WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:04.960 -owned and operated performance optimization 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:08.039 company that I introduced recently as a sponsor 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.820 on this show. Well, since then I have actually 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.080 been using my products and I have had incredible 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:15.939 success. There was initial blood work that was 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:19.039 extremely detailed and based on that they offered 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:23.519 supplementation. So I began taking DHEA. BPC 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:26.399 -157 for inflammation based on the fact that 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:28.300 I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:30.579 firefighter my whole life. Lots of aches and 00:00:30.579 --> 00:00:33.880 pains. Dihexa to help cognition after multiple 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.899 punches to the head and shift work and peptides. 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:39.520 Four months later they did a detailed blood work 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.259 again and I was actually able to taper off two 00:00:42.259 --> 00:00:44.479 of the peptides because my body had responded 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:47.079 so well to just one of them that it was optimized 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:50.530 at that point. So I cannot speak highly enough 00:00:50.530 --> 00:00:53.530 of the immense range of supplementation that 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:55.789 they offer, whether it's male health, female 00:00:55.789 --> 00:00:58.530 health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:00.829 which I would argue is needed by a lot of the 00:01:00.829 --> 00:01:03.570 fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:06.750 needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age. 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:09.480 Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:11.980 this company is an altruistic arm called the 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:14.840 Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:17.620 and first responders through some of their protocols 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:21.340 free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering 00:01:21.340 --> 00:01:24.000 you, the audience, 10 % off their protocols. 00:01:24.219 --> 00:01:27.120 And you can find that on jamesgearing .com under 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.840 the Products tab. And if you want to hear more 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:32.560 about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.390 808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to 00:01:37.390 --> 00:01:42.290 transcendcompany .com. This episode is sponsored 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:45.230 by TeamBuildr, yet another company that's doing 00:01:45.230 --> 00:01:47.370 great things for the first responder community. 00:01:47.989 --> 00:01:50.150 As a strength and conditioning coach myself, 00:01:50.269 --> 00:01:53.790 who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination 00:01:53.790 --> 00:01:56.129 of wellness information is one of the biggest 00:01:56.129 --> 00:01:58.950 challenges. Now, TeamBuildr is the premier 00:01:58.950 --> 00:02:01.329 strength and conditioning software for tactical 00:02:01.329 --> 00:02:03.890 athletes. And there are several features that 00:02:03.890 --> 00:02:07.579 really impress me. Firstly, there is a full exercise 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:10.240 library, so you, the personal trainer, does not 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:12.319 have to create that within your own department. 00:02:13.319 --> 00:02:16.120 Secondly, you can send out programming, but also 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:19.439 individualize, which I love. So you blanket program 00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:22.699 for everyone. Now you can tweak based on someone's 00:02:22.699 --> 00:02:25.280 injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:28.020 composition, rather than having to write a program 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:31.330 for every single person on their own. TeamBuildr 00:02:31.330 --> 00:02:33.710 also allows you to build custom questionnaires 00:02:33.710 --> 00:02:37.009 to collate health and wellness data. It integrates 00:02:37.009 --> 00:02:39.569 with wearables. And I think one of the most important 00:02:39.569 --> 00:02:43.389 things is obviously it tracks. To me, it's imperative 00:02:43.389 --> 00:02:46.849 that we as a profession start tracking our people 00:02:46.849 --> 00:02:50.729 from day one and then over the full span of their 00:02:50.729 --> 00:02:53.949 career, therefore catching potential wellness 00:02:53.949 --> 00:02:57.490 issues and injuries before they happen. Now, 00:02:57.509 --> 00:02:59.729 if you want to try TeamBuildr, they are offering 00:02:59.729 --> 00:03:02.050 you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, 00:03:02.469 --> 00:03:06.650 a free 14 -day trial to experience all of the 00:03:06.650 --> 00:03:09.189 features. And if you want to take a deeper dive 00:03:09.189 --> 00:03:13.729 into Team Builder, listen to episode 1032 with 00:03:13.729 --> 00:03:17.750 Melissa Mercado or go to teambuildr .com. And 00:03:17.750 --> 00:03:19.270 I'll spell that to you because it's not as you 00:03:19.270 --> 00:03:25.979 think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome 00:03:25.979 --> 00:03:27.759 to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:29.659 my name is James Geering, and this week it is 00:03:29.659 --> 00:03:32.539 my absolute honor to welcome on the show third 00:03:32.539 --> 00:03:36.180 -generation firefighter and the man behind Resilient 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:40.659 Another Day, Greg Rudiger. Now, in this conversation, 00:03:40.819 --> 00:03:43.460 we discuss a host of topics, from his journey 00:03:43.460 --> 00:03:46.800 into the fire service, his powerful mental health 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:51.360 story, breathwork, addiction, relationships, 00:03:51.740 --> 00:03:55.009 and so much more. Now, before we get to this 00:03:55.009 --> 00:03:57.229 incredible conversation, as I say every week, 00:03:57.289 --> 00:04:00.250 please just take a moment. Go to whichever app 00:04:00.250 --> 00:04:02.889 you listen to this on. Subscribe to the show. 00:04:03.370 --> 00:04:07.389 Leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single 00:04:07.389 --> 00:04:10.650 five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast, 00:04:10.949 --> 00:04:13.349 therefore making it easier for others to find. 00:04:13.569 --> 00:04:18.889 And this is a free library of almost 1 ,100 episodes 00:04:18.889 --> 00:04:22.870 now. So all I ask in return is that you help 00:04:22.870 --> 00:04:25.670 share these incredible men and women's stories 00:04:25.670 --> 00:04:29.829 so I can get them to every single person on planet 00:04:29.829 --> 00:04:33.490 Earth who needs to hear them. So that being said, 00:04:33.709 --> 00:04:58.370 I introduce to you... Greg Rudiger. Enjoy. Well, 00:04:58.449 --> 00:05:00.610 Greg, I want to start by saying thank you so 00:05:00.610 --> 00:05:02.810 much for taking the time and coming on the Behind 00:05:02.810 --> 00:05:06.339 the Shield podcast today. Thank you. It's truly 00:05:06.339 --> 00:05:09.540 an honor and a privilege, and I'm very, very 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:14.240 blessed that you asked me to be on here and to 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:16.579 be able to share our passion together. Absolutely. 00:05:16.939 --> 00:05:19.240 So let's start at the very beginning. Well, first 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:21.060 question, where on planet Earth are we finding 00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:26.560 you today? I am in Western Washington. I'm actually 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:30.800 in... Bothell, Washington right now. I work in 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:33.399 Snohomish County. So that's where I am. I know 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:35.939 you wouldn't know it because there's like sunshines 00:05:35.939 --> 00:05:39.560 out today, which is awesome. That's where you're 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:41.860 finding me today. Beautiful. All right. Well, 00:05:41.899 --> 00:05:44.040 then let's start the very beginning of your journey 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:46.259 then. So tell me where you were born and tell 00:05:46.259 --> 00:05:48.120 me a little bit about your family dynamic, what 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:52.360 your parents did, how many siblings. So I was 00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:55.860 born in Southern California in Bellflower, California. 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:02.279 47 years ago. I grew up in Southern California, 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:05.660 a city called La Mirada, just right by Knott's 00:06:05.660 --> 00:06:07.540 Berry Farm in Disneyland is the easiest way I 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:13.379 tell people. Mom and dad, my mom, Colleen, was 00:06:13.379 --> 00:06:16.860 fantastic, amazing, stay -at -home mom. And my 00:06:16.860 --> 00:06:21.879 dad, Guy, is a retired L .A. County fire captain. 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:26.199 I had two brothers, Scott and Chris. They are 00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:30.500 both... la county fire captains my grandfather 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:35.139 was an la county fire captain so you can see 00:06:35.139 --> 00:06:37.019 where this is going and i know we'll get into 00:06:37.019 --> 00:06:41.060 it later but i say my blessing is my curse through 00:06:41.060 --> 00:06:43.399 this stuff um but that was the family dynamic 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:46.660 it was awesome two brothers my mom and dad still 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:48.779 happily married they just were up here visiting 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:54.459 so it was great seeing them and we had i had 00:06:54.459 --> 00:06:59.660 a fantastic childhood growing up you know sports 00:06:59.660 --> 00:07:03.980 my dad worked in the city where we live so he 00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:06.639 picked me up from you know real life emergency 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:09.220 he picked me up from school and squad 49 you 00:07:09.220 --> 00:07:12.000 know it's pretty cool uh which was awesome so 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.399 great family dynamic