This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran
-owned and operated performance optimization
company that I introduced recently as a sponsor
on this show. Well, since then I have actually
been using my products and I have had incredible
success. There was initial blood work that was
extremely detailed and based on that they offered
supplementation. So I began taking DHEA. BPC
-157 for inflammation based on the fact that
I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a
firefighter my whole life. Lots of aches and
pains. Dihexa to help cognition after multiple
punches to the head and shift work and peptides.
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fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone
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Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of
this company is an altruistic arm called the
Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans
and first responders through some of their protocols
free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering
you, the audience, 10 % off their protocols.
And you can find that on jamesgearing .com under
the Products tab. And if you want to hear more
about Transcend and their story, listen to episode
808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to
transcendcompany .com. This episode is sponsored
by TeamBuildr, yet another company that's doing
great things for the first responder community.
As a strength and conditioning coach myself,
who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination
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if you want to try TeamBuildr, they are offering
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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 Geering, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show third
-generation firefighter and the man behind Resilient
Another Day, Greg Rudiger. Now, in this conversation,
we discuss a host of topics, from his journey
into the fire service, his powerful mental health
story, breathwork, addiction, relationships,
and so much more. Now, before we get to this
incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment. Go to whichever app
you listen to this on. Subscribe to the show.
Leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of 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. So that being said,
I introduce to you... Greg Rudiger. Enjoy. Well,
Greg, I want to start by saying thank you so
much for taking the time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast today. Thank you. It's truly
an honor and a privilege, and I'm very, very
blessed that you asked me to be on here and to
be able to share our passion together. Absolutely.
So let's start at the very beginning. Well, first
question, where on planet Earth are we finding
you today? I am in Western Washington. I'm actually
in... Bothell, Washington right now. I work in
Snohomish County. So that's where I am. I know
you wouldn't know it because there's like sunshines
out today, which is awesome. That's where you're
finding me today. Beautiful. All right. Well,
then let's start the very beginning of your journey
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. So I was
born in Southern California in Bellflower, California.
47 years ago. I grew up in Southern California,
a city called La Mirada, just right by Knott's
Berry Farm in Disneyland is the easiest way I
tell people. Mom and dad, my mom, Colleen, was
fantastic, amazing, stay -at -home mom. And my
dad, Guy, is a retired L .A. County fire captain.
I had two brothers, Scott and Chris. They are
both... la county fire captains my grandfather
was an la county fire captain so you can see
where this is going and i know we'll get into
it later but i say my blessing is my curse through
this stuff um but that was the family dynamic
it was awesome two brothers my mom and dad still
happily married they just were up here visiting
so it was great seeing them and we had i had
a fantastic childhood growing up you know sports
my dad worked in the city where we live so he
picked me up from you know real life emergency
he picked me up from school and squad 49 you
know it's pretty cool uh which was awesome so
great family dynamic um growing up part of that
which I'm sure we'll dive into later you know
all of us you know 4 .0 students three -star
athletes mom and dad known in the community my
mom was the cheer coach my dad did football you
know the public safety commission so you're real
modern day cleavers, right? You know, and so
it was camping a lot. You know, we were very
active in sports, camping, surfing, all that
kind of stuff. So lots of friends, open door
policy at our house growing up. So it was pretty
special, especially growing up in the town of
La Mirada, right? There was one high school,
one little league, there was one, you know, not
like today where you get. Kids don't even play
Little League. They're all playing different
select sports. So very great community to grow
up in. It was really special. That's a nice little
area. Obviously, I worked at Anaheim, so I was
there for a few years. But when I was there,
I've always been a stuntman on the side. So they
opened the Pirates Dinner Adventure right by
Knott's Prairie Farm. So I used to work there
a lot. So I'm familiar with your area. I drove
by it not too long ago. The Pirates is still
there. yeah it didn't mean it's still there it's
funny the one in orlando originally um you know
was a certain way and then when they built the
one in california you know what we're going to
get the pirates to do high falls in the show
too so some of the guys that did my role which
is the kind of hero the benjamin blue When they
were like, yeah, now you're going to have to
fall 20 feet onto a mat. They were like, yeah,
I think I'm out on that. So when I went to California
and helped open that one, I had to learn how
to fall off things and not break my neck. And
I wasn't great in the air, to be honest. But
yeah, it's a fun show to do, though. It really
was. That's awesome. So all these generations
of firefighting, what do you remember if you
were an age where you were able to have this
conversation? from your grandfather talking about
his era firefighting oh we could do a whole podcast
on that i mean it's incredible it was it was
pretty special um and it's really cool that we're
talking about this because my kid today my oldest
boy um 17 chance he is going through what they
have like a running start one um you know work
program for school he's doing the fire thing
so he's doing interviews today Brilliant. Yeah,
it was pretty cool, you know, getting the tie,
shining the shoes. So, yeah, could have four
generations. You know, it was really cool as
a kid growing up because, I mean, from a young
age, I, you know, literally taken home. My grandma
gave me a picture of my dad and grandpa holding
me at L .A. County Station 17, and then she had
us reenact it when I got hired in Corona. So,
it's pretty cool. It's hanging in my office right
now. Very, very special. really cool to have
my grandfather around for as long as I did. And
he was at a point where, you know, he was talking
about, he was one of, he was at station 20 in
Norwalk when they got paramedics and he was old
school. And then, you know, he talked about getting
hired. He actually worked for LAPD and his buddies
were. all firemen. And then they're like, you
got to come do this. So he went up to East LA
and when it walked into like, I says, I want
to be a fireman. They're like, okay, well here,
you start in two weeks. Right. Not like you and
I. Right. And I've heard, you know, you, we share
the same thing, right. Sleeping in our car, you
know, sitting in Anaheim stadium, 20 ,000 people
for, you know, picking up apps, maybe, maybe
a hundred jobs. Yeah. Right. It was, it was crazy.
For him to do that. And then I'm talking about
morning lineups and then, you know, this captain,
he's like, I don't like this anymore. So then
he went and promoted. So then he became a captain.
That still happens. I don't want to be a firefighter.
I'm going to be a chief and tell you what to
do. Yeah. So he talked about really cool. He
talked about them getting the first paramedics,
you know, and it's great. He talked about the
transition to BAs and, you know, the first paramedics.
And he's like, Hey, you know, there's chores
to do we got morning lineup you know you got
you got stuff you got to do around this station
you know and they're like we got to go get meds
and then they call the chief and the chief would
call him and say hey paul if these guys gotta
go get meds they got he goes oh he's up at the
nurse flirting with the nurses you know so he
actually called a buddy of his who worked at
station 96 a little a little three -person house
in um over in whittier And he's like, hey, you
want to be a battalion chief? I think this paramedic
thing is the way of the future. And so they mutualed
stations, and my grandfather wound up retiring
out of 96, which pretty cool. My dad retired
out of Station 96. So you go, anybody out there
in L .A. County, you go to Station 96, the concrete
slab in the back says Rüdiger 1973. That was
my grandfather. My dad put the patio cover up
with his guys. It says Rüdiger like 1993. It's
pretty awesome to have that legacy and to hear
him tell the stories. And then for him to come
out, because I taught at Rio Hondo. I'm sure
we'll get into that. I taught at Rio Hondo. So
he would come out. My dad would bring him out
to the fire academy and the truck academy. So
really cool for him to be out there and see what
we were doing and the new stuff that we were
doing and the live fire training and all that
stuff. So it was pretty rad. Now, of course,
we're going to get into the world of mental health.
When you reflect back now with this mature lens,
what, if any, were some of the struggles that
you saw in your father or grandfather as a kind
of, you know, byproduct of the job? You know,
it's funny looking back. I mean, with my grandfather.
I think he, I think that job, that era had a
real good work balance, work -life balance. I
think my dad, his generation had a pretty good
work -life balance because like when they started,
it wasn't, they liked going to work, you know,
maybe getting some benefits, but you know, my
dad was doing concrete and brick work on the
side, right? I was a kid mixing mud in a wheelbarrow.
My grandfather built houses on the side. So I
think some of that, I think they had a, Also,
the world being what it was, we weren't so inundated.
I think there was more of a healthy coping mechanism
where they had a solid family life and they had
a pretty good way to deal with things. And they
weren't dealing with things on such a level.
I think there still was the macho era back then
of, ah, we'll just deal with it. And that was
part of, you know, my dad. you know, they did
a great job raising me, you know, but that wasn't
how you just have a beer. You'll be fine. Have
a chew. We'll go fishing. You don't go surfing.
My grandpa, I'll have a drink, you know? And
so some of those coping mechanisms, I think,
I think, I think that helped. And I don't know,
you know, there's not, there's not a whole lot
of data out there, but you know, my grandfather's
era there, we didn't have the data, but it just
didn't seem like there was a whole there. The
suicide wasn't that prevalent, you know, for,
for firefighters and first responders. you know
i think there was a bit more of that balance
and i think some of my study too with what we're
going on how we're doing it the over stimulus
you know that it's not ptsd it's not a disorder
it's actually ptsi where it's an injury that
we're occurring from and um i think they had
they had a good way of doing it and and i think
some of that though as we transitioned hurt us
hurt me especially and hurt the fire service
a little bit with uh the bravado right just mental
health is the big one and that's my passion you
know but just like bas people were transit they
were reluctant to try bas because like you know
have a cigarette you know what i mean so those
kind of things were pretty were pretty awesome
to see and and now you know and we'll probably
get into my adventure but looking back on it
i think i just think they had there was a little
there wasn't the intensity there wasn't the exposure
right it wasn't the wrist frequency curve like
we're with and i think they had a much better
work -life balance like i said they had a they
had a real job the fire department was like fun
and get benefits so i think when that when you
have that approach it changes things too this
has never hit me before until you just said that
but when we reflect on the older generations
i mean we know at least more recently that you
know Core volume has just gone up exponentially.
There's no denying that at all. But when you
talk about the older generations, yeah, they
would do constructions on the side. They did
concrete, whatever. But what does that involve?
Going home at night after physical labor, having
dinner with your family, and going to sleep in
your own bed. Where are all the hours in modern
days? 56 -hour work weeks, mandatory overtime.
God forbid you go work at a second department
on the side. And so these are... constant sleepless
nights. And again, if we're talking about correlations,
yes, the number of calls is definitely a contributing
factor. The overuse of 911 using the emergency
system and the 911 calls is a factor. So there's
almost that kind of organizational stress. But
I bet you could probably draw a correlation as
well with the number of hours they slept in that
generation and the number of hours we don't sleep
now. and see a linear relationship between suicide
cancer and those hours 100 i mean 100 you and
i have talked offline you know the sleep i'm
a big breath for a guy big on sleep like those
are the pillars it used to be diet and exercise
i mean if you really look at it empirically scientifically
like Neurobiologically, emotionally, and physically,
the two pillars of health are sleep and breathing.
If you can breathe right and you can sleep right,
we can solve like 70 % of what ails you physically,
emotionally. And the job, like you said, we weren't
getting called on people who had knee pain at
two o 'clock in the morning, right? They weren't.
They weren't even going on EMS calls, right?
When my grandfather started, very little. And
like you said, the exposure was way down. And
like you said, they were sleeping. They were
sleeping. They were exercising, right? They were,
you know, there wasn't the, they were breathing
correctly, right? They weren't eating a bunch
of processed food that softened our palates.
They weren't doing a bunch of, there wasn't a
whole bunch of orthodontic work that changed
the shape of our mouth. They were nose breathers
and they were sleeping. And so, yeah, you're
absolutely right. And that's 100 % of. i see
right the correlation that we have today is the
sleep and and the exposure that we have and then
the big one right too is those changes occurred
without right the bell curve didn't swing inversely
with the stigma yeah right exactly i you know
it's like i equate it to it's hard now because
you know rapid intervention was the big one when
i came on right like i don't want to be rick
you know And now it's like embraced and it's
a combat position and it's something that's good.
Same thing with the BA, same thing with this.
Well, you know, and that's one thing that has
to happen. And now that the stigma is changing,
I think that's a big thing, you know. And I correlate
a lot of that to for the fire service, you know,
they understand, you know, the. Phoenix Fire
Department did the study after, you know, the
Rick study after Brett Tarver passed away in
the supermarket fire, right? And their findings
were 75 % of our training should be how to stay
out of the situation. 25 % should be when the
shit hits the fan, right? And then they did the
study again. And guess what? The numbers were
exactly the same. Why are we not doing that for
our brains? Why are we not doing that for sleep?
75 % of our stuff should be how do we stay out
of this? How do we break the stigma? How are
we proactive in this? And then we'll give you
the 25. when the shit hits the fan right what's
interesting when i reflect now and you know we
see it kind of on on the social media walls where
there's a lot you know young young young guys
they've already grown out the mustache they got
the leather already you know they're they're
taking selfies in front of burnt out homes um
that they didn't save and uh the reality is we
don't get as many fires anymore i watched it
decline in my 14 short years visibly watch it
decline because that's a good thing. It means
that houses are getting safer, less people are
dying, less people are losing their homes. And
so what I think that the stigma is almost being
fed is there's an identity crisis because we
have these groups and you hear them, I just want
to do the fire. Well, that's fucking stupid because
that's only about, you know, 5 % of what we actually
do. You're not interested in extrication. You're
not interested in rope rescue and all the true
life -saving interventions you do on the EMS
side. You just want to be going in with a hose
in your hand. I mean, for fuck's sake. But this
is what I think some people struggle with is
that that's their identity. I'm Kurt Russell,
2025. It's like, you're not. It's just one of
the things that you do. It's one of the tools
in your toolbox. So I think that there's almost
like people breathing life into the stigma because
they're afraid to admit that. We are truly first
responders and fire is one of the things that
we do. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it, especially
on a truck company. And we'll get into Rio Hondo
in a bit. My favorite thing in the world is a
freaking bomb burner. And you've got a saw in
your hand three stories up. But even then, let's
say that you, you know, you make a save, you
make a grab. It's a body recovery unless you
know what to do on the medical side once you
pull the person onto the front lawn. So I think
there's that we've really got to have this conversation
of identity like. It's okay to not run any fires
or very many fires anymore and take it seriously
and train for it. But that is a sliver of what
you do. Just take a step back, be honest with
yourself. You do a lot more of the other things
than you do the fire. And so we prepare diligently
and we do our VES, we do our ladder throws and
practice our hose lays and catching the hydrant.
