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Welcome to episode 446 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute pleasure
to welcome on the show, Ben Strahn.
Now, Ben is a veteran hotshot in the wildland community.
He is also a human performance coach and an elite athlete himself.
So we discuss a host of topics from the physical standards in the wildland community,
mental health, some of the factors that are contributing to more and more lives lost,
both civilian and fire in the wildland environment, and so many more areas.
Before we get to that conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on,
subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Each five-star rating, just taking that moment to do that rating,
helps elevate this podcast, making it more and more visible,
therefore easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of some of the greatest minds on planet Earth.
And all I ask in return is that you share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to everyone else who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Ben Strahn.
Enjoy.
Well, Ben, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time.
Your backdrop is beautiful that I'm seeing that you're doing this outside.
So welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
Amen. Thank you very much. I'm extremely excited to be here.
Now, I was racking my brains because it was a while ago that we initially connected.
Do you remember who connected us, who the mutual friend was?
I don't recall it. I remember we did, I think it was, we talked during fire season
and my mind tends to sort of wander during those days.
So I'm not really sure.
Yeah, I know it.
Do you remember?
I don't. And there's so many people that could have been.
I don't want to prattle out a bunch, but whoever it was, I'm sure it was.
Could it be? I don't want to prattle out a bunch, but whoever it was, firstly, thank you.
And secondly, please reach out and kick me up the ass and tell me that it was you.
So for sure.
All right. Well, then I'm looking at, you know, what I'm seeing in the background.
So tell the audience where you are on planet Earth today.
Yeah, man. So I live in a small town called Garden Valley in northern California,
which is about an hour ish east of Sacramento and maybe another hour ish
west of South Lake Tahoe or the Tahoe area and this nice little rural community up in the hills.
Beautiful. So you get to ski quite easily up there.
Oh, man, it's it's kind of the best, man.
We have days like right now, it's going to be near 70 degrees.
And the trails are awesome.
There's I can be in the mountains snowboarding at any moment,
mountain biking or down at the ocean surfing pretty much at the within a day.
Like no problem.
So it's a pretty, pretty plush, pretty exciting spot that I'm extremely grateful to be living in.
Beautiful. I'm jealous.
We just got back from snowboarding.
We had to go to Utah to do it.
There's no snowboarding in Florida.
Yeah, I imagine not.
Yeah, I think I was watching actually something super hilarious.
You know, you get lost in those like YouTube holes.
And I was watching this thing where they're saying they're going around each state's highest elevation.
Like, what's the highest place elevation wise in each state?
And I think Florida was like, you know, below a thousand, like a couple hundred feet or whatever it was.
Yeah, like twelve and a half.
Yeah, something like that. Super funny.
OK, well, that's where you're living now.
So tell me where you were born and then tell me about your family dynamic,
what your parents did and how many siblings.
Yeah, no problem.
So I was born in Southern California in Orange County in the city of Orange.
My parents had us live in there the first eight years of my life before we moved up to Guard Valley here.
But pretty simple, pretty awesome childhood.
My dad was my parents had me super young, so I'm the first of four kids.
I have a sister and then two younger brothers.
And my mom was a stay at home mom.
She had me like, you know, right after she turned 19, a couple of months after she turned 19 or so, I believe.
And my dad was, I think, 22, maybe getting ready to turn 23, something like that.
So they were super young parents trying to figure it out.
But we had a lot of good family support.
You know, my mom's family was from the Tustin area and they were pretty close to us.
And so we had a family dynamic was pretty awesome.
And honestly, like I remember my childhood being pretty, pretty awesome, pretty average.
Like I don't recall ever having a moment where I was really struggled or had to question whether or not I was loved or anything like that.
So, you know, as far as like privilege goes, like I felt pretty pretty stoked.
Something that I reflect on sometimes.
Yeah, well, you probably don't know if you heard any of the episodes, but one thing that I was really my eyes were open to a few years ago was the element of childhood trauma in the rest of our journey as we progress into adulthood.
I listened to you on the Anchor Point podcast, but I couldn't tell.
I think I started the car up because I turned it off because I went to a meeting and I couldn't tell if it was you or the host that was talking.
But one of you mentioned losing your mother when you were 12.
Was that you or was that the other gentleman?
Yeah, that was the host.
OK, gotcha.
So that wasn't your own personal thing then?
No, no, I, you know, I really didn't honestly, I didn't really experience any.
I don't remember experiencing any real loss or childhood trauma or any kind of just trauma in general until I honestly joined the fire service.
And that's where and that's when things, you know, that's when I started struggling with like or seeing the loss and the realities of life, probably a little more tangibly.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's when I listen to you talk now, you know, and you're as we'll get into it, when you had that self-realization and you started seeking the tools, I think that's, you know, that that's probably partly because you had that great structure as you were growing up.
And I think that's sadly what happens to some of our men and women that already have that trauma coming in is by the time they get to that point that we're going to talk about later, they it's crushing for them by that point.
So it's an interesting observation to see how that pays in with either coping skills or or not.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that's 100 percent on point.
Well, as far as athletics, clearly you have to be somewhat capable physically to to be a a hot shot.
So tell me about your kind of school age athletics.
Yeah, so, I mean, shoot, my parents got us involved in sports right away as as young people.
So, you know, the the sports of choice for me growing up were pretty standard for most kids.
You know, you play the soccer, you play the t ball. And as I grew, I think right around age 12 or so is when I really grabbed it, started gravitating a lot more towards soccer.
Excuse me. And so, shoot, that's what I I aspired to be some sort of soccer player at some point, you know, like outside of high school.
This is what I dreamed to be as a kid. So I became pretty obsessed about it.
And then, you know, once I got into high school, you know, soccer kind of was my focus as far as actually in a lot of ways, kind of my life, like I kind of lived, breathed and ate soccer.
And then I started realizing that, man, if I really wanted to be a good soccer player, I needed to have like this really able body that could be maybe go a little harder, a little longer than other people.
And I kind of found that that was kind of where my strengths lied anyway.
So I started running track and I did mostly the sprint stuff.
I ran the mile, did the long jump. But this is where high school, junior year or whatever is probably where my obsession around physical fitness really started to, I would imagine, take hold.
My folks lived, you know, like I mentioned before, when I was eight, my parents moved us up to the to the fit holes in northern California.
And so my folks lived, I don't know, maybe five ish miles away from the high school.
And I would regularly run back and forth the school just to just to get a leg up on people so I could run harder and longer in athletics.
Which position did you play?
I played primarily right wing.
OK. In the midfield. Yeah.
Beautiful. Yeah. This is a very, very physical game.
I was always usually midfield or or even in left or left back, usually because I'm left footed.
But I know if you had the same thing, look like we're kind of similar, Bill, but I was never the explosive guy.
Same in martial arts. I wasn't the guy that was going to win the first round.
But if you beat me in the head for two rounds, I didn't go down and you were tired.
That was it. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I was a pretty speedy guy. I could race.
I could I run pretty dang quick and I felt like I had the ability to beat most people to the ball.
If you asked me to dribble a ball like more than five or six times, I was probably going to lose it because I had horrible foot control, ball control.
I could get it to I could get it to somebody and hopefully get by it.
So that was about that was about as good as where I made it.
But it's still something I enjoy. Like even now, as an adult, it's a it's a good way to get outside and show competitive and have fun with people.
And so I still play it to this day.
Yeah. Well, that's an interesting conversation.
I ask a few people that are in athletics an observation I made coming from England.
I've mentioned the same discussion in previous episodes is because football is our main sport soccer.
You tend to see you don't see that kind of peak peak level at school age, but you do see longevity.
You get people graduate from school and they play local leagues and they play, you know, like pub leagues or whatever it is.
But they play a lot of times into their 30s, 40s, 50s.
And then when I moved to the US, you saw this high, high level of competition, you know, as gyms and all the on the high schools and all that stuff.
But then you had that kind of Uncle Rico syndrome where someone would get hurt or they graduate high school or college.
And then their their physical fitness journey would kind of slam into a brick wall.
So what I'm seeing as a common denominator is the sport of soccer.
Football really seems to be the kind of sport where you can compete at a high level, but still be in good shape,
not be broken, where once you graduate from whatever establishment you were playing for, you can keep playing it.
Yeah, man, for sure. I think. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, there's no slight tackling in the leagues I'm playing in.
So it's pretty, you know, there's like this the gentleman's rule or this common understanding like, hey, man,
we all got day jobs, too. So it's I think so.
I mean, I'm still playing and I'm almost 40 years old now.
And I honestly just love besides the physical aspect of the game and the, you know, the the end shape
ness or whatever, the the cardio, the how it keeps you just in shape is pretty awesome.
But also because I find it to be sort of like a chess game.
You know, I like to play on the pitch and see how the ball moves and how to set up plays.
And it kind of keeps my mind kind of sharp in some aspects.
Beautiful. Well, what about the journey?
You were hoping to be a professional football player.
So how did that shift to you joining the fire service?
Oh, good. Yeah. So, you know, you get to a point in your life and you're like,
yeah, I don't think becoming a professional soccer player is probably going to be in the cards.
You know, like I came from a school that was my graduating class was like 64 people or something like this.
You know what I mean? So you become very aware that schools that have a much larger population
can pull students that are much better than you.
And when you get to play those people, you kind of realize how quickly you're maybe just not as good as they are.
And that's not that wasn't a disappointment to me. That's fine.
I've always been fairly good at, like, observing those kind of things.
And then redirecting my energy.
But also, so how this this translates into me going to the fire services,
I just didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life.
I always liked the team aspect with sports and kind of doing, you know,
working together to accomplish a mission, for lack of a better word.
And I thought being a firefighter kind of embodied some of that, even as a high school student.
So, you know, there's a program that there was a program at my school
that allowed you to get on the job training and basic certifications
to enter the fire service pretty much almost right away after graduating high school.
And so I took advantage of that and got some exposure to some folks and kind of saw like, oh, man, this is this relates a lot to what I actually
enjoy doing, playing soccer and doing athletics.
So it just seemed like a natural kind of progression.
And that's really, really where I ended up landing.
And the physical aspect of becoming a wildland firefighter was, I mean, really, really was called to me in some way.
Well, you mentioned the RLP program in the Anchor Point podcast was this.
And that's another reoccurring theme that's really come out of all these conversations I'm so fortunate to have.
And that's the power of mentorship.
And I don't know if it's the same in the wildland fire service, but definitely in structure,
there's a big diversity conversation.
And rightly so. You know, you want your department to represent the men and women in the cities and counties that you serve.
However, the poor management take on this is that you go around and you find a bunch of people that fit the pigmentation,
the sexual orientation, whatever it is, and you check the boxes and you fling them out there and that's it.
What I've seen is an incredibly positive solution to that that's actionable and creates phenomenal male and female firefighters is mentorship.
So whether it's, you know, as we saw in the film, Eric Marsh giving Brendan McDonough a chance after, you know, his drug problems,
or whether it's a friend of mine, Chris Hickman, that has a firefighter mentorship program here as well, that's free.
So it doesn't matter where you live, doesn't matter what your background is.
If you can make it to that place, you will get free training.
There's scholarships into the fire academy.
There's a pretty smooth transition from that into local fire departments here.
So how much weight do you give that R.O.P. program for your own personal journey,
somewhat directionless after realizing that professional football wasn't going to be your route to allow you to be guided into a positive profession that we inhabit?
Wow, that's a really good question.
I could honestly say I don't think I've reflected on that much.
So that brings up some unintended or unexpected gratitude because there for sure were people in there that were mentoring me along that maybe I haven't really realized until this moment.
So I think I think it was I think that was great, you know, but you're a high school kid, too, man.
You're taking these classes. In reality, you're just so you don't really know what the hell you even want to do in life, really.
You know, and there's the the specific moment that I can remember where I was like, OK, I'm going to give this a shot.
Was a day where we inside that R.O.P. program, we did a day of line construction out in the field for wildland fire.
And really, I didn't I didn't really have any desire to be a wildland firefighter when I first started this journey.
I wanted to be a structure guy. I wanted to be on the red trucks.
I wanted to be in the cities and doing those types of things.
Like it just seemed that seemed like more exciting to me.
And honestly, I didn't know shit about what even a wildland firefighter was, you know, like growing up as a high school kid wanting to be a fireman.
That's not the first thing that goes to your mind.
So but as far as the mentorship goes, it's that day when I'm out there cutting line and I'm, you know, I'm it was an all day affair.
We're slamming tools into the earth, you know, digging, digging this control line simulated.
And there's people from the Forest Service, the agency that I work for there from.
And they're telling you how to do it and they're coaching you and they're and they're taking the time to help you understand how to be successful within that given tactic there and our objective.
And I remember a couple of people in particular and.
And then maybe that was the first time I actually got that kind of mentorship within that world that made me realize, like, hey, this could be something.
Because after that, after that, that day, we were pulled aside by me and me and my buddy were pulled aside by a couple of the Forest Service guys that are helping teaching us.