um growing up part of that 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:17.360 which I'm sure we'll dive into later you know 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:21.120 all of us you know 4 .0 students three -star 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:23.899 athletes mom and dad known in the community my 00:07:23.899 --> 00:07:26.139 mom was the cheer coach my dad did football you 00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:29.060 know the public safety commission so you're real 00:07:29.060 --> 00:07:32.660 modern day cleavers, right? You know, and so 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:35.480 it was camping a lot. You know, we were very 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:39.579 active in sports, camping, surfing, all that 00:07:39.579 --> 00:07:41.800 kind of stuff. So lots of friends, open door 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:47.439 policy at our house growing up. So it was pretty 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:49.259 special, especially growing up in the town of 00:07:49.259 --> 00:07:51.240 La Mirada, right? There was one high school, 00:07:51.279 --> 00:07:54.980 one little league, there was one, you know, not 00:07:54.980 --> 00:07:57.240 like today where you get. Kids don't even play 00:07:57.240 --> 00:07:58.160 Little League. They're all playing different 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:02.360 select sports. So very great community to grow 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:05.980 up in. It was really special. That's a nice little 00:08:05.980 --> 00:08:08.920 area. Obviously, I worked at Anaheim, so I was 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:10.399 there for a few years. But when I was there, 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:13.139 I've always been a stuntman on the side. So they 00:08:13.139 --> 00:08:16.300 opened the Pirates Dinner Adventure right by 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:18.939 Knott's Prairie Farm. So I used to work there 00:08:18.939 --> 00:08:22.220 a lot. So I'm familiar with your area. I drove 00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:24.500 by it not too long ago. The Pirates is still 00:08:24.500 --> 00:08:28.050 there. yeah it didn't mean it's still there it's 00:08:28.050 --> 00:08:31.769 funny the one in orlando originally um you know 00:08:31.769 --> 00:08:33.470 was a certain way and then when they built the 00:08:33.470 --> 00:08:35.269 one in california you know what we're going to 00:08:35.269 --> 00:08:37.289 get the pirates to do high falls in the show 00:08:37.289 --> 00:08:39.950 too so some of the guys that did my role which 00:08:39.950 --> 00:08:42.720 is the kind of hero the benjamin blue When they 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:43.799 were like, yeah, now you're going to have to 00:08:43.799 --> 00:08:45.980 fall 20 feet onto a mat. They were like, yeah, 00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:49.679 I think I'm out on that. So when I went to California 00:08:49.679 --> 00:08:51.580 and helped open that one, I had to learn how 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:53.879 to fall off things and not break my neck. And 00:08:53.879 --> 00:08:55.720 I wasn't great in the air, to be honest. But 00:08:55.720 --> 00:08:57.919 yeah, it's a fun show to do, though. It really 00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:03.480 was. That's awesome. So all these generations 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:07.039 of firefighting, what do you remember if you 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:08.700 were an age where you were able to have this 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:11.779 conversation? from your grandfather talking about 00:09:11.779 --> 00:09:17.080 his era firefighting oh we could do a whole podcast 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:19.120 on that i mean it's incredible it was it was 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:23.519 pretty special um and it's really cool that we're 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:27.919 talking about this because my kid today my oldest 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:32.179 boy um 17 chance he is going through what they 00:09:32.179 --> 00:09:34.399 have like a running start one um you know work 00:09:34.399 --> 00:09:36.580 program for school he's doing the fire thing 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:39.379 so he's doing interviews today Brilliant. Yeah, 00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:41.679 it was pretty cool, you know, getting the tie, 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:43.879 shining the shoes. So, yeah, could have four 00:09:43.879 --> 00:09:47.679 generations. You know, it was really cool as 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:49.919 a kid growing up because, I mean, from a young 00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:52.659 age, I, you know, literally taken home. My grandma 00:09:52.659 --> 00:09:56.580 gave me a picture of my dad and grandpa holding 00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:58.879 me at L .A. County Station 17, and then she had 00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:01.000 us reenact it when I got hired in Corona. So, 00:10:01.059 --> 00:10:04.279 it's pretty cool. It's hanging in my office right 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:07.820 now. Very, very special. really cool to have 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:11.059 my