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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show veteran
firefighter paramedic Mark Mycoskie. Now, what
makes this interview extremely powerful is Mark
and I have been friends for a few years, so this
interview is a long time coming. We ended up
doing an episode together. And he was still working
through some things. So we actually waited till
he went through the siren project and circled
around again and redid the episode. And it is
so much more powerful. So we discuss a host of
topics from his journey into the fire service,
firefighter fitness, CrossFit, yoga for first
responders, his powerful mental health story,
the shatterproof program. healing through plant
medicine, and so much more. Now, before we get
to this incredibly powerful and important conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe
to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating.
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find. And this is a free library of
almost 1 ,100 episodes now. So all I ask in return
is that you help share these incredible men and
women's stories so I can get them to every single
person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
And one side note, I was sick as a dog when we
did this conversation, so you may hear some coughing
in the background. I apologize for that. So with
that being said, I introduce to you Mark Mycoskie.
Enjoy. All right, well, Mark, I want to start
by saying, firstly, thank you for driving. all
the way to Ocala, Florida to come to my home.
And secondly, for people listening, we did a
conversation a few months ago, virtually. Yes,
we did. And a lot has changed since then. So
now we're doing it face to face. We scratched
the first one because there's going to be so
much value to this, especially when it comes
to post -traumatic growth. So with that preamble
out the way, I want to welcome you to my home
today. Thanks, James. This is the second time
I've been able to be in your home. And that's
one of the things I value most is the power of
connectivity and to share space with you physically
versus over a screen. It means the world to me.
I remember last time you welcomed me into your
home, offered me some breakfast, some Marmite
on toast, and I politely declined. But for you
to open your doors to me, that means the world.
It really does. The connectivity piece is huge
in my life right now. So you told me this just
before we hit record, exactly when our paths
first crossed. So talk to me about which platform
that was. It was way back in the early days of
the Dark Side Project. And I think it was Instagram
and Facebook post. We're probably talking maybe
eight, 10 years ago. I wouldn't, if I had to
guess. The podcast is eight and a half years
ago, and I think it was right around that time.
Yeah, so it had to be right around that time.
And I remember some of the powerful posts at
a very powerful time for me. I remember tagging
you in a post where I was trying to address my
demons by working out at the training center
beforehand and just how I was feeling before
I started. I was like, this guy knows what he's
talking about. He's right on point, so. Well,
this is what's beautiful. And, you know, my Instagram
page was shut down. So trying to be that voice
of reason and kindness and compassion in the
middle is probably the most censored voice there
is out there. You can have porn and violence
and Instagram's fine with it. But it is such
a powerful platform. It is such an incredible
way to connect people. And, you know, whether
it's learning of losing one of our brothers and
sisters or whether it's learning of all the ways
to heal, you know, putting hope into the fact
that there are ways out of this. even and i'm
sure we'll dive into a little bit the the work
week revolution has happened right that word
has been shared through the internet you know
through podcasts through videos and all these
things so it's it's amazing if you create your
social media to be one of you know inspiration
and hope that all the good stuff does start coming
across your radar then. Yeah, definitely. And
I've kind of stepped away from the social media
as far as Facebook and Instagram and all that
just for my own well -being and mental health.
I don't have to be on there, so I don't. I don't
watch a lot of TV and news, and I'm at the point
in my journey where the more positive I can inject
into my being, the better. So only real social
media, if you want to call it that, is LinkedIn.
where I can kind of create my own algorithm and
delete and block things I don't want and then
focus on the things I do. Absolutely. All right.
Well, for people listening, if you were at home,
which part of the country would we find you in?
Just north of Atlanta, the Atlanta area, North
Georgia mountains. Probably from the city proper,
maybe an hour north towards Tennessee area. north
georgia mountains were you in any way affected
by the uh the hurricane that ended up decimating
north carolina uh no i was not not personally
or physically my daughter lived in north carolina
they've since moved to georgia but they weren't
affected by it as well so no we got very fortunate
we spooled up all the resources before it and
uh We were ready, but nothing happened. Okay.
We're good. All right. Well, let's start at the
very beginning of your timeline then. So tell
me where you were born and tell me a little bit
about your family dynamic, what your parents
did, how many siblings. All right. So I was born
and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. That's where
my dad was Marine and my mom, she was going to
school, to university to be a teacher. And they
met in the marching band at Western Michigan
University. This was Vietnam era. So my dad was
a Marine. He went to Okinawa for a time and stayed
in contact with my mom and then came back and
they connected. And then from there, they were
very service oriented, like helping your fellow
human being. And that was always instilled to
us from a very young age. I'm second oldest of
10 kids. Pretty big family. Pretty big family.
Second oldest of 10 kids. I've got two brothers
and seven sisters. So there's a high female influence
in my home, which I attribute to a lot of the
caring motherhood side of who I am. Just being
there to serve other people. I know a lot of
times in the alpha... Alpha world of firefighting
and everything else, we try to put on this huge
bravado. And I think that's what's helped me
have a healthy career is to have that motherly
service side aspect to what I'm doing. Grew up,
my parents, that's actually why I'm down here
in this area. As my parents aged, mom's been
recently diagnosed with Parkinson's and Lewy
body dementia. Dad's dealing with some... physical
side. So mom's mental cognitive side is going
down pretty rapidly and dad's physical side is
going. So, um, as we've rallied the wagon, so
to speak with the siblings and try to take care
of my parents, um, that's why I'm down here to
kind of get eyes on. So I'm sorry to hear about
your parents. Um, it's a rough thing to watch,
but it's also been, it's been a blessing as well.
Um, To watch them serve their whole lives, to
come to a place where they have to receive the
service has been kind of a perspective shift
in my mind as well. Sometimes when we're always
the helpers and the healers, we're going to need
help and healing as well. Absolutely. Well, firstly,
that large family. I'm one of five, so that pales
in comparison to yours. But where did you stand
as far as chronologically in the brothers and
sisters? I'm second oldest, so I have an older
sister. She's no longer mortally on this planet,
and I feel her presence pretty regularly. She
was born with a brain tumor, brain cancer, wasn't
supposed to live past the age of three, and she
lived till she was in her 30s, so when she turned
30. And quite frankly, Even though it hasn't
been proven, we think that it's related to the
Agent Orange stuff. There's been some studies
showing that those soldiers that were exposed
to Agent Orange, their firstborns, have a lot
of the signs and symptoms and diseases that she
had. But that's never been proven. But Mindy
was, she was an angel on Earth. Taught me a lot
about being self -aware and welcoming those that
are struggling in, even though you have your
own struggles, that if you're present, even though
you can't be there physically, that if you're
always there for them emotionally, things are
going to work out. What, when you reflect back
now, was her mindset? Because being given a death
sentence at the age of three, that must just
reframe. you know, our mortality in a totally
different way. And I, one would assume that maybe
there's a lot more gratitude infused when you've
got that kind of diagnosis. Yeah, it was, it
was cool to kind of walk our journey together.
We went to the same high school. She was two
years older than me. So to see, because she had
kind of a droopy eye from some of her, her brain
surgeries when she was younger to, to see the
cruelty of humanity, make fun of her for these
situations and that kind of thing, and not see
her soul and spirit for what it was, was kind
of painful to watch. But she had a great faith.
She focused on that faith and she was very self
-aware. She could eat a food and if it affected
her a certain way, as far as the way her body
reacted, she knew what the food was and what
was in that food. And that's really what elongated
her life was to be self -aware of the foods that
affected her negatively. So she could put those
positive things in her body or the things that
helped her overcome things. And that's where
her light. her light shines. She played the piano
on Sunday mornings before church. And there's
been times in my home when my kids have kind
of musically inclined as well, would play the
piano before church. And it automatically takes
me back to those times listening to the piano
and just that spiritual side of thing. And music
in my family is one of those settling influences.
So pretty powerful. She actually did some missionary
work in your neck of the woods. She served in
Leeds. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's when her final
stages of her life actually started. She started
having headaches when she was on that mission,
came back home and they found another brain tumor.
And that's kind of where the health decline started.
When I was in the school age, the only fights
I ever got into were protecting my brother. He
was kind of awkward, super intelligent, but socially
awkward somewhat. And he would get picked on
all the time. We hated each other. when we were
at home, me and my brother, but someone picked
on him, blood is thicker than water, and they
weren't spectacular fights either, but they were
altercations. Did you find yourself kind of stepping
up in that way, or was it never to that point?
It really never was to that point. Like I said,
she was two grades higher than me, so it's nothing
that I really witnessed. In school, I was kind
of a fun -loving. I got along with everybody.
I didn't hang out with a certain crowd. hung
out with the punks or I hung out with the athletes.
I played sports in high school. And it was a
pretty culturally diverse school. Kalamazoo is
halfway between Detroit and Chicago. So it was
the early 90s and it was a great time to be alive
and just connect to somebody regardless of the
way I approach things. It's not no color, N -O
color, it's K -N -O -W color. Know, understand
color, understand the cultural differences, connect
to people. It's not not seeing that they're different.
It's seeing the differences, finding those one
or two things that we can connect on and building
our relationships off those things. So that's
kind of where I was in high school and in the
powerful side of things and the way I was growing
up. I was in Boy Scouts at the time. achieved
my Eagle Scout status. Well, my mom achieved
my Eagle Scout status. She was pretty persistent
in making sure that I accomplished that. I obtained
my Eagle Scout when I was 13 years old and was
able to move on to the fumes, the perfumes and
the car fumes to focus on becoming an adolescent.
So there's a lot of things I learned through
the Boy Scouts as well in that time of my life
that I carry on to this day as a firefighter.
So that is what's such a shame when When my son
was young, it was only for a little bit. He expressed
interest in that organization. But there's obviously
that other side where we know that there was
incidences where people were allowed to be around
children. And then in some cases, it wasn't even
addressed within the organization. For people
listening now, talk to me about the benefits
of that. And how did you put your kids in that
at all? We tried to. My son, my son actually
late diagnosed in life. It wasn't until he graduated
high school that he got his autism diagnosis,
which shined a light on a lot of things. Caleb's
very intellectual, but there was a lot of things
I tried to. Like I said, I was an athlete. I
was trying to get him to do all these things
that I did because they were beneficial to me,
and it just didn't click for him because that's
not who it was. So, yeah, we've always been involved.
The religion I grew up in, there's regular times
where on Sundays you'd stand up in front of the
congregation and talk, do a talk, a speech in
front of the congregation on whatever religious
topic was going on that Sunday. And then with
Boy Scouts, to do my Eagle Scout project, to
have to reach out and at the time send letters,
because this was before computers. I'm dating
myself. Computers were at their very beginning
stages, but to have to go out and shake hands
and look people in the eyes and connect with
people to get things done is a huge part of the
foundation of who I am today. Because I think
it's a shame. I mean, it's a great organization,
but it did. It did put red flags up in me. And
what I ended up doing is that, right, how can
I mirror that within groups that I feel comfortable
with at this moment? Right. But, you know, I've
got friends that were, you know, a scout masters
themselves now that are, you know, amazing, trustworthy,
phenomenal human beings. But it's just a shame
that some people. I kind of dissuaded a little
bit to what I would argue is a very positive
organization, because as we see in life so often,
the actions of the few, you know, ruin it for
the masses. Right. And I was very fortunate.
It was also a good time to connect with my father
because he was a scout master at times. He was
a school teacher by trade. He taught in the public
education system for 30 -plus years and, quite
frankly, probably has more PTSD from being a
teacher than from the time he spent in Vietnam.
I remember many nights of him grading papers,
watching MASH on TV because he could connect
with the guys on MASH and he was grading papers
at night. watching MASH, something that he was
comfortable with. So like I said, I think the
public education system caused more PTSD and
issues in his life and where his mental state
is than actual serving in the military. But that
was my time to connect with dad. He was put a
lot of time and effort. He's very, dad is a MacGyver.
So he would have been a great firefighter. Beautiful.
When you talked about Agent Orange, my father
-in -law actually has been fighting that for
a long time. He's had multiple bouts of illnesses
because of that. It's interesting because, I
mean, you have that now. You see all these cancers
and deaths from the burn pits in the current
military generation. But then you listen to the
science of Sarah Jenke, for example, talking
about our profession and all the childhood diseases
that we're seeing and the infertility and the
miscarriages. And, you know, sadly, I think a
lot of people think, oh, it's the fires, it's
the toxins. But actually, if you look at the
impact of sleep deprivation and shift work, that
is actually a massive contributor to that. So
one of the biggest things that I'm trying to
get people to understand is, you know, you might
beat your chest and be like, oh, sleep when I'm
dead. You know, I'm Kurt Russell, 19, you know,
2025. Okay, hero, that's great. What if I told
you that by you not fighting for a work week
that's healthy, your child could have brain cancer.
Your child could have leukemia, you know, could
have Down syndrome, could have autism, could
have, you know, not that some of those are not
even terrible to have, of course, but the fatal
ones, you know, does that not wake you up and
say, I'm going to fight against that? You know,
the people in Vietnam, I'm sure in 2025, like,
yeah, you need to stop dropping Agent Orange
on us. There's a certain point where like, okay,
enough is enough. This is what I feel in our
profession. And people aren't talking about it
is. it is affecting our children, our ability
to reproduce healthily and the health of the
offspring when they're born. Right, definitely.
And I feel that 100%. This is probably the point
in the podcast where I drop the disclaimer that
my viewpoints and my perspectives are those of
my own and not of the agency that I work for
and puts a paycheck in my bank every two weeks.
And I'm pretty passionate about the health and
wellness side of things. That's kind of what's
brought me down to Florida. I did a lot of work,
used to do a lot of work with the Florida Firefighter
Safety Health Collaborative for just these things.