And they're like, hey, you should apply. And that showed, you know, they showed interest in us.
And I was like, whoa, that's pretty crazy, man. I'm just barely 18 or 19 years old at the time.
And but, yeah, man, I think that's an interesting question that you asked me, because I don't know if I've reflected on the people within that program that definitely were mentoring me.
And there's something for me to chew on there for a little bit outside the mentor, outside the mentorship of my my parents.
Like my my mom and dad and my my grandfather, my grandmother, like they were always excited that I was doing something like this.
And the fact that I could get a job straight out of high school two days after graduating was, you know, I had zero desire to go to college.
So this was this was this probably excited them, excited me.
But, yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's an important point.
Like needing mentors in your life doesn't mean that you don't have great parents.
But if your parents have nothing to do with mechanics, carpentry, power line work, fire department, whatever it is, then it's up to us.
You know, I'm using the term loosely leaders in the professions already that are looking for the next generation and helping to bring them up
rather than being that dude and the lazy boy rolling your eyes because the new guy doesn't know what they're doing.
Well, for sure. And honestly, you know, so I drive by the place every day that I took that R.O.P. class to go home.
I drive by every single day to get to my house.
And just the other day, I saw the kids going to school there, getting ready to take that class.
I was like, oh, man, you know what? I should go talk to these people.
And I was like, because just like you said, like there's there's a there's a mentorship opportunity there to talk to these kids like, hey, man,
like I did. I was exactly where you were at. And look at me now.
I'm running my own hotshot crew. And I think it's I think that's that's kind of maybe speaks to what you're saying.
So absolutely. Well, with your own personal journey in the fire service, you had a history of playing sports physically.
How well were you prepared for the the entry level?
I think I was well, well, when you're 19 years old, freshly turned 19, you're you think you're indestructible and undefeatable.
So, you know, I thought I was probably the shit. And that very quickly was that that idea of myself was very quickly changed.
The first time we did a hose lay on a fake perimeter on a fire up a hill.
And I was like, holy crap, this is really, really hard.
But as far as like physical training from the day to day, I was me and my buddy were probably because my buddy got the same job as me on the same engine
the same day, two days after graduating high school. So it was pretty awesome.
But we were the most I would say probably most physically fit. But when you start rolling hose and pulling hose and spraying water and
humping hose packs up the hill that way, you know, 60 pounds or whatever and going back and forth and doing that for all day, like that what my ass.
But those kinds of things have always been a challenge that I was willing to try and
well, first, I would recognize it and then try and better myself.
I kind of enjoy that aspect of physical training is not being good at something, but trying to become better at it.
Yeah, it was interesting for me. I was trained in Florida. And as we mentioned before, it's very, very flat.
And I don't even remember. I swear to God, I don't remember any wildland training whatsoever.
So I'm sure it was a chapter in some lecture in the minimum standards, but had a couple of small fires in the brush in Florida.
And we have the Palm Esso. So they're actually surprising because they're green and they burn like crazy, but nothing that's really running.
No topography to kind of hinder us. And then I got hired in California, Southern California.
And we start this wildland training. Oh, we're going to do progressive hose lays.
Progressive hose lays? Is that like hose lays that are OK with people for more walks of life or what are we talking about?
And then I know. And so it was so new to me, cutting line, you know, even just like wearing the wildland gear.
So I think a lot of people in the municipal departments don't understand,
especially when you're getting into more mountainous areas, just how taxing, you know,
just getting the end of a hose line to to, you know, a fire or cutting line.
I mean, just just a three, three foot amount that you've scraped is I mean, we just did an absolute snapshot on our training.
And I was like, holy shit, people do this for days and weeks at a time.
And I'm tired. And we did it for an hour. Right.
Yeah. I mean, shoot, dude, it's that's it's pretty funny.
So like we we do. It's not funny, I guess, but it's it's a different type of thing.
You know, so like my brother worked with me on a hot shot crew.
And he's been on he was on hot shot crews for a number of years for the agency I work for.
And he he works for Redwood City Fire now.
And we were bullshitting the other day when we were doing that.
That Goggins challenge and and he we're just talking about the difference of physical fitness.
Like I was asking him because he looks big, he looks way bigger than he's ever been.
Not not in like a chubby way, but in a like, you know, wider shoulders, just strength wise.
He just looks strong. And he says like, yeah, man, we just move heavy shit really quickly all the time.
And I'm like, OK, that's that's pretty cool.
And it backs up with kind of some of the research that we see where coming out of Missoula,
they have this cool triangle and each point has a represents something.
So it's strength, speed and endurance.
And if you take a structure firefighter, you can you can put them almost almost directly in the middle,
maybe a little bit more leaning towards the speed and strength stuff,
but almost right in the center as far as like what they need to be successful at their job physically.
And in a wildland firefighter, specifically hot shots is where they get the stutter from,
that is almost right in the bottom of endurance.
So it's it's pretty it's pretty interesting.
But, yeah, it's like we that's that's the point of our job is to we tell the new guys coming on every every year.
Man, this is a marathon like be ready to go all season long for six months, just doing this thing,
hiking hills, carrying things that weigh a fair amount between 45 to 100 pounds and you got to be able to keep the pace all day,
just cut in line, moving bushes and walking, lots of walking.
Yeah, that's funny because I've heard, you know, many wildland firefighters say,
oh, I can never do the structure firefighting.
And then the structure guys say, I could never do the wildland.
It is they are kind of two different types of men and women, and even in Anaheim,
they actually had quite an aggressive wildland component to them and they had, oh, yes, vehicles and all that stuff.
But even then, there was a separation.
The guys that were lining up to deploy and the guys that myself was like, right, while you're gone, I'm going to protect this city.
Let me know how you go. Yeah.
Yeah. But the culture is, I think, pretty similar, which is funny.
I just got back from New Mexico and my to visit, I was visiting my best friend who works for Albuquerque Fire.
And he works on the busiest station within that city.
And I had misjudged what time he needed us to be down there.
So I had a flight that I showed up really early and he was still on shift.
And he's like, well, man, you should come over to the station, do a ride along.
And I was like, OK, that sounds pretty awesome.
I've never done that before.
And even though the job was much different, there was and mind you, we went to three calls when I was there, a vehicle accident,
like a patient of some sort that was on hospice and then a fire, like a structure fire.
Like, so I was like, oh, do we just hit like the trifecta in my opinion?
And I got like a little taste of what they do.
But the brotherhood, the family, the like the shit talking, the the just camaraderie in general.
I was like, man, this is almost identical to what I experienced within my job.
So I think the the cultures aren't too far off.
Maybe the job is different, but the people are pretty similar.
Yeah, no, there's definitely definitely a parallel journey, just like you said, it's a different kind of skill set with with entry.
One thing I've noticed that I think fosters a lot of camaraderie is setting the bar high,
you know, going through that kind of crucible to achieve the position that you have, whether you're a hot shot, smoke jump or whatever it is.
What were the kind of entry tests for you and then do you have annual retest to maintain that level?
Yeah, man. So here's where it gets tricky in my line of work is our only requirement from a physical standpoint to be a wildland firefighter.
For my agency is the is a pack test, which is a forty five pound pack.
You have to well, you have to wear a forty five pound pack, walk three miles and under forty five minutes.
And that is a in my opinion, and many others, a fairly doable situation and maybe too low of a standard
to get in to do our job based on what our job actually requires us to do,
which is to have a fitness that's in our opinions, much higher than that.
But, you know, hot shot crews, we have we have.
It doesn't to me, it doesn't really matter.
We're always going to expect our folks to be able to do more because we want them to be extremely physical fit,
physically fit, because that's just going to make the job, it's going to make it more enjoyable.
We're going to be safer. We're going to be more efficient.
We're going to make better decisions. And I think everybody can understand that.
That's the the better you are physically, the more shit you can do and the safer you can do it.
So I like to tell my folks and it's it's pretty difficult sometimes because, you know, hiking is primarily our job.
So we really try and tell folks and we try and get to the folks once we know who we're going to be hiring.
We get to these folks right away and start that mentorship like almost immediately and letting them know,
like we schedule runs, we schedule hikes, things like this.
But it's not uncommon to see us, you know, be able to run 10 miles.
If I say, hey, today we're going to run 10 miles, like everybody should be able to do that.
But we do a lot of load carry stuff. So we do a ton of hiking and and mostly bodyweight calisthenics.
But as far as like a standard, we really don't have one besides the the pack test, unfortunately.
Do you retest the pack test every year?
Every year you have to do the pack test, yep, to get your red card.
So if you fail, you don't get to be a well-known firefighter anymore.
Yep, you don't get your red card to go fight fire that year.
Yep. Yeah. So does that surprise you on the municipal side?
There are a lot of agencies that once you take your initial physical test, you're not held to any standard after that.
I would say that is surprising. I didn't know that.
Oh, yeah, it's it's random.
So you take you take on your side, you take one test and when you're done with that, that's it.
Yes. So again, I always prefaces there are some great departments out there
that are the anomalies that totally understand what I'm talking about.
They hold their people. They said right from day one, you're going to be held to the standard.
But what has happened that I've seen and bearing in mind, I've worked for four departments now.
So I've got to put in as East and West Coast.
So I've got a pretty good understanding than a fifth one that I did volunteer for for a bit.
Some of them are more progressive and they actually have a test that they do.
But it's kind of smoke and mirrors because there's no nothing comes from it if you fail.
So there's no punitive out.
Now, my thing is, it's not about head hunting every firefighter.
That's not a physical rock star. Quite the opposite.
If you maintain it from day one, like you guys, you don't get the opportunity to start falling behind.
You know, you know, it's coming every year.
What we see now is we do think a lot of CPAT, a lot of a lot of the country at the moment.
And just like you said, with the PAC test, it's it's a good attempt.
But honestly, the time that people are given to do it, I think is a little piss poor for what we're required to do.
It's really not that hard.
And I just redid it a couple of years ago myself, 44 years old.
And we're still, you know, way, way under where it needs to be.
But my point is now you get people at a deconition.
Now those people get into administration or they get into the unions and now they oppose these fitness standards.
So all the men and women in there that get it, that are trying to stay safe, they're trying to stay in shape,
they understand that this pertains to our ability to do a rescue.
They're fighting uphill to try and maintain that.
So I just interviewed a lifeguard in Hawaii and lifeguard industry has an annual standards.
Wildland has an annual standards, but municipal, very few do.
Many, many don't.
And I think that's sadly one of the reasons why we see some of the ill health and line of duty deaths that we do.
Yeah, I have a couple of questions for you because this is something that comes up within my agency all the time.
It's like, hey, we do have this annual thing.
And you're making me actually see it for a different perspective, honestly,
because having that annual thing actually does maybe hold people to an annual standard going year after year.
Our job is incredibly physical, like even if we didn't have that, even though that thing is maybe suboptimal,
I don't want to use the word standards because I probably shouldn't.
But like what we are trying to hold our crew, the level that we need people to be able to work at to be effective at our job is way fucking higher than the goddamn.
Pack test. And that's what we expect our guys to meet day one.
They should be ready to kick ass. But.
We've been trying like hell, this conversation comes up all the time, like, how do we how do we develop?
Because the smoke smoke jumpers have a different pack test.
They have a different standard that they have to pass to be able to get their red card to fight fire.
And so, you know, hot shot crews are known for being the best at what they do within wildland firefighting.
I would I would say all day that we're probably the best wildland firefighters in the world due to our training and the amount of fires that we we go to.
And so there's the argument to like, well, why don't we have a better standard beyond the pack test to to test on?
And my opinion on this has always been, well, the science behind the pack test is actually pretty legit.
It was developed a long time ago. And if you look into what it's telling you, it actually makes sense.
But at the end of the day, if you want to have a higher standard, the leaders of the modules need to make sure that that takes place.
So is that something within your department that you think is more lacking? Is that leadership within stations or cities or departments are not pushing our folks to be more physically fit?
Or do you actually think a standard would fix that problem?
Yes, and yes, because as I forget who it was now, someone spoke to recently, it was like you shouldn't need Spanish standards.
I think it was someone in the special operations community, but I agree 100 percent.
And I'm sure that you know, the community that you inhabit, the community that I inhabit, the men and women that I used to work out with every shift.
It doesn't matter as a standards because we're going to work out regardless.
You know, right. Right. You have, as I point this out a lot, you have that very lower percentile depending on your hiring practices and standards and everything that might be larger or smaller.
But that's the group of people that just got through the cracks and come hell or high water, they're going to do the bare minimum.
There's nothing you can do about them.
But that chunk in the middle below the highly motivated and the highly unmotivated is a group that you can really, really influence with leadership, a group that wants to do the right thing,
but kind of can also find themselves dragged down by the wrong thing, depending on on the environment.
So I think that's where the standards come. If you set the bar high and at the front door and people walk through, here's their expectations.
Then then then you it's hard to slip from that. It's hard to say, oh, but you didn't tell me from day one.