And that's so, so important. But that's not who
you are. That's not your identity. That's not
your avatar. You know, the way you really make
the biggest difference, ironically, is in the
back of an ambulance. True. You know, this is
just the way it is. But what a beautiful calling
to then clear an EMS call and then go make entry
on a fire. That's the kind of amazing human you
are. But we've got to let go of this. I'm just
a firefighter bullshit because I think there's
a lot of stigma attached to that kind of pseudo
masculine facade of what we do. you know submit
to the fact that you are a jack of all trades
and what other profession is like that that you
show up and it doesn't involve the cops you're
it you're the ultimate problem solver that's
the identity that we should be leaning into and
be proud of that my grandfather speaking of him
he used to say we're he used to say we're the
oh shit squad somebody says oh shit who do i
call you call the fire department Yep. Right.
And, and that's what I, when I'm teaching, whatever
I'm teaching resiliency or truck company operations
or extrication, whatever it is, it's like, yeah,
embrace that. Like, and I know we'll get into
it. Like you have to be your authentic self.
Don't let the title, right. I don't like titles.
Roles are one thing. I don't like titles. I say,
get rid of the fucking titles because the titles,
we don't live up to an expectation and we get
in it. Don't let that, you're a human being.
You're a person. Let that person flow through
you in everything you do. We got on this job
because we love helping people. We love the schedule,
right? You never know what's coming. The bell
could go off at any minute. It could be a career
-defining incident, whether that's a fire, a
rescue, or whatever, right? And I agree with
you 100%. Have that talk. I got a buddy that
was in the SEAL teams. Okay, special forces.
And he says he got out and he didn't want to
go SWAT. He didn't want to go to the fire department
because we're the special forces of the civilian
world. We do everything. I am so, again, my blessing
is my curse. I was so lucky to work at Corona.
I'm the only one in my family that didn't go
to LA County, right? I joke, I'm the only one
that could think for himself. But I went to Corona
and then, you know, I did get a call from LA
County. and i'm like i that was one of the hardest
calls i ever made would call my dad and say hey
dad i i'm not going to pursue this and he's like
dude i wouldn't either like he was at montebello
a small station he knew everybody he knew all
my friends and here's the thing i'm not a number
i'm a person i'm greg rudiger like that's my
energy i like to be known i have that energy
my wife and i were talking about this morning
she's like that's what you're called to do you
have energy share it And then I do. And I got
to teach the academy. I got to go on wildland
fires. I was part of USAR, you know, FEMA USAR
team six, you know, out of Riverside County.
I got that experience. I was on a truck. We got
to be a jack of all trade. And, you know, in
LA County, you want to do USAR, you got to go
to 103. You want to do wildland, you build a
wildland, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
I got to do it all. And how rich and rewarding
was that? And I had, and there were guys on my
job, my mentors that were just. They said that,
you know, it's not about, let's be a professional.
Somebody calls 911 and to them, whether it's
a flooded toilet or the house is on fire or they
stubbed their toe or their baby's not breathing,
to them, the world has gone to shit and we're
there to stop the problem. And I think when we
reframe that too, we get out of that title, like
you said, that expectation, because those things
are very hard to handle mentally. If you don't
have the, if you don't have. that resiliency
going into it. And so I couldn't agree with you
a hundred percent more. It is getting ahead of
that early on in people's career that they have
an understanding and an expectation. Absolutely.
Well, you mentioned again, you have grandfather
in LA County, you have dad in LA County. When
you were progressing through the high school
age, were you already thinking of fire or was
there something else on your mind? My mom said
there's video. I'm like two years old and I was
going to work for L .A. County. So I was going
to be a paramedic. That's because I didn't know
any better. But I realized about truck stuff
and I'm like, I'm not going to be a paramedic.
I'm going to be a truck. I'm a truck guy. I'm
a rescue man. No, from a young age, that's all
I wanted to do. And that was where I felt called.
And that's what I wanted to do. And then going
through high school, I mean, baseball is my passion.
I played baseball and soccer in college. And
then I got into surfing and really surfing was
where I really wanted to go. And, you know, one
of the things I struggled with, too, was I felt
like I could have pursued that. You know, that
was kind of the beginning of the extreme sports
age. You know, there's no money in surfing, you
know. And I went to college and then I got on
the fire department. You know that. that's one
thing that I still surf and I'm still very much
engaged in the water, but it was fire department.
And then my, my junior year, I hung up all the
sports activities and just wanted to focus on
finishing out my bachelor's degree. And I was
already taking fire science classes, you know,
just to accelerate and get on the job. I was
very lucky. I mean, you were in Southern California
for all my SoCal people out there. Like I worked
at the Heights, you know, as soon as I turned
18, I went and worked at La Habra Heights. Like
if you're from everybody, there's this, this
gigantic bitch in community of volunteer, you
know, you got your start at the Heights. And
so I did that when I was 18 and started as a
dispatcher and then went worked on Thursdays.
And that's what I wanted to do. And I just, I
just loved it. I love the energy. I love the
people. you know, I didn't want to be a number
and I definitely didn't want, you know, I always
said, you could pay me $10 million. I'm not wearing
a suit and a tie sitting in a box. That's for
sure. Absolutely. It's funny. I just had a Kona
Oliveira on the show. He's a Hawaiian firefighter
and big wave surfer. Yep. It's awesome. Amazing.
All right. Well, So what was it that took you
to Corona? Was it that it was that hard to get
hired back then? And were you pursuing LA County
primarily or were you deliberately trying to
get to Corona? Oh, I wanted LA County. I mean,
there wasn't even another department on my radar,
right? I was 18 years old. I'm third generation.
Like I've been raised in this. This is what I'm
made for, you know? I studied the book. When
I took the test when I was 18, I took the test.
It was at... it was at pomona fairgrounds it
was like three days it was you know 10 000 people
testing it was nutty and and they had changed
the test so you know and very blessed um you
know 4 .3 gpa you know excelled and you know
math is all that stuff's my strong point you
know and um i'm like Come on, man. Reading, writing,
mechanical aptitude. Let's do this. I got this.
I'm thinking I'm going to be the 18 -year -old
that gets hired by LA County. Wonder kid. I said
wonder kid. You ever watch Ted Lasso? Oh, yeah.
I said wonder kid. That's funny. I took the test,
and they had changed it a little bit. That year,
it was reading, writing, mechanical aptitude,
and then they gave you a test booklet. Right.
You hadn't, it was going to be, I had that thing
memorized. Right. I was like, goodwill hunting.
I could have told you what, you know, page 17,
third paragraph said, you know, I wasn't going
to mess around. And, uh, and then they did, uh,
I don't know, it was the first time they did
the, uh, psychological human resource one. So
I can't remember a hundred, 200 questions, something
like that, you know? And, and, and so that was
the thing. And my dad's like, listen, you've
grown up in a fire station. Your whole family's
in the fire service, right? All of our friends
are firemen, you know. I used to go to Station
49 and see Mike Cook and hang out with those
guys all the time. And I had like, I didn't have
an older brother. I was the oldest of three.
So Mike Fitzpatrick at LA County was like my
older brother, you know. And so my dad's like,
just answer like you would. Answer like you're
a fireman. So I did. A band, you know. I'll never
forget. I got the letter and I opened it up and
I was C band. And I was devastated. And I tore
the letter up and was like, fuck it. I'm done
with this shit. This is bullshit. You know, and
come to find out that they weren't looking for
the, you know, quintessential old school fire
department job, right? It was, you know, you
catch your engineer smoking something that you
believe is marijuana in the parking lot. What
do you do? And I'm like, well, you can, you know,
you go out and confront him like lowest level,
like peer. That wasn't the answer HR was looking
for. So that's how I didn't do very well in that
area. So snitches don't get stitches? Is that
what you were saying? Yeah, not in today's world.
But it was funny looking back on it, right? The
good Lord had better plans for me, bigger than
what I knew. And in fact, when I got hired in
Corona, it was one of those things. I went to
Rio Hondo. I went through class 55, had a blast.
you know i was sponsored by santa fe springs
and i was testing for everybody right springs
and then of course like you know anybody in the
fire service it comes in waves you never get
like one job offer at least back in those days
you know so i got i actually had offers from
pasadena springs and corona and i chose to go
with corona my dad thought that was a good one
because they were growing they had a great reputation
you know there was a lot of growth opportunity
and That's what I chose. Again, that was a fantastic
decision for me in my career for the opportunities
it gave me. When you were at La Habra, did you
ever work with a guy called Joe Aldacoa? The
name sounds familiar. He didn't work with us
on Thursdays. That was the cool thing about the
Heights. You got to sign today. Every Thursday,
like that was our group. And so you have this
little badge of honor. I work Thursdays. These
are the Fridays or the Sundays or Tuesday. My
buddy was a Tuesday guy with those guys. So it's
pretty neat. I think that's where he worked.
Yeah, he was my engineer. Just a freaking giant
of a man, Hispanic, shaved bald head, power lifter,
big old walrus mustache. So yeah, you couldn't,
maybe you didn't know his name, but you probably
maybe saw him walk in at some point. But I think
it was there that he worked. Going back to the
testing, though, I've had this conversation with
a few people. It's crazy when you reflect back
at the kind of mythology of what they think the
right candidate should be and what their resume
should look like. And when you understand, as
we're going to get into, I'm sure, so many of
us have struggles when we were early in our lives
that ultimately are going to, if processed, are
going to become strengths. that a good firefighter,
a good cop, a good paramedic, a good correctional
officer, even arguably a good dispatcher is going
to have some shit probably when they were young.
Not every single person, some will have a straight
edge lifestyle and it just worked out that they
had the tools, but a majority of us, supposedly
our ACEs score around six. That's pretty up there.
It's the same as the incarcerated population,
to give people some idea. So to then have this
facade that you want this choir boy that was
castrated at three years old and all he's done
is Bible study for 18 years is pure insanity.
And I had this in Miami Beach. I was honest about
what I tried in my past. Nothing crazy. Ironically,
the same compounds that we know work now for
PTSD. And they threw the pre -app in my face,
literally scrunched it up and threw it. And I
was like, oh, okay. So we have to lie to get
in this job. Got it. Loud and clear. And again,
I don't say this to be braggy or anything, but
it was like, okay, I was told I had to lie through
a polygraph. So I did three times. Did I do anything
horrendous? No. But had I tried things that were
supposedly on the list of naughty? Yeah, I did.
But why do you think I'm here saying I'll go
into a burning building? I'll cut a family out
of a crushed minivan. Because I've seen some
shit and I've done some shit. So the way that
they've looked at testing, it's the same in law
enforcement, you know, is blowing up in their
face because that's not the kind of person that
you need. Yes, you need to do a stringent background
check. And if they've been stealing pills or
touching kids, then absolutely, immediate disqualification.
But if they've got speeding tickets or they tried
stuff years ago, that's a disqualification. No,
that's just someone who's, you know. Their path
has been a bit rocky, and that's going to translate
into actually understanding the streets when
you finally get on them. Yeah, we come into this
job, and that's what I've learned about myself
and through this and helping others, especially
on the fire department and then others even in
the first responder world. Most of the time we
come into this job because we're hiding from
something else. We're going to help everybody
else so we don't have to help ourselves. Or we
were hurt and we want to be the protector now.
Well, we might have buried that stuff, but you've
got two paths. Let me go and hurt people too,
or let me go help people. It's really one of
the two, right? And you might have the, you might
have, you know, you do have the people out there
that, oh. Oh, my uncle was a fireman and had
a great schedule. And so they jump into it. And
there are those things. And I agree with you
100%. And what I have seen a little bit, especially
in our area, I think those disqualifiers, like
have you ever smoked marijuana? Well, now it's
legal in most states. So those things are starting
to go away. But I think we're starting to look
at it more as an opportunity. In fact, my organization
is awesome. And, you know, I've even heard the
people that are getting hiring. And after the
chief's interview that my fire chief so cool,
he comes in to us at health and safety. And he's
just like, man, these people are ahead of the
game. Like they have a counselor and they're
doing this and they're doing that. Right. And
so the pendulum swinging. And so instead of looking
at it as a disqualifier, we're looking at it
as like, I told my son, he's asking me, you know,
the classic, what's your strength and weakness.
And I'm like, be yourself, man, be vulnerable.
And that's what they're looking for. If you can
be vulnerable. And if you're like, yeah, I just
like, I stole shit. You know, whatever. But you
walk in there and be like, yeah, you know, I
had a rocky start. You know, I did this. I tried
this. How did that shape you into today? That's
where I think we're growing as a fire service
is the question isn't what did you do, but how
did it form you into who you are today? What
did we learn from that? Because we learn more
from our failures than we ever do our successes.
And if we start looking at how do we use that
for our advantage? We come out with a much better
product. And again, like I said, it's 75%. How
do we stay out of this shit? Well, we got to
address it ahead of time and we can't be afraid
of it. That's my other thing is we got to stop
living in fear as a person, as a society, as
the fire service, like, Oh, well, we might want
to hire him. They do, you know, no, like this
is a human being. We're hiring a human. This
is a human business. My dad said, you could teach,
you could teach a monkey to stretch hose and
put water on the fire. You can. You can teach
a robot to do it. We have engines now that'll
do it for you. It's the human interaction. And
so, yeah, with you, that was part of it, right?
