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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week I have an extremely unusual episode for
you.
The recording you're going to hear is actually the Firehouse Leadership podcast and the host
Josh Chase, who's the man behind Jumpseat Leadership, was also my guest on episode 744.
But this time we turned the microphone around and he was interviewing me.
But I wanted to put it out as one of the Behind the Shield episodes because as you will hear,
Josh is actually testifying a huge amount after reading my new book, Kinder.
When I wrote this book, it's not a heroic firefighter story.
It's so much more than that.
It's a human story that obviously you see through the firefighters eyes, but there's
a multi-generational trauma story.
There's the firefighters own healing journey.
And ultimately it's about putting hope into people that are struggling and realizing that
they can get out of this and become a better version of themselves.
So who better than really be a voice of this book than someone who read it and was moved
to the point where he reached out and wanted to tell me about this.
So I can obviously post on social media.
I mean, anyone who's written a book is proud of it and obviously trying to put it out there.
But this really uncovers what this book is about and the impact that I was trying to
have when I was writing it because the way it moved Josh is the way I hope it will move
each and every one of you when you read it, listen to it or whatever medium that you ultimately
get.
So without further ado, I introduced to you Josh Chase and in this episode, the firehouse
leadership podcast.
All right.
What's up everybody?
Welcome back to the firehouse leadership podcast.
Today I'm doing a solo episode.
Jared is at work slaying the dragon.
Well, probably not because he's a battalion chief now and he just rides the car.
So there's no more firefighting for him.
But anyway, honestly guys, I have a really special guest today.
It's an honor to have him on the podcast.
Written a couple of books and he runs the behind the shield podcast is a huge advocate
for the men and women in the fire service.
He's honestly changing the industry when it comes to a lot of things.
And I'm going to let him do his own bio here in a second, but his new book kinder really
not only struck a chord with me.
I don't read a lot of books that are life changing.
And I can honestly say that this book has changed my life and set me on a trajectory
where I'm actually tackling some of the mental health issues that I didn't even know that
I had.
And I got five years to retirement at this point and it's showing me I want to retire
healthy, whole and intact.
And I just wanted to throw that out there right at the beginning.
So you guys understand how impactful this book is for me and how impactful this podcast
is actually going to be for you.
So James, thank you for being on the show.
Go ahead and tell everybody a little bit about who you are, what you do and what we're going
to talk about today.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you again for having me on and for people listening.
Josh was on my podcast.
I don't remember the number, but if you Google it, you will see it there as well.
An amazing conversation.
I want to throw that your way before I start yabbering about myself.
I, as you probably can tell, I'm not originally from around these parts.
I'm from England and moved to the US when I was 26.
I dreamed of becoming a firefighter when I was young.
They told me I was colorblind.
So I just wrote it off because they said you can't be a pilot, firefighter, all the things.
So I fumbled around like a lot of people do and they're kind of real, calling is kind
of cut from under them.
And then I had a realization at 26 when I moved to the US that I can see color, not
the sharpest tool in the box.
It took me that long to figure it out.
And so therefore maybe challenge what I was told before.
So anyway, long story short, went to fire Academy in Orlando.
My first department was Hialeah, one of the suburbs of Miami.
Then I went out West for a few years.
There was a tiller man on a truck in Anaheim, California, which is still to this day, the
best seat in the fire service hands down.
And then my son's mother and I had my little boy.
So she wanted to move back to the East Coast to be around with the family.
So then I ended up in the Orlando area for the last 10 years of my career.
I'll give you a kind of segue into the why the podcast.
About 10 years into my career, I spent two years going to numerous firefighter funerals
are actual people I knew, you know, my friends and having a background in exercise physiology
as a coach, as an athlete.
I knew that we weren't asking the right questions in the fire service.
I knew we weren't going to the right experts.
You know, a lot of us, for example, go to someone who's in the fire service that does
personal training on the side or, you know, whatever it is, rather than the leading experts
in the country that do something all day, every day.
And that's their entire profession.
So I was looking for a podcast myself back in 2016, and I just couldn't find one back
then that was specifically firefighter health, mental health, physical health.
And so they say, you know, well, if you can't find it, that's just trying to do it yourself.
Oh, yeah.
So that's what I did.
It literally was eight years yesterday that I released my first episode.
And yeah, here we are now, six million downloads and still pushing out podcasts.
So clearly there's a need for this information and it's completely free.
That's what I love about podcasts.
Most are.
So it's free for anyone around the planet.
If you have internet and you can understand English, whether you're in Durban, South Africa,
or whether you're in Nepal, you know, you can learn from these same people that we get
to talk to.
Yeah.
So, I mean, millions of downloads.
I mean, I think you've interviewed well over a thousand people now.
Has it surprised you?
You know, like you said, you did it eight year anniversary yesterday.
Congratulations.
You started the podcast.
There wasn't any, has it really, has it surprised you?
Were you expecting, I'm not even in call it success.
I'll call it impact.
Were you expecting the amount of impact when you started the podcast?
Expecting no, hoping yes.
Okay.
You are lit when you are going to funerals.
And this is one thing I mean, I talk, I'm more aggressive these days because after eight
years of putting information out, you can see who's just simply ignoring what we need
to change.
And then I'll give absolute grace to people that just aren't educated and they're still
kind of unaware of this information.
But when you go to a firefighter's funeral, when you hear the bagpipes and the last call,
you see the flag drape coffin and then the flag and the helmet are handed to the family
as they wail.
To me that is there anything more tragically impactful than that?
No.
So that's what I wanted to stop.
And so piece by piece, and I look at the podcast almost like a court case, you're layering
the information and it might be to help you with your obesity or it might be a mental
health thing or it might be the firefighter work week.
But when you, the more guests you have, the more your hypothesis is reaffirmed by these
true leading experts.
And if you think about a Venn diagram, it could be a Navy SEAL, a psychologist, a surfer
from South Africa, but in the middle is the truth.
So this is what's been really powerful is as it's kind of unfolded, there have just
been some irrefutable truths that have come out, but I can really put my heart and soul
behind and this is what we're seeing.
And as you kind of alluded to with the 2472, there is no debate like that is the solution
to the crisis that we have at the moment.
Not the only one, but the first thing that we need to do.
Yeah.
No, that's great.
I think one thing that I've recognized, and if you guys have not checked out the podcast,
you've not heard about what James is doing, he's more than worth a follow.
And one thing that he just said that's absolutely true is as I've listened throughout the podcast,
there's these common themes of truth and it's not just James telling you what the truth
is.
He has real experts on the podcast that really are talking about the truth as you can relate
to them as firefighters.
I'm seeing myself in these podcasts and it's not what I'm finding is the truth is the truth,
regardless whether we agree with it or not, how we get to the truth and how we accomplish
it.
He's got some solutions for that stuff too.
And a lot of the times we just think it's too hard to accept the truth, so we just don't.
And that's what I'm finding with a lot of this stuff.
But if you want truth that surrounds some stuff in the fire service when it comes to
actual issues, I'll call them of humanity and things that you're dealing with, his podcast
is an awesome one to check out.
So you wrote a different book, we're gonna talk about kinder today.
So I did read kinder, which is really what we're going to get into.
But then I went back and read one more like it was sitting on my bookshelf and I realized
I just never read it.
But I mean, you probably don't think so because people are typically humble about their writings,
but you are a phenomenal author.
I went back and read one more light and I thought I can't even believe I had just this
book sitting on my shelf.
And one more light kind of gets into really what you just kind of been talking about with
the schedules and the mental health, you know, and the wellness.
It was a great read into kind of an introduction into somebody who maybe doesn't know anything
about what's going on in the fire, sir, for all the solutions.
Can you talk a little bit about one more light?
What forced you to write it and what you've seen from that book?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, thank you for that.
It was very kind.
It's funny with it sitting on the shelf as well.
This is what people don't understand when you write a book.
And I know you've been down this road yourself as well, but you pour your heart and soul
into it and you fight the imposter syndrome that's constantly in your ear saying you can't
write, you know, no one's going to read this.
This is shit.
And you do it anyway.
But then you release it.
And just like all of us, like I'm looking at a pile of books now that I still have to
read.
You know, it normally does.
So then you're like just chomping at the bit for people to read it and give feedback, which
is why obviously we kind of will get to that, but why you lit, I think you were the first
person that reached out and I was like this, you know, what an incredible testimony to
get.
But with the first one, one more light.
The origin story is quite interesting.
It's almost around the same time as when the podcast started.
I was at my last department and we weren't on a call, but it wasn't like anything, you
know, traumatic or critical, but we came back at, I forget what it was like, let's say two,
three in the morning.
And it was around the time where we had just started talking about suicide.
We had a chief here, David Dangerfield, kind of on the East coast, and he took his own
life and before he did, he left a Facebook post saying PTSD is real.
And it just, you know, it went viral and rightly so.
And so this was kind of banging around in my mind now about this whole mental health
crisis.
And so I was, I can see it now.
I couldn't sleep.
And so I got up and I'd created a website for the podcast and I just started writing
a blog and I took a quote from the film, burn the documentary and the quote was one of the
engineers from Detroit.
He said, um, simply said, I wish my eyes could forget what my, sorry.
I wish my mind could forget what my eyes have seen.
Yeah.
I remember that.
Yeah.
So I wrote, you know, it's just, and again, just kind of like how one more light ended
up being.
You really want to engage someone.
You've got to start with a story.
So I started with, um, you know, I can't even remember what the story is about now, but,
um, and then there was a takeaway, you know, from the few things that I'd learned already
at that point.
And so then over the next few years, I wrote a few more blogs.
There's one like how to kill a firefighter and five easy steps.
Um, so which is time to go check that one out.
Yeah.
I think actually a rerelease thing.
It's just like putting it out again because it still talks about the same thing.
Which is sad, honestly, that we're, we've made so much progress, but we also haven't
at the same time.
Yeah, exactly.
So, um, but back to, I kind of jumped completely back to that blog.
I posted it, you know, shared it on social media, went to bed and when I woke up, it
had taken off.
And this, I mean, I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of times it was, it was read
ultimately, but that's when I was like, Oh, okay.
So there is power in writing because I wasn't a writer at all.
So over, you know, like I said, the next couple of years or so I wrote a few more and then
ironically, well, I guess it was, it was like a year before COVID I'd thought about maybe
writing a book and I'd kind of attempted it and it was just terrible.
And I'm like, all right, forget it.
So I just put it away.
And then right before COVID hit, ironically, something just hit me and I was like, all
right, now I'm going to write.
And so I took some of these blogs and expanded on them and then wrote extra chapters, but
I didn't want it to be a biography because, you know, I don't consider my story any different
than most of us in the fire service.
But what I wanted to do was take stories from my career or my life and use them as a kind
of segue, the door opener to then talk about, cause each chapter is almost like a short
story.
Let's talk about sleep deprivation.
Let's talk about mental health.
Let's talk about overcoming injury.
Let's talk about the obesity crisis.
So the story kind of paints the picture.
And then I go into the takeaways, which was always credited to the people that I had on
the show, you know, I'm not going to, Oh, and I do this thing called foundation training
and it was invented by me.
No, it was Eric Goodman.
So, um, so that's what I wanted to do.
So that was really how one more light came about.
And the ultimate goal was if you're in the fire service, you truly have, you know, you
can relate to most of these stories and then you're like, Oh, you know, I can fix my back
without surgery and pain pills.
Okay.
So you look at foundation training.
But if you are outside the fire service, if you were a firefighter spouse, you know, whatever
the other lens, you now have cracked the door on what we actually do.
And obviously kind of kinder then, you know, expands on that a lot more, but that's what
I wanted to do as well for people to read it and literally say, I had no idea you guys
went through this.
I had no idea about the sleep deprivation, the mandatory overtime, you know, all the
things that we actually live.
So yeah, that was it.
So it was kind of interesting, you know, from a single blog post from this, you know, monkey
mind that would not let me sleep to ultimately become in my first book.
You know, that's crazy because I just told somebody the other day, like all great things
are all great revolutions or movements start with one person saying enough, you know, it's
just burning in their heart and either they said no or enough.
And you know, it's you get to a point where you literally cannot take it anymore.
You know, you can't sleep and you know, I get to travel a little bit and people are
like, well, how do you find your passion?
And I'm like, I feel like that's actually really easy.
People just don't realize it.
You know, it's the things that you're consistently complaining about, you know, and I always
say like complaining is a form of misdirected passion.
Like take those things that you're complaining about and I guarantee you, you will find your
passion somewhere in there.
And I use complaining loosely because complaining is always seen as a negative thing.
I think complaining really is comes from a place of wanting to fix a problem and not
knowing how.
Now over the years, if you just complain and you never embrace that, you're eventually
going to be seen as a whiner and nobody will pay attention to you.
But you know, so I don't want people to think, you know, oh, he was complaining.
That's not what I'm talking about.
He found his passion in this stuff.
And one thing I love that you said about One More Light, I'm so excited to get to kinder.
I'm trying to just do, do you do diligence?
Because I think this is, it's a great, it's a great step into kinder.
And honestly, this is a leadership podcast.
And if you're listening to this and you're an officer or you are a leader in the fire
service in any right, One More Light would be a great resource for you to read, to understand
more about the people that are working for you.
And it would be a great read for you to hand to your people.
Because I think one of the things we do forget in the fire service is we forget we're humans,
which is really weird to say, but you go to work, you put the shirt on and your next thing
you know, we're like, we're just at work.
And I'm like, oh no, I'm a, I'm actually a husband, you know, and I'm a father and those
are my two biggest priorities.
And I happen to be a firefighter 10 days a month for 24 hour shifts, you know, so One
More Light is a great tool.
You didn't know anything about sleep deprivation or maybe you knew it existed or you've been
feeling it.
One More Light really dives into the meat of these things.
And I think that's one thing I loved about it when I dove back into it is I could see
myself in every aspect of the book, but it not only gave me, it not only validated what
I've been going through my whole career.