If you're a, you know, a Navy SEAL and you went through buds and hell week, you know down well what's expected of you.
And those those guys are held to a standard. And if they don't meet that standard, they're not in the SEAL program anymore.
So I find it so hard to comprehend that in our community, that's been allowed to happen, that we've removed the standards.
And I have to be very, very clear. I'm going to talk about this in a minute.
Another side of this coin is that many, many departments are in an environment that sets them up for failure when it comes to wealth and fitness, excuse me, health, health and wellness, wealth.
But, you know, I mean, we're sleep deprived, we're understaffed, we're overworked. So that absolutely then sets the seesaw on the on the wrong way as far as lack of motivation, testosterone levels, you know, motivation, all that stuff.
So that's the thing. It's like it's not blaming one entity.
It's taking all these elements that we can control and putting our standards up with the lifeguards, with the wildland firefighters, with the special operations community, where it should be.
Because while you're out on a hillside cut in line, there's a municipal department running on your family and you're expecting them to be the same level that you are.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think what you said, too, is also super true about the, you know, that having a standard that's supported by the agency that you work for or whatever, that's at a level that sets a good expectation.
That's the expectation for the people entering there like, OK, I know I got to be here.
I think that's a pretty legit way to look at that. And I mean, that's something we do with our people on my crew, too.
You know, it's like they all know what the practice is that most of them, all of them know that they're going to be taking the pack practice.
And that's not really that, you know, that's really not where their fitness needs to be.
But within, you know, the first once I get a list of folks that I'm working with, it comes I shoot out a welcome letter and I talk about what we're going to be doing from a physical fitness standpoint.
Like, hey, this is what you to be. Here's what's to be expected. Here's what the first couple of weeks are going to look like.
It's going to be shitty and we're going to be pushing you guys.
So be ready day one, because here's what you're going to here's what's going to happen.
So but, yeah, man, I think that's I think that makes sense for sure.
Now, with the practice, are you doing it up through the mountains or are you doing it flat?
It's flat ground. OK, so that's another area that's probably not as realistic.
For sure. It's really good. It's really good at giving people shin splints.
That's about it. All it's good for.
All right. So you went in, your fitness level was good.
You you know, you found yourself into the hot shot program.
When did you personally start becoming aware of mental and or physical wellness challenges in the wildland community?
So just to I mean, the physical fitness stuff.
So the first five seasons of my career was on an engine.
So I knew right away that the physical fitness was going to be was there just based based on the fact that the first time I did a hose lay it kicked my ass.
And, you know, from there, it's like, OK, I really want to be a hot shot at some point.
And after some some pretty cool experiences in my life, and so I got a hot shot crew and I was I was ready for it because I I knew it was all about after, you know, five seasons of already fighting fire.
So I was always pretty aware of the physical fitness challenges.
Basically, just from doing the job and being exposed to people that had mentored me, honestly, since we keep talking about mentoring, I have told me, like, hey, man, you need to be ready for this if this is what you want to do.
So that none of that stuff really was a surprise to me.
But the mental health stuff, man, I think the first time I dealt with something that was challenging for me mentally was my very first season.
And I jumped around a lot because I got 80, but on the Anchor Point podcast, I talked about losing a friend my first season.
And that was for sure pretty challenging, but there is something even more challenging or not more challenging, but another type of challenge where I had to we went on a suicide call where someone had hung themself down along a river out in the middle of nowhere.
And we needed to go get them out of the tree and then transport them to the ambulance. And that was the first time I had ever experienced any kind of real death.
And like physically, like in contact with it, like moving the person had to go up in the tree and cut them and lower them down.
And I was 19 years old. And I feel like I mean, shoot, I remember very clearly that entire experience.
And back then, there wasn't really a lot of like, oh, you dealt with this. Let's talk about it type of thing.
You know, like no peer support. It was just like, all right, tomorrow is the new day.
Let's get back to work or even moments after that experience happened.
You know, it's kind of just like, oh, it's just part of the job.
So all that stuff happened, you know, and really, and really, I don't really even think I recalled the mental health stuff even even in the first times.
It was just I picture it like a glass, you know, like the suicide things, just a couple of drops like my losing my buddy in a vehicle accident after fire season that I just bonded this made this amazing relationship with,
you know, a few more drops, you know, then you have, you know, other friends that pass away or get hit by a tree or like there's a burn over.
And and really, it doesn't even have to be someone close to you.
It could be something like the the Granite Mountain folks, you know, like they're a hotshot crew.
And I was on a hotshot crew and you see kind of your mortality through the loss of other people, you know, and like, even though you didn't know any of them, you're like, dude, this that could happen to me.
And so the glass just starts to keep filling up.
And then I don't think I really understood the mental toll that was taking on me until probably 2016, 2017, 2018 is when I really was like, fuck, from a personal standpoint, I was struggling.
And it took some it took some kind of interesting took a lot of patience to try and start to figure out what that was.
Yeah, well, I want to explore that, because I mean, you you have a very interesting journey through that.
But prior to that, just so we can set it up, I talk a lot about all the different elements we touched on childhood trauma.
You know, you and I were both very lucky that we had a pretty non-traumatic childhood overall.
You know, this environmental stress, which I will get to in a little bit, whether it's understaffing, whether it's an organization that's micromanaging, all these things.
But another area is sleep deprivation.
And when I think about, you know, overwork, you know, understaffed wildland organization definitely seems to be at the top of that pyramid, too.
So when you're in.
I got a lot to say on that.
Yeah, please. So tell us, you know, tell us about the the sleep habits, the ability to get rest in the crews that you work for.
Yes, I'm glad you popped this up.
And I don't know if I shared this with you.
I don't know. Maybe this is just a coincidence.
But yeah, so sleep sleep is a huge.
So I am just so there's full transparency.
I'm a human performance nerd through and through.
Like, I love optimizing myself mostly and coaching people.
Like, I coach people in the private sector because I love it all from mental health to physical fitness to nutrition.
And I hold a bunch of certs and all this shit, but I just enjoy doing it.
And I also do it within the program.
And so our sleep is fucked like we it is it is horrible.
And in 2018, our agency basically said came to the hotshot community.
And the 2018 was crazy. That was the campfire, the car fire, lots of just crazy fires in California.
And it was the worst fire year to that to date before this last one.
So it was a gnarly year. And and so so the region five, which is California,
basically came to the hot shots and said, hey, like all the superintendents in region five said, hey, like,
we need to figure out what fatigue looks like and how to manage fatigue.
And they coined this fatigue management kind of thing as agencies do.
And so they asked the hot shots to soups to like basically look at how we could help or or define what
fatigue management looks like and better improve the stuff.
And so I happened I was a captain at the time and I was a part of this conversation.
And because of my passion around performance, I weaseled my way into this group and talked about how we need to look at sleep.
And mainly because I was wearing a little device on my finger called an or ring for like the previous three years,
tracking my sleep religiously and trying to figure out what it was all about, because I was just I just felt like crap all the time on assignment,
because our tour is 14, 14 days on two weeks on assignment and then you get two days off and then you do 14 days and then you get two days off.
Then you get 14 days and you rinse and repeat that for six months.
And on fire assignments, you're you're held to a 16 hour shift, but on a hot shot crew, you're very rarely doing just 16 hours.
You're doing. Many, many more hours.
You're sleeping in the dirt, you're in the smoke. And so you're you're just in an environment that's just shit.
So I wrote this paper and I sent it off to the regional leadership team to be looked at.
And it was like. It was a brief, brief explanation on on what sleep is,
the negative aspects of not getting sleep, you know, from hormones to risk of cancer and really just increased
raise in all cause mortality when you start seeing reduction in sleep under seven hours or so.
And obviously, as you progress further down in time, it it elevates significantly.
And then I incorporated the data that I had pulled using my my oring as like, hey, here's what my sleep looked like for literally six months on fire season.
And the amount of sleep that I was getting. And so, you know, I was averaging somewhere between.
Five and six hours on assignments and as it progressed further and further and further into the season,
just the less sleep I was getting and the amount of inflammation you get from that kind of experience is pretty shitty.
And how does that translate onto the fire line as far as a decision maker and leading your men and physical fitness standpoint and all that kind of stuff?
So so anyways, what's really awesome, though, is they really that my region was extremely ecstatic about that.
So we were able to purchase some biofeedback tools through a company called WOOP.
We were able to put these sleep tracker type devices on three different hot shot crews in California from superintendent, captain, squad leader and lead firefighter.
So every level of the crew position wise to look at what sleep looked like amongst these people and was able to gather that data,
give a presentation and to the hot shots in region five and national meeting in 2019.
And the Forest Service loved it. And they went all in and bought a shit ton for three years to put on as many people as possible.
And the whole idea behind this is to not change policy necessarily.
It's it's been anchored in the entire time to identify personal sleeping habits amongst the individuals so that they can change and adjust their habits in real time.
And it's about improving the individual.
And it humbles me every single day that I have a conversation with somebody that has told me about the positive experiences they've gotten from wearing such a device like that.
Beautiful. Well, that is that is half the conversation.
The reason I say the reason I say that is because this happens a lot in the municipal side, too.
So this is going to sound like nothing compared to the wildland schedule.
But this is, you know, obviously, 12 years, 12 months a year.
And the municipal, a lot of them federal, they got 72 hour work.
We saw a lot of them in 56. And when I have conversations about sleep deprivation, the answer from a lot of the brass as well, you know, when they're off, they need to go to bed earlier and this and that and sleep hygiene.
And I agree 100 percent.
The other side of the argument is that if the person that's bagging your groceries or preparing your taxes or cutting the meat in the butcher shop is working 40 hours a week,
why are the men and women that are saving lives working 50, 60, 70 hours a week?
So what I've seen sometimes in my one of my previous departments, they did a whole sleep study and then they're like, yeah, you're sleep deprived.
And that was it. So so my you know, I know this is a case with with your agencies, too.
The other thing that needs to happen then is we are killing our men and women through sleep deprivation and through understaffing. We need to add more manpower.
Yeah, yeah, I think you're I think you're right.
I mean, man, it's hard to talk about this subject because there's a lot of things behind the scenes that going down.
But here's the reality, like we know even before putting these little devices on our wrist, we were getting shit sleep and we were sleep deprived.
You can you can go to any person and ask them, are you getting enough sleep?
And they would say, hell no. But what this device did was it took us from a place of knowing to understanding what's going on.
And now we have this data, even though it's not a sleep study, it's more of like this kind of cool experiment.
But yeah, man, the solution to this is, I don't know, like for you guys, it probably is like a staffing thing.
I could imagine like getting you need more people to kind of fill the void so that people can get better rest.
And I agree, like we should be taking way better care of our our emergency workers and first responders and stuff to be able to give them the best possible outcome from a physical standpoint,
mental health, all this shit so that they can be successful because you and I have seen it, man, and choose these folks up.
Like when they go home, they don't I mean, it's it's all fine and Danny's like, hey, when you go home, like you're going to get rest.
But what if they have kids? You know, like what if they have I mean, a lot of my my brother Josh has two young kids like, you know, how hard it is for him to get sleep.
It's like balancing like, OK, I could go to sleep or I could spend time with my young boys.
So like there's there's a lot of different variables. But for us, the sleep problem is.
Is it's a little different. It's not necessarily we need more people.
I think it's it's a we need to we need to start thinking about a different way of doing doing business because.
The time, I don't know, it's hard. There's a lot. There's so many variabilities, right?
There's like sleep is a big piece of the pie, but we have to be very aware of how we make decisions because the wildland firefighter,
at least in my my my job working for the feds, we don't make a ton of money, honestly.
It's all over time based. And until we switch.
And so we change things around that, I think it's going to be really hard to be able to provide good adequate rest for our folks,
because we rely so much on overtime to actually make a living.
So, well, with the sleep, the sleep thing for me is, I think, one of the elephants in the room when it comes to mental health.
And that's why I think for the municipal department, if we have better staffing, we could separate the shifts more.
So like a lot of the Northeast, you know, they do 24 on 72 off,
which gives them actual at least a full, full day to recover in between.
You know, so with you, like you said, it might be the way that you fight a fire.
It might be the fact that you're paid well enough so that then there's not over time positions, actually other staff positions.
But the mental health impact of sleep deprivation is huge, whether it's long term with, you know, depression, anxiety,
suicide ideation or even short term with decision making.
So I think I guarantee you, if we looked at some of the line of duty deaths in the municipal side, in the wildland side,
some of those decisions would probably be attributed to sleep deprivation as well.
So with your own journey, you know, now, by this point, you've got, you know, what 16, 17 years of working these wildland cycles.
So tell me, you know, kind of where you saw the cracks in your own mental wellness.
Well, I think you just talked about some of it was the sleep stuff, right?
Like, I mean, you're exactly right.
Sleep definitely has like such a big impact.
Well, really on everything, it kind of starts there in a lot of ways as far as like how you create foods,
how you perform physically and just the way you are, how irritable you potentially could be.