grandfather around for as long as I did. And 00:10:11.059 --> 00:10:15.559 he was at a point where, you know, he was talking 00:10:15.559 --> 00:10:18.299 about, he was one of, he was at station 20 in 00:10:18.299 --> 00:10:22.299 Norwalk when they got paramedics and he was old 00:10:22.299 --> 00:10:23.639 school. And then, you know, he talked about getting 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:27.440 hired. He actually worked for LAPD and his buddies 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:29.490 were. all firemen. And then they're like, you 00:10:29.490 --> 00:10:31.789 got to come do this. So he went up to East LA 00:10:31.789 --> 00:10:33.309 and when it walked into like, I says, I want 00:10:33.309 --> 00:10:34.870 to be a fireman. They're like, okay, well here, 00:10:34.929 --> 00:10:38.629 you start in two weeks. Right. Not like you and 00:10:38.629 --> 00:10:41.190 I. Right. And I've heard, you know, you, we share 00:10:41.190 --> 00:10:44.169 the same thing, right. Sleeping in our car, you 00:10:44.169 --> 00:10:47.590 know, sitting in Anaheim stadium, 20 ,000 people 00:10:47.590 --> 00:10:50.830 for, you know, picking up apps, maybe, maybe 00:10:50.830 --> 00:10:53.590 a hundred jobs. Yeah. Right. It was, it was crazy. 00:10:54.879 --> 00:10:56.960 For him to do that. And then I'm talking about 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:00.120 morning lineups and then, you know, this captain, 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:02.059 he's like, I don't like this anymore. So then 00:11:02.059 --> 00:11:03.820 he went and promoted. So then he became a captain. 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:07.940 That still happens. I don't want to be a firefighter. 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:09.539 I'm going to be a chief and tell you what to 00:11:09.539 --> 00:11:13.860 do. Yeah. So he talked about really cool. He 00:11:13.860 --> 00:11:15.600 talked about them getting the first paramedics, 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:18.159 you know, and it's great. He talked about the 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:21.419 transition to BAs and, you know, the first paramedics. 00:11:21.419 --> 00:11:23.700 And he's like, Hey, you know, there's chores 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:25.779 to do we got morning lineup you know you got 00:11:25.779 --> 00:11:27.580 you got stuff you got to do around this station 00:11:27.580 --> 00:11:29.419 you know and they're like we got to go get meds 00:11:29.419 --> 00:11:31.100 and then they call the chief and the chief would 00:11:31.100 --> 00:11:32.779 call him and say hey paul if these guys gotta 00:11:32.779 --> 00:11:35.159 go get meds they got he goes oh he's up at the 00:11:35.159 --> 00:11:38.139 nurse flirting with the nurses you know so he 00:11:38.139 --> 00:11:40.039 actually called a buddy of his who worked at 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:42.480 station 96 a little a little three -person house 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:46.840 in um over in whittier And he's like, hey, you 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:48.820 want to be a battalion chief? I think this paramedic 00:11:48.820 --> 00:11:51.059 thing is the way of the future. And so they mutualed 00:11:51.059 --> 00:11:53.000 stations, and my grandfather wound up retiring 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.759 out of 96, which pretty cool. My dad retired 00:11:56.759 --> 00:11:59.879 out of Station 96. So you go, anybody out there 00:11:59.879 --> 00:12:03.700 in L .A. County, you go to Station 96, the concrete 00:12:03.700 --> 00:12:06.539 slab in the back says Rüdiger 1973. That was 00:12:06.539 --> 00:12:09.419 my grandfather. My dad put the patio cover up 00:12:09.419 --> 00:12:13.480 with his guys. It says Rüdiger like 1993. It's 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:16.899 pretty awesome to have that legacy and to hear 00:12:16.899 --> 00:12:20.860 him tell the stories. And then for him to come 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:22.899 out, because I taught at Rio Hondo. I'm sure 00:12:22.899 --> 00:12:25.299 we'll get into that. I taught at Rio Hondo. So 00:12:25.299 --> 00:12:27.279 he would come out. My dad would bring him out 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:31.080 to the fire academy and the truck academy. So 00:12:31.080 --> 00:12:32.779 really cool for him to be out there and see what 00:12:32.779 --> 00:12:35.480 we were doing and the new stuff that we were 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:37.480 doing and the live fire training and all that 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:41.279 stuff. So it was pretty rad. Now, of course, 00:12:41.299 --> 00:12:43.399 we're going to get into the world of mental health. 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:46.559 When you reflect back now with this mature lens, 00:12:46.980 --> 00:12:50.519 what, if any, were some of the struggles that 00:12:50.519 --> 00:12:54.639 you saw in your father or grandfather as a kind 00:12:54.639 --> 00:13:00.279 of, you know, byproduct of the job? You know, 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:04.159 it's funny looking back. I mean, with my grandfather. 