You brought solutions to the problem with the experts that you've had on the show through
the stories that you put in the book, and it gave me solutions.
So it wasn't, you know, the 24 72, it's probably going to come up 64 times on this podcast
because it is the solution for the schedule, you know, and that will it solve everything?
No, but it'll solve a lot of issues that we do have and a lot of, I don't even think they're
underlying issues anymore.
They're on the surface and they're manifesting in many different ways.
So they're not even underlying anymore.
The biggest thing is people want to argue about how we would do it.
And I'm like, let's, let's not argue about how we would do it.
Let's get into the fact that let's get an agreement that this is the best schedule and
then we can find out how but if you're going to argue with me on how are you going to do
it, we can't even get to how we're going to implement it.
And I think that's the biggest pushback I've seen with a lot of people with the 24 72 is
we could never do that.
And I'm like, those words right there are why it will never get done if you keep saying
that.
I was saying to someone yesterday, imagine being a firefighter, you know, you pull up,
you pull the cross lay charge the line, and then you go, Oh, no, the door's locked.
Oh, well, let's just go home.
You know what I mean?
Great analogy, you know, like, force the door, find a window, you know, whatever the thing
is, and the irony with with all the pushback I've got, there are so many departments now
that are going to or have gone to this.
And I've got to say how much admiration I have for them, because every one that I know
so far that is going or gone, there are people that have said, let me know if I can help
another department do the same thing.
Yep.
So the answer is, how do how are we going to do that?
Ask Gainesville, ask Pasco, ask Boynton Beach, ask Palm Beach County, ask Destin, they're
all going to it.
And they've got, you know, big, small, wealthy, not so not so affluent.
They'll be an apples to apples comparison.
And if they can do it, you can do it.
Yeah.
And I think the biggest thing that we're going to see is the departments that are picking
up the schedule are going to see an influx of people that are applying because I can
tell you right now, if there is a local department that said, Hey, we'll take you right now,
lateral transfer, same pay, better schedule.
I love where I've worked and I'm a pretty loyal guy, but that might force me to work
somewhere else because you're instantly telling me that my work week will get better and I
can spend more time with my family mentally, physically.
It works out better for all of it.
You know, at this point, it's not a paycheck.
It's not about being loyal department.
It's about being loyal to myself and my family.
You know, and I think I think the first the first departments that jump on this locally
in their area, if you're struggling with recruiting and retention, man, if you can pioneer the
way with these schedules, you know, people are harping about pay and give me more money.
I'll be honest.
I can always find a way to make more money.
I can't always find a way to spend more time with my family.
You know, I can save money.
I can't save time.
And imagine if you have a extra day off between and you have, you know, an entrepreneurial
project because that we all do.
We've all got some of the other passion.
100% people don't understand.
You've got another 24 hours and I'm not saying work day and night.
That would be stupid, but the kids are at school and you know, your spouse is at work
and you hang drywall or landscape or personal train or, you know, whatever your your passion
is and you have dinner with your family, you sleep next to your husband or wife or partner,
then that's fine.
These people like, oh, they'll just work more.
That's okay to if you need more money to do something on the side, but do something that
you also love to do.
That's a parallel tribe.
God forbid the fire service is cut from you.
You have something else to fall back on as well.
Yeah, no, I think it's great.
All right.
I'm not even going to segue.
We're going to get into kinder.
Okay.
Yeah.
So listen, if one more light was a, you know, more of a nonfiction couple of stories, really
honestly, like I said, helped me in so many ways.
It's a book that I recommend now.
Kinder I'll be honest guys.
So, so kind of James wrote one more light.
I put it on my bookshelf and never read it.
It got a whole bunch of stacks that I'm like, I'm going to get to and kinder came out and
that pretty cool cover on it.
I was like, that's pretty neat book.
And I literally, I only picked up the book and opened the book because of I follow James.
I followed the podcast.
I listened to a lot of his stuff.
He's got a good reputation.
So I opened kinder strictly based off of James is a pretty good guy.
You've read a new book.
I'm an author.
I want people to read my stuff.
I'm going to be supportive and sit down and read this book to say I was caught off guard
is an understatement.
I still have not been able to describe and put the words, uh, what this book has done
for my life and the trajectory.
It's really sent me on.
And um, you know, it's, it's crazy because when I say it caught me off guard, when I
opened the book and we're going to get into a little bit of this, um, it's fiction, but
it's not fiction.
It's uh, and I started to realize as an author and as a reader that James did this on purpose.
And within the first, probably half chapter, I was in the book.
I was literally the character that was in the book.
I was in the book with this guy.
If I was not myself in the scene that I was reading, walking through this book and I quickly
understood why this book was fiction because for me, James was actually telling my story.
And to say this book grabbed me, um, man, it doesn't even make any sense.
I mean, uh, you know, my family knows me here.
People that know me here, I probably cry once a week at a minimum, you know, um, I'm praying
for my compassion back.
And when you got daughters, you just cry anyway.
Um, you know, so, but, so let's get into, you know, one more light happen.
You've been doing your thing in the fire service.
You're where we're all, everybody's done going to firefighter funerals, especially when it
comes to suicides and things that we can prevent.
I think that's one of the biggest things.
A lot of this stuff is preventable.
We're just not preventing it.
Self-care is huge.
So you write one more light, uh, you're doing the podcast and I know kinder wasn't just
something you wrote in a month.
How did you get to the point where it was like, Hey, I'm going to write this book.
Where did the title come from and why the choice to write a fictional novel based on
non-fiction or non-fiction?
So as I said before, um, one more light was really a collection of short stories.
So it's a great toilet book, you know, and it's funny you talking about, um, the chiefs
handing it to their people.
People have said that that should be a prerequisite for academies and there is one that has made
that.
So, um, that made me extremely proud, but because it's a non-fiction, you know, technically
almost short stories, I wanted to fictionalize it so to immerse someone who's a reader into
our world, but I'll be completely honest.
I wrote it because I want to make it into a TV show because to me, the question is,
all right, you've got podcast audience, you've got non-fiction readers.
I've made a fiction book, but where is it that most people consume?
If you really want to get to the hearts and minds of the people, it's the screen.
So you know, I wrote a book that I hope is, you know, uh, you know, immersive as, as,
as you read it.
And it's funny, cause you said about being there, the number of people that have said,
like I felt I was, you know, on the side of the road at the firehouse table, you know,
they saw themselves in that too.
So that that's amazing to hear because again, it's, as you know, when you write, you're
writing blind, you have no idea.
People might be like, Oh my God, I just use it as toilet paper.
And it was awful.
Yeah.
It's terrible.
But, um, so that was it.
So I wanted to, I wanted to immerse the reader deeply when it's a short story, you know,
you've got, you've got the opening story and then you've got the takeaways and then end
of the chapter.
Okay.
Now we're talking about this new thing.
I wanted to lead someone in and really paint the picture of firstly what, you know, who
we are and what we go through.
But I think one of the least discussed things about the fire service is the way we view
the world, the perspective that we get behind the proverbial curtain, I would argue is the
most important lens.
Let's take America, for example.
So if you do fire and EMS together, what we see everything from, you know, the homelessness,
the addiction, the sex work, the gang, you know, the, you know, the, the poverty, the,
you know, the trafficking, I mean, all the things, everyone else is kind of oblivious
to it.
You know, if you're a nine to five, I mean, mean no disrespect.
We're the buffer, obviously law enforcement as well.
We're the buffer.
We're, you know, we are behind the curtain.
You guys are enjoying it front of house.
And so what's tragic is we don't have a voice though.
There's no Jocko Willink of the fire service kind of storytelling what we see and trying
to offset some of the politicizing of these, you know, these issues rather than showing
the raw, you know, the raw problem and then the origin cause.
We have all, for example, been in those homes where there's an escalator on the front, you
know, front driveway and the kids are filthy and there's nothing in the fridge.
You know, we've, we've all seen, and you just know, these kids are doomed unless a mentor
comes into these kids life, they're going to end up the same exact type of person.
So that careless, you know, parent that we just passed, it doesn't seem to give a shit
about the person that we're going to see, you know, so, I mean, we've all been there.
So that was the other thing I wanted to really show what we do and get people to relate and
just like you said, feel, you know, like they are Jack in this particular story, storytell
what we're seeing through all these different, you know, people that he meets and interacts
with.
But then the most important thing is arguably the more interviews I did, and this I always
credit Jake Clark from Save a Warrior for this.
He really opened my eyes of the importance of our formative years on mental health in
first responders, military, you know, people that have put on a uniform because we never
really talk about that.
We do a psych test.
That's a box checking thing.
So James is crazy, but we tested it.
So don't, don't sue me.
But we don't actually evaluate.
We don't help people process what has happened.
And so when I started really opening the door, just like I did with you as, as, you know,
early life, it is incredible.
The, you know, the, the dominoes of trauma in so many people's lives and, and, you know,
first responders in military, we're known to have a very high ACEs score.
So adverse childhood experience score.
And I think we're on average about six as our most incarcerated people.
So there we go.
You either go for service or you get dragged down the wrong road.
Yeah.
So, but, you know, I'll give you a perfect analogy.
World War II, we keep hearing the greatest generation.
They just came back and they rolled up their sleeves and they made America great.
But you listen to how granddad actually was in most of these conversations.
He wasn't okay.
He did the most incredible things.
But when he came home, he was struggling the same way that we are struggling today.
And there was alcoholism and there was domestic abuse and there was all the things.
And then that's passed on to, you know, my guests, parents, you know, and then they've
got their issues and there's alcoholism and domestic abuse or whatever the thing is.
And now you've got this person who's, you know, a Navy SEAL or a SWAT operator or a
firefighter.
Yeah.
And, you know, a lot of them held it together, deployed or worked in a firehouse.
And one day that last final straw hit and they had their, you know, deep, deep darkness
dive and thank God they found whatever the thing was to get them back out again.
But if we just talk about Fallujah or the Vegas shooting or, you know, the freaking cold storage
warehouse fire, and we're not looking about when you were five and your uncle used to,
you know, come into your bedroom at night.
We're missing a huge, huge part.
So I really wanted to tell that story and that's why it goes back two generations in
Jack's life, really touches on three generations in Jack's life.
To get people to understand how these dominoes fall until you actually are able to look at
it and go, I didn't realize those were even there.
Now I can see them.
I'm going to stop that affecting my children now.
So yeah.
Yeah.
And I think so, man, everything James just said that it was what completely caught me
off guard about this book.
You know, like I said, it's a, it's a great fictional story about nonfiction.
Like it literally put me in the seat.
I mean, I felt like I was the character, Jack in the, in the, I said, almost said movie
because it was a movie playing in my mind the entire time I'm reading this book.
I can't even imagine what this would be like as a show.
I mean, we'll just, whatever I can do to help you do that.
You know, it's let's get it done.
But me being in this book, reading it, um, just a quick synopsis, you know, the guy's
been in the fire fire department eight years and he's kind of looking around and he's having
a couple of issues, a lot of issues and the dominoes have already started falling in his
life and, but he's looking around him at other men and women that have been in way longer
than he is.
And he's thinking, well, if they're, how come they're okay?
And I'm not okay.
You know, and the reality is, is a lot of people that are not okay, they just haven't
said I'm not okay yet.
You know, so the dominoes are falling in Jack's life and the story and I'm watching them fall.
And as I'm watching the dominoes fall or, or recognizing the dominoes that have already
fallen as far as family problems, life, how he's handling things.
I'm thinking back in my own life reading in this book, like, this is me.
I've done all these things like either, either I've turned to, uh, martial arts, you know,
as a coping mechanism.
I've either I've turned to pornography as a coping mechanism.
Maybe I've turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism.
So there's all these things that I'm reading this fictional story, but I'm in the story.
And like I said, so caught off guard because if I've ever related with a story, it was
this story.
And, you know, there's a lot of books out there and I'm not trying to discredit any
books, but if you're looking for a book for a firefighter and you've been in the industry
and you want to be able to relate and have your feelings validated, uh, which all of
us do, whether we say we do or not, this is the book.
And I think what really got me and I realized, I don't even think I had made it through the
book when I reached out to James.
I think I was in chapter three or four and I realized this book is very different than
any book I've ever read.
And if I wanted to continue, I was going to have to process some things in my own life.
And I think, you know, I don't, I don't want to give a whole lot of way about the book.
I really want you to pick up this book, but I will say that I think it was chapter three
or four.
Jack is in a bad way.
I mean, he's in a really bad way and he's at the point where he's, I don't think this
will give anything away.
He's considering taking his own life, you know, and to say that I haven't been there
before I have been there before through whatever kind of life that I've been through or whatever
led to that.
I've definitely had those moments where it was like, not only would it not better be
better for me to be here, but where it was seriously like, this is it.
This is the day I'm done doing this.
And you know, to sort of see this in the book and read this in the book, I can remember
sitting downstairs in my chair in tears thinking, oh, I, I actually have a lot of stuff that
I need to process and work through.
And then one thing that James just said that really, you know, I didn't even realize, you
know, you talk about generational trauma and the ACE and the adverse childhood experiences.
I had never really dove into my childhood and who I was and who my dad was and who my
granddad was and how they were raised and how that affected me and how I even ended
up in the fire service.
And, and the stuff you write about in this book is so raw and so real and the generational
trauma that can be experienced, not even realizing that, yeah, I've done 20 years in the fire
service and I've seen and done some things, but not even realizing that I've only handled
them the way that I've handled them because of how I've raised in my formative years.
And those are things I never dealt with.
I mean, your book put me back in a therapist chair, which is a really good thing for me.
And I think it's probably a really good thing for a lot of people listening if you've never
done therapy and there's a lot of different things we'll talk about, you know, how's
it different things that work for different people.
But I will say this, this book is not an easy read.
And I want to put that out there just so people understand, like it's a great read, but it's
not easy.
It's not an easy read.
And I'll tell you right now, James didn't write it for it to be an easy read.