So so addressing sleep for me was kind of the first step into identifying like, OK, this this is a part of the problem.
Like, this is part of maybe what I'm doing or some of the things I'm thinking from a mental standpoint.
And I've kind of been pretty good at like being an observer, at least I like to think I am, you know,
being able to like kind of see some of my faults and kind of confront them in a way.
And so sleep always was the big one for me as far as like the first thing to sort of check the box to like, OK, I got that dialed in.
Like, now what? What's the next step? I'm still feeling this shit.
So if just so we don't jump ahead, so kind of walk me through when, you know,
where that low point was for you and what the kind of thoughts that were going through your mind.
OK, yeah, so the first low point that I felt in my career was after 2018.
We're on the car fire up on a hill and hotshot crews are extremely relied upon to
not only provide backbreaking work or whatever, but also manage very difficult situations for
other people managing the fire, like divisions and things like this.
And we are professional problem solvers.
We come in when people are having a hell of a time solving a problem and we can be a force multiplier
and really figure out the problem in a safe way and complete the mission.
And in 2018, because of the amount of fires we were in, man, we were just launched into all of these different.
Challenges where the primary objective was not necessarily fighting the fire,
but making sure people didn't get killed by fire.
And it became extremely hard to do.
And we had some pretty challenging experiences, honestly, where the fire was doing some crazy shit and blew up.
And we were safe, like we didn't have any injuries or anything that year.
But, you know, some people passed away that season and not it wasn't a direct influence or whatever from the decisions we made.
But you're a part of that environment.
And I remember having these really sobering feelings of like, man, I just don't know if this is what I should be doing anymore.
Like if this is what my life is going to be, it's just like really stressed out about trying to keep people from getting killed all the time.
And trying to get people out of situations.
And so I started pursuing.
Well, the problem was, as soon as that thought entered my mind, I was challenged with something I think a lot of people deal with.
And this is this idea of identity.
And in the agency, I think we in any fire public servant type of job, we tend to identify really hard with the position that we that we fill.
And we'll even tell people like, hey, my name's Ben, I'm a firefighter or I'm a hotshot.
You know what I mean? And that becomes who you are.
And when you start having feelings that challenge that macho aspect of what you you were identifying with,
and all of a sudden you have these thoughts of sadness or compassion or whatever, it just it it doesn't line up with the way you kind of identified yourself with for so many years.
And it becomes extremely emotionally challenging if you haven't made the realization that I was able to finally come to, which was I'm more than a firefighter.
And so, yeah, 2018 was kind of the first aspect of me starting to find those challenges within myself.
And I had a really hard time relating with people at work.
I was thought I had this new path I was going to follow.
And and I was like, man, these guys are just macho and like they chest bumping and hardcore dudes.
And I was like, man, I just don't feel like I want to be that anymore.
And it wasn't until I had a conversation with a really close friend of mine where he told me, he's like, hey, dude, like, you know, first off, you are more than what you say you are.
But you also can be the person you want to be has a place in that environment.
In fact, people, that's what people want. They want this authentic authenticity to be there.
So, yeah, well, I keep no, no, I was going to say the identity thing is huge.
And I see it in especially when people transition out, whether it's through injury, whether it's through retirement, whether it's being fired or whatever it is,
where if all you've seen yourself is as a police officer, a Marine, you know, whatever.
And we see it and we see those vets that, you know, at 67 years old, they're dawned head to toe with firefighter, military, whatever it is to let everyone know, hey, by the way, I'm this thing.
And there's nothing wrong with being proud of the profession that you've done.
But at the same time, if you're just clinging to that identity, just like you said, that is a very, very toxic, you know, philosophy.
So having other tribes, whether that tribes, your family, whether it's a crossfit group, whether it's, you know, triathlon, you know, your football team, whatever it is,
that starts kind of letting you realize, yeah, you are a human being with many layers and one of the layers is a hotshot.
But that doesn't mean that's all of you.
Yeah, I think, yeah, man, for sure.
And I think obviously I'm super proud to be this.
And when I was able to reflect on this stuff, I obviously was like, OK, cool, like I can keep doing this job.
And really it was because I was able to, man, we live our, we do these careers and things like this.
And the reason why we initially started to do these things can sometimes get lost.
And really what happened to me was in some regard was, A, yes, I was identifying with something that could change.
And I'll expand on that in just a minute. But B, I had completely lost the reason why I was doing this job.
You know, you get lost and like you have a family, you have this, you become you become you start the job as a young man with no with no responsibilities.
I ain't married, I don't have kids, I have a truck payment maybe.
And and that's it. And a dresser full of clothes that is mobile in the back of my truck, like I don't have any ties.
And then you start to have, you know, you get a wife, you have a kid and you have these things and you become a provider.
All of a sudden, and all of a sudden, your why kind of changes a little bit.
And for me, and in 2018, after having those conversations with my friends, I realized, fuck, why did I why did I even do this job to begin with?
And it was going back to this, this main purpose that actually breed this life back into me.
And I was like, fuck, I did this because I enjoy it, because the purpose it gives me, because I can help people because it constantly puts me in uncomfortable positions
that give me opportunity to to like learn something about myself so I can actually be the best version that I possibly can be and and project this person that I want to be.
And so that actually is something I teach to people now is like, hey, like I just taught at the Academy this last three days and I taught a whole section on the why and like why it's important to have a strong why and the and coming to an intrinsic reason
for the reasons why you do stuff, because that purpose will be something you can tap into later when shit gets hard.
And and then on the other side of that, like I talked about identifying and something that I just keep reminding myself all the time.
And what I tell some of the folks that work for me, too, is everything in life can change everything and just about everything.
So saying or identifying, saying saying you are something is one thing.
If you understand that. Everything can change at an instant.
Your name, the place you live, you know, the your job, your career, whatever, all those things can change.
And so saying I'm a firefighter and identifying super hard with that is not accurate.
And what I try and tell people and draw attention to is like you as a person are so much more than your job.
You're so much more than your name. You're so much more than the place you live.
You are this beautifully. Undescribable thing like nobody can actually say exactly what you are.
Where this complex. Chemical chain reaction of sucking in air and breathing out CO2,
and it's the exchange of different chemicals and electrical firing and all this kind of crazy thing.
And like, and ultimately, like you can't really say what that is.
Human is as close as we can get. These words, words or concepts, and they're great for describing briefly
what we're looking at to somebody else potentially. But they aren't.
But they're I think they're they don't accurately depict exactly how fucking awesome people are and how beautiful this life is.
And that's when I say don't identify, it's to remind myself that what we truly are
is this incredibly beautiful, special thing. And that actually motivates me to be a better person.
Yeah, I love that. And I think the why is is absolutely the core of, you know,
that's that's what allows some seals to get through buzz without ringing the bells.
What allows some fire recruits to go through the mazes and climb the aerial and these things that also has people tapping out.
You know, that's that burning desire. And I think what I've seen as a guy about we're roughly the same age is you enter a service profession,
whether it's police, fire, you know, the military, whatever it is, because you want to make a difference.
And that's a soft part of the human psyche. It's the yang. If we're looking at the Chinese symbol.
But in order to do that, the vehicle that you've chosen, you're not going to protest and wear sandals and,
you know, sit outside the White House with a sign.
You're going to pick up tools and and basically kick shit in and go pull people out of burning houses or,
you know, cut line on them on a California hillside. So that's very much the hard side.
The problem is the complete firefighter police officer soldier is the yin and the yang together.
But what I find, especially especially in the men, is that it's almost like we start to negate the soft side.
And then we become this black circle, which is just hard, hard, hard.
Oh, I'm Schwarzenegger. I'm Robocop. No, you're fucking not. You're not.
You just do a thing that when we're in the heat of battle, you have to rely on that part.
That's the part of you that allows you to run towards gunfire or burning car when everyone else is running away.
However, the burning desire is actually the soft part.
So when you start negating that, firstly, you lose your why you forget why you're showing up.
Now you're not self motivated to exercise, to sleep well at home, to eat well, to work on your craft.
But the other thing that I see is so detrimental when it comes to mental health is now, like you said, I'm a firefighter.
I'm hard. I don't need to, you know. Oh, yeah. I just saw those kids die. It doesn't bother me.
Yes, yes, it fucking does, because you started this profession to help people and you just had a horrendous thing where you saw people die or in terrible pain.
It should resonate with you. So this as we get to that kind of avatar of the firefighter, identify with that rather than the human being wearing a uniform.
It's an incredibly dangerous place for the human mind to go.
Yeah, yeah, man, I think, man, some of the things that you're talking about, I agree with and I think and it brought up some stuff like, you know,
I think we do in a lot of ways start this profession to potentially help people.
You know, that might be a why. I think my why evolved a little bit and and because the job created a lot of freedom.
But my why now is has changed a little bit or evolved a little bit more.
And and really, my life is about is about learning how to be a better person.
And if we can't show ourselves the compassion that we need in the moments that we need it and the tough love sometimes and and take care of those essential needs that we all have around just health, sleep, nutrition, all this shit.
Then we would be we're going to be shitty people, especially when we're trying to help people in the professions that we've chose.
If we have to, we have to be real with ourselves and that this calloused.
Well, it's really just like, I don't know, maybe you could tell me to like, I feel like these thoughts of like this identity that we come into,
like it's it's it's a false sense of identity, but it's also like I think there's a lot of ego that's involved with that.
And that's why it sticks around in some way as far as like, you know, this hard shell of a man.
You know, you see it in the men like you're saying a lot, but this hard shell of a man like trying to be this macho type of thing.
I think I think a lot of people have this walking around this ego that kind of keeps those walls intact.
Yeah, well, I mean, I think we all have a history, we all have a human journey up to the point we put the badge on and we all have shortcomings.
You know, I know, I mean, I actually suffer heavily from God, I always forget the phrase imposter syndrome.
So even when I've achieved things, I'm like, yeah, but it's not as good as so and so.
And then they were like, oh, you do this, this and this.
I'm like, yeah, but you know, so and I think that's that's the thing is when you put when you stand up,
they can imagine a carball car in the old video shops of a firefighter and you stand behind it.
Well, everyone sees the firefighter, so you don't have to show them all the real shit.
So I think that's a part of it, too.
And I think that that what I find is very positive.
And I just had to deal with this myself last couple of years is when you refine that,
why, and you realize that you're ultimately trying to be a good person and trying to leave this world better than than you found it,
then it doesn't matter if you're wearing a uniform or God forbid you got hurt and now you're sitting behind a desk or you transitioned out, you retired.
If your journey is still to be a good person, you're coaching the community, you start a nonprofit,
you're doing something that makes firefighters safer now, whatever it is.
You're still on that same path.
It's just the ego, like you said, the magic trousers.
We put them on all of a sudden. We're attracted to the women.
You know, that that's a facade. It really is.
So, you know, the good person that you are.
One of the chapters was you throw on a uniform, you did some dangerous shit and you saved some lives.
But that doesn't define you.
And you don't you're no less a firefighter the day you put that uniform down and you go and do something else good in the world.
Yeah, man, I think that's a JIT also.
And like, you know, it's about following the passion to like if you have a really strong why these things like starting a nonprofit and these,
you know, being a fireman and saving people, kicking the door and doing whatever, right, that that's beneficial for the world.
The reason why you're doing that ultimately is just to be the best version of yourself possible.
And I say this all the time is like it's a positive byproduct that that helps people.
The more times you can tap into this this rad person that you really are and and chase the passions that you feel inclined to do,
that that motivate you to be a better person.
That's that's like I think that's where people you see like the best work out of people is because they're ultimately their main goal,
whether they realize it or not, is just to be the best version of themselves.
And that authenticity is like moths to a light and people get stuff from that.
And that's what kind of progresses and other people kind of bleeds that positive energy into the world.
Absolutely. Well, you touched on on 2018 being your kind of decline at that point.
So where was the lowest point you found yourself?
Yeah, the lowest point I found myself.
And you're talking outside of that 2018 year.
Oh, yeah. Just I mean, in that entire journey.
Yeah, for sure. Well, after 2018, this I rode this energy for a while.
Right. I refigured out my why I tap back into it and I was like, hell, yeah, I'm motivated.
I'm going to go get my get the job.
I put my priority on for since I started in this agency.
And I'm going to be a hotshot superintendent.
Like, that's what I want. So last year, I got that job.
I got my dream job in April.
And it was in the midst of covid kicking off fire seasons, getting ready to hammer.
And we entered the most epic fire season that I have ever been a part of, that anybody's ever been a part of or witnessed.
And it was exciting. And I never had any people would come up to me and tell me, like, oh, man, what a year to get the soup job.
And I never really bought into that.
I'd be like, yeah, but this is my job.
Like, I don't the fire season isn't something that I can control and dictate, like how intense it's going to be.
So why should I give a shit about it? I'm out here doing my job.
My responsibility is make sure my guys are safe and we can complete the mission.
And I never had any negative thoughts the entire season.
