know once the resorts and all that they were kind of green lighted to to start operations.
Man, it was just like mass influx of people going to go ski because everybody was cooped up.
You know we saw camper sales go through the roof here in Colorado.
You know it was almost impossible to find a campsite, other than dispersed camping and so a lot of people here just because of that's kind of like that underlying theme of the region of country that I'm in is a lot of people are out on the trails, you know,
and so you can pass by each other and give yourself a wide berth based on, on whatever on the trails but we spent a lot of time outside and I think that that was the timing of all that was actually really really good it was kind of that reminder of like man we are not
meant to be cooped up into this little box all day.
Certainly watching binge Netflix of Tiger King or whatever.
What about the, the whole kind of ethos in Fort Collins I went to Boulder a few years ago and did a movement, the Edo Patel workshop. It was amazing.
And that was at a studio of the co owner was an ex firefighter. And when I was there, there was there was such a kind of culture of mountain biking you know skiing or all you could just tell it was it was outdoors and people will be walking by with you
know, climbing ropes wrapped around them and all kinds of stuff. And then you go the restaurant and most of the restaurants were just clean food whether they were vegan or you know whatever it was they were, you know, mom and pop restaurants owned by individuals and it was just
amazing and you know if you drink there was craft beer and if you don't there was craft kombucha and all these kind of things. So that is a perfect example to me of an of a community where the environment is set up to make you healthier to elevate the citizens
there. What is your community like as far as that.
Yeah, you know for Collins has massive beer culture market micro beer, you know new Belgian brewery started here in Fort Collins I actually got to intern there when I was in college as a marketing major.
Back when it was literally a mom and pop brewery, you know, and so now they've recently sold and they're now part of a massive corporation but you know most people now across the country at least in the US, recognize, you know, fat tire new Belgian brewery.
And so, you know that that culture there with micro brews and then that also leads to sitting on the patio live music, right enjoying, you know, 300 plus days of sunshine a year here with a pretty temperate climate.
And so, you know for Collins.
There are you know Boulder has has, you know, a lot of like resident Olympians and things like that in Boulder which helped drive kind of the culture that community.
You know people either agree with the politics in Boulder or they don't. And, you know, the, I could say some funny jokes about some of the Boulder firefighters and emergency responders that I know you know we talked about how they have really good hair, they
either have no hair like I currently have or they have like really good flow, you know, and so.
But you know just just to connect the community kind of that smaller type of community it's a city but it's not massive you know and right at the base of the foot hill or the flat irons is what they're called and just an amazingly beautiful place, you know.
And so obviously boulders getting a lot of exposure right now with see you see football and Dion Sanders, they're on prime time TV all the time and so I mean you've seen the images coming out of Boulder amazing place and for Collins is about we're about 45 minutes
there's not a great way to get to Boulder from us but it's about a 45 minute drive it's not very far.
Just not a straight shot by any means and so we're, we're at the base of the foothills and so kind of in between Denver and Wyoming right where the planes really kind of get going there and so you know there's a lot of correlation to that as well we have really
good access to trails and and things like that and so not not quite as I don't know what word to use about Boulder not quite as like invested in kombucha as both her is, but certainly probably more invested in micro beers than Boulder is and so you know that that's
certainly a staple of the community up here is, is, you know, just that outdoor beer kind of having a good time culture for sure.
Well going back to the sports that you mentioned you had some that are individual sports some that are team sports and I always ask people the same question, because I did the same thing I played field hockey was the one that I played a lot, which is
the team one and then I did martial arts and you know you might be part of a team but you're on the mat on your own. What elements did you take from each that served you well when you entered the fire service.
Yeah, I mean the fire service obviously for first and foremost is a service organization. And so you're in service of the other, whether that's your teammate, or the community that's your, you've raised your hand to say I'm going to, I'm going to serve you all.
And so, there's a lot of correlations to sport and and emergency services regardless of what branch you're in for sure.
But then there's also that you know self discipline self accountability and in a sport you know I got to wrestle for a little while in junior high school and I was no good it was just like hey come out for wrestling and I'm like, okay, and I was this little teeny scrawny
and you learn a lot when it's just you and the mat and the opponent, and you're trying to cross face take down each other you know like here's the reality of life a little bit and so there's value in team sports.
And there's value in those individual sports you know and I think for playing tennis for a really long time.
And I got to play in an individual role in tennis but also in a team role in tennis if I was playing doubles. So there was good correlation there too where, you know, it's either you against your opponent in those individual sports, but you have a lot of, you can't hide,
right, like, if you hit the ball into the net.
You can't blame the umpire for that, you know, well there's no umpire anyways right it's you and the other person keeping score and calling ins and outs and so there's a lot of accountability there that's learned which is I think really good for kids of like there's no way to hide,
which sometimes in team sports you certainly can.
You know whether it's because of nerves or anxieties or you're just maybe not to the same level as the other kids on the team or the other, the other participants, but you can learn how to be leaders, I think in both of those environments you get to learn how to lead
yourself first and be accountable go to practice when you don't want to, regardless, if you're in an individual or a team sport.
But then if you're in that team dynamic you start to learn how other people function that maybe they don't see things the way that you see them or they they're better in certain some aspects and still you start to use them and you watch the coaches use them,
you know in different roles, and there's a lot of sports baseball is a good one that's kind of an individual sport and a team sport.
And so, I think there's just massive correlation to the fire service for sure but all EMS or PD or any of that stuff as far as, you know, the correlation between sports and that was something that I was really looking for when I got into the fire service was,
you know, that camaraderie and that team environment and hey let's build each other up let's let's shared suffer a little bit together you know and have some good time and put some sweat on the on the training ground or whatever and you know you don't get that in a lot of other
teams and you know you don't have to be patient and then also that now we have no idea what's going to come here in the next five minutes two hours 24 hours you know and so just like always that that part of emergency services is always really really interesting to me for sure.
Speaking of that as far as career aspirations when you were in the school at the high school age were you already dreaming of becoming a firefighter or was there something else.
I wanted to be a sportscaster. You know I wanted to be in like a booth and talking sports I love sports and I was always drawn to sports and watching sports and playing sports and so that was really my big.
Ever since I was a little kid right like Bob Costas was probably the biggest. He was in the booth that you know NFL games and stuff like that and it's like oh that looks pretty awesome.
And so my older brother who's also on the job always wanted to be a firefighter ever since he was a little kid you know and there was always this like I was always in awe of the fire service specifically you know and even still when we hear sirens go by like as little kids we were relatively close to the main thoroughfare.
For the street for the part of town that we lived in so you could hear sirens coming for a while we always run out to the either the front or in the front yard right and if they came into the neighborhood we jump on our bikes and go see where the sirens are.
We would jump on our bikes and go see where they were going and and then I still do that with my kids today you know so it's kind of funny when you see the rig go by and you're like I know every single person on that rig but I still want to watch them go by and I still want to hear the queue siren you know and so there was always that draw of like the mystique of the fire service for sure and like just the excitement of running code three and the big rigs and all that fun stuff.
So what did the path look like from wanting to be sportscaster to entering the fire service.
You know when I got my undergrad I started in mass calm and I didn't go to a mass comm school.
And the very first mass comm class I was in I was like oh this is terrible like I don't want to learn anything more about this and you start to learn lessons when you know when you're I mean you're still not the brightest when you're 1819 years old you think you know a lot of stuff but you, you kind
of know that you don't. And I was like oh it's probably you know an upper 1% of people that actually probably get the job that I would want.
And so I actually went down the business route, and I got a marketing degree and marketing was something that I was drawn to just because those are the classes that I wanted to kind of go to.
You know I wanted to learn about I like the creative part of it I liked how you could kind of chase some tangents and try to figure out what I've now know is like some some psychology stuff.
And so that's where I started and I went into the business world.
And my brother was always he was he was on the job.
I was in maybe eighth or ninth grade, something like that I remember going to his fire academy graduation, maybe a little bit older than that in high school at the very most.
And so, you know, he was there and doing his thing and loving life and really, really enjoyed going to work and that sort of stuff which was always pretty encouraging to me that there was people out there that wanted to go to work.
And so once I got out of school and I got in the business world I learned really really quickly like sitting in a in an office was not my jam at all.
And so, during that time he was always like hey come and do a ride along with us come and do a ride like I know this isn't what you want to do, but it might be something you might be interested in just come and do a ride.
And so I got to come and do a ride along I was out of college at this point, and my did my very first ride along it, and we had an extrication accident on the major interstate here in in northern Colorado I 25 was the very first call that I got to run.
And it was an actual work in extrication and I was instantly I was like that. That is exactly what I want to do right just the whole production of it the teamwork of it, the excitement getting a run across town, like some sirens like getting to help somebody
that needed it.
And that really was the spark and it was all systems go at that point and so at that point I said all right well EMS 80% of what firefighters do. If I don't like that, then that's probably not a great job for me and so I went and got my EMT and just the
love of that and that was the only time the first time in my entire life, where I was excited to go to class I was going to night school. After I would go to work as a sales guy. And so, you know, I was go to night school.
And I would come home and study, and that was a new concept for me I'd never done that ever and I was like okay, I think I might be into the sweet spot. And the fire side of that was even more so exciting and so you know, got got lucky got an opportunity
and it's almost 20 years now, since that has happened so pretty crazy.
I went to EMT and fire school part time as well I work for a publishing company. And that's a grind of its own, you know you do eight nine hours and then you know you run to fire Academy as you said you go either do EMT stuff or you do a hospital
clinical or you know you're actually on the drill ground getting your ass kicked, and then you go home, and then you go to the, you know the if the book study guides or whatever it is and that's why I think you know when you've gone, gone through that kind
of journey as made because I was a little bit older as well.
And then you see the non cert programs. You can see where the non cert absolutely gives great firefighters an opportunity to get in that maybe couldn't afford to go the Academy route, but also why I think a lot of certified firefighters more often than not a more driven
because if you've had to go through all that to become a firefighter that requires a certain level of dedication in itself.
Yeah, for sure and I think it probably we could chase the recruitment conversation, you know, in, in regards to that of, but I think there's value when you have to kind of put some some stake in the game you got to put up financial financial pledge
and time commitment and you got to pass some stuff. You know and for me it was just EMT class.