I was Dark Side Project, Fit to Fight Fire, all
these good agencies or good initiatives opened
my eyes to the power of physical fitness and
mental health and cancer prevention and all this
other kind of stuff. And at the time, Florida
was the place that was doing it right. Chris
Bader started the... collaborative with Sam Eaton
and Dustin Hawkins and there's all kinds of names
that are connected and uh I got connected with
them because I was kind of the unofficial wellness
person in my department because we do a lot a
good job at a lot of things in my department
um one of the things we don't is manage projects
well so if you would ask me years ago where I
would say The places we're failing, it's the
admin positions that handle all the special projects
so that the line personnel can do line personnel
things. And that's where the ball gets dropped
a lot because it's not the, if a person's working
on one of those special projects, it's not their
primary role in the fire service. So a lot of
times that ball gets dropped. And the wellness
issues a lot of times are check the box initiatives.
All right. We do annual health screenings. Or
we're going to buy gear extractors, but they're
government bid, low bid gear extractors that
don't have the right pH in the water, the chemicals,
the cleaning products or detergents to do what
they need to do, the sleep hygienes in the firehouses,
the work week. We recently at my department looked
at changing to a different schedule. We worked
the typical 24 -48 schedule, and there was an
initiative. They were going to change to... the
portland schedule because biggest reason they're
going to do that is um because we wouldn't have
to hire a whole nother shift or a whole nother
platoon so we could keep our current staffing
just change the work week so instead of doing
the exact right things we try to chip away at
things and do things at the speed of government
and quite frankly it never gets to the destination
that we need to get to It's interesting. I had
a conversation with one of the Orange County
Union guys and he was at Tallahassee and Danny
Alvarez and Erica Roth were proposing several
things in Florida, including making a 42 hour,
this is shorter, but it is a 42 hour work week,
a professional standard in the state of Florida,
which I think that would be phenomenal. I mean,
with the whole state of Florida goes to it, now
we're really going to have ripple effects through.
through the rest of the state. And so I said
to him, well, that's amazing. You know, how are
you going as far as 2472? Oh, well, this will
be the first step. And I told him, like, well,
no, like legislation is not how you make changes
in a fire department. If that was the case, then
the city of Gainesville and Miramar and Destin
and, you know, Palm Beach County and Pasco County
and all these departments. they still wouldn't
have made the move. What happened is a bunch
of courageous men and women got together, whether
it was their admin, their union, whoever it was
that got behind it and said, you know what, this
isn't working and we need to change it because
you can do whatever you want in the fire department.
You can accept laterals if you decide. You know,
you make your own rules pretty much. And so this
whole, oh, you know, we've got to wait for politicians
to fix it for us. Like, yeah, that's the coward's
way of doing it. Or you could grow a set and
just say enough is enough. I'm tired of burying
our men and women. We need to fix this and we're
just going to start now. Because as you said,
the box checking isn't working. We've got a prime
event. We've got an extractor. You know, we've
got a peer support team and we just went to another
funeral. Miami -Dade's had three in eight months.
So is it working? No, it's not. So what can we
do differently? And then what's beautiful now
is you can go to Florida and say, all right,
let's say it's Miami -Dade, Palm Beach County.
How did you get this started? Let's say you're
a mid -sized department in Gainesville. How did
you make this work? So this is what drives me
crazy now. If politicians fix things, we wouldn't
have an obesity crisis and an opioid crisis because
they would have fixed it years ago. So waiting
for some person in a suit, and there are some
good ones, some Danny I'll put up there, but
waiting for people to fix things for you, we
know that doesn't work. So newsflash, if you
actually want to make changes, you've got to
do it yourself. Whether you freaking pick up
a microphone and start a podcast or whether you
start a collaborative down south or whether you
start an Instagram page and, you know, show workouts,
whatever it is, we're all a piece of the movement.
But it drives me crazy when people are hiding
behind litigation or it's not litigation, but,
you know, these laws being put in place. Or the
one thing I hear all the time, studies. Oh, do
you have data? And I know I'm beating the dead
horse, but people ask me that. Do you send me
studies that a 42 -hour work week is healthier
than a 56? And I always say, yeah, I've got another
study as well. It's a study on if it hurts when
you get stabbed with a kitchen knife. Do you
want me to send that as well? Of course it's
fucking better. You know what I mean? At what
point are you going to just go, it's common sense?
And I think this is what we need to do as a profession
now, is take a step back. What is working? What
isn't working? And what can we just band together
and say, we're going to fix this? And like you
said, you know, moving the shifts around of a
56 hour week is still a 56 hour week. The way
that you improve people's health, the way that
you attract young people back into the profession.
is you actually finally make the work week the
same as everyone else, 42 hours. 100%. And why
should a salary have to change? Because we're
changing our work week, like you said. It doesn't.
You go to training. I tell people, you go to
training, do they cut your hours? No. That's
a complete myth that people put out there because
they don't want to actually have the courage
to make changes. So they find every excuse of
why not to do it. A number of pushback I've had
from firefighters. Oh, they'll never work. They'll
never go for it. We don't have the money. Like
imagine if the World War II generation thought
that. We'd be speaking German right now. Right.
In the past six to eight months in my department
alone, we've got, so we're a public safety department.
We've got about 100 firefighters. And then we've
got on the police side, that 150 -ish range on
the police side. And our department alone in
the past six to eight months, we've lost three
people to cancer. Two of the guys, firefighters
that were two to three years from retirement.
A police officer that was four months from retirement.
Horrendous. And again, like I always say, how
many do we have to lose? Like I've said, tongue
in cheek, just give me a number. You know, we've
lost, you know, throwing a number out. We lost
300 this year. We lost 297 this year. We'll make
it to 300 and then we'll start changing. All
right. Any volunteers? We need to get to 300.
All right, boom. Now we're going to start changing.
But it's not. We keep losing them over and over
and over again. And I don't understand how you
can be at the chief of a department, a union
president, you know, or just anyone else within,
you know, wearing the same union uniform and
just be like, oh, well, you know, shrug shoulders,
let's give them a nice funeral with bagpipes
and folded flags. And then let's just go back
to work. Let's just keep doing the same thing.
Like, at what point do you say this is wrong?
At what point do you really understood what a
brotherhood and sisterhood is, which you honor
the ones that you lost by fucking changing things?
And I think it comes from a level of understanding
as well. Are we doing what we need to do to educate
those decision makers on what we actually do
for a living? 100%. I mean, do they understand
you can't do it with a citizen's academy or anything
else? Come spend a month with me at the firehouse.
Get up three or four times a night to go pick
up grandma or whatever, which I understand that's
what we do. That's a huge part of my moral injury
piece. Up at the same firehouse where I took
the phone call from my mom to say that my sister
just passed away from her cancer. I'm assigned
at that firehouse right now to where I'm picking
up grandma four or five times a night at an old
folks home that they're spending four or five
grand a month to be at. Yet the people that are
supposed to issue the care aren't doing the care.
They call 911 to get a million and a half dollar
fire truck with four salaried firefighters up
there. to pick up grandma off the floor when
I can't be down in Spring Hill, Florida to pick
my mom up when she falls and breaks her leg.
That's a huge moral injury piece for me. And
that's my journey. That's just where I'm at.
So those are things I've had to deal with personally.
So it's not isolated to just the calls that we
run. It's everything else that we're exposed
to that ties into our life events as well. Oh,
absolutely. And then again, it's where is the
voice of going to, for example, a nursing home
and saying, No. Like you need to hire two porters
or whatever it is. If your nurses can't put someone
back to bed, and I'm not talking about injured
and they need a hospital stay, of course, that's
where we come in. That's what we're paid to do.
But a back to bed call in a medical facility,
you should have people on staff that can return
that person to bed. That is not the fire department's
job. Like we were talking before we hit record.
I've always said that one of the most rewarding
things we've ever done. in our department is
when you have that elderly couple in their home,
you know, and the husband is full of guilt and
shame because he was an able -bodied guy like
you and me once. And now he doesn't have the
strength to lift the love of his life off the
floor. And she soiled herself and we come in
and we clean her up and we put new clothes on
her and we put her back to bed. That is a beautiful
thing, but that's a home. That's a residential
home, a facility like where you said they're
paying, you know, the government or the individual
is paying all that money. That's not where we're
supposed to go. And for every time that we're
doing that call, we might be missing the stroke,
the choking, the cardiac arrest, the horrendous
wreck where they're bleeding out and trapped.
So it's not, you know, it's also about having
the courage to say no. This is why I love GMR
with their nurse navigation, integrating 911
and taking all these non -emergent calls and
sending them to... you know, through these nurses
assigning resources that are non -emergent that
are totally appropriate for those calls. Urgent
care clinic appointments, you know, telehealth
consultations so they can refill a prescription,
you know, dentists and optometrists and all these
other things that we get called, even the low
acuity mental health calls. There are so many
resources that are available that are so much
cheaper and they keep an ER bed and they don't
wake up a crew. But again, where is the courage
to say, why the hell are we going to these calls?
But it's this fear of litigation. But you can't
sue everyone for everything. At some point, you've
just got to say, all right, we're going to do
this. And if you come at us with a lawsuit, well,
we've done this, this, this, and this. So we
did our due diligence. We sent them to the appropriate
thing for that call. We gave them the option
to call 911, and we actually go back and help
them. But I mean, how many people just want...
literally to feel better or need a refill or
whatever it is. They don't need, as you said,
a half a million, one and a half million dollar
apparatus with four burly men and women coming
with stretchers and monitors and everything for
their 18 months old with a fever. They just want
to know what to do. So, but it takes courage
from our leadership to say, yeah, we're not going
to send our men and women. on those kind of non
-emergencies. That's not appropriate. Well, that
ties into the shift schedule as well. It's not
every alarm that bangs out is a fire alarm where
we're running a thousand calls a year versus
5 ,000 calls a year because we're having to get
up to run all these medical calls. And I've been
a paramedic. I've been a paramedic my whole career,
so I value the medical side of things. Quite
frankly, I feel that I've had more effect on
my population, my community, the people I respond
to as a paramedic than I do as a firefighter.
100%. Because when we show up, regardless of
what we do, just us showing up fixes the situation
for that person. Their emergency stops when we
show up. I've had more connections and relationships
with former patients, not because I started an
IV on that patient. But because I was able to
ride in the back of the box holding their hand
to comfort them the last 10 miles of their journey
and connect at a personal level, which sometimes
they're not going to get. I've been very fortunate.
I know one of your struggles in your career is
that you haven't had any cardiac arrest safes.
You've mentioned that multiple times. I've been
very fortunate that I've been able to be a vehicle
or a tool in the Lord's hand to bring people
back. When they were had a cardiac arrest to
walk at American Health Walk with somebody that
we brought back and then she's had her second
child to see one of the people that we saved
at the YMCA after he had a heart attack, cardiac
arrest, show up to our community CPR classes
to share his story, to be able to connect those
two people as peers so they can share in their
journey. Why am I still alive after this event
happened to me? During COVID times, we had a
guy that, and I'm not going to get in the conversation
on immunizations or anything like that, but he
had a recent shot and had a cardiac arrest. His
wife was walking him to the bathroom, had an
arrest, and he fell on top of her. But to be
able to connect with her. That a year later after
the arrest, I get a knock at the door at the
firehouse and she's saying, hey, my therapist
said I need to come by and see you because your
name keeps coming up because of the compassion
and empathy that you showed to me on that scene.
And to be able to go to her townhouse and help
her change light bulbs and to do this or to do
that or carry a bag of mulch to her backyard
so that she could keep maintaining her house
because her husband is no longer there to do
it. To have that connectivity is what fuels my
fire. It's funny when you think about the assignments
coming from beyond. They're like, all right,
Mark's going to go to a cardiac arrest. Who wants
to go? Jesus? All right, yeah, go help him save.
All right, James has got one. Anyone? And the
reaper puts up his hand again. Fuck. All right,
come on. I can see it in my mind. These poor
people, as the tunnel is closing, they see James
Gearing as their medic. The graphic nozzle of
James Gearing. All right. Well, let's let's go
kind of your journey into the fire service. And
so just just to kind of back up a little bit.
Firstly, when you're in the school age, what
kind of sports and exercise are you doing and
playing? Because you're still in incredible shape
now. I appreciate that. I hit 52 years old yesterday.
So and I started I played Little League baseball
growing up. I was never really good at it. I'm
very fortunate to. Get into a team sport during
that time. By the time I hit high school, I was
really not good. I stopped playing baseball,
JV year. But that's when I transitioned a lot
into football. And that's where I learned the
importance of a mentor and a coach and somebody
there to hold you accountable to do things. That
it's not just showing up. It's the time that
you put in off the field as much as it is the
time you put in on the field. And I remember.
My freshman JV coach, Coach Cigneschi, Coach
Sig. Seeing my ability, even though I was a smaller
kid, I was probably at that time 120, 130, 130
pounds, to see the potential in me to do what
I had to do. And I wasn't a starter at all. I
wasn't the first guy. I rode the bench a lot,
but I put in a lot of time and effort. Coach
Sigg gave me my nickname. So I know all the people
that have known me for a while because they call
me by my nickname, Mo. And that's a term of an
endearment. So matter of fact, my best friend
in high school, his name is Mark as well. We
were born, he was born, today's his birthday.
Happy birthday, Mark. But we actually, our moms
actually shared a common room in the hospital
the day we were born. So I've known him my whole
life. And my oldest married his oldest. Oh, really?
Yeah. So they've got three kids. So we share
common grandchildren in that aspect as well.
That's crazy. Happy birthday to you as well,
by the way. Thank you. Thank you. So football
was a huge part. And that's when I started weightlifting.
And I played offensive line in high school. Our
offensive line averaged right around 300 pounds.
And I was probably 150, 170 at the time. But
when I started lifting weights, I was lifting
weights with the linemen. So my senior year in
high school, I'm 150 pounds benching 315 pounds.