James doesn't do easy.
I haven't known James that long, but I can tell you one thing he does not do is easy.
And he didn't write this book to be an easy read.
He wrote it to bring light to something, to relate to people, to validate things and for
it to be challenging.
And the book for me, honestly, was a little intense and something that you just brought
up.
I think I was surprised every chapter, every word of this book.
I mean, and I hope the readers understand or listeners understand that I don't, I don't
blow smoke.
I was, I was surprised.
And then when I got to later on in the book, and I learned about two, three generations
back that some child abuse that had happened to one of the, I think it was one of the grand
dads, and it was somebody was sneaking in his bedroom every night.
I mean, I was surprised that broke me because there's so many things that happen throughout
our lifetime to different people.
And we don't know, we have no idea.
Not everybody's story gets shared.
And that person carries that with them, whether it's the shame and the guilt of what happened.
And then that's passed down from generation to generation to generation.
And if we don't deal with these things, if we don't make a decision wherever we're at,
you know, that we're going to stop these, I'll just call them generational curses, if
you will, and we're going to stop and break them now, I don't want to pass these things
onto my kids.
You know, so one thing that James book really did for me was I have a family.
You know, I have a wife, I have three children.
And you know, there are things in my past, there are things in my parents past, there
are things my grandparents past, that if I don't dive into some of these things and figure
some of these things out, then I will pass them down to my kids and my kids will pass
them down to their kids and their kids will pass them down to their kids.
Like, James, your book put me in a position where I had to make a decision to be the man
in my family to stop what was going on.
And to say that I'm thankful for that, I mean, I don't I like I've told you before, I really
don't have words.
You know, but I will say this, it was a decision that I had to make, because I could have just
put your book down and said, Nevermind.
But the, the visceral reaction that I had from reading your book was so raw, so real.
I mean, I talked to my wife about it, like, this book is crazy.
You know, I was sending her excerpts from it, you know, and she's like, some of this
stuff I wanted to say to you, but I didn't even know how to say it to you.
At one point, Jack in the book is in an argument with his wife about mandatory every time,
and she just gives it to him.
You know, but she also feels bad because she knows he doesn't want to work it either.
You know, so it's, I remember sending her that whole excerpt, she was like, I wanted
to say every single word of this to you.
But it gave her words as well.
Like, you know, and it was I realized that I wasn't really giving her the freedom, you
know, to say those things.
So man, I mean, there's so much I could say, I just want to give you an opportunity to
just just talk about like, you know, so you said the formative years at first childhood
experiences.
That's one thing that is so different about this book, you really took the time to dive
into not just Hey, cool stories.
But, but you took the cool stories, most of them from your career and the interviewers
that you interviewed, and you put them into this book, and you've really turned them into
a story that is everybody's story.
What are you I mean, aside from obviously the impact that you hope to have?
What are you hoping is the biggest takeaway from kinder?
Hope, 100% you know, and again, not giving too much away.
But the problem I see with the messaging of a lot of mental health and just going back,
you know, you touched on the sexual abuse, this was, I mean, again, so eye opening, how
many I'm just gonna say men in this particular case, because the main character is a man.
How many men I know that was sexually abused when they were younger, a lot of women I know
as well.
But I mean, the the the sexual abuse of women, I think is more talked about, if nothing,
I wouldn't say accepted, of course not.
But when it comes to men, you talk about stigma, a man talking about being molested as a child,
or a teen, you know, that it's, it's a really difficult conversation.
So that's why I deliberately put that in.
Because how many people are hiding that, and I hope they'll read it and just look at it
and go, it wasn't your fault.
You know, you are the victim in this, you did nothing to justify this action.
But that is, I think, one of the really toxic cancerous secrets that you know, some of our
men and women have got harbored.
And imagine if we could just pull that out, you know, and get people to say, yeah, that
happened to me.
You know, I had just to go off on a tangent for a second, I had a bouncer on the show
Jeff Thompson.
And when I was young, I was a very, very meek young man, I'd started doing martial arts,
but you know, it was kind of the tippy tappy point stuff.
So I wasn't a, you know, a fighter to by any means.
So me and my friend Mark, we bought all Jeff Thompson's books, you know, and it was all,
you know, like, basically had a fight, you know, and ask the guy a question and then
pop him in the face and all these all these different techniques.
Well years later, I do this and Jeff's name comes up in one of the interviews.
And I'm like, I forgot about that bloke, I should reach out.
We came on the show and oh my God, he just unloaded and in a super positive way, but
he was molested by his martial arts teacher and violence became his coping mechanism.
And now he's just like, you know, freaking spiritual, you know, Buddhist esque, you
know, harmonious human being.
And it was such a deep conversation, but he was so courageously vulnerable about his sexual
abuse and, you know, and then the impact that I had for years and years and years.
And he ended up seeing the guy and I mean, he'd always wanted to, you know, to beat him
up and I don't think he did.
He just talked to him and then let him, you know, then walked out.
But you know, that is, that is a big thing.
So that's from the sexual abuse side.
But what I've seen with the mental health conversation, you know, I mean, how many times
do we hear the term or we need to smash the stigma?
It's like, okay, consider it smash.
Now what?
That hasn't helped really anyone yet.
Maybe some more people feel like talk, but yeah, we haven't connected a to B still standing
on that Island.
So as I've moved through and I've, you know, I have a thousand people just like Jeff, so
many people, a lot of people came on, you know, and I know they have a powerful mental
health kind of journey that they've traversed, but Dan John, for example, strength and conditioning
guru, he came on and we ended up talking about mental health for the first 45 minutes because
his dad was in world war II, his brother was in Vietnam and it absolutely affected him
and his family.
So but what I started seeing as well is that the firstly that it is able to, you know,
it's possible to navigate the worst traumas.
I had a guy, Ishmael Bay, who was a child soldier in Sierra Leone.
Parents were murdered and he had two, two choices, be a child soldier or get shot in
the head.
You know, I think most of us would be more option child soldier.
Yeah.
So, you know, and then they obviously get them addicted to drugs and all this kind of
stuff.
Well, he's rescued by the American Red Cross when he's about 18 and now he works for UNICEF
as an ambassador for, you know, saving child soldiers.
So if Ishmael can work through his trauma, then anyone else listening, we can work through
our trauma.
I think the real hope is even believing that in the first place and understanding and this
is, this happens over and over again, but there is a better version of you waiting on
the other side.
Oh, man.
You know, the 2.0 and you're going to be different.
Like we're not going to be 18 year old James or Josh because we've, you know, we've been
the fire service.
It changes you.
Sure.
But those scars and always say there's that Japanese term where they mend broken pottery
with gold glue.
So you're proud of your scars.
You know, that's there's an element of that.
But I think the missing piece in the middle is that how do I get from there to there is
and you know, we touched on this in the book too.
If our solution is just an EAP list handed to you of loader counselors, some of whom
or most of whom may have never even worked with firefighters before.
And that's your solution.
That's you know, that's one screwdriver in an entire toolbox.
What we need to understand is there's so much from, you know, retreats to equine and, you
know, canine therapy to psychedelics to MDMA and ketamine to talk therapy and EMDR and,
you know, neurofeedback and reprogramming and all.
I forget all the terms, but there's so many kind of acronyms out there.
There is your personal toolbox out there.
And what I really wanted to paint ultimately and kinder some of these raw dark depths that
some of these characters get into that if you have the right people surrounding you,
you know, which is on our job, anyone who's not struggling is to look and find who is
and rift them up.
Don't just look down your nose at them because you're doing okay.
But then, you know, this immense toolbox that we have, have the courage to actually say,
you know, I'm going to try this and also have the understanding that if I tried, you know,
let's say talk therapy and it was a culturally competent clinician, but you just don't jive
with them understanding that it's okay to go to another one and then another one until
you find your person.
And then, you know, you're doing that, but oh God, I just can't seem to access some of
the stuff that's in my head.
All right, well then maybe ayahuasca or ketamine or MDMA, you know, that might be the journey
you need to go next to unlock some of those things.
Okay, wow.
It's an amazing experience and I totally, you know, forgot about that thing that happened
to me when I was little.
All right, well then now let's go and unpack that with your counselor again, you know.
So understanding that everyone has their own kind of Google Maps to that final destination
in a positive way, not negative one.
Then that puts hope in.
When you believe, when you're in Fire Academy going through a maze or, you know, climbing
in the fricking stairs with the hose on your shoulder for the umpteenth time, you knew
that you were going to get to the top because you had that burning in your heart that you
were going to be a damn firefighter if it killed you.
Once you put that same hope into, I know that I can get back to where I need to be and be
a stellar father and a compassionate, loving, you know, spouse, then all of a sudden you're
driven and then I'm going to be even a better firefighter for it, you know, and I'm going
to be more compassionate and empathetic on calls.
That puts hope in.
You believe that you actually can get there.
Hope becomes a superpower.
No, man, I always love it and I think anybody that knows me is like, I have a lot of four-letter
words that I like to use, but my favorite, my favorite four-letter word I say all the
time is hope.
I mean, because honestly, without hope, everything is lost.
I mean, because everything can look lost and as long as you have hope, everything's all
good.
I mean, it could be the smallest glimmer and one thing that I love is like you get to have
a completely dark room.
I mean, it could be completely dark void of all light whatsoever.
The smallest amount of light is going to change that room.
Just through science, physics, whatever, as soon as I put a small amount of light in there,
I'll be able to see something even if it's just the light that I brought into that room.
And that's what I always tell people hope is it's that small little glimmer, you know,
in the corner where can I actually do this?
And the answer is always yes, because you have to be able to see hope.
You know, and I joke, I'm like an original Star Wars episode four, five and six fans,
you know, the one that came out in the 70s.
But if you look, the only reason I love those dumb movies is because the entire message
is hope.
If you watch any of these movies, I mean, they're actually kind of cheesy.
The graphics are terrible.
I mean, you know, especially, but it's hope.
You know, hope is the message in all those movies.
And one of my favorite lines, I think, you know, from those movies is that rebellions
are built on hope.
You know, they said enough.
They said enough.
This is enough.
And this is what we got to do.
And I think one of the things that I love about kinder is kinder was another way for
James Gearing to say, OK, enough.
I'm just going to show people in a different way.
And I love what you just said.
You know, a different version of me, you know, so I've always felt like there is a version
of myself inside of me just waiting to come out, you know, a kinder version, if you will,
you know, somebody that can love their wife fully, love their kids fully, a version of
myself that I really did not know how to get to.
I could see this person.
I know it's who I wanted to be.
I've always wanted to be this version.
But through life, things happen and you realize, hey, I'm a version of myself that maybe I
didn't plan on.
Maybe I didn't want to be or I'm starting to realize this isn't who I am.
But how do I get to that other version?
And I think one did one thing kinder did for me was, man, it put me in front of a mirror.
And I didn't like everything that I saw.
I really didn't.
I mean, kinder put me right in front of a mirror and it was me looking at myself.
And I had to at that point, make a decision whether I was going to help myself or not.
And I think that is one of the biggest, biggest things that we have to do as firefighters
is realize that self care is a big deal.
And before anybody else can help you, you have to be willing to help yourself.
And that's even answering the easy conversations like, am I willing to go down this road to
see where it takes me?
And kinder didn't force me down because I made some decisions, but kinder pushed me
down a road where I actually had to do a few things.
And I'll say this and this is what's crazy.
Anybody listening?
Like I'm a faith guy, believe in Jesus, believe in God, all that stuff.
But it wasn't the Bible that stirred me to go sit back in a therapy chair and dive into
my past.
It was a book that a man wrote.
And I think something that you said, a toolbox, right?
So you have to put different things in your toolbox.
I could read the book of Proverbs all day or read all these things all day, but there
are so many different things out there in the world that can get you where you need
to be, where you can be the kind of man or woman that you were put on this earth to be.
And that's one thing I love is kinder was birthed out of a genuine passion and a heart
to help people.
And it's hard not to just tell people exactly what the story is in this book.
It really is.
But the best way that I can think to describe it to you is how it's changed my life.
So James writes this book.
I open it.
I decide I'm going to read it.
Like I said, completely caught off guard.
Number one, it was fiction.
His first book I knew was a little bit more nonfiction.
That grabs me right away with the story.
I'm sitting in the tiller truck with Jack as we're going down the street on these calls.
A lot of the calls that he talks about in the book, either I've been on or been on similar
ones like it or just can relate.
So I'm going through this book, dominoes are falling, life situations are happening the
same way they've happened in my life and the character reaches a breaking point.
And I've been at so many different breaking points in my life.
And I didn't realize this book was going to be another breaking point for me, but it was
a positive breaking point.
I call James I think after chapter four and I'm like, this is insane.
I literally made an appointment with my family therapist, I think that day to start doing
for me, I started doing EMDR and we can get into that, how that works, how that's worked
for me.
But his book really put me in front of a mirror and it forced me to deal with these problems.
And like I said, it was a decision.
It wasn't something that was easy, it was something that was hard.
I started to realize that I didn't really know my parents that well.
I don't really know how my dad was raised or why he raised me the way that he raised
me.
I don't know anything about my granddad.
So the book goes into three generations and I started to realize that I haven't dove into
any of my generational issues or problems.
And this book really, honestly, through therapy, through reading, through pursuing my faith
on a deeper level, it is literally, I'm not even lying.
You guys are probably listening to this, like you gotta be kidding me.
But I'm telling you, ever since I read this book, I have become that version of me and
still becoming that version of me, that man that was put on this earth to be kind, to
be compassionate, to be genuine, to love my wife the way that she deserves, to love my
kids the way that they deserve.
This book really opened my eyes and set me down the trajectory of this is available to
you.
I think everybody listening, there is a version of yourself that maybe you're not happy with
where you are right now.
It is available to you.
Is it work?
100%.
It does take work.
I mean, my first therapy session, I was sitting in a counselor's office crying about a Christmas
when I was six years old that I didn't even remember.