Like, no, you know, you never stole one pencil
at school. Yeah, we all did. We all took a pen
from the bank. Like, what are you talking about?
You know, so we were putting the wrong emphasis
on the wrong syllable, right? Back in those days.
And we weren't looking at the human qualities.
And I think the testing. At least from what I'm
seeing is we're starting to refocus on the human
aspect of this job because that's truly what's,
I mean, that's what's killing us, right? Not
to negate cancer, but the human aspect is what's
taking more of us out in the first responder
world than anything else. And I'm glad to see
that. And I'm glad that, what I'm really glad
is that there's people like you and there's people
like me and there's other people out there, my
other friends that are doing other podcasts and
stuff. this circle shrinking and the tribes getting
stronger and we're sharing this passion and we're
getting it out there and we're breaking the stigma
and we're educating people and we're letting
people know. And when I go and speak to other
organizations, like what you do this. Yeah, that's
okay. And it works right. Get out of the black
and white mentality. And so, yeah, I love to
hear that. And I love that you're preaching that.
You mentioned about, you know, how competitive
it was when we first were trying to get hired.
In your area now, or even if you've heard from
your California peers still, how does that compare
to recruitment at the moment in 2025? I call
it the Make -A -Wish Foundation now. Not to negate
the Make -A -Wish Foundation, but it's like every
kid gets a trophy. We're fighting standards.
We're even lowering standards because we can't
get people on the job because people don't want
to do this job. It's not the culture. It's not
the society. We were blue -collar workers that
were blue -collar people doing blue -collar work.
It was very family -oriented. And then we got
white -collar pay for blue -collar work. And
then overtime became my second job. And then,
well, I don't have to do this. Well, now we're
running into, well, I don't want to work overtime.
And people are figuring it out. And this new
generation is figuring it out. And it's partly
because of people like us out there talking about
it. Well, shit, I don't want to see a baby with
its head cut off. I don't want to go on this
fire and pull a burnt person out. I don't want
to be away from my family for seven days, mandatory
overtime, lack of sleep, not seeing my family.
Like there's other things I can do, right? I
can be a social media influencer. I can do this.
And I love the pendulum swinging because like
my kids, you know, they want to get on the fire
department or my oldest boy is 18. He's going
to graduate and he's like, you know, I don't
know. I'm going to be an electrician or an auto
mechanic. Right. And so that's happening. And
so part of what we're seeing too, is that I think
reality is catching up to us. And I think society
also, there's just people that don't, the reality
is people just don't, they don't want to be gone
for 24 hours. They don't want to put the physical
labor and they don't want to do the hard shit.
And that's fine. Right. And that's just where
we're at. And it is very, very difficult. It
is very, very difficult. My kid wants to get
on the job. I'm like, dude, you couldn't be in
a better time. Right. And I've even had people
at work, you know, I had some probies. It's funny.
It gets back to you. Right. Well, when you go
to Captain Ruger, you know, don't do this and
don't do that. Make sure you shake his hand and
don't put the list on his desk. And, you know,
I heard somebody say, you know, don't, if we
have to hear him talk one more time about him
sleeping in a car or sleeping in a chair, you
know, or being in a thing to get a job. And that's
part of, right. That's part of what I'm battling
is my frustration. of people complaining about
being on an aid car complaining about overtime
and all stuff i'm like i would have killed i
i was killed to get on this job and then they're
like hey do you want to work overtime tomorrow
and i'm like i don't have to go lay floors tomorrow
i can work in overtime in the fire station like
again and and part of my thing is is i was an
excessive of that for other reasons staying away
from home and wanting to be at work and all this
other shit but you know there's that balance
there. And I think, I think that's just a struggle
that we're up against, you know, and, and I don't
know, I I've seen, I've seen a little bit of
uptick. I've seen more people that are more passionate
about it. It's nice to see like my kid and his
friends that are doing the fire stuff. And they're
asking me all these questions and, and that,
and I, and I, but I think we're also doing a
better job getting ahead of it. We're doing a
better job educating people in the Academy and
pre Academy. things like that for the mental
health aspect of it and preparing them truly
for what it is, right? We're not blowing sunshine
up your ass anymore about, yeah, you're going
to work 24 hours and have six days off and it's
going to be great. That's a great schedule for
your family. And, you know, no, you're not going
to see bad things. And so we're actually getting
ahead of that and giving them the tools. But
I'm sure you've heard it too. You interview a
lot of people across this country. I think even
the people that are getting on this job, it's
not a lifestyle anymore like it was for us, a
career. you know, it's a job. And so they're
on there for 20 years. I'm going to take my pension.
I'm going to go do something else. It's interesting
because you look at all these compounding elements,
like I said, working on the side, like your grandpa,
grandfather's generation did, and then doing
a nine to five job, even if it's a manual job
and having dinner with the family and go in the
bed, you know, next to your spouse compared to
the meat grinder that we spent most of our lives
in, which was 56 hours a week. And then, you
know, voluntary and or mandatory, because I've
said this several times, you know, a lot of times
when they're not counting, you know, volunteered
overtime, it's like, well, yeah, but there's
also that if I don't volunteer for this, my firefighter
who just had a little girl three months ago is
going to get forced. So it's skewed numbers too.
But I think you're right. It's our fault, our
generations, because all these chiefs and everything
now, they came on when we came on. They're our
academy. you know, mates basically. And I've,
I've said this a few times now, your father,
your grandfather's generations were the pioneers
on smooth board nozzles and fog nozzles and SCBAs
and, you know, jaws of life. And there's not
really a lot more that I think can be innovated.
It's only so many things you can weld to a Halligan
these days. You know what I mean? But, you know,
the next step in a technological age is obviously
going to be drones and, you know, that kind of
robotics element, just like you said. making
it safer for us to do the human things where
we have the ability to truly be the next you
know um pioneers is on the human side and where
we have failed our profession is by not standing
up and saying hey this line is going downwards
of recruitment where it's going upwards of all
things suicide cancer divorce childhood you know
diseases When are we going to actually address
it? And then I'm just going to do the ostrich.
I'm going to stick my head in the sand. And now
here we are. And I think where we're getting
a lot of those kids today's conversation is because,
as you said, the bar has been lowered. So now
you're seeing kids that never would have even
made the list in, you know, 10, 15, 20 years
ago. So until we acknowledge that we have been
doing the job so well, but the working environment
so poorly. And why are we working 56 when the
cops work 40, the ER doctors and nurses work
40, your barista works 40, you know, it's insanity.
And we just keep turning our heads. Then you
have a recruitment crisis. Now that 56 becomes
80 becomes 120, you know, and then it gets worse
and worse and worse. So we have an amazing opportunity
to turn this around. And in Florida, there's,
I mean, there's the dominoes are falling. It's
amazing. But departments are going, we're going
to invest in one more shift. We're going to do
a 42 hour work week. And I've had people now
where it's gone in place and that dude, I would
never go back to a 24, 48. This is so much better.
So that is a thing, you know, when we actually
fix the things that are broken, we're going to
go back to thousands of people lining up around
the building. And now that list is going to be
full of rock stars. And we're not going to have
this kids today because every single one of them
work hard to be on that list academically, you
know, physically, operationally. But when you
lower standards and refuse to fix it or broken,
then of course, the people that really get it,
that are educated, they're like, well, I value
myself and I value my relationships. You clearly
don't. I'm going to go be a welder. Right. You
know what I mean? So this is a great conversation
because we have the opportunity to fix it. This
is totally fixable because as you said, 10, 15,
20 short years ago, we were lining up in stadiums
to pick up an app. to even see if we would make
it to the written. And so saying, oh, you know,
we can't get people, bullshit. We used to until
you fucked it up. So what we've got to do is
unfuck it and we'll be back to all these young
people banging on our doors wanting to do this
job and us having the luxury of picking the top
10%, the cream of the crop. Yeah, I couldn't
agree 100 % more. I feel... I always thought
my, I thought my destiny was to be a truck captain.
That was my whole life was geared towards that,
right? Sports, grandfather, dad, blah, blah,
blah, right? Rio Hondo, you know, that was just,
you saw, I was on the truck my whole career.
They put me on the truck when I first got hired.
And, and what I'm realizing is, is that the whole,
that whole journey was setting me up to do what
I'm doing now, right? That I'm, that I'm the
captain of health and safety on a 40 hour work
week. right that i'm making the impact on that
i'm helping my my department you know thank god
and this state and this county are are really
i'm investing in that and they understand it
and they're understanding the human aspect of
it you know and and we're starting to make that
change and i think the the big chain right the
hard part is is it it's us we're our own worst
enemy right what do firemen hate change in the
way things are so trying to educate them on that
but educating the up -and -comers and these new
people i've even told my kids like i don't want
you to get on the job who says that like any
any of us who've like we would kill like right
nepotism is alive and well in the fire department
why do you think that is because it's a great
job right it is the best job we haven't done
a good job with the, like you said, the other
shit that impacts us in that job, the sleep,
the stigma, the lack of resources, all the stuff,
you know, that I've heard you talk about and
that we, that we're trying to get ahead of. And
I've told my kids like, yeah, go be a welder,
go be a dude, go be an electrician, especially
in Washington. You'll be dry. You're not going
to be out in the goddamn rain to be an electrician,
right? You'll be dry. Go be a welder, right?
Go do this. But my son, he really wants, you
know, they want to be, they want to get on the
fire department. And I'm like, absolutely. Like,
I'm going to help them any way I can because
I'm seeing the pendulum swing. And I think we
are doing that. And I think that education is
paramount. Having the empirical data and the
scientific backing, right? As much as I thought.
I voted against a 48 -96 when I was in Corona
to stay on a 4 -6 schedule. I mean, insanity.
Do you know why I did it? Overtime. Oh, that
cuts into my overtime. I'd work 120s every month,
right? And you wonder why I had PTSD and suicidal
ideations and an alcoholism and almost two divorces,
right? There's not an accident there. It's not,
oh, woe me, right? and so getting out of that
and then looking at your studies and i've had
a lot of people like well we want to go to a
48 -6 day i'm like well the 48 -6 day is not
going to change things unless you change your
sleep habits unless we start at a later time
and the studies showing the 1 -3 schedule the
24 72 is actually the best way to do it especially
you put later start times in there man now you're
regulating sleep now you're mitigating that you
know what about overtime what about trades i
live out of state like Those are choices that
you have to make, right? It comes back to that
extreme ownership of what matters. Like, and
I try to, that's one thing I'm really passionate
about now is again, like I said, getting rid
of titles is what matters. You, you matter. Not
the title of you being a fireman, not you being
a husband or a father or an aunt or an uncle
or a teacher. You, you got to find out what's
best for you. And if living out of state's best
for you, then you know what? I got sick of commuting
for two years. Okay. I commuted two years from
California because they didn't want to leave
surfing. I didn't want to leave Corona, but I
missed my kids. So what I do, I lateraled up
here. Right. I had to do what was best for me.
And so you got to do the same thing. Get out
of that victim mentality of excuses and fear.
And the nice part is, is that there's a group
of us out there that are champion this. And I
think we're educating people. And I think we're
starting to see the pendulum swing and some leadership
too, that are starting to understand this. Right.
Oh. If we do this, guess what? Our sick call
outs go down. The trade usage goes down. We actually,
we're like self -insured. We're seeing our insurance
premium down because less people are getting
sick, less people are going to the doctor, right?
And then we need to start seeing that number
go down, right? Retirees, 45 % increase in suicides
over the last two years. That's not acceptable.
Yeah. When we just had a Miami -Dade, they had
the third suicide in eight months and that was
a retiree. I think two years out they were. And
this is what I've talked about a lot recently
is when we leave, not only we do a terrible job
of preparing, but when we leave, let's just talk
about numbers. We cease to be a statistic. And
the 22 a day that the military talks about, that's
veterans. not active duty. There are more within
active duty, but that's 22 veterans. And even
then they're not counting all of them because
then everyone participates, but you have the
ability to at least track most of the people
that used to wear a military uniform. What do
we have in, in the first responder profession?
Like nothing, zero. You know, most of us don't
have healthcare. So you have Cobra for a year
and then, you know, go fuck yourself. And then
as far as, you know, you and I, you have a heart
attack and I get cancer and die. We're not on
any stats. We're not counted. And so not only,
especially the mental health stuff, woefully
underreported because the national suicides that
we supposedly had, I think it was 2024, was like
72 or 76. I could literally think of almost that
many in the state of Florida alone. So there's
no way in hell it's even close to that. It's
way more. And that's us. Well, that's them now,
not me anymore. That's you. That's people still
wearing the uniform. I would argue. That knowing
that this stuff really is going to manifest in
your 50s, 60s, 70s, the physical and mental health
disease, that that really is, even if you got
the right number, that is then the tip of the
iceberg of how many people's lifespans are woefully
shortened, you know, after retirement. So no
matter who I ask around the country, and we're
not a profession that's known for interacting
on health stats, that five or six years after
retirement, police, fire. All over the country,
they say the same thing, yet supposedly it's
not even a study. So clearly it's an observational
number that we're all seeing. Yeah. And it's
scary, right? And I'm fortunate now, like I said,
one of my mottos is no coincidences. I don't
believe in coincidence. I don't believe in luck
anymore, right? To me, that's a victim mentality.
We need to own it and get out of that. Like,
oh, what a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence.
It's happening for a reason. Take that ownership
and go do it. I'm in my position right now because
of where I'm at and my passion and my background
and my connections to help. We have a retiree
peer support. My HR department, when they know
someone's retiring, peer support is part of the
checklist that gets forwarded to them. We're
working on trying to get lifetime medical. And
like I said before, my real passion in this whole...
resiliency thing you know we'll get into you
know my my rad stuff i'm sure right how it went
from just being rad to resilient another day
was you got to get ahead of it we got to be proactive
we got to give people tools that's where that
study from phoenix is so beautiful in life is
you got to spend 70 time 75 of the time preparing
to stay out of the shit now we'll give you tools
for when you do get that bad call Right. When
you do have the divorce, when you do have the
lack of sleep, when you do have the trauma, when
you do have the things that are out of your control
affect you. Right. But we need to be preparing
people. Sleep hygiene. Are you breathing right?