Because I didn't know any better. I was in there
working out with the linemen. And I really enjoyed
the weightlifting side of things, the strength
aspect, my heritage. I'm Polish on my dad's side
and Syrian on my... Polish and Syrian on my dad's
side and kind of German and the European side
on my mom's side. But I definitely got that Eastern
Bloc strongman strength. So it's a lot of good
genetics is what it is. It's nothing that I do
that's special. So football and wrestling and
that kind of stuff. But I definitely learned
the value of connection and working towards a
common mission and a common goal, regardless
of how we look or who we are. I always ask people
this. I was a martial artist and I played field
hockey. It was my sport, which I play football
too, like real football with your feet. um but
uh my brother's a football soccer player so my
little brother is yeah but yeah hockey is actually
it's funny i mean i always feel like i'm justifying
now it's funny just looking at that like i'm
obviously you know worried about it i have to
explain what it is but yeah you basically run
around with a stick and you get to hit other
people but yeah um but that being said so you
know i had team sports plural and then uh the
martial arts it's just you on the on the mat
and it's interesting kind of unpacking What each
of those two experiences did as far as, you know,
when you progress into the fire service. Oh,
yeah. So when you reflect, what did you pull
from each of those? So I wrestled as well. So
I definitely get that that kind of dedication
that it takes to have that individual accountability
as well. And quite frankly, all too often in
my life, I've felt. The big transformation that's
foreshadowing down the road is my own self -worth.
So the thing I've struggled through throughout
my life is feeling less than. I'm feeling that
imposter syndrome that so many of your guests
have talked about. So many of my high performing
like Delta and elite athlete guests. This is
as crazy as all of us. Yeah. So just, and that's
the thing, those individual sports highlight
that personal accountability to be able, and
I wasn't a good wrestler. I didn't enjoy it one
bit, but it's the hard things is where we learn
a lot about ourselves. Um, and, uh, And once
again, another great coach that he's still alive,
still around, Coach Wiley, saw in me what I couldn't
see in myself and just continued to push me.
And even though I wasn't your first one on the
mat, he pushed me through to my limits, to realize
that my own personal limits are my limits, that
there's a much bigger world out there. When you
reflect back now with this mature, very mature,
52 years old, bloody hell. I'm 51, so I'm shitting
you. But you reflect, though, and you unpack
your early life. What was it? What was that dynamic
that forged that low self -esteem, do you think?
I was kind of a shy kid. And we're going to get
deep in the mental health and in dark places
side of things. Things I remember the most, back
in the day, my... Second elementary school, because
we moved when I was in kindergarten, my first
year in the public education system. The school
was about a mile away. And it was in a time where
your kid could walk to school for a mile and
be safe. And I remember going by myself. And
back when I played soccer or football or whatever
term you want to use, I remember one day after
soccer practice, there were some big kids that
started bullying me. I remember being in the
gym and them taking one of those big gray trash
cans like the ones we usually keep in the bay
at the firehouse and putting that trash can over
me and saying, don't get out of here or we're
going to beat the tar out of you. Probably one
of the earliest traumatic experiences that I
can remember in my life. It's crazy to go there
in my head because I don't think about it often.
But to go back there, the things we are exposed
to as children very often guides us how we are
as adults. Very often when we're going through
our hard times as adults, we revert back to those
childish -like feelings when we're going through
those dark times. And that's one specific incident.
That I was able to address and overcome. And
I don't think I've ever shared that with even
my mom or anything else. Because you know how
mama bears get when that kind of stuff happens.
But it always feels like just I can't do anything
right. Anything I put my time and effort to,
it doesn't get recognized. And then two years
down the road, somebody else picks up the ball,
so to speak, and finishes the job. And they get
all the praises and accolades for it. I've never
been the guy in the spotlight. And I'm not comfortable
in the spotlight. Do you think some of that also
comes from being one of eight? One of ten. One
of ten. Yeah, because you're a sister as well.
Excuse me. Because when I think back to, I've
said this, my childhood, we were pretty much
feral. We ran around on the farm all day, every
day. We came back covered in mud and kicked by
a horse and whatever else happened. But when
I reflect back, For example, I love my dad, but
as far as being seen, there wasn't really that
element. I won national championships in martial
arts. He never watched me fight once, ever. If
you were interested in something he was interested
in, you stepped inside his circle, then yeah.
But if you weren't... And so again, when I look
back, it was the same thing. I was very meek
when I was young. I was small too. I didn't have
my growth spurt until I was 18. So I was still
skinny and tiny when everyone else had beards
and deep voices. I'm James Gearing. And even
now, it's not like I'm a monster by any means,
but I'll give you a perfect example. I was rolling
not too long ago in jujitsu and I was talking
to this guy and he probably was like 150. pounds
you know 145 maybe and I was telling him yeah
us small guys and I remember him looking at me
like what are you talking about because I'm 180
now and six foot but in my mind I'm still little
James you know and so it's it's funny how we
just cling on to that so hard and everything
in front of you you look at your resume of what
you've done right you're like oh yeah but it's
always oh yeah but that's not yeah but look at
this person they were in 9 -11 or they were you
know they won the UFC heavyweight champion You
know, you only just won this tippy -tappy taekwondo.
Whatever it is, it's always kind of downplay
in it. And recognizing it is good because you
can kind of push away from that. But like you
said, here we are sitting across from each other
50 years later. These childhood things are still
there. They still are ingrained in your mind.
It's kind of like cracks in the foundation. Absolutely.
So you've got that element. So anyway, I think
there was a question at the very beginning. Did
you feel like you were able to get enough attention
being one of 10 in the family dynamic? I did.
I mean, our house was always kind of like the
landing place. We had probably more stray people
in our house than we had stray pets. Very diverse.
My parents growing up in the 60s and 70s and
everything else. Yes, love was a huge part of
our house and our culture. And with my recent...
Love is the answer. As hippie as it sounds. 100%.
I mean, isn't that what all the holy books talk
about? Right. Love is the answer. Yeah. Actually,
it's interesting. I shared, and you wouldn't
have seen this because you're not on social media,
but I shared a video and it was a bunch of Vietnam
veterans at a bar talking about... And one of
them had been hit by a mortar and it actually
had a General Matt Motors logo on it. And he's
saying, like, I thought they were supposed to
make cars and I got blown up by one of their
weapons. But the way they're talking about the
industrial military complex and how they came
home and no one cares, you could literally have
put that in a bar in 2020 with a bunch of, you
know, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans having the
same exact conversation. And like you said, you
know. Here we are repeating the same mistakes
and allowing our boys and girls to be sent off
to wars that maybe we should never have been
in the first place. When really diplomacy, love,
community is the answer. And now, you know, what
we're seeing currently, I mean, just to be very
clear, I can't stand any of the people that we've
had in the helm of this country recently. So
this is apolitical. But here we are again, pushing
buttons and poking bears. And the people doing
that, they're not the ones that are going to
pay for it. It's our children, again, they're
going to come back in caskets draped in our flags.
Right. So to go back to your question, no, not
intentionally. I don't think that I felt like
I had to keep up with anybody in my own household.
Everybody was loved. Being from such a big family,
there's a top five, the five oldest have pretty
good relationships with each other. My baby sister
is 18 years difference than me. So the year I
graduated, she was born. So there's connections
and family friends that I have no clue who they
are because I had already left the nest and continued
on my journey while that stuff was still kind
of happening. What were you dreaming of becoming
when you were in the school age? I don't know
that I had any dreams. I wasn't that guy that
always, that kid that wanted to see a firefighter.
I wasn't enamored by fire trucks. I was an inquisitive
kid. I like to take things apart, not necessarily
put them back together, but I like to take things
apart and see how they work. Fast forward in
a little bit, I went and did some missionary
work in South America. And while I was doing
that, I came back. I was like, what do I want
to do when I get back? And I took an EMT class.
And that's kind of what started my journey into
the fire career. But I remember taking anatomy
and physiology. And gross anatomy was probably
one of my favorite classes, as morbid as it sounds.
But to pop the hood on the human body and to
see the actual physical organs and how they work
and where they're at and that kind of stuff was
very intriguing to me. So as far as wanting to
be something, I don't think I had that much of
a vision or forethought to say, this is what
I want to be when I grow up. When you reflect
on your time in South America, because I love
this. I think there's a, I think it's Mark Twain
quote, and I'm paraphrasing, but basically the
enemy of prejudice is travel. And it's so true.
You think about, you know, what we talk about
other countries because they didn't join us in
a war or, you know, whatever it is. And then
people go there and they're like, oh, oh, they're
actually quite nice. So when you reflect back,
what were the things that really were endearing
about that experience? And then maybe what were
some of the things that weren't so good that
you witnessed? So once again, I was born and
raised in Kalamazoo. So my first trip on an airplane
was to fly out to Utah to go to the training
center before I flew to Chile to go do my missionary
work for two years. And it's something that was
through my church at the time. That's just something
you did when you became that age, an earmark.
And it's really one of those things that solidified
my service aspect of my life, but also gave me
all the tools and everything that I need to be
a successful human being, to be able to connect
with people without the distractions of the news
or this or that. While you're there, you're essentially
selling your earthly possessions and going to
be fishers of men. with Jesus. And faith is a
huge part of who I am. I understand there's people
that struggle with faith. I'm a very spiritual
person and connected person. And it provided
me that opportunity to do that without any distractions.
I recently started reading the book, The Gulag
Archipelago. And I'm going to share a quote since
you... Open the quote door. Let's do it. It says
the intellectual is not defined by professional
pursuit and type of occupation, nor are good
upbringing and a good family enough in themselves
to produce an intellectual. An intellectual is
a person whose interest and occupation with the
spiritual side of life are insistent and constant
and not forced by external circumstances, even
flying in the face of them. It's who we are as
human beings. It's not the things that we learn
and the certificates that we have. It's those
life experiences that make us who we are. And
to be able to meet people in their own homes,
much like we're doing here, to bring the gospel
of Jesus Christ to them in their own homes, to
bring it to them in their own language, which
is a powerful tool to me to have Spanish in my
toolbox, to be able to speak Spanish. We run
a lot of calls on that people. And it's amazing
to me to see that somebody in an emergency situation.
The minute I start speaking their language, even
though they're in a foreign land, the walls are
dropped immediately. And that connection is there.
And I've often been told that my Spanish sounds
like a native speaker. It doesn't sound like
a gringo speaking Spanish. And Chile, South America,
the way the people embraced me really showed
to me that it doesn't matter what kind of house
you're living in or where you're at. As long
as you're giving that love piece, that's all
that matters. You have everything that you need.
I had some phenomenal, absolute phenomenal experiences
in South America, but I've also had some traumatic
ones as well. I mean, yes, I was loved by the
people there, but there are people that saw me
as an American there. I mean, up until 1973.
Chile was a dictatorship. There's been all kinds
of Nazi connections and everything with the mountains
of Chile and everything else. So there was a
time of civil unrest in that country. So they
associated me with the American ideology, not
for who I was. And that's my biggest struggle
in life. I'm Mark, regardless of what religion
I am or that I wear the uniform of a firefighter
doesn't define who I am as a as a person. Yes,
it's a piece of me, but it doesn't define me.
And due to that, seeing us as Americans, there
was a time when we were having a meeting in one
of the churches and the doorbell rang because
in South America, there's fences around the churches
to kind of protect them. And some of the other
missionaries went to answer the gate and didn't
come back. Then all of a sudden, next thing I
know, there's a bunch of armed, like with automatic
weapons, guys coming in with their faces covered,
pointing weapons at us and threatening to kill
us. And just for who we were. And for some reason,
they fired a couple shots and everything didn't
kill anybody. But at some point, they made the
decision to release us. And as we're running
out on the tile floors, the terrazzo floors,
I remember the smell of gasoline slipping on
the slippery floor. They poured a bunch of gas
on it and they lit it on fire. So they were going
to leave us in there and light the place on fire
and kill us. But for some reason, last minute
decision, we were able to get out. That's crazy.
And again, you know, there you are in a place
that's supposed to be about kindness, compassion,
community. And then you have that, like we said,
that tyranny, that nasty side that's allowed
to rise up. And this is what's so maddening is,
and I say this all the time, do you think that
most Russians were like, yeah, you know what
I want to do today is go into another country
and bomb men, women, and children? Of course
not. Do most Chileans feel that way about, you
know, no. Now, if they feel like, you know, maybe
they're being occupied or if a religion is being
forced on them or something, there might be more
pushback. But it doesn't matter where you are
on the planet. If you look at the holy books
that have really survived all this time at the
core, it's the kindness, compassion, love thing
that has survived. People kind of pick up minutiae
like, oh yeah, but not the gays, whatever their
kind of prejudice that they found between the
lines. But no, no, just take it down to just
the bare bones. What are these books telling
us? Don't kill each other. Don't carry that hate.
That's done nothing in the year 200, 400, 1100.
All we've seen is pain and misery and no one
ever wins except the person in the castle. And
that's what they're trying to tell us. And here
we are now in 2025. And, you know, I did a post
this morning because I truly believe this. I
think the evolution of man is kindness and compassion.
I think the holy books and the other, you know,
ancient wisdom that we've been able to carry
through, you know, writing especially, has allowed
us to kind of metamorph. metamorphosize would
that be right morph into more kind compassionate
human beings and you look at old testament versus
new testament you look at the dark ages and medieval
torture and the witch trials versus to you know
how we are today and there's so many lessons
in that but if we refuse to learn the lessons,
history will repeat itself. Syria, Gaza, wherever
it is, Northern Ireland, if hate is allowed to
be perpetrated, and don't get me wrong, there
are origin stories of all those things. I totally
understand that. But until the generation says,
I'm tired of these dominoes falling, I don't
want my kids to be brought up to hate someone
because they're from this country or this religion
or whatever, until we rise up as a species, as
humanity. It's going to keep happening again.