I had no idea.
And it ended up being a good Christmas.
And I could tell you the gifts under the tree, exactly what we got that Christmas.
But I walked out of there like, I have no idea why I'm crying about a Christmas when
I was six years old.
And for me, it was just a window into, hey, there's a lot of stuff in here.
There's a lot of stuff in there.
There's a lot of reasons why you are the way that you are.
And I think a myth or lie that I was believing was the fire service made me this way.
The fire service made me this way.
And I think what your book really brought to light for me was it wasn't the fire service
that made me this way.
The fire service definitely added to things and has made it harder and challenging and
more to deal with.
But it really was the stuff in my formative years and the ACE, the adverse childhood experiences
that got me to a place where the fire department stuff was just piling on top.
And if you will, we'll just go with the continued metaphor of dominoes.
It was slowly impacting me in a way where different parts of my life were falling apart.
And it was almost easier to just blame the fire service than just deal with the real
issues.
Because if it's not the fire service, it would have been something else.
It doesn't change how I was raised.
It doesn't change how my dad was raised.
It doesn't change how my granddad was raised.
And one of the takeaways that I've gotten from your book and that I actually got from
therapy was, so I've done two fairly dangerous careers, both based off in service.
I joined the United States Army and I joined the fire department, did the army for six
years, went to a war, came back, joined the fire department, been there 20 years now.
Through therapy, reading your book and everything else, I didn't even realize the reason that
I chose these careers is because I grew up in environments where I didn't feel protected,
I didn't feel safe, and I didn't trust the people around me to protect me.
So lo and behold, I chose careers where I could protect people, make them feel safe,
and I could show up in that moment.
And for the moment that I interacted with those people, they could trust me because
they knew I was there to help them.
And I'm blown away that the reason I even chose these careers was because of experiences
that I had when I was five and six years old, 10, 11 years old, 13 and 14 years old.
And I'm talking about specific experiences that we've talked about in therapy where my
therapist has said, you stop trusting your parents at this age or that age, or you had
to deal with this.
But yeah, the reason I even chose the careers that I chose.
So kinder is one of those books where it is a you could read it and it just be a phenomenal
story.
I mean, honestly, like the book is a phenomenal story.
The way James write the book writes the book.
If you just want to read a story, it is a phenomenal story.
I just think you should be prepared for it not just being a story.
Because to say his book wrecked me in such a good way is an understatement.
I still have not found words for the book.
And I think I don't even think the kudos to you for writing it because like what we talked
about with authors was you write blindly.
I mean, we write blindly hoping it'll make an impact like we don't write blindly saying
nobody's going to read it.
We really are blindly writing and we have this hope, if you will, of people are going
to pick this up.
They're going to have a reaction.
They're going to read this.
And the fact that you wrote it and put it out there for people to read, you know, immediate
like people's books always take a little bit to take off.
You know, but I think this is really one of those books when people get a hold of this,
it's going to change things.
You know, it is going to change things for people in such a good way.
And I'm excited for people to listen to this podcast and go grab this book.
You know, I think I've given a couple away already.
Like I'm probably just going to continue to give them away.
I have to keep one in my backpack that I give away when I run into people gave one to a
captain I ran into last week that reads I'm like, you have to read this.
You know, anybody that reads I'm like, please read this.
And I'm like secretly hoping it'll completely wreck their life in such a good way.
Like don't read this book for the story.
I'm like, I hope I hope you're on a couch crying in six months, you know, you know,
for good for good reasons.
So yeah, man, I mean, when you said hope, you know, how important like I know how important
hope is for me.
I mean, I've been in so many, I would say hopeless situations, but I'm I would consider
myself a blind optimist, which is probably why my favorite four letter word is hope.
I mean, how important is hope, you know, when it comes to not just the fire service, but
life in general?
I think it's everything.
I mean, truly.
And this is I think this is why there's such dissension at the moment, you know, over politics
over vaccines over, you know, whatever the thing is, is I've talked about this a lot
when I was little, you know, you think about America's, you know, the land of, you know,
dreams or the American dream, you know, where you can truly come here and you can become
anything.
And I feel like recently that message isn't there.
And I tell my son all the time, and you know, it's amazing.
His self belief now doesn't mean the self confidence, you know, he's he's he questions
himself as much as anyone else does.
But if there's an opportunity, he's never he's never like, Oh, I could never do that.
He's like, All right, when do I start?
You know, and I love that about him.
So I think, you know, whether it comes to reversing the obesity crisis, or, you know,
the opioid epidemic, all of these need hope.
And let's just, you know, go to the topic that we talked about earlier.
The resistance that I've seen to the conversation on the 24 72.
That now that we have departments in Florida going to it, I would argue that is hope before
everyone was just staring at this, you know, gulag wall, and we're never going to get out
of this.
But now, they are that sliver of light that you talk about.
And you know, what is beautiful is, for that particular example, it's all that's required
is courage.
Like, it solves, you know, the recruitment crisis, it solves the mental and physical
health issues that we suffer from, it saves money, you know, therefore, you'll be able
to up staff and, you know, open stations that you brand out and all these things.
All the things that we've struggled with as we've continuously kind of devolved as a profession,
and not the people in the uniform, organizationally.
The hope is that we can get back to when you and I first joined the fire service.
And even then, don't get me wrong, Anaheim, you know, had, I think a mass retirement.
And when I was at Anaheim, early in my career, I got hit with the mandatories all the time.
But then they got fully staffed eventually.
But back then, you know, we were testing against thousands of people.
Anaheim had like over 1000 at the written.
So that's after filtering out all the people that weren't, you know, up to scratch in whatever
way.
And so that's where the hope is, oh, you know, we can't even hire people now.
Well, yeah, but here's what you're gonna be able to do when we fix it.
We're gonna go back to you're having 1000 people and you get to choose 30 of them.
30, the cream of the crop, you know, for that list at that moment.
And then challenge these young people to rise to the top and put fitness standards in mandatory
punitive fitness standards to keep your people solid and have, you know, more rest and recovery.
Therefore, you can do better training.
I mean, all the things.
So even in the fire service, the hope I think is so important.
And I just had two friends of mine at the house yesterday, we did an interview.
Casey is a firefighter locally here and his wife Shelby is a nurse practitioner.
And it was such an interesting conversation because from within, you know, Casey's kind
of like, I mean, he literally is surrounded by people in their air quotes leadership saying
that will never happen here.
Right.
But then you've got Shelby talking about the impact seeing, you know, the kind of decay
of her husband over the years, which I've seen because I knew him before he became a
firefighter of the impact of this mandatory overtime of the sleep deprivation of the,
you know, the disappointed children when daddy's supposed to be coming home and now he can't
and he can't go to your baseball game anymore and all the things.
But the hope is that now I think we're turning a corner because I adore this profession and
it is unacceptable that men and women who risk their lives that stay up all night, arguably,
whether they're half asleep or running calls.
Well, the rest of the country literally sleeps peacefully in their beds that those men and
women are being asked to work 16 hours more than the person in your grocery store or the
one that makes your coffee.
No disrespect to them, but they tap out at 40.
So to me, all these little pieces puts hope into the fact that you are worthy of a schedule
that allows you to start turning a corner in your own health, your own mental health,
your relationships, your ability to keep your promises to your children.
So hope is, you know, it's so important in so many ways, but this is what I'm hoping
now.
Ironically, using that word is that Florida, the sunshine state, a little bit of that sunshine
is now becoming a beacon of hope for the rest of the country to turn this corner because
everything that I talk about in kinder part of that pie chart, not all, like you said,
part of trauma and obviously, you know, a toxic organization is something that I know
in the leadership space, you guys talk about a lot, but if you make a work week that allows
people to thrive rather than decay, that would revolutionize the fire service.
And you know, there are some departments in the Northeast that have been working it for
years, but I don't hear the conversation with them.
We need to advocate for everyone who's not either, you know, so, you know, this understaffing
this mandatory over time, these 56 hours a week or 72 in our federal firefighters.
If we could get that to a, you know, a, um, profession standard, a gold standard across
the country, regardless if you're busy or not, this is what drives me crazy too.
You know, if you're a security guard and apartment complex, they want you running around chasing
bad guys the whole time.
No, you're there if you're needed, you know, you don't just in case exactly.
So but a lot of us are extremely busy.
So anyway, that was kind of rambling answer, but I think that hope is just simply believing
that there is something better.
And then once you believe it, then you become part of the driving force.
But if your belief is it will never happen, they'll never go for it.
We don't have the money.
We can't even hire people now of which there are answers for every one of those.
Then you're allowing someone who works 40 hours and goes to their family at five o'clock
to tell you, you don't deserve to work less than 56.
And I personally think that's unacceptable.
No, I mean, it's complete bullshit to be completely honest.
I mean, it's it's crazy.
You know, something that you touched on just right there, I mean, great answer was not
rambling.
Love it.
Something that you touched on was, you know, toxic leadership.
You know, this is a leadership podcast, if you will.
You know, so but one thing I do love about kinder is it takes the it takes the responsibility
from the from the organizational leadership.
We know there's toxic leadership.
We know there's organizational leadership problems.
That's not a secret in the fire service.
Like, you know, it's it's not a lot of the times we promote people just through testing
and there's no leadership training.
We know we know these things.
And one of the things that I do appreciate about your book is it kind of takes the blame
out of leadership's hands like, hey, we know there's issues here.
We know there's issues.
And if we can't fix those issues tomorrow at the individual level, what can you do to
make your life better?
So one of my favorite slogans that I think has come out of the Behind the Shield podcast
out of James Gearing is the self care and sabotage because it may and there is such
a balance and it's a pretty cool logo to with the hearts.
Pretty awesome.
But the hearts are grenade.
I'm like, this is a genius.
I don't know where this came from.
But the self care and the sabotage.
And I think, James, we're our own worst enemy sometimes.
And I think that is where we're kind of really brought it back to myself and put the mirror
in front of me.
It was like, yes, 100 percent.
I have, you know, there's toxic leadership across the country.
There's organizational leadership problems.
You know, there's there's problems just in the firehouse with captains and lieutenants
who are first line supervisors who really could be making this.
Sure, you may have to work a 60 hour weekend, but if we all have to be here, let's not kill
our people while we are here.
You know, there are people that are making this thing way worse than it has to be.
And so one of the things that I appreciate about that book was it really it kind of puts
it it forces you to take ownership, you know, of the self care part of it.
And you know, if you've been doing the job 10 years and it's not working out and nobody's
looking out for you, you know, what would you say?
Like, hey, I'm here 10 years.
It's not working out.
It hasn't worked out for the last five.
Is it part of self care?
Hey, maybe the fire service isn't for me.
Instead of doing, you know, 20, 30 years sacrificing your mental health, your physical health,
your marriage, your wife, your kids, and you retire with nothing, you know.
And what would you say to somebody that's like, really self care sabotage?
Where's the balance with the self care and the sabotage?
Yeah, well, that's that's the tug of war that identified and I made the t shirt with that.
I love that logo.
If you know, if all of a sudden there's a massive exposure, I'm going to make some more
of those.
I thought that was a great shirt.
But from my own experience, Anaheim, California was by far my favorite department.
The people in Hialeah were phenomenal, but the organization just, I mean, strip those
poor men and women bare.
When I was there, they were earning almost half of what Miami Dade was earning.
And they were running their rear ends off, you know what I mean?
So so Hialeah was phenomenal, the people, but overall departments support, you know,
the bar being set super high.
They I said this on other podcasts, but Anaheim, when I was there, 25% of each probie class
would be gone by the end of the year.
You could either have had to go or you could know.
And you ended up with phenomenal firefighters who then became engineers, captains, BCs,
you know, and you know, the fitness culture wasn't rammed down our throat.
We just kept fit because we understood that lives are at stake.
You know what I mean?
So the culture there was phenomenal.
Conversely, the last place I worked couldn't have been further from that.
And you know, on paper, they had a Kelly Day and they, but the Florida area, they were
quite well paid.
And they had very few people testing for them.
And so and I experienced that toxicity.
And again, you talked about the complainer, that was me and I felt negative, but my frustrations
were, we're not ready.
You got people that are scared to put their mask on that are on your rig, you know, that
we have people that they work here.
Yeah.
They would tap out on two flights of stairs.
You know, I mean, this is, is this not concerning you?
Like we're the biggest target hazard in America yet.
We don't even do any freaking, you know, training with PD or I mean, it was just infuriating.
So when I came at a crossroads, because I let me get backtrack.
When I was at the one before Orange County, I was divorced by this point.
I was a single dad and I was getting mandatory.
And I was like, I cannot do that.
You can't tell me that a single parent, you can't tell a single parent, you can't go home.
You're staying for the 24th.
It doesn't work that way.
So it does not.
So I transitioned to this other one, which I knew wasn't going to see almost any fire.
And my ego, you know, I was like, look, I don't, my son is the most important thing,
whatever.
I'll run the mess calls, but I was not prepared for the complacency and the toxicity in, in
this department.
And I brought solutions to problems.
You know, I was not, not single-handedly me and a few other guys finally managed to get
PT put in orientation.
For example, before that they did nothing with their recruits.
They just did paperwork and then road rides at a theme park and no way of finding out
if this person can even do it or not.
So we did that, you know, some other trainings and things.
But then when I came to this crossroads, I just had knee surgery and rehab back to full
duty again.
But I, I was at that point where I'm like, I don't want to go back and it's not the job,
it's the place.
So what I would tell people is sometimes it's just a different department that you need
to go to.
Yep.
It's not leave the fire service.
Look at where you are.
Is it going to change in this place?
They're just grooming the next person for the chief and the next one.
So you're going to get the same person.
There is no, I remember when I was on Jocko, sorry, I had Jocko Willink on the podcast
and he was like, you're telling me that, you know, you can't go up the chain of command
and you know, find someone who will fix it.
I'm like, Jocko, this chain only has, you know, this ladder has three rungs.
