This episode is sponsored by NuCalm.
And as many of you know, I only bring sponsors onto this show
whose products I truly swear by.
Now, we are an overworked and underslept population,
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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 my good friends Casey and Shelby Allen.
Now, I knew these guys before they went into firefighting and nursing respectively,
and I watched the impact of the fire service on Casey over the last 10 years,
as well as many other of the members and coaches in my gym that I knew prior to service
and watched kind of get broken down by the working environment.
What makes this episode so important though is Shelby does an incredible job
having a background as herself as a nurse practitioner of telling the environment
of telling the impact on the family of the firefighter work week that we use at the moment.
Marion County right here where I am is 56 hours, no Kelly, but they have frequent mandatory as well.
So she's able to tell the story of what that does to the children, what that does to the spouse,
especially when the spouse is a professional and has their own work that they have to get to as well.
Now on top of this, Casey recently lost his father to Parkinson's disease
and has an incredible fundraising competition called Brick City Battle,
which includes firefighter themed events.
So we talk about that disease, we talk about the crushing loss of his dad,
we talk about how he's honoring his father's memory by fundraising for the Michael J. Fox Foundation,
and so much more.
Now before he gets this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 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.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Casey and Shelby Allen. Enjoy.
Well, Casey and Shelby Allen, I want to start by thanking you both so much for driving over here
and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you. It really is. Yeah, we're excited to be here.
All right. Well, I would love to start the very beginning of each of your journeys
and then we'll quickly kind of get to where you met, which is pretty much where I met you guys too.
So, Shelby, let's start with you.
Tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
Wow. OK, so I really like to say that I am a Ocala Florida native, but my family truly is.
But I was actually born in Athens, Georgia, at St. Mary's Hospital there.
And that was because my parents, by the time I was born, because I'm the third of three girls,
by the time I was born, my dad had a van conversion business in a tiny, tiny town in Royston, Georgia, which is like rural.
I mean, rural. So I was born there. And like I said, I was the third of three girls.
My mom actually had another child before, but my parents were in a plane crash. And so she lost her first baby.
Oh, my goodness. I know. Here in Ocala. But anyway, so around the time I was three, my parents actually divorced.
And when they divorced, me and my mom moved back to Ocala, because that's where her family was from.
So I kind of grew up as like an only child because my two other sisters were each five years older than me.
So, you know, they were kind of grown doing their own thing.
Some wanted to stay with my dad or were going back and forth, but I was primarily just with my mom.
So she kind of had to figure stuff out. You know, my dad was paying child support and that sort of thing.
But she had already become she was a nurse. She got that prior to my parents being together.
But she kind of had to figure it out. She wasn't working when my parents were together.
He made millions of dollars doing what he was doing. And so she was kind of the stay at home mom.
And then things really changed when they got a divorce. And so I learned kind of firsthand.
I'd say that's probably my first lesson in life is that, you know, you are sometimes on your own and you don't have a lot of support.
So I kind of realized early on that, you know, she took care of me. She did a wonderful job as a single kind of a single mom.
And she used her nursing career for that. I'd say she was definitely passionate. She was an ER nurse.
She was back in the days when you could kind of be a wild ER nurse and, you know, really take care of patients and not worrying about documentation as much and clicking boxes and doing all this stupid stuff.
So she was a wonderful, wonderful nurse. But she that's kind of, you know, I was raised with her doing 12 hour shifts, sometimes nights, sometimes days, getting up in the morning, getting me ready for school.
And then her going back to sleep after I went to school and just watching her kind of work really hard and do all that on her own.
I said, you know, I'm never going to have to rely on somebody when I get older like that financially, you know, that sort of thing.
And so I'm going to that was exactly what I did from the time I could kind of make the decision of what I wanted to do with my life.
So I said, I'm going to I knew I wanted to be a nurse. I did the host in high school. I did the, you know, whatever electives that kind of came along with all that.
And she kind of supported me through all that. And then after that, I went to nursing school and did really well, enjoyed it.
And that was difficult. Casey and I were together at that point in time. And then, you know, after nursing school, I got into it and it was a lot different than the nursing career that my mom had.
Was it CF you went to?
Yeah. And they make it difficult. You know, I always say nursing school was more difficult than my nurse practitioner.
They they they don't want you. They want excellent nurses and they want people that really care.
And so they kind of drill it into you and make it a difficult program. And I didn't like it during the time, but I think now I really appreciate it.
So, but yeah, like I said, I got out of school and I started nursing and I loved it.
And but I just realized really quickly what health care was becoming.
A lot of politics involved a lot of more worried about the money and the metrics and this and that instead of really worrying about patient care or worrying about the nurses that were taking care of these people.
And so that really was kind of tough for me to to realize.
And I kind of shifted a little bit and decided, you know, I wanted to continue on with my career as a nurse practitioner.
So I went to school back to school and I think I finished what?
Two thousand two thousand nineteen. So I finished my my N.P. as a family health or a family nurse practitioner.
So and I've loved it so far.
I can totally see what you talked about as far as being independent, being forging your own path from what you experienced when you were younger, because when I met you, you could see that.
You know, I mean, both of you together, but that kind of I know I mean, you just I remember you went and in nursing and he just was like, all right, I'm already in this track.
Let me just go all the way to nurse practitioner. So it was pretty amazing to watch.
Yeah, I am. I really enjoy it. I enjoy nursing.
I really loved bedside nursing. I just could not stand the politics that come with it.
And I don't like worrying about that sort of thing when you need to be focusing on the patient and you have, you know, a bunch of stupid shit that just doesn't really matter as far as people coming in worrying about our whiteboards being, you know, filled out.
When you have a patient that, you know, you need to sit by for the entire shift, making sure that like they're not going to die and they want to come in and be worried about your whiteboard being filled out.
Priorities are off.
Priorities are off. And so that was just very frustrating as a nurse.
And I, of course, you see it. You're going to see it no matter what. I see it as a nurse practitioner, but I have a lot more autonomy now. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
What, if any, discussions have you had with your mom on how nursing used to be versus how it is now?
Well, so my mom actually passed away. She passed away in 2022 from complications of alcoholism.
So, but prior to that, she was working and she, but she, she kind of had to get out of it, you know, as her health started to decline.
So, but she knew kind of what was, how it was. And she knew that, you know, I wasn't, if I wasn't going to be fulfilled as a nurse and be able to take care of patients the way I really wanted to and the way that she did, then it wasn't worth it.
And then I needed to move on to somewhere where I could feel like I was making a difference and able to take care of patients the way I wanted to.
So, and the way that our patients deserve. So I am going through all my school has been kind of like a tragedy.
I feel like within while I was in nursing school, my dad got really sick. And then after I graduated nursing school, he actually passed away.
And then as I went to my MP school, as I was learning all these things, right after I graduated, so it must have been, sorry, it must have been 19.
No, sorry, it was 22. So, because I had already had Van and then she, she passed away.
And so, I don't know, you know, it was just, it was very difficult. We went through a really rough time. Our children lost three grandparents in about a four year period.
So, but I talked with her a lot, you know, or I talked with her a lot about she was the driving, she knew she was a driving force for why I went into health care.
And she thought I could do whatever, you know, having someone, I cannot say this enough, but having someone that believes in you and thinks that you could like rule the world if you wanted to means everything, because I think that that's always what she was for me.
And so, you know, that is why I just continued to, you know, move up and find something that I was passionate about because having someone that had that confidence in me, allowed me to have confidence in myself.
So, how far back did her alcoholism go? Is it as long as you've been little or is it more recent?
Well, my mom could have a whole podcast of herself. I'm telling you, her story is actually really phenomenal. It's, but anyway, so she grew up, she was from Ocala, her family was here.
They grew up kind of like, I don't know, she's kind of like a bougie. I don't know how you would say it back then, but you know, like what they would have like dinner cocktail, like everything was circular, you know, they would have a cocktail, like a drink, you know, like a drink.
And so, you know, like a drink, you know, like a cocktail, like everything was circular, was kind of around alcohol, like no matter what you did, like you would have a dressing cocktail and you would have a, I don't know.
And so, it was kind of like a family thing that like some sort of drink was always around. And I don't think it was a problem at that point in time.
And this was from when she was like 15, 16 years old, but from then until, you know, her and my dad every night would have a cocktail.
And then I think after, you know, she lost her first baby, that was like her first tragedy. And then I think I got a little bit worse.
That, you know, there's, there wasn't a lot of talk about mental health back then. So there was no sort of coping mechanism for her other than what she always knew, which was alcohol.
And so I think it went from that to her second tragedy, which was losing her high school sweetheart, which was my dad. And I just don't think that she handled that very well.
And so she went from having the life of her dreams on this 80 acre farm in Georgia, growing strawberries in our backyard with her children to being a single mom, working very hard, you know, trying to make ends meet in Ocala by herself.
And that it just kind of got worse. I think when I relied on her very heavily, that was her, she didn't really, she was a functioning alcoholic. She wasn't able to, she couldn't, I, you know, she was my lifeline.
So she had to make it work and that's what was going to happen. So she hit it very well. I don't even, I didn't really realize it because that's what I had grown up with. That's what I thought was normal.
But moving forward, I think once I started to become a teenager, I think that I was the second love of her life. And when I left and I became an adult, I think it really hit hard for her.
And I think that that's probably what kind of, she lost her purpose. I think I was her purpose for a long time. And I think that when I left, it just got much worse and it became all consuming for her.
So I think at that point, you know, it was so apparent to me and I didn't have the tools at the time to handle it or by the time I did and I really understood what was going on, I didn't, I couldn't control it.
She, we had many times where we tried to, I don't know, have an intervention, if you will. But it's difficult. It was really difficult for me and my sisters because we just, you know, we just didn't have the tools to know kind of what to do for her.
And there's not a lot of resources for that sort of situation. So, you know, eventually, you know, and actually what's sad is her sister passed away from alcoholism as well when she was like 16 years old.
And so this is definitely a family history type thing that we have to be cognizant of and tell our children about because as we know, these things run in the family. And so we don't want that to happen.
Or at least we have to have the education to give our children so that they know what the consequences of those sorts of actions are.
I mean, this is what I love about asking guests about, you know, early life and even previous generations is now we're realizing the impact of multi-generational trauma.
And I think, you know, people say, is it nature or nurture? It's like, yes, we know through epigenetics that your genes can literally be changed for the bad or for the good, which is the hope side.
But also, you know, there's a reason for a void. There's a reason that Ohio is the, you know, the hub of the opioid crisis is not just the medication.
It's the lack of industry that was snatched, you know, from all the people in West Virginia and Ohio, whether it was mines or steel industry.
And so you made this void and you got these people struggling and then you bring in this this pill is a legal FDA pill.
And then you end up with the crisis that we have. So, but what's good about this is these conversations, everyone that comes on and shares this, it's kind of cracking the door on learning from the tragedies of, you know, what that happened to our grandparents, our parents, et cetera.
So, and then with that purpose, ties going to university in the summer for the fall, I guess, technically, and I'm already feeling that.
And I'm not, you know, struggling with alcoholism at the moment. So that's going to be crushing. So I can absolutely see how that was, you know, yet another layer.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just difficult. I don't, you know, when as a parent, and I don't think I realized it either until I became a parent, but we are in the trenches of toddlerhood and every everything, everything our life completely revolves around what needs to happen with our children.
And so going from that and then it all all of a sudden just stopping and not having a partner to lean on when that happens. I can't imagine how difficult that would be, you know, and not having, you know, someone to talk to about it.
And I just don't think that I think that in hindsight, I as a parent, as a wife, I'm learning kind of what my mom went through. Unfortunately, now when I really wish that like I knew more then when she was alive, but you know, we can't we can't control those things.
One more question and we'll go to Casey. When your mom was working as a nurse, was she doing days or nights?
She she did a little bit of both that depended on my schedule. So whatever I would say mostly she she would do days and but just kind of depending if I needed to be picked up from school or whatever.
She did some nights, basically when we had a big volleyball bill or something coming through and she's like, all right, well, I need to make a little bit more money. She would work some nights. But I saw it then the toll that that takes on people.
It wasn't pretty. Her she would have, you know, less patience with me, she would have, she'd be drinking more, you know, those sorts of things. And so I, I've seen firsthand exactly what sleep deprivation can do to people, all the people I love around me. So,
Absolutely. Well, let's go to the one that's sitting right next to you. And I'm sure we'll find ourselves on that topic because it comes up quite a bit on the Behind the Shield podcast. So Casey, write the origin story again. Tell me where you were born and tell me what your parents did. How many siblings?
I was born here in Ocala, Florida, actually downtown at what's now Advent Health. It was Monroe. So I have two sisters. I have one sister that's from both parents and then another one from a previous marriage that my father was in.
So my family dynamic was, it was not very close to to Shelby's, which I didn't really know about that side of that family dynamic as a kid, because, you know, you think that all kids parents are together and love each other and whatever.
So I was fortunate enough to, to have parents that were still together. They communicated very well. They're a good team. And it was something that I wanted to be, I wanted to have as a value in my relationship with Shelby, which works very well now. But,
let's see, my mom worked in the court system for the state. She worked for Brad King, which was a state attorney. And he was very close with us and we were close with their family too. So she'd been doing that for a little over 30 years.