And it's, you know, the guys under the mask under
different times, you probably would have had
a blast over a beer or a coffee. And instead,
there you are in that situation where they're
about to shoot you and burn you. 100%. And to
figure out where we're going, we have to know
where we came from. And that's really what it
boils down to is that power of connectivity.
That's the authenticity and connectivity. That's
where it's at. Absolutely. Well, we're kind of
jumping ahead, but while we're on the faith subject,
we were talking before we hit record. Talk to
me about the kind of evolution of your journey,
faith versus rigid religion. Oh, wow. I don't
think there's enough time in the podcast. This
could be a docu -series. Once again, I grew up,
so the same religion my whole life. instilled
in me all those very positive values and great
things that help make me who I am. And I mentioned
it earlier, it doesn't define who I am, but it's
a huge piece of who I am and has provided me
with a lot of situations with it. So there came
a point, and it's hard to put a date or a time
on it. It's just, I'm very connected. I love
nature, as I'm sure you do as well. I love hiking.
I love kayaking. I love just being out. Nature
is my church. That's where I feel God the most,
is feel small just to see a butterfly fluttering
around and understand where it came from or whatever
birds. I know there's been plenty of shifts where
I've got to work early and I've sat on the front
pad of the firehouse and listened to the birds
in the morning. In my rocking chair, people give
me a hard time about my rocking chair. I guess
it's the 52 years old, I guess. But connection
with nature and music, and there's so many powerful
things that impact my soul that I came to a point
where I was, I don't want to be confined by the
walls of a church or the SOPs or SOGs or articles
or whatever guidelines for the way I'm supposed
to worship that are created by man. And I know
there's... Prophets out there and people that
have those connections that are the mouthpiece
of God on this earth. I understand that. But
there's the infallibility of human beings as
well. That at some point when you're in charge
of something, you get that bravado, that authoritative
type aspect that isn't necessarily God's will
all the time. So I kind of took a step away from
the physical side of church to work on my own
personal relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ,
without borders. There's a saying out there,
there's no atheist in foxholes. I've got a picture
my wife gifted me, a painting of Christ reaching
down deep into the water to pull the drowning
person out. So you see Christ kind of blurry
with his hand going down into the water. to pull
those people out of the depths. And I felt like
Peter so many times where I've had the faith
to step out of the boat and walk towards God
and walk on water. But even though he's standing
there right in front of me, that doubt starts
sinking in. Even though the vision's clear, I've
got it inked on my skin. Sometimes I feel like
the hand that's under the water drowning. Sometimes
I feel like the hand that's helping pull people
out. And there's a lot of empathy that comes
with that and understanding that. Christ, just
like us, and we talked about us as children,
was meek and mild and walked around. The meek
shall inherit the earth. It doesn't mean that
he was timid, that he let people beat him down.
I mean, there's plenty of instances of when he
threw the money changers out of the temple because
they weren't doing what was right. And again,
the temple. You know, this kind of worshipping
and financially benefiting from religion versus
being out there. And I just started to interrupt.
No, not at all. One thing that always irks me
is you see these people that we know, you know,
it's a very Christian country. I mean, there
are diverse religions, but we have a lot of Christians
here. But then you see how people treat each
other. You see how people are on the roads. And
it's like, well, you know, you see people say,
well, Narcan's a waste of money on addicts or
we need to shoo these homeless to a different
town. So what would Jesus do? What would Buddha
do? What would Krishna do? What would all these,
you know, prophets, all these visions of goodness
actually do if they were out there? Right. You
know, would they roll their eyes because you
got a back to back to bed call? Or would they
go, OK, great. It's an opportunity to do some
good in the world. You're not going to be on
the front of Firehouse magazine on this one,
but you're doing something good. And that's where
I have a problem. And again, I've got no skin
in the game. You do you. But for me personally,
like you, where I see nature, I see goodness.
I think really what Jesus and all these other
ones represent is the collective goodness in
humanity. And this is a beacon. This is an example
of a really good person. And obviously you can
go deeper and they were sent here for a reason
and all that kind of thing. But ultimately...
to me, they represent whether it's, you know,
Gandhi or, you know, whoever the other people
that we've kind of seen, you know, these real
beacons of kindness and compassion. It's a reminder,
like, that's who you're supposed to be. You know,
I really believe that people are inherently good.
You go to a preschool, how many like fistfights
and gangs do you see in a kindergarten? You see
a bunch of kids of all colors and creeds laughing
and chasing a ball around. That's who we're supposed
to be, in my opinion. So sorry, I didn't mean
to jump in. No, not at all. And that's, it's
not about, In the fire service, it's not about
the calls. Yes, we have those sentinel calls
that we're going to carry with us. And Dina Ali
talks about it all the time. It's not the calls
that do it. I truly think that it's that moral
injury piece. Yes. That really affects us that
we carry with us. Because we can attribute it,
a call we ran or something with that call we
ran. to our personal life or things that are
going on in our personal life or our department.
We're blessed. We we've got great top of the
line equipment, top of the time line apparatus.
And we're very progressive when it comes to the
medical side of things. But say for example,
we ran a pediatric arrest and the ambulance carries
different size eye gels than what we carry. And
the other paramedic on my truck asked for their
smallest eye gel. Well, it wasn't a pediatric
one. And on that call, we used that one. I mean,
it was all good in the end. It's not like it
hampered the care of the patient, but just those
little kind of things like, oh, that one little
thing didn't go right. Even though all these
other things went right, we focus on that negative
side of things. And I think as first responders
and firefighters, we carry that with us because
all of these SOPs and SOGs and hundreds and hundreds
of pages of things that we're supposed to follow
and have memorized in our head, and then we mess
up once. We're held accountable for it. And you're
sleep deprived too, which doesn't set you up
for remembering in the first place. Yeah. So,
and that ties back into the spiritual side of
things because we can't separate our mind and
our body and our soul. We're a holistic human
being. So unless we're focusing on all of those
things, the spiritual side of us isn't in harmony,
is not in coherence. Absolutely. I think that
when someone said this to me recently, and I,
I, realize this is what i do anyway but they
were like who says that you have to do everything
the way that one religion says why can't you
take well i like this from buddhism and i like
this from you know islam or whatever the things
are like we are a complete unique you know um
smorgasbord of every event that's happened to
us and our dna and you know our environment all
these other things and it's the same even with
healing you know with mental health You know
that you're talking to the wrong person when
they tell you that their therapy works for everyone.
Bullshit. Nothing works for everyone. No nutrition
plan works for everyone. No strength and conditioning
plan works for everyone. 100%. Everyone has their
own individual toolbox. We're a science experiment.
Yeah. So why is it any different with faith?
You know, you've had a certain upbringing. I
grew up in the, you know, not in, being exposed
to the Church of England. Right. You know, there
were parts of it, like I said, you know, the
kindness, compassion community that I saw, the
kindness, compassion community that I saw in
England. As a young boy that was infused in our
television programs, beautiful. But then, you
know, as I got older and they're like, you know,
oh, God loves everyone except these people. And
these people aren't going to heaven because they
don't believe what we believe. That's what I'm
like, I'm going to discard that, as Bruce Lee
said, absorb what is useful. I'm going to keep
all the cool, you know, the kindness stuff, definitely.
And love thy neighbor and all that. And, you
know, thou shalt not kill. But where you're telling
me that this is a sin. from the very children
that in my opinion god made yeah it doesn't align
with me sorry so that what is wrong with that
what is like saying just carving off you know
it's like a sculpture you know by the time you're
done this is my faith this is james gearing's
unique unique faith because it doesn't affect
anyone else because it's me and god we're having
a one -on -one conversation so your opinion of
my faith shouldn't matter especially you know
as long as it's not out there hurting people
it's the opposite you're getting rid of all the
hurt and keeping all the love kindness and compassion
right you know that's that's why if you don't
feel a hundred percent comfortable with wherever
you've chosen to to pray right what's stopping
you from changing it what's stopping you from
curating it to fix you know what you think is
the truly right path right as far as kindness
and compassion not right escaping a lake of fire
and a little dude with a pitchfork or whatever
you you know might think but actually while you're
living this now which one is aligning most clearly
with the very things that all these prophets
seem to be talking about kindness compassion
community by their fruits you shall know them
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's get to your journey
into the fire service then. So you weren't dreaming
of it when you were younger? I was not, no. How
did you, you said about the EMT class. So kind
of walk me through the front door and then let's
also talk about like fitness standards, mental
health conversations at the beginning of your
career. Okay. So yeah, I came back from Chile,
South America, two years on a mission, looked
for something to do. Sign up for an EMT class.
So I went to, at the time was Rick's College.
It's BYU -Idaho now. So it's actually a private
school that's associated with the religion I
grew up in, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
-day Saints. And that was the absolute last thing
that I wanted to do because you want to talk
about laws and standards. Your hair has to be
cut a certain way. You couldn't have facial hair.
You couldn't do all this other kind of stuff,
which I'd just done for two years as a missionary
where I had to abide to all these standards.
I'm 21 years old now. I want to let my hair down.
I want to be free. I want to go appreciate things.
But I made the decision to go out there and it
really shaped my life because that's where I
ended up ultimately meeting my wife and creating
a family and everything else. But I signed up
for this EMT class because I was like, that looks
like something I could do. I don't want to sit
behind a desk. I don't want to be in an office.
And the paramedic program at the time was actually.
Kind of on my radar when I was in EMT school
because the way they formatted the program, if
there was people in the paramedic side of things,
they would be the lab proctors for the class
the year or two behind them. So they would be
doing the checkoff sheets, which was a great
model because it set them up for success when
it came time to take your national registry and
that kind of stuff. Because you were used to
the checkoff sheets and knew all the steps because
you were checking off everybody else. So I went
to EMT school, came home. After that semester,
after I got my EMT, wasn't really working as
an EMT, needed to get some money. So I worked
for a private ambulance service. And at the time,
because I didn't have my certifications, they
put me on a convalescent wheelchair van. Unfortunately,
that service also did body recoveries for the
local agency. So here I am. Newly EMT, driving
a wheelchair, banded by myself, waiting on my
next take somebody to the doctor's office call.
And they're like, hey, we don't have anybody
available and we need you to swing by headquarters
and pick up a body bag and go out to the lake.
There's a body out there that needs to be picked
up. So in Michigan on a hot summer day, my first
exposure to a dead body. Somebody that had taken
a rifle and taken their own life. Something I
wasn't prepared for. I remember everything about
that call, the smells, the feels, the picking
up the eyeballs and the brains, making sure I
didn't miss a body part on the beach. Everything
made it back in the bag and then took it to the
ME. Hour later, taking somebody to their doctor's
appointment. And that was it. Nothing else thought
about. did not deter me or defray me. I don't
even think I knew how to process it at that point.
It was just something that I had to do for work.
That's my earliest exposure into the EMT world.
And after that, I came back, decided to enroll
in the paramedic program. And it was a pretty
progressive program. It was out in Idaho, so
it had all those nature parts to it as well.
So we actually did, part of the program was winter
camping or high angle rescues. We did a lot of
search and rescue and water work. And for a paramedic
program, every Thursday was lab days. So they
actually had, they supplemented the local ambulance
company and helped out. kind of volunteered to
run on calls. So you'd be in the middle of the
college class and your radio would go off and
you'd get up and go respond to calls as part
of the program. But it was one of those kind
of isolated little groups, kind of like when
you're in a team, you're focused on that team.
So my college experience was in a little room,
paramedic room above the gym at the Health and
Sciences Center. So I didn't get to experience
all that because there was so much time and energy
into doing the clinical side of things and everything
else. So my college exposure was to a very small
group of people that were in the same paramedic
program as me. And once again, I'm not a, I'm
not an intellectual, real smart guy. Things don't
come easy. Education type stuff is I didn't get
good learning habits in high school and I was
still an AB student just because I didn't need
to study the stuff. If there was a term paper,
I'd be doing it the night before having mom type
it up on the typewriter. for me so I could turn
it in the next day. And I couldn't get away with
that as much in paramedic school. So in true
firefighter, first responder form, the hands
-on stuff, as long as I was learning it hands
-on, I was great with it. But if it was reading
it out of book, when it came time to take a test,
I was not the best at it. I mean, looking at,
I remember my first EKG cardiac class, looking
at the strip and it was a bunch of squiggly lines
till one day it just finally clicked. And that's
kind of where paramedic school went and came
home. And my wife that I met out at college was
from the Atlanta area. My paramedic program did
two internships to become a paramedic. You had
to do. Your first ride -along internship was
300 hours of ride -along. So my first exposure
to riding along on an ambulance was downtown
Atlanta on Grady Ambulance and everything that
comes along with that. And that's where I really
started focusing on that connecting. I mean,
being the only white guy down in the hood in
the middle of nowhere, walking into a crack house
and stepping over bodies to get to the patient.
And to watch the experienced EMTs and paramedics
that were probably burned out at the time anyways,
but there were precept and some spud from Idaho
on a ride -along internship, let me handle the
patient. And I was able to connect, even though
it was a tooth pain on somebody that was cracked
out of their mind, to be able to connect because
he wouldn't connect to the people that were already
burned out, but because I was showing that unjaded
human side of things that I hadn't been. experienced
the burnout yet. I was able to connect and get
that patient to where they needed to go. And
that's where I really started learning. And then,
um, finished up the rest of my class on my final
internship was 480 hours with DeKalb EMS, who
at the time was kind of one of the premier services
in it. And so I was working part -time in the
ambulance as an EMT while I was doing my ride
-alongs as a paramedic, how all too often it
happens. So turning the The hours and hours away
from home, I had a new baby at home and I was
spending part time on doing my clinicals full
time on an ambulance where the preceptor on the
ambulance that I was doing interning at. trusted
me more than her partner because her partner
was a new partner. So I was given directions
to the hospital or running codes and stuff. And
she wouldn't even let her partner do that just
due to the level of experience that I had as
a paramedic. So, and the same thing, even as
probably a statute of limitations has passed
at this point, but I was employed as an EMT on
the ambulance at the time, but my paramedic partners
would let me ride in the back with calls that
were ALS calls because I had the skillset. I
just didn't have the, and it was great experience.
to be trusted in those kinds of incidents. So,
and then, uh, the agency I was working, uh, the
area I was working, I learned very quickly that
private ambulances are not the most stable thing
for a family because they change a lot. The patches
and the trucks change, but, um, the people stay
the same. So I was like, there's something wrong
here and saw that the value in the brotherhood
of the fire service. And that's when I got hired
on in the agency that I've been employed at my
whole career. 25 and a half years I've been there.