What are we doing? Right. That's when our resiliency
program, we give them through all eight areas
of wellness. Right. Not just the big four. Here's
all the different things that you can look at
because something's going to grab you and that
becomes your passion. And when you have the passion,
like, you know, right. All of a sudden things
start to work. And when you do the new things,
I just talked about it. Right. And it's one of
my favorite things. You know, you do the hard
things, you do the things you don't want to,
you try the new things, right. Not to get into
neurobiology, but that part of your brain, right.
That anterior mid cingulate cortex that grows
and shrinks. When we do the hard shit, it's your
willpower to live. And guess what happens? We
see people who are doing that now. Now we're
seeing retirees that aren't suffering an identity
crisis. If the door closes and it's like, well,
shit, I don't have an identity anymore. No, they're
spending time ahead of time doing equine therapy.
They didn't even know they liked horses, but
now they're cleaning shitter stalls. Now they
got a purpose. Now they have identity. Now they're
happy. Now we're being resilient. Now we're growing.
now that guy's not going to eat a bullet or jump
off a bridge on the five freeway that's the difference
we're making that's where we're pushing these
departments that's where my department with administrative
wellness retiree wellness getting ahead of it
giving them tools offering this stuff pre -academy
while you're on the job hitting it every quarter
so that it becomes a lifestyle that it's not
the fire department it's we're human beings that
are doing this job and if My dad used to say,
you know, leave work at work and leave home at
home. And I understand what he means now, right?
Like you leave the role of fire captain at work,
right? Because that was one of my downfalls.
I'd come home and run this house like a fire
station. Not effective for your wife and kids.
Don't try it, okay? But you can't. You can't.
You're a human being that has emotions. And if
you try to turn that shit off. You're going to
wind up like I was. You're going to wind up with
darkness. You're going to wind up depressed.
You're going to wind up fighting who you truly
are. That's why I say we want a good human being.
If I get the best human being I can, then you're
going to be the greatest firefighter. You're
going to be the greatest dad. You're going to
be the greatest whatever you do in life. You're
going to be the greatest at that. But you got
to get out of that. And you got it. We got to
stop thinking that like, oh, 8 a .m. I punched
the ticket and I go home and now I'm just going
to. No, that's why we see divorces. right? Dr.
Gilmartin's whole biological rollercoaster, man,
we come off of that shit. There's a physiological
and emotional and a spiritual impact on the body.
And if we don't do that for everybody, including
retirees that are leaving this job with care,
like we still offer them the resources that we
have, right? So that they don't walk out of here
just without anything. They still have phone
numbers. They still have contacts. Very powerful.
Very powerful. That's a sense of belonging also,
right? In the human species, we are designed
to interact. We're not great white sharks that
are supposed to swim around by ourselves and
just eat shit. And so taking that approach, we're
ahead of the game. We're definitely ahead of
the game. And I'm very, very lucky to be a part
of it. And sometimes I say we're outrunning our
siren a little bit because of the shit we're
doing. Some of the people are like, oh, what
are you doing? We got to do that. You got to
challenge the norm. Otherwise, we're not putting
ourselves out there and being the best that I
can be. I want to get to your own personal mental
health journey, and then obviously we'll get
to the creation of RAD. But just before we do,
my favorite position in the fire service, aside
from working with my hands as the medic when
you're actually truly in an ALS life -saving
situation, was Tilleman on a truck company in
Anaheim. True truck company, roof work, extrication.
So talk to me about the California truck role.
And I'd love to hear some debunking of myths
because over on this coast, for example, they
were like, oh, it's different over there. We
have lightweight construction here in Florida.
Now, I remember everything being lightweight
construction in California, the whole building.
Florida is usually brick as the actual walls.
Talk to me first about what drew you to the truck
company, and then let's talk about that world
for a bit and vertical ventilation and why you
love that to this day. Yeah, that's awesome.
Bob McClellan was my roommate in Huntington Beach,
by the way. And Dave Baker was one of my good
friends. I won't tell you Bob's station name.
It would be offensive. Sideshow Bob. That was
another one. It wasn't so nice. I know. Yeah,
and I love those. It's great. Right. Cause again,
no coincidence. I have a relationship with those
guys from, from that. Yeah, I started and I was
at station three and Corona engine truck house
and I was just really drawn to it. Seeing my,
you know, my grandfather on a truck and, you
know, seeing the truck work, my dad, you know,
four at 49 is where the truck was and starting
to just understand kind of what it was, right.
The old school mentality of. you know, probably
on the East coast a little bit with the rescue
companies, right. You had to earn that. And so
when I got a Corona, it was kind of your senior
guys, your bad -ass guys were, you know, they
were assigned to it. They, they weren't your
slugs, you know, cause you had a lot of shit
to do, man. Mondays was tool equipment day. There's
a lot of shit to do. And then you got to do ladder
maintenance and stripping a hundred foot aerial,
right. Isn't the funnest job in the whole world.
So, um, I was just really drawn to what they
were doing, right. With being an adrenaline junkie
anyway. um, having that draw and actually knowing
what it was. Like I wanted to be on front of
the hose line with a can. I wanted to be on a
roof with a saw. I wanted to be doing those things.
Um, and it was great. Cause when I was in that
house, um, I was on the engine initially, right.
As a probie. Um, and then it was great, but I
was out there every waking minute. They were
out doing tools. I was doing tools. They were
doing matter of minutes. I was doing matter of
minutes. And I wanted to learn from those guys.
And, um, that was really how it kind of started.
And I just fell in love with it. And yeah, I
will tell you, that was one of my best days.
That was one of my favorites. It will forever
be etched in the front of my mind was that first
time. And you know what I'm talking about. When
they check you off and that first bell goes off
and you're the tillerman. And for me, it was
after dinner. And in SoCal, you know, after dinner,
that sun's kind of setting and you get that bitch.
orange glow and i get truth bumps thinking about
it i jumped in the tiller box you know and we
tear out of there my engineer was like straight
for 60 bud and beep beep you know and off we
go and i just remember the lever we pull out
you know it was like emergency we're pulling
out the engines in front of it god it was bitching
and we're going down the road and there's a my
first call to told me there's a damn header from
a house fire and i'm just like this is awesome
you know doors are open and i'm just like this
is fantastic so that was it i don't know i was
hooked and so you know it evolved and um it was
cool because i was teaching at rio hondo and
then um a group of us you know we had gone to
the riverside county truck academy that was kind
of the first one and then a group of us that
was teaching steve shoot and dave kang and dan
claridge and tyler shook and some of us were
like hey we can make our own here at rio hondo
and so we sold it to chief beckman and um to
Chief Rickman, and we went to Beckman, and we
got buy -off. And so then all of a sudden the
Rio Hondo Truck Academy started. And there was
a lot of time where, you know, we weren't getting
paid to do it, and there was money out of our
pocket. You know, the old credit card or electricity,
who was buying OSB and U -bolts for the class?
You know, and it grew into that. And I think
that also spurred a lot of it. I love the truck
work, and then I love teaching it with the guys
I did. you know and then it's funny i was having
a conversation with a buddy of mine up here in
washington yesterday about truck stuff and you
know we don't ventilate and when does it go to
the roof and when don't they and you know southern
california it's like we really emphasize we cover
conventional construction because there is still
some conventional i was in corona so there was
conventional out of the beach cities have conventional
you know you're you know 16 you know 16 or 24
on center true two by 12, you know, real construction
roofs. Um, but a lot of it is lightweight and
it comes down to cost. People aren't going to
put a conventional real roof in like we used
to see heavy timber. It's going to be your lightweight
panelized or your lightweight open web trusses.
And so, you know, we spent a lot of time on that
panelized and lightweight construction because
those are the ones that are going to kill you,
especially in today's fire burning hotter and
stuff. And so it's, it's interesting because
we used to say in Corona, every house gets a
hole. Right. And then looking back, it's almost
embarrassing. Again, it goes back to what you're
talking about, about being a professional. Right.
And having this job and being a jack of all trades.
Sometimes, you know, being on the truck is we're
going to search out in front of that hose line
with a can. Right. We're going to we're going
to go in and we're going to we're supposed to
be the building experts. We're supposed to have,
you know, the fire behavior experts. And we should
we should know all that from the engine company
work to go to the truck to have that read on
and communicate with interior. Not just because
we want to go cut a hole, but what does interior
need? They're the ones that are dictating where
the fire is and what the direction needs to go,
right? So maybe it's horizontal. It worked great
because you're not going to cut a hole in a three
-story apartment complex when the fire's on the
first floor. So what are your other options,
right? You're a ventilation expert, right? Dropping
a fan at the door and doing a coordinated horizontal
attack. Using hydraulic ventilation, very, very
powerful, especially for... And California places
like Florida, you know, Washington, it gets a
little, you know, you get down into the teens
and stuff, you know, again, water damage. But
again, properly applied, it's worked fantastic.
And so changing that, you know, debunking the
mythology of just, you know, we're going up there.
You know, you see the guys on the news. I was
part of it, right? You see the guys on the news
at LA City. They're just up on the roof. Those
guys aren't just willy -nilly up on the roof
cutting. Those guys know they're first in. And
they know that it's conventional. They've walked
that building, right? They're not just. pulling
the trigger. And so, you know, a lot of that
probably like for you is we spent a lot of time
on doing roof walks and then our first in and
what are our target hazards and, and, and doing
that. And, and then I, you know, I say the truck
is the special forces of the fire service. We
need to be the best at everything. Like that's
my standard. When I was, when I'm a truck captain,
we are training on everything from, we took a
lot of pride in canceling the engine on an EMS
call. I don't need a paramedical. This is BLS.
Get out of here. I'll transport with AMR. You're
right. We would. drop bundles to put out dumpster
fires like that's the level of pride we wanted
to have that we that we made it on that truck
company right and then also to be the professional
to not cut a hole in someone's roof that doesn't
need it right how many times we cut a hole in
an attic fire and burn the roof off the damn
thing it's like uh maybe we keep the box controlled
pull some ceiling because we're the truck we
do a surge we do some overhaul i know people
like that word do a little salvage right and
then and do that and so that's kind of the growth
of where we're going and really getting that
education and construction is what it is man
it's materials are limited and cost is is one
thing so you're not going to get a lot of heavy
heavy you know like you have you know your real
good construction of brick not even pre -33 you
know you're looking at like you know 33 through
the 70s where it was reinforced masonry but you
still had you know you still had the real good
roofs on there and then we get into the lightweight
era of trusses and glue and, you know, and, you
know, wooden I -beams and all that, you know,
we can get into all that stuff. But yeah, that's,
it's really cool to see the evolution of it,
depending on where you work is, is just being
the professional on the truck. And I just, that's
what I love about it is you're going, you're
going on every good call, you're going on every
rescue, you're going on every fire, you're going
on every thing. And so prepare for that, right.
And be the professional and you can, you can
steer the ship too. Again, you can be calm and
have that demeanor and lead. not freelance and
and that's that's one thing that we really try
to preach it was really interesting because i
went to school in the fire school in orlando
then i worked for miami area hialeah for just
under a year and that their academy was phenomenal
but again it wasn't really truck at all it was
mainly engine and and ems um and then i go to
california and i'm in the academy i got hired
and i'm in the orientation with all these california
trained firefighters And they're sticking the
ladder and I'm like, oh, shit, I've got some
things to learn. Because the way I was taught
is you lay it flat on the floor and then you
walk the rungs up and then, you know, you hold
it from the side, which when you look at it now
is like that couldn't be less secure if you tried.
And then they're like, you know, shouldering
it, sticking it, you know, putting the knee,
wrapping the leg and the knee around, not even
rotating it, like tie it off right. We're good
to go. Get in there. And then you get into, you
know, that full. super aggressive probationary
year where 25 % of every class, including mine,
would be let go by the end of the year. That's
how seriously they took their standards. And
like you said, it's training over and over and
over again. You're either cutting roofs or using
the chalk saw on the bay floor. And then you're
building construction and all these different
things. And then you go. Maybe you're working
on an engine that day and you're inside and you
see all the smoke just fucking disappear. Oh,
there's the fire. I'm just going to walk over
to it and put it out. And then the opposite.
Now you're up on the roof and you're going to
hear them screaming for ventilation. And then
you do it and then everything comes out the hole
and you extend it a bit. And then you go back
to Florida and you hear this, oh, it's too dangerous.
And then you're like, but you're going to put
two companies under that roof. And that's where
I realized there's a lot of yap -yap. The difference
is, because I was at a station that had a truck
and they were all beating their chest. And the
first fire I saw them at, I mean, you talk about
monkey fucking a football. It was embarrassing,
you know, and so because they don't have that
kind of training. And I think where the disconnect
is, and I'd be interested to kind of get the
rough, you know, what's the word I'm looking
for? What those two weeks look like anyway, syllabus,
is it was that year of training and that never
stopped. You know, as you carry on, you keep
doing, you're constantly doing training and good,
realistic training. you understand when to get
on a roof and when not. You know, understand,
you know, has it self -vented? Has it not? Like
you said, different types of ventilation. Am
I just softening the structure on this one? Kind
of, you know, assisting RIT rather than, you
know, what needs to be done. And so me cutting
a freaking pallet in the corner of a fire academy
somewhere is not truck training. you just cut
a piece of wood with a train saw and that's what
they were getting over here and they would get
you know the truck academy is a little bit more
but it was nothing nothing like what i was getting
in california so just illustrate what the rio
hondo truck academy looks like because when i
was there that was like the revered academy by
that point i'll appreciate that yeah it's um
11 days is what we've got it too right and it's
building construction. We do roof locks. We do
a chainsaw class. We do a horizontal class. I
do a horizontal ventilation class, you know,
coordinated attack. And then heavy on vent, right?