That's it.
Yeah.
And the top rung, they're just grooming the next person and the next person.
Oh yeah.
It is not going to change.
That's a lot of places.
Yeah.
So, so yeah.
So what I tell people is either firstly look at a different fire department, you know,
look Anaheim when I was there, you know, had my life gone differently and we didn't go
back out East.
I'd still probably be a Tillerman paramedic, you know, working.
Cause I, I thought I wanted to promote when I was a young firefighter and I just loved
the job so much.
I never wanted to take the test.
I didn't want to be on a panel or, you know, holding a, holding a radio.
But then the other side of the conversation is this, you served in our military for how
many years?
Six years.
When you tell people you served for six years, do they ever go, Oh, why'd you quit?
Uh, no, no, nobody.
People usually say, thank you for your service.
So that's cool.
And they ask what I did.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So the only thing that dictates that a firefighter should work for 25 years is a thing called
a pension.
Yeah.
That's not your drive.
So if you get to, let's say, you know, five or 10 years and it's not just the one department,
it's the whole dynamic of being a firefighter, be proud of what you've done and understand
that what you did in uniform was just one way of making the world better.
Yeah.
And if you have that servant's heart, that led you into the fire service or the army
or corrections or whatever your place was, but you can still make the world better in
a thousand other ways.
You know, you can, you know, become, you know, let's say you go into nursing or, um, you
know, you become a veterinary surgeon or you volunteer at a local nonprofit or you write
books and do podcasts or, you know, whatever the thing is, there are so many other ways.
So my biggest thing is you haven't failed.
You haven't quit.
You're just turning the page, you know, and that identity is so dangerous.
Oh, I'm a firefighter and I struggle with it now.
People, what do you do?
Oh, I sit behind a microphone.
I'm an influencer.
It sounds so down.
Yeah, I hear you.
Those terms that we use a podcast.
It sounds like, you know, like I'm a YouTuber.
Hey guys, it's your boy, James.
But it, you know, but my, only my identity is struggling.
I want to tell people that I'm a fricking heroic firefighter and I used to kick indoors
and, but that's not what I do now.
Yeah.
But I helped people then and I still help people now.
So that's what I would tell people is if you're at a point where you want to transition, you
know, give it some time, obviously think about it and make sure that, you know, you're talking
with your, your loved ones, but there are a thousand other ways to make money.
There are a thousand other ways to help people.
So if you have served for X amount of years, be proud of what you've done because even
if you were a 30 year firefighter, there are 40 year firefighters out there.
Then you'd be like, well, you know, I feel bad.
I should have done 40 years.
I should have done 50 years.
You know what I mean?
It's never going to end.
There's always going to be people that see more fire, run more calls, but it's about
you and what's most important to you.
And most importantly, your family dynamic.
If the way that you'll be in work now means that you might miss a large part of your children's
childhood and you're going to look back one day as they're driving away to college, maybe
that's more important than, you know, staying in that toxic department.
Yeah, man.
That's great.
That's so good.
I would get on something that I think, you know, I'd be lying if I said I haven't struggled
with, you know, you mentioned struggling with it.
And I think identity is a really huge piece when it comes to the fire service, right?
It's really easy to go to the Academy.
They throw you a badge.
You're excited.
You worked really hard.
And now you, you're a firefighter.
You know, it's like I came in 20 years ago.
It was a really big deal.
There were a lot of people online to get in the job.
You know, it wasn't like it is now.
I think, I think we just did a hiring process.
We maybe had right under 200 applicants, which is not a lot at all if we have that many.
But man, there was a line of people to get when I got in.
It was so, so exciting to get this job.
And I wore, but I wore that badge.
Like that was who I was.
You know, I was a firefighter and that was the biggest thing about myself.
So when people would ask, what do you tell them?
I don't tell them I'm a father.
I'm a husband, uncle, brother, friend.
I'm, I'm a firefighter.
That's what I do.
Look at me.
And I carried it around for years until I started to realize that I, I'm going to have
to leave this profession someday.
You know, at some point, you know, whenever it is and whether you get hurt and you're
out God forbid, or whether you retire, whether you realize it's not for you.
But I think one of the biggest things that you just touched on is something that a lot
of us are either know we're struggling with or have struggled with it, or just don't want
to admit we're struggling with.
But identity is a really huge piece.
And I think, I think what I've started to see, honestly, probably over the past 10 years
is that, you know, I am a father husband who serves as a firefighter.
Like I'm not a firefighter who serves as a father and a husband, you know, and like,
it's just like you said, if you have that servant's heart, there will be a place somewhere
in this world for you to provide, you know, provide other people with some kind of help.
If that's, if that's what you're here to do, there will be another place for you to serve
found the military, found the fire department.
You know, I'm at 20 years, you know, I could leave this year, I could do five more for
a full retirement, but I'm in the space of what's next.
You know, I really am in a space of what's next.
And for me, I can honestly say like, yes, I will miss the fire service when I walk away,
you know, because I'm going to walk away at some point someday.
But I just heard this last week and it's so good.
It's like, I'll miss the clowns, but I don't know that I'll miss the circus, you know,
and I'll miss the people we have phone numbers, I'm sure I'll keep in touch with some people.
I'm sure I'll be happy to walk away from some people and never see them again.
I mean, because that's just life.
But I don't, I don't know that I'll miss the circus, you know, and now it's looking at
my life and understanding who I am as a man, a father and a husband and looking at the
important things and finding other ways to impact people.
So if I can use the things in my life to impact people and like one of the things that, you
know, you left the fire service and like you said, I love that you said that man, because
the fire service is one of the only places where you could do a full retirement.
People still call you a quitter.
You know, you could leave it five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years and people like, I quit, you
know, but I love that you said that, like you did what you did.
You're proud of your service.
You did get to help a lot of people.
You went through a lot of different things and you can always say like, hey, this is
in my background.
This is what I've done.
And you've found a way to give back.
And I think that's one of the biggest things that guys struggle with men and women struggle
with when they get out of the fire services.
If you're not careful, if your only identity was a firefighter, you could just go home
and sit and that's detrimental to health.
I mean, there's a lot of guys that have stayed in here 30, 40 years and I'll be honest, they
do about three or four years and then we're attending a funeral, you know, because they're
not doing anything.
That was their only identity.
They don't have a way to make an impact.
And I love that you're like, I'm out, but there's a lot of stuff that I can help with.
And I think when people don't realize the guys like James, guys like me nor I'm a normal
person.
James is a normal person.
I bought a $60 mic off of Amazon started a podcast.
You know, I teamed up with another guy that is local and he bought a $60 mic.
We decided to do a podcast together.
Just James wrote a book because he wanted to make an impact based off some things in
his life.
He's been very open, honest, vulnerable.
Like I said, James doesn't do easy, you know, wrote a book.
I wrote a book.
I got people.
So we are the listeners.
We are you guys that are listening right now.
And we just, we've made choices that have put us in the places that we are to make an
impact in the fire service.
You know, in one more light and kinder, those are the two books that James has written.
I'm not plugging my books because they're not important right now.
Let's talk about them.
Name your books too.
So the, the, if I had to name my most important book, the book I wrote for impact is probably
my least popular book because people don't like to look in the mirror.
It's called engage the enemy fight for your purpose.
And it really dives into my personal story and my personal journey of how I like almost
got divorced while I was in the fire service, struggling with PTSD.
When I came back to the military, didn't know it was PTSD because when I got back from war
in 2007, they just kind of said, go home, go home, figure out your life.
I did.
I went home and did not figure out my life, jumped right in the fire service.
And this book really goes into me struggling through my first marriage, almost getting
a divorce.
It's really struggling with who I was as a man and finding, you know, these principles
that I had to apply throughout my life.
Most of them faith principles that, you know, won my marriage back, won my family back and
put me on this trajectory of I'm not just a fireman.
You know, I'm not just a veteran.
I'm not just a soldier.
Like I'm a husband and a father and, you know, I made a commitment and I, you know, through
that I got my wife back.
I got my family back through all the principles in this book.
You know, later on for the listeners that don't know, my wife passed the first wife
passed away in 2015, but I had reconciled with her.
You know, everybody thinks you have time to fix problems.
You know, I didn't know she was going to pass away.
We fixed our problems.
She ends up passing away.
Thank God we had worked through all of our things.
And that's why I was able to really grief, grief sucks no matter what, but I was able
to tackle my grief as somebody who reconciled through everything in their first marriage
versus untold secrets and things and guilt and shame that I would have had to deal with.
So it really is a deep dive into, Hey, here's who I am.
Here's what I did.
If you want to jump on the bandwagon, I'm here for you.
If you don't, you can keep, keep just living the same life that you want to live.
But just like James's book, I write books for hope.
You know, my life is about hope.
Like I've experienced a lot of hope, if you will.
And the darkest dimmest situations, I'm the guy that's like, ah, nope.
Like this works.
This always works.
And I think that's, that is one thing I love about, I think that's probably why I connect
with you so well is I'm like, you can't fake, you can't fake this stuff.
It's genuine, you know?
And I think when I see, I love that you said the biggest takeaway from kinder was hope
because I'm like, Oh man, this is James.
That's my life.
You know, like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the guy circled by 30 people that want to kill me
and I still think I can win.
You know, I'm, I'm turning around looking at everybody and I'm like, no, I think I could
at least take one of these guys out.
You know, I'm like, who's the biggest guy?
Just got to take him first.
And I think that is, that's how I've had to learn to live my life.
You know, there's, there's still some survival and some sacrifice and you know, there's things
you have to apply, but I think that's, that's what I love about these books that you've
written specifically kinder was man, and not only, and not only provided me with hope,
my favorite four letter word, it, it forced me to take action.
Like man, there, there is hope.
There's a version of me, you know, inside of here, there's a version of me that was
literally reaching out.
Like you know, I wrote a, I just sent James this thing that I wrote and it was basically
me looking at myself in a mirror, broken, tattered, scarred up bloody.
And the man in the mirror reached out and all he said was help.
And I started to realize that I'm my best, I am my best advocate.
You know, when it comes to help and the book really pointed me in a place of, Hey Josh,
are you going to help yourself?
Are you just going to keep living the way that you're living?
Your wife can say whatever she wants to say.
Your friends can tell you.
You're stubborn and bullheaded.
And until you actually put yourself in a position where you're going to help yourself fix some
things and man, the book really, really put me in a place to do that.
Like I said, it is so hard for me not to be like, let me tell you guys what happens in
chapter three, four, five and six, you know, cause I just, you know, I'm glad we've gotten
to talk offline about some of it because it was so impactful and really everything that
you're and everything that you're doing, everything that you've done, you can, it comes out in
this book, you know, it really does.
It comes out in the book.
And I think one of the biggest things, man, you know, we've talked about schedule changes,
health fitness.
What would you say to somebody that they're just frustrated?
I mean, cause I know you've been there.
I've been there, you know, they're frustrated.
They see the way things are.
They see the way things have been.
They've tried a couple of things.
They don't work.
They're listening to this podcast and they're just agreeing, agreeing, agreeing.
They're like, yes, yes, yes, this, that, but you don't understand.
What would you say to somebody who's listening to this podcast right now?
They've heard the self care and sabotage.
They agree, they're going to pick up kinder, but they're so frustrated.
What would you say to that person?
It's tough because that's what makes it so hard, you know?
And again, it depends on the arena.
You know, if I was frustrated in Anaheim, I'm pretty sure I could find, you know, a
large group of people that we could go to and then it would be resolved.
If I frustrated in my last place, you know, there's almost no allies.
What I would say though, if it's, you know, if it's an environment where you are staying
and you're going to pick up this fight, I always tell people, find, find the people
who get it.
You know, let's just take, for example, COVID, just use it as an example.
You've got, it's a Russian Chinese conspiracy.
And then you've got, if we're not wrapped in bubble wrap and a hundred miles from each
other, we're all going to die.
And in the middle are the normal people, you know, so you've got to find those other normal
people and then start pushing out.
So for example, if you're in, you know, where I live now in that fire department that is
resisting the 24 72 conversation, even though there was a study that they were a part of
and the takeaway was you need to go to 24 72.
Then you know, I tell people in that you've got to find the ones that are, you know, are
going to keep having this conversation because if you're on your own holding, you know, holding
the torch and no one's around you, you're going to, you're going to run out of energy.
You're going to just lose, lose steam.
So when I get phone calls and it's amazing, I've had so many phone calls from around the
country about 24 72.
I mean, you name a big metropolitan city.
I've had a phone call from them or somewhere close and I always tell them, look, you're
it.
You're, you're that first person.
And I saw a video a while ago and it was, it's not, it's not the leader that makes the
biggest impact.
It's the first follower.
And I love that.
They're there holding the torch, but it's the next person that joins you that really
starts those dominoes for the theme.
Literally as an analogy, if it's just one domino and we fall, then we just fall on the
ground.
You know, you need the next domino to then create that trail.
So you know, firstly dive into, you know, Josh's podcast, my podcast, there's so many
solutions with the 24 72.
I did a Q and a podcast a few weeks ago and then attached to that are episodes I did with
departments that have made it happen.
So whatever the thing is that you're frustrated about, find the information and then just
find who are the driven firefighters you work amongst that get it and then start getting
around them, reaffirming that you're, you know, that you're right in the first place
and then kind of, you know, forge an Alliance, you know, a movement because complacency is
rife in the fire service.
And I go a step further cowardice is rife in the fire service.
I'm glad you touched on that.
Yeah.
We are so courageous, you know, when we make entry or go over the side, you know, on a
belay line or whatever the thing is that we're doing.
But then like I said, we lack the courage to simply say, my family deserves to have
me home.
Yeah.
My children deserve to not have diseases passed through genetically because of the way that
I'm worked, you know, the things that I'm exposed to all these things that we should
be advocating for.
If it's not you, then take the focus on for you then and then focus on your family because
that's, you know, to me, that's the most important thing and it's detrimental.