I was actually it was a fantastic season as far as like we did some hero shit, as people like to call it.
And we did some had some great shifts, had a ton of laughs and everybody came away safe.
But then November hit and this is when we around the time we lay our folks off.
Our season, so half of our crew is a seasonal staff.
And so we lay off half the crew and then, you know, it's still we're still dealing with covid as a thing.
And then they just shoved all the permanence onto a telework schedule.
So we have we have about nine permanent employees that work year round.
And we got shoved on a telework schedule.
And then it's, you know, it's to no fault of anybody, you know, like it's really hard for everybody to see everyone's perspective all the fucking time.
But, you know, you get the bosses and you get the other programs that you're working for, you know, the fire season's over.
But then they keep they immediately start asking you to get involved in all this other shit.
And I was like, man, I just I just stopped fire season.
Like, I need a deep breath.
Like, we just I haven't seen my family, I haven't seen my kids.
And it's and it's your perspective on life becomes really it's really hard to see where you're going,
because it feels like you're putting out spot fires, basically.
From using an analogy from the fire wildland fire world.
And so you're basically you're just your lack of perspective.
And all of a sudden, things became very real to me.
I'm like, man, I just got my dream job and my life is now going to be comprised of six months of being away from my family,
watching my kids grow or not getting an opportunity to watch my kids grow.
And and and then fire season's over and then I just get bombarded by other people's bullshit.
And this is just going to be my life for the next 11 to 12 years.
This repetitive cycle, like just living on this hamster wheel.
And it was that thought that all of a sudden I started to have thoughts of suicide.
And I can honestly say that I've never, ever, ever had thoughts of suicide until that point.
In fact, I was the person that would hear about someone having these thoughts.
And my initial reaction would always be like, well, that's stupid, that's a selfish thought.
And don't they know that there's so much to live for?
And then here I am having these thoughts myself and telling myself those things.
And those things are completely, utterly unhelpful.
They do not help whatsoever.
And and so I find myself in this position of like, well, I can just step off the hamster wheel.
And I never really got to a point where I was ready to do the deed.
I do remember sitting in my bedroom at one point and I have a pistol locked up in a gun safe.
And I got in the room and I sat on my bed and I just had this sinking feeling.
I was like, man, that's two steps away and I can just do this right now.
And that feeling was incredibly uncomfortable.
And man, I can feel how that feels right now.
Like it was a powerful experience.
But I must say, because of that, I'm fortunate because I'm where I'm at now and I didn't do it.
And I learned a shit ton from that, just having those feelings and those and being able to.
And I think because I had a strong childhood, like we talked about earlier, and because I've been kind of a human performance nerd,
you know, mentally and physically, that I had acquired a bunch of tools in my life that I was able to put to work.
And that ultimately, the utilization of those tools is what got me through it.
Well, firstly, thank you for sharing that, because every single man or woman that comes on here and shares their story
illustrates everyone listening that they're not alone.
This happens over and over and over again.
One thing I want to ask you, because you actually mentioned that, you know, you have this old school mentality of, you know, again, so and so killed themselves.
Well, how selfish?
Now their kids and wife are left behind.
What I've actually found as I got to interview people that got very, very close, some pulled the trigger, didn't go off, some jumped off a bridge and survived.
I mean, just crazy, you know, absolutely there is there is an absolute common denominator, bearing in mind that the brain by this point is broken,
you know, with this through sleep deprivation, trauma, all these compounding things.
It's at a point where it's not functioning the way it's supposed to.
They all reported a feeling of being a burden to their family.
So in their mind at that moment, the thought was to to alleviate the burden.
It was actually an act of selflessness.
So it's not doesn't mean it was right.
It was completely distorted in their brain.
But at that moment, they thought they were being selfless.
Was that in the equation of when you were thinking sitting in your bedroom?
Yeah, for sure, man, like, absolutely.
Like I'm having these realizations of like, fuck, man, I'm on this hamster wheel.
Like, how is this for my family to experience?
Like my wife has to deal with this shit now, too.
My kids don't get a dad like I come home after a two week roll and like I'm irritable as shit.
I feel like things should be a certain way.
And like I've just a menace.
And I'm like, so I'm just going to do these do this, live this life to my like my to my wife and kid
and treat this way for the next fucking 12 years or whatever it is.
And and for sure, like I was like, well, I could just, you know, do this thing right now.
And then, you know, my wife gets like a some insurance money, you can pay the house off,
like live a better life, maybe maybe find a guy who's not a douchebag.
Like, you know, like some of these thoughts for sure that that I think that idea was
there for sure, you know.
Yeah. Well, it's an important thing to tell.
And thank you again for sharing that, because as long as we have that judgmental philosophy,
then we never understood understand what these men and women are going through, you know,
right these last moments.
So understanding and identifying if you're having those thoughts yourself,
listening that that's not normal and you're wrong, you're not a burden.
And obviously, the reality is you do leave that that trauma with the family is left behind.
My wife actually lost her boyfriend before me and I saw it firsthand, that trauma left behind.
But we also have to, you know, be compassionate and understand that the men and women that
are finding themselves in that place are, you know, that they're they're wiring is off.
And I don't mean that in a patronizing way.
I mean, in a physiological way, like they are literally not thinking the way that the
average person normally thinks.
Totally, man. And really, I mean, we've mentioned the anchor point a few times.
And the main reason why I wanted to go on that particular podcast at that moment is
because this, you know, I I did that podcast maybe two months or maybe even a month or
whatever after having those feelings and being able to work through it and be really
patient with myself. And then I remember listening to some other podcasts about mental
health within my agency.
And it's and there was a lot of conversation of a younger generation, people basically
saying like, oh, well, the agency doesn't have my back.
No one's calling me. I'm having these feelings, but no one's recognizing that.
And it's not to say that we don't need better things within our agencies to help support
people. I think we should always be striving for something more and having those resources
for folks. And I'm deeply involved with a lot of those things for sure.
But ultimately, what I wanted to do when I came on there was to tell people like, hey,
you're not fucking alone. Like, you're not alone. We need to remove the stigma.
Like it became has become aware to me that like talking to more and more people, that
these are not uncommon things that happen. Like people have these thoughts regularly.
But we recognize it as such a negative thing or this thing that we need to like or we're
a burden or whatever instead of just being still and going like, OK, I'm having these
thoughts. Where are they coming from? And how can what do I need to do to like try and
look deeper as to what what's going on here? And ultimately, that's what I did because
of the tools I've had and the experience I've had diving deep into who I am.
But yeah, I mean, it's I want people to know for sure, since we're talking about this,
like you're not alone. There's a lot of people that experience this stuff. And you you do.
You're not a burden at all. You have the ability to get past this. You really do. You just
have to be super brave and have a ton of courage and look at look at what look at your life
and what's going on. Yeah. And I think that a huge thing for people
to understand is that there are reasons for it, reasons that you can address. So for,
as I mentioned, you know, this childhood trauma, that's a huge element in a lot of the people
that I've had on here. This organizational stress, this relationship issues, the sleep
deprivation, there's, you know, obesity. I mean, all these things that factor in that
create this perfect storm. So understanding that, A, you're not crazy. You're not weak.
You're not being a pussy. You're not being a coward. You're not being any of these things.
If I had a near career ending back injury, that was a compounding effect of everything
that happened up to that point. Sleep deprivation again, being huge. But it would be the same
as me taking myself out because I didn't want to be a burden versus working through it,
which sucked, which really fucking hurt, which was frustrating, which was two steps forward,
one step back. But I ended up returning to the fire service stronger than I ever was
before. So people forgiving themselves and understanding that there are compounding factors
that got you here. And those same factors can be unstacked and placed back where they
came from to, to actually not even put you back to where you were, but make you even
more resilient than you used to be. It's just going to take work.
Oh, for sure. I think the key word you said there is forgiveness. Like we need it for
everything in our lives. Like you talked about like a childhood trauma and stuff like this,
right? Like in some of the stuff that I do in coaching, like we talk about these as stories,
like stories unwillingly given to you and how those impacted you, you know, between
the ages of birth and seven years old, where you basically become the person you are because
that's when you have the most neuroplasticity and these stories you can carry, you carry
all the way through childhood. And, and that's part of identifying too. You identify with
these things and then you get to a point where you're just super unhappy. And when you can
look at those things and challenge what you've believed your whole life and come to a place
of forgiveness and forgive everything for that has happened in the positions that you
are, that's when you start to, like you said, you unstack and restack. And then you can
show an immense amount of gratitude for those things that have happened in your life because
at the end of the day that they've made you who you are.
Absolutely. Well, so before we kind of transition, because I want to talk about overall, you
know, wildland fires and the fact that they're getting bigger and that kind of thing. But
so tell me about you personally, you, you had that darkest moment. What were some of
the tools that you identified that you then saw begin to work?
Right. Well, the first tool that I utilized was my beautiful wife.
Calling your wife a tool.
Oh shit. She's going to hear that. I'm just kidding. Yeah. I mean, she is a tool, I guess,
but in the, in a good sense. But, uh, so I just went to her right away and was just like,
I'm having this, this shit's happening to me and how I need, I need time to think, you
know, I like create, create some space. And that's one of the things that I've learned
through like meditation or mindfulness or whatever kind of thing you want to call it.
But for me, it was just, I need time to think, I need time to give myself some space and
really process what's going on. And so she's like, okay, uh, I'll, I'll take care of this.
And so she, we got the girls over to my mom's house or some friend's house and, and I gave
myself space to think. And ultimately what happened was I just was really extremely patient
with myself and I meditated or did mindfulness work for damn near, um, two straight days
and uh, did a ton of journaling and wrote all my thoughts down. And I came to a place
where, man, all the, I had, I re I needed to, I was not taking care of my basic needs
for me. I was living a life that was full of desire and wants, and I was asking a ton
of questions and searching for the answers that didn't exist. And, and, and those answers
and those questions I was asking were based around this desire for whatever to fill a
void or fulfill some sort of happiness or joy in my life. And, um, but I knew those
material things couldn't do it. So I had to, I ultimately, ultimately came up with a list
of things that I need personally to be a successful human being, um, so that I could set better
intentions in my life, uh, and, and just be a better human. And I can talk about those
if you want. Oh, please. Yeah. So like my basic needs, um, and these are, these are
personal to me. And I think they could be a little different for some folks. And, and
I'm not attached to these ideas either. I am very willing to let go of these and let
them evolve on their own and turn into other things or be simplified or, or whatever. But
my first, my first need for me to be successful is having a, a knowledge of good nutrition.
Like what am I putting in my face? You know, like, is it, is it a bunch of junk food? Um,
then I probably it's how's that going to affect me? So it's about nutrition or it's about
defeating the body, the right, uh, nutrition through food so that I can, because our body
is just a meat sack of chemical chain reactions. Right. And so like we have to understand basic
human, uh, uh, physiology and we can't deny that. So we need to be providing ourselves
the proper nutrition. So that's the first one. And, um, the second one is proper movement
or a knowledge of movement. And the reason why I say this is because while I'm saying
the knowledge of is because I really think a lot of the things that happen within our
society right now is just a lack of education. And so I have spent a lot of time educating
myself on all these, on all these basic needs, um, so that I could be successful. So, so
the next one's proper movement and I sort of incorporate sleep into that as well. And
so, uh, it's for me, it's setting up a routine where I can be moving every day without compromise
and I'm providing that need because if I'm eating good, I'm moving good, I'm sleeping
good. I am starting my day off with the best foot forward and all the other things after
this fall into place pretty easily or put me in a position where I can actually look
at them, um, with the best positive outlook. So, so it's, uh, it's nutrition, it's movement
and sleep, like I said, is incorporated into that. And then my next, uh, basic need or
understanding is the ability to observe. And I talk about this as I want to be able to
observe myself. Like I would be a person sitting on a park bench, observing people playing
in a park. I'm, I'm detaching myself from what is going on. And I'm observing myself
as I react to the external world and what that looks like. And it's just, it's super
simple. You just watch yourself react to stuff and don't attach yourself to the feelings
that you're feeling or, or the emotions or whatever. You just see them for what they
are. You understand that they come up and then you just let them pass, just like someone
walking by you. So that's the, that's the third one. The next one is this idea of identify,
like don't identify. And it's not to say that we don't identify. We are always going
to identify with something and emotions is biz. One of the bigger ones, right? Like,
I'm fucking angry or I'm pissed off or I'm so happy right now. Like, but all those things
change so, so quickly. Um, you know, I used to tell people I was, my default emotion was
anger. And like, I was just a naturally angry person. That's not true. It's an emotion.