The props that we built are incredible, right?
We have flat panel lines. We have conventional.
We have pitched. We dice. We do one by six. You
know, we do axe work. Right. Chainsaw appreciation
class. And I've done it. It's terrible. Right.
And I teach the act stuff. They give me the fun
stuff to teach. And we do that, you know, we're
working off beam. We're doing off Perlin. We're
doing specialty cuts, dropbacks, pullbacks. We're
trying to give them everything that they can
encounter. Right. We do. And then we get into
VES. We do elevator rescue. Steve does a phenomenal
job with that. Right. And then we get into firefighter
survival. for a couple of days you know getting
into that we teach auto x we're doing aerial
operations using trucks for high changes and
rope rescue stuff and yeah it's pretty it's definitely
you will cut a lot there's a lot of osb that
goes into it and then we do forcible entry you
get it you get this whole and tyler's done a
fantastic job we have just about every forcible
entry prop you could possibly imagine from scissor
gates to panic hardware to conventional forcible
entry to all the mechanical forcible entry on
you know rolled steel or slat doors and everything
and so yeah it's it's really cool we do auto
x For two days, we get into company simulations
where we're running now. We do a Rick scenario,
and we've just developed a lot of props. We do
vent over fire. We do forcible entry under fire.
We do VES under fire. I'm my horizontal class,
and I do a piss can class, right? How do you
make horizontal ventilation fun? Well, you put
live fire and you use a can, right? Because a
lot of people have never used a can. They don't
know that you can actually shoot at 40 feet and
put a shitload of fire out, right? And we just
do it in a Connex. Yeah, that's, that's what
it is a real heavy on building construction.
We've been very fortunate. We go and do building
walks in the area and show them the different
unique buildings and have them get a read on
it on from, you know, a hundred thousand square
foot, large panelized warehouses to smaller ones
that show, you know, a different construction
conventional versus lightweight. So it's super
cool. I mean, it's definitely, you know, it's
two weeks, it's two weeks of our lives that our
families hate, but it's fantastic. We love it.
And, um, It's awesome. We were very honored to
have the success we have, you know, the support
of Rio Hondo and then the guys who teach. We
found out again that it's sold out in like a
minute 30 this year. So 50 spots are sold out,
you know, and then of course, a hundred people
on the waiting list. And then it's like, why
don't you guys run this more? Well, we did a
couple of years. We ran two a year. That's two
months, right? Plus of rehab prop, you know,
rehabbing props, prepping, and then time away
that we're teaching. And so. um it's usually
run in january or february and it's a hell of
a good time and then it's um really been great
because it's branched out into steve and tyler
are flying up on sunday we're going over to wenatchee
valley to teach a five -day truck class to them
where we're going to be focusing on ventilation
and elevators and a little forcible entry and
stuff so it's been we've morphed it into some
five -day classes for people too which is awesome
As I progressed through, I only had 14 years,
so it wasn't like I was some salty vet. But as
you can probably tell, I'm someone who likes
to question things a little bit. You know, why
are we doing it this way? And so perfect example,
using water on a car fire and acting like you're
actually saving something when really it's a
glorified class B dumpster fire doesn't make
a lot of sense. And whether you're using AFFF
or whether you're even trying one of those massive
tarps that seem to work really well from overseas.
Just thinking like, how else can I do this? And
what even makes sense? Like risking people to
be up against a car that you're literally saving
nothing. It will be written off. And this is,
of course, as a person in there, it's a different
story. Why are you not just hitting it hard from
the yard by that point? It's literally a dumpster
fire. And like I said, it's class B. At the academy,
we teach water doesn't put out class B fires,
which is why I use the whole tank. But when it
comes to even the searching, I remember. And
pretty much the whole time, well, we start the
primary, you know, we start and we do a right
-hand search. And I always remember going, but
what happens when you hit the fire? Like, no
one talks about that bit. There's a part of the
house that you can't get to. Now, what, did you
go back? Do you try and go around it? You know
what I mean? That was never answered. And the
other one was obviously, you just talked about
it, 100 ,000 square foot warehouse fires. The
last place I worked, Protect Disney. I mean,
the insane warehouses they had there, some of
which were full of rolls of paper and plastic.
And what have you come up with as an actual effective
way of trying to organize a search of such a
huge building like that? Man, that's a whole
class onto itself. Large area search is just,
you know, you got to start, you got to take it
as, most of the nice part is when we do building
construction, we show. right your seams your
pilasters on most of these big buildings your
concrete tilt ups right and so alpha is not always
your best entrance right you got to get out of
the mentality of and most people who work around
these things like i did in corona i was around
it right that's how i was trained looking at
scuppers and then you're gonna you gotta dissect
to that building into Where is the fire? Okay,
well, maybe we need to do a drive around 360.
We're not going to walk this thing. We're going
to take time to save time, do a drive around
360. Where is this actually at? Oh, shit. It's
over in the Charlie Delta corner. Oh, we're going
to make access here, and we're going to use the
roll -up door on this side, and then there's
one further down on Charlie, and the trucks are
going to ladder. I don't want to walk 300 feet.
I want to walk like 75 feet and cut a hole and
get off. Cause it's time driven. So that's one
of the big things, right? Is, is your access
points. And then what are we really looking at?
You know, as far as that and most commercial
buildings, right? We're not finding in most commercial
occupancies are not so search heavy. That's why
we say trucks go to the roof because most of
the time there is a standard on fire protection
systems, fire alerting systems. So most people
are getting out. right if there is a search issue
generally those large area searches are a whole
nother monster right especially what's your visibility
driven is this a hose line driven is it hose
driven is it anchored by um you know by site
now we have thermal imagers and so things like
that are all all go into it right and we like
to just tell people hey don't don't make this
hundred thousand bucks so big break it down into
smaller quadrants as to that's where we're going
to start looking at it right and where are if
this was manufacturing and everybody's out of
the building i'm not going to worry about that
right we need to pop a hole get this smoke up
because again in commercial if i cut the big
hole right minimum 16 by 16 to start with get
this hole opened up we're going to take a lot
of the products and we're going to get lift we'll
have fire right we have we can put the fire out
you put the fire out your fire your problem goes
away so So that's a lot of what we look at when
we talk about that. Right. And, you know, ladder
on pilasters instead of the old, you know, eight
to 16 feet from a corner. Well, the bigger, bigger
building is going to be eight feet from a corner.
You may not even hit a structural number. Let's
look at being, you know, 24 to 40 feet off most
buildings. Let's look at being. 120 feet off
a corner because that's the access we are looking
for seams looking for scuppers things like that
on the big commercial so those are things that
we try to emphasize right we don't want to put
everybody into a box you know i mean there is
a way to cut off perlin but you got to read it
and i think the real value of our academy is
the guys that that we don't talk at you right
and we all have the same philosophy we just get
to do this more than you Right. And we're just
out there having fun. Most of the time, we're
the ones goofing off more than anybody else because
it's like your best friend out there. And I always
lead when anything I'm teaching, whether it's
resiliency or truck ops or auto X or breathing
or rescue swimming is, hey, take what we're telling
you and go home and try to prove us wrong. Not
like prove us wrong, like, haha, fuck you. Right.
But go home and do it because one of two things
is going to happen. One, you're going to find
a better way of doing it. Then you come back
and tell us and the program gets better. Or two,
you're going to get functional understanding
of the material to which you can then teach the
other people that come up against you. And that's
what we want. We want functional understanding,
not just because Rudiger said to do it or because
Steve said to do it or because James said to
do it. We want this is why and here's the functional
understanding. I can explain it to you. I'm intrigued.
Talk to me about off -perlin cutting because,
you know, when I'm thinking again, ideal world,
we're on a main beam, we're on a perlin when
we're doing pullbacks. And, you know, I'm trying
to visualize that for my own education. yeah
our main for offensive hall our main is two saw
opposing is what we call it off purlin operations
so you're putting two teams generally off the
purlin up to where we're going to make that cut
identifying that spacer raft or whatever you
want to call it and then they're just two big
boxes so you're getting an eight foot because
our purlins are eight feet apart you have a team
on each purlin that have sounded out they're
getting that eight by four cut, and then we're
dropping a couple of them in there to give us
that, you know, eight by, you know, eight by
16, 16 by 16 hole that we need to get that thing
opened up. Right. And so working off that Perlin,
when you're on a panelizer, if you're only working
off Beamer Perlin. That's okay. So you weren't
getting off the Perlin. I was misunderstanding.
We say off Perlin, off Perlin, off Beamer, our
operations, you're going to cut off of the beam,
meaning you're going to be on the beam cutting
or you're going to, I know that's funny. I never
thought about that before. It's just right. That's
vernacular we've always used. right it's like
a crescent wrench no it's actually an open -ended
adjustable wrench get your verbiage right so
yeah no no that's what we're talking about okay
no we're work we're working off of the beam we
never right that's one okay that's yeah never
step off never step off right and that's one
thing we really emphasize like your feet come
off we really harp on you know heels and toes
on the beamer program like we don't we don't
ever step off of those on a panelized even we've
had people go through roofs on roof locks because
it rots because all it is is shitty osb and a
two by four spacer i remember you were talking
about dicing earlier there was a hotel it was
like motel six fire i was on it's funny because
i ended up on the news that the cameraman just
happened to zoom in on this one firefighter pulling
ceiling and then it zoomed back and my wife had
a heart attack at home because the roof is all
on fire above but as you said it's there's a
big barrier between the two but yeah they diced
the roof And then the ladder was up there and
he decided to flow water. And I don't know what
it was because it was Anaheim, great department,
well -trained, but there was a momentary brain
fart, you know, with sleep deprivation behind
it, quite possibly. But they flowed from down
below and they knocked one of the firefighters
on and luckily the wall caught him. But if it
hadn't, he probably would have been killed. It
was three stories up. So, you know, but I can
always see the roof kind of. you know, louvered
up there and then him sliding across and being
caught by the, uh, the wall. So yeah, definitely
one of the near messes I remember in my career.
We've had those, you know, and like you said,
it's interesting. You said, you know, the sleep
deprivation and we've talked about that. My chief,
my assistant chief just sent us a, he's real
big on human performance. He just sent me and
my boss, Mike, uh, interesting article. They're
showing that lack of sleep is not based on call
volume. They're showing. high medium and low
call volumes and people's average sleep is like
4 .8 hours and 4 .1 hours, you know, and you're
going from a high call volume to a low call volume.
Right. And it goes back to everything that we're
starting to learn. And one of my big things is,
you know, that whole Dr. Gilmart thing is when
we go to work, we're in a sympathetic tone. We're
in fight or flight. Absolutely. How many people
have we heard say, I can't sleep at the fire
station. Right. Now, when you're on a truck company,
you know. chances are I'm not going to get up.
I'm going to sleep like a baby, right? So maybe,
you know, the mind shuts off a little bit, but
that's something that I don't think we address
enough in the sleep world that I'm really big
on, right, with the neurobiology and the autonomic
nervous system is that we go to work in a sympathetic
tone. And if we don't acknowledge that we are
in fight or flight the whole time, you know,
everyone's like, well, you washed your truck
and you ate ice cream and you, you know, sat
in the chairs and you watched football all day.
We did, but I guarantee you in the back of your
mind, that whole goddamn time, you're waiting
for the bell to go off. And without waiting for
that bell to go off, you're going to be in a
sympathetic tone. That means we eat in a sympathetic
tone. We speak in a sympathetic tone. We sleep
in a sympathetic tone, which means we don't.
And so really interesting study coming out. I'm
going to dive into that a little bit more, this
study that was just sent to me, but really interesting
because people are like, that's one of the arguments.
Well, no, you know, you guys are not very busy,
so you probably sleep a lot. Horseshit, you're
at work. You could have a career defining incident.
Your department can run 0 .01 calls a day and
then you're going to be up 12 times. I mean,
that's just the nature of the beast. So really
interesting that I just got that. Yeah. It's
also, again, you touched on this earlier because
I know that, you know, I've talked about it and
you probably, we did when we were talking the
other day, but that start time, you know, changing
that to 11 a .m., 12 noon. Now you've eliminated
the sleep deprivation that comes on your first
shift, which is getting up at 435 in the morning,
especially in the L .A. area. I mean, I lived
in Burbank. I worked for Anaheim. That was like
a 90 minute commute. You know, it's just another
way of changing that because, yeah, you cannot
be in a parasympathetic state sleeping in a fire
station. And, you know, yes, you're going to
have those days that are more quiet and you're
going to have those days that are busier and
you're going to have those days where it's a
school shooting. Or the cop that just had dinner
with you five minutes later has just been shot
in the face around the corner. So, you know,
this is what we do. And, you know, do our military
have to constantly be firing mortars and shooting
their weapons for you to justify paying them?
Does a security guard in your apartment complex
have to be running after bad guys the whole time?
You know, does a librarian have to constantly
be putting books away? I mean, any other profession,
it's lunacy. But with us, oh, you need busy work.
you're not doing enough dude if we are training
a lot of us are running our asses off as well
but we're training we're learning we're you know
strength and conditioning for the chance that
when this thing happens that we are as prepared
as possible and ideally rested so that we operate
at as close to 100 as possible you know what
i mean and it's crazy that our profession has
to justify what we do when we're the only people
that that show up when you hit 9 -1 -1 right
and my my um my old man used to say you know
it was great because i've used it plenty of times
in contract stuff you know with cities and all
the other stuff uh we get paid for what we're
willing to do we're on call we're paid for what
we're willing to do and i tell this to new recruits
i tell this to people that are bitching at the
fire station I have to remind myself sometimes
too. You're paid for what you're willing to do.