So once you, you know, I always tell people I want to make them educated and angry.
Once you understand, then you start going, why the hell have we been doing it this way
for so long?
When people get it, I'm gonna give you a perfect example, the one on two off, you probably
heard me say this before.
We have the greatest schedule, work one day's on, we have two days off.
I work 10 days a month.
Bullshit.
Civilian work day is a nine hour day with a one hour lunch.
So it's an eight hour day.
So we work three days crammed together, back to back, of which the third part of that three
days bleeds into that second day because we get off at, you know, seven, eight in the
morning and then you have a day off one day.
So three days on one day off, which is 30 days a month.
Yep.
So when people, and that was a huge penny drop moment when I put that video out, people
were like, I've never thought of it that way.
And I hadn't, you know, when we realized that we'd been hoodwinked, not out of malice, but
a devolution of our working environment.
Now people can go, well, that's just not acceptable.
Why is Starbucks barista working 40 and I work 56 and then I get told I can't go home
and that's an 80 hour work week, double what the barista does.
And I have to be awake and push drugs and do all the things.
So that's what I would tell them is, you know, forge that Alliance, you know, get people
educated.
And then if you're still falling on deaf ears, then maybe that is that conversation that
we just touched on of a different department or even a transition out.
Cause for me, this journey took me outside the walls of the fire service because I'm
like the only way I can speak for the men and women I love is to not be attached to
any department.
Then I can speak freely and I can say, I can call out my local department here at Marion
County and say, you know, if you refuse to change anything, then don't come to the funerals.
Yep.
You know, you're part of the problem, you know, but you can't say that if you're wearing
the Marion County uniform, for example.
So you know, this is, uh, this is it, but I think that, you know, it's really just storytelling
going back to your books and my books.
If you can get people that understand the concept and then realize that that's not the
right way of doing it and then infuse that hope that there is another way that will be
better.
That's when you start a movement.
No, man, man.
I think, uh, you know, it's funny cause when you put out that video, I think I'd, I'd,
you know, kind of seen some of your stuff on social media here and there, but you're
right.
That's the video that I saw that I went, wait a minute.
And I broke down my own schedule for a couple of guys at work and a browse on actually on
a road trip.
And I played that, just that video for my wife and she was like, oh my gosh, your schedule
is terrible.
You know, cause she's, she's, she's, you know, she's hoodwinked too, if you will.
Like you said, not out of malice.
Like, yeah, he's home all these days, but then, you know, so we put it together.
So I'm going to, I'm going to break down the schedule that I work for you based off of
what you just said, cause it's actually, it's terrible.
And I'm running into guys in my department who are like, no, we have the greatest schedule
in the world.
And then when I break it down to them this way, they're like, they kind of walk away
a little bit upset, you know?
So, so the, basically our schedule starts on a Tuesday, right?
So I'll work 24 hours on a Tuesday and get off Wednesday morning.
Well, I'm off that morning, but I have to go back Thursday for 24 hours.
So Wednesday is not a rest day.
I get off Wednesday morning and immediately I have to get prepared to go back to work
on Thursday for 24 hours.
So I work another 24 hours on Thursday.
Well, they got off Friday morning, but I get off Friday morning and I'm immediately preparing
to go back to work on Saturday morning for 24 hours.
So there's no recovery.
It's basically a, Hey, we'll see you tomorrow.
So I work Saturday 24 hours.
Well, Sunday I'm off, you know, I'm off for 24 hours to get prepared to come back on Monday
for 24 hours.
So there's no rest.
So for a full 96 hours, we've had absolutely no rest.
So then when people are like, well, you get a three day break.
Okay.
I worked 24 hours that Monday.
I get off Tuesday.
Tuesday is my, Oh my gosh, I just work four 24 hour shifts every other day.
Tuesday's a wash.
My wife knows not to plan anything on Tuesdays because Tuesday I'm a wreck because I'm finally
just excited to be home and sleep in my own bed at night.
So Wednesday I'm off.
I get a day of rest.
It's kind of nice.
It's middle of the week.
Thursday I'm preparing to go back to work on Friday to work the weekend again.
Friday comes 24 hours shift.
I'm off Saturday morning.
Doesn't really matter because I got to be back to work Sunday for 24 hours.
Sunday I come back to work for 24 hours.
I have Monday off, which is kind of a recovery day.
Tuesday I'm getting prepared to go back to work on Wednesday for 24 hours off.
And here is where people say we have the best schedule in the world.
We have a five day break, which is not even a five day break.
By the time we get the five day break, the only thing I care about aside from seeing
my family is actually just sleep.
Like I'm on five day break right now.
My most exciting thing to do was to just get in bed and know that I didn't have to go anywhere
this morning, you know, and then the next morning.
So we have one week in the month where we have five days off.
The first day's a wash.
The last day's a wash.
Really we have three days in the middle.
If we're talking about actual rest, it's that one day in the middle of my five day break,
which would be the Saturday that I actually am probably rested where my family gets the
best version of me.
And then I'm slowly mentally preparing myself to go back to work on Tuesday because I know
at some point on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I'm going to have to work mandatory overtime
somewhere in there.
So it's not just a 96 hour work week.
You could throw another 12 hours on top of that.
So that takes that 72 to an 84 or that 96 to whatever you add 12 to that 108 hours.
It's crazy or I think it's 111, something like that.
It's way more.
So when you break down my schedule with the analogy that you gave in that video, I've
done that for people so many times and they're like, Oh, our schedule is terrible.
And I'm like, yes, for rest and recovery and family, it is terrible.
And I think, you know, when me and my wife first got married, it was, yeah, I only worked
10 days a month, 24 hour shifts.
And she thought it was really cool.
She'd never been around the fire service before, but she started to see what a day off is really
like.
You know, when I work 24 hours at station 10 and station 10 runs 20 calls at a 24 hour
shift and then I'm, I come home and just really just, I want to be a good husband and spend
time, but I'm exhausted.
You know, she's, she's looking at me like these days off, aren't real days off.
You know, they're, they're just not real days off.
And recently, um, I was up for promotion back in the spring.
They put me at a really busy house.
I was at a not so busy house, which was kind of nice for family.
For three months, I was at a busy house and my wife was looking at me like I was insane.
Uh, they had no captain there.
I was on the captain's list.
They were going to promote 10 people.
I was number five.
It was almost a shoe in at that point and they don't have a captain at the busy house
that I'm filling in at.
And her biggest worry was, are they going to leave you at this firehouse?
Because I don't really like the version of you that's here, uh, when you're here.
And it wasn't, you know, one, I'm just tired.
I'm exhausted.
You know, you run 20 car, 20 calls at a 24 hour shift, you know, and you know, there's
no rest till that one day on your five day break.
Um, you know, there were days I fell asleep in her talking with a cup of coffee in my
hand and I would wake up and she's like, you were literally asleep for five minutes, you
know, and, and, and, you know, you started to look back and I'm like, well, I'm, I'm
42 now.
I'm not 19.
Um, like you said, I'm educated and I'm a little angry, you know?
And I think, but usually if you're educated and angry, that usually drives a little bit
of passion.
You'll get some vision and then you can put some mission behind your vision and get some
goals accomplished, you know?
But when you put out that video about the schedules and I think one of the biggest thing
I'm things I'm realizing now, and it's a, it's a hard place to be, to realize that,
man, you really have to be your own advocate.
You know, I'm at 20 years and the biggest thing for my fam, for my life right now, it's
my wife and my kids.
It is my wife and my kids.
And people ask me, what are you going to do when you retire?
I'm like, well, I'm kind of hoping my oldest has some kids in the next five years.
I want to be a full-time granddad, you know, like I really don't want to do.
There's other things I want to do.
There's dreams and aspirations I have, but I'm like, man, it'd be great to just be available
to just help her with her kids, you know?
And it's kind of where I'm at, you know?
It's like, what am I going to do to make sure I'm taking care of myself?
And I am a huge, uh, I'm not an advocate for sick leave abuse, but I am a huge advocate
for if you have a sick leave benefit through your city and you just need time off for the
sake of rest, you should be allowed to do that.
Uh, and you talk about a stigma around taking care of yourself, dude, it's insane.
I think honestly, after I read your book, uh, I took three days off of work and three
days off of work put me out for almost two weeks.
You know, I had a nagging shoulder injury too.
So I was like, let me just go get this checked out.
And they were like, you probably do need some rest.
It like, it all worked out at the perfect time because at the time I was off for my
shoulder just stretching and taking care of that and just doing actual rest, all this
mental health stuff came out, you know, but it's, I use my sick leave benefit and it put
me off for a couple of weeks and I felt like I was got myself right again and went back
to work, you know?
And we're harping on guys for, you need a mental health day?
What do you mean you need a mental health day?
What's that like?
Well, I mean, he's worn out, you know?
Why can't he just take a day?
And you know, I tell my guys all the time, which probably isn't popular.
I'm like, Hey, we need a day.
Take a day.
You need one, take two.
Like it doesn't matter.
I need you here healthy.
I need you here on the job healthy to be able to do the job.
If you're going to come to work, let's be able to do it.
But if you're a mess, stay home.
And I'm not telling them to stay home because you know, you're a shit bag.
I'm like, Hey, I want you to be your best while you're here.
If you're not your best while you're here, I think you should stay home and get to a
point where you can be your best.
You got to take care of yourself.
You know, and I think, do you think that you've, like you said, you were in the fire service,
you were trying to get some of this done in the fire service.
You got some things that implemented in one of your departments.
Do you think you've been more impactful and effective now that you've been out of the
fire service?
Because I know you just said like, now it allows you to, you know, call out Marion County
and say, Hey, if you don't want to change things, then you're part of the problem.
How much of an impact do you think you've been able to have outside of the fire service
as opposed to inside the fire service?
I'm going to answer that, but I just want to go back to the sick time thing because
this is important as well.
The department sort of gone to 24 72 report a lot less sick time usage.
So if you're concerned about that, then that's that conversely think about this.
Firefighters are so incredibly kind that they don't want to take a day off if it's going
to cause mandatory overtime or screw someone else.
You know, and I mean, I've, I've lost count of how many times I've received this and I've
done, you know, I've been the person that's, that's helped so and so is going to get hit.
They've got a, you know, a eight month old, you know, will jump on the grenade forum so
they don't get hit.
You know what I mean?
So this is what's scary as well as a people that need those sick days aren't taking them
because it's so understaffed.
They're worried it's going to screw someone else.
It's not going to affect the person pushing paper.
It goes home at five.
It's going to affect, you know, the guy in station two that you know is on the bubble
now and you need that sick day, but you don't take it because you don't want to affect them
and therefore then you're paying, you know, and it's just amplifying the issue.
So I think, you know, again, problems and solutions fully staffed fire department 24
72 not only is no one on the bubble now because, you know, overtime is few and far between
absolutely appropriate when there's hurricanes and all the things.
And then I love the kind of, you know, day over time, you know, you've got events and
that kind of thing training.
But you know, when, when you have a healthy department, they're not using sick time as
much, you know, so, and I like the PTO, I like the paid leave thing where you don't
even call it sick time.
Here's the amount, you know, here's this much time off and be a vacation.
You can be when you're sick, whatever, just use it.
Or you're not having to call up chief, you know, with the whole kind of Oscar winning
performance that we've all done in the past.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
I mean, a hundred percent.
Yeah.
So yeah, so there's that.
Yeah, that's a, it's funny because, you know, I always do these podcasts and I'm like, how
can I stay out of trouble with my department while I do these podcasts just in case people
are listening, you know, but when it comes to the sick leave stuff, you know, now we
have, not that it's already, you know, the fire services and compromise when it comes
to like certain morale issues and we have a lot going on, you know, and everybody, I
think if everybody would tackle their little piece, we'd be a lot better.
But you know, now we have implemented sick policies that make it so it's even more discouraged
for you to take time off.
And if you take these time, take the sick leave off for whatever reason, or you refuse
to work mandatory overtime, now you're penalized and you can't work regular overtime to actually
control your overtime.
And I'm like, where, where does this stop?
And I think where it stops is people to say, that's enough.
Like we're actually not doing this anymore.
And I don't, I don't know that administrative people or the executive staff knows that I'm
going to get in trouble for this one.
Don't care that you can go to doctorsnote.com and you can just get a doctor's note, you
know?
So like you said, it's this Oscar winning performance where they're like, you got to
have a doctor's note like newsflash.
You can get a doctor's note from anywhere.
So stop putting your, yeah.
Like stop putting your people in a position where they have to do this Oscar winning performance
or they got to go pay their $30 for a doctor's note.
Because I'm going to tell you right now, if it only cost me $30 to take three days off,
like that's a pretty sweet deal.
I mean, you could spend $30 to go on a Starbucks for one day for a drink and a pastry, you
know?
So it's, and guys will do it if that's what they do to need to take care of themselves.
But we're putting as departments, we put people in these positions.
I always say who, what cat goes into a bathtub willingly?
There's no cat that goes into the bathtub willingly.
Or like, you know, I'm pretty, I'm pretty nice for the most part, but you keep backing
me up into that corner, you might at least see a fighting stance.
You're only going to get so close before I reach out and grab your wrist.
Like, you know, and I think that's what these departments don't realize is we're pushing
these men and women in the fire service to the brink.
And some of it we say, oh, it's not malice.
And the people that are educated, I mean, I'm just going to go there.
It is malice when you're educated and you have all the knowledge and somebody like James
has presented all these things to you and you know, there's a solution and now you refuse
to do it.
It can be seen as malice.
So now I am pushing my men and women to the brink, just seeing how much they can take,
hoping they don't break.
And then when they do break, I'm going to say, why aren't people working for my department?
You know, whatever department this is, you know?
And I think that is a lot of, unfortunately, what we see nowadays is, let me see how much
these men and women can take.
And it's so sad because like what we're seeing and the things that you've seen and the things
that drove you to write these books is when you push men and women to the brink and see
how much they can take, people break.