She just retired a couple years ago and she's been traveling nonstop with my sister, her sister. And she deserves it. She's, she's a hard worker. She committed so much time to us, to my dad. So my dad was a band director.
And previously before that, after high school, he went into the Navy for a few years. And then after that went to school for music education. He started off here in Ocala at Forest High School and then since moved to Inverness to, to teach at Citrus High School, which he loved.
Kids loved him. He was just, he was an all around, like, he's a goofy guy, easy to talk to, very nice. And at that point he was very passionate about his job. He was, he loved what he did and it showed. So, he did that for probably, I don't know, 15 or so years until he was, he was a very good friend.
He ended up moving to, or moving his teaching to Ocala. And that was about the time that I was in middle school. So he started teaching at Fort King Middle School and then I moved from Osceola in my sixth grade year to Fort King to be with him.
And it was just cool to have him as a teacher and a dad.
But I got to hang out off hours and just goof around at school.
But in addition to that, he was like, he was, well, both my parents were very involved in church, as were we, me and my sister. And we basically lived there. So we had a very strict Christian upbringing. And because we were in church all the time, you know, you don't have to be a Christian.
And because we were in church all the time, you know, you didn't really know anything outside of the church, you know, we're just kind of blinded by what we knew. We're just sheltered.
But my dad ended up being interim music minister for a little while, whenever we were trying to figure out who was going to be the permanent music minister. So he did that a lot.
So it's kind of cool to see him up there, like, you know, flip to him, blah, blah, blah, and then him singing along and just cool seeing him up there.
But I think the dynamic between your mom too and your dad, because your dad was away a lot. So your mom was definitely the one that was more present, right? Because he was working.
Yeah. I mean, it was early mornings because he had to get there a little bit earlier to school and it was in Inverness. So it was about an hour or so away.
So he had to get up super early. I didn't really see him a whole lot. But when I did, you know, he spent as much time as he could with us, especially during summertime.
But yeah, my mom, we had a very strong female presence in our household, which I love because that's what I see in Shelby.
She's a very strong presence. She's very independent, like she's talking about because she kind of had to be.
But my mom, when she was growing up, her father was my biological grandfather was a very abusive man.
And similarly to your parents, I mean, alcohol was big with them. So my grandmother fortunately didn't get into that.
And she was just kind of the victim of an alcoholic. So that does run in our family, too.
But anyway, so she ended up having to be the mother hen of her two sisters. She was the oldest of two.
And so because of that, she had to grow up super early and she was very mature. And she knew what she wanted to do.
She was very strong, strong willed, mentally very tough. And that's she's really who I look up to for mental toughness, really.
But yeah, she she definitely ended up having to take over a lot of the responsibility of us kids because I said, my dad been away to school.
You know, he had band practice in the mornings and at night, especially during marching band season.
There's a lot of extracurricular stuff after school that he had to he had to be a part of and design.
So, yeah, definitely had to. Had more responsibility with us kids, and I was not really a an easy child to he was a pain in the ass,
which which has come through, which has come full circle because one of mine is also a pain in the ass.
Well, you mentioned we did this interview, what was it a week ago?
We just UKC at first, and we'll get into this.
But you were so shot with sleep deprivation that you struggled to even be able to, you know, put a thought process together.
Oh, yeah, I could make a sentence. Yeah, which is which is just good to it.
It's not anything other than illustrating it, which is now here we are.
And you've had, you know, you're on your second day of the 48 and, you know, now obviously with Shelby as well.
But when we talked before, I remember asking you a lot of people I've had on the show that grew up in a very strictly religious household tended to then go the opposite way.
And I use the analogy, you know, when you draw the bow back, you know, like alcohol in the US, it's kind of demonized to 21.
And all of a sudden it's keg stands and beer pong versus Europe where you just introduced to it.
There's no kind of mystique around it. It's just normal.
And, you know, again, if you're not trying to fill a void, you might use it socially, you know, for for your life.
What was your reaction to this religious household?
Did you have an equal and opposite reaction once you got to the college age?
Absolutely. So, like I said, what I knew as a child, I was very sheltered.
You know, the only thing that I knew outside of the church was on TV.
I used to watch TV all the time and movies.
And but I didn't really know what went on in the outside, you know, like outside of the church.
And so because it was so demonized, as you say, to drink after high school, it was just like there's always that what if like you don't know how it's like or what it's like until you actually do it.
And I'm the kind of person that I have to do something to figure it out.
So because it was it was so like taboo and like so, you know, such a sin, I was like, well, maybe I'm going to do this now because it's probably fun and then end up being very fun.
So it kind of went from one extreme to another, where I went from not drinking or even thinking about drinking to like alcoholism.
But it's good. I think I would say it's good. No, no, no, that's not the right word.
I think that because Shelby, your parents, there was alcohol involved in the household that later on in life, you didn't think of it as much as like the Golden Apple or whatever.
Is that the right word? You know, absolutely. You know what I mean? Yeah. As opposed to to mine, where like, you know, if you drink, you're going straight to hell.
You know what I mean? So like, because it was it was around you, you saw the good and the bad, but I didn't know good or bad.
So I wanted to figure that out for myself. And I kind of took off. Kind of unhealthy. Oh, yeah.
This is what I've seen with everything, everything, you know, that in life is there's two types of people.
There's people that just do or don't do something because someone else told them to not do it or do it.
And then you've got the critical thinkers that ask, well, why is this a rule?
You know, and I think once you start asking why and it can be religion, it can be anything, then you can kind of hone in.
OK, this. Wait a second. You're saying that all gays are committing a sin.
James Gearing disagrees with that. We're all God's children. You know, I think a lot of these people are born that way.
And now you're telling them not to be who they are. And I disagree with that personally.
So, you know, then you start for me. OK, well, in my world, this makes sense now.
You know, we'll get to it, but a 56 hour workweek makes no fucking sense to me whatsoever.
So I'm going to throw that in the garbage and then get to how do we get to a healthy workweek for firefighters?
So I think sometimes by trying it and testing it, it allows you then to calibrate your own reality and your own opinion on a certain thing.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everybody has their own opinion and everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
Everyone has their own beliefs. That's why religions kind of touch you with a lot of people because everyone likes their own opinion
and thinks that they're always right. But but yeah, I just think that looking at any concept idea as black and white,
as there is absolutely a right and absolutely wrong is silly.
And I think that I think as any organized religion, most that I've been introduced to mainly has been through him.
Honestly, I didn't grow up in a very I mean, my mom was like a Piscopalian, but by the name of being a Piscopalian,
I couldn't tell you much about what that even meant. So kind of just learning from him and his mom, his mom's taught me quite a bit about about her religion
and being a Baptist and those sorts of things. But there's some things I just can't subscribe to.
I don't believe that you don't do things the way that they they want you to. And then you go straight to hell.
Like that's silly. It kind of sucks if you're born in Nepal and Christianity is the right way. Right.
You know what I mean? That just doesn't. Yeah. We actually we just had that conversation like a day ago.
We're like, how how can you say that this person who doesn't even have any clue of what this religion is, is wrong and is going to go to hell
simply because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I grew up in the church.
I grew up in the Church of England and it was all the drab hymns like, oh God, we love you.
And Eddie Izzard has a great skit on this. He's like, so let me get this straight.
The white Europeans that had all the money and all the power sing the most depressing songs in church and yet the black slaves come up with, you know, gospel.
He's like, so, you know, so I agree with 100 percent. Like if it should be about gratitude, you won the lottery.
I forget how many trillion to one it is that we even exist. Right. And that's your response.
You know, if you don't do it this way, then you go into hell and then, you know, all our songs sound like you're about to take your life.
I mean, you know, so that's what I struggle with genuinely is I would look outside and see this miracle that we live in with nature and the animals and, you know, the wind and the ocean and all these things.
And but then I've got to go into a building that's dark and gloomy and sing these god awful songs that no one has in the right part.
Let's be honest. You know, so. So yeah, that was it.
And I became spiritual, you know, at a young age, I was like, you know, I see God in life.
I see God in relationships with human beings. I don't need a rule book.
Like basically the rule book says, don't be a dick. That's it.
Yeah, it's pretty easy. And I mean, we talk about this all the time, but I'm always going to trust the person that's not going to be a dick because they feel like they shouldn't be a dick instead of the person that is going to act like that or do the right thing because they're scared of going to hell.
So fear, fear is a big driver of religion and and common sense kind of goes out the window whenever you're whenever you're in a specific religion or when you subscribe to a specific religion, because like you're so afraid of doing something that might make more sense than what you're being taught, because I'm going to go to hell if I do that.
You know, if you think a certain way that's off script from what you've been taught in church, like, you know, God forbid you do that. Be a free thinker.
So I don't. Yeah, I don't know. So he went the opposite. I went the opposite way. I want to be a free thinker. I want to, you know, use my brain and use common sense.
What I feel is right, because I feel like inherently everybody wants to be good. You know, everybody knows what's right and what's wrong.
When I say everybody, a lot of people know what's right and what's wrong, whether you are brought up the right way or the wrong way or whatever, or in between.
So, I mean, you just leave it up to them to make the right choices. Your gut feeling is usually the right feeling is, you know, if you do something, you're like, this feels kind of wrong, then you probably shouldn't be doing it.
So, yeah, I love that someone said to me, and this is exactly what I do, you know, just who says you have to take everything of one religion? Like I literally and there's a guy called Wayne Dyer.
They passed away from leukemia about three or four years ago now, but just the spiritual, incredible human being is on Oprah's show a lot.
And ironically, I got into him about a year before my divorce and I swear to God that it prepared me for all of that.
But yeah, so, you know, take a little bit of Buddhism, a little bit. Oh, I like that from Islam. Oh, this makes sense from Judaism or whatever it is.
And ultimately, it's all the same common denominator, isn't it? Don't be a dick. But, you know, that gratitude piece, that community piece and what I struggle with are these people that come out of holy buildings and the same people are those ones that want to shoe the homeless away from their their neighborhood or say that, you know, that a Narcan is wasted on addicts.
I'm like, didn't you just say that you were a Christian? Like, what would Jesus do? He'd be out there working with the sex workers trying to get them from stopping to be, you know, stop the trafficking and getting them back.
So this is what I really struggle with with some of these thumpers is you're not walking the walk. You know, if you leave your church and you drive like a fucking asshole, I'm pretty sure Jesus would be a good driver too.
He'd let you merge onto the freeway. He wouldn't ride your ass. He'd use his blinker because those are acts of kindness, you know.
Yeah.
All right. Well, let's let's get into exercise and then and then we'll kind of get to CrossFit and and your journey into the fire service as well.
But for both of you, I'll start. I'll keep with you, Casey. First, when you were a school age, because we met, you know, you guys have always been incredibly athletic.
As long as I've known you, what were you playing when you were younger?
I was playing outside with friends. I was never really in any organized sport until probably end of my elementary school era.
And that was soccer. You know, I had a lot of energy. I was a young kid with just bounds of energy. So soccer was probably the best bet for me.
So that's that was the main sport that I played. But like I said, I always play outside. I love playing sport any any kind of sport.
We would have like, you know, old gloves, old, you know, baseball bats, baseballs, footballs, frisbees, whatever.
I mean, if you want to go outside and play, you go outside and play sports.
You know, if you go inside and watch TV or whatever with your friends.
But and we talked about this last week where you don't really see a whole lot of sports or movies, sports movies directed towards kids.
Like there's no there's that doesn't happen anymore for some reason.
But whenever I was a kid, there was there was so many things.
Rookie of the Year, Mighty Ducks, I was a kid. I was a kid.
There was there was so many things. Rookie of the Year, Mighty Ducks, like all those movies that inspired kids to go outside and play.
It's not really happening so much anymore. But I mean, that's pretty much the reason why we did so much outside is because of those movies.
You know, you want to be like the kid from Rookie of the Year or the karate kid.
Karate kid, yeah, Ralph Macchio. Then I saw how he was when he was in his 50s. I'm like, I'm glad I didn't become Ralph Macchio.
But yeah, and karate was a big thing, too, like martial arts.
And, you know, I probably wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I do now.
But yeah, that was a big one, too. But to answer your question around about way, it was it was all sports.
But the main one that I played was soccer. And really, it was it was because of my cousin.
My cousin was a big soccer player, too. And I looked up to him, even though we're the same age.
And then through high school, I still played a little bit of sports, but then video games took over because that's just what you do.
And then I got into band marching band.
Beautiful. Shelby, you I'm going to tag on something a second, but I'll let you tell us your kind of exercise history first.
So mine, I have never been an inside kid. I like I said, I was born on 80 Acre Farm in Georgia where we had nothing.
I don't even think when I say nothing, we had not there wasn't a lot to do inside.
And so and I was the third child, so no one really knew where I was at the time.
And so I would take my two German shepherds and go down to the creek or somewhere and get lost.
But we had horses. And so I was outside tacking horses up and getting into trouble and going off and doing my own thing.
And then, you know, halfway through, my parents would be like, where where is Shelby?
You know, so the dogs would usually take me home sometime.
And then but yeah, I was outside all the time.
And then when we moved to Ocala, I was still into horses. We actually got into like hunter jumper.
I was doing kind of shows and that sort of thing. But that's a very expensive sport.