And what I was lucky with the department that I got hired with and I still work for is, you know, they sent you through a fire Academy, regardless of what your search work. And so, yes, we had people in our group that had search.
And one of us that had nothing in every day was brand new information, you know, and so, you know, I think that there's goods and bads to both but I don't I don't have any.
So, I think that that really helped me to kind of go all in, even though I had to pay my mortgage or rent or whatever you know over time.
I had to see myself doing this for a really long time. At that point it was really far out in the distance and then here I sit. And so I think that that that really helped motivate me to kind of go all in, even though I had to pay my mortgage or rent or whatever
you know over here day to day, but it really helped kind of like, all right now it's time to be a grown up and trying to put some skin in the game.
When you mentioned about the first call, my first call this is actually as a working firefighter for Hialeah, Florida.
We went on a call and it was a 90, 98% Cuban. So, nearly all the calls done in Spanish.
And I only understood a little bit of Spanish but there's this older gentleman, and he's holding up what looks like a tiny condom.
And he's got it on his finger, and he keeps saying the word kaka and I'm like, I know what kaka means. That means poo.
And what this call was is this gentleman was constipated and he want one of us to stick this thing on our finger and pull the poo from his ass. That was my first call.
Not quite as exciting as yours.
Yeah, welcome to the show, right.
I'm sure anybody would have talked to our EMT riders or other new firefighters when they come online and I'm like you're going to be completely flabbergasted at how much poop is involved in this job.
So if that's something you don't like this, you either got to get over it or this probably is not the occupation for you.
Absolutely. We're staying on recruitment for a second.
Fast forward to 2024 because it's always interesting getting perspectives from different places around the country. Compared to the environment that you tested with as a new firefighter in 2005.
What is the recruitment environment that you see now in 2024?
Yeah, it's definitely different. You know, 2005 we still had the post 9-11 exposure and drive to serve your local community.
You had, you know, war fighters that were coming back from serving. And so you had that group of people that was intentionally getting recruited to try to get into emergency services and fire service specifically.
And so there was, I mean, it was a big, it was a big competition and you had to, you had to really, really work hard to get a shot to even sit, you know, for either written test or get to the interviews and all of that sort of stuff.
And so that was, I mean, that was a huge stress. Like I remember going to Colorado State University, which is here in Fort Collins, which is where they house the written test, you know, and they had four different sessions.
And you're in this classroom with a hundred to 150 other people just on that one day taking, taking a written test. And you're like, holy moly, there was a lot of fire department t-shirts in the room that day.
And so, you know, that was, it was just a little bit different, I think culturally as far as recruitment goes. And I think, you know, to tie it all the way back, you know, to the, to the Northern Colorado or the Colorado culture, it's a great place to be. And it's a great place to live.
And, and we get compensated really well. And we're respected by the community. We work hard to maintain that. And you have a really driven group of people as a whole that live in this region.
And so we certainly haven't yet experienced the massive issues that other departments across the country have of recruitment and retention.
There's definitely more turnover now than there has ever been. From what I can tell, even in our region of the country and the numbers, just a general like, Hey, I want to try the application process.
I want to try it, I want to try it, I want to try it. I want to try it. I want to try it, right. That's a lot of people out there that are going to try it. It's a lot of people out there that are going to try it.
So while we're trying to get that done, we're definitely, we're absolutely down. But for us, we're very, very fortunate that it's not in dire straits.
the new people coming in, the people that are maybe kind of dipping their toe in the water,
is this a career that I actually want to do? And then absolutely maintaining, you know, the three,
the five, the 10, the 20, the 30 year firefighter or police officer or whatever, and making sure
that we're meeting them where they are, where they need to go, helping them rain back maybe
on some of the other things. And I think that that all, if you have those really, really healthy
environments in your, your department's culture, you don't have to do a bunch of recruitment,
your people do it for you, you know? And so unfortunately, I've talked to people recently
over the last couple of years, you know, in our area of the country that say, Hey, yeah,
this is amazing job, just, I would go work for that department. And they intentionally point
people to other departments versus their own. And so I think if we want to get ahead of this
recruitment crisis, well, how are the people internally, right? Do they have autonomy? Are
they allowed to push and ebb and flow and chase the things that they're excited about? And do they
feel connected and that they have some ownership of stuff? And they can drive organizational policy
and procedure and culture and crush it on 911 calls, but are they also happy in the firehouse?
Right? I think that all of that stuff is where we should probably focus most of our effort is take
care of the people that are already in because they're your best salespeople. They're the best
marketing, you know, if you listen to any sort of marketer, they're going to talk about the power
of word of mouth marketing. And I think from emergency services as a whole, we completely
ignore that on purpose of like, well, we just need to get the new batch in here and things will
change. It's like, no, we need to, to foster and grow and motivate and lead and also follow our
people, you know, and let them have maybe a longer leash at times and, but have very clear ditch banks
as to why do we exist? And so I think that there's a lot of opportunity and recruitment and retention
for sure. And that easily ties all the way back into something I'm very passionate about, which
is all that human performance psychology stuff. Well, speaking of human performance, obviously,
I think we talked about it when I was on your show, people that listen to this show know I'm
very, very passionate about the sleep deprivation issue and obviously the Firefire work week.
What is it that you guys work there at the moment? We currently work a 48.96, your favorite schedule
of all. How did that devolve to getting to that point? And I'll use that word deliberately.
Yeah, you know, we used to be on the modified Kelly. So on off, on off, on off four or, you know,
every other day for three, we'd work and then we get four days off, but we did not have a Kelly day.
And so same number of hours, a 56 hour work week has the 48.96. And so that was a negotiated
thing once we actually had a finally had a contract at our department. It was negotiated
to go to the 48.96 from that modified Kelly. And we've been on it for, I don't know, five or six
years, maybe something along those lines. Now, again, not loading the question at all,
because I worked the modified Kelly in California, it was a four and a six alternating at the end,
but it was a 56 hour one on one off four times and then that four or six space. So you would,
you know, by the third or fourth shift, you were just fricking toast. So I get that there
wanted to be something differently. What were the observations of going to the 48.96 knowing
again, that the ideal thing is to reduce the number of hours full stop. So not, you know,
change the Rubik's cubes, I said, but that being said, were there any benefits? Was it better?
Was it worse? Like five years in, what are the observations?
I think one of the positives of our current 48.96 is, you know, when you're at work here at work,
we're very lucky as well, where we don't have a ton of mandatory overtime, just once again,
because of the recruitment and retention parts that we're very, very fortunate to have in this
region of the country. Not to say that Mando doesn't happen, but it's not like some other
parts of the country by any means. And so, you know, for us, for me, and just with my family
dynamic and the age of our family and kids and things like that, like the nice part is when you
go to work here at work, and then when you come home, you're home. And it seems to take less
amount of time to recover. And I've been on some pretty busy engine companies, you know, as far as
that first day of four day is for sure shot, but in the old schedule, right, let's call it
we worked on Monday, Wednesday, Friday week, we would call it the factory work week, those are
brutal, right. And so you go to work, Monday, you get pummeled, when you come home, and now you're
trying to recover, but maybe you have an infinite home. And that's just not one of the things like
you high five your spouse or partner at the door. And they go to work and you take over kid duty.
And then now like I try to survive until bedtime. Well, then when I get back up, and maybe I have a
good night's sleep. Now I'm right back to work and maybe I get my teeth kicked in again. And so like
it was really hard to ever catch up and you know, younger, it's a little bit easier to adapt to that
sort of stuff. But those four days for sure the first day was burned. And then sometimes that
second day was burned. So you really have those two days to recover on that old modified Kelly,
where on the 4896, it's kind of dependent on the crew culture, and for sure department culture,
but if we get pummeled the first night, I'm an officer now. And so I can change the schedule,
right? And I can stand up for our people, I can stand up for myself and be like, sorry, we're not
going to do that today. We're going to reschedule on this day, right? I solved the problem. But
right now, like we literally got four minutes of sleep last night. Today is we're changing that
we're not going to go out and do this. And luckily, I have a system that allows me to do that most of
the time if I'm willing to stand up and say, all right, I'm going to change today. Obviously,
it's a lot easier if we don't have any mandatory training or things that are scripted for us to
say, hey, I understand we have, you know, we're going to go out and do rate drills today. But
we're not. We're going to maybe do some stuff on YouTube and let's do some, you know, we're not
going to necessarily take the whole day off, but we're going to do some other things. Let's unpack
how our response works on this fire that I saw on social media. What would you do as a nozzle? What
would you do as the engineer? What would I do as the officer? And then your eggs are scrambled
pretty fast in that environment anyways, when you have sleep deprivation. And so, hey, we're going
to do one to two reps of this. And then I don't care how long you've been on the job. If you're
the pro V, it doesn't matter to me. You're not going to be in the day room. You're not going to
be cleaning. You're not going to be in the bay like we're going to be in the bathroom. You're
going and we're taking quiet time and I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to go like in my bed
with my socks off. If I can, we're probably going to get 911 calls during then. And so you as a new
guy here, maybe you don't want to go to sleep. That's culture that you don't think that you can
do that. Even though I'm telling you, you can do that as the officer, try this yoga ninja thing.
Let's do a sleep recovery thing. And so here's a script. Just listen to this thing and don't go to
sleep, just listen to it. Right. And so I think that that's some of the ways that we've navigated that on the 4896. And, and so that, overall, I think it's been relatively positive, you know, it would be a lot better if we have a reduced our work week. And it's pretty amazing that that conversation is finally happening. And for sure, thanks to you. And really just kind of shaken that redwood tree from the base, you know, and just shaking and shaking and shaking. And when you're by yourself, you
know, it's really, really hard to get the top of the redwood to start moving. But as we start to get some traction and you start to get departments that are smaller than yours, departments that are way bigger than yours, that are going to this, you have union involvement in that at some of these departments, and they're willing to share that information. I think that that is that is the next step for sure. And we could talk at lots of length on sleep deprivation and sleep studies and the correlation of chronic disease and cancer with sleep depth.
That is certainly something I'm very into and motivated about.
Let's talk about the human performance side instead, because I have a lot of conversations to anyone listening, basically, sleep deprivation causes disease, period, all of them. So that's the summarization, addiction, suicide ideation, you know, the, the cancer, strokes, heart disease, you know, autoimmune disease, everything.