It can be changed and it can be replaced with another emotion. And like I said, I, I identify
not identifying is just me understanding and asking myself this, this kind of important
question where it's like what we always try and ask ourselves, like what, what am I, you
know, what am I, what am I? And it's really me defining it in a different way and asking
a different question, which is what am I not? And I think by asking myself that question,
it gets me closer to what I actually am. So that's, that's, that one. The next one is
acceptance. This is something I kind of struggle with a little bit from time to time, because
naturally in our careers, we are trying to control things, right? Like the wildland firefighter
is trying to control the only natural disaster, in my opinion, um, that we as humans try to
control, which is wildland fire, which is insane to think about. So, and because of
that, we're trying to control the environment. We're trying to get people to fall in line
to do what we need them to do and all this stuff. And so our jobs is about kind of this
idea of control. And at the end of the day, um, I need to remind myself all the time,
like, there's a lot of things outside of life that we cannot control. We can't control most
of the external world. And I describe this to people as picture yourself driving down
the freeway and someone slams into the back of you in the car. The world is a complex,
unique world with so many different things happening and none of that shit you can control
most of it. And, uh, it just is what it is. And I talked about it. It's like, uh, like
I didn't, I used to hate it when people would say that, um, Oh, it happened for a reason,
right? Cause it was like this, this idea that like, Oh, some shitty thing happened to them
or something they did happened. And there was an effect from that, that they weren't,
that wasn't intended. And then it was just a cop out because they could say like, Oh,
it was happened for a reason. And I used to hate that. I'm like, no, man, I create my
own destiny. But years ago I came to the conclusion that, well, I think that's true to some regard
in some regard. Like there's, like I said, the world's complex things are happening and
you have to accept that you can't control that all that stuff. And you also can't control
people like, you know, I'm a dad, I have kids and you're constantly yelling at your kids
to pick up this and do that and do your homework and brush your hair and do all this crap.
Right. And you forget to understand like, man, I just need to accept them for who they
are sometimes and just let them be them instead of trying to make them do what I want them
to do all the time. And so it's also about accepting people for who they are. So that's
acceptance. The next piece after that is you are creation of your thoughts. And this is
after that guy slammed into you on the freeway, you get to create your own destiny. Now, like
you are a creation of your thoughts. You have no control of the external world, but you
do have control over how you think and perceive things and how you react. And I think that's
something I try and make myself aware of. Obviously, I run through this checklist every
day and and I think it's a powerful thing. It's, you know, ultimately you are a creation
of how you think and how you think is how you're going to be projecting yourself into
the world. And so the next one is, you know, give space. Like I talked about, like I work
on this one all a lot because I had a fairly strong meditative practice already, like giving
space is what was able to get me to some of these conclusions. And it's really kind of
just this all good mentality. It's also this idea of like, especially, I don't know if
you have this problem, but I for sure have this problem. And a lot of people I think
that I work with have this problem is like, we have this sense of duty that if there is
a slow moment or a downtime, we need to fill it with something because we feel guilty because
we're not doing something. And this was, yeah, and this was something that has troubled me
for such a long time. And man, it's fucking okay not to do shit sometimes. Take a fucking
day off. Who cares? That's okay. Take a day off. Like as long as you're taking care of
your basic needs and you want to chill on the couch and watch Netflix all day, that's
okay if the intention is correct. It's okay to shut the brain down and not be go, go,
go, go, go. And it takes a lot of, it took me a long time to come to that realization.
But you know, giving spaces to me is that giving myself the space to just kind of take
a deep breath and be like, you know what, it's all good. And so that's that. And then
the next piece, and this one kind of floats around a little bit is, well, it's what we're
doing now. It's shared perspective. I think in today's world with technology, technology's
awesome, dude. It's so, so awesome. It is an incredible thing. Humans are meant to innovate.
And I think a lot of the stuff that we've done technology wise is made life awesome.
It's also put us in a place where if we don't want to use our legs, we don't have to. And
so we don't communicate efficiently like we used to. And that's basically what shared
perspective is that just called a fancy way of saying communication. But I think what
we tend to do in this world is we don't talk about our perspectives very much. We're very
opinion based, but we don't talk about how we have lived our lives, the lessons we've
learned. And we don't share that perspective because I think shared perspective is how
we kind of is a way we can grow collectively. And like I talked about this, I talk about
this all the time, but like a lot of people have their eye right up on the cue ball, right?
Like, and you're not going to see much of that cue ball, except for whatever is right
in front of that little eyeball there. But some of us are got our eye pulled a foot back.
Maybe we have 30 feet back and we can see more of that cue ball, but you're never going
to see the entire cue ball. You have to talk to somebody on the other side of that cue
ball to gain the perspective of that cue ball. And that convert that shared perspective is
going to give us the ability to travel around and learn more about each other, understand
things about each other better. And, and just become better versions of ourselves. Like
I'll say that a million times. So shared perspectives enough as the other thing, am I communicating
correctly? Am I sharing my perspective with people? Am I, am I talking about opinions
or am I talking about my personal truth? And then the last one is the, what I call the
power move and it's a, let it go. We have to understand, all of us have to understand
that we're all going to fucking die at some point. And let it go is, is a reminder to
me that I have to look at everything in my life. Like it could be gone in an instant.
My wife, my kids, my job, my everything I have, it could literally be gone two minutes
from now. And all that does is it gets me to a place of immense appreciation for everything
that I have and the experiences that I have in this, in this fucking beautiful life. And
all of those needs, if I take care of all of those needs first, I can set better intentions
about the things that I want because I just want to pursue those things because they're
enjoyable. It's not based on a desire to fill a void of happiness or joy or whatever. And
it gets me closer to a spot where I can live in this present moment and recognize all the
cool shit that's going around me. And that's, that's kind of the outcome of, that's how
I'm living my life right now. And that, that was an outcome of me having suicidal thoughts.
And I think if we're all patient enough with ourselves and willing to go to war with our
minds and, and confront those uncomfortable, super dark places of our beings that a lot
of us can come to the same conclusion.
Yeah. Well, firstly, thank you for sharing that. Secondly, that's an incredibly profound
introspective seeing as that you're talking about November was not even four months ago.
So you're down a hell of a journey. But a couple of things that you hit on, I think
that were very pertinent to me. One, again, other common denominator has really floated
to the surface is staying busy. And it's an absolute warning sign, I think, for unaddressed
trauma. Because if we, you know, what's the, what's the enemy? What's the, what's the polar
opposite of being busy all the time? It's mindfulness is sitting, being silent. And
when you're silent, when you're present, now it's holding a mirror up to what's really
going on in your head. So a lot of our men and women that, you know, find themselves
doing second jobs, taking all the overtime they can, you know, busy, busy, busy, the
kind of got to take a step back and go, am I doing this purely because I'm saving up
for that amazing present? I want to get my four year old. Or am I doing it because I
don't want to address what's actually going on in my mind? That's exactly it, dude. Yeah.
And then the other thing is, like you said, how we react to a situation. There was a guy,
have you ever heard of Wayne Dyer? I don't recall. No. Yeah. A lot of people. It's funny.
A lot of people haven't, but he was kind of in that imagine like a white Deepak Chopra
is the best way of describing him. Sadly, he passed away from leukemia a few years ago
before I started doing this, but just an incredibly intelligent, spiritual, kind, compassionate
human being that had some, you know, I hate using that word, but self-help style tapes
and things that were out there. But one of the things I forget the analogy, I'm probably
going to butcher it a little bit, but he was like, imagine if you were an orange, no matter
what the pressure is from the outside, when you're squeezed, it's still orange juice is
going to come out. So what his thing was is that you basically, the state that you're
in personally is going to be how you respond to stress from the outside. So if you're constantly
angry and pissed off, the barista taking too long with your latte is going to make you
lose your shit. But if you're in a calm place, like you said, the distracted teen driver
that side swipes you, you're going to be calm enough to go, look, I'm not happy about this.
However, I get it. You're young, you're distracted. You need to learn from this, but you're not
going to take their head off. So that's a very important point too, is getting to that
point of, of, you know, inner peace and that gratitude piece is huge. I personally think
the enemy of depression and anxiety is gratitude, but we're in an environment where we're told
when we don't have enough and we're not good enough.
Yeah, no, I mean, dude, for sure. I think, yeah, I mean, well, that's, that's exactly
it. Like, especially in this Western culture, I think too, you know, like we're, there's,
there's, we're, every time you turn around, there's something telling you that, oh, wait,
hey, you need this to be happy, right? That there's a, there's a magazine and there's
a famous person, there's someone selling you something. There's constantly someone saying,
like, you need, you need to base your life on, on this as a, as a way to be successful
or to feel joy because everybody else is doing it. And we, and we lose the sense of gratitude
of the shit that we currently have is actually pretty goddamn cool. Like I'm walking around
my house when this, when I made some of this realization and connecting these dots up and
I'm like, man, I got a house. Like I live on two acres. It is beautifully sunny out
here. My parents live right there. Like I have two awesome kids. Like it's, it's, I'm
like, dude, I have everything I need. I'm so grateful for all of this shit and, and
extremely lucky to have it. And it could all be gone in an instant. And it's actually gotten
me to a point now where I feel like, um, like the minimalistic type of lifestyle is very
attractive to me or it's like stripping all the bullshit away and just understanding you
really don't need that much to be super happy. And in fact, I could make a fairly decent
argument that if, as long as you have shelter food and, uh, you can stay warm somewhat and
you have a heartbeat, like essentially if you're doing that, you basically have everything
you need to live and you can find everything else because happiness and joy comes from
inside of you. It doesn't come from materialistic things.
Absolutely. And I think that's the thing is if you have that mindset and it's funny, I
think that was really shown to me in my very early twenties, I backpacked around the world.
So I literally had a backpack and a guitar. That was it. And I'm not even a good guitarist.
I don't know why I bother taking it. Regardless, it looked cool. Yeah, for sure. No, but joking
apart, you know, now when, when you're scaled down to nothing, you're, I would say less
likely to let your health go to shit too, because you understand the value of your ability
to provide for your family, your ability to protect your family, your ability to physically,
you know, go and get food, go and get water, build shelter, whatever it is. So the more
superfluous stuff we surround ourselves, the further away we find ourselves from what truly
matters, which is living long enough to see our kids get older.
Yeah, exactly. I think you're right, man. If you, if you can boil it down to the things
that actually matter, like all of a sudden polishing your, your brand new truck doesn't
become an actual need anymore. You take care of the things that are most important first.
And that's really what my, my list is all about. It's all about just, okay, in the morning
time I wake up, I eat a little bit of food. I go right into the gym and I, I get my workout
in as soon as my workouts done. I sit down and I meditate and it's because I slept already.
I ate some food. I gave myself the nutrition and I got my movement in like right off the
bat. I'm winning like within the first three hours of the day. And now I go through the
mental checklist and my observing identify, you know, accepting all these things. And
once I do that, I can see where I'm stuck a little bit and be like, okay, cool. Let's
open that up a little bit more, maybe journal about it for a minute. And then I, man, the
day is awesome. After that you have the way you communicate the, the, the things you find
important throughout the day. And really it comes down to the intention setting. Like
I'm not making any choices based on desire anymore. At this point, I'm making choices
based on the fact that I want it because it, I want to buy some ice cream because I just
feel like having ice cream. It's going to taste good. It's a choice. It's not, I'm not
filling a void. And so anyways, I could talk about just that stuff, like pretty much for
another three hours, probably.
No, that's brilliant. Well, I want to transition then so that we get another topic as well.
If you've got time because absolutely I got all the time in the world, man. Beautiful.
I think this is a, this is going to be a great conversation. We've got a little bit more
to unwrap, but another area. And again, I am from the outside looking in the same way
as when I discuss law enforcement, some of these other areas, I'm not a wildland firefighter.
I've had a handful of wildland fires, but that being said, I had Jason Ramos on the
show. I've had a Brooke Carrasco, which I wanted to touch on her in a minute. I've had
several wildland firefighters and especially Jason, when he's so analytical and so kind
of science minded, we find ourselves where we are now sometimes because that's just kind
of how the metamorphosis of our particular profession has arrived at. This is where we
are. But on occasion, you can take a step back and go, I know you've arrived here, but
what if we went back and did things differently? Because it doesn't seem like this is the most
intelligent way of doing said thing.
So Jason talks about the fire shelters and them actually not being able to do what a
lot of us think they're able to do. And his analysis was maybe that we shouldn't be fighting
some of these fires, that we should be much more aggressive on back burning. So if you
were king for a day in the wildland fire service, including where you allow people to build
houses, how would we reverse engineer the wildland issue that we have at the moment
so we're not losing cities like Paradise, so we're not losing hotshots like the Prescott
19?
That is an interesting way to ask that question. Man, this question in and of itself, it's
got so much political push and different opinions, but as a superintendent.
What about from a pure altruistic compassion and kindness element? So fuck the politics.
As a human being to make it safest for our firefighters and safest for our community,
even if that means enforcing that you're not allowed to build in area X, what would be
the safest way for us to do it?
Well I think part of it is we need to reduce the amount of people building into the woods.
That's one piece of the pie. The other piece of the pie here is we do have a forest management
issue. We're not able to get to the amount of fuels treatment as we have been able to
in the past. And I know that might rub some people wrong, but that's just what it is.