It's not, well, you ran 47 calls. What is it
now? No, you're paid to be on staff. You are
there 100 % of the time ready to go. And as such,
we need to make sure that we're taking care of
people. We have a sleep SOG. It talks about sleep
hygiene and sleep cycles and yoga nidra and how
to take an effective nap and all this stuff because
my organization believes in it. We're teaching
people that. But again, we're fighting. We're
fighting the other side. We're fighting the other
side of, you know, later start times. Well, no,
we've always done it. No, no, no. We'll have
six. No. I'm like, if you look at it again and
once you change it, you'll love it. Right. Because
it's not just coming to work, James, that you
get the one day. It's the day at work, too. Even
if you even if you get your ship pushed in. Right.
And I've worked in busy houses most of my career.
Most calls are not occurring between 7 .30 a
.m. and 9 a .m. generally, right? Generally in
the morning. But when do we get up at work? We're
up at 5 .30. We're up at 6. You know, bells go
off at 7 and get your ass out of bed, right?
Because you got to wash the rig and do reports.
You got to do changeover. Plus, you want to get
up and take a shower and get your shit off the
rig because you want to leave because you don't
want to wait till 8 o 'clock because you want
to hurry up and get the hell out of there. Well,
imagine if you come back from that run or being
up all night and you can get another sleep cycle,
another 90 minutes before you go home. You're
not rushed. You get that sleep cycle in, you
can clean the rig, maybe you do some down regulation,
you do some breathing, some stretching, maybe
get a light workout in before you go home. Oh,
guess what? You're down regulating and coming
down off of that. So when you do leave the fire
station, you're putting yourself into that parasympathetic
tone to go home and not be an asshole. Because
you're not really an asshole. There's a physiological,
right? We understand that. There's a physiological
and neurobiological issue that's going on that
we haven't come down or gotten done with it.
100%. Well, that's a good segue. So let's talk
about your journey then. So you mentioned Corona,
ultimately lateral to the Northwest. Walk me
through the kind of roller coaster that was your
own mental health journey. And where was the
lowest place that you found yourself? You know,
hindsight being 2020, I mean, I can see a lot
of it now. You know, I was in Corona. successful
right at work i was successful there um you know
i was just you know burning the candle at both
ends doing what i what i thought i was supposed
to do i i had there were struggles in my first
marriage um that weren't addressed because that's
not what we did right you you you you didn't
get divorced you didn't and i wouldn't acknowledge
it i would drink through it right not knowing
any better have another beer you'll be fine you
know you don't need counseling right and that
and that kind of shit and uh um the first instance
i remember i was at corona and um on the truck
we had a mvc we had a tc on the freeway a car
drove into the back of a tow truck lady there
i'm on the truck right i'm at the time i'm running
you know i'm one of the leads for corona auto
x right well respected auto extrication thing
we took it from two to three days right Here
I am, the lead instructor for Corona Auto X.
I get off the truck, walk over there. My buddy's
like, she's trapped. I spread the window, pop
it, cut it, jack the dash, drop the mic. She's
out. No, she's not out. Yes, she is. No, she's
not. Head in there. 45 minutes later, I couldn't
get her out. Of course, everybody's looking at
me to get her out. I don't remember this, but
my buddy Dave, who was the captain, said, He
grabbed me and he grabbed me by the face and
he says, what do you need? And I said, I have
a chainsaw on the rig. That was my response.
Because I couldn't get her out, you know. Was
she trapped in the legs? Yeah, her leg was trapped.
And I'd been pushing the floorboard and cutting,
you know, jacking the thing. I cut the pedals.
We're pushing the floorboard down. I'm pushing
the dash up. I'm doing all the tricks in the
book, right? And she's not coming out. That triggered
Dave to think, man, maybe we need a flatbed,
a mobile surgeon, something because we can't
get her out of the damn car, right? And I got
in there and finally I got a look at it. And
what happened was, is on impact, she broke her
leg, right? Her foot broke and she had a tip
compound fracture. Well, it went into the old
school steering knuckle of this Honda Accord
and the steering knuckle bound in her bone got
sucked into it. So I said, okay, one more move,
right? I've had my head between this lady's legs
for 45 minutes, so we're friendly at this point,
right? She's conscious. My buddies, I'm like,
give her more morphine. They're like, we gave
her as much as we can. She's conscious. She knows
my name. I know her name. So I'm like, one more
move and I'll get you out. I put the hydraulic
ram on the rocker panel onto her bone, and I
had to break her bone out. I set it down. I walked
away. I said, she's free. And I remember I walked
away and took my helmet off and I sat on the
freeway side on the 91 freeway. The 91 freeway
gives me PTS just thinking about it. But I sat
on the freeway side of the truck with my head
in my hands and I started crying. And my captain
at the time, who was one of my best friends,
Mike Porter, he came over and gave me a hug.
And he said to himself, if Rudiger's is fucked
up, then everybody must be. And it was the first
time we had EAP in the station. And then, of
course, EAP came into the station with some,
you know, jack wagon family counselor, didn't
know shit about the fire service. You know, how
do you feel about your mother? Like, fuck you,
get out of my fire station. You know what I mean?
But I was actually able to open up and kind of
share. And I saw in that room that I was crying,
that other people were being vulnerable. And
that's kind of where it started to open up for
me. Didn't know what that was going to take me.
Didn't really acknowledge anything. Anyway, wound
up with a separation with my first wife. She
had moved to Washington with my kids. So there
was separation there. Battled that. Then I lateraled
up. You know, we got back together, tried to
save the marriage. It didn't work, you know,
for a multitude of reasons, you know, and. When
I'm getting divorced and then I changed jobs
again because I wanted to be somewhere bigger
and faster. And so I went to the department I'm
at now and just continued down the same path,
like the same old, same old. I didn't change.
And so my analogy is I kept just putting shit
in the basement, right? Because that's what we
did. And so very difficult, right? As you know,
to battle through that. And I just didn't have
the awareness, right? No one ever told me. Right.
Go get help or, you know, you're fucked up. And
it was just, you know, I just kept drinking through
it. And then met my current wife. Absolutely
amazing. Understood me. Love me. Stepkids. Right.
I don't call my stepkids. They're my children.
And, you know, struggled through that, right,
of commitment issues and blah, blah, blah. Right.
And my wife's going to be on my podcast with
me. We're going to share this because I think
it's time and it's powerful, but not knowing
any better. And I just kept living in denial.
I never really took the time to do that. And
I tell people the hardest thing we'll ever do
is have to look ourselves in the mirror honestly.
And I never did that. I was so busy trying to
be what I was supposed to be or what my dad wanted
me to be or what society wanted me to be. that
I never really had a chance to get into that.
Right. I never did that. I just drank through
it and chewed through it and lied through it.
And, um, went on a call, 16 year old ran into
a chain on a mini bike and we were in the back
of the rig. And so you being a paramedic, you'll
appreciate this. We correct him. And, um, I was
holding C -spine and then, you know, they were
eating my hot dog fingers to, you know, help
find anatomy. And, Like hold them open so we
can get the tube in. And I was on my knees the
whole way down to Harborview, you know, for whatever
that was. And holding C -spine on this kid. And
all I could see was my son's face. And then,
you know, at the time I'm one of the leads in
peer support. So, right. Why are we getting this
job like we talked about? Well, if I can help
other people, I don't have to help myself. You
know what I mean? And I'm peer support so I can
help everybody else because I don't have a problem.
I'm Greg Ruediger. I got the world by the tail.
A guy came to me and was like, dude, you're not
yourself. You need to get help. I'm like, no,
I'm fine. At the classic, I'm fine. Well, I wasn't
fine. My wife drinking, punching holes in walls,
telling my family I was going to kill myself
in front of them because they were happy and
I felt like I wasn't part of it. They told me
to go get help. My wife called one of my good
friends up here and said, get him the fuck out
of the house. I'm like, we don't know what to
do with him. And they said, you need to get,
I'm like, I'm fine. I go to a counselor and they're
like, no, you probably need, you need to file
this claim for PTSD. It's new in the state. Of
course, I'm like, fuck that. I don't have PTSD.
You guys are crazy. You know, it's just normal
day, right? I'm just, and so I did. And I was
one of the first in the state to get LNI worker
call for PTSD. um i started you know i went through
a myriad of counselors and that was great i did
emdr i did that stuff but you know what i never
really got better per se right i just i was able
to mask it more on the job all right i was getting
help for it and things were coming out of the
basement but i never never really addressed it
and that wasn't until um we were in arizona for
my birthday a couple years ago right my wife
and i had She broke up with me like five times,
and I'm relentless, and I wouldn't let her leave.
We were in Arizona, and it just was a breaking
point. She says she was living in fear and didn't
want to lose everything that she had, so she
kept putting up with it. She had stopped drinking
to help me stop drinking because I was a true
alcoholic and anger issues. suicidal ideation
so alcohol doesn't help and she left me she left
me we were at the pool we have a house in arizona
and it was my birthday and she left me she went
back to the house packed her shit while we were
at the pool we had an argument and when i went
back to the house she was gone and that was the
second time in my life the first time was when
i thought i was going to lose my kids um I told
her that I was going to stay in Arizona and I
was formulating the plan to kill myself. I was
going to go to the desert and that was going
to be it, right? The desert would take care of
the rest. And that was it. And that was my rock
bottom. And that the one person and these two
kids, you know, she had lost her first husband
to cancer. And the kids had lost their dad and
my kids weren't talking to me. And, you know,
you're a classic. I was ready to end it all.
And luckily, by the grace of God, this son came
up and I picked up the phone and I called our
friend. And she said some really great things
to me and changed my mindset. And that was kind
of the start of my new journey. And I realized
that I needed. to not kill myself was the first
thing and then i didn't know where to go with
it and then um i kept getting the help that i
needed and um you know counseling wise but i
wasn't willing to do the work on myself yet because
i didn't know how to you know i told my wife
and then as we were talking like i'm not going
to do the woo shit i'm not going to do yoga i'm
not going to do breath work i'm not going to
do this it's not going to help right i'm not
going to do this And I just wasn't ready to be
my authentic self. I wasn't ready to truly do
that. And I thought that I was. And then I got
a phone call from my buddy, Joe Hughes. And he
says, you know, you need to come off the line.
And Mike, my boss now is a good friend of mine,
said, you need to come off the line. You're the
head of peer support. We could use you in health
and safety. He was an army of one. And I'm like,
fuck that. I'm a truck captain. Like my dad said,
I didn't raise my boy to be a secretary, right?
And I was like, there was a point with my kids
and my family that, again, like I said, no coincidences.
The good Lord had other plans for me. I wasn't
strong enough to make the decision on my own.
So my family made it for me that I decided to
go off the line so I could be home every night
and be with my kids. I did. And it was the greatest
thing that ever happened to me was to go off
the line and become the captain of health and
safety. And I started to do the hard things.
My wife was like, thank God for her, staying
by me and doing those things. She's a massage
therapist by trade. And then she started her
own wellness spa, right, where she does massage
and we do red light therapy and infrared sauna
and cryotherapy and compression. brain check
or brain tap and neural checks and all this stuff
right and the neurobiology and i'm like that
you know she's like you're an alcoholic i'm like
no i'm not i like cores and i like tequila it's
just good i drink coffee cores tequila and water
like i'm not an alcoholic right i wasn't willing
to do that hard thing yet and she said i'm like
i'm not doing it i'm not doing breathwork i'm
not doing yoga i'm sure as hell not doing mindfulness
you know like i have my faith you know i'll do
my praying and i'll do that stuff and i'm exercising
right i'm on days i'm sleeping right i'm sleeping
i'm good you know and and she's like you already
are dummy you're already doing that stuff i'm
like no i'm not she's like what do you call all
the stupid breath hold layered stuff you do what
do you call the extreme like sauna hot and cold
with you know what do you call all you know your
underwater breath training you know staring at
the ocean for hours looking at wave chart like
like What are you doing? You are doing it. And
I was like, holy shit, I am. And that was really,
you know, if you've heard me speak or on my podcast,
I talk about two things. It's intentionality
and it's grace. I wasn't intentional. I wasn't
giving myself the, I wasn't being intentional
in my own care. And I wasn't giving myself the
grace to go do these things. As soon as I did
that. It wasn't, again, it wasn't overnight,
but again, my life definitely was on the upswing.
And then it was Thanksgiving. The other milestone
was Thanksgiving of 2023. I was sitting in the
sauna. Love the sauna. Love, love contrast therapy.
Right. Super good. Right. I love all the different
modalities. And, you know, like we said, you
got to throw a bunch of shit at the wall. and
figure out what works for you. And the other
thing is you got to figure out what works in
the situation because sometimes my breath work
doesn't work. Sometimes the mindfulness doesn't
work sometimes. So then I have to go to physical
tapping or I have to go to yelling or I have
to go to something else. I got to go work out.
So there's different things. You got to have
just like a fire, like the fireman. We got to
have a whole myriad, right? I call it the decision
tree, right? It's a giant oak tree, right? But
I was sitting there listening to a podcast in
the sauna. Being intentional about what I was
doing, I was listening to Sean Ryan and Laird
Hamilton, and they were talking and they were
just talking about not drinking. And I'm like,
these two are badasses. I really value what they
have to say. We share the same values. My wife's
been trying to get me to do this forever. Why
am I putting the one thing I'm still doing is
putting this poison in my body. And it was that
moment I realized I kept rationalizing this cup
right here. The reason that I have four of them
and they go everywhere with me was that I had
one of these, and this was my one drink a night.
And do you know what it was? Yeah, it was tequila.
I just have one, or I'm not drinking during the
week. I was rationalizing it. I quit drinking
right then. Cold turkey. Called my wife, said
that was it. Last drink I had was on Thanksgiving
with my father -in -law, and that was it. I've
been sober ever since, and it's propelled me
and been the best thing that's ever happened
to me. I can look myself in the mirror now and
I can tell you, James, that I am living my authentic
self and I am living my best self. And I'm, I'm,
I can say, and I told my wife the other day that
I am actually for the first time content with
who I am. I'm content with who Greg Rudiger is
and I'm very happy. It's so good to hear. I want
to go back to the darkest point for a second
and then we'll get to dive into some of the tools.