But where I think as we progress and we actually improve this work week, because I would then argue that's when you can start putting physical fitness standards back, you know, putting that bar back up where it should be. All right, we've created an environment for you to thrive. Now let's put the bar back so that you know, we are squeezing performance out of you. Talk to me about sleep deprivation and human performance being the best firefighter you can be because you are using the rest and recovery properly.
I'll start from the basic level of the fire recruit, right? And a recruit academy. If, you know, if the environment is you're going to sit down and shut up and do what I told you to do, and you're not allowed to fail and you're going to do burpees or push ups or run because you messed up the ladder throw, even though you've never thrown a fire service ladder in your life, or maybe never been on a roof in your life. Right. Right away, you have, you have stress at your level.
You have stress that you're building in that's not positive stress. And you're just doing it because somebody else did it to you. And so now if you're grinding those recruits, you know, 1214 hours a day, and then there's there's very little education as to like, hey, part of this, maybe this isn't how we do it in our department. But part of it is you have to pass the ifs, the test, you have to get your certification if you don't have it.
So you have to provide a little bit of space in there of like, hey, let me throw you a bone here. Let me help figure out how you process information and what are the things that you're struggling with.
So then we can help maybe de stress that a little bit. And all of that goes into how late does that recruit have to stay up at night. And the fact of the matter is, no matter what industry you're in, when you have a recruit style academy, the whole point of that academy is so they learn stuff.
So that they learn stuff to even get to the start line. Right. So when they graduate Academy, that's amazing. Great job. High fives. Well, there's the start line on your first shift. And every time you go back to work, the start line starts over, you know, and so we want them to process the information and take it from
Well, this is what if this says on how you're supposed to search, but this is what, you know, the search culture guys or brothers and battles is saying how we should search. And this is how we're going to teach it because this is what our policies and procedures say how we're going to search.
That's a lot of information to process. And the underlying tenant to tie all this back is you process all of that stuff when you're asleep and you have to enter certain stages of sleep to cement that learning to learn it to be able then next day to come and, you know, make less mistakes and, you know, learn some other stuff.
But then to transfer those things into memory where you can do that without even thinking about it and sleep is that one thing. It is the only thing that ties all of that together. Yes. Nutrition is going to help you absolutely being physically fit and able to perform whatever job you're subscribing to do is is a no brainer.
And it just blows my mind that we still have to have this conversation that physical fitness is a massive part of this, right? But it's got to be focused in specific hydration is massively important, right?
Your mindsets like all of those things are amazingly important to cementing the skills that we need at three o'clock in the morning in a blizzard when that's the first time you've ever carried a 24 foot ladder on your shoulder and you're waiting through two feet deep of snow.
You know, that's not the time to figure out how to throw a ladder like that thing should be cemented. And the one thing that can absolutely help all the way at the very beginning is starting to talk about why sleep matters.
Even if yes, I'll sleep when I'm dead, right? I'm 21 24, whatever years old and you know, I can literally work for a week straight without any detriment. Well, that's not true.
You know, and so sleep is the big, big, big thing. And I think that the big problem that we have in emergency services, especially the fire services, we've correlated sleep with laziness and they are completely different things because I know people that sleep all the time that are super high performers.
I know people that sleep all the time that are super lazy and I know people that stay up all night scrolling the gram or whatever watching Netflix that are okay performers. They might think that they're high performers, but they can't maintain that for very long.
And all of them at some point have a nasty crash, right? Or they stay up all night and they're the laziest people I've ever met. So sleep has no correlation to laziness.
And that's, I think that cultural disconnect that we need to start talking about at the crew level of, hey, what does this actually look like for us? What is allowable? And the easiest place to start that is in that recruit Academy and saying, hey, I understand you have all of this work to do.
This is a 14 18 week Academy, whatever that is. Yeah, you're going to suffer during those 14 to 18 weeks. You're going to have sleep deprivation nights, right? But all in all, we should be creating environments that are talking about why sleep is so important.
And we should actually be teaching these recruits something. And one of those things is why sleep is so important. And like you said, because it's the foundation for any chronic disease or any acute disease that you want to talk about. There's research why sleep is correlated to that.
It's interesting. If you think about the people that we hear bragging about not sleeping, they are usually business people or politicians.
And you hear this all the time. So and so only works six to four hours a night and they have a resting heart rate of 40 and they have no butthole and they never poop and all these other things that we hear about. But they're fucking politicians.
We know that they're lying. And you look at the before and after of the four years of service, you feel like 20 years older. So they're just lying. But if you think about it, it's everyone's favorite sports people.
I can never hear people on the TV saying yeah, it's better business for us. We can make more money through our revenue. You know, no, they do their workout, provide better entertainment. And so they're in the day as well taking maps to help with that.
You know muscle and tissue regeneration and reprocessing skills. There's a great article in Sports Illustrated that talks about how designated nap time for NBA players. And they have designated nap time where, arguably, whether it's a
agents aren't allowed to call their players, the trainers aren't allowed to call them, coaches aren't allowed to call them, media isn't allowed to call them, they have like an hour and a half or so, two hour window tied to one sleep cycle.
That is no call time at all. And yes, the player can optimize however they want. But the league has said, hey, from this time to this time, lights out. We want you to sleep because you got to go to work tonight at 7 p.m.
And so why can't we take that sort of a thing in the fire service specifically, especially if you're on a 4896. Day two should look different than day one. We, you know, again, let's look at the data and the research on injuries with sleep deprivation.
OK, so slips and trips and falls are a very, very high thing of injuries in the American Fire Service, which they are. Well, then how do we optimize that to decrease our workers cop numbers to keep our people coming to work, not having to call in sick, getting to go home and play with their kids when they're off the job?
Well, sleep, if we allow them to maybe sleep in on day two, right, especially if they got up five times or they don't have to be up and had a mandatory thing at eight hundred or nine hundred or all the way down to what our shift change times look like.
And there's some cool stuff that's happening there as well of, you know, we've been fortunate at our department, which I didn't really even really think about until recently as we do shift change at eight hundred.
Everybody around us does it at seven. Well, not everybody lives within 15 minutes of the firehouse, you know. And so we have people now that are commuting an hour and an hour and a half based on traffic.
And so even at eight hundred, they're getting up at four thirty in the morning to make sure, you know, snow and all that sort of stuff. If they have to shift change at seven hundred, like you want your people to wake up at three o'clock in the morning based on where they live or four o'clock in the morning and then come and then be there for 48 hours.
Like I think there's some really, really low hanging fruit that we can easily change. And the cool thing is, is we as the fire service or you at your department, you know, especially if you got some brass on your collar, somebody just made that up, which means we can change it.
You know, and so let's let's kind of shake that cultural norm and be like, does this make any sense? I'm not talking out of getting doing work. We should be able to do more work in a better way, provide way better customer service externally and internally.
And maybe one thing that we need to address is what does sleep look like?
What does sleep look like?
Okay.
Yeah, now is kind of one of the older guys on the department.
You know, I noticed that, you know, like this morning I'm like, man, I got to move my joints and get these things lubed up a little bit.
Just just rolling out of the out of bed, you know?
And so if we're concerned about recruitment and retention, what are we doing to retain the people and make sure that they're healthy and they can come and they want to come right? If I feel like complete dog crap every single day, regardless of what the reason is, I probably don't really want to go to work, regardless of what my job is.
Right. And so, but if I if I have an organization that's like, hey, we have these systems and these processes, and most departments are they're paying for health insurance.
And so a lot of health insurance have all of these cool little tangents that you can find that they don't want to tell you about, but are included in in your benefits, whether that's chiropractic care massage or even discounted rate stuff or a registered dietician or whatever.
Like, a lot of the answers we already have, we already pay for.
And for sleep, for example, it's completely free.
And yes, I can't control when they call me at 3 o'clock in the morning.
I can't control it.
Or for residential long-sleeves, you know, that's broken.
I can't control that, I guess.
But I got sent to that.
But I again started 7, 8 o'clock my whole career and then I was talking about is plus early to make sure I was really getting banged out.
I will try to minimize education of why sleep matters when I think and I had that I was one of the guys almost my whole career was like one of these a couple weeks ago.
Well, I expect my guys to sleep on the off duty and when they come to work, they come to work.
So to have gone in, I like the idea of like 11 a.m.
Let's have a great time and let's get after it and train and serve each other in the community as best as we possibly can.
But I also, if they expect me to train as an officer, I expect them to bring new information to me.
And that conversation that we have now a lot is really if you look at the data, the only takeaway was that second shift.
They got to sleep in a little bit if they didn't get banged out.
Well, you saw that by having four beers with dinner every single night on your phone.
Now the oncoming shift because you can't enter that last night with their families, which is where your brain clean the brain doesn't clean itself.
Then then you're at a higher risk for their commute rush hours or come into memory care and then off you go.
And then, you know, whoever's at the station, right.
If they got a murder that night, as you said, there's no need to set the tone.
That simple thing there, people like, oh, man, I was using it.
I was using it by the time you get to 11, 12, they're definitely going to be awake. You do pass on challenge.
I'm calling you an alcoholic. Maybe you are not.
But what I also get from people is like, I'm saying, hey, oh, well, how do you put in your face?
What are the habits that you've already established and why are you just taking like you you highlighted?
And OK, well, it helps me.
I mean, I've been told what I give you a really simple guys to get her.
I have a period of my last department where I had a back injury to help down to meniscus surgeries also use it at work.
That period I was and you're staring at this, but it wasn't like I was doing anything wrong.
It was just instead of are looking at yourselves, the task of light and your own hole in hose and throwing out your career.
And you're at a high tempo call and then go back to sleep.
You're doing all the work, but you do not.
Simple math, you do not have the sleep and so I think there's so many things broken down on purpose to have that.
You know, the right hypertrophy, hydration, the rebuild of the essentially free muscle.
So there's a lot of things that you can do to help yourself and you can help other people in your organization.
And so by putting that extra 24 hours massive brand, not only are you massively affected conversations, right?
But even the workman's confidant craftsmanship is providing a lot of this information because your men and women simply now have enough time to heal from their own training.