I was a straight C student in school. And it's
funny because when I got to the fire academy,
it was pretty much straight A's and then the
same with the MT and ultimately paramedic school.
With you having that more didactic way of learning,
how did you do academically in the fire side?
I think I did pretty good. Once again, I'm a
hands -on learner, and the fire service is all
hands -on kind of stuff. So when it came to check
sheets and that kind of stuff, as long as you
memorized the check sheet, you could get through
it. And I put a lot of time, effort, and energy
into something that I really enjoyed doing it.
I'm a prankster, jokester. So as a young rookie
recruit, we had a lot of fun. back before HR
got to be what HR is nowadays. Yeah, there's
hazing and there's firehouse humor. Those are
two very different things. If it's coming from
a place of nastiness, it's hazing. Yes, yeah,
100%. If you're ending up covered in water and
then flour and then feathers. It was a slower
agency at times, so the sleep deprivation wasn't
necessarily from running calls. It was monk room
shenanigans probably. So when you reflect back
now, we'll get to kind of like the mental health
kind of roller coaster. But what was some of
the what we'd call career calls that you had
over those kind of couple of decades? That's
a lot of years to go back. Mental fog and sleep
deprivation. I remember one of the calls. So
a Sentinel call I've been on a couple of years
and there was a car wreck that involved. Two
cars that were traveling northbound on the highway
in a caravan, and then a drunk driver came southbound
in the northbound lanes, got on the exit. And
it was at the north end of our city, our territory,
and the car overturned. And there were a bunch
of kids that went bowling and were coming home,
and one of the cars overturned and had three
or four kids in it, and the car was on fire.
And at the time, I was riding battalion aid.
We don't have battalion aids now, but I was driving
the battalion. And everybody else was tending
to the fire with the kids in it, and two of them
ultimately perished. But it was up to me. While
everyone else was dealing with a scene, I was
a half mile down the road dealing with a wrong
-way driver. And she was in some pretty bad shape,
broken pelvis, some other stuff. And I remember
tending to her, even though she'd just caused
all this trauma. and bad things to this, these
unsuspecting kids. And I was able to render care
to her. Somehow, I don't know how I did it. I
was behind her holding C -spine with my elbows
and I was able to pull her arm up on the steering
wheel and start an IV from behind her and do
everything I needed to do. And she ended up getting
transported. I'm sure there was jail time and
all the other kinds of stuff after the fact,
but that's not really stuck with me. It stuck
with me. being called in the next day for a critical
incident stress debriefing. My first time experiencing
that. And I remember some seasoned chiefs. So
at the time we had, we're just transitioning
from a combination volunteer or volunteer part
-time, full -time department to full -time all
the way across the board. And a lot of our fire
marshals at the time were, they worked in another
agency. And they worked part -time in the fire
marshal's office. But one of the chiefs in there,
he was a paramedic as well, and he was on that
call with us. And I remember looking across the
table at him, and he was in absolute tears, like
sobbing. And I couldn't understand why. Turns
out he had kids that age of the kids that perished
in the car. Here I am, a young firefighter with
babies. I couldn't relate to anything. I was
like, is there something wrong with me? Because
this call isn't affecting me like it's affecting
him. And looking back on that, I understand it
now. Why the calls that we run affect us, because
they're directly related to what we have going
on in our personal lives. Yeah, the one, I wrote
about it in One More Light, and it kind of actually
refers to it even in Kinder, but the three -year
-old I had killed when my son was about two.
is the one, the only one I've really, I remember
it shaking me on scene again, not to the point
where it would affect our ability to do, but
it was a, you know, DOA. I mean, she was decapitated
basically. So, um, but it became a body recovery.
And I've said this a few times when we were supposed
to go back, this is real leadership. My captain
told me and my partner, I'm DFOing you to stay
in the station. He said, we're about to retire
him and the engineer were close to the end. You
do not need to add this to the, you know, encyclopedia
of things that you're going to see in your career.
This is a body recovery. You're not saving anyone.
And I remember then we were kind of almost like
butthurt, like, you know, they don't think that
we can handle it kind of thing. But then you
reflect back and like, what incredible leadership.
You know, if you don't need to witness something
horrific in the fire service, then you shouldn't.
Like your officers or the medic, lead medic,
whatever it is, I'll go. I'll go run a strip.
I'll go see whatever it is. Stay back. You don't
need this in your mind. But that one is the only
one I've ever had. It wasn't even a flashback
so much, but I was at Disney and this little
girl, the engine had covered her with a blanket.
And it was obviously a weird kind of silhouette
because the head was missing. But she had sneakers
on and long socks and all that stuff. And then
we were at Disney years later and it was a hot
day. So someone had... a blanket over the stroller
in this case to protect them for the sun but
it was the same kind of little legs and I just
had this adrenaline rush and I told Becky I'm
like I just need to sit down for a second yeah
and I was good after you know catching my breath
and everything but I was like fuck man if this
is what people experience all the time that are
really deep in this and get the flashbacks but
again that was because at that time my son was
the same age and I used to have the seat on the
side And after that day, I moved the seat to
the middle. Much harder to get your kid in and
out. I didn't care. It gives him, you know, maybe
a foot and a half more chance of recovering if
he gets hit on either side. But it does. I mean,
how can it not affect you? And even on the other
side, I've had people that had to work their
father, their grandfather, and then they go and
run, as you mentioned, the numerous elderly.
We forget about that too. It's not just the kids.
It's something that relates you back to your
own life that can be detrimental too. And it
changes from time to time. What's going to affect
you five years in is going to affect you different
25 years in. Absolutely. Well, going back to
having the compassion that you had in the crack
house with the, you know, the tooth pain reminds
me of one of the stories I wrote about in One
More Light where my very first apartment, it
was a man down. I'll never forget this. I was
brand new, you know, probie. And there was like
groans in the station. And I was like, that's
weird. Anyway, we get on the rig and we get there
and there's some, you know, cops already standing
around this guy who's lying on the sidewalk.
And we get out and they just kind of join the
circle. And this one female cop starts kicking,
probably has already, is kicking this guy. Hey,
buddy, hey, buddy, get up. And I'm looking at
them going, well, I'm going to do something.
So I just go to the guy and obviously check,
make sure he's breathing. And then, you know,
ultimately look through his pockets. And, you
know, he's intoxicated alcohol, but I find a
piece of paper and it's a drug test result. And
he's just found out he's HIV positive. And I'm
like, well, what would you do if you found that
out? There's probably a good chance that you
might open a bottle and drown your sorrows and
try and process this. And I remember just thinking,
how can we're supposed to be this kind, compassionate
servant, you know, service oriented profession.
How did these people get to this point? there's
another one i remember it was a stroke um an
elderly lady had a stroke and the medic is like
making fun of her chin hair while we're pushing
her you know to the to the ambulance and i'm
again like what the fuck is this right but then
i realized now obviously we know this is compassion
fatigue you seem to have such a you know a loving
heart though were you able to to retain that
compassion even when you started going through
your own stuff um I believe so because I could
pour my time and energy into those calls. So
at work, I believe so. I think the area I suffered
the most was actually at home where I didn't
have the compassion at home that I needed to
have because they, speaking of my family, didn't
understand what I'd just been through. And all
too often as we do as firefighters, we want to
protect them from the maladies that we see from
the abhorrent. Things that we see about society
and we don't want them to see and understand
that. So I remember a common phrase when I'd
get home and I'd be super tired is my wife would
say, are you doing okay? And my response was
always, I'm just tired. And it wasn't necessarily
physically tired. It was mentally, emotionally,
spiritually tired. I'm just tired of dealing
with this crap. And understandably so. I'd been
away from the house for 24 or 48 hours because
I was one of those firefighters that didn't work
one fire department. I always worked part -time
at another fire department. So there's 48 hours
that I'm at home that when I get home on my one
-off day, all she wants is a break from the kids
and dealing with all this other kind of stuff.
And I'm pissy because I'd just been up running
calls or I'd seen this or done that. And I'm
coming home to a dirty house where I like order,
where at the firehouse after dinner, everybody
gets off, cleans the table off, wipes everything
down, does the dishes. And at my house, when
I'm at home, we get up and there's dishes left
on the table, the sink's full, the trash isn't
taken out, all this other kind of stuff. And
all I want is some order. And I didn't have the
compassion and understanding for my family at
the time. So let's kind of walk through that.
You know, you said even the entry to this, you
know, with some of the horrific stuff as an EMT
and then a medic and then, you know, your early
years in the fire service. And now you've got
this compounding element, you know, that 48 is
another thing that we do, you know, whether it's
within the same agency and it's mandatory over
time, it's voluntary over time. When you kind
of look at the timeline, what was that kind of
downward spiral and then where was your lowest
place? I felt valued at work and not that I didn't
feel valued at home, but I was comfortable at
work. I was comfortable at work and I was good
at it. I mean, there was a time I was working
full time at one department, part time at another,
helping with all the training classes. And I
was a SWAT medic on the on the SWAT team. So
I was putting in a lot of hours and I have a
lot of value for that part time department that
I was at because. At the time, there was all
these Metro Atlanta firefighters working at this
part time department that were battalion chiefs
and captains and had all these the skill set
that they learned from their full time jobs that
I was literally learning on the job as an internship,
essentially getting paid for where I was riding
seat and they were sitting in the back because
they're retired from running all the calls at
their full time agencies. So career wise, it
was the best time in my career. Home wise. It
directly affected the relationship, especially
with my two youngest children. Just two days
ago, my daughter flew out to go out west to try
to find herself for the third time. And before
she left, she's like, do you want to hug dad?
I said, honey, that's up to you. These are the
decisions you're making. And that's up to you.
And she turned around and walked out. Because
we'd been the safe place, she can always come
back home. But there's a point where you want
to make your decisions and include your friends
and put everything on social media, but we're
not discussing it as a family. We're here to
help you. When you're ready, we're ready. And
I haven't talked to her since. It's affected
my relationship. Like I said, my son has autism.
There was many times when he was going through
his struggles where he was good at school the
whole time, kind of like you talked about with
Ty. He coped and coped and coped and was okay
until he finally said, I'm not okay. And he has
an outburst and look where it got him. Same thing
with my son. He'd be good at school, but when
he came home, that's when the bloody happened.
Pop -off valve was working great at school, but
when he got home, he was comfortable and things
could release. And he was having some depression,
anxiety, pulling his hair out. And I couldn't
talk to Caleb. I would have to say something
to my wife so that she could translate it. whatever
dad was trying to say to him because we did not
speak the same language. And I think that's directly
attributed to all the time I spent at work in
that time as they were adolescent dealing with
their own issues. What was that draw to stay?
You know, whether it was overtime in your department,
whether it was to work on the other one. I mean,
obviously finances are always going to be a thing.
But when we actually break it apart, I think
a lot of times, you know, there's all the equally
and opposite. There's ways of living more than
means that will offset that. What do you think
was that pull that kept you in uniform longer
than you needed to be? I think it boils down
to my childhood and growing up. My dad was a
teacher. He spent a lot of time at school, probably
a little bit extra after school to grade papers,
but he poured into the kids at school just as
much as well. I mean, that's why he got out of
being an educator, because it was the time of
the crack babies where it was always the teacher's
fault, not the parents' fault. So he likes order.
So mom stayed at home and raised us. Family of
10. There's not enough daycare out there for
10 kids. Not enough money either for 10 kids.
So you have built in babysitters with the older
kids and everything else, which it was fine.
But mom was always in the home. So I looked at
it that way as well. If I can be out being the
breadwinner, at least my wife is at home and
she's raising them with our values and everything
that we believe in and not. sending them out
to daycares and all this other kind of stuff
to have somebody else raise our kids. So it was
those opportunities that were there that I was
able to capitalize on. I love that phrase, we
did the best of what we had. And I think that
kind of takes some of the blame off the way we
were raised and going further back. Because that's
true. The environment now, this conversation
that we're having, you and I wouldn't have even
had 15 years ago. We wouldn't be able to. But
now, I mean, it's something I've talked about
a lot with, again, the work week. You know, my
whole fire service career, every single union
negotiation has been about money. And usually
in a pretty small amount, like a 50 cent raise,
dollar raise, whatever it is. But what I'm realizing
now is the ultimate currency is time with our
family. If you could go back in time, not guilt,
regret, shame, because that was then and this
is now. What would you do differently? Probably
if I would have worked a second job, it wouldn't
have been in another fire department. Yeah, because
there's other ways of making money. And this
is what we forget. And I think this is the other
thing, even with the overtime, if it's an understaffed
department, just because it's not mandatory,
there's an underlying element of guilt that if
I don't take that, someone's going to get forced.
So a lot of the air quotes voluntary over time
is really mandatory, but we're just nice people
and we don't want, you know, the firefighter
that just had a kid to get hit and he's on the
bubble. So you take it for him. Yeah. We had
something happen at the firehouse just last shift.