And unfortunately, God bless their souls, sometimes they do take their own life because
they're broken.
And I think these departments don't want to take responsibility for it.
There's no way that I caused that.
Did you did the one single event that you did cause that person to take their own life?
I'm not saying that.
But is there something that you could have done to make things better?
To not push people in your department to the brink?
And I think it's irresponsible to and you know, it's partly, you know, being a coward
of we're going to just see.
We have all the knowledge, we'll just see.
And if something happens here, we'll fix it.
So does somebody have to take their own life in these departments for things to change?
Because unfortunately, even with that, I'm sure you've seen this too, where somebody
takes their own life.
We do the flag draped coffin, we do the ceremony, we say things are going to change.
And a year later, we're doing the same thing that we've been doing for the past 20 years
saying, well, it happened.
There's no way it's going to happen again.
And I think what we're not understanding is like, it may not happen in our department
again, but we are all brothers and sisters in the fire service.
And these suicides impact and affect everybody around the country.
It's not just one man or woman.
And the last thing I want is for my department to start making changes because somebody took
their own life on an apron of a fire station one day, because there will be factors that
led up to that, that we could have done and we could have implemented.
And the fact that these things are happening and people aren't making changes, guys like
you, thank God you're in the industry raising a flag saying, let's do some things.
But yeah, it's crazy.
Well, just to underline what you said, we had the Florida Fallen Firefighter Memorial
last weekend.
And one of the guys who was the honor guard, career firefighter, he was a piper in the
band.
He ended up taking his life that weekend.
He was honoring the fallen.
He ended up taking his life.
And then two days later, we lost a Miami Beach firefighter to suicide.
You know what I mean?
So Marion, we had a couple of years ago, we had two young firefighters within 12 weeks
of each other.
Those were two of four that we lost, I think, in as many years.
So this is what I don't understand.
I always tell people like, all right, just give me a body count.
How many have to die before you change?
We'll line the rest of them up against the wall, we'll shoot them and then we can start
changing.
Is there a number you're waiting for?
That's crazy.
Yeah.
But people ask me again a lot, oh, what about the data, when it comes to the 2472 and all
these conversations?
And there isn't any.
Why has the union not talked about this address?
This is another entire conversation in itself.
But what I was thinking recently, if you ever do statistics or scientific research, you
come up with a hypothesis.
And then if I'm not mistaken, the null hypothesis is kind of saying, well, the equal and opposite
should be true as well.
So what I would tell the fire service is, well, we've done it this way that you want
us to do it.
And it's resulted in a recruitment crisis or retention crisis, destruction of marriages,
cancer, testosterone destruction, suicide, overdoses, alcoholism.
So the null hypothesis surely is, well, if we fix the things that are broken, then all
of those things are going to improve.
So as the phrase that I love says, don't wait for science to prove that you already know
is true.
We know what's broken.
We know it.
I mean, like I said, I've underlined this.
If a frickin ding dong from England can come across the pond, become a firefighter and
find these people that have the solutions through a podcast, why the hell haven't the
people with the bugles or the people that take millions of union dues every year figured
this out already?
So I mean, we know because you know what the problem is.
You're just too scared to actually step up and say this needs to be fixed.
So this is what I struggle with.
But this again, going back to the hope conversation, the solution is there.
Anyone that tells you it'll never happen, we don't have the money, we can't get the
people and all these, there is a completely legitimate solid answer to each one of these.
And the money is already being spent bleeding in overtime, bleeding in, you know, the recruits
that you train that then leave your department two or three years later.
The you know, the lawsuits from mistakes we made was so sleep deprived, the workman's
comp claims, the medical retirements, the line of duty deaths, millions and millions
and millions of dollars are pissing downstream.
So all of the excuses that I hear are completely null and void.
You know, there are some idiosyncrasies depending on a department.
It goes down to the fact of how are you okay, that your firefighters work 56 hours and you
go home when you hit 40, you close the chief store or the city or county council members
door or whatever the door is.
And you let your lay your head on your pillow.
And then you know, meanwhile, they're just ramping up for whoever is the next person
is going to drop from something.
So this is what I struggle with.
And this is why I want people to be educated and angry and realize that you are worth fighting
for your family is worth fighting for.
Yeah, I love that man that that educated and angry because it's so true because once you
become educated, you should become a little bit angry, you know, and that, you know, that
will force you to take some action.
And one thing you just said is like, you are worth fighting for and your family is worth
fighting for.
And I think, you know, you know, back to the book, one of the things like a lot of this
is really big, like we've talked about a lot of big stuff on the podcast today, like, you
know, the 24 72, how that is the best schedule in the fire service, there's really no argument
there.
I don't even argue with people anymore.
You know, and we know it, we know what we need to be doing to take care of ourselves,
you know, and I think the first step, like you're like, I have no idea what to do.
I don't know how to take care of myself.
I don't know what hope looks like.
I've never experienced hope.
Never read a book on hope.
You know, I would, I would pick up kinder.
I would go kinder and so just so you can understand what this job looks like.
And one thing I want to touch on before I go is so I read kinder.
I've been in the fire department 20 years.
I'm a firefighter and everything we have talked about on this podcast today, not only impacts
me as a firefighter, as a man that's been in the fire service, but it also impacts my
spouse and it also impacts my kids.
How important would you say it is for not only just the firemen that pick up kinder
and read it, men, women, whatever, but how important would you say it is for a spouse
or somebody that's not in the fire service to pick up kinder and read this book to really
understand what we deal with, what we go through and get this real and raw story.
So what would you say to that?
No, I mean, that's, that's the other side.
So like I said, with one more light, that was also what I wanted to do was, you know,
we were in the meat grinder and it's funny because, you know, when people say, oh, you
know, how am I doing?
I feel like I'm constructing, oh, you're fine.
Because you know, if you and I are in the station, we're both in the meat grinder.
So we seem okay.
Our loved ones are the barometer that we need.
You know, I remember I was working in Orange County and then, um, working as a lifeguard
on my two days off, you know, one day off and the day that I got off shift.
Um, so seven days a week.
And I remember going on a Skype call with my mom and she goes, darling, you look like
you're dying.
Yeah.
That's what you need to hear.
Right.
Like shit or your hair trigger or all the things.
That's what they're able to tell us.
Yeah.
So from a family member, I think it's extremely important because it really gives them an
insight into, you know, they come and they visit the station and they sit down and have
dinner with you, but they're not running calls at two in the morning with you.
They're not listening to the chief berate you after you just had a PD code and then
you didn't wear your damn traffic vest backing the rescue out in the hospital bay.
You know what I mean?
They didn't see all those things.
And then for the, the everyone else, you know, the other, you know, whatever it is, 344 million
people in America, they get to see what we actually do because I've said this on the
show so many times, we have done a horrendous job of branding the fire service.
Yeah.
Why is there a fire engine on my medical core?
What are we buying you for dinner today?
All these things and you can't blame them.
What have we done to teach them?
Nothing.
All they know is calendars and Chicago fire.
That's it.
And you know, and cats in trees.
So, so yeah, so I also wanted to really, and this is where I think, you know, that equally
is so important because then if you can educate the people of what we do, the public support
would be so much higher and the pressure on, you know, on the, the bad politicians that
are opposing fixing this would be so much stronger.
And hopefully some of these politicians would be watching this and go, I didn't realize
that was going on.
We do need to change this.
So yeah, so this is why, you know, as a reader, it's for everyone.
It's not for young children.
It's definitely raw.
Right.
It is.
But then again, I, you know, I'm not going to use the word hope.
I will make it into a TV show.
Yeah.
And like you said, I imagine that story, but then with the music and you know, all the
cinematrix cinematography or the, you know, the, the dramatic element as well.
I mean, that story would grab people by the throat, you know, and I don't think that the
fire service would be viewed the same way after that.
I think it would, you know, it wouldn't be the Tacoma FD in Chicago fire.
It would be like, Oh my, you know, I mean, I liken it to imagine if band and brothers
and Ted Lasso had a baby.
Yeah.
You do have a great comparison, but you have takeaways as well.
I love that because there's some fire department shows out there.
You know, Chicago fire is out there to come after he is out there and the rescue me series
from 2000s was out there to come a fire hilarious over the top.
Nothing like what we deal with.
It's every prank in an episode that I've done in 20 years.
Right.
And then Chicago fire.
It's your typical drama, obviously, you know, so yeah.
So fire department soap opera.
Yeah.
And I'm rescue me was one of the most unhealthy fire department shows I've ever seen in my
life.
I mean, it was a drama and some of it was pretty realistic, but no, what you're talking
about, I love it.
That's a perfect description of band of brothers and Ted Lasso had a baby.
Yeah.
I really, I love how you describe that because if you've seen those two, you could understand
how those go together.
And I think the reason I asked the spouse question was because in reading kinder and
getting through that book, recognizing like how Jack spouse in the book was so supportive
and realize that, Hey, like I did not realize all these things were taking place.
I saw some things, but I didn't know it was like this.
And she, she held his hand through this entire journey.
And you know, they, they got, they, you know, for lack of better terms, they get their life
back, you know, and I don't even get their life back, but it start to experience a life
that maybe didn't, they know they could have, you know, so it really gave light to how supportive
as a spouse that you can be.
And I think it's, you know, for me, I, you know, I always tell everybody I married a
champion, you know, I don't, I don't know that, you know, my wife said something the
other day, she said, I'm glad I beat all the other girls.
I said, ah, it was always you, babe.
There's nobody else that could have done this.
There was no line.
Like it was, it was always you.
It was always going to be you, you know, regardless of what I've ever been through, it was always
her and she's been so supportive.
And honestly, looking back at some of the stuff I've been through with mental health,
I mean, I would have to credit my wife is saving my life because she's the one originally
who pretty much got me to somebody that could actually help me.
Cause I went through a lot of counseling, uh, did a lot of stuff.
I finally actually took me sitting down with somebody that did some prayer counseling stuff
to really work through some things.
But she mean, for lack of better terms, like she literally saved my life.
I was years ago, I was sitting in a chair watching Netflix, which I never do.
And I was like, this is it, this is my life, but on a mask had a really great year.
I mean, I got firefighter the year of that year, got the fire service medal honor that
year.
I got promoted that year, best year of my life in the fire service.
But at home I was drowning and considering suicide, you know, on my wife was so supportive,
recognize things really took over the house.
Um, you know, she's kind of a single mom for a little while, you know, pulled me out of
the dump and got me help.
And, and, you know, here I am years later, I finally got to a point where I thought I
was good.
And I think I was good.
I was functioning and I got to this plateau, been doing life really well.
And then realized that God wanted me to tackle some other areas in my life through James's
book.
It was like, okay, you've been here and I'm, I'm proud of your kid, but we still have
more work to do because there's still an even better version inside of you that you haven't
accessed yet.
And that's one thing I love.
Like my wife got me the help that I needed.
I got to this place and I think it's, it's one of those things where you reach a mountain,
but life isn't over.
You know, you reach a mountain top and you're like, man, it's exciting.
I feel like I'm doing pretty good, but life isn't over.
And you got two options.
You know, it might be time for you to climb another mountain, you know, which is where
I think I'm at right now.
But sometimes you got to go back in that valley and pull the people up to where you're at.
And that is what I love about kinder James.
It is, it is truly that mountain top of a book that is looking behind itself and saying,
Hey, everybody that's down in the valley, like I want to, I'm reaching out your hand
and you're pulling people up this mountain, you know, and you've created a path, whether
you realize it or not, you've literally created a path for people to walk and to be able to
do that through a fictional story that they can relate to, you know, and I, the TV series,
man, I can't even, I'm, I'm over here.
Like I can't wait for this to happen.
So I'm with you.
I'm not saying I hope I'm saying it will.
And man, I'm excited.
You're recording the audio book right now.
Are you, are you halfway into that?
How far are you into that?
It's been a very busy week or so.
So I made a start.
I think I've got four chapters done, but there's 32 or 33, I think.
So but then after this week, you know, we've got the Thanksgiving week and I'll be really
kind of doubled down because I want to get it out early December.
So that's my goal.
But yeah, that's, that's another way you talk about imposter syndrome.
Oh my God.
I actually was messaging Josh Brolin this the other day because he just released his
book from under the truck, which again, another book recommendation.
If anyone's read his forward in one more light, that man is a wordsmith.
Like I've never seen before.
Oh, he can write.
It was crazy.
I forgot I was reading.
I forgot I was reading your book when I read that I was like, Oh, this is Josh Brolin.
And then when you do the audio book for one more light, I always joke with people.
I'm like, I literally have to follow because he narrated his forward.
I mean, you talk about, you know, how amazing is that that someone is busy and, and, you
know, with the platform that he has took the time to do that.
Yeah.
But then, so he narrates from the best voices in Hollywood and then my squeaky ass English
voice has to do the rest.
But when you're reading, cause I'm doing it now, we're kinder and obviously there's characters.
So you're having to kind of read and kind of have different inflections to suggest,
you know, as a woman or a child or whatever, you think of imposter syndrome is bad when
you're writing, when you start narrating and in your reading your own book and he like,
ah, that sentence, I don't like the way that flows.
You just, oh, that bloody imposter syndrome is horrendous.
So that is something that I, and Josh said the same thing.
He said it drove him crazy, you know?
So that's another challenge.
I don't think people realize.
Hopefully the result will be good.
I mean, I, a lot of fiction authors will hire an actor, but I just didn't feel like an actor
would be able to understand where these people were.
So yeah, so you know, you're reading it, but yeah, I mean, the whole time your voice is
just telling you, oh my God, you sound stupid.
That's not an American accent, you know, whatever the thing is.
Then you're reading and the, oh, there's a typo there.
They didn't catch it in editing.
So, so yeah, so it's an interesting, extremely humbling thing.
If anyone's written a book, just do the audio book and you'll see what I'm talking about.
But I mean, people love it.
When I put it out, like I was going to narrate, people said they really enjoyed One More Light.