Yes, we have some things where you can pay for classes or bring us in or whatever, but that's not what I'm talking about.
A lot of these things are free and you just have to make the choice to say, you know, that's cool.
I want to be like that running back. I want to be an optimal performer.
He's 23 years old, except in four years, he's going to be out either just living off of his wages or working another job.
And I'm trying to have a 25 or 30 year career here. It's very, very different in the fire service specifically.
And we're not talking about how we optimize ourselves or optimize our people.
And the time to change that is now.
You know, I think like the older I get, you know, and just more introspective as I get older, I think the ones that may mean the most, you know, are just that emotional.
Hopefully success where we provided that family success, we solve their problem.
But then obviously there's the bad ones too that you're going to carry with you all the time and you need systems to to kind of deal with that sort of stuff.
And I've been very, very fortunate just as a group and team of people that we've been able to positively impact some people's lives.
No doubt about it. Right. Whether that's a core save or whatever.
But I also think like now one of the my favorite parts of the job, you know, is is like saying hi to that little kid at the grocery store.
You know, and I always have stickers in my pocket, you know, and you'll hear mom in the background like, oh, hey, there's the firefighters.
We saw the engine outside. And like I always make it a point to go over and be like, hey, what's up, dude?
And give them a sticker because I remember a firefighter did that essentially for me when I was at a station tour.
Right. Or they came to a pub event. And so, you know, we get to do pub at events and sometimes we don't always want to do that.
Or it's on day two of 48 and we have zero minutes of sleep. Right.
But just remember, like what you do matters and you can make an impact and you can really kind of create that, you know, be that leader within that little teeny space.
So for some people, you know, they're very, very frustrated that they can't make organizational change.
And I get it. Like, that's a really, really frustrating place to be.
But you can change that little kid's life in the grocery store if you're allowed to shop on duty. Right.
Or when you're done with a call and you're at the apartment building and all the little kids are out, you know, or that kid, you know, you're loading up your EMS gear and that kid over there is working on his bike.
You know, that's a call I remember of like, hey, dude, what's up with your bike? He's like, I don't I don't know, but I can't my pedals won't move or his chain had just fallen off and was wedged between the sprocket and the frame.
Right. It took us 15 seconds to not only fix the kid's problem, but then to be like, hey, this probably happens quite a bit.
Yeah. I'm no bike mechanic, dude, but here's how you put it back on. I don't know how to fix it based on the chain length. But here's how you write.
Right. And like we positively impact that kid. And that was in a low income environment. And now, hopefully, he has a different perception of the fire department for sure. And very well could be like, that's what I want to go do.
Right. And there's recruitment right there from a 10 year old kid, you know. And so I think I try not to dwell too much on the on the the traumas of the job.
And if you're on the job for more than five minutes, you're going to have some some of those might be just internally organizationally. You know, we just got a great conversation with Dina Ali on the firefighter craftsmanship podcast about yes, the calls for sure.
There's traumas associated with the calls and PTSD is a real thing and stuff. But man, there's a lot of stuff that we do organizationally or we do to each other. That's not the calls that's creating long lasting effects.
And so we need to start to kind of address some of that stuff. And so that's really kind of where I try to steer my energy and effort is all right, man, that did that call did not go the way that we wanted it to.
These were the skills we were deficient in. Let's have a very real honest conversation about that. Like, let's call it like it is that sucked. And we got to be better than that.
Or, man, we did everything that we could. Right. We know how to do CPR. We're doing pit crew CPR. We worked them for a full 40 minutes. And it just turned out that that was a bad day. And you should be emotional about that. You should get rid of that stuff.
But rest assured, like we've been training hard and we did everything that we possibly could for that patient.
And some days just suck. And unfortunately, that's just the way it is. Well, speaking of careers, when you look back at the 20 years you've had in the fire service, what are some of the career calls?
And as I always say, it doesn't mean the worst thing that you've seen, but just some of the ones that were memorable. Whether it was that kindness, whether it was actually a critical call.
Some of the things that were some of those were not attacking each other, but we are attacking what happened on that. And let's fix that and make sure that that that doesn't happen again.
Okay.
I think it's got to start at the crew level first, right? You have an opportunity to be a public educator every single time you roll out the door or when you're sitting out front on the pad and somebody's walking by, you know, my firehouse. I'm lucky I'm stationed at a park.
And so we have people walking by all the time, they ring the doorbell, the little kids want to see the firehouse and all that stuff. It's awesome.
And so we really try to be a steward of the fire service and they're paying you, right? And so like when you do that and you do that day after day, or I really love going out and stretching on buildings, real buildings, not at the training center in our first due area, in our second due area.
Right. And apartments are typically the easiest place. You're not going to necessarily stretch on somebody's house, but let's say we're there and we're waiting for the utility provider, whoever that is for you on a gas leak call or a CEO call.
And we're sitting there and dispatch says, Hey, it's going to be 45 minutes. It's like, Oh, cool. Great. So we're going to be sitting on the bumper anyways, potentially, right?
Because we can't find the source or however your apartment does it.
Can you stretch to the Charlie side of that house? Right. And you say the homeowner like, Hey, it's gonna be 45 minutes. We're hanging out here. You kind of educate them what CEO is blah, blah, blah, blah.
This is a reason why we're not going in and fixing your problem.
Like, here's, here's the thing. We can't find the source. We don't have that specific monitor on our rig, whatever.
But would you be okay with I noticed like you have kind of a weird landscaping on the Bravo side, the left side of your house over here or whatever. And I got a new guy like always blame it on the new guy.
You know, like I got a new guy or hey, I like to blame it on myself too of like, Hey, I just got moved into this area, this district, and I really want to learn this building.
So what if, if a bad day happens and I'm here at three o'clock in the morning, this whole thing is filled with smoke. I want to make sure it's not the first time I did this.
And that manager typically is like, heck yeah. Right. Now, now we stretch. And so now I know, okay, on this building specifically, it keeps my engineer honest. He's got a park where he's supposed to park.
Now I have cars in the way. Right. It's not, it's not a sterile environment. So now my nozzle has to figure out how to stretch.
Oh, now they're caught under the wheel. Great teaching moment. Right. In a very low stress environment, whether that's, you know, Kevin Shea, I learned a lot of this from him of, you know, one of his very first officers at the FDNY because FDNY runs bulk beds.
They have to stretch everything native is his officer. They stretched every single time they ran an auto alarm. It didn't matter if it was Christmas morning at three o'clock in the morning and it was snowing.
100% of the calls they stretched on and we started doing that. And man, you learn a lot and it keeps everybody really honest. It keeps me as an officer honest. We don't run bulk beds per se.
But we can extend hose lines and things like that. And so you start to get really good and it's really paid off on some calls. We're going to that specific address 123 Main Street.
And right away, everybody knows, hey, we need 400 feet of hose in this building. If it's anything above the first floor. Right. That's a de-stresser. And so all of that then ties back into recruitment and for sure retention.
We're training our people. They're confident. They're having a good time. It takes 15 minutes to stretch a hose line and reload it. It's not a big deal.
I realize what a poor job we've done at telling the story of what we actually did. And you hear it over and over again. Why is there a fire engine in the medical corps? Why are they at the store? What am I buying you today?
Because if we have to come back here at three o'clock in the morning and this place is full of smoke, it might not be the first time I've been here. I use that exact sentence over and over and over.
And those people are like, oh, that's cool. And sometimes they hang out and they watch you. They're all stressed out or whatever. And sometimes they don't. But at the end of the day, if we go to them and we say, hey, we need more money because we want to go to the 24 72.
And they're not like, well, why do those guys need to work less hours? It's like, man, I remember that time when Engine Whatever was here and they were stretching hose lines and then they ran a fire alarm and there was a lot more of them.
And man, that was a really well orchestrated. Those dudes are doing a good job. Like, okay, I'll check. Yes, on the ballot. Right. It all corresponds to that. And so it's just a good opportunity.
And I think there's the reality of it is a lot of officers and a lot of crews don't actually want to talk to those residents. They don't want to feel kind of weird that they're training and have people watch them or they feel like they're a nuisance or whatever.
Just change your mindset. You're not a nuisance. You're here to protect them. And you want to make sure that your pre connected hose line reaches their apartment.
You know, and sometimes, yes, you get into conversations where people are like, well, I don't think you should be doing that. It's like, okay, thanks. And then you make a note of that. Hey, we're not stretching a building J anymore because that dude is crazy.
We're going to go spread stretch of building B, which actually is a tougher stretch. Right. And that's okay, too. But I think, you know, there are some some property owners that will not let you do that. So always try to contact them first.
But if you're already there on a medical call, you're already there on an automatic fire alarm, man, take those opportunities and you're going to learn just a tremendous amount. And I think if you can tie that back into how do we get better at telling people how we do.
Well, use the people that are doing the thing and let them tell them what they do and let them show the public that they're excited. And this is why they pay you to be that public servant. I don't care for your career volunteer. It doesn't matter.
You can do that regardless of, you know, hopefully you have a department that has chiefs that will support you and don't be an idiot. Right. Don't smash their freaking drywall with your couplings or knock paint off. Or if you do have something right, like don't fill your
hose lines in the building where they're leaking couplings and they're leaking water. Like, don't be a bozo. You know, do it a smart way. It's not a full speed rep. But it's a really, really good way to get out there and kind of educate and then give, you know, like give positive
encouragement to your social media teams if you have them or take a picture of something that you think the department might use. Right. And once again, throw the new guy into the bus, make him beyond Facebook or Instagram or whatever. And then then you get ice cream, you know, so I think that there's a lot of really, really easy ways.
And again, that cost zero dollars for us to kind of educate the public.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's like your example. That's pretty funny. And I think, you know, it's like, how do we build crew camaraderie? And yes, we go to work as firefighters and want to run fires, you know, and when you don't run fires for long periods of time, you have problems that come up because everybody's antsy and they want to run fires.
Can you go to the backside of the house where there's nobody there? Right. Like, don't be telling jokes on scene and hooting and hollering and laughing when the homeowner is right there and they just lost all their stuff. You know, it doesn't matter that it doesn't mean much to you. But that was their life, you know.