I worked before I came down here. One of the
guys, we've got a newer, like a two year guy
that's been with us. He's been at my station
just a couple of weeks to work on some, some
task book type stuff. But, It was after dinnertime
and we were all kind of sitting there talking
and he was out in the bay FaceTiming with his
family. He came in with the biggest smile on
his face with his baby son on FaceTime. He said,
guys, my son just took his first steps. It jaded
me, slips out of my mouth. Welcome to the fire
service. Because you're witnessing your child
taking its first steps over FaceTime because
you're at a firehouse. Yeah. And that could also
happen because you're an accountant. Right. And
it happened at three in the afternoon. That's
right where my mind went, even though I've got
all the tools and everything that I've done.
I was like... But again, that's a very loud voice
because really the truth is you were away from
your family way more than you should have been.
So the chances of you seeing that firsthand in
person are greatly diminished when you work in
56 hours and now you've got mandatory or you've
got a... um you know a distorted belief that
you'll add value to your career by working in
a second department too you know but this is
the reality i tell people like how many first
steps have you missed how many donuts with dads
how many ballet recitals or high school award
ceremonies or whatever it is when they've looked
out in the audience and trust me i was the kid
looking out in the audience and my dad wasn't
there and we're not there and we're like oh but
we're on a mission to save the world and it's
important it's like yeah but Those are the people
that it's most important to. Because we all know
that if Mark or James aren't in the station that
day, another body's going to fill the seat. You're
not that important. But to your children, you're
everything. The world won't stop spinning. So
on that journey then, obviously there seems to
be a lot of guilt and shame about the home side.
Where was that lowest point? If, if any, like,
you know, pivotal point and let's talk about,
you know, what you started trying to do to, to
address that. I think biggest thing overall,
there's no, I don't think there's one specific
incident I could put my fingers on. I think just
the tiredness and in there came a point where
I felt like I would be more worth to my family.
if I were to die at work or on my way home or
anything like that, because of the financial
and all the insurance and everything else, that
I'd be more of value to my family than what I'm
giving them right now. Did you feel like a burden
at that point? Did you feel in any way, shape
or form that you were? the reason for some of
the suffering? The reason I ask that is I hear
that from so many people that have been at that
point, that little voices whispering in their
ear. I did. I think it got to the point where
these, my kids are behaving this way or going
through these things because I'm not present.
I'm not there. My relationship with my wife wasn't
the best at the time. I mean, this year we'll
hit 30 years of marriage, which is a total anomaly
in the fire service. I'm not saying it's been
all butterflies and rainbows and unicorns and
everything else. But she was going through her
stressors at the time. I was going through my
stressors. I'm like, I'm probably worth more
to her as a bank account than I am emotionally
and spiritually at this point. I'm not there
to support her and all this other kind of stuff.
And I'm not the man she married 30 years ago.
To say that this job doesn't affect us is like
saying you can walk through a shower and not
get wet. And it's not that it affects us in a
bad way. So it changes who we are. And unless
we continue to change our viewpoints and our
perspectives, it's working out, for example.
Just because I used to find a lot of solace in
going to the gym. I coach CrossFit. So I'd be
at the gym once again. Working 48 hours, I'd
get off shift. My one day off, I'd wake up, be
at the gym at 5 o 'clock in the morning, teach
the 5 a .m., 6 a .m. class, work out between
7 and 9 .30 when the 9 .30 class started, work
out again between the 10 .30 and 12 o 'clock
when the 12 o 'clock. Because that's, I'd feel
like I need to punish myself to beat myself into
a puddle of goo in the corner, sweat, crying,
everything that a CrossFit workout does. Get
it all out. Get it all out. I thought I was decompressing
and it was doing total opposite. It was throwing
my cortisol levels off. It was throwing everything
off where when it came time to perform on the
job, on trainings, or I didn't have the energy
or the capability to perform to do my job, which
I thought I was preparing by working out when
I was emptying my tank is what I was doing, quite
literally. I had Jeff Nichols on, just had him
on again with Catherine, his wife recently. I
haven't put it out yet, but I'll never forget
in the interview, he was saying, basically kind
of alluding to that. You got these people that
go and kill themselves in the gym, you know,
after you think he was talking about us. You've
just done a 24 hour shift. And it hit me. I'm
like, that's me. He goes, think about it. You
come off. your stress levels are through the
roof, and you're like, well, how am I going to
deregulate my nervous system? Let me go do MRF.
That'll do it. Stress plus stress does not equal
less stress. Now, yes, a deload, kind of a slow
row or a swim or a walk or something, absolutely.
And I'll never forget. There was a workout. It
wasn't that long after this. I think it was with
that whole thing with Ty. So I was like borderline
fucking homicidal by that point. Not actually,
but you know. Yeah, no, definitely. Fucking hair
trigger. And it was some sort of CrossFit workout
where it was snatches and I just couldn't get
the bar over my head. And I dropped the weights,
walked out the gym and just went for a mile run.
slow mile run by the time i got back i felt better
but the complexity of an olympic lift couldn't
have been further from what i actually needed
it just added frustration right so when i took
it realized like oh yeah you know sweating it
out isn't really a thing like if you've come
home and you're exhausted you know what is a
low intensity thing you can do and how can you
down regulate and do a new calm session or a
headspace meditation and get to bed early That
is so much more important than I'm just going
to do Fran and then throw up in the toilet because
it doesn't make any sense. Exactly. That's pretty,
pretty powerful. So that was my initial way to
try to cope with things. When I found that didn't
work, I kind of connected with that's about the
time I connected with Rick George and everything
that Rick does with his. embracing the island
of the misfit toys. Rick's superpower is his
own personal journey. And I know he shared it
in the past, but he's used that for the greater
good of the power when it comes to vulnerability
and authenticity, to share your own journey and
not for the sake of comparing trauma trophies,
but of, hey, this is what I've been through.
And I've come out on the other side and it's
not always ideal. Even though I've got all these
tools in my toolbox now, it doesn't mean they
work every time I need them. I may have to seek
out something else. So I'd been helping one of
our friends that he was an officer in our department,
ended up going to Shatterproof because of some
of his own personal struggles. He'd connected
with Rick through that. And Rick was teaching
a class up at MAFSE, Metro Atlanta Firefighter
Conference in Atlanta that's up there. And this
guy was going to help Rick out. I said, hey,
I wouldn't mind coming down to help with the
class. Well, as usually happens with those people
that have substance use issues or deal with their
own demons, they're not the most reliable when
it comes to those situations. That guy wasn't
able to make it, but I still went down there.
And that's when I got into some pretty cool relationships
with the tactical resiliency training and the
team and was able to connect with a bunch of,
I'm not even going to say broken individuals
anymore. I heard a quote the other day and I
don't remember who said it. I'm not trying to
plagiarize anything. I listen to a lot of podcasts
and read a lot of books, but he said, buried,
not broken. I know you've talked about the legend
of the seed. They planted us in a dark place
and thought. Yeah, they tried to bury us. They
didn't know we were seeds. Exactly. And that
buried really hit home for me to see other people
that have been through their own personal struggles
and are the outcast of their departments or been
through things and are no longer working for
those departments to be able to give tools of
resiliency to people. that are pre -planned,
are pre -incident, not post -incident, to teach
the breathing techniques, the yoga, the mindfulness,
the things that we can use when the wheels start
coming off, when we're alone in that dark building
with all that smoke and our own thoughts, listening
to our own breathing, when the walls start closing
in. I had some of my own personal mass confidence
issues just because of everything that I was
going through. And it took a lot of time on a
treadmill with a face piece and a blast mask
to get over those. And it's still not ideal.
There are still times where I go there, but luckily
I have the tools in my toolbox now to overcome
those things. And that's where I got introduced
into yoga for first responders. And Eric and
Olivia are some of the most powerful, genuine
people that are out there that do things for
the right reasons. Another group of people that
saw value in me when I didn't see it in myself.
Eric, they teach instructor schools. Eric wasn't
able to be there because of his full -time job.
And he said, dude, you're pretty comfortable
in front of a classroom. We do a cultural competency
side because we have yoga instructors in this
class that don't know anything about the fire
service. He said, do you mind come teaching the
cultural competent part for this class? You can
take the instructor school while you're there.
They'll just teach this one hour of the class.
And I was hooked immediately. The only yoga I'd
done before then is the hour and a half tape
of Taibo yoga or whatever it was. Billy Banks.
Billy Banks or whatever it was. I don't even
remember, but I know I'd never finished the DVD
because it was so long. And that took me to some
pretty dark places. The issues are in the tissues.
And I remember holding a low squat horse position
is what they call it. And having such an emotional
release from all the tension and everything that
I was holding in my connective tissues and my
hips. And the power that was in that, being mindful,
being on the mat, being able to work through
those things and realizing that was part of the
process. It's not stretching. It's processing
stress. It's building resilience. It's enhancing
performance. And the power that comes through
the breath work of breathing into those areas
was a huge game changer for me. And I still continue
to be able to share that mission with a lot of
people with Eric and Olivia with Yoga for First
Responders. Yeah, they're amazing. Actually,
I just flashed back then. Olivia and I did a...
Facebook live. I did one with Eric Goodman and
we did a foundation. This is during COVID. So
everyone's in their house. So we did a full foundation
training kind of workout, Facebook live for everyone
to join along. And then Olivia did a yoga one,
one time as well. But I mean, it just makes so
much sense. And it's funny with the whole, you
know, the body keeps the score and, you know,
what they're doing with that. I had Rob Cifoli
on who's FDNY fitness trainer, but they've got
a thing that he was exposed to called TRE, trauma
release exercises. And it's the same kind of
thing. You do these kind of pulsing movements
and then you get these tremors that you can't
stop. And again, it's a huge release. It's all
physiological. That's what happens. Nature is
savage. And that's what happens after the gazelle
is chased by the lion. They go into that. That
shiver. That shiver. Yeah, 100%. And this is
what's so, I talk about this all the time now.
This is what's so fucking exciting is, and frustrating
at the same time, is now, like again, you and
I sit across, like we're going through this and
this. We'd be like, well, I don't know. I don't
know. How do you fix that? You know, what is
mental health? Now we're sitting here and I've
got over a thousand people on the show, almost
1100 now. Each one of those has a solution for
something, whether it's their own personal story
people connect with, whether it's the things
that they've created that are helping. But there
are so many tools in the toolbox now. And we'll
get to some of the other ones that you use in
your mental health journey in a minute. But it's
so much more vast than people realize. And understanding
as well that if you're just talking about the
mind and you go into counseling and you're doing
nothing physically. Well, there's a disconnection
there too. Healthy body, healthy mind, and vice
versa. So if what you're doing doesn't include
some sort of movement practice and working on
your breath, you're missing pieces of these jigsaw
puzzles that's going to give you that overall
holistic kind of healing journey that you need.
Yeah, definitely. And that's the thing. There's
no one magic pill. And I know we've talked about
that. Just because I've got all these tools,
you know what? I might not be in the right headspace
to try to be mindful at this point. I may need
to go exercise or do something like that. Or,
you know what? Yoga is not doing poses on a mat.
Yoga is all about the breath work is what it
boils down to. So as long as you're focusing
on that breath work, you can do yoga sitting
in a chair. You can be mindful. You can take
30 seconds to do some breath work before you
go on inside. You're doing yoga. Yeah. That's
how I see walking my dog. I leave my phone at
home. My mind was busy, but I'll try and focus
on her, my breath. You know, again, tapping into
nature is a big thing with me and hawks. I don't
know what it is, but I loved them when I was
young, kestrels. But we didn't really have any
around us. It was a TV film. But I've always
had this thing about hawks. And where I live
now, there's one I call Steve, Stephen Hawking.
Um, there's lots of them, of course, but you
know, Steve will show up when I'm thinking about
things that, and then blimmin number three, four,
three all the time everywhere. But, um, yeah,
but just back to the point, you can have what
they call moving meditation, whether you're just
hiking through a forest, whether you're walking
your dog, you know, you can sit in traffic and
do breath work and straighten your spine, you
know? So there's so many opportunities to just
take those little micro moments to, to tap back
into being present. Yeah, and as part of that
yoga for first responders instructor school,
you've got to come back before you get your certification.
It's probably one of the most intense courses
I've taken in my fire service career, the in
-person and the online side of things. It was
a five or six days of 12 to 14 hours every day
doing yoga and learning the science behind it
and everything else. It was super intense. But
as part of the certification process, you've
got to come back and teach some classes. So,
of course, me being a station captain, I was
like, Guys, guess what? I got to do this. You're
my guinea pigs. And the first day we did it,
they were all in. Afterwards, they're both falling
asleep on the yoga mat and everything because
they're so relaxed, recovered, whatever you want
to call it. And the next shift, they come up
to me and, you know, the first thing that always
comes up is, what's for dinner? One of them came
up to me and said, hey, Cap, can we do that yoga
stuff again today? It took one session for them
to realize the value of it, to understand it.
100%. Well, so that's, you know, you're accumulating
these tools now. When we sat down, I remember
even thinking, because we've talked before, you
know, you come to the house, you talk on the
phone. um that there seemed to be a maelstrom
in your mind at that point so when we talked
you said what you were doing and then and then
you'd been through some healing modalities and
well then now is the time to talk right but so
talk to me about prior to the siren project where
had you found yourself and and was there was
there a sense that that there was something else
that you were missing uh for sure i once again
i had all these tools and i was like all right
this one's not working this time this one's not
working this one's not working i guess it's Time
to make a trip to Harbor Freight and buy whatever's
next on the shelf. And like I said, I listened
to podcasts. So I heard you talking to Angela
on your podcast. And it's crazy. Right away,
I went into doing some research. And I'd listened
to a couple other podcasts of Special Operator,
Sean Ryan Show, some other things. And was intrigued
by, once again, the natural side of things. That
often are referred to as alternative medicines
when they're the original medicines. And I kind
of did some research and reached out and then
learned more about the program and was able to
make connections and contacts. And it's becoming
pretty popular. So a couple of months went by
and didn't hear anything back. And then heard
that they had some openings on one of their wellness
retreats. From day one, I was blown away by the
preparation side of things, that it's not just
showing up and doing the retreat, but it's also
what you do before to prepare yourself for your
vessel. Cut out caffeine, you cut out all the
inflammatory things that we put into our bodies
to prepare your vessel to be ready to receive
whatever healing it needs to receive. And then
you go on the retreat and there's... huge support
on the retreat. There's medical support, there's
drug screenings, there's all kinds of stuff.