But one thing that, really emerged as a common
denominator from so many of these people that
were in this dark place that we weren't hearing
in these conversations they weren't on the posters
was the perfect storm of all the contributing
factors unaddressed childhood trauma you know
organizational betrayal sleep deprivation alcohol
the lack of sleep from alcohol you know relationship
issue The brain literally becomes miswired. And
so the reality is distorted. And so many people
said, I felt like I was the reason for my family's
pain. I was a burden to the people I loved. Was
that a little voice that you had in your ear
at one point? I told them I was going to kill
myself because they deserve better. I was going
to. Go to the desert because my kids didn't deserve
the trauma that I dropped on them, that my wife
and my other kids had already lost, you know,
lost their husband and dad. They didn't deserve
it, you know? And it was, that's why, that's
why PTS is not a disorder. I know that it has
to be in a book so we can get diagnosis and all
that bullshit, but. it's it's an injury it's
a rewiring of the brain it is a non -traumatic
traumatic brain injury i mean it is tbi to the
nth degree i i don't care who you are out there
i mean and i've heard the hubermans they agree
it's it's the studies are coming out we have
rewired the brain so badly and we hold that trauma
we physically hold those traumas in that brain
right And it was a perfect storm. And I will
tell you 100%, I thought they were better off
without me because of this shit that I dropped
on them and the asshole that I was. This is why
I think, you know, you look at the conversation
that would have been around suicide when we were,
let's say, you know, 25. It's selfish. It's cowardly.
How could you think of your family? And then
you listen to these men and women. that are in
this point that have signed a blank check that
said, if needed, I will die trying to save someone
in my community, a stranger. And now you're talking
about the people that you love the most. So I
would argue in this distorted state, although
it doesn't make sense to a healthy brain, these
people that have lost people to suicide, I guarantee
you that was fucking terrifying for those people
when they did it. And it was a courageous selfless
act. It was wrong. when you brought back to a
clear way of thinking and alcohol has left your
system but at that moment they were probably
hearing this voice saying your family would be
better off without you and the perfect example
of this is we had a young couple both in law
enforcement the the boyfriend took his own life
and barely a week later the girlfriend did and
they left behind an infant so the healthy mind
is like what the fuck but it was just the perfect
storm i'm sure of all the things that lead it
led up to that and then of course was the straw
that broke the camel's back the first suicide
for the second one of course it was so you have
this domino effect now but what needs to be front
and center aside from all the things we're already
talking about is if you are starting to get this
belief this little voice in your head that you
are a burden you are the problem and you're reliving
that your kids are scared of you and you're arguing
with your wife like that's a huge red flag to
start getting help now not waiting until when
you got jameson and a glock in your hand but
before that and so removing the stigma of selfish
cowardly whatever get that false rhetoric out
it's but when people start saying or feeling
that they're a burden that is a massive red flag
that that miswiring is really starting to take
hold i tell people i call it the darkness because
that's what it is all right and and the analogy
i use is falling asleep You never consciously
know that moment which you fall asleep. You never
do. You heard you right. You never know that.
That's the same thing with the darkness. You'll
never know when that darkness grabs a hold of
you. Then my wife said she had to swerve us back
onto the road because I was going to drive us
into a tree. I don't remember that. Again, back
to this. Let's go back to the start of the conversation.
75 % of our effort should be how to prepare and
be aware of this. Right. And then, you know,
I've, I've, I've heard, you know, I've heard
on your podcast, I've heard you guys say it,
you know, that it's okay to not be okay. Okay.
That's a great thing, but what's going with that?
Right. No, you're not a coward. This is real
shit. And what I'm here to tell you is vulnerability
equals validity. My vulnerability in this isn't
to make you feel sorry for me. Fuck that. Don't
feel sorry for me. Right. I want to be vulnerable.
I want somebody out there listening to this.
I want them to be like, holy shit, that's me.
Same thing when I'm teaching the Truck Academy.
I'm vulnerable in that I've done the wrong things
and I've done this and now I become relatable
so that now you're hearing it and you're listening
to it. And I'm here to tell you, fuck that line
of thinking, man. Because I thought that. I thought
that. Do you know what I am now? I'm the rock
of my family now. I get to be the man that I'm
called to be. I get to be the true masculine
that I'm called to be. I get to be an example
at work. I get to be an example for my three
boys and my daughter. I get to be a rock for
my wife. I get to be the support blanket for
those out there who are doing it. I get to be
an example and share with you that when you feel
this way, that you can turn it around. You could
turn it around. It's never too late. Stop the
self -limiting belief. Stop living the victim
mentality. Fuck the amygdala and the fear. We
live a fear. We're afraid of what's going to
or not going to happen. Take the extreme ownership
that you are the best version of you and then
go do it. Because the path to what's most real
is through the hardest things. And it sucks,
but I guarantee you it's a hell of a lot better
than not being here. Because nobody benefits
from you leaving. nobody you have something to
offer somebody everywhere and i've lost too many
friends i mean friends people i've known to suicide
i mean and you want to talk about it wasn't selfish
or cowardice when they climbed over a railing
that curves upside down i mean southern california
knows these and then jumped in front of the fucking
semi that ain't cowardice exactly bullshit bullshit
but he should still be here right because we
didn't let him know that he's better and that's
that's my whole man it's so funny i look back
on it now and it's just the fire service is giving
us i say us because it's people like you it's
people like me it's people the people that are
on your podcast it gives us a platform because
we have an unlimited supply of people out there
that need to hear this and their spouses need
to hear this because they're battling it too
well this is why I wrote the books, but more
importantly now is why I'm making this TV show.
Because this is just, we're talking about the,
you know, hundreds of thousands that are struggling
in the uniform. And then you extend, you know,
into everyone else. I mean, this is a human story.
So, you know, like I always say, if people can
watch the Tiger King, millions of people, what
if you showed them a show that actually gave
them hope and started exposing them to some of
the tools? So with that being said, speaking
of tools, then let's just hone in on the sleep
first, because you mentioned it prior to really
kind of, you know, realizing you've been doing
some other things. You were not only doing shift
work early on, you were working, you know, extra
OT, then you lateral, but you're still on regular,
you know, shifts being awake at night. What have
you observed retroactively about the importance
of the sleep when it comes to your recovery so
far? It's the most important thing. I joke with
Mike. He's like, he kind of does the sleep. I
do the breathing, right? We go back and forth.
I say you can go without sleep for three days,
but you can't go like 12 minutes without breathing.
So breathing is more important. I win, right?
The sleep is by far, I think the, every single
person that I have talked to, every single one.
100 % without fail. When you go to light duty,
when you retire, all of a sudden you're like,
holy shit, I feel better. I'm mentally clear.
Oh, holy shit. You have some of these ailments
that go away. Oh, you don't need three pills,
a pill for a pill for a pill for this. All you
need to do is regulate your sleep pattern. And
then consistency, right? The consistency was
a hard part. I was sleeping, but I wasn't being
consistent. When we hone that down and we get
down into the meat of it, it's the consistent
sleep pattern. So going to bed at 9 .30 or 10
and getting up every day at 5 .30 or 6, that
circadian rhythm is really, really important,
right? I will tell you that sleep, not only for
mood, but physiologically, it enhances everything
that's happening for me. I mean, it is unbelievable.
I mean, everyone's like, dude, you look great.
Like, is that because you're working out with
Mike? I'm down 45 pounds. from what I was on
when I was on the line. Oh, that's because you
quit drinking. That's because you're working
out with Mike. No, actually what it is, is it's
because I'm sleeping seven and a half hours every
night. It's amazing that the body can actually
recover, process healthy. I don't have hip pain.
I don't have knee pain. I don't have shoulder
pain. They've all kind of gone away. Am I doing
hot yoga? Am I doing the self -care I am? But
I will tell you, if you look at the one common
denominator, it's my sleep. it's absolutely the
sleep and regulating that sleep pattern along,
you know, along with, like I said, with my breath
work has just been, ah, dude, you can't even
put a price tag on it. You know what I mean?
And it's, guess what? It's free. Someone, one
of my guests said that they were like, if you
could bottle the benefits that you have from
sleep, you would literally break the internet.
You know, you'd break the sales world, but he
said, newsflash, it's free. You don't need to
pull it. But this is the problem is such a hard
sell. And then, as we said, with your journey
on your days off, now you're drinking. We all
know that destroys your ability to get into deep
sleep. So now you're just compounding sleep deprivation
with sleep deprivation. But this is so many of
us. I'm almost a month into not drinking again.
I've kind of had periods where I haven't. And
then, you know, got kind of sucked into the routine
again. But, but yeah, I mean, this is, I mean,
even for a dude that has a podcast that talks
about sleep all the time and understands the
toxicity of alcohol, I'm still, you know, or
go to a winery one day and I'll try one of their
delicious, whatever, because you're telling yourself
a little sales talk and now you're back on it
again. But, but yeah, so it's, it's, you know,
understanding this. And this is what I always
say to the firefighters that have cancer and
then they get through it and then they go back
on shift. I'm like, dude, you just survived cancer
and now you're going to jump feet first into
a known carcinogen. Fight to be on a 40 -hour
work week. If you're going to go back, then go
back and address it in a way that you're not
setting yourself up for yet another reoccurrence
of this cancer. And even with the mental health
stuff, go to days for a while. If you're going
to go back and you want to feel connected, that's
fine. But go to days. Sleep every single night.
In the meantime, kind of circling around earlier.
Let's make more sleep a national standard. Let's
make a 24 -72 with a fully staffed department
and high demand from these young recruits, just
like we used to have, so that now our first responders
are far less likely to struggle with, as you
mentioned, so many things that so many guests
on here have vowed. Yeah. And the common denominator.
You go back to, you hit the nail on the head,
right? I mean, my dad and grandfather weren't
dying from cancer either. I'm sorry. We put the
plasma vents and diesel exhausts in all the stations.
I used to love going to a fire station because
it smells like a fire station. What was that
smell? It was diesel. Those old diesels. Big
black plume of smoke, right? They weren't dying
of cancer. They weren't dying of suicide. I understand
the fires change, right? I understand decon.
I do understand that. You look at the sleep,
man. World Health Organization. What's the new
human carcinogen? Lack of sleep. So I'm 100 %
with you, right? And that's something that you
can do. Again, I say get out of a victim mentality.
Stop blaming the admin. Stop blaming all this
shit and go do it. As a local, stand up and fight
for it. Go home and do it. Empower yourselves
to go home and set a standard. Stop making excuses
about kids or this or that or whatever. Get your
sleep, regulate your sleep pattern and see how
good you feel. And then you carry that forward
and it becomes the new norm. And then we start
saving. Now we're really saving more lives. And
I agree with you 100%. The department that protects
my family, the county, they've had four suicides
in four years, all young firefighters. They had
a near miss that was kind of swept under the
carpet where a guy gave himself a paralytic in
the ER and then dropped. And they were able to
kind of resuscitate him. And then a member that
was a recent retiree, sorry, he transitioned
to a different department and then took his own
life in that department, but worked for this
department most of his career. So that sticks
basically in five years. And one of the more
recent ones, the chief does a press release and
is like, well, we don't have the answers. And
I just remember looking at this going. We do
have the fucking answers. You just don't have
the fucking balls. And I can say this because
they haven't changed six fucking years later.
And these are the people that are responding
to my family and their emergency. I know how
low the bar is dropping to. So this affects me
as a taxpayer. But this is what's angry yet also
exciting. Angry when there's resistance, but
exciting when there's actually the courage to
want to change and save these lives is we do
have the answers. Can we save every single one
of us and one of them? No, you can't get every
single addict out of addiction. You can't get
every single person suffering from obesity to
get down to a healthy weight, but you can get
most of them when you give them the environment.
So everything that, you know, we'll talk about
what you're doing right now, but all these tools
that are out there will work. You address the
obviously, you know, the work week and the overtime.
That's one. Let's put that out the way now. You
know, we know that a lot of us carry stuff in
from early life. So you now put in tools at the
front door. Let's start working through that
probie. We're going to have six sessions in your
first year and we're going to slowly help unpack.
There might be very little beautiful. We'll just
talk about how everything's going on day to day
and some recent calls. But we might also discover
that that molestation from your creepy uncle
when you were five needs to be addressed as well.
And then you've got, you know, you put the standards
back, I would argue that toxic environments start
to go away because you've got good people rising
through the ranks again. So you've got that.
And then you've got the tools that we're going
to talk about, the breath work, the meditation,
the ice bath, the contrast therapy, the equine
therapy, all the things. And then let's really
remove stigma. Let's talk about the psychedelics
that are available, the MDMA, the ketamine. This
is what makes me exciting is it's a sound like
a doom and gloom conversation, but it's not.
It's only doom and gloom if we do nothing. We
can absolutely move the needle and start saving
these lives. And this is what you guys are doing
with Rad too. We've got to have the humility
to say the way we do it doesn't work and it's
time for us to fix it. And I'm very fortunate
that my organization is really doing that and
at the forefront of it. That they're empowering
us. My position, it wasn't even a position, but
just being there for the year and a half, they
saw the value in what was happening. And budgetarily,
there was no new increases to the budget, but
they saw the value for what we were doing and
they created the position. I tested for it and
I was able to get the position to continue this
mission of doing it. They believe in the human
aspect. We have an administrative wellness program.
I went in there and said, you want family as
a core value? Start acting like it. You know,
our admin people deserve it. They get 30 minutes
of wellness every day now. They have access to
all the same things we do. Families, let's get
the families involved. We do trainings that we
involve the families in there, right? I'm speaking
as part of this group, Resilience in Action,
with, you know, Matt Quackenbush and Tim Sears
and these guys in Washington, right? We're inviting
spouses, chaplains, you know, again, sharing
this stuff out there. People are interested in
it. People want to know. Send me your sleep SOG.