And so, again, don't be an idiot, you know, it's it's a don't be a dumbass policy kind of a thing. And so, but also realize that, you know, social media is a snippet in time and people will create all kinds of nonsense bullshit stories about that one picture and they won't ever come and ask you about it.
So just realize that that is the reality of it and we can be toxic as hell to one another within our high performing environments. And we love attacking each other for its nonsense, you know, so maybe they're just be really, really smart.
And if you're not happy with what's happening, maybe with your social media team, they're doing too much like feel good stuff because of how many likes they get. It's like, yeah, but we also need this thing as a recruitment tool. We don't just need to cater to whatever likes environment, you know, of like, hey, here's all these animal calls.
Like, you got to show, hey, that was a big time wreck. And we did some awesome stuff for those people and like our training paid off and the community just bought us this new extrication set of tools.
Let's highlight those things, but do it in a way where we're not identifying the license plates or the address or any of that. So it is certainly a balance and I think that there's some great education probably out there in relation to pub ed and and PIO stuff.
Send somebody to go do that, you know, and then but also, I think that a lot of a lot of stuff just falls into the don't be a dumbass policy, and all of us have been dumbasses right and then learn from your mistakes and then don't do it again and then freely share those
of like, hey, this is where I completely messed up and all you guys talked a lot of shit, but not one of you fools came and talked to me about it. So here's here, I'm going to actually put together a class on this thing right here that you all made up all this nonsense about.
And this is we were actually doing something positive, potentially, or we were trying to build crew camaraderie by standing in the front yard with our hooks.
But we probably should have gone inside or out around back and done it instead. And so, you know, I am a fan of taking the picture like at the fires you know and and capturing that moment, and I'm a huge fan of being prideful in your job and being
celebrating the job well done, but you have to understand, especially on a fire. Those people just lost a lot of stuff, even if it didn't seem like that battle a fire, they have eight months that they're going to be dealing with this nonsense for right so don't be out there
like it's not you know you're not you shouldn't be high fiving each other in the front yard and and telling jokes about what a good ripper that was like you got to be smart once you get in the rig, maybe a totally different story right.
Speaking of social media. Where is the line. I see social media use in a multitude of very, very good ways but I think that there's a lot of firefighters doing a lot of damage for social media. Perfect example, the four of you leaning on your
own podcast. Totally disrespectful and that was my house conversation. I'm trying to get it going. Yeah, for sure. So where is that line between using social media as a positive tool educating inspiring storytelling and the narcissistic element that I see playing some of our fields
create more resilient humans. And so there's a lot of tools and things like that and and there was a guy Doug McGraw who used to work at our fire department who he was a pitcher and played up through AAA with the Houston Astros in the Chicago White Sox organizations.
And he had been trained by the best sports psychologists in the world with these professional baseball organizations. And so I started kind of asking Doug like hey man like what did you guys learn like how were you able to recover from that home run bomb you got you got more
batters to face right now right you can't just go in the corner and try about it like you got to show up within 1015 seconds of that dude touching home plate you got to start all over like how do you recover from that and and from those conversations.
It's like well why aren't we teaching new kids this sort of stuff. And a lot of that came out of just me trying to deal with my own stuff and social anxiety and figuring out you know how to how to overcome like extreme nausea in circumstances where I was really anxious about.
And so like I found mindset training I just found it as a little kid. Well you know like well if I just change how I perceive this a little bit like hey no it's not that big of a deal it's just school. Right, like there was certain triggers for me that that I just had to work through.
And I developed some of these tools that are very well researched and taught and studied.
But not a single person ever talked to me about that when I got an emergency services, and I noticed really quickly that it's like I heard it a lot like oh we'll just figure it out when we get there, you know you show up to a new house and you're like hey boss, like what's the plan, if we have a fire.
What do you mean what's the plan.
It's like well I'm not talking about my training like how do you like to do things, oh we'll just figure it out when we get there.
And that was the wrong answer. That's the wrong answer, like that wasn't the company that I wanted to go work at. Right. Of like all right so then I would go talk to the senior, the senior man or whatever the engineer and if I know if I got that a lot it's like
holy shit. Today you are going to be really heads up because you're probably going to be kind of on your own.
And we've all seen how some of those people operate on actual emergency scenes, you know. And so 2016 was really kind of when we finally got our first opportunity to teach in the recruit Academy.
And we got lucky and it was pre Academy so before the actual Academy started.
And we, you know, somebody canceled last minute we had the class ready to go and they're like all right you guys get an hour.
Sweet, and the class was terrible, right, it was horrible, but it was there was value to it where the feedback was like, oh man nobody's ever said anything like this before to me.
Yeah, that is kind of weird that none of us when I asked hey has anybody ever had like mental performance training in the room and not a single person raise their hand.
That's a problem, including the old veteran cadre, you know, and so that's really kind of where we started to attack that with firefighter craftsmanship and it's just grown from there.
It was really the catalyst for me to go back to school and get a formal master's degree in human performance psychology from the University of Denver. And that's really what I'm chasing now is, is how do we make people and emergency responders
more resilient before they need it. So the mental health conversation that we're having is amazing and really it's less than seven years old, where we're finally, most departments are having some sort of mental health conversation.
All right, well then, speaking about being part of the solution, talk to me about the inception of firefighter craftsmanship, because I'm pretty, if I've got my history right, you started in 2016, which is interesting when I started this podcast as well.
But it shouldn't only be reactionary, you know, like, you got tools when you're doing martial arts for sure that made you more resilient human.
You know, that's a foundational no matter what martial arts you were in, that is, that is a marketing thing I got a thing for whatever kids schools, martial arts at their school.
And it's literally on there like how to how to train them to be more resilient, you know, but in emergency services we're not doing any of that we're just like oh you'll figure it out when you get there because you know how to throw a ladder or you know how to pull a hose line or whatever
we ignore the fact that this is a stress environment and we're humans and we're not it's not normal for us to want to go inside of a burning building. Right, or a person with a gun or whatever, like you can't just ignore that factor.
And so we can tie this thing back easily to sleep. Right, if our people are sleeping like crap, they're not going to be more resilient, they're going to make worse critical fire ground decisions, they're certainly not going to recover better, they're going to have higher rates of PTSD.
For just that one little thing right if they're over breathing they're hyperventilating because they're sitting breathing through their mouth at rest.
They're not resilient, you know, like, it's all of this stuff correlates back if we go to work and we're really frustrated because of organizational stuff all day long and you have no autonomy.
They're not going to be as resilient. Right. And so, this is trying to get upstream of that problem, and really, here's some tools. So a lot of free stuff. A lot of things that you can figure out what works for you and chase that and throw away the stuff that doesn't work for you.
That's really kind of the foundation of firefighter craftsmanship is really navigating that high performance changing your mindset, you know, and building better resilience.
No, because I was in an environment that was really really healthy. And so I think it was just one of those things like all of us have our stuff, man, you know, and it was just one of those things as a kid.
I you know I had like a lot of ruminating thoughts, you know, and, you know, especially when you're a teenager you know everybody's looking at me like nobody gives a crap, dude.
You know, yeah, they might be busting your stones about what shoes you're wearing or whatever but they're not thinking about you right now when they're doing they're worried about themselves and how they look you know and so I just I didn't have any like really good coaching around that sort of stuff.
It was too early for a lot of that stuff, you know, and so I think that that's really where it was I think mine was a lot of, you know, the more I share that story people are like holy moly me too man me too.
And so I don't think I was that different. Just my anxiety, whatever those anxieties were was tied to nausea and vomiting.
And if you're throwing up at school, you know, for sure like an elementary school I remember there was a couple years where I literally went to the principal's office, every single day not because I was in trouble because I was trying to get out of being at school
because I felt sick, you know, and so that lasted. You know, I tell the story where a really big trigger for me was going out to eat.
And when I would go out to eat I would get really nauseous and like, I couldn't eat anything and you know like sometimes I barf which isn't great.
And that lasted all the way through college, you know, and then I got a sales guy job. I was a sales sales dude and you have to take clients out to lunch. That's literally how you make those connections and you've earned business and at that point I had a mortgage.
And I just made the choice of like hey dude, this is ridiculous like sometimes you've been able to go out to eat and not have this response, but other times you do.
Well now your livelihood depends on it. You got to get over it. And I literally just made the choice and it wasn't easy, right, but as those feelings would come up, boom, I started using breath control that nobody had taught me about but I knew if I breathe through my nose, I felt calmer, you know, and then I was just telling myself like hey you're all right, like it's not that big of a deal.
That's a delicious hamburger or steak or whatever. And so that's really kind of how I got out of that stuff was but from a very young age, school was a huge trigger for me, which is probably why I didn't enjoy school for most of the part most of the time.
And then go on out to eat but everything else, I mean I was a pretty extroverted kid like nobody really knew other than my family and for sure the principal and my teacher, since I was in the office every day.
Okay.
I want to go back to social anxiety for a second. When you reflect back at your formative years, where did that come from?
Again, fairy tale that you tell yourself is Steve and Sandra and Brian are the life of the party. And so I'm going to drink so I can relax so I can be the life of the party too.
The reality is if all of us were stone cold sober, we'd all feel a little awkward around each other and that's absolutely fine. But I think that that kind of facade of the social butterfly is really a fairy tale and it's very, very rare.
I think a lot of us have levels of anxiety if we're in places where especially you know we're uncomfortable. Maybe it's not our peer group, maybe as you said it's just too many people maybe there's a stress element to it.
So whether you're an elementary school kid or college or older, and now you're in the social setting that revolves around alcohol, understanding which type of kind of personality you are I think is very, very empowering.
I think I learned this about 30 something years ago, man.
I only learned this about four years ago so otherwise I would time travel back and let little Kevin know.
That's right. Yeah, well now I have an opportunity to coach my kids on that and coach their buddies on that. You know and that is like a sports coach, coach a team on that or coach a new firefighter on that.
So we can get nerdy and we can go into state versus trait anxiety and stuff like that like it's really interesting stuff right especially when we look at the correlation between that and the possibility of PTS or PTSD, you know so organizationally,
we should absolutely have somebody that's looking at state and trait anxiety and be able to even define what those things mean, and then understand how how that impacts our people.