Because our fires are going longer, they're more intense, and we call it the fire year
now. We haven't made an adjustment and there's no time to do fuels reduction work. So our
forests are just overgrowing. They just are. They're getting choked out and because the
people are up in there, now it's really difficult to get into those areas and do fuels reduction
work. Those to me would be the first, those to me would be the two main ones. We need
to maybe look at how people are expanding into the woods and provide them like legit
education so that they can maybe do some of the work on their own around their areas.
And then we need to have probably a workforce that is strictly for fuels management and
separate fire from fuels. Our identity as an agency has changed and we haven't changed
with the times.
Brilliant. I think that's something that I see from the outside. I'll give you a perfect
example where I used to work was the fire department for a famous theme park here in
Florida and they wouldn't allow any back burning and they'd even have them out fighting
fire for days and days and days because they didn't even want smoke wafting into the theme
park. The reality is, and some of my wildland friends here told me this as well, is that
they needed a back burn, they needed a checker, they needed to put those aligns and it may
not be as aesthetically pleasing and it might put some smoke in your theme park for a bit,
but it's going to be so much safer for the men and women and it's going to reduce the
amount of fires that you ultimately get next to that theme park.
Yeah, I mean that's a big education piece and something we run into all the time every
time we do a prescribed fire because we're near South Lake Tahoe or the Sacramento Valley
and so our smoke can either go down into Sacramento Valley and people get pissed or it can go
down into South Lake Tahoe and people get pissed. So a lot of it's education and so
it's doubling down on the education piece. I mean it's going to be really hard to keep
people from moving into the woods. I mean I love the woods, I love living in the woods
so I understand why, but we need to do a better job of educating folks and also providing
them the ability to maybe do some of the work around their house more freely. And then like
I said, we have a fire year. Our firefighters, well first off, I don't know how far I'm going
to get into this, but I'll do it. My agency doesn't consider us firefighters. We're Forestry
technicians and it's an idea that had started a long, long, long time ago. And as our environment
has changed, we primarily fight fire now instead of doing fuels management work and we need
to get back to looking at fuels management but also have a fire agency that's ready to
kick ass on some of these epic wildland fires because I don't think that's going to slow
down anytime soon if we stay doing the same thing we're doing.
Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I mean, again, it's just an opportunity for two fellow firefighters
to have a discussion of how can we do it better? Because like you said, when politics gets
into it, when this taxpayer doesn't want smoke wafting in from prescribed burn, this other
one wants to keep all their eucalyptus trees around their property and it ends up becoming
extremely dangerous for the homeowner, extremely dangerous for the responding firefighters.
So whether it's comfortable or not, these discussions have to be had because one firefighter
lost in a wildland fire is tragic. One family lost in a wildland fire is tragic. So this
needs to keep being discussed in a courageous, transparent way so that we circumnavigate
politics and we get to the root of the issue so we can minimize the threat to our men and
women that are fighting fires and the residents.
Yeah. I mean, it's all about sharing perspective too. I'm willing to share my perspective.
I think you're a hundred percent right.
Now, what about the actual frequency and size of the fires? I've heard several people in
the wildland community with you guys actually seeing it firsthand that have suggested that
maybe there is a kind of change in the climate that's contributing to more, whether it's
more debris now because they're not getting as much rain, whatever it is. Over your 20
years, have you seen an increase in growth and severity in these fires?
Yeah, a big fire. The first five years of my career was like 20,000 acres in California.
And last year I was on a fire that was a million. So I mean, that's unprecedented stuff and
every year seems to be just a progression in the wrong direction as far as size and
intensity. We didn't have enough people last year to fight the fires just in California.
Without a doubt, fires are getting bigger. And like I said, it could be, it is most definitely
a host of things that are contributing to that. Like we talked about a few of them,
people getting closer into the rural areas, suboptimal management of our forest lands.
And you could probably throw climate change in there. We had beetles roll through California
and decimate like thousands and thousands of acres of trees. And now we just have basically
these 200 feet trees that are, it's like tall grass, just trees. So, I mean, there's a bunch
of different factors, but the fire environment is 100% getting, is getting more aggressive
and a lot harder to manage.
Yeah. And then conversely, our resources, well not conversely, it's the wrong choice.
I just loaded the question in. Are resources matching the demand or are you having to fight
those with the same or even less resources?
Less. We are not matching the demand straight up.
Okay. So I could have loaded it in.
That's okay. We're asked, I mean, yeah, we don't have the right amount of air support.
We don't have the right amount of people. One of the things we're running into now,
and it's not to talk shit about any other resource, but we are relying more and more
on contract contractor type of resources. And so like we, we, and so we get, you're
getting into these hairy situations with lots and lots of intense fire out there and you
don't have the people like, like folks from my agency or other like agencies there that
have the specialty knowledge to manage these fires correctly. And so you're doing a lot
more or trying to do a lot more with very, very little. And it's very unsuccessful in
the way that works. Last year, for example, we were on a fire, that million acre fire
is telling about the August complex and there was one hotshot crew on a division that was
almost 25 miles long. And usually a division would be like three, maybe five miles long.
And sometimes you get like five hotshot crews in there, depending on how, depending on the
work, but one to two hotshot crews is not an abnormal thing. And now you're in a position
where you have a 25 mile acre chunk of ground on this division and one hotshot crew and
the rest are all contracted employees that have no idea what they've gotten themselves
into. And so like I've told you, like, it's about keeping people safe at that point. Like
you can't do a whole lot. You're trying to get down and communicate communities and telling
like, Hey, it's time to evacuate or you're trying to keep people safe. Like that's really
one of the biggest parts about my job is making sure my crew is safe. And it's frustrating
when you can't, you know, it's frustrating when you can't do what you know to be right
because you lack the people or lack the resources. But I mean, this is where we're at. It's
super unfortunate. And yeah, I don't really know where to go from there, honestly.
Yeah. Well with, you know, with us both having a human performance background and a lot of
the stuff that we've unpacked today when it comes to, you know, the hours of sleep deprivation,
what worries me too is you have men and women doing more with less the percentage chance
of someone getting hurt or killed continues to rise.
Yeah, no, that's a hundred percent man. Like, I mean, there's, there's days where because
we lacked resources, we were pulling 48 hour shifts straight with no sleep because fire
was moving into communities and there's nobody there to notify folks. You know, it's like,
what the hell do you do then? Like you have this like integrity issue, like this moral
like feeling like, Oh, well, my guys are incredibly tired. They've been working all day. I'm incredibly
tired. We're trying to make these powerful decisions that affect people's lives. I can't
just bail like, but at the end there, but the other side of the sword there, you're
like, well, if I do this for too much longer, one of my dues, it's going to get hurt. Probably
that that risk of that potential risk is just climbing higher and higher and higher. And
we never have gotten any support or we had always, we had great support from incident
management teams this last year and divisions and things like this. And they let us, you
know, manage our crews fatigue pretty good. And that's actually one of the positive things
that came out of this, the utilization of whoop is it's been able to get us to ask for
more days off in between fires and, and also on assignments. And so, but it's you're a
hundred percent right. The risk is not going away and it's probably increasing the chances
of people getting, people getting hurt to some in some regard.
Yeah. Well, I think the element that kept you guys working is something that I think
is, is, uh, it's a kind of not a double edged sword. That's the wrong word. Um, it's, it's
something that works against ourselves because you ask any, you know, police officer, firefighter,
if they're put in a situation, will you go and facilitate that rescue? We're all going
to say, yes, we have a volunteer fire service in the U S that does just that for free. Some
out in the boonies where I, I understand the need for a volunteer, many of which are now
in very suburban areas where they shouldn't be volunteer. It should be paid. And we just
lost a Jared Lloyd from spring Valley fire this last week in a nursing home, you know,
so he was making entry as a, as a, as a complete volunteer. But the, the negative side of that
is we love this job. We want to help people, but because of that, sadly there's administrations
that know that it's okay because they're going to do it anyway. So we don't need to get more
stuff. They'll, you know, we'll just, we'll just force them on overtime or like, you know,
you were doing, we'll just get them to work two days straight. And again, it's not malice,
but our burning desire, our why sometimes works against us getting the environment that
we need to work safely because they know come hell or high water, we're going to make it
happen.
Oh yeah, man. For sure. I mean, I think Jordan Peterson actually talks about this where it's
like, you know, you're standing, you're having a conversation with somebody face to face
and one person just makes a very slow one inch step towards you just enough to get you
to step, take a step back, but you continue the conversation and it just repeats this
process over and over and over again until you find yourself in a corner and you're like
looking around, you're like, how the hell did I get here? And I think that's a lot of
what's going on, at least within my agency is we've been asked to do these things over
and over and over again. And we just step up to the plate every time. Like, Hey, we're
going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this because we feel like
we can, but now we're in a corner and we're like, how the hell do we get out of here?
Like this isn't sustainable. Yeah, no, exactly. And I think that's just it. It needs everyone
else in the room to be like, all right, step the fuck back. We need to do this. But like
you said, we need to unify the voices because we always make it work. That's what firefighters
do. That's what police officers do. So, you know, but we have to be our own advocates
too and have that same passion for helping others, for creating an environment for us
to be better at helping others and, you know, have a full career without dying along the
way. Yeah, that's definitely right. Well, then transitioning to one other area before
we get to your David Goggins challenge. Brooke actually came through the the corrections
crew. She was the prison crew for a wildland firefighter. So another, yeah. So we're talking
about mentorship. Here's a young lady was hanging out with the wrong crowd, was, was
arrested and basically, you know, in prison because she happened to be in the same crew
as same car or someone that had a weapon that had a history, you know, guilty by association.
She through that had the mentorship in the prison system of finding herself on the crew.
And then actually ended up working for Cal Fire, which I thought was an incredible program.
So just just tell me of your experiences of working with those kind of crews on the mountain
and your philosophy on, you know, on being able to transition from from the prison setting
to full time in that capacity. Well, shoot, working with those dudes on the fire line
is legit. I mean, they're not hotshot crews, but they're a bunch of hardworking sons of
bitches that like to get after it. And we've utilized them in many ways to help assist
on a very various things. They also hit us up all the time. We see them on fire and like,
I'm about to parole here in the next couple of weeks or year or whatever, like, how can
I come work for you? And honestly, I think that is a is a I don't I don't want to say
undertapped resource, but it could be tapped into more for sure. And I have two people
on my crew right now that I supervise that are ex inmates. And something that's really
great about that is we I tell myself because we have to have, you know, working with inmates
training as part of our critical refresher when we bring our folks on. And something
I we try and say to our folks is like, Hey, a lot of these a lot of these people are in
here because a lot of these people that are in here are are you guys, you know, they just
got caught. So like, don't don't put yourself up on this pedestal like you're higher or
or whatever than a lot of these folks in here. And so that's one thing. And the other thing
too is like these guys when they come work for me or have worked for me, their life knowledge
and perspective on things is pretty fascinating. They understand the opportunity that's in
front of them and having an opportunity fighting fire, whether it's for Cal Fire for us. And
they are most of the time, like pretty badass individuals. And all they needed was an opportunity
and and someone to take a chance on them. And I am all about that kind of stuff. Because
I mean, like I said, I've gone through my career working with a handful of these folks
and two of the people on my crew right now. I hope someday run this crew when I leave
and they're both ex inmates.
That's just I mean, it's so good to hear. And when Brooke was telling me the story,
I'm like, well, there we go. There's the kind of rehabilitation, you know, mentorship prison
role that took someone that could have gone down even worse path, worse path. Oh, my God,
I can't even talk now. Worst. Oh, my God. I'm going to stroke a thing over here. Even
worse path. There we go. That's a tongue twister. You know, but but instead she went through
the prison system and actually was was raised up. But then her her arrest record wasn't
held against her. Cal fire. We're like, no, that's fine. You can come for us now. And
those I think that should be a model for for many, many programs in our prisons. I think,
I mean, we know that locking someone in a box does not make them a better member of
society. We've proven that over hundreds of years. But some of these programs, whether
the ones they have in Norway or whether it's the you know, the the prison handcrew system
here that you have in California, I think it's incredible. And like you said, now you
would have these men and I couldn't agree with you anymore. Most of us listening, if
we've been caught, would have a record by now, myself included. So, you know, having
that ability to turn a negative into a positive is huge. So thank you for telling me your
perspective because that story needs to be heard. I don't think a lot of people understand
that. Yeah, and really do, man. And these guys are some of my best friends, man. I mean,
and I don't mean to like say like, oh, you know, like, anyways, they sit in the truck
with me all the time. We're driving miles and miles and miles all time to fires. And
we talk about life. Like we talk about the shit, the crazy shit. And they open up to
me and they tell me there's stuff that they've done. And I open up to them and we share our
perspectives. Right. And and I can't tell you how many times these people have made
me think about really cool shit because they understand like how beautiful the things in
front of them are because someone took a chance on them or someone gave them an opportunity
and how how much gratitude they have for stuff. And they're the first people when things get
rough and people get all pissy and like whatever towards the end of the season, whenever he's
just dog shit tired, they're the happiest people on the crew hands down. And they can
change they can change the whole outlook of a day just based on their attitude. And I'm
super I like I said, I'm anybody out there, like I talk to these people all the time,
like you give me a call if you're interested in a job, if I can't hire you, like I'll try
and set you up in the right direction because we all have skills. And as a mentor talking
to these people, like I think you guys, we all need to understand how impactful we can
we can be. We think that we don't have that much impact on people's lives. But sometimes
all you got to do is listen to these folks and all you got to do is show them some kindness
in a way to get out of the world that got them in trouble in the first place. And their
lives get turned around. And I think that's a super powerful thing.