Um, there is group counseling and therapy. There's
individual counseling and therapy. And there's,
there's other many things that happen on those
retreats. It's not just going to the jungle to
get healed. Um, and, uh, it was a very powerful
experience for me, but the thing that impressed
me as well is they also include the integration
side of things and the supporters of all that.
So the discussion I had with my wife is like,
hey, I'm going to go do this thing. And after
the fact, there is power in a pilgrimage to find
yourself. We talk about all the religions and
there's certain religions that say go to Mecca.
That's their one thing in their life is to make
it to Mecca and to do this worship and whatever
it takes to get there. And I think there's powerful
that pilgrimage. I had it when I did my missionary
work in Chile and South America that led me to
some healing and some tools in my toolbox. Um,
and I was able to go to with this iron project
to one of their retreats and that the healing
that happened there was, um, very, very impactful.
It gave me not what I wanted, but what I needed.
And to get there, the only way to is through.
It was not a pleasant experience. It took me
to some pretty dark, dark places. And at one
point in one of the sessions as I was struggling
in some of those dark places, Andrea Lucy, who
she would be phenomenal to get on the podcast.
When I was there, I asked her, I said, Andrea,
have you ever done podcasts? And she's like,
no, I'm not a fan of them because I don't see
myself as a subject matter expert when it comes
to this kind of stuff. And she pulled me out
of that point and she said, where's your hang
up? And I said, there's just so much darkness,
so much pain and darkness. I don't feel worthy
of the positive feelings. I just, I don't, I
haven't felt for so many years. I don't want
to feel again. Because I'm afraid it's going
to be overwhelming. That I won't know how to
respond to it. And I won't know how to handle
it. She told me, you're doing the right thing
then. You're doing what you have to. And I remember
Tim, after one of the other sessions, looked
at me. He said, dude, you're a fighter. And I
looked at him and gave him a hug. I said, yeah,
that's the problem. I don't know how to surrender.
And the things that we did on those retreats
opened the door and the windows to me to not
be super Zen and everything's hunky dory and
everything's beautiful. But it allowed me a lot
of self -awareness to know that this is happening
and I feel this way and this is why it's happening
that way. And it's all part of the process. And
I was able to connect a lot of people that were
on. at that retreat they were all firefighters
that were there at the time and some of them
some of your former guests and uh there's some
of uh some of your guests that you had on the
past that are getting ready to do their own journey
as well and uh it's been cool to kind of commiserate
with them because once again it was not a pleasant
experience for me but to have others there witness
the things that i go through and uh reassure
me that um i'm worth it And one of those people
that from my past, the call I ran in one of my
departments, her name was impressed upon my head.
And I try to be very mindful of if somebody's
name or presence is impressed upon my name or
my heart and make it a point to text them or
reach out to them. Hey, I'm thinking of you.
And that's all it takes is to reach out. And
so once again, I'd run calls on her husband.
He's since passed. I was there in kind of a moral
support afterwards and she owns her own business.
So I stopped by her business just out of whim,
got out of training early, went down, went in
and talked to her. And then we spend the next
two hours talking about struggles. She's having
struggles. Her daughter's having the retreat.
I went on and some of the healing factors that
went on in that just to be able to connect. I
said, you know what? Give your daughter my number.
She's struggling. Have her give me a call. I'm
training peer support stuff. I know she's not
a firefighter, but. I'm at a place and perspective
where I can share healing with other people at
this point. She said, you know what? When she
comes back to town, I want you to meet her because
you can't get the full mark experience just talking
on the phone. You have to be in present. And
that's the power of presence to me. That's not
that I'm perfect at it or I do everything good.
You know what? I'm still, I probably got more
of a hair trigger now since my retreat than I
did beforehand because I don't have time for
the BS anymore. Don't tell me the fluff. Tell
me what the problem is and how we're going to
fix it. And we'll get on to things. You know,
I can relate to that, right? Yeah. Don't tell
me the BS because you can't BS a BSer. And that's
in the fire service and public safety. All too
often, we see the curtains and the man behind
the curtain that administration tries to pull
in front of us. Don't treat us like we're stupid.
We know what's going on and we understand what's
going on. Just tell us what's going on. Yeah,
100%. I mean, this goes back to what we were
saying earlier. It's about caring. Don't say
that you care as you stand there at the lectern
at a funeral and no one's seen you in the station
for five years and then go back to doing everything
the same way. One thing that I've heard from
a lot of people that have had so much success
with the kind of holistic plant medicine journeys
is, like you said, there's no such thing. There
is no magic bullet, magic pill. from you know
other pharmaceutical routes so let's say mdma
ketamine where there's really success to take
mdma for example it's not something that people
give you and you go away and take it you sit
down with a therapist and you take mdma and it
you know allows you to kind of drop the guard
and access some of these boxes and obviously
ketamine is more of a kind of psychedelic element
as well and you're going to have even deeper
journeys right But I've had people on the show
and they said, well, I tried ketamine. What happened
is they were infused and then the person walked
away. So the proverbial closet door was open,
but no one was there to help them actually sort
through what they found. What is your perspective
with this unique route that you ended up taking
as far as what's next? It's truly about set and
setting. It's really not about the destination.
It's about the journey. because it's changed
my mindset. One of the things I brought back
from my retreat that we started doing at the
firehouse is a gratitude practice. So every meal
on the retreat, we would share three things that
we were grateful for. So I, of course, naturally,
I was like, this is kind of pretty cool and it
helps me. It's kind of hokey. It's kind of kumbaya,
hold our hands, stand in a circle type thing.
So I started doing it, instituting it. It's like
at the dinner table. You know what happens at
the firehouse dinner table? It's where we solve
the world's problems and where we bust each other's
chops. But I came back from this retreat. I was
like, hey, we did this on the retreat and I really
liked it. So I'd appreciate it if you guys would
do this with me. I'll start because even with
all the leadership classes that we take or the
focus on leadership, it's what you practice.
It's the walk that you walk that people are going
to. So unless you show your own vulnerability
and authenticity first. Others aren't going to
buy into it. So I shared my gratitude, three
things that I'm grateful for. And then we went
around the table and everybody did it. And of
course, at first it was the eye roll of whatever
cap we're going to do this. Okay, whatever. But
at that dinner table, I've got seasoned salty
guys that are getting ready to retire in 200
days. I got the guys that have been on the job
for two years a year. I've got a battalion chief
that's been there for 30 plus years. We're all
sharing what we're grateful and thankful for
from different perspectives. And by about the
third or fourth time doing this, one of my drivers
shared that I'm grateful for my wife and my marriage
and my relationship and where we are. A year
and a half ago, I wouldn't think I would still
be married, but I am. And it was powerful. To
share from that vulnerable place where even though
we're still going to bust each other's chops,
that there was still enough connection in that
group to be able to share what's actually going
on in your life. And not just the shit times,
but the good times as well. I was in a bad space.
I'm in a good space now. It's like the experience
from the 1950s with the rats on Hope. They put
these rats in a big thing of water to see how
long it would take him to drown. And after 10,
15 minutes, the rats started sinking and they
let them drown to a point where they pulled the
rats out, revived them, dried them off. They'd
been saved. They put the rats back in the water.
60 hours went by. The rat was still swimming
in the water because he had hope that somebody
was going to get him out of the shit. Because
it had happened before. They'd been to a dark
place. They started drowning. Somebody saved
them. So when we provide that hope, that care,
that understanding that I've been there and there's
light on the other side, one more light. There's
power in that. It reminds me of that other proverb
where the man stuck in the hole. And the doctor
walks by and they shout, doctor, doctor, can
you help me? And he writes a prescription and
throws it down the hole. And then I think a preacher
comes by and then they throw down a Bible or,
you know, a Quran or whatever, whatever book
would be. And then the third time someone comes
by and he's like, please, please, can you help
me? And the guy jumps in the hole and he goes,
what are you doing? So, you know, I forget exactly
what the preface is. And he goes. you know how
are you going to be able to help me he goes because
i've been here before i know how to get out and
that's just it you know and again that that hand
that's reaching down to the rat that's someone
who has become that beacon of light and this
post -traumatic growth the ability and you mentioned
it before we hit record when you've been through
some of these healing journeys and your men and
women know what you've been through And now they're
coming out of the woodwork saying, I'm hurting
too. And the crazy thing is if you look at, especially
let's say 10 years ago, we're sitting at a firehouse
table now. Everyone you look at is just fine
to you. And inside, you're feeling the way you're
feeling. But if you could climb inside the ear
holes of so many other ones around the table,
you realize that they were struggling too. And
going back to the compassion, all the things
we talked about earlier. What is lost on us,
what is lost on law enforcement, the military,
corrections, dispatchers even, is especially
us. We forget that it was kindness, compassion
and service that sent us into uniform. That is
a beautiful, loving, arguably feminine quality
that sent us in. And then we get in. And we think
that we're supposed to be this pseudo -stoic,
stone -faced responder that's never fazed by
anything, that can, you know, sleep when I'm
dead and all this bullshit. But that's what's
killing us. Negating the fact that it was actually
kindness and compassion that burns in our heart,
that put us into this uniform. What we do is
a physical action. You know, going into a second
-story building, you know, into a VES, a room.
Or, you know, going over the side of a bridge
to rescue someone who's dangling from a car.
Whatever it is, that's the physical action. And
we need to have that. You know, as I've always
said, we pull up on some bloody, bloody car scene.
You can't be queening out going, oh my God, there's
so much blood. You know, that's not going to
do well at that moment. So you go into game face
and it absolutely has a place. But then after,
it's okay to be vulnerable. And the biggest,
you know, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.
was thinking that vulnerability is weakness.
Vulnerability is the biggest fucking superpower,
the biggest act of courage you can have. And
I think that is one thing that we can use as
a tool for helping other people. You see someone's
not doing well, you know, you say, you know,
how are you doing? Oh, I'm fine. No, no, no.
How are you really doing? And then you start
with, well, let me tell you about how I was doing
recently. And then they're like, fuck, I had
no idea. Well, actually, I've been going through
some stuff with my wife, you know, whatever the
thing, I lost my dog and it broke my fucking
heart, whatever. And I think this, this is what
we've got to remember is that we are yin and
yang. But if we lose that, I always forget, I
think it's yin. If we lose that, that soft part,
you know, the beautiful, kind, compassionate
servant element, then you become a white circle.
You become Robocop. Right. You know, so. And
tapping back into the very thing that is the
nucleus of what it means to be a firefighter,
a paramedic, a police officer, that is how I
think we start clawing our way back and having
a table full of people that are courageously
vulnerable and truly saying, you know what, I'm
not doing well today. And everyone else understanding
and saying the right things of support, not pouring
on guilt and shame, some facade of, you know,
pseudo masculinity. That is, I think, how we're
really going to move the needle in this mental
health conversation. 100%. And that's what, at
this point, and I know we've been going for some
time now. At this point, that's what I've learned
the most in my journey is the power of being
human. Because all too often as first responders,
we become really good at compartmentalizing things
so that we can do our job. And I feel human again.
We ran a pediatric arrest the other day, probably
a SIDS death. It ended up transporting the child.
And I remember the chaos. We were on scene and
the family was of a different, we've talked about
religion and ethnicities. This one, the females
had the hijab on and everything else. And definitely
a different culture, different understanding.
But what I appreciate most about the other cultures
is they know how to grieve. And ultimately, we
transported the child. And I remember being in
there. And finally, we got some more information
that the child had been down longer than we thought.
So the doctor was going to make the decision
to call it. Well, in the time, mom and dad had
showed up and we're sitting in the hallway outside
the trauma room. And doctor's like, I'm going
to go tell mom and then let her come in and see
that we're doing everything for the child and
then terminate efforts. So I was standing in
the hallway and the doctor walked out and he
just as cold as cold can be, ma 'am, we've done
everything that we can medically. Your son's
dead. Compassion fatigue. And I stood there and
I watched it happen. And it was like someone
punched me in the chest. And then I watched the
mom and dad go in there and mom just break down.
My baby, you're my boy. You're my boy. You're
my baby. And at that point, I look over at the
respiratory therapist that's bagging the patient
and the tears automatically start welling up
in her eyes. So I walk over to the respiratory
therapist. I said, hey, can I take over for you?
And she said, yes, please. So, I mean, I'm a
paramedic. I'm not even a transport paramedic.
I'm a firefighter that rode in. But I was able
to sit there and take over the bagging of a code
that we're going to call anyways to allow a health
care provider that was. And viscerally affected
by seeing a mother grieve over her child to step
on the other side of the curtain and to be able
to grieve right away. And after it was called,
she came up to me. She said, thank you. And the
same thing, I remember mom and dad sitting in
that trauma room, grieving over the patient.
Everybody else had left. And there was one nurse
kind of standing at the door and parents were
standing there grieving. And I was like, I got
to go in there and talk to mom. And I walked
in and I said. I'm sorry for your loss, ma 'am.