Right and hide it under the budget item of retention. Great. Right, that's that's going to retain people and you're going to have healthier and happier folks, you know and so, but I think you're right like the conversations that we're finally having now of like, of course
you have butterflies in your stomach dude it's the first day of school, or of course you have your butterflies in your stomach like it's the first time you've ever played that sport.
Or whatever or yeah you're nervous because it's the, you know, the championship game or whatever like we can start to put words to that and it de stresses that environment and I think that that I think you know my folks did a great job of that overall.
I just never really realized like even as a kid you just get to make a choice throughout the day, you get to make lots and lots of choices and you get to choose your mindset.
And you get to stop thoughts that aren't productive, and you get to chase ones that are and process all different sorts of emotions and as a kid man it's really really hard because, you know, finally we're, we're having that conversation and that's really you know
one of the impetus reasons why I went back to school was I started having people that would take a firefighter craftsmanship class.
Be like, dude, that was amazing.
Can you come teach my 10 year old baseball team that that I coach.
And I'm like, well I can, but I don't want to mess them up like I need some formal education to be able to go cross that gap you know because I know emergency responders are already messed up right so there, you know, there's something to arrive where they're like
yeah I want to go do that job every day you know and so that's that was really kind of that final straw of, and my wife being like would you please just stop talking about it and just go do it you'd already be done if you had just done it, you know, and so.
But I think that those are the conversations that are, is your organization having those conversations is your organization having a conversation with a professional about what is anxiety mean how to different people process that, how do we create cultures
and environments that can help people I'm not trying to like, I'm not talking snowflake the fire service. I'm talking about how do we create cultures and environments where they can go out and do the thing that we said we were going to do to the utmost level
of our skill. Right. And if you have a culture where you're attacking the probie and they got a, they can't sit down all day and they don't know shit until the day after they're off probation and now all of a sudden they're nighted.
I don't think that's going to make any sense to me like that nonsense has to stop, you know, I'll get on my soapbox all day on that of like yes you got to earn your spot. I'm not talking about that, but I bet you that kid has pulled more holes and you probably have
especially if you're treating them like that. You know, and so like, let them teach you something. Put your ego aside.
You know, let them maybe teach you something in humor performance because hopefully they've had some exposure to this over the years, whether they were an athlete or maybe they got it in high school from a teacher that was into this sort of stuff or whatever.
Right. Like that next generation has a lot more education in regards to emotions, emotional intelligence for sure. And things like anxiety or introvert versus extrovert like it, it's really, really good stuff.
It's interesting you talk, you said the phrase snowflake, the fire department by putting in human performance, you know, elements, because this is I think the result, the, the stark reality and people are going to hate me saying this but it's fucking true.
There's a lot of cowardice in the fire service. I'll give you a perfect example, blocking fitness standards.
Like in Florida, our firefighter certification is labeled. It's called minimum standards, AKA this is as shit as you should ever be your entire fucking career.
And in that you do push ups, you run stairs, you know, take holes, you drag dummies, you do combat challenges. You are required to be a tactical athlete.
And then this conversation of changing the work week or they'll never go for it, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's basically the rhetoric of the coward because the alternative is, I'm going to fucking stand up for my people.
I trained to save complete strangers when I do all my firefighter evolutions. I'm going to put the same diligence and courage into advocating for the men and women because I'm tired of going to fucking firefighter funerals.
So you're not snowflaking the fire service. You're putting the bar back up. You're making it harder for yourself.
Now you're demanding an environment that allows you to perform at a higher level. But you're saying I want to be a better firefighter.
I want it to be harder again. I want to be held to a standard every year because not only am I going to be a better firefighter, there's a much greater chance that I'm going to have a long and healthy retirement.
And it's a much better chance that I'm not going to pass on some god awful childhood disease to the children that I create with my partner. You know what I mean? So these are all this is a courageous action by asking your employer to make an environment that allows you to perform at a higher level.
And the opposition to that is pure fucking cowardice.
I completely agree with you. What very well said, and I have no interest in the race to average, right? Like the race down to be an average, whatever nonsense standard or agency that puts a thing on your rig or whatever.
Like, okay, yeah, there's probably value to some of that sort of stuff. But if we look at standards from a basic firefighter skill set, you know, the volunteer in the middle of America has the exact same basic skill certification requirement that somebody at the FDA and the White House.
That doesn't make any sense to me. Those are two very different built environments. First off, right? Like the resource requests. But the reality is when somebody calls 911 and on the Easter Plains of Colorado, and you have a volunteer fire department that shows up and they do the best that they can.
The person that's calling 911 doesn't expect less service than what we try to provide here in Northern Colorado, right? Or at FDNY or wherever, whatever department, you know, and so that's the reality of the job.
But again, I have no interest in racing to the bottom, you know, like a price cut mentality on humor performance or taking care of ourselves or our people or the community that we serve.
I'm not interested in that at all. And it does. It comes down to being the one. And, you know, the reality is, you know, a lot of the white shirts and the chiefs and stuff like that, they're smoke. They're exhausted.
They've been they've been fighting for things along the way, or they've been fighting for their own political gain, potentially, you know, you're nasty stories across the country.
Like those guys are exhausted, too. And so, you know, there was a video just the other day where a chief of department resigned because of an untenable political environment.
And he did what he said he was going to do. Like it violated his values enough where he said, I can't I apologize. And you saw a whole room full of dudes behind him that were completely devastated, but also completely supported that decision.
And that's what we need. It doesn't have to be that grandiose, but we have to have that conversation of like, hey, why why are we turning off the recruit cylinder at an SVA confidence maze?
How come we're turning that off? Have we ever had somebody that's had an issue in a fire where their bottle has turned off with all the safety standards that are in all air packs now?
We had that happen. Well, if it did. Okay, how come? Oh, it's because their cylinder wasn't turned all around. It was just barely tracked.
Okay, so let's let's fix that. But why are we turning the thing off on a kid who's it's the first time he's ever been in an SBA confidence maze?
Because now you just damaged him forever. And now he ripped his face piece off and might not ever mentally get out of that.
And if you don't believe me, if you have an SVA confidence maze, which you probably do at your fire department, just go around.
And if you're, you know, acting lieutenant or whatever, or the boss that day be like, hey, we're going to go train at the SBA confidence maze and just watch people's face faces, right?
They're hairs going to stand up. They're going to get all sweaty. They're going to be nauseous. Well, how come? Because that's what a training scar looks like.
Because some a-hole who had it done to him and thought it was hilarious that he got to do it to somebody else in a position of less power.
I'm going to go turn off your bottle. That's nonsense. And it's still happening all the time. You know, like there's a really easy example for us to stand up and say, why are we doing this?
We do that all the time when the chief of department says, hey, we're going to do this.
The very first question that all firefighters across the world ask is why.
And you better be able to answer it. You can't just be like, oh, you guys always push back, you know, like you have to be able to answer the question why.
And so if we say, hey, I think that we should bring in a breath coach that talks about like the impact of ventilation and breathing on our ultimate performance.
And I just saw a thing on Facebook the other day that, you know, there's a college football team that it showed this coach on the screen and it said breath coach.
It's a D1 program football. And like the rhetoric that was spewed about why do they need a breath coach and all this stuff.
It's like, well, like we could go on and on and on about the importance of breath, you know.
And so I'm not trying to make everything all we will we will hippie dippy baloney by any means. But man, if if these multi multi million dollar or multi billion dollar organizations of all professional sports are doing all of this human performance stuff, then why are we doing that with our people that are expected to perform in the toughest environments that we've ever seen in the fire, the built environment based on what's burning under more and more.
You know, staffing demands and mandatory over times and longer shift hours. And why aren't we looking at all that sort of stuff? And it's if it's because it's money related.
That is not an answer. And I think that you've done a great job of kind of answering why that's not an answer. That's an excuse.
And a lot of that stuff is actually completely free to harness. And so I think that I think you're spot on.
Speaking of breath, this was another thing you talk about, you know, the Academy and the expectations at the front door and I went to school. Oh, two, oh, three, oh, two, two, oh, four. I think it was anyway.
And it had actually had a great, great fire Academy, great EMT score. It was excellent. But the only time anyone ever really talked about breath in any way, shape or form was skip breathing, which I used all the way through to the end of my career.
I thought that was a great functional firefighter thing, you know, especially if you're climbing multiple stairs before you even, you know, go to work. It's a great way of conserving air.
But more recently, and I've had, you know, Patrick McCowan on and Wim Hof and some of these real breath gurus.
It kind of hit me.
When you're in a structure fire, the only air you have access to on the entire planet is what's strapped to your back.
And yet, as we mentioned, there's a there's a fight against fitness standards. So cardiovascular, you know, efficiency and capacity. And then we don't talk about breath work, whether it's the mental state, whether it's simply the actual breath itself.
So talk to me about that element, because I mean, apart from, you know, underwater diving welders, firefighters are pretty much the only other, you know, profession on the planet where day in day out, we are relying simply on a cylinder of air on our back.
And that is it whether you're in the Grenfell fire, or, you know, wherever you are, that's all you fucking have. So the importance of fitness, the importance of breath work, the importance of that relaxed kind of mind that empty not empty, but the calm mind is so so important for us in our profession specifically, especially if you're in an ideal age environment.
Yeah, not I mean, that's why I really enjoyed talking to you. I got all these notes right written down here, you know, but you're spot on. And I think, you know, with us in the fire service specifically, we have that finite air supply on our back, you know, and so that 45 minute bottle, which most departments are running, like, how long does that bottle actually last for you on a training environment?
Okay, so 18 to 22 minutes, probably, you know, to be able to have good proper air management. Well, how long does it last in an environment where your brain has this massive sympathetic nervous system dump, and it's into fight or flight because maybe you slept like crap, let's keep tying it back to sleep.
So now you're already working against yourself. So your respiration rate is a lot higher, your heart rate is a lot higher, even though you might not be doing anything. And so now that that cylinder might last to 12 minutes, 15 minutes, I don't know, right, like those are things that you should know.
And so then we add in this whole thoracic load capacity thing, and there's a massive body of research on thoracic load capacity. And it's really tied to rucking. And so the rock go rock, like Peter T has work on rocking Michael Easter's conversation about rocking has gotten a
lot of really good stuff. And so when we correlate rock, which is just a weighted backpack, weighted load on your back to the thoracic load capacity research, and it's decreasing VO two max by 35% right from the get, just because you have a weighted back backpack on.