I couldn't agree more. That's that's so good to hear. Well, speaking of kindness and doing
something good. Tell me how you came across the four by four by 48 challenge that David
Dagens threw out there and tell me about the fundraising that you did.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking. Well, I've always been I was I used to be an all
turn endurance athlete like back in the early 2000s and mid 2000s. So I was I've always
been interested in long distance kind of athletics in that in that kind of time. And so but I
haven't done it in a while. And so my brother legitimately, who used to be on a hot shot
crew with me and then he moved over to the hot shot crew at work on now and then I followed
him. Anyways, he's a Redwood City firefighter structure guy. He texts me and he goes, Hey,
do you want to run 48 miles with me on whatever date? And I said, I was thinking in my head,
I was like, this son of a bitch is talking about the Goggins thing. I was like, God damn
it. And I was like, I was like, you know what? Hell, yeah. So I texted him back. Yes. And
away we went. And so we just picked we picked two charities we wanted to work for. I obviously
I picked the wildland firefighter foundation, because they do a lot of amazing stuff for
my community that I am a part of as far as like people getting injured, mental health
problems, the full gambit, you need something, they are just about a no questions asked organization
and they will help you and it's a pretty amazing things the amount of stories they had. And
then my brother picked the firefighters burn Institute, which is based out of Sacramento.
And they do a lot of stuff around education and they don't just help firefighters, but
they also help kids and and things like this. So I thought that was super cool. You know,
like we do fundraisers all the time within our within my agency, you know, you sign up
for a race and you, you know, you give them 20 bucks or 50 bucks, whatever the entry fee
is and you know, it goes to the wildland firefighter foundation or whatever a foundation you're
working for there. But I thought it was really, really powerful to two guys raised $5,000
for two different charities. And it was really just two guys running 48 miles and posting
some shit on Instagram. I mean, I thought that was I thought that was legit. And obviously
this is all like a byproduct of David Goggins and a byproduct of us doing it and then a
byproduct of us committing to this thing. And then the thousands of people that donated
money like that. It's just like, I don't know, Goggins been posting things all about this
and like how powerful that that whole experience was. And I agree. The whole time I was running,
we were doing this thing. Like I was just had all these sobering feelings of gratitude
and like it was unlike any race I've ever ran.
Yeah, it was amazing to see. I think he he've raised 200 grand and was going to split it
five ways, but he said he got so many heartfelt messages from all these different charities
and Operation During Warrior was one of them that I said that helped with the gala the
other day. But yeah, and it was it was four miles every four hours for 48, wasn't it?
So you were having to do it through the night for two nights in a row.
Yeah, so it started. Yeah, thank you. I didn't even talk about what that was. Yeah, four
miles every four hours, 48 hours. It started at eight o'clock p.m. on Friday and went to
I think what was it four o'clock p.m. on Sunday, if I've got that right. And so yeah, you just
woke up every it was I mean, a lot of people keep asking me like, Oh, how how'd it go?
How'd it feel? And like, you know, yes, it was difficult. There's things about that were
hard, for sure. But I never was in a spot personally, where I was. I always had something
to compare it to that I did that was harder. So I never was like, OK, like I, I might have
to hang it up or this is the hardest thing in my life that never really crossed my mind.
And I don't know if that's because I've done a bunch of ultras before. And I've I've ran
50 straight miles and many times. And the job that I do is just endurance, knock your
dick in the dirt type of work and staying up for straight 48 hours. I've done numerous
times. So like, there wasn't necessarily a time where I was like, this is the hardest
thing I've ever done, which was which was good because I was able to reflect on all
the hard stuff that I did do and apply it in real time. And it was that's so that was
cool. But, yeah, we stayed at my brother's house and every every four hours, we jump
up and run. And I would try and get my I think besides two of the laps, I had two of the
laps I did in like 50 minutes because me and my brother were filming a bunch of stuff and
trying to get the good word out. But at one point, after we those first two laps, I was
like, God, this isn't sustainable. I'm not going to do these four miles in 50 minutes
is going to take me forever. And so I would try and run them four miles as fast as I could.
And so I got most of them done somewhere between 34 and 36 minutes. And then I would eat a
little snack rest to the top of the hour. And then just my knowledge of like sleep cycles
and things like this, I would try and at that during the evening hours, I would try and
sleep for about an hour in 20 minutes or so I'd set an alarm for an hour 20 minutes during
the night hours. And I would wake myself up so that I didn't get too far or I wouldn't
get into like deep REM sleep. And then I would stretch, pound some water. And that gave me
about an hour ish 45 minutes or so to kind of get warmed up because the tightness and
the soreness was the stuff that that was getting me. So it was more about trying to get loose
before the next lap.
Now with you being a hotshot for 20 years, what do you when you look back now, what were
some of the tools that you use that allowed you to be physically resilient and keep doing
this profession?
I would say looking at the faces around you and trying not to show weakness. You know,
I don't know, I think it was like maybe the macho attitude or my ego or whatever, you
know, I can't when you when you talk when you're the person that's always talking about
physical fitness and nutrition and how to diet and like you're the strongest one of
the stronger person on the crew and you become this person. And so when you show weakness,
you lose a little bit of credibility. So I was you know, that kind of that kind of like
extra extrinsic motivation would fuel me in the moments of like hard line construction
or whatever, like, hey, like, all right, I can keep going. Look at them. They're all,
you know, they're all falling apart, but I'm going and that I would use that as like fuel
to keep moving. But that was that was pretty much, you know, as a young fireman, you know,
that was it. And I think nowadays, when I when I'm talking about like, physically challenging
stuff, it's, it's not so much to make someone else look bad anymore, or make myself look
better than anybody else. It's just, I know that if things are uncomfortable, and even
if they're really uncomfortable, I'm about to make a breakthrough on who I am as a person,
I'm gonna learn something. And I've been I, I embrace those really, really difficult physical
challenges. And I actually think it's important that we all put ourselves in those positions
at from time to time.
Absolutely. What about mobility? Is there anything that's the biggest thing, I think,
for a lot of older responders?
Yeah, mobility, like for me, off season for firefighting is all about getting in shape
and getting ready being injury free day one, but ready to fight fire. You transition into
fire season, it's really hard to physically train or PT is what we call it during the
fire season, because you're out on assignment. So the things that I really queue into is
recovery, mobility, and maintenance. Our population is not very mobile, your population probably
isn't as well, because I think it's just firefighters in general. But we see very unmovable ankles,
really unmovable hips and shoulders, which leads to all sorts of things like back pain,
neck problems. And so we incorporate mobility into our program pretty heavily, because the
more mobile you are, the less prone to injury you're going to be.
Brilliant. Love it. All right, well, then I want to transition some closing questions.
We've been chatting for almost two and a half hours. I had a funny feeling this is going
to be a long conversation. Yeah, no, but it's good. There's so much on pack and then we
haven't even I mean, we've barely even delved into the true human performance side, but
that'll be for part two. So the first question I'd love to ask, is there a book that you
love to recommend it can be related to what we've discussed today or completely unrelated?
Okay, can I give like three, please? Okay, cool. The first the first book, which is amazing
that a lot of people know about a friend of mine help write it is called Becoming a Supple
Leopard. So I think that's an amazing book. If we're talking about physical fitness, mobility
and just optimizing the physical body, that's a great place to start. A book I give to my
guys is called as a man thinketh. That's a great short read. It talks about basically
the power of your thoughts. And then the last book, I'll recommend which really connected
a lot of dots for me as a person is called Awareness by Anthony D'Amelo. Anthony D'Amelo.
All right, you mentioned Supple Leopard and that was Kelly Starratt. Who was the friend
that helped write that? Glenn Cordoza is the he helped authored that book. Excellent. Very
cool. Hey, Kelly, someone I still need to get on the show at some point. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. All right, next question. Is there a movie that you love? A movie? Man, there's
like movies. That's that's like the I'll just go with the first thing that popped into my
head. How about that? And that was Braveheart. There's a ton of movies. I like all kinds
of movies, but that was the first one that popped in there. Brilliant. All right. What
about documentary? Any of those that you've seen that you really enjoyed? Dude, that Alex
Honnold movie where he's free, free solo, I think it's called. Yeah, that one was pretty
powerful. I think my palms are sweating the whole time. I think that was probably the
most recent documentary that was pretty pumped up on. Brilliant. Yeah, that's another person
I'd love to get on one day just talking about training and fear and all those kind of areas.
Well, speaking of that, so is there a person you would recommend to come on this podcast
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the
world? Yeah, man, there's a there's a guy named Matt Holmstrom. He's a he's from my
line of work. He's a mentor of mine and he is a brilliant man and has a lot of perspective.
I think he would be an amazing person to have on. I also think there's another individual
you could have on talking about the pros and cons of this job. His name is Lucas Mayfield
and runs the grassroots effort that's happening outside of our agency to sort of help advocate
for firefighters. Excellent. Two great suggestions. Thank you so much. All right. Well, then the
last question before we talk about where we can find you online, what you do to decompress?
What I do to decompress is I kind of talked about it. I have a very disciplined life and
I make sure that I am successful in achieving my structure where I physical fitness is something
long runs, mountain bike rides, things like this, but also really appreciating the things
in front of me and recognizing how special that stuff is. And primarily what I'm talking
about is spending really good time with my family. Brilliant. Well, mentioning the family
for a second, the Vice news guys did a great piece on you and there was a moment where
it was one of your supervisors that actually left, you know, partly I think because of
the financial side. Yeah. And they asked him about, you know, do you regret or I think
it was your, I can't exactly how they framed it, but basically do you regret the impact
of your profession on your ability to be around your children? And he almost immediately,
and we can all recognize the same response. He choked up, you know, you could tell absolutely
he was flooded with that. He did the most amazing thing, did an incredible profession,
was very selfless in what he did and his family were as well, but that is an element in a
lot of the people listening. You mentioned stepping off the hamster wheel because of
the impact that you were seeing on your family. Are you, is this something that you see yourself
doing for a long time or are you considering transitioning to something else? I want to
retire as a hotshot superintendent. That is my goal right now. Because there's a, you
know what? It's, I don't want to say that in absolute, I don't really want to talk in
absolute in anything that I talk about, but I find, you know, I see a challenge to be
someone that can be resilient and mentor people correctly to guide them away from some of
the pitfalls that we see from folks that have those feelings of maybe, I don't know if regret's
the right word, but those moments that choke you up, like we're talking about from my boss,
Aaron. And, and I feel like whether I can do it or not, I'm, I'm up to the challenge
to be the person that can be that, have that resiliency and have an actual very successful
career and help people be successful as well. And that's kind of the, that's, that's kind
of what I want to do. I don't know if it'll be possible, but I'm going to give it my goddamn
best. Beautiful. All right. Well then for people that have listened that, you know,
obviously there's so much to pull out. I mean, you've got your mental health story. You've
got obviously the work you do with human performance and your career as a hotshot. Where are the
best places for people to find out more about you or reach out to you online? Yeah. I mean,
you can, I'm on Instagram pretty frequently. Just Ben, strong B E N S T R A H A N. And
you'll hear me talking about this stuff like crazy on there. And that's pretty much how
I use that platform nowadays. It's just a be real. You can also find me on tactical
athletics. That's another Instagram thing that I got going on. Those are the two best
places to find me. Beautiful. Well, Ben, I just want to say thank you. It's been an amazing
conversation. I feel like we barely scratched the surface, but that's what always happens
when you, you know, like I said, you meet people that, you know, have so much that you
want to pull out of them. But firstly, just thank you for, for telling your story. I mean,
the courage it takes to speak, you know, and be transparent about what you went through
is exactly what we need to hear. You know, you've got these alpha males and females that
are out there on SWAT teams as hotshots, smokejumpers, whatever it is. And those are the people that
I think if they hear, if we hear that they've been to some dark places, then a lot of us
look ourselves and go, well, then why am I saying I can't, you know, if this Navy seal
went through some shit, why can James Gearing, you know, have this facade that I, I'm better
than that. So it's so important that we hear that. And it's so important that we also hear
the journey out of that. So thank you for telling your story. Thank you for your courage.
And I truly appreciate you come on the show today. I don't know who connected us, man,
but I'm very grateful for whoever that person was. And James, thank you for giving me the
opportunity to speak with people. I appreciate it.