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:07.639 I think he, I think that job, that era had a 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:09.860 real good work balance, work -life balance. I 00:13:09.860 --> 00:13:13.080 think my dad, his generation had a pretty good 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:16.100 work -life balance because like when they started, 00:13:16.159 --> 00:13:19.139 it wasn't, they liked going to work, you know, 00:13:19.139 --> 00:13:22.039 maybe getting some benefits, but you know, my 00:13:22.039 --> 00:13:24.200 dad was doing concrete and brick work on the 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:26.139 side, right? I was a kid mixing mud in a wheelbarrow. 00:13:26.179 --> 00:13:29.220 My grandfather built houses on the side. So I 00:13:29.220 --> 00:13:33.860 think some of that, I think they had a, Also, 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:36.200 the world being what it was, we weren't so inundated. 00:13:36.259 --> 00:13:38.059 I think there was more of a healthy coping mechanism 00:13:38.059 --> 00:13:40.000 where they had a solid family life and they had 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:43.879 a pretty good way to deal with things. And they 00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:46.620 weren't dealing with things on such a level. 00:13:47.620 --> 00:13:54.559 I think there still was the macho era back then 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:57.759 of, ah, we'll just deal with it. And that was 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:02.129 part of, you know, my dad. you know, they did 00:14:02.129 --> 00:14:04.029 a great job raising me, you know, but that wasn't 00:14:04.029 --> 00:14:05.590 how you just have a beer. You'll be fine. Have 00:14:05.590 --> 00:14:07.370 a chew. We'll go fishing. You don't go surfing. 00:14:07.470 --> 00:14:09.750 My grandpa, I'll have a drink, you know? And 00:14:09.750 --> 00:14:11.970 so some of those coping mechanisms, I think, 00:14:11.970 --> 00:14:16.710 I think, I think that helped. And I don't know, 00:14:16.750 --> 00:14:18.029 you know, there's not, there's not a whole lot 00:14:18.029 --> 00:14:20.570 of data out there, but you know, my grandfather's 00:14:20.570 --> 00:14:23.289 era there, we didn't have the data, but it just 00:14:23.289 --> 00:14:24.710 didn't seem like there was a whole there. The 00:14:24.710 --> 00:14:28.070 suicide wasn't that prevalent, you know, for, 00:14:28.250 --> 00:14:31.169 for firefighters and first responders. you know 00:14:31.169 --> 00:14:33.409 i think there was a bit more of that balance 00:14:33.409 --> 00:14:37.090 and i think some of my study too with what we're 00:14:37.090 --> 00:14:39.870 going on how we're doing it the over stimulus 00:14:39.870 --> 00:14:42.870 you know that it's not ptsd it's not a disorder 00:14:42.870 --> 00:14:45.330 it's actually ptsi where it's an injury that 00:14:45.330 --> 00:14:49.509 we're occurring from and um i think they had 00:14:49.509 --> 00:14:51.610 they had a good way of doing it and and i think 00:14:51.610 --> 00:14:54.889 some of that though as we transitioned hurt us 00:14:54.889 --> 00:14:58.009 hurt me especially and hurt the fire service 00:14:58.009 --> 00:15:02.659 a little bit with uh the bravado right just mental 00:15:02.659 --> 00:15:05.179 health is the big one and that's my passion you 00:15:05.179 --> 00:15:08.740 know but just like bas people were transit they 00:15:08.740 --> 00:15:11.399 were reluctant to try bas because like you know 00:15:11.399 --> 00:15:16.200 have a cigarette you know what i mean so those 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:18.200 kind of things were pretty were pretty awesome 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:22.139 to see and and now you know and we'll probably 00:15:22.139 --> 00:15:25.440 get into my adventure but looking back on it 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.960 i think i just think they had there was a little 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:31.720 there wasn't the intensity there wasn't the exposure 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:33.899 right it wasn't the wrist frequency curve like 00:15:33.899 --> 00:15:36.080 we're with and i think they had a much better 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:38.259 work -life balance like i said they had a they 00:15:38.259 --> 00:15:40.820 had a real job the fire department was like fun 00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:43.019 and get benefits so i think when that when you 00:15:43.019 --> 00:15:45.720 have that approach it changes things too this 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:48.059 has never hit me before until you just said that 00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:50.799 but when we reflect on the older generations 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.919 i mean we know at least more recently that you 00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:55.779 know Core volume has just gone up exponentially. 00:15:56.059 --> 00:16:00.019 There's no denying that at all. But when you 00:16:00.019 --> 00:16:02.120 talk about the older generations, yeah, they 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:04.120 would do constructions on the side. They did 00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:06.080 concrete, whatever. But what does that involve? 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:10.240 Going home at night after physical labor, having 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:12.259 dinner with your family, and going to sleep in 00:16:12.259 --> 00:16:14.860 your own bed. Where are all the hours in modern 00:16:14.860 --> 00:16:18.179 days? 56 -hour work weeks, mandatory overtime. 00:16:18.539 --> 00:16:20.820 God forbid you go work at a second department 00:16:20.820 --> 00:16:24.250 on the side. And so these are... constant sleepless 00:16:