So that's essentially the exact same kilograms or poundage as your SCBA air pack. But you also have all of this other sensory deprivation stuff on with our other PPE, right, you got this heavy helmet on and you got this heavy coat on that's full of crap in your pockets
and these pants and boots and gloves that you don't really have good dexterity. That's all stress response and now you've increased your core body temperature, and you haven't even had an opportunity to go do work yet.
And so that's why breath is so important. And that's why mobility work is so important, you know, so like I talked about this morning, I'm like, good God, I got hit by a two by four, what happened to me right is, you know, if my container is really, really tight.
And if you move your ribs, like your ribs are movable, they're like little bucket handles and in between each rib, you have that intercostal muscles. And that's a muscle like any other muscle, it can be trained, it can be stretched, it can be really, really tight, you know, so like sometimes you get a side stitch, right, that might just be like a cramping intercostal muscle essentially or like, golly, I don't think that's chest pain, but like, in between my ribs hurts like hell yeah that's an intercostal muscle telling you like, hey, you coughed too hard or you sneezed or whatever.
And you just hurt yourself, but you can you can intentionally use mobility work to make the container more flexy. Right. And so now you have a bigger title volume, you have more efficiency like as a machine, if you're a human machine, think of it that way.
But if I put an air pack on and I crank my straps down and I crank my waist belt down, or, you know, for the East Coast dudes where they're cool to cool to wear these, the weight belt, whatever, like they're still cranking their shoulder straps down now they're all cofosed.
And you got bad posture like I typically have anyways now I'm really cofosed and I'm bent over like, it's really hard for me to breathe.
And that's, that's a thing right there like I don't even need a breath coach okay go out and do some stupid ass thrusters. And can you breathe at the bottom of that front squat.
Can you breathe down there just holding that load and not really you want to try to get out of that maybe okay well now you can work on that because you're chaotic and you have a hard time breathing in that, that bottom front squat, or when I raise overhead, I have a really hard time breathing on full extension.
Okay, well, it's because my container can't really move around too much so there's like, there's so many avenues to chase this breath coach stuff that has nothing to do with like sitting on the mountaintop and chanting Ohm over and over, you know, and so there's there's a lot of stuff there, or like hey we're going to a cardiac arrest of a whatever
age patient. And like, are you even aware that you're super amped. Are you even aware that your heart rate like if you wear a wearable take a look at your, your wearable next time you run an actual like real 911 call.
Right, what did you feel like that's your nervous system talking to you man, you know, and that's a totally normal response that's what it's supposed to do it's there to keep you alive.
Okay, and so, can I breathe myself down into the optimal performance zone. Absolutely. Well, how do I do that do I do that by panting with my mouth open. Absolutely not that's going to make everything way worse you're probably already doing that because of a stress
problem. Right, so like a breath coach there, or just breath education breathing through my nose, lower and down using some version of a box protocol, but understanding co2 tolerance and like, I mean this is a pretty, pretty deep slope and this
is really kind of where I started to dive initially on this quest for figuring out humor performance and how to teach it and breath is definitely my jam. We do a lot of breast stuff over at firefighter craftsmanship for that tactical athlete to not only perform on
the scene, but also to perform at home when you're helping your kid with their homework, or you're having that conversation with your partner, or you're getting ready to go to the fire station and today man you just feel like real jittery like what's going on.
How can I use breath so I can show up and do my thing that I need to do. How can I use breath to fall back asleep after a call, like all of that stuff again costs $0, but you got to be able to go out and do a little bit of research or find some resources
to help you. And that is not, that is not baby in the next generation right that's empowering them to go out and kick ass because that is the job is the job is to not suck. Right, and we want our people to retire happy healthy and strong.
And if they've been breathing incorrectly for 2030 years.
That's what we're going to. So we need to teach them how that works how they breathe under stress we need to have people watching them on the training environment. We need to have them do self assessments, like all of that sort of stuff do it while you're doing your
workout, how are you breathing other different positions that you can't breathe in.
And what does that do to your mindset when you can't breathe at the bottom of that stupid thruster or you can't breathe at some point during the burpee or whatever, like, and then you can attack those things using very simple protocols on essentially
stretching mobility to get better at that stuff but we have to understand the science of the finite air supply it's easy for us to talk about air management.
It's really hard for us to actually provide one on one coaching and things like that to ourselves or to somebody else if we don't understand just the relationship of when I put weight on my back, because it smashes my container that my VO two max instantly
is decreased.
It's just the reality of it.
I'm sorry to ask that because I hadn't heard that specific study when it came to the thoracic lobe but it makes perfect sense of anyone who's trapped a weight to their back whether it's a pack whether it's a weight vest obviously our law enforcement community.
It does I mean it compresses it pushes down and that again is resistance, inefficiency therefore sapping your strength and your ability to to oxygenate.
Yeah, and that leads to production, which is the thing we want to do right like all the fun is inside there in the ideal age environment, you know, so yes I need to have good fitness so that way I don't go through my cylinder faster, whatever your rehab protocols are I can get
back to work quicker.
And I'm not sitting over at the ambulance and rehab. Right, because all the funds in there. But also when I'm in there I want to do a bunch of work, you know, whether that's on primary search, or you find somebody and you got to get them out.
You know, you're doing fire suppression and trying to knock that down and save the people stuff like all of that stuff applies, and it is all tied to breath and oxygenation of the tissue and co2 tolerance is a big big deal for us with the fight out air supply
and air quality. So I have a higher co2 tolerance. It means I process oxygen a little bit better, but I breathe less. And so that similar on my back is going to last longer. And there you can get down a whole rabbit hole of apnic holds and things like that on how to get better co2
tolerance, but also understanding that that's going to change three o'clock in the morning and a snowy and you haven't slept for 28 hours.
So that's going to be a problem, but your co2 tolerance isn't going to be like when you're just sitting on your couch watching Tiger King.
Well, this is what's interesting too because I, you've got one camp that's that's kind of again, the, I would say the cowardly camp where the recruitment crisis because these Gen Z kids don't want to work, you know, which is absolute bullshit now is the fact that we have 70% of our
population obese or overweight part of the problem. Absolutely. But again, that's a systemic failure that we need to address separately. But I've had a lot of respected leaders in the fire service say no, I mean, these candidates are just smart now.
The fit ones that are coming in are extremely fit. When you and I tested for the fire service, we were kind of still on the tail end of the fairy tales fueled by the post 9-11 push, which is an absolutely honorable reason to go into uniform. Having seen such tragedy, you know, FDNY and the surrounding areas.
But what's happening now is these kids understand what an environment for human performance looks like. So you have an 18, 19, 20 year old kid that's writing down what is it like to be a firefighter and they're seeing all the cool shit, but they're also seeing the work hours, the mandatory
overtime, the divorces, the cancers, the Alzheimer's, the all the things that we've discussed today. And they're doing, you know, what any of us would have done 20 years ago, had it been presented that that and go, that doesn't sound as good as I thought it was. But that's not the job. That's the working environment. So this whole bullshit about you knew what you signed up for bollocks, because there are departments that work 24 72 have for decades now, they have a great mental health program that have a fitness program that have, you know, all kinds of things.
And that is not the same environment as for example, Marion County, where I live, where the guys barely make minimum wage 56 hour work week, no Kelly mandatory is out the yin yang, very, very different environment. So it's not what you signed up for. The good news is in the middle of this crisis, is if we just fix the things that are broken with the money that we're bleeding downstream and create an environment that puts our men and women home when they should be.
Arguably one out of four days 24 72. Then you create a performance environment. Now you attract these motivated young wannabe firefighters and be like, well, shit, this is the environment I want to work in. You're talking about mental health from day one, you're talking about human performance and breath work and strength conditioning. Absolutely sign me up. So same job, the right working environment. So I think this is what's so exciting about these conversations is we're going past the moment where we're going to be able to do that.
So we're talking about the mental health conversation. We haven't even touched on that today, but we're looking at the human performance conversation. Because for example, my last place next to me was a 28 story hotel. Those elevators go down, I've got 100 pounds of gear on my back, which is a normal high rise strip.
So I can send 28 stories and they're not even residential stories. As we know, you've got conference rooms. So you're talking even more than that 30 plus before I even go to work. That is a profession that requires elite human performance. So I am excited by this because I think the progressive departments are going to turn a corner.
And then we're going to see a massive influx of young people once again being fired up to be a firefighter, ENT or paramedic.
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think if you use the, well, that's the way we've always done it. That's not an answer. Just say, hey, you know what? Like, I'm glad you're asking that question, but I don't have a dog in that hunt and I don't actually care about that. So I'm not going to tell you the answer. Like you can go find it or, oh, that's a pretty good question. I'm going to help you find the answer to that or whatever.
But when you, when you find the answer, then come back and teach me, you know, that's okay to, to say that like, Hey, I'm not going to carry that thing, but you find out and let me know. I think you're onto something.
And then also if you, if you have an organization or you are a part of that organization, you say, well, you knew what you signed up for. It's the same thing, right? Like, did you, did you actually educate me that or did you just yell me the fire Academy and yell and make me do pushups? Because I didn't throw the ladder.
You know, like, did I sign up for that or, oh, are we at an environment here where I don't even have the ability to change the culture here and say, well, what if there's a better way to do it? Right.
And so I think that all of that stuff is nonsense. And if you hear that stuff, especially from the upper management or upper brass, that's a, that's a scary thing, you know, and is it because they're too tired to deal with it? Or is it because they actually believe that of like, well, this is the way that we do it here.
And if you don't like it, you can leave. Well, I mean, you have a, you have an opportunity to, to make that choice. But also then if you say that nonsense and you're like, hey, well, how come everybody's leaving our department or why does nobody apply here? Well, there's your answer.
You know, so like it's, it's really, really simple in my mind on that.
Absolutely. Well, I want to throw some closing questions at you before I let you go. If you've got time.
Yeah, absolutely. Sorry. My wife was calling me. I'm sorry. I'm a bozo and I didn't have my, I didn't follow my dumb ass policy. My phone was on.
I was just uploading a picture of me in front of a structure fire. Give me a second, James.