So then I'm like, all right, remember that, remember that people like the first one.
You're not awful.
But that, yeah, that imposter syndrome, that bloody voice in our head is, uh, it's there
for all of us.
I don't care who you are, even one of my Delta guests was saying, dude, you want to talk
about imposter syndrome, go to a team room in Delta.
The highest performing soldiers in the U S he said it is rife.
So, um, so yeah, but I mean that, that you talk about a mirror and everything that is,
uh, that is a challenge is you're not only reading your own book, you're trying to ignore
the troll that lives rent for you in your head as well.
Yeah.
No.
So I listened to One More Light and I thought it was great.
So you know, when you said you were doing the audio book for kinder, I was like, well,
great.
Now I can just download this and it's a, it's a story.
Like there are some stories that I always, um, their go-to is, are just playback over
and over and over.
Um, shameless plug for the travelers gift by Andy Andrews, one of the best, one of the
best audio books I've ever listened to in my life.
Um, this guy's, he's a crazy just story in general in his own life, but the concept behind
this book is, you know, he's just, he's lost all hope.
And you know, the beginning of the book, he's getting ready to crash his car into a tree.
And then all of a sudden he wakes up in Harry S Truman's office when he's about to make
the decision to drop the bomb.
And he has these conversations over the book with like six different characters throughout
history where he travels through the travels through time.
It has to bring back this gift to where he lives now.
I mean, the book is the storyteller is phenomenal and there are so many real principles and
real takeaways.
Um, you know, so, but no, I listened to one more light.
It was great.
I went back and I listened to it.
I'm an, I love audio books.
Um, so when you said kinder and audio book, I was like, this is great.
And like you said, it's another, it's another reach because there are people that only listen
to audio books.
They'll never read it.
But I mean, but you're right.
The cancer syndrome is real and as many positive comments as you have, you'll have one person
that says something stupid and that's what you focus on.
You know, I just, I made the mistake of going on Amazon and just looking at my reviews and
I've had so many positive, so much positive feedback from jump seat leadership, like so
much like, I love the fact that it's short.
It's an easy read.
I can read it an hour.
I'm like, oh, this is why I wrote it.
You know, people saying like the reasons you wrote it or the reasons they're, they love
it.
And then one guy leaves a one star review and said, this book is a lazy cash, cash grab.
And I was like that, that let that bother me for a full day, you know?
And I was like, hang on a second.
Like one guy, like, I know it's not a lazy cash grab, you know, like, yeah, I know what
it, I know the years it took for me to put into that book.
Like, sure.
It took you an hour and a half to read it, which is why I wrote it.
But I know the years of experience and heartache that went into the experience that I put in
the book, you know?
So I had to kind of talk myself out of it.
And then I went back and, you know, change my description to address that one star reviewer
because you can't address them anymore on Amazon.
So I said, this is the kind of book it is of regardless of what the guy with the one
star review left, you know, I found a way to give them a jab.
But now you're right.
The imposter syndrome is a hundred percent real, but I love the fact that even you're
working through that imposter syndrome because it's important and you know, it's important.
I love, I don't know if you've ever seen that meme.
It's outside a cafe.
It says, come try the worst cop cup of coffee one man on Yelp's ever had.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I have.
No, it's great.
Like, and that's just, it's just like, you just got to embrace it and move forward.
Anyway, there's always going to be somebody that disagrees, hates what you're doing, doesn't
agree, but it's not their mission, you know?
And that's one thing I realized is like, you know, there's, there's a vision for my life.
There's a mission for my life.
There are things that only I can accomplish, only I can do.
And I'm going to do those things.
And if you don't like it, that's okay.
Like I don't, I don't actually need you.
That's not a requirement.
Like nowhere when I, when I write down the vision and mission for my life, does it say,
does this person like it?
It just doesn't say that.
And I have to remind myself with this imposter syndrome that this is my life.
This, these is my wife.
These are my kids.
These are my, this is my faith, my values, my morals, my ethics.
And there's no, there's no list of people that I have to live my life for.
And I love that.
I love your mission.
I love the vision.
I love what you're doing, man.
These books are, oh man, I don't, like I said, I, most people that know me, you know, I
don't blow smoke.
You know, if you have not read one more light or listened to one more light, you need to
go out and get it.
I do agree with, with James.
Like if you are running academies, you know, this is a book that everybody should be reading
before they joined the fire service, cause it will give them an insight into the career
that they're about to jump into.
We don't really do a good job of telling people what this job entails.
And you know, the other side of that is kinder kinder is another great book.
So people can look down the road and say, Hey, if this is what could happen and it kinders
a story of hope, it's a hundred percent a story of hope and restoration and redemption.
But if this is what could happen, what preventative measures can I take to make sure that I don't
ever have to go down this road?
Because I love the fact that kinder is a hope story and it's restoration.
It's redemptive, but I've always said, I've been through these situations in my life where
I love my redemption story, but I don't want my kids to have to experience what I've experienced
to be redeemed.
I'd like to use those experiences to walk them down a path where they have to never
have to experience what I've experienced.
And maybe they make their own choices, but it's not going to be because I chose to not
deal with things.
James, is there any, I mean, this is your podcast.
Is there anything I missed?
Is there anything you want to say before, before we head out of here?
Cause I'm a talker.
I could talk to for another hour, but we were at two hours and that, you know, somebody
probably pause this in an hour to listen to it later.
You know?
Yeah, no, I think we've, I love these organic conversations.
We talked before we hit record about, you know, frameworks and everything, and it's
just gone all over the place.
So no, I want to thank you so much.
I mean, you know, we're kindred spirits definitely, but I've always said, I've never written to
Joe Rogan to say thank you for his podcast.
You know, I've never written to, well, I got to take that back.
Like Sebastian Junger, when he wrote Tribe, I've spoken to him multiple times on the podcast.
So that's, that's a bad example, but you know, there's people, people that, you know, whose
books have moved me, whose work has moved me.
And some of course I have reached out to, but some, you know, we'll never know that
James Gearing, like Wayne Dyer, Wayne Dyer passed away before I could ever get him on
the show.
And his work absolutely prepared me for my divorce.
He's kind of like a, I always tell him he's like a white Deepak Chopra, but he's way more
than that.
He was kind of a real spiritualist that pulled in the wisdom from all the great books, all
the religions, all the ancient texts, and just found again that Venn diagram, that common
denominator, compassion and kindness and community and all the things.
And I never get to tell Wayne Dyer that, that impact.
So that was what was so beautiful, was, you know, you and I have obviously, you know,
talked for years now and, and now been on each other's shows.
But you know, when you reached out and were courageously vulnerable and said, not only
the impact that the book had, but then you told me about, you know, where that led you
and the work.
And I mean, there, there is no greater compliment, you know, when the mission is to make the
world better for you, for me, and, and, and someone says, Hey, it helped.
Yeah.
Mic drop.
If I sell another book, it was worth it.
If all the other reviews are one star, this was a cash grab.
I don't care because it helps.
So, so I want to thank you just for, you know, for telling me, for letting me know, you know,
that it helped because that only fuels the fire for all the next things that are going
to come behind this, the other TV show and whatever's after that.
But you know, and then sharing your story about this, because again, it's putting hope
back in other people, you know, if, if, if a simple story of a normal firefight, because
this is the thing, both of the books were written for the other 99% of the fire service
that weren't at ground zero that weren't at the Vegas shooting that weren't insert in
a national headline here.
This is just a death by a thousand cut story that we all go through.
So yeah, I want to just turn it back and say, thank you.
Thank you for this platform and thank you for reaching out.
And I applaud your, your humility and your vulnerability to look in that mirror and stay
looking in that mirror and go, I need to change.
We all need to change, you know?
So I think, I think it's amazing.
So thank you.
Yeah, no, thanks.
I appreciate you saying all that.
It's one of those things where it's like, are you going to do the hard work or not?
You know, and I think your book was just the tool that God used to put in front of me to
say, Hey, it's time.
What are we going to do?
And, you know, it's decision time and I'll be honest, it hasn't all been easy, but it's
been so rewarding.
And, you know, I'm on this journey now.
And every second, every take, every, every take, I step, every step I take is, you know,
it's the whole, you know, two steps forward, one step back, but it's still progress.
That's one of my favorite sayings is like, you know, I still took a step and I think
your book really put a mirror in front of me to take those steps in the right direction.
And honestly, I'm really kind of hoping that it does this for the listeners.
You know, I hope people go grab this book.
Yeah, it's great to get ratings and for people to listen and, you know, like a podcast, but
I'll be honest, selfishly, I hope people listen to this podcast.
And the first thing they do is go by, you know, kinder and that they read kinder and
that they read one more light.
Like that is selfishly what I hope from this podcast.
I don't, I don't want ratings.
I hope they heard two, two men that are, you know, willing to impact the fire service through
their own lives and that are really just out for hope.
And as far as I'm concerned, ratings are stupid.
Go buy the book.
Like what better, what better way of support can you show somebody like, Hey, I believe
in your vision.
I believe in your mission than just go buy the book, you know, and it truly, honestly,
if you're listening right now and you're like, I cannot afford this book, you shoot me a
message.
I'll make sure you get the book.
You know, there are people listening and I know they generally just can't afford it.
So if you're listening, you're like, Josh, I cannot afford this book.
And you don't live in Istanbul because I honestly don't know how much shipping is to get it
to Istanbul.
Um, might take, yeah, it might be a challenge, but no, if you're, if you're reasonably, uh,
in a shipping distance, you know, I will do whatever I can do to make sure you get a copy
of this book.
You know, I've always said, you know, if you believe in something, support the mission.
And um, you know, this is one of those things where if you're listening, seriously, for
some reason you cannot get this, please let me know.
I will make, I will put a copy in your hands.
I gave, as soon as this came out, I read it.
I think I gave away five copies on social media and they went, they went pretty fast.
I think within an hour I had them in the mail to people.
Um, please read kinder, read one more light, follow James gearing.
Um, one thing I do want to say is they just shut down his Instagram account.
So if you want to tell people where you can be found now, that would be great.
Yeah.
For some reason, Instagram is super offended by positivity and kindness.
So I have a off record.
I'm not, I mean, it's on record, but I have someone at the moment who was actually looking
into it that I was used to through a friend.
So it's possible that it might come back, but, um, yeah, it was Instagram was, uh, behind
the shield nine one one.
So the new one is just behind the shield nine one one point 2.0.2.0.
So if you put in behind the shield nine one, it will come up straight away.
You'll see the logo and there we are.
The upside is when you get a count shut down, you start from scratch, all the trolls and
bots are gone.
So, uh, you know, it's not all bad, but, uh, yeah, it would be nice to get it back.
It was connected to so many people and someone actually messaged me on the new one and said
that they attended a police officer's funeral who had taken her own life because they saw
it, you know, my post on, on Instagram.
They were entered, you know, they were able to, to realize it had happened and be there,
you know, to show their, their respect.
I've had people ask for help, you know, numerous departments.
Now people messaging me about the 24 72.
So that's, that's what was a shame.
Um, but you know, I always tell people as well, I don't pay Instagram anything.
So I can only cry on my cereal so much before I just have to go, all right, well, let's
just start again.
If it comes back, awesome.
It'd be an awesome post to be like, ah, I'm back bitches.
If it doesn't, then so be it.
You know, we'll just build from the ground up again, but that was never the thing.
And uh, but it, you know, it's, it's great to have that kind of exposure because once
in a while the story would take off and uh, you know, you, you knew it kind of moved a
lot of people.
So, but yeah, I appreciate, I appreciate you kind of highlighting that as of now when recording
on the 22nd of November, the new account is the only one that's out there.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that's how you can find James.
Listen, listen to the podcast.
There's going to be somebody on there you can relate to, but you can't just relate to
James.
He's interviewed over a thousand people.
If there's some kind of help you're looking for in the fire service, I guarantee that
you can find it on the podcast.
If you're looking for vulnerable men and women, and there's none in your life, none in your
world behind the shield podcast, I'm listening to these things and the, the depths of conversation
that he's having and where these people are able to go in their life and share these stories.
Um, you know, it's encouraging to say the least.
Uh, you got James gearing.com, you can find them there.
You got the behind the shield podcast.
Everybody's on Facebook.
Everybody's on Instagram.
Um, James, honestly, it was an honor to have you on the show.
Won't be the last time.
Um, there's plenty of stuff to talk about, plenty to work to do, plenty to changes, you
know, to happen in the fire service.
And I don't see you stopping anytime soon.
Uh, one more thing.
If you had to leave the listener with one thing like James gearing, signing off, I'm
out, I'm done.
You may never hear from me again.
What would it, what would you say?
I think let's just circle back to your favorite four letter word.
Just know that you can get to the place that you want to get to, you know, and the tools
are out there.
Maybe you just haven't discovered it the same way as, you know, you've always been kind
of a tunnel visioned about, um, you know, the, the, our amazing schedule, you know,
I think we're so siloed as a profession and then we're so exhausted as an actual responder
that our capacity to take that, you know, proverbial step back to widen the blinkers
is just diminished.
Like the ability to critically think we saw again during COVID when people are stressed,
that ability goes during the election, that ability goes.
So understanding that you can, you can be there for your family more.
You can overcome the weight gain, the hormonal disruption, the depression, the anxiety, the
addiction, whatever it is, whatever your things are to kind of repair that relationship with
your children.
You can, and there's so many people that have solutions to problems and there's so many
people that want to help you get there, but you have to believe you can first.
Yeah, man.
I love it.
Thank you so much, James.
I really appreciate it.
Like I said, it won't be the last time.
So it's no secret guys.
I have not figured out how to sign off from these things yet.
I say something different every single time.
So until next time, listen, I really appreciate you guys listening.
I appreciate all the support.
Um, if you like this episode with James, do me a favor, share it.
If you're not going to share the episode, share the conversation around this episode,
go pick up kinder, go pick up one more light until next time guys.
Take it easy.