Send me your admin wellness SOG. Send me your
resiliency stuff because they're seeing it. And
that's what I'm so excited. And again, like I
said, no coincidences. The good Lord had other
plans for me not to be in LA County. My journey
was to lead me right to where I am to impact,
you know, not only my department, but I'm helping
at the state level for the state of Washington.
And then we're getting this stuff out and I'm
sharing it with my friends in California, you
know, and across. With social media, thank goodness,
we're starting to make people ask questions.
And like you said, people like us are promoting
now and saying, here's the priority. And so,
yeah, it's amazing that we're offering this stuff
and we're doing it. So you mentioned your wife
pointing out that you're already doing breath
work. You're already really sitting and being
mindful and present while you're reading the
waves for the session that day. Yeah. What was
that journey to really realizing and then being
deliberate in pursuing some of these tools in
this toolbox? And then how did that turn into
the creation of RAD? I will tell you that it's
overcoming fear. And I've done a lot of resiliency
work with people on my job through our recess
program and things like that. It's overcoming
fear. Whether you want to, you know, imposter
syndrome, right? There's always the underlying
emotion, right? Of whatever it is. And most of
the time it's fear. And I was, you know, I was
afraid because if I started to do that, right?
Well, now I'm going to do this, but then I'm
going to be a fake. And I was battling the imposter
syndrome. And I used to do this. Well, I can't
stop drinking because, you know, I'm a fireman
and we've always drank. And I can't do that.
And I can't do breath work because then it becomes
woo -woo shit. And then, you know. No, stop being
afraid, right? She said, stop talking about it
and go do it, right? The old David Goggins, just
do the damn thing. So I did it. I said, okay,
I'm doing it. I'm here. By the encouragement
of my boss, Mike, he said, you know what? This
is awesome. Go do it. And I had a passion for
it. So I did. I hit the button. I signed up,
went through the XPT program to be a performance
breathwork coach, dove into it, realized how
much. scientist there was so much more than just
breathing right i mean i did i love larry i love
what he does i love what he stands for i love
his way of life right and and then my wife already
doing that you know the more natural holistic
well -rounded wellness version um really encouraged
me to do that but i had to get out of the fear
of that and i did same same way as putting the
bottle down i don't i'm done being what everybody
else wants i want to be me you know and it actually
Um, when I started rad, it was because I was
traveling, teaching so much fire stuff. My wife's
like, you need a company. And I'm like, okay.
She's like, what do you want to call it? I'm
a rad. She's like, what? I'm like, yeah, call
it rad. She's like, no, you got to call it something.
I go, yeah, call it rad. Cause I love the movie
rad. We go to rad day. It's my favorite soundtrack.
I love the word. And I'm like, I don't want him
to think I'm too professional, but that like,
that was the first instance of me truly living.
My authentic self was to say, I want my company
to be rad. And I'm like, TNC, because that's
who I used to surf for, right? Town and country.
Okay, so now it's training and consulting. And
I was talking to my buddy, Matt, who I do the
podcast with, and he's a Laguna Beach fireman.
And he had some health issues. And I just called
him out to get caught up with him. And we were
talking about what I was doing. And I just said,
man, my thing now is I'm just trying to live
to be resilient another day. And he's like, that
sounds rad. And I'm like, it is. And he's like,
no, that sounds rad. And I go, yeah, it's super
rad. And he's like, no, it sounds rad. I wasn't
putting it together. It was that organic that,
that, that happened. And it hit literally, like
I say, it hit me like a bull's eye. I mean, it
was in my backyard with my dogs. I called my
wife. I'm not afraid to say it. Like I broke
down in tears. I became so emotional that what
I was doing, living my authentic self, if you
want direction and you want to realize that we
don't live in a world of coincidences, I called
my company rad thinking it was funny and who
I was. And the whole time it was truly who I
was. It was about being resilient another day.
And that catapulted everything. And then I was
doing breath work at work and seeing the impacts
of it on other people and then began to share
my story. And my wife, like Matt, the people
that I've been around, I taught for Laguna Beach.
I do a lot of fire training for them, you know,
that my gift was to speak, to share my story,
to be in it. That's why I was a good instructor.
I've been given this gift of storytelling. So
why not go share it? And that's truly how it
started. And then getting immersed in this and
trying different things and doing the breath
work and doing red light therapy and doing these
different resilient things that I would never
do from yoga to tapping to energy work to equine
therapy to crossword puzzles to reading books
again, right? To just active stretching to, I
hated hiking. I hated it. My wife always wanted
to go hiking. It's the dumbest thing in the world.
Why would I go for a walk just to walk in a loop?
Like I want to go somewhere. I want to walk to
a lake and go swimming. I want to do that. Again,
no intentionality. And now what do I love? I
love going on hikes with my wife. We have our
house in Arizona. We go camelback all the time.
It's like one thing we look forward to. Then
it came down to intentionality and realizing
I wasn't afraid anymore. I wasn't afraid to be
who I needed to be. Beautiful. So talk to me
then about what you offer. If people listening
wanted to bring you on from either side, from
the fire training, but also especially from RAD.
Yeah, the fire side we do, we'll do, I teach
everything from truck company operations to auto
extrication to firefighter survival, water rescue,
first aid CPR, you know, the whole thing. I've
been an instructor for 25 years. So I still offer
that. Like I said, we're going to Wenatchee Valley
and doing that class. From the RAD side, it's
all under RAD, but really through the resiliency
aspect, performance breathwork coaching, which
isn't just breathwork. I really like to get into
the overall wellness and resiliency aspect that
we're using the breath. Again, intentionally,
I'm using the breath to be better, right? So
a lot of that is digesting and teaching people
how to breathe. I do a lot of resiliency and
wellness coaching, whether that's helping with
contrast therapy, Um, a lot of the training and
stuff that my wife does from energy work and
things like that, you know, to relationship coaching,
um, is really what I'm really focused on. And
the beauty is, is that it really comes down to
you. Like if you, if you want resilience and
you want wellness, right. It's individual. It's
not like, OK, so on week one, we're going to
do X, Y and Z because we may try something like
that. That wasn't really for me. OK, well, instead
of doing performance, instead of doing box breathing,
we're going to do relaxation breathing or we're
going to we're going to build in some some breath
holds and we're going to do some triangle breathing.
Right. And we're going to tie this thing together
and build it for you. And then you're going to
make it what it is because I empower you to choose
your own adventure story. It's your story. You're
the one that's got to do the thing. I'm just
helping you. I'm just your guide on this rad
venture. You're doing the work. You're choosing
your own adventure. And that's really where it's
powerful. We have a lot of resources and a lot
of stuff that we can help with on that front.
So that's really what my focus is in offering.
And I am with you. I am very much a believer
that... With sleeping and with breathing and
with natural remedies, we don't need pills and
we don't need medicine that's made. We need natural
plant -based medicine. I'm 100 % fully convinced
on that. And I'm glad that I just got an article
from a friend of mine who's a clinician that's
working with us. University of Washington is
doing, they're actually doing a study. So hopefully
we'll start getting this changed on psilocybin
and the use of MDMA. plant -based medicines for,
you know, traumatic release. So I'm very excited
about that. Beautiful. Oh, for people listening,
where can they find Rad online? You can go to
resilientanotherday .com. That's my website.
Of course, I got my social handles at stay .rad10
on TikTok and Instagram. I'm super stoked. It's
way outside my comfort zone to do this, but episode
six just dropped of the Radcast. That's my podcast.
You can find it on Spotify or Amazon or Apple
or iHeartRadio. So it's the Radcast. And we just
talk about all things resiliency and it's hour
long, try to do it every week. And it's just
been amazing. So that's where you can find me.
You can always email me too. RadTraining10 at
gmail .com with any information you may have.
My contact's all on the website and you can send
contacts to there. I'm always welcome to phone
calls, texts, and I just want people to know
that you're not alone, right? I'm really big
on that. I like that you're not alone versus
it's okay not to be okay. That's kind of an empty,
okay, I'm not okay, now what? I want to bring
solutions, not problems, but you're not alone
out there. You have people like James and me
and other people out there. Reach out. If it's
a phone call, call me. I'm very big on that.
You can call me, you can text me, you can email
me, and I'm here for you. Beautiful. Well, I
want to throw some quick closing questions at
you before I let you go. The first one. Is there
a book or other books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or
completely unrelated. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
there's so many out there. I'm starting to build
that library on my website. It's one of the things
I need to do. James Nestor's Breath is absolutely
fantastic and is one of my first ones. You've
got to read that. It is wonderful. The Comfort
Crisis is another one. that I absolutely think
everybody should read, especially whether you're
struggling or not, you need to read that book.
And the other one that I just read that has gone
in, that has propelled right to the top is a
book called The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz.
And it is extremely powerful. I've read a lot
of... um books on you know where we're going
and self -help i don't call them self -help books
but you know that kind of thing motivational
books and things like that i will tell you that
those are the three when i get with people those
that's where i would start for sure and the four
agreements is that's become one of those it's
a short read it's a light read i i've read it
three times already just because The four agreements
that you make with yourself are so powerful in
wherever you're going. And it's so proactive
in the approach as to what you can do and to
get out of that fear -based mentality. It's been
recommended many times. Obviously, it's hitting
a lot of people deeply. Yeah, it's old school.
I say old school. I mean, it's rooted in ancient
times. I mean, that's what worked, right? We
don't need pharmaceutical stuff. to help us,
you know, we, we need each other and we need
to find that truth and we need natural remedies
that are truly what, what has kept us this way
for centuries. So those, those are the ones that
I would highly recommend to everybody. And that's
a nice, they're kind of a nice read across all
three of those, but I think they really hit the,
the true points of resiliency and, and living
your authentic self. i had uh michael easter
on the show that wrote the comfort crisis that
was a great conversation yeah i'm indeed i'm
telling i love that i love that i love that book
absolutely all right well that's books what about
films and documentaries everybody has to go watch
rad it's my favorite i know everyone's like what
you know yes the 1985 bike movie it's just because
it's cool right i say that um you know there's
a there's so many different There's so many different
ways that you could go with that, man. I mean,
to be cheesy, I think you need to watch It's
a Wonderful Life. That's my number two movie.
I think, you know, it's black and white and it's
got Jimmy Stewart, but I think the story that
it tells, especially for what we're talking about,
the crisis that we're in and truly, you know,
how many lives. one person's life truly touches
right and they say they say we impact one person
will impact seven others you know so so that's
definitely another one that i think that you
need to go out and watch um that movie um there's
so many good documentaries out there uh i will
say i know a lot of people aren't big aaron rogers
fans and i wasn't either until i watched his
documentary that was good i completely changed
my mindset on it not just because i'm a believer
in natural medicines but now How cool is it that
he impacted the vulnerability and the self -reflection
and actually doing the hard work? So those are
ones that I would definitely recommend to people.
Absolutely. All right. The next question, is
there a person that you'd recommend to come on
this podcast as a guest to speak to the first
responders, military, and associated professionals
of the world? There's two guys, Noel Lilly and
Kevin Welch out at LA County Fire. They do the
Fire You Carry podcast. They have the Fire Up
Foundation. They're doing this stuff, right?
They're retreats, things like that. And they're
running the same belief system we are, man. They're
out there doing it for what's good for them.
And the irony is that they worked out of Station
15 with guys where my grandfather worked, where
I was as a kid chasing chickens. And they're
like, how do we not know each other? Because
they're LA County guys. They're like, how have
we not? And then one of them's like, wait a minute,
we did meet. You were in the station doing extrication
with KT and Donnie Butler. So we have met. So
those two guys are just phenomenal. And the podcast
that they're doing and the foundation that they
have are just amazing for the work they're doing.
Fantastic. All right. Thank you for that. Right.
The very last question then, what do you do to
decompress? My decompression is really, my go
-to is breath work. I do a lot of apnea, so a
lot of breath holds, extended nasal breathe,
nasal exhales with an extended holds for my decompression.
A lot of prayer and mindfulness as I'm doing
that, setting an intentionality. So my big thing
when I teach people is no matter what we're doing,
I like to set an intention. So when I decompress
and I know I need to do that, it's always the
intention of what I'm trying to release or what
I want to hold on to and setting that intention.
Three breaths in and out, in through the nose
to breathe in my intention, out to relieve the
stress or the tension, and then I go into whatever
breath work or mindfulness. And usually in my
real decompression, if I'm close enough, it always
is engaged with water. So whether that's a nice
bath or a cold pool, I'm very much a water creature.
So just being in the water is a decompression
for me. When it comes to like leaving work or
situations like that where I need to decompress
in the moment, again, the breath work is mine.
Holding the breath and then setting that intention
is really a big one for me. The other ones are
tapping. Tapping either with the face, the hands,
the body, working through the different chakras
and the parts of our body that we use. That's
my other decompression one is because there's
so much to that vibrationally and energetically
that we can use. Fantastic. All right. Well,
Greg, we've been chatting for well over two hours
now, so I want to be mindful of your time. But
it's been such an amazing conversation. I always
say this. I'm so enamored that there's the trust
for people to come on here and be vulnerable.
And I understand that sometimes even revisiting
some of these calls kind of pulls the scab off
the wound a little bit. But I know that that
depth of emotion is going to really hit home
with people that are listening. So I want to
thank you not only for being generous with your
time today, but also for your courageous vulnerability
and your storytelling. So thank you so much for
coming on the Behind the Shield podcast. Thank
you. Can't tell you how blessed and honored I
am. I'm truly grateful. Great gratitude is another
big one, right? I am truly grateful for you having
me on here and allowing me this opportunity.
And what you're doing, you're truly impacting
people.