We did everything that we could. I'll be praying
for you and your family. And not knowing the
rules of engagement for some customs who males
shouldn't touch females or whatever, she stood
up and she gave me a hug. And we just stood there
and embraced. And I was able to have a human
moment during a human spiritual time. when they
were grieving a loved one, to show the human
side of things. I already did the medical. It
didn't work. Anything we were going to do wasn't
going to work. And to share that special time
and that spiritual moment of that spirit leaving
the body, but to be able to support mom and dad
in that time is why we do the job. It's why we
got into it. To be the care, the compassion,
to be the light in the darkness when people are
having their hardest time. And after it was done,
as I walked out, the nurse mouthed to me. She
said, thank you again. To witness the human side
of people. And I think that's how we effectuate
change. That's how we get over all the BS and
the moral injury and everything else is. Yes,
there are times when it comes to work. But we
need to understand when it's time to return to
be human. I couldn't agree more. I think that's
the perfect place to wrap it up. I'm going to
throw some closing questions at you, but I'm
just writing that down because that's going to
be the video for this. I mean, just again, love,
compassion, kindness, and even going back without
taking a deep dive because it's the end of the
conversation, but when the work week, when we
break down our men and women physically, mentally,
and emotionally, we rob them of that ability
to feel, whether it's to be compassionate on
scene or whether it's to process it after. And
it's funny because when you were talking about
being out there when the death notification happened,
I remember a young guy that had a brain bleed,
just dropped in a kennel, dropping their dog
off before they were going to spend a magical
weekend in a theme park resort. And I was writing
my report and, you know, I'm here and the door
for the grieving room is where that plant is,
you know, 10 feet away. And the person walks
in to notify and then there's the wails and the
screams and the code had gone perfectly. technically
we did it could not have been a more perfect
code but on the technical side it didn't change
anything but like you said what needed to be
done now was the emotional side and you know
taking care of those people but also remembering
that those screams affect you talk about guilt
shame inability to save when you've done everything
right everything you were trained and yet they
still die you know so that human side from the
patient and from the responder. And then, I mean,
what a beautiful example, looking to your left
and realizing that, you know, that one member
of your crew, maybe they've got someone that
age, maybe they just had something happen and
you can see something's not quite right. And
you tell them, look, you know, I want you to
do me a favor, go, you know, go the engine and
go do X, Y, and Z, you know, whatever it is.
So it all comes back, whether it's what we were
talking about spirituality or whether it's, you
know, the parenting side or on call. The moment
we're disconnected from that humanity, that kindness
and compassion, that's where the problems start.
And I think the answer is beautiful. We just
got to tap back into it again and then create
an environment that allows us to nurture that
rather than break down our men, women, and even
children. 100%. All right. Well, then the first
of the closing questions. Is there a book? Or
are there books that you love to recommend? It
can be related to our conversation today or completely
unrelated. Oh my goodness. Is there one I don't
recommend? There's a lot of good ones out there.
One that I've read recently that impacted me
was The Myth of Normal by Gabor Amate. He's done
some phenomenal things, but the thing that impacted
me about that one is his own vulnerability on
his own. healing journey even though he's a doctor
and a psychologist and got all these accolades
he's had his own journey as well so he shares
in that book um one that i've gifted more than
anything else other than your books uh kinder
and one more light um is the boy the mole the
fox and the horse i love the animation of that
oh it is absolutely powerful um but one of the
guys that was on our tribe with siren project
he's getting ready to have his first kid And
I sent it to him just because that book's so
powerful to me. So I've shared that with quite
a few people that have had children because it's
the modern day Winnie the Pooh. But the animation,
the Apple TV animation of it is absolutely powerful.
Short little blurbs that apply to any side of
life. So those would be my two off the hand.
Eric, Olivia's husband, just wrote a book, Stoicism
for First Responders. That's pretty good as well.
It's another one I gift a lot because it's inexpensive,
but it hits home. Brilliant. All right. Well,
you mentioned the Apple TV version of The Fox,
The Mole. Yeah. What about other documentaries
and shows or films? I don't watch a lot of TV,
a lot of shows, just because I like to be engaged
in living life. One that I watched, I think it
was on National Geographic, was Limitless with
Chris Hemsworth. That was a good show, especially
the one on mortality. Yes. Yeah. It was very
powerful. And that's like my post -retirement.
I was actually intrigued by the death doula side
of things because of experiences like I just
shared at the hospital. To be able to be there
to support the loved ones that have supported.
Like I say, when my older sister died, she died
at home on hospice. My parents did the end -of
-life care, and there was a lot of powerful to
the spiritual side of things of having her parish
in her own home instead of in a facility somewhere.
I had a guy on a couple times now, Dr. B .J.
Miller, who is a palliative care physician, but
he's a double amputee as well. He was on top
of a streetcar in San Francisco, I think it was.
I got that right, Berkeley. And they were just
messing around. And it was just parked. He just
climbed up the ladder, but didn't realize it
was charged. And they arced off his wristwatch.
So he lost an arm and a leg. Yeah, listen to
that. That was a powerful one. So, yeah. So what
they did with hospice, though, in that little
hospice, it was a little home and they baked
cookies. And they just, you know, looked at it
as like, well, you know, every day still counts
just because you're in hospice and you're, you
know, passing away. What is it that we can do
to add value today? Right. And then a lot of
guys that went on this Iron Project journey with
me, we've had conversations afterwards and their
experiences on scene. to witness deaths and people
that kind of stuff is to to view because of their
own journey and what they went through one of
the modalities on the the treat is almost like
a death and a rebirth type of thing so it's moving
on to the next stage of whatever existence you
have and their witnesses of death unseen has
totally their perspectives have changed because
of their own personal experience with the with
the medicine so not getting too specific but
one thing i've heard from certain people that
take certain plant medicines is almost like a
celestial experience where you realize that you're
actually part of everything. 100%. You had that
too? Yes. There was, like I said, there was a
lot of darkness, but one of the medicines...
DMT is what it is. Your body actually produces
it. So it's not like it's anything out of the
norm. It's already in your body. And it's one
of the you feel it most at childbirth. And those
last before you die, you have a huge DMT dump,
essentially. So that's when you start seeing
things and understanding things. And a lot of
people have those kind of experiences. Yeah,
it seemed to kind of bolster a lot of people,
again, more spirituality than religion. But realizing
that, you know. I mean, every molecule and every
leaf and every drop of water in the ocean, it's
all one big kind of, you know, beautiful coalition.
100%. Brilliant. All right. Well, then you mentioned
Andrea Lucy. Anyone else you'd recommend to come
on this show as a guest? Oh, there's so many
of them. Have you had Jeremy Sanders, Crew First
Culture? I don't think so. Yeah. Jeremy is very
well -spoken, and he's had his own personal journey
and things that he's overcome. Jeremy's a cool
guy. They've fostered a lot of kids. I think
they've got eight kids total in all the experiences
that come with fostering children. And then his
work journey and his passion for the fire service,
we got connected through tactical resiliency
training. But Jeremy's got his own podcast, Crew
First Culture Podcast, and he's... his approach
to things would mirror a lot of the things that
you're into just as far as um like coaching and
modalities and the how everything that we learn
in the fire service are tools that every human
being needs not just first responders so brilliant
yeah we need to make that happen then all right
well then uh the last question before we make
sure everyone knows where to find you what you
do to decompress oh any number of things my go
-to here lately is uh One of our guys that just
passed was a Harley guy, a motorcycle rider.
And for his celebration of life, he wanted everybody
to... represent on the motorcycle side of things,
so not necessarily show up in your class A's.
He was huge about that connection, brotherhood
side of things. So I went up to buy a T -shirt
for a celebration of life and came home with
a motorcycle. So most expensive T -shirt I ever
bought. My wife said, you were gone too long,
and I knew what was happening when I broke the
news to her. But definitely riding on a motorcycle
has been one of those flow states, and it's kind
of like... the iron, the iron never lies. Same
thing with the motorcycle. If you're not in a
flow state and 100 % self -aware and aware of
what's going on, I can tell when it's a good
day to be on a bike and not a good day to be
on a bike. So just where my head space is, nature,
kayaking, hiking, rucking, doing anything outside
and spending time with my family. My wife and
I have a newfound relationship since my... Previous
retreat and my phone, I just looked at it as
we're talking. She's wishing me good luck on
the podcast and tell me I'll do great. So before
my whole purpose of going on my retreat was to
find myself again. And that's the thing that
concerned her the most is that I was going to
go find myself and she wasn't going to be part
of that anymore. And that was the whole purpose
was to return to. The husband that she knew and
loved and married, not the jaded, salty firefighter
that thinks he needs to save the world. And we've
been able to reconnect after that. So we're actually
doing a race at the end of the year that she
signed up for. Her thing's been running and marathons
and that kind of stuff. So we signed up for one
of those kind of endless races where for. every
25 minutes you go a mile and a half till you
can't go any longer so she turns 50 this year
yes i just told my wife sage on a podcast uh
but she wants to do at least 50 miles on that
so this year we're tackling that together so
beautiful yeah yeah i mean again that that salty
element you know it's it's fatigue yes you know
like you said all elements emotional physical
mental it's just breakdown And again, there is
a good person in 95 % of us. Some just came for
the benefits and we don't know who they are.
But there is that servant's heart. And I've always
said this, some of the most beautiful parents,
husbands, wives are the men and women that I
serve with. They're beautiful human beings. But
I've got a good friend of mine, madly in love,
head over heels in love with his girlfriend.
Then he married, then they had children. And
I've watched him break down. And I think the
relationship is broken down, the relationship
with the children. And it's the job. It's the
hours of the job, the job you can do in a healthy
way. But you have to give these men and women
the rest and recovery and support and have that
culture of nurturing and vulnerability so that
when you go for 24 hours, you give your all.
And then when you come home. You can recover
from it and your family have you home. So you
can take the baby because the husband or the
wife has been up for 24 hours, you know, whatever
the thing is. And it's so, again, it's heartbreaking
to see the way it is, but it's so encouraging
to see that we can fix this. Because I'm going
to give you a perfect example. One of the, Joshua
Chase read Kinder and he stopped, I think it
was like chapter four. And he was like, dude,
I just, that's me. right now oh i had the same
experience and he went and got counseling and
he messaged me and said you know the relationship
with my my wife is much better and we're doing
this and this and so it's just a case of realizing
that that's not you yeah that's how you are the
road rage in there that's the one that stabbed
me in the gut and that's straight from my fucking
heart mate yeah and you can probably tell yeah
yeah definitely that's that I felt that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So, but again, you know, I would
argue I'm a kind person. Right. So I don't want
to run around being angry. But I mean, how do
you offset that with you've literally just gone
to a wreck where the person who caused it driving
like an asshole is now crying on the curb, feeling
sorry for themselves, and you're cutting the
three dead people out of the minivan. It's hard
to offset that when in the next morning you see
someone driving like an asshole. And you want
to drag them out of the car and beat them with
an inch of their life because you know what's
going to happen if they keep doing that thing.
So, you know, it is a hard balance. But the way
that you offset that is, again, the healthy work
week, the communication, the removing stigma
even from the modalities that you found really
successful recently and allowing our men and
women to give for 24 hours and then heal for
72. It's that simple. 100. Yeah. All right. Well,
for people listening. Where are the best places
to reach out to you, learn more, anywhere else
you want to kind of direct them? I don't have
any social media accounts other than LinkedIn.
I'm on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. My
cell phone is always on 678 -614 -9254. Call,
text. I'm always available to talk. That's probably
the easiest way to get a hold of me. Once again,
I know my boundaries. So if I don't have a minute,
I may tell you, hey, I'll get back to you tomorrow.
But that's nothing against you. That's all on
me. Other than that, I teach with tactical resiliency
training. We'll be at MAFC, teaching our firefighter
resiliency class. We'll also be at Firemanship
in Aurora, Illinois. Phenomenal conference, Cody
Testrill. He'd be another great one to have on
your podcast. And then, like I say, I work with
Yoga for First Responders, who's a 511c3 that,
due to a lot of the budget cuts and the political
nature, is struggling to fill classes and be
funded. just due to everything else, even though
it's such a valuable tool. So I'm just going
to throw a plug out there for yoga for first
responders. And if you're looking at donating
money or have extra money to donate, that's a
very valuable place because once again, it's
a upstream savior is what it is. Instead of pulling
people out of the river, it's better to go upstream
and find where they're falling in. So it's an
upstream fix. Also siren project. They're also,
Through the love and the caring and everything
that Tim and Angela do, they can use some funding
as well. Because Siren Project, you cover your
travel, they cover the rest of the cost of the
retreat. So get a couple plugs in there for those
nonprofit agencies that can use all kinds of
financial support to provide the resources and
tools that are needed. Well, I've got the show
of kinder in the works. And when I say in the
works, like... step one right baby toe you know
through the door it's not like i've got studios
and funding and all that stuff but i have a plan
where there's going to be a parallel thing that
is actually going to bring light to all these
tools and i hope that i can include you know
basically a lot of the ones that you've talked
about um in one of these platforms so that people
will realize i can there are tools available
i can start right my own personal rabbit hole
of healing today you know, and empower every
single person and then give them a platform where
they can get all these resources. And hopefully
then they'll be front and center, not struggling
and trying to scrape together funds, but they'll
be the go -to ones. You know, so yeah, that's
coming. Come hell or high water, it's going to
happen. I believe in it. You don't put your mind
to anything and not accomplish it. You've done
some amazing things. Thank you for being the
voice. Well, I want to thank you, mate. I mean,
honestly. Like this, I would have, you know,
two episodes if it was just me yapping. It'd
be the intro to the podcast eight and a half
years ago. And then I would be an empty episode
because I wouldn't have learned anything. So
I wouldn't be able to do the 24 -72 one. But
every other one, almost 1100, is people like
you. People that have come on, that have been
courageously vulnerable, that have shared their
story, shared their experience, and given hope
to everyone else that's listening. So I want
to thank you for being so generous with your
time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast
today. Thanks. I'm deeply humbled and deeply
honored. Thank you, James.