All right. The first one I love to ask, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend? It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
Yeah, I'm a big old nerd on, on reading. I got a bunch of books right here behind me, you know, that I'm a huge fan of. I think a great book that I'm really into. I mean, I like all of Seth Godin stuff.
There's something way outside the fire service. Seth Godin is a marketing genius, but he's a massive thought leader. I just read a book on vacation for like the fourth time. And every time I read it, I'm like, I've never read this book before because I learned so much.
I think that's an amazing book. I like Dr. Benjamin Hardy stuff a lot. All the books by Dr. Hardy. He's a organizational psychologist, but a really, really good book from him is called The Gap and the Gain and How to Live in the Gain Mindset versus the Gap Mindset.
And I think for us in the fire service, specifically, we're big time in the Gap Mindset right now of like, oh, woes me versus, hey, here's where we've come. Especially if we just look at the humor performance or mental health side of the thing, we've come a long way in a really short amount of time.
Like, let's just celebrate that and keep making it better. And probably my all time favorite book is Legacy by James Kerr about the New Zealand All Blacks.
And so just how to build high performing cultures, how to empower your people and how to prove it.
Beautiful. What about films and documentaries?
Yeah, you know, I think most of my film life over the last 14 years has been like Pixar. You know, with the kids. You know, none are really coming to the top of mind, which kind of surprises me because there's definitely some documentaries out there.
I like documentaries that make you think, especially in relation to humor performance. I've recently watched a documentary which freaking blew my mind on grounding and like electrical currents and the negative charge from the earth and stuff.
That's like pretty outside the box. But man, oh man, from that, I chased a bunch of research in relation to grounding. And that's literally just go outside with your shoes off.
And all of us know what that feels like. You know, we were just recently at the beach. We don't have a beach in Colorado, but we were just luckily enough to go to the beach.
And when you walk on the beach in the sand, you feel like systemically, you feel different. And so there's a pretty, there's some parts in there where they're kind of filling for time.
But the overall concept of that is pretty amazing. But really anything for me that has something to do with like humor performance, psychology, sports psychology, I'm into watching for sure.
Beautiful. Well, the next question, is there a person or are there people that you would recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
A thousand percent. And I've been lucky that I've had a chance to talk to a couple of them on firefighter craftsmanship, you being one. So luckily we get you every time you talk on this podcast.
I think, you know, recently we got a chance to talk to a Canadian firefighter by the name of JD Miller.
She is involved in firefighter syndrome research, which is stemmed out of Dr. Fry or Fru. I always mess up his name.
Chris Fru. There you go. I wasn't even close. Chris Fru. Yeah. So the operator syndrome stuff, JD Miller. I would absolutely encourage you to talk to her. You know, Dina Ali, we had her on as well.
I like those people that are out there. I love basic skills training, you know, like none of this stuff is an excuse to not be good at forcing doors or search or whatever.
Like this is just that next level to make it even better and more impactful and empowering ourselves and our people. And so I would talk to Chief Mike West.
He's chief of front range fire. He came from South Metro, which is a big department in the southern metro area of the state of Colorado.
He's doing some absolutely awesome stuff with a really, really small group of people, you know, so came from a huge organization down to a smaller organization. Chief West is crushing it. So, I mean, I could go on and on and on.
We're very fortunate that we have some some cool things in the community as the fire service is really, really small, as you know.
Absolutely. Yeah, I had JD on with Chris a couple years ago now. I think when before his book came out, obviously Dina has been on before. She's going to be coming on again when fire engineering finally publishes her book.
I'm so glad it's not published. But that's a whole different conversation. All right. Well, the next question, what do you do to decompress?
No, I enjoy spending time with my family for sure. And I think, you know, for me, I like to to intentionally have some space built in. And so like, I'm pretty big into like yoga, nidra.
And I just follow a script that I have on Spotify to help kind of decompress. I like, you know, doing some sort of relevant fitness, but that's not always appropriate.
You know, you don't always have to just do more burpees. And so for me, I think my big thing that I like to decompress with is just enjoying the amazing family that I'm blessed to have.
And, you know, just just try to be an integral part and laugh at the hilarious stuff. I love laughing at stuff for sure.
I've said this a lot recently. A lot of times when we're in union negotiations, we're chasing money. But when we take a step back, the ultimate currency is time with our family and, you know, flogging the dead horse to the 24 72, allowing us to be with our family more.
And obviously that then leading to a properly staffed fire department with mandatories once in a while when a wildfire avalanche, whatever the thing is happens. You know, this is it. This is I think we sometimes we lost our way with benefits and pensions and all this shit like the ultimate currency is being there when your son or daughter looks for you at a softball game or a ballet recycle or whatever it is, there is no greater value than that. So I think this is another important part of this conversation is to fight for time with your family.
I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, after 20 years, I, you know, our oldest is 14. But I'm, you know, I'm getting tired of missing stuff. I'm getting tired of, you know, we essentially have four summers left, you know, with with him.
And so like when you that just gave me goosebumps and I say it all the time, right? Like, you got to optimize your time. You know, my wife and I were lucky enough to just go. Her and I went on a quick trip and just a quick getaway. And that stuff is really important to and we have that conversation with our kids because we got to go to Mexico and they were pissed that they couldn't come with us. Justifiably so. But it's like, hey, here's the here's the reality, right? If this doesn't work out with me and her, then we can't do all of this amazing stuff.
That we have an opportunity to do right. And we have that same conversation of like, well, hey, dad, why you got to go to work again? You know, it's like, well, because we got to eat, you know, and we're very, very fortunate in the gifts that we've been provided. And and now it's my turn to go give back. And it's my turn to do these things that I'm choosing to go right. Yes, I'm choosing to leave you, especially as little kids. You know, it's hard to have that conversation of why do why are you leaving me again? I'm trying to get you to go.
I'm choosing that. But I'm also choosing to maybe make somebody else's day a little bit better, you know, and I think that being intentional with all of those things is very, very important. And if it reaches a point where you don't want to miss that thing anymore, you are a marketable asset, right? Like you have amazing skills that you've you've gained from Merge Services.
Go out and kick ass somewhere else. The reality is none of us are going to be billionaires, you know, and so you're going to have to do something. So you might as well choose something you really want to do and then try to be that linchpin, you know, try to be that artist within whatever space you're in, whether you create your own thing and you go and you crush it as being a podcaster and you're an OG in space, right? Or you decide, hey, I want to be a backseat firefighter and that's what I want to do. You know, then then be an artist.
Within that and take a lot of pride and value and coach other people and create cultures and organizations that you actually want to be a part of. That's that's the best thing you can possibly do.
I couldn't agree more. And I love the firefighter position. I never even promoted out of that. And if I was still in, I wonder if I even would have, you know, stepped up at all because again, you talk about the Fire Academy. That's what we dreamed of becoming.
I didn't dream in Fire Academy of being a panel or standing outside with a radio in my hand. So once I got in, I had this this, oh, when I've been on for 10 years, I'm going to promote. And I just kept getting to that point.
I'm like, nah, nah, man, I still want to be on the tour. I still want to have the saw in my hand or I want to be first in, you know, with the line, whatever it is. And it's not a, you know, anything other than as you said, that's where the fun you said it perfectly.
The fun is in the ideal age. And that's exactly it. And I just still chase that. So it was the universe that kicked me out. The fire service is like, look, some someone needs to talk from the outside, because as you can tell, when you're inside, shit doesn't seem to get changed.
So get out there and, you know, pick up a bullhorn. So I never thought I was going to be doing this. But as you said, the skill set that we accumulate, I don't think people realize, you know, the potential, you know, I mean, you could be anything, anything.
And most of us are not going to be chasing the mighty dollar, finding another way of making the world better. When you find yourself outside the fire service, for whatever reason, is the same exact mission. You're just wearing a different costume. That's it.
Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, be a leader. And so but also making sure that you're valuing those relationships that truly matter, right? The job, if I leave right now, if I call and I say, hey, I'm not coming back.
The job, they're going to fill my spot with somebody else. It's the reality of the job. The job has to go on. And they have to respond to 911 calls, you know? And so what do I have if I leave the job? So you can be super into the job and go to regional conferences and all that stuff. I love it, right? I was a founding member of the Mile High Firefighters Conference. And so I love that stuff.
But you got to make sure that you foster those relationships that are outside the job. And those are the hard ones, you know? That's really, really hard to go home and maybe you're in that space there with that relationship that you got to really, really work hard on it.
But you got to do it, you know? You have to do it. And you got to make sure that your identity is more than whatever your occupation is. And you can be really damn good at it.
And you can take a lot of pride and ownership and all those sorts of things in it. And you should. But make sure that you identify as a human being first. And these are the things that I'm really proud of. And these are my values. And then you stick to your guns on that sort of stuff. And then let all the other nonsense fall where it may.
Absolutely. Well, for people listening, I'm sure they'd love to learn more about you, reach out to you, but also see all the resources that you have. Where are the best places online to find those?
So Firefighter Craftsmanship podcast, we're cranking out a weekly episode. And so that's been a lot of fun. And we're talking a lot in this human performance space. And so really kind of pushing the fringes there. And so that's been a lot of fun at Firefighter Craftsmanship podcast. You can hit us up at firefightercraftsmanship.com.
We also sign up for a weekly email blaster where we give you all kinds of resources and stuff like that. We have lots of free training on the site as well, as well as some virtual opportunities that you can take from us or even bringing us in if you would like to.
So we have classes, you know, that it's just me that might come in and show up. Or I do have a cadre of people where we can come in and teach a couple of day hands on class as well. And so a lot of fun things coming down the pipe for sure in relation to human performance.
And firefightercraftsmanship.com is a great spot to see that. Or we're active on Instagram, Facebook, or you can hit me up on LinkedIn at Kevin Housley.
Beautiful. Well, Kevin, I wanted to say thank you so much. We've been all over the place. I deliberately stayed away from mental health specifically because I think this is hopefully where we're going to go one day.
The mental health conversation will be the norm, you know, that we'll all be talking about it. We'll all create an environment for people to be vulnerable and courageous.
But it's the human performance side that I think is the next phase. So I want to thank you so much for sharing your wealth of information and also being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yeah, thank you for having me. It was a blast. Nice to see you.