So eventually that kind of stopped. And then I would say about the time I was 10, 11.
Volleyball became very big in Ocala.
So I think one of the first clubs is called is actually called Brick City Volleyball.
Now, that's funny. I didn't realize that.
Back to that. I know. So which we know why Ocala is Brick City.
But regardless, that was the first volleyball club. So like it wasn't a part of like any of the schools.
It was a club, club volleyball. So I started doing that very early on.
And I was in. I finished that until high school.
And so very heavy. That was my entire life.
I thought I was going to go to college with it.
I loved, loved, loved the sport.
I never really have. I mean, I was just kind of I was short and I wasn't the best libero.
So I didn't really I never made it to college with it.
But I loved the sport. I played a little bit of beach after high school.
And then it really it's amazing going from a very active child on team sports and then going from that and then hitting college and being like, whoa, I don't have anything to lean back on right now.
I don't have where am I going to put all this energy?
I started running long distance. I'm like, I absolutely hate this.
I've known to talk to my head is like in 5000 places right now.
And so that started kind of I started getting like the, you know, early college blues where I was like feeling depressed and I didn't have a community.
I had grown up with a community. I had kind of no one at that point in time to rely on.
And so I meet my best friend was like, hey, you know, why don't you come try out this CrossFit class?
I was like, what the hell is CrossFit? You know, I don't I don't want to do that.
These people, you know, and then I remember the day I saw a girl.
I don't know. She had been doing CrossFit. I think she was like my ex boyfriend's cousin or something from up north.
But she had these huge traps and I was like, where the F do I get those?
Like, you know, that was the first time I really seen some like super strong women and I was like, hell yeah.
Like, that's what I want to do. And so she's like, yeah, she got it.
CrossFit. And I was like, yeah, well, then let's let's go to CrossFit.
And so I did a couple of classes and I got that sense of community back.
I met Casey was my first CrossFit coach. That's me. That was him.
That's when he had a majestic beard. He did have a majestic beard. It was beautiful.
But I'll say he doesn't like me calling it his hipster beard.
That's what I thought. Yeah.
But he had these big old tree trunk legs. And I was like, had.
I don't know. I think he still has them. But and that was the thing.
I was like, oh, well, I'm going to marry this man. And he did.
It was right there. Yeah, it was there.
It was RX plus. I knew what I was doing.
But but yeah, I mean, and to be honest, CrossFit gets a lot of heat.
We don't even have to call it CrossFit. We can call it hit.
We can call it whatever you want to call it. But I enjoy it as a sport.
I enjoy the competitive aspect. I've always been an athlete.
I really do enjoy it. I enjoy the.
You know, doing a very terrible workout with people around you
and then getting done with it and just being like high five.
We did. Hell, yeah, we just did something very difficult.
And the the mental toughness you have to have a lot of times
more than anything else to get through some of these workouts
has taught me more about myself than than I even realized.
And I don't think I realized it until, you know, after I had my first baby,
after I had Judge, I was like, well,
labor is straight up like a Metcon.
That's why you're asking for chalk.
Yeah, don't make it weird, James.
You have. But it's like because if you, you know,
and labor is even harder because you're like, I don't have I can't stop.
You have to have a baby at the end of this. I'm going to have a baby.
And so now when I work out, I don't give myself a self an option.
You're going to finish this and you're going to continue to move well
and move and work hard until it's done.
So became becoming a mom made me a much better athlete.
So but either way, fitness has always been a part of my life
and something that I cherish.
And I think as I get older, it's always going to look a little bit different.
But it's an outlet. It's an outlet.
Huge outlet for me, for my mental health.
Right now, I tell people that I I do like the traps that come with CrossFit,
but I but I truly love that after a really terrible, you know, a hard day,
that's something I always go back to.
And, you know, it can make everything kind of disappear for a minute.
All the all the toughness in the world.
You do a really rough workout and you're like, OK, I can handle all those things.
That was really bad. So I think I can handle everything else right now.
So it translates so well with other aspects of your life, too.
Well, that's the perfect segue.
You just threw a what they call a softball pitch or whatever the term is.
So let's talk about that. You you ended up finding yourself in graphic design initially.
So walk me through your CrossFit journey and then how that prepared you for the fire service.
Well, to go into the graphic design portion.
So like after high school, I was I had no idea of what I wanted to do, you know.
And then finally, my mom was like, you need to do something with your life.
And why don't you do blank, which was art.
So I was looking around, Calax, I don't want to move anywhere else.
And so I found Rasmus in college and they had a design program.
And previous to that, like art was a huge component of my life.
Art being drawing music, whatever.
That was my outlet.
So going into college, it was it was easy to to to latch on to that because it's what I really loved.
I started doing graphic design for a couple of different companies and realized that it should just be a hobby and not something that I do for a living because it was an outlet, you know, something to.
Relieve stress and whatnot.
And then through all that, I mean, I had I had friends that I knew previously from after high school through like the hardcore punk scene or whatever.
People going to shows.
Somebody had told me about Hammerfit.
Yeah, nothing.
I just could hear in it.
Hammerfit.
OK.
Goosebumps.
Stop.
So somebody told somebody told me about CrossFit and I think even before there, I went to to Pinnacle just to try it out and I loved it.
So then after that, they I they some of my friends knew that I liked that style of working out.
So I ended up going to Hammerfit, loved it, met some really great people there and then incidentally meeting the love of my life there as well.
But just like she said, I mean, it's you have to be mentally tough to do these CrossFit workouts.
I mean, like you can make the workout however hard you want to.
But like if you want to Rx quote unquote, a workout like it's tough if you want to get a good time, if you want to, you know, beat the person next to you, you have to work hard.
And so you have to dig deep and kind of go into a dark place to get that work done.
And through fire school that helped me out tremendously because you had to dig deep through PT, through the evolutions for the burn building, standpipe evolutions.
That's something completely foreign to me because I had never even thought about firefighting until like I had a conversation with Pablo Jenner, which he went to Hammerfit to.
And so he was telling me it's the best job in the world.
And then after that, I decided to be a fireman and go into fire school.
But I'm glad that I ended up doing CrossFit because it sharpened my mental toughness a lot.
And, you know, I'll do things extracurricularly as well, like go rock, you know, puts on those six, twelve, twenty four hour rocks.
And that's definitely helped out as well.
But CrossFit was the first one that like forced me to, you know, go into a really dark place to finish.
So I remember specifically in one of the evolutions, it was it was a Connex burn.
And so you had one team go in and do a wood chop on a log that was right next to the burn, the burn Connex, which is super fucking hot.
And then you had a hose team go in and you hope to God that this hose team knows what they're doing because otherwise you're in there for however long.
So you're the rescue team. You got to chop.
And I remember I'm like, it is if I'm sure it took like five, maybe eight minutes for them to come in.
But it felt like 45 minutes because you're just burning.
And I remember chopping this wood and I'm singing Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi.
But that was my dark place. That's that's where I went like crying in my mind.
Hurry up. But anyway, yeah, that was that was a huge help as far as getting through fire school mentally, physically definitely helped out tremendously as well.
Because I remember I felt great doing my PT test, smoked it.
I when we were doing PT, I remember seeing people throwing up by just running like lack of preparation.
But and that was my expectation. I have pretty high expectations for a lot of things.
She'll be confounded for. But my expectation for firemen was like big dudes are like, you know, gung ho, hard chargers fit, you know, because that's who I knew.
Pablo Jenner, new James Hammer tree, Mark Chandler, all those people who are at Hammerfit.
I assumed that all the people that wanted to go into the fire service looked like that.
And I was sorely disappointed. So he still believes they all should look like that.
So do I. Thousand percent. I'll never be big, but I'll at least be fit.
Right. Yeah, exactly. You have to be fit for this job. Firefighting is hard.
But well, well, well, that was insensitive and inappropriate. I am not sorry.
But yeah, I I'm glad that I did crossfit because it prepared me mentally, physically for the at least standards.
And then, you know, because because I like that modality of fitness, it's carried past fire school and it's kept me fit up until now.
You know, so if if I'm at the station, I mean, you're you're required to work out not necessarily like every day at the station, but like you have to be fit to be a firefighter.
So like I would come up with really shitty crossfit workouts mixed with gear workouts or whatever.
People hate me sometimes whenever they they ask me to do or make up a workout because we suffer.
But it's just like she said, like when you get done with a shitty workout, you're like, I did that.
There's a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie afterwards.
So, yeah, well, we just did the three for three hero challenge.
All of us again. And she's wearing her shirt. Oh, you got your shirt.
We're wearing the same shirt. Look at that. Well, different years.
But the years was last year. This is this. Oh, that's right. I had that one yesterday.
I should have worn mine. But back to what you're saying, I got into CrossFit.
I think it was oh six. So long time before it was cool.
I was laughed at the YMCA, slating myself around.
But it works. And it's the thing. And I know it's funny with the traps comment.
As we go on, we realize, OK, some of the stuff, if we just do this is actually going to create imbalances.
And that's the root cause of some of the injuries.
So as we progress and mature as as athletes and as coaches, you know, you start to realize that maybe women shouldn't have these giant traps.
And there's an imbalance because of all the kipping.
And therefore, you know, you put the musculature back to where it needs to be. And they're just strong.
They just don't need to have these massive traps or pee themselves when they jump a rope, for example.
That's not normal. But but that pain cave element.
That's what I always loved about in the fire service.
And I saw it like, you know, there's people in Anaheim, other places where I've been on scene.
And this is not Pat and James Gearing on the back. This is Pat and CrossFit on the back.
My friends are smoked and I've been able to go in and finish what we needed to do and extinguish the fire or pull whatever needs to be pulled out.
And so my whole thing was the last time I was in the pain cave was Thursday.
The last time one of these guys in the pain cave could have been the fucking fire academy or the orientation for the department.
So that was the big thing, as you know, I was in a shitty place doing whatever, Merful, you know, whatever the thing was last week.
So, you know, your bar is set. But the other side of that coin is you've got to understand that you need to do the rest and recovery.
And we'll get into shift work. But how you were last time you sat in front of me was not the time to do a red line workout.
You needed to sleep. That's what you needed to do.
So but what I love is, you know, I was 50 the last time that we competed a couple of months ago and we did the regular division, not the Masters.
And, you know, I mean, we obviously you're carrying a lot of the weight, but collectively we ended up middle of the pack with the young guys.
And this is I think, you know, when I'm yabbing on the microphone about fitness standards and stuff, I can still walk the walk now.
You know, I did the CPAC a couple of years ago and I think two or three years ago when I thought I might have to go back to the fire service because, you know, money was running out.
And I did it in 720, which supposedly was the department record with a college record.
And that's not again to say, oh, wow, it's just simply all right. Well, then I'm still fucking holding the line at that time. 47.
So I think that, you know, CrossFit and then again, if you find other modalities that work for you too, and we do the Wolf Reggae programming now, which I love that continuous strength and conditioning, the physical preparation, the injury prevention side.
But also, yeah, you've got to go to a shitty place sometimes. The class that I teach on a Monday, you know, we're pushing the sleds.
We put a little medley together that is horrible, you know, but you know that the last time that you really went to a dark, dark place was Monday at five o'clock.
Iron Legion. So I think it's so important.
For all walks of life. I mean, we have to go not, you know, we have to go to dark places and in life in general, not when we're just working out or pulling people out of buildings and that sort of thing.
And so I think having the mental fortitude to really push through and take care of what needs to be taken care of that translates to all different parts of life.
So, when your parent. Yeah, I mean, I'm more patient than I've ever been in my entire life. 100%.
But you have to.
All right. Well, I want to walk you through your journey to the fire service. Obviously, you guys are, were you actually married by the time?
No, I let it be known that I did not marry a firefighter. This nurse, I was not a nurse and he was not a firefighter. We were married. So everyone needs to know that.
Yeah, the stereotypes are real, but not us. No, no, we just like became those things. So, no, we weren't yet.
Okay. So because one unique lens I've had, obviously, I met you guys when it was actually Crossfire Iron Legion, the old warehouse.
Yeah. So I think that was 11 years ago now. It was 11 years ago. Yeah. It's crazy.
So I knew Casey, Alex, Josh, all these guys before they came firefighters. So I got to see the before. Yeah. And then I got to see arguably the meltdown of each and every one of them in a very short amount of time.
And then, you know, the upswing, which is beautiful. Justin Wood, another one. So I asked you this last time. I think it's an important question.
A lot of people that got on about 10 years ago that were testing about 10 years ago, it was still extremely competitive to be a firefighter.
What was it like testing for Marion County as far as competitive? I got hired right away.
There was no competition whatsoever. I put on my application and then maybe a month later, I got a call to.
For a job offer. So, I mean, was it like that for everybody? Other departments? No, I mean, Marion County, where they was it everyone? Oh, do you have a pulse? Seriously?
See, this is an important thing that antenna baron was just on as well. And, you know, the same thing.
It was, you know, I wasn't kind of like, oh, was it really easy? I was just open question how, you know, competitive was because my next question is, well, let's look at now.
A lot of departments where it was extremely competitive and they were testing against hundreds or thousands of people in 2024. It's nothing like that.
But what shocked me is that with Marion and I would argue Orange County was very similar.
And I got I got hired there in 08. Some of these departments that seem to be the worst, some of these departments that lose the most people to suicide, to cancer, to overdose, to alcohol, to all the things that we keep seeing on Facebook every fucking day.
They've been bad for a long time. If you have a fire college in your county and you're still having to take every person 18 and a heartbeat.
That's a decade that you have fucking had to fix what was broken. So, you know, not wanting to put Casey on the spot, but it just it's as a resident of Marion County who understands a fire service and serve for 14 years.
That's a problem, you know, and then here we are 2024. This is James Gearing speaking now, seeing the complete resistance to change the complete resistance to the 24 72, even though the blue sky study was done specifically for that department.
I find that fucking disgusting and it's about time that they change it, but I'm not putting Casey on the spot. That's just my opinion. But it is, you know, it is a sad thing to hear that 10 years ago when everywhere else was competitive.
They were still taking the, you know, anyone who would apply and luckily they got some great, great firefighters. Marion County has a has amazing, amazing firefighters within them and a good training standard.
But the way they work their people is unacceptable and the deaths reflect that.
I mean, as someone I'm obviously not in the fire service, but as someone who loves someone who is very deeply.
It's difficult to watch this. It's difficult to be on the other side of it. Luckily, you know, I am very independent and can handle everything at home by myself because that is the reality of being, you know, a fire wife and I'm in a fire wife group right now.
Of Marion County and you know, there was just a post two days ago about, you know, someone saying, Oh, you know, their dad was mandated for the third time this month. How do I keep having to explain this to my child who's crying.
You know, for their dad and you know, there's moms on there basically just saying what they do.
So, it's, it's really hard. It's hard for as a parent, it's hard as a wife to watch what's happening to Casey.
You know, I, you kind of just see the life sucked out of your someone you love and it's,
and it's hard to watch no matter what, but it's even worse when you know that there's a solution. So, like I said, I like to see the good in people. And, you know, I, I just hope that maybe they just don't know what the solution is.
I know, and listen, I know that that's not the case for for Marion County and the people that you you've given them plenty of information. But at this point I'm like, you know, who can get a lot of stuff done are all the people that are affected. So I'm going to start working with, you know, talking with some of the wives and just saying, Hey, I know you see it because I see it.
So you need to start pushing this on your significant other because if I can educate all of them, maybe we can get something moving that way. But it's, I mean, you're looking at the outside looking in to what's going on with Casey, you can see it on his face after he's worked a 48 hours.
But being on the other side of that and living with him, it's, it's hard. He's worn out. He can barely put together sentences as you saw the other day.
And we already know that not sleeping. The equivalent to sleep deprivation is, you know, being in talk alcohol, you know, intoxicated. So why do we trust those people to take care of the people in Marion County.
I don't want that. I don't want someone that, you know, worked a 48 and can barely keep their eyes open, possibly taking care of, you know, I wouldn't call them if I had an emergency with my child. So, you know, I don't know. I just think that it's something has to be done.
And I don't, I don't know how more clear the issue can get. I don't, I don't know. We all see it. You see it. I see it. Every wife. I am 100% sure that every wife of, for example, another of a person in the fire service sees it in Marion County.
So, you know, explain to me the impact of the mandatory overtime on the actual family, because this is where I just think it's so unacceptable. The people that make these decisions work nine to five, Monday to Friday, they go to home in their own bed.
They work a 40 hour work week and they have a full weekend. And the resistance is basically saying, you don't deserve to work less than 56 hours a week. That is created an environment where now that's 80 hours a week.
Every time we work one mandatory overtime in a shift system without a Kelly day is an 80 hour work week. So I don't understand why the people that are standing there doing the speeches with all their bugles as another fucking coffin is lowered into the ground with an American flag, why it doesn't move them enough to make change.
And some of the rhetoric I've heard from the upper echelon, the top tier of this department is fucking nauseating. So to say that you don't deserve to go home to your family, and I've made that phone call so many I've been mandatory so many times in my career.
And that little boy that you know is about to graduate, to call him and say you know I said I was going to be at your football game tomorrow. I can't come. That has to only happen when there's a hurricane when there's a wildfire, when there's some covert like bizarre experience.
That's what mandatory overtime is supposed to be used for and no one, the family, the firefighter, none of us have a problem with that if you use it properly. But if it's been a 10 plus year ongoing staffing model, then shame on you.
So talk to me about that just one fucking 24 hour mandatory overtime. The actual impact that has on the family when you receive that phone call from a loved one you thought was going to be walking through the door at nine o'clock that morning.
Well I mean let's talk about logistics. The you know waking up in the morning. We have a lot going on. We have two kids that need to go to two different schools, and I have to go to work. So that now says, luckily I have a very flexible schedule but that's not everybody.
So if I plan for him to come home and he's going to be taking one of the children to school, that now means I either have to ask for help outside help. I mean that just puts so much stress on me now at this point, because I have to ask for outside help which we, you know, don't have that much of.
We do thankfully, but someone has to come in and help get another child to school or I now have to be late to my job to to take, you know, one of the kids to school so that's just kind of one of the logistic things.
And then figuring out dinner you know I'm lucky enough Casey when he's home he makes us, you know, does dinner for us we try to plan it out. But now I'm having to think about what needs to be done for dinner it's the mental load of not having someone around.
I say it all the time and he hates when I say this, but you absolutely are a single parent.
You know and I can't sometimes what am I upset with him about it yes because this is his, his job and you know I the way I feel the mental load gets overwhelming but then I have to look and I say no this, this really isn't his fault.
This is his job that's something he's passionate about not everyone gets to do things that they're passionate about.
He has to be here.
So that's just kind of logistically how difficult it can be, but let's talk like physically. So he's worked for 48 hours.
It's likely that he wouldn't sleep for most of that he probably got five hours collective and 48 hours of actual sleep disturbed sleep not deep sleep. Yeah, yeah.
And then he comes home and the next day that he's home for 24 hours, and he's going to go right back there so me I for him to be useful at all. I would like for him to come home and go to sleep for the next 10 hours while we're doing all the things and we're away at work and school,
and then when we're back and, you know, have our family time I want him to wake up and join us, but he won't do that because he has missed so much while he was gone for 48 hours so now he wants to be involved and he gets up.
When he's home he wants to help and do all the things that he always does help out with with the kids and that sort of thing, but he's just not really there. It's basically like having kind of a zombie around is what it feels like.
I mean I hate to say that and you know it's it's not. It's not anything against him.
It's the environment. It's the environment and, but having someone who is very impatient, then you have, you know, someone who you can't necessarily really rely on because you, you feel anxious because you know they are at the end of their rope with anything.
So it just, it makes our home environment very uncomfortable.
And again, I don't fault you for any of these things, because I've said it so many times.
If I had to do his job, I would have walked out a long time ago, so I don't have the patience to do that. So, you know, the fact that he takes such good care of people when he is exhausted and as tired and whatever as he is then that that's a wonderful thing.
So yeah, so then we have, you know, 24 hours of really poor quality or quality time together if you want to call it that.
And, you know, it's gotten to the point to where I will say that, you know, my kids get up in the morning and they're like, is that I going to be here today.
You know, and most of the time it's.
No, he's he's at work again, or I pick him up and they're like his dad at work again.
You know, so that's the, that is a hard conversation. It's a life that they've been born into and so they are very accustomed to that and I don't, they don't, I've never had my kids get upset if he's not at home at night and those sorts of things.
But that's because that's what they were born into. And on the other end I try very hard to make sure that like everything runs as smoothly as possible, and we don't miss a beat.
But, you know, one of them, he's their favorite parent so that is kind of tough because you know, things just run a little bit smoother when he's around.
And so, you know, it's just hard all the way around. And then the other, the other side of it is the physical aspect.
You know, watching someone who you love.
And I don't, I don't mean this in a bad way but kind of deteriorate around you is
it's just, it's difficult.
And then, trying to, as a healthcare provider on the other side of that, treating things symptomatically is kind of feels wrong when you know what really needs to happen.
So if he was my patient I'd tell him, well you really need to focus on getting more sleep and eating better, and you know exercising and doing these sorts of things but like, I know that that's not his reality.
So, are we going to treat, you know, he doesn't have high blood pressure but I know plenty of them do. We're just going to treat his high blood pressure with some lisinopril instead of like, maybe you know you just need to get a little bit more sleep and have a little less stress at your job.
I mean, your tachycardia at every 20, you know, 24, or every 48 hours he has tachycardia and we tried to pinpoint why and it's like, maybe it's because he's at the fire station, you know, and so,
are we going to throw, slap some medication on him for that?
That feels really gross as a primary care provider who really likes to focus on kind of holistic care and treating, not just treating symptoms, treating the root cause of issues.
So, it's like a precarious situation I'm in, as being, you know, a healthcare provider and knowing what's actually going on but not being able to have a solution for it.
And knowing we know the solution, but also having people in that aren't willing to care, I guess. I mean that's, I guess that's what it boils down to.
It doesn't affect them anymore, so I guess they just don't care, but we care. There's a lot of people that care.
And I, you know, you've seen it kind of drain out of Casey over the past 10 years, I certainly see it and he's not the only one.
Every firefighter in our gym, I see it. Yeah. You know, I know, I knew before they started.
And, yeah, I mean, this is, this is the thing like the, when people say, oh, it's, you know, it's what you signed up for, you know what you were signing up for. I say bullshit.
When we were in the academy, and understanding, of course, that when we get into a fire station, we're going to, we know we're going to work a 24 hour shift.
No one's talking about mandatory overtime. No one's explaining that it's a 56 hour work week, because there's no explanation why they work 16 hours more than the person in publics.
And again, it's funny because if you see this, this constant rhetoric, oh, you know, we were on our third divorce or whatever.
Can you imagine going to Starbucks or Publix and I call good luck. I'm on my third divorce. You'd be like, I am not fucking working in Publix.
What are they doing with the iceberg lettuce in this place? What the hell is going on? But it's just accepted in police and fire.
And, you know, it's just, man, that shouldn't be connected to the job. So this is what I tell people. It's not the job. This, this profession is a true calling.
And that's why people volunteer to do this around the country. But even there are abused.
There's so many volunteers in suburban neighborhoods that should have a fucking professional fire department.
So this, you know, we, because we do show up come hell or high water, people take advantage of that, you know.
And again, like I said, people in a 40 hour position are unmoved by the numerous funerals and actively oppose a conversation on changing this.
And the irony is, and I'll throw some stats at you because we did this blue star, blue sky study.
So a local businessman, not Marion County fire, a local businessman was so moved by the suicides.
We had two young guys, Marion guys, you know, within 12 weeks of each other. And he was so moved that he went to IHMC.
And that's a research organization that works with NASA, the SEALs, DARPA, I mean, the highest of performers and their human performance and robotics.
They just happen to have a satellite office in Ocala, Florida. They're in Pensacola and they have one here.
So this businessman went to them and he went to the hospital district, too, and they raised the money and they do what's called a blue sky studies.
It's like a think tank and they get a load of the country's experts. So we have people that work with Delta.
We had neuroscientists. I was lucky enough to be invited.
And then we had Marion's chief, Marion's union president, and we all sat down and it was like firefighter suicide.
You know, what are we going to do? I mean, they, you know, they would go to NASA would come like, hey, our astronauts are losing bone density.
What do we do? And these people would come up with the solutions. Well, this is what we had.
And no one from the other fire agencies mentioned sleep and shift work and anything.
So I threw that on the table very aggressively and like this needs to be talked about.
They hashed out some other interesting things. But at the end of the day, number one takeaway was the 2472.
And the what was great, we have Matt from Gainesville, who was about to go to 2472.
And then the union leader gave us some stats on what it costs running your fire department the way it is at the moment.
I'm going to round up slightly, but it was almost 200000 hours overtime hours.
Now, if you average out, I'm assuming the average firefighter average gets twenty dollars an hour.
So let's say 30 time and a half. That's six million dollars just in overtime.
And it's not a workforce. It's Casey and everyone else working these fucking holes that have been there while they should be there with their children and resting, recovering and be able to intimate with their partner.
So that's six million. The recruits, every new recruit is basically 18. So twenty thousand dollars per recruit.
So if they walk out the back door, which we're evolving door department, let's say a hundred of them go. That's another two million dollars there.
So now we're at eight million dollars. So when I hear people say, oh, we don't have the money, you are pissing the money into the fucking river.
You need to go upstream and put that money into the people higher, full shift. And now you will solve this issue.
Oh, we can't find enough people now. No, because people don't want to work for you.
Bottom line, these young people look at this eight hour workweek and mandatory overtime and cancers and diseases and testosterone levels and all these things.
And they're like, this sounds absolutely shit. So you have a fire academy in your county and these young people are coming out like a little slide, little fire babies.
And they're going straight to Gainesville, right? Yeah. You know, do not collect two hundred dollars. Do not pass go, whatever it is.
So this is what drives me crazy is the solutions. And yes, I have certainly created an entire frickin smorgasbord of information and and all the things.
But when someone says there isn't the money or and I haven't even touched the workman's comp claims, the line of duty deaths, the retirements, the lawsuits when we make mistakes, millions more.
So the money is there. So if someone says, oh, it's the money or oh, it's the staffing, then I know, oh, no, you're just a fucking coward who's not prepared to actually earn your paycheck and advocate for your people.
So this is where I'm at. And I'm like no other fire department has had a national research organization do a study on them while you were present, presented you the answer.
And you still say, no, we're not going to do that. I got told, oh, we'll wait to see what happens with Pasco County. Pasco is going to it in twenty twenty six.
And then you're going to wait. So you're talking 10 years. You might. Well, we continue to bury Marion County firefighters.
So this is why I get so fucking wound up is all the rebuttals are based on pure mythology.
And what it boils down to is you're such a fucking coward that you're just prepared to go home at five o'clock and not worry about the fact that the next firefighter funeral is coming.
So for because I want to share this for the firefighters that believe that they their pay will be cut. They believe that if they're not going to work as much, they will.
Can you touch on that for them? Absolutely. Yeah, because that's what I'm hearing. They're saying that can never happen. If it does, we don't want to take a pay cut.
I always tell you. So when you go to training, do they cut 16 hours of your paycheck? No, you're on a salary. The whole point of this is you're adding an extra shift.
You're actually going to save money because it won't cost eight, ten million dollars for that.
That new shift, because I mean, a lot of times there's a negotiation as well.
Some people have a slight up staffing or in this case, isn't the case or so many vacation days like Orange County did to offset the horrendous schedule that you could negotiate three vacations days away and still be way, way ahead.
But no, every department has gone to it. A lot of them actually have included a pay raise.
And this is the thing. If you go to a 24 72 and you fix the recruitment crisis in your department, which Gainesville, Pasco Palm Beach, they're all seeing now a massive uptick in recruitment because as soon as it's not even announced, as soon as there's a rumor like Destin, I think it was they were telling me like people would talk to him at the hospital.
And they're like, is it true you're going to that? And then all of a sudden, you know, they're off. So you fill the holes. You've saved your fire department a lot of money.
You've actually secured a budget for your next pay raise to, you know, you we used to spend waste all this money and now we've gone to this and now you're going to save money.
The other thing is your hourly rate increases. So when you do take an overtime, then you get paid more per hour. So you make money per hour that you work.
You actually make more money. Your base stays the same. It doesn't go get any smaller. But when you take over time, you make money. Another another pushback I get from cheese, which I think is so arrogant and nauseating as well.
If we give them more time off, they'll just work more anyway. Well, firstly, no one put you in charge of anyone's life outside the fire service.
So how dare you? Secondly, if you staff your fire department properly, overtime will then go back to being once in a while. You know, you do have day day shifts. You do have to cover training cadre or there's a special event in Ocala, whatever it is.
And then another one is like, you know, with with the working.
Let's say Casey gets back into graphic design on the side. You know, he's he's a project oriented person for everyone listening Casey is the one that's designed the logo for the show. All of my t shirts, including the fundraisers never taken a penny for any of that stuff.
So he's he's the graphic design wizard behind behind the shield podcast. But so let's say he does that now he starts his own project and he works from nine to five on his days off apart from obviously, you know, some time to be with you.
He's with you. He's there at dinner. He goes to bed with you. He's playing with the kids. There's nothing wrong with that. If he hangs drywall, if he does landscaping, if you personal trains, there's nothing wrong with working on your days off if you need to bolster your income.
But the difference between that and an overtime at a fire station is your home working and God forbid you get fired, you get hurt, you retire, you've got an entire tribe, an entire calling, just like you said, you know, community to go to now. So it makes even transition healthy.
So again, every rebuttal, there is a perfectly sensible, educated response to it. So and I'm like q&a that I did a few months ago, a couple months ago, I brought all of those questions together and did an entire podcast on it. But again, I don't think any of this is getting disseminated around Marion County the same way as my free tactical athlete class.
Not a soul comes and you know, every time someone does it like, Oh, I didn't even know this was here. Of course you didn't because it's a free solution to the problem. God forbid anyone helps share that. So yeah.
Yeah, and I mean, and I've, it would be wouldn't it be amazing if he didn't get mandated, someone needed him to pick up and he was so refreshed and ready that he could pick that up, pick up a 24 hour shift here and there. And just enjoy it. And you know, be happy to do it and happy to help a friend.
And it would be like every other because if you have every other Yeah, if you have the 72 you could do still go home for 24 and then pick it up in the middle right once in a while right not ideal but again once in a while you could do that.
But yeah, but to help a friend out or here there but not feel still it be safe because you're you've slept the night before.
And to be able to you know, to be there for the people around you because that that is nice that you know they help each other out and that sort of thing. But just to do it the right way and to do it safely and to do it where you still like your job and don't burn out, you know, that would be.
That's a gift. You know that's really that would be a nice thing to do. It is. And for those of the firefighters that choose to do the 48 like.
I mean that's whatever you want to do it's fine but like for me specifically like I don't pick up over time voluntarily because I never used to either because my right now, the time that I have with my children is way more valuable than it is to make a little bit more money, like, I would rather watch judge it
because you know like you said his first football game or soccer game or whatever, they'd have to work to make an extra buck or whatever. So,
I think we're not in that position to where he has to do that sort of thing. You know, because I know a lot of people are and that's their only option. But yeah, I just think that there are there are definitely there are options out there and I don't, I don't understand why everyone acts kind of like blindfolded.
I just don't I just don't know the reason and we don't hear any of that.
It literally seems like people are brainwashed. When I put it is like you can almost see this like look of fear like oh god he's going to talk about that.
They told us, the big brother told us don't listen to that Englishman. It's so, so bizarre but I mean this is this is it's funny. I was, I interviewed time my son for episode 1000.
I asked him about being the son of a firefighter and he's like, it's almost as far as I can remember you've been home. And I was like, that's interesting but then I realized with the last six years I've been doing this, I've been home home.
But prior to that, I was a single dad Orange County getting mandatory. I mean you just, I can't not go home. Yeah, I'm a fucking single parent. Yeah, you know what are you talking about.
That's what sent me over to really creek was they had a Kelly day, and they were pretty well staffed so, which is interesting because I know they're looking at the 24 72 now, you know, preliminary I've been, I've been asked to chat so, you know, hope from the, not from the admin side but from the union side.
But, so I realized that even by doing that, I made sure I was home as much as I could be and tie therefore doesn't have this my dad's always gone memory. Now prior to that Orange County, you know, I was fighting and I went to medical school we were talking in the first interview,
I don't know how I got through medical school, because I was doing busy busy rescue, and then classroom the next day and then riding with you guys or in the hospitals. The following day, rinse and repeat for a full year and still be a single.
I couldn't, I couldn't imagine being in medical school and having a child. I mean, especially as a single father too because like, you have no downtime, you have no days off. You're, you're running 24 hours and in my case I was at 21 on the southwest quarter or southwest
quarter of 200, where it's like retirement village, and you don't sleep. I didn't sleep in at work. Zombie at school zombie during my, and then you have an extra responsibility to be there for your child but I mean that that's so hard.
That was a terrible time. That's a whole nother thing on top of it. We didn't have children when he was in paramedic school so he works and I was in nursing school, and most, most relationships don't make it out of paramedic school honestly.
When the ones that are not married.
Sometimes if they are married they still don't make it out. But, um, because it's so difficult I think what saved us is that I was in nursing school and so I was so busy that we just, I don't even think we saw each other for like a year ships passing the night.
Absolutely. Absolutely. It was, that was really tough and I, I could not imagine doing that with small children.
I mean, if I was there, that would have been. I just, I couldn't even imagine doing it. I mean we, we would have obviously done it. I mean I know people obviously look James, he did it but, you know, at what cost you know because really it's that would be tough because you couldn't.
I just don't know how you, I don't know how you do it, you balance all that. Yeah, you know, and if he was older you know he definitely would have remembered.
Yeah. So, um, yeah, and then you're there physically but like mentally, how are you there. Yeah, well even I remember one of my biggest guilt moments was just trying to help him with his homework.
And you know the way they teach a lot of things, you know, in itself it just doesn't make it and I'm not good I'm a kind of street math person I'm not good with, you know, yeah, textbook math, and I would get frustrated and I wasn't like screaming at him, but then he would get kind of anxious
and then he would shut down not even be able to figure out what like two and two was, which would make me more, you know, frustrated. Yeah. And yeah, so even that just that kind of hair trigger I was never you know outburst but they can tell because I'm new, normally, you know your
your demeanor same as Casey, normally very chill. So when you're like on edge that kind of freaks the child out even if you're not, you know, punching drywall and stuff. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, there's, there's always
something something's always lost there, right, because you can't. There's times you just actually can't do it all.
So, um, talk to me about the relationship itself and this can include the kids. One of the most heartbreaking things, and as a friend of mine Jesse he's a perfect example I remember hanging out with him and just a fucking heart of gold.
And he had recently met his partner, and do this man was just head over heels in love and then when they had their first child he was head over heels in love and I would argue that the firefighters I know is some of the most incredible mothers and fathers.
I've ever seen.
And then, five years on, you know, you start seeing this breakdown over and over and over again, and obviously you know, when we're talking about us being zombies you know I just had a Navy SEALs act on yesterday, you know that kind of.
There's no one home in the eyes, like, I see it that's what I was seeing and Josh and everyone.
I'm observing, because you guys are here and we're having this healthy conversation and you have navigated some of this. What are these risk factors what are these breakdowns that are causing so many relationship problems, more often than not, in partners that probably
would have stayed together forever had one not been in this profession.
I mean, I think it's there, coming from my standpoint there has to be a lot of understanding, not everybody gets to do something that they're as passionate about as as Casey is.
And so I, you know, I have to, to take that into consideration and say you know, I that I, that's what I have to let him do.
But I think so too. The communication.
The communication is constant.
Because we're, there's a lot of times that we're both, what is it, the neighborhood around talks about how, you know, not everything can't be 5050 in a relationship, that's just not, it's silly, when we started we're like yeah everything will be 5050, but it's not that when he's on running on
hours of sleep. And, you know, I'm still at my wits end because I've been home with my kids for 48 hours as a single mom.
I have to pick up some of that load, I still have to do that and I have to understand that that's, you know, just what needs to be done.
But the fact that we can communicate about that. And I can see it on his face I don't even really need him to say much but when he's tired like that. You know, it's just about saying, just talking, talking about it all the time, but I can see where the relationship breaks down, if, if you're not talking about it and
resentment takes, and I, you know, and I have to tell him that there's times where I say you know I, I feel like I resent you a little bit right now I'm just exhausted. I've done everything by myself we've had.
I've gone from schedule to schedule either every 30 minutes in my day for the past 48 hours has been something to do. And I'm just, I'm done, and I'm tired. And I know you're tired too.
And it's never really a great solution, but just the fact that we both can say those things to each other.
And put them out in the open. And, you know, I think is very helpful. Yeah, I think also it has to do with the person in the relationship to like, if I had a me like a female me partner.
I would never last, it wouldn't last. Very hairy for a start. I know yeah gross gross, but luckily for me, I have somebody so patient.
And so understanding and because we communicate because we can get vulnerable with each other about whatever we can literally get through anything. And I can't I can't imagine how she feels when she's, she has to take care of the kids for 48 hours, and then I get home
pissed off because I had to work 48 hours. I didn't want to do that. And I have plans that I have to do stuff around the house or whatever. And I'm grumpy because I didn't sleep. But I mean, she's extremely patient person. That's one of the reasons why I really love her so much.
And I'm extremely lucky to have somebody so patient. But like I said, it's just it's the person in the relationship because, like I said, if I had somebody like me, our relationship would end.
Like super early. It wouldn't be good. Yeah, especially when I'm tired like you know my patience level is is zero, you know I have a short fuse. And I try and be so patient with the kids and she understands, but she doesn't deserve that.
So, so yeah, like she said big thing is just communication and that that's that's kind of the downfall of a lot of things like the fire service for instance, when you do an evolution, like a full scale evolution for a structure fire whatever.
There's always going to be radio communication. And then at the very end of it like physically, you do all these things perfectly fine. But the main problem is well what was the main problem is in this evolution communication, communicate communication can always be better, you know.
So,
I think yeah I think it's just difficult when, you know,
because and I hate to keep saying this because he truly hates it but when when you're single parent I get it. Oh my god I know but I have to do it's true you have to make that that like there's no other option, except for me at this time.
And if I said, Well, what if you just quit, you know if that but that's not an option, because it's not an option to him, and he wouldn't be happy happy if, if he did anything else I truly believe that. So, in order for him to be his best self and love his job and be
passionate, even though it comes with a really terrible downfall but we know that there's another option, or a better, a better option.
That's, that's kind of the price we pay, and we just have to talk about it as much as possible and talk about how we're feeling.
So I think, I think whenever there's a breakdown of communication.
Yeah, it's game over.
Yeah, we talked about single parent and even this is a slightly different example but it's also true. I've been a single parent again the last three and a half years because my wife's been 300 miles away a medical school, and we see each other, you know, every other weekend
every couple of weekends, whatever we can. But yeah, it's me and Ty again for the last, you know, three and a half years so I hear a lot of you know military spouses you know wildland firefighting spouses you are a single parent whether it's just for 24 or 48 or
it's for, you know, three month season, you know, so, again, coming back to the schedule and use the word deserve, you know you said, Shelby doesn't deserve that. I agree, no firefighter family deserves to have their partner taken from them for yet another 24 hours or even 16 more hours
than the person in publics.
So, King for a day and this is not a unicorn fighting rainbows this has happened, Boynton Beach or Boko was the original gangster, then Boynton Beach Gainesville Pasco County Palm Beach County Destin Florida.
I think I'm missing one, a load of departments have gone this last 18 months to this because they're realizing this is a reality they're realizing this is the resolution for the recruitment crisis that is going to kill some fire departments if they don't figure it out and then the neighboring ones around the ones that have changed if you thought you had problems hiring before,
you know, the cash motherfucker is about to get a lot worse. So with all that being said, when, not if when Marion County goes to 2472 and fully staff so therefore, you know, over time we once in a while and like you said we are such a kind profession that you guys have two kids,
now 17 Casey's, you know, is going to have to get here. I'll take your overtime for you. That's how that's how it works. But that aside, you know, fully staff 2472. What impact would that have on the relationship with you and the relationship with the kids.
Wow, I mean I think that I think that would be huge. Just, just alone, to be able to have that time where you. What is it I guess it'd be the confidence to know that someone will be there no matter what.
And I think that that would be a huge impact for those, you know, couple of days would be incredible. It would take so much of the mental load off of me. You know, we could plan things ahead of time and know that be confident in them, we could, you know, I think as a relationship it would just to see him be a healthier human being because of it.
So, Casey is a very, I think from the outside looking in a lot of people think that he's just, well he always has been kind of carefree and lighthearted and this sort of thing. But all of this is definitely hardened him quite a bit.
And so I think to see some of that life kind of flow back into him would translate into our relationship would translate to our children, you know, having their dad kind of full of life and energy and being able to spend those days off to the fullest, instead of surviving is what essentially
24 hours at home is when you have to go right back.
So I think for our children to have the dad that they deserve. And for me to have the husband I deserve at home, a full human would be, I mean, just, it would change it would change our lives.
I think we could literally shake the stigma of, oh, you know, you wait you'll have two divorces and an alcoholism problem. Again, if you know imagine if you went to Lloyd's bank and they told you at the front door like okay I'm not. I'm ex-nay on this, this is bullshit.
So, what's your perspective 24 72 it becomes a reality.
As far as helping her out, like, I would be all for that. And really, the main problems that I have.
I can't be myself whenever I am sleep, sleep deprived.
And for me personally my brain just can't handle it. Like, whatever brain cells that are floating around in there they need as much sleep as possible.
Sorry.
So like, just mentally trying to form sentences, or like trying to find words to say things or trying to trying to convey how I feel
is disrupted because of sleep deprivation and I want to be myself as much as I can for myself and for her.
Obviously the time that I would have off shift to be able to give her a hand with, you know, taking the kids to school or bathing them, brushing their teeth, blah blah blah, anything that you know parents do.
But mentally, that would be a. See, I wouldn't know until we wouldn't even know. The thing is we don't even know what that would look like because it's never been that way.
For instance, right now, the past two shifts I've been off this weekend we went camping with the kids.
That's why you're starting that majestic beard.
Look at him go.
Uber pubescent or that was more than two days.
And then, what's today, Wednesday?
Thursday.
Tuesdays when I was supposed to work. Yeah, I was off Tuesday too because I was supposed to go to a class but I ended up canceling it.
I got my vacation and I feel awesome.
But I like again I wouldn't know how I would really feel until it actually happened but I would assume if I feel better if I sleep then.
I guess we are looking at it right now, you know, because I'm like even this morning I'm like man, I like we judge how to function in the afternoon and yesterday, I woke up, and I just went to work.
Wow, I like that's something I truly never get to experience because and I Casey is a dad he is a wonderful dad and he you know if he didn't have if he wasn't gone as much as he is, I, it's, he could be a stay at home dad I've actually offered him that multiple times but he keeps turning me down.
But I, you know, trust him 1000% anything that needs to be done will be done exactly the way. Not exactly the way actually I would do it but it would be done.
Yeah, it would be done.
And so just the mental load to be shared would be something that really we don't get enough of. Nope.
So, I feel bad because I'm not giving her as much as I should.
Well there's that guilt and shame. So you look at the mental health crisis, and I'll get to all the diseases that sleep deprivation causes in a second but you think about the, the devolution and I've talked about this so often with people that have come on the show that have been truly
suicidal had a plan that holding the pistol they're about to go on a one way dive they'll never come back up from whatever their plan was over and over again. They say, I'm a burden to my family I'm the reason for their pain.
And so you think about the shame and the guilt that's piled on for that fucking 7am phone call. Hey sweetheart. I can't come home I'll be mandatory again.
You know, and now you've poured all that on your wife or your husband, you know, and they have a deal with it for another 24 hours was they're trying to forge their career and you know whatever.
You know it just it's completely, you know compounding, you've got someone who's already struggling their reality is becoming slowly distorted through the sleep deprivation.
And now you're like, I did it again. Yeah, it's a shitty position. My kid's crying on the phone because I'm not coming home. What a piece of shit, and then now you're feeding that fucking devil inside.
Yep. That little devil gets fed all the time. We, yeah, and we talk about that how, you know, coupled sleep deprivation coupled with mental health disorders that we that are already there.
That just get increased by, you know, what you see at work, the trauma of what you see at work and not sleeping well and all those things. And how that and we have to talk about that a lot how his devil on his shoulder just gets louder and louder and louder and it's not saying things like that.
But it is just reiterating that you're not good at this you're not you know you're not good at talking when we had a long conversation about the first conversation you know when he on the podcast he was really upset by it.
And he's like, I just like, am I the only one that like that this would happen to like just can't form sentences and I said if you asked me to do the same thing and stay up that long and then have like a full on conversation with someone.
I would like I would have just canceled I'm sorry I would have said I have to go to sleep. Yeah, I always tell people if they're on shift if they're oh I'm off Monday and Tuesday.
All right, well let's do it Tuesday, because I know what Monday is going to be like people would not be able to have that conversation. No, and then actually just to highlight we were supposed to do it a few days before.
But what happened.
You got mandated.
Oh yeah.
I know I mean we're like looking we're living it. This is like a small snapshot into like our life you know.
So and things like that happen all the time that we kind of have to change.
But as it happens so frequently you, you just learn to deal with it. And so it's difficult to even see how nice life would look without that sort of thing being there.
Well, another thing as well and this is no one's ever done a study on this either it's funny when people ask me for studies and data I'm like all the things that matter. No one has done it on I can show you 10 studies on a fucking smoothball nozzle versus a combination
or, you know, whatever it is but all this shit that really matters, because, yes, there's absolutely an application for smoothball high rise for example but every fire I've ever been on with a fog nozzle, the fire went out, tell you every ladder I climbed no matter which way it was inside or outside.
It went up and went down so but when it comes to sleep deprivation and shift work and the 2472. The only study that's been done was the 4896. And that was by a guy I had on Joel Billings super nice guy volunteer firefighter, never even this is his words never even
ever night as a volley. He's never experienced a bunk room decided to go the research route not the firefighting route. And he did a study on 4896 versus a 2448. And he studied in his words a department that ran less than one call a night.
And then the fire department ran with it. Oh, it's a better and you've got Seattle and all these, you know, busy ass departments. And the only takeaway and his was interesting. The only takeaway was that second 24.
They didn't have to get up at five in the morning to go to the fire station so there was a slight improvement. If they if they say weren't.
I will in this case they weren't running at night so they had an actual full night sleep so the next day they looked a bit better. Yeah, because the day before they got up at five to go to the station the first place.
That is remedied for free by the pure insanity and I this is a realization I only had about a year ago. Why the fuck do we even start at seven or eight in the morning.
If you started at 11 or midday noon, then you could wake up, help you with the kids, you know, so get up a normal time help you with the kids give your wife or husband a kiss goodbye, then go to the station when everyone's already gone to school and work.
Meanwhile, let's say I'm driving to the station now Casey just goes ass handed to him.
Dispatch doesn't need to wake him up at seven in the morning say hey fuck I get up for no reason. They can just let him sleep. So by the time he drives home back to you. He's at least caught up a little bit you know we do shift change so obviously you know the say off going shift would do the, the, you know, clean the rigs and stuff so we go do is check out your gear when you get there.
Now it's lunchtime sit with your crew have your morning meeting. And then off you go. So that's a win win and that's $0 for that. So that with the 2472 you've taken that advantage from that study, and you've put it in without working a 48.
But that's the only study that's been done. Everyone else is like you know it's a data on the 2472 I'm like no, but let me tell you this.
I love the quote, don't wait for science to prove what you already know is true. You're asking to do a study that shows that a 42 hour work week is healthier than a 56 hour work week.
For fuck's sake.
You know, come on that or even an 80 hour because someone asked me is there research on the impact of a forced overtime. Well, yeah, 24 more hours you know so this is where we're at like there isn't.
They know one has done it and I think partly they've stayed away from it because it's a difficult conversation. And so you know here I am this fucking immigrant from England, trying to rattle the tree.
And you know and point out where it hasn't been done, but don't, don't not do it because there's no research, understand you don't need research this is fucking common sense.
The disease under the tree is directly related to sleep deprivation we talk about cancer all the time and clean cabs and all that stuff that has an application.
But shift work is a known carcinogen, as you talked about addiction suicide anxiety depression directly relates to sleep deprivation, we use sleep deprivation for interrogation and torture and special forces selection, and that only lasts a few days and then they
start doing it again. You know so autoimmune disease the testosterone depletion that we see in the fire service that is rife that these men's clinics are taking advantage of and, you know, the predatory element on our first responders because, again, the
2472 I guarantee you most of those people's levels will be actor, almost normal and then there's peptides if you need to just boost it a little bit.
So you know all the things, everything that we die of everything that we suffer from would be remedied with this it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be, you know, improve times 10 easily.
Yeah. Yeah, and so we wouldn't have to continue to slap band aids on things that, you know, and for those and I will say most of these firefighters are, they're pretty.
They're most of them are eating what they should they're exercising a lot.
Casey just pulled a face that well maybe not but I mean so even for him he is a very.
We eat better than most people and you do exercise a lot. And these health conditions are still popping up it's like, well that face more towards the lazy fireman I was thinking that oh oh I was like oh I thought you meant for you I feel like we do a pretty good job
of eating well and exercise we eat well and we exercise and, you know, I make sure that, and you make sure you're taking care of yourself to the best that we can.
But there's some things that just aren't going to be. We can't combat. And when it comes to the, the working environment.
So, until those change. We have to keep putting band aids on things and that again that sucks for if you're not eating right and you're not exercising you're putting more band aids on it.
The environment stops you from that, because if you look at the hormonal disruption your leptin and ghrelin so the one that makes you hungry is is higher.
Your insulin is completely screwed up so you're basically pre diabetic after 24 hours, and you look at the weight gain you know and you and I will the three of us, but certainly in the fire service you and I are in great shape despite the working
environment that we were in a lot of people in the middle. I'm always very fair with this the fitness standards, I think should be an annual thing.
But they should be set fucking high because you know what we're expected to do is not the average person. Absolutely, but you have to acknowledge that right now, which is why I don't get pissed off when no Marion people show up to my class is those poor people
are so fucking tired the last thing you want to do is come and do my class and I get it.
When you go to 24 72. Now you've created an environment that really, you know, nurtures performance now you can put those standards back up, especially when it comes to recruitment.
Anaheim when I was testing against 1000 people and that was in the written test not the, you know, every applicant.
They took, I think it was like three or 5% there was 1000 people I'm not good at math but 30 30 of us got a job, have 1000. And we were all certified paramedics EMTs experience the whole thing.
So, they got to set the bar super high and they would lose 25% of each class through attrition, you couldn't meet the bar, beautiful someone else to hire you, not saying you're a bad firefighter you're just not an Anaheim firefighter.
That's what we could get to. So I know I've heard the kind of rumblings of oh it's about the mission in in Marion. Well if your mission is to create a good firefighter, then rest and recovery is imperative.
A fitness standard annual punitive fitness standards is imperative but you can't do that until you create an environment that nurtures performance that nurtures the ability to be fitter stronger faster and better trained.
Because you can't even learn you can't absorb something that you've learned, if you don't sleep. That's when we process learning. That's when we process trauma.
So if they're beating your chest and you got your little fucking salty face and your, your leather helmet and you're always on Instagram, and you're about oh it's for them.
No it's not it's for you, because you're not even fucking standing up for the very thing that's going to make you a better firefighter the very thing that's going to get you home to your wife and your children, you know, after that 24.
So if you're not fighting for this, then don't say that it's for them don't say that you're a great firefighter because you're not, because you're complacently allowing an environment that is forcing you to deteriorate rather than to actually perform.
Yeah, no I agree with that.
I'll have a station one a level go up there and do a PowerPoint presentation for him.
Throwing things at me. I think any Marion County is going to let me through the door.
I've been doing this for eight years and I'm still getting resistance and clearly there's some people behind the scenes that are opposing this and I couldn't care less because I'm still going to keep doing it but yeah, the wall will fall eventually, but you know
the environment, the hate change and the way things are so. But they know they should hate more than that firefighter funerals. That's right. I agree with that.
And then also the thing the real sticking point that a lot of people don't understand and Sarah Jenke was on talking about this recently.
They are seeing an incredibly scary increase in childhood diseases of our offspring, infertility, Down syndrome, autism, pediatric cancers. So again, if you don't want to advocate yourself because you're a Billy badass, then at least have the fucking humility to advocate for your own children, because they're the ones that we're passing on to this, not even to mention the fucking mental health domino effect of what we do to our kids.
Yeah, I know I read something you posted it was a while ago that children of firefighters was it really like 10% are more likely to have developed cancer, some sort of child, I was like 10% 10%
I mean, think about it for your sex hormones are distorted. You know, I mean, how much like I said, infertility, I know so many firefighters that struggle to get pregnant, you know, and then I just it feels like obviously I know a lot of firefighters, but I see that just as so much autism, downs, all these things and, you know, if if we get hit by a meteor, there's nothing we can do, you know, but if someone like we just lost in Miami Beach and then we just lost here and you know, during the fallen firefighter weekend,
a local firefighter takes his own life to suicides within about three days. Those are preventable. If we unpack just like we have at the beginning this conversation to the environment that not only we grew up in that our parents grew up in, and we, we find you know, the modalities that will help us work through that.
And then physically the rest and recovery, we can prevent so many of these deaths, but we have to have the courage to actually say enough is enough. And I always tell people, right, what's the body count? How many to need to die before you'll start fucking doing something, we'll just line them up against the wall, we'll kill we'll kill the remainder of them now, and then you'll start fucking changing. Because if you are unmoved by these last few deaths that we've had locally, for example, why are you still in that position? You know,
if this was any other, you know, organization, if a bunch of pilots died under a certain leader, you think that leader would still be there? No, he'd be gone or she'd be gone. So why in the fire service do we tolerate these constant deaths and we keep doing the same thing over and over again?
All right, well, I'm going to deviate because again, this is this is my opinion and I know that you know, this is Kate Casey's employer, but you know, I, I, I've seen what's happened to my friends working in this environment, and it's not the job. It's a changeable environment that will benefit everyone, including the citizens because they will get a better firefighter responding to their home. And they won't be at as much danger when we're flying through an emergency vehicles while we're driving our family to the school.
Speaking of diseases, though, another, another element that people don't discuss is all the the neuro related diseases that comes from sleep deprivation. So Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, you know, I mean, all the things. And we see that a lot, you know, in end stage when it comes to the fire service.
So you mentioned about your dad earlier. Let's talk about, you know, his Parkinson's diagnosis and then obviously we'll we'll get to what you're doing to raise money for that foundation.
So Parkinson's has played a huge role in our family's lives because my dad was he was diagnosed with Parkinson ism in 2015. And at that point we had the only the only thing that we knew about Parkinson's was Michael J. Fox.
You know, we knew very little about the disease, how to cope with it, how to deal with it, how to treat patients with it. So me and my mom were in the dark for a long time about Parkinson's.
But it's a it's a gradual and aggressive neurological disease that affects your muscles. And when you think of Parkinson's disease, you obviously think your immediate reaction or immediate thought is like shaking. Right.
That's everyone's immediate thought. But that's not this. That's not everybody. So my dad didn't end up having that style of Parkinson's. It was more of the stiffness and freezing style of Parkinson's.
So we noticed earlier on that he was his speech was getting weird. He was certain stutter a lot. His shuffling or his gait was getting kind of shortened and shuffled and he'd end up freezing.
And then whenever he got a little bit weaker because of the disease, whenever he would freeze, he would fall. So constantly falling constantly, you know, balance issues using for we had to buy like special forks for him to be able to eat his food.
And that man loved to eat. So it was kind of tough on all of us because, you know, we had to deal with all of that, that that lifestyle change.
And so whenever we first knew about it, it was it was actually diagnosed by his urologist, of all people. And he was like, hey, there's something going on with Bob. I don't know if you want to like go further with this and go to a neurologist.
And then there was one that was like the probably a Parkinson ism. So from then on, we kept going to neurologists and then, you know, him finally getting diagnosed with Parkinson's.
So my mom being the person that she is, she's a planner and a very aggressive planner.
And she did a lot of research and did the best she could about trying to help him throughout the, you know, his his time with the disease and the time that I had, I tried to help out as well.
But, you know, as time progressed, like, you know, work, work took over me getting married me having children like all that time was taken away from my mom and my dad.
But so basically, when when we went through this disease, we knew very little.
And what I've done is I've developed this event, which is happening this year on December 14th.
It's called Brick City Battle.
And it is supposed to raise awareness of the Parkinson's disease.
Get emotional.
And.
I want families to be able to navigate through this disease.
And it's not just us.
It's not just us.
Because it was.
It was difficult.
Yeah, it was difficult because as being a health care provider, I, I know what to look for in someone with Parkinson's disease.
Someone who's not fulfilling their feet, someone just not kind of paying attention, someone which his dad kind of had some of those attributes already.
He was just kind of kind of aloof sometimes.
So I think it was even more subtle in him.
And so, you know, his I think his mom would kind of squawk at him.
I quit doing that.
Yeah. And then and then eventually they're like, OK, there's an actual problem going on here.
And it took a lot of a lot of education.
And what they realized as they got into the trenches of this is that there's not a lot of help and there's not a lot of resources to give family members when they're going through it.
It's very overwhelming.
Yeah.
For the patient and for the caregiver, especially I would say I mean his mom is an absolute warrior.
I'm I'm serious. She went through she took care of him.
She just did a phenomenal job and as hard as it was to find resources.
She was so vigilant in making sure that he had the best care.
She knew what was going on.
And she was an advocate as a provider who works in I work in a inpatient physical rehab facility.
And there's so many patients, Parkinson's patients that don't have advocates.
And it's very, very scary because the timing of magic medication is very, very sensitive.
There's a small therapeutic window, so it has to be regimented on time.
And so if you don't have someone there that says, this is what's going on with my husband, my wife, my friend, then those won't be expressed to health care providers to anyone.
And so she was there as literally his brain in his mouth and all those things.
His voice when truly he could not do it anymore.
And you think that was a long time. How long was that?
It was years. It was a long time that she had to do that.
And so you can imagine someone.
Sorry, you can imagine someone having to do that for their partner for so long would be difficult.
It was tough. It was so tough. It was a tough time.
It was tough. But if you talk to her about it, she'd be like, well, it just had to be done.
So she never wavered. She never whined. She never.
It was what needed to be done. It was very difficult.
It was exhausting. And I think to this day, she's still dealing with the stress of all that years after his passing.
She's still trying to process how to move forward and triggers.
She's she's done a whole lot better because she's found resources and member groups on Facebook and different avenues to speak with patient, to speak with people that had to go through the same thing she did.
Family members, wives, friends, neighbors or whatever.
And she knew going through it, it's a full time job.
So she had a full time job going to a full time job.
And her specifically like is such a huge inspiration for me.
In the like the mental aspect of it, because you have to be so almost detached from your own feelings to be able to deal with to deal with something like this.
And she did such a good job tending to him and being so selfless.
So that's a huge role model.
Huge inspiration to me.
That's kind of where I where I want to be mentally when I think about mental toughness is is that.
So she did great.
Yeah. But she does that for everybody in her family.
She wouldn't 100 percent do it for for anyone in her family.
Yeah. Like I said, she's she's a mother hen like that.
She she's took that role and she kind of like her thing.
Inherently, she's just a leader. She wants to take control and.
Have it her way. It's Debbie's way.
I've watched Becky's best friend who she herself passed away two years ago from complications from surgery from cancer.
But and I had her on the show, Andrea, but her mother had Parkinson's and it was kind of like you were saying.
I mean, I kind of didn't even come into her family until towards the end stage.
But yeah, she just kind of slowly kind of went within herself and she was aphasic at the end.
And I can just imagine how devastating it must be because it's like that Chinese water torture.
You're losing that person just one drip at a time.
You become a shell of a human being mentally.
I think he was there like he was able to make decisions maybe a little bit slower than normal.
But like you could see he wanted to communicate so bad, but he gets stuck on a word or not know exactly what word to say.
But it's it's heartbreaking to see.
And imagine, you know, being kind of in a prison within yourself and then also on the other side, knowing that that person's in there.
And I didn't grow up with his dad, obviously, Bob.
So I didn't unfortunately, I didn't get to see him at his best.
I'm when I met him, he had already been diagnosed.
And so I and we did we communicated and he was definitely more himself when we met.
But over time, I just I feel like I kind of missed out because I didn't get to really know him because Casey apparently is.
Debbie says this all the time that Casey's just like his father.
I'm like and I think how difficult that would be losing such a bright light and, you know, silly, lighthearted, like just, you know, and then literally watching them just kind of, you know, be trapped within themselves would be very difficult.
Absolutely.
I went to we talk about HMC, the organization that that research.
Well, they do talk every month or stem talk and they bring in an expert.
And it was actually one of the professors from UF, the researcher and he was talking about Parkinson's.
And when you talk about Alzheimer's, a lot of people now are calling it type three diabetes.
You know, and we're realizing that, again, it is preventable, not from every single person, but I would argue a mass amount the same way as type two diabetes is extremely preventable as well.
When it came to Parkinson's, though, aside from head trauma, which, again, especially ALS, you know, we have that you look at Muhammad Ali, I believe it was Parkinson's Pujolista is what they call it.
But the other thing was he was talking about the contaminants, the plastics, the chemicals as a big, big reason for Parkinson's, which again, you know, is something that we can prevent, you know, whether it's in the food, whether it's in the air.
And I forget exactly what you told me, but talk to me.
You mentioned about your dad not being, you know, a pillar of physical fitness, but also with any professions that he done that exposed him to any chemicals.
The only thing that I could think of as far as exposure would be the military.
He worked on a ship in the Navy, working on helicopters.
So, I guess he might have been exposed to something along those lines.
And once he was done with that, he went to school and then, you know, band directing was his his thing. So if like, you know, if Valvoil or something has anything to do with with Parkinson's disease, then that would be one of the things.
But no, I in as far as like head trauma, I don't I never knew of him.
I think he might have played football in high school, but but even then, like never talked about head trauma, never talked about concussions, never talked about like being hospitalized because of it.
So, I mean, there are so many different factors and still today it's it's hard for them to pinpoint like how people get Parkinson's, you know, it could be genetic could be head trauma contaminants stuff that we eat nowadays.
I mean, he had a lot of he had a lot of snacks.
He ate a lot of fast food.
But, I mean, up until then he was he was fine.
Like, like I said, he he was getting up in front of the church on the pulpit and talking and getting in front of the class and doing just fine, you know, mentally he was there until he wasn't.
So that's that's why it was so it's such a big hit because like like she said it was like a big light that got turned off.
How was he when you first diagnosed him with Parkinson's ism Parkinson ism excuse me.
He denied a lot of the things that were going on because he didn't want he didn't want it to be a reality.
I mean, just like anything, like if you find out that you have something going on, that's a long term deal like not I don't have that, you know, so all the things that are happening.
He dismissed it. So my mom was like, yeah, you're doing this and it's becoming more prevalent becoming becoming more often.
But in the very beginning, he he denied it. He didn't want to he didn't want to be true.
And then once he realized that it took hold, like the biggest thing that the neurologists and rehab facilities were telling him to do is exercise.
And because he didn't exercise, he didn't.
I mean, you can't get better by exercising, but you can definitely slow it down. And he didn't take that route. Unfortunately.
You remember how old he was when he was diagnosed?
See, would have been 76.
I can't do that very good.
67, I think. And there have been studies done where people there have been a study where it was a group of 20 men and the median age that people would get diagnosed Parkinson's was around 50.
Yeah, Michael J Fox is probably around that, wasn't he?
So he got diagnosed in 91 and he was like he was young. He was very young.
I want to say in his 30s.
But but the life expectancy is low.
I mean, the the according to that that article, I think the longest somebody had lived was was maybe 20 years after they're diagnosed from, you know, 50 to 70 whatever.
And I would say typically you don't die from Parkinson's. You die from a symptom that occurs because of the Parkinson's.
Is it from the inability for the body to even move? Because I can imagine gut motility and pulling and all that kind of thing.
And gut motility. It's interesting you say that, you know, I think when people think about Parkinson's, they just see someone like Michael J Fox.
It's kind of moving, but then having uncontrollable body movements. But a lot of times it's not that his dad didn't really have.
He had some mild tremors and things, but he had that mask face where it looks like they have zero expression.
They have the shuffled gait attacks. He has so just like some difficulty with like kind of basic movements.
But yeah, there's other things that go go on like gut motility. That was really something.
You know, these are all things that Debbie had to kind of figure out his case, his mom, because those become life altering.
It seems like something that's just kind of simple, but it changes the way these people are eating.
It's changing the way they have to go to the bathroom. It's changing, you know.
And so, yeah, I think that there's a lot more that goes into it.
And it yeah, I mean, they die a lot of times because basically they just can't physically, they can't function.
And then it depends if someone's going to, you know, either force them to eat through like a G tube or something like that.
That depends what your lifestyle measures are going to look like. But, you know, I think with Casey's family, they decided that if, you know, he's not able to feed himself
and not able to do kind of, I don't know, his own daily functions like he would want.
Quality of life.
His quality, thank you. Yeah, quality of life. Then that would be kind of the measures that they would take instead of trying to, they were never going to do a G tube.
They were never going to do, you know.
Life support, nothing. They talked about that a long time ago.
And that's the decision that they had made because I have the same, I have the same thought, you know, if that ever happens to me, like I don't want to, I don't want to be on life support.
That's what's the quality of life there. There's none. If I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go, you know.
Yeah. You see all those people in the con homes, you know, just lying on the pee pad staring at the ceiling and just like, you know, that's why with the euthanasia conversation, I'm all for it.
Not as it seems to be in Canada, advertise it to people that are going through mental health struggles.
That's the, I don't know, that's the message I'm getting at least, but yeah, used sensibly. And if you've got end stage Parkinson's or ALS or cancer, you know, let these people go and they can still, you know, interact with their family and kiss them goodbye.
Because you're going to go anyway. Yeah. I mean, you know. Yeah. Well, let's talk about what you're doing there with the Brick City battle.
We'll try again.
There's that raw emotion is exactly, you know, how a conversation is supposed to go though. I mean, you lost your father for fuck's sake. Yeah.
So I did lose my father two years ago in 22.
Last year was the first Brick City battle and it was to spread awareness of Parkinson's, like I said, and
although we did raise $5,000 over $5,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
That wasn't really as important as spreading
information to
Yeah.
Information resources to people that might have to deal with that in the future.
Because like I said, we were in the dark for a lot of it and my mom had to do a lot of legwork to find out how to treat, how to deal with, how to cope with the disease.
So I don't want them to have to worry about
doing all that legwork when I have all that information at my fingertips.
So at the competition, I'll have booths or tables that have information from different
neurological facilities like the Fixel Institute in Gainesville,
STARS Rehab in St. Augustine, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which is huge. So they were nice enough to give me a care package to give to athletes and spectators.
But as far as the competition is concerned, it's
a team-based competition and
the reasoning behind that is because when you have a disease like that, you can't function on your own.
So you need a partner to work with you to get where you need to go or to do what you need to do.
And because I'm a fireman, I wanted to add some firefighter elements to it. So like if you think about firefighting, you don't go in anywhere by yourself. You always have to have a partner.
It's a buddy system. So that's the reason why we're doing a team-based event. It's
male teams and female teams. We have two divisions, scaled and RX. And the big thing that I'm preaching is that there's no limiting movements, meaning like
if you can pick something up and put it down and move with that weight, you can do this competition. A lot of people are so intimidated by going to quote unquote crossfit competitions
because they see the crossfit games and they're like, well, I can't do a muscle up. I can't do a handstand walk or handstand push up.
I won't be able to do that. So they shut it down completely. But I want people to know that
because there are no movements that the normal person wouldn't be able to do, then there's no excuse. I want people to come out. I want people to have fun, to suffer a little bit.
And at the end of the day, just like we were talking about with the team-based workouts at the station or in crossfit classes, at the end of it, you feel great.
You know, you feel accomplished. You feel a sense of camaraderie.
So that's what I'm trying to do for this competition, but mainly just spreading awareness and giving information that people wouldn't normally get by just going to the doctor.
Because when we went through it, we had limited information from those doctors.
You know, like my mom would be like, okay, well, where do I go from here? And they're like, well, I don't know.
And then when we go to the emergency room, which we frequented towards the end, it was frustrating because like Shelby was talking about,
if you don't have a strict regimen with their medications, they're going to spiral. And it takes so long for them to get back to where they need to go or need to be to be normal.
Well, quote unquote, normal for them, that it's terrible for them. It's terrible for their caregivers. So like, I want people to know about that stuff.
It's extremely important, especially with the especially health care providers. I think a lot of I mean, as a nurse, I'd say I didn't get too much information on Parkinson's.
But for nurses to know that, like, you know, if you have a patient that comes to you with Parkinson's disease, there's a lot that needs to go on with that patient.
And you need to talk with your administration about how we're going to ensure the proper care for that patient, whether it be a care provider that's going to be just with that, not just with that patient, because I know that's unfortunately not realistic.
But, you know, basically what things we can put in place so that we can make sure that we're taking the best care of that patient, because it's multifaceted and there's a lot of things.
There's a lot of care that needs to go on for those patients.
As a medic, what would you tell them? You've got to take a patient with Parkinson's. Should we make sure we bring the meds? Should we even find out what time? Because I know in hospitals, sometimes you're waiting for a med and depending on how busy they are, you might not get it for hours on the end.
Sure. What would be the most proactive way for EMS to give an offload and really underline the importance of them getting their meds?
So typically the first response when people say, hey, should I bring my medications is no for most people because, A, we don't want to be responsible for it being lost or you losing them or whatever.
But also they have those medications in the hospital, so a pharmacist can be able to give it to you whenever. But as far as Parkinson's is concerned, yes, bring the medications and if the caregiver is not going, like that medic needs to know he's the advocate for that patient.
So whenever they go to the hospital, you relay to the doctor, to the nurses, like here's the medications they need to get. You need to give it to them. 9 a.m. 12 p.m. 6 p.m. and then everything in between.
And then really reiterate, hey, this is extremely important or else you're doing wrong to the patient. So just letting them know, hey, you're an advocate for this person.
Bring the medications, let them know this is extremely important to to get these medications in on time.
So Brick City Battle, where can people sign up? Where can they find it on social media?
So I have two different social media platforms. I have Instagram at Brick City Battle and then I have a Facebook page.
But I wouldn't go to the Facebook page because I don't post on Facebook.
There are links there on Facebook, but as far as posts are concerned, they're not on there. So mainly Instagram is my my biggest platform.
All the workouts have now been posted.
So I have two workouts, two full workouts and a floater workout.
So the two workouts are it's a mixture between strongman crossfit and a little bit of firefighter functional fitness.
You know, we're adding in some fun stuff like hose rolling or fire ground skills, pulling hose lines, carrying carrying ladders without the use of hoses or ladders.
You know, this is kind of a cool thing for me to to use an outlet to be creative.
So I'm pretty pumped about this year.
So, yeah, Instagram Brick City Battle.
If you don't have social media, Brick City Battle dot com, that will take you to the website to sign up and give you more information as far as athletes are concerned.
Vendor information, sponsor information.
Spectators are free if you want to come in just to hang out and watch people work out.
Or or if you have somebody who's suffering from Parkinson's disease and want more information, come on.
We'll have information on the in the on the tables.
And hopefully what I would really like to have is somebody as a representative from one of the rehab facilities to come and be able to talk if I'm not able to talk with them.
So if you don't want to compete and you want to just give, I have a link on my Instagram to the Michael J.
Fox Foundation to give just whatever you want.
And then I have T-shirts that I've made that I'm very proud of.
I still get one, actually. So yeah, I'll give you the link in a minute.
So that links on my Instagram as well.
So every year I'm going to be doing a new event T-shirt. This year is pretty cool.
Bill Rivera is the one who's printing them.
So he's he's kind of the face behind all the T-shirts and Iron Legion and and a lot of my stuff that all my T-shirt ventures that I've done.
So it is a very good job. Very comfortable T-shirts.
But that all that money that I'm raising for those T-shirts are going to go straight to the foundation vendors that I'm going to have.
We're going to have stretch zone there as a sponsor.
That's the word to if in between workouts before workouts or whatever, if you need to stretch out a little bit, they do like in depth stretching.
It was kind of crazy how we got in contact because I was talking with one of the girls at the gym about sponsors and I saw that one of the girls from stretch zone had like one of my photos.
And I was like, all right, that's kind of cool. Like maybe I'll reach out to her. So I typed a message to her.
I say her because I didn't know the time I took the message to them.
And for some reason, it wouldn't send the message. I was like, well, that kind of sucks.
I don't know why I didn't send the message to them. And then later on that day, I was outside sitting up for a workout and somebody rolled by and she was like, hey, I saw you on Instagram.
And in my head, I'm thinking that it was from the event, but it was from some dumb Rio that we did for the cafe, which Karen does a lot of and they're really funny.
But she recognized me. She pulled she rolled her window down window down and we started talking and turns out she was one of the girls from stretch zone like randomly pops up that day.
So I got talking to her about that and what we were all about. She was like, I'm absolutely 100% on board. So lucky to have them.
Eco coolers. Yep. Kyle from eco coolers is going to be able to be that not be there, but give some of his product.
He's he makes awesome coolers, tumblers. He makes not only that kind of stuff, but he also makes like stand up paddle boards, kayaks.
But he's a local company here in Ocala. Super awesome guy makes quality work.
What else am I missing? Oh, where is it at? Is what you're going to ask next? Probably. Yeah. Where and when? Yeah.
Yeah. So where it's going to be downtown Ocala at Iron Legion strength and combat.
It's where the old Social Security building used to be.
If you haven't been there in like 10 years.
Yeah.
But it's going to be there. It's going to be on December 14th. Workouts normally start around nine o'clock a.m.
And last year it ran super smooth. So I would assume it would probably run to like maybe one o'clock.
So it's not a full day thing. If you have something going on that night, just rest assured you're not going to be there all day long.
So we have a silent auction also for this competition.
A lot of really great local companies who are giving to this this event.
So I'm very thankful for them. Again, all the other the proceeds are going to go to the foundation.
You can plug the cafe to next door.
Next door to the gym is a cafe, acai bowls, coffee, croffles, croffles, smoothies or whatever.
Brick and iron cafe. Brick and iron cafe. Yep. What about who can enter?
Do you have scaled in Rx and do you have teams and are they coed?
Yeah. So it's not going to be coed. It's going to be same sex teams.
Maybe maybe down the road when I get more engagement and more people signing up and more people knowing about it, I'll open it up to coed, which I think is a lot of fun.
But right now it's going to be same sex teams. I do have Rx and scale divisions.
The scale division, like I said, is like something that I don't want people to be intimidated about.
The weights on it are manageable. The movements are manageable.
And then the Rx weight is going to be more for the advanced or experienced athletes.
I guess you could say strong man, CrossFit, whatever.
But I just want people to come out and have a good time.
Last year, the energy was so good. I mean, you can vouch for that.
It just it was a good time. Everyone was super awesome.
There was no fighting over points or whatever for the athletes.
And because of that, I wanted to do it this year and hopefully next year, year after.
Yeah, a lot of positivity.
We, you know, we had a lot of the volunteers and I think everyone was just it just it ran very smoothly.
So you didn't. Yeah.
And we've been a part of a lot of competitions that have derailed things that things, you know, things that happen.
You don't think about to disrupt the time management of it. But yeah, I'm very thankful for all my athletes, volunteers, judges.
They did an amazing job and people that were helping behind the scenes were very helpful, too.
I'm not a planner by trade. And you know that I am not a very organized person.
So putting this stuff on is foreign to me. It's hard work and it's but it's it's rewarding because I'm doing it for for something that I really believe in.
So yeah, I think at the beginning of this is someone where these things really don't come natural to to organize events and and this sort of thing.
We really we had to sit down because it was becoming so overwhelming.
And with his schedule that all the way already the way it is, we had to really sit down and say, hey, we need to go back to our why.
Why are you doing this? You need to really get in touch with making this a great event and putting your heart into it because anything less would be wouldn't be worth it.
It wouldn't be worth it. And it wouldn't be a trip. Good. Good enough tribute for your dad.
And so I think that, you know, we just had to sit down and talk about that.
And, you know, it really I just want everybody to know that he really does pour his heart into it.
And so any, you know, if you can't financially put into it, that's totally fine.
If you want to volunteer, we would love to have any hands on deck if you want to come out and just be like vibe checkers and come and hang out for fun.
I'm loving that too. So, yeah, I mean, I have a lot of slots open for volunteers, for judges.
We have we have team leaders for a lot of the things that I'm I'm going to have to have judging equipment scoring.
But I mean, if you have no experience as a judge, I mean, you use you as a runner. I could use you with equipment.
I used to do that because I hated judging, especially CrossFit competition. I mean, some guy cleaning out and wearing spandex about no reps and all this stuff.
Just let me move the weights around. I can't deal with these fucking people.
Didn't you say that someone gifted a couple registrations?
Oh, yes. So Chad Belger recovery RX. That's his company. He has gifted sponsorships.
So if somebody is having a problem, problems financially, not able to, like she said, pay for the team fee.
I have five openings still. I want to get that out there.
So Chad Belger was was very generous enough to give us those those five slots to sponsor.
So if you are struggling financially and you still want to try it out and have a team together but don't have the money,
let me know. My Instagram is again, Brick City Battle.
Or if you're at the gym, just come up, talk to me and I would love to help you out.
Because I again, I mean, this is not really about the money.
It's about the awareness and just a real tribute for my father.
Beautiful. Well, I want to say thank you so much. It's been an amazing conversation.
We've gone all over the place, you know, but this is what this is about.
You know, we got very passionate about some areas that need to be changed.
And I make no apologies for what I've said on here.
But I think, you know, the perspective of, you know, the dynamic that you guys have and the fact that you're both professionals
and, you know, that you've made it work despite some of these challenges, I think is amazing.
And then clearly you've honed back into the why behind Brick City Battle,
because it was evident in your response to trying to describe it, you know.
So I want to thank you both so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thanks, James. Yeah, I appreciate it.
And given us time to kind of think about everything that's gone on, you know,
it's fun to reflect on our history and everything that we've been through.
And it's been a wild ride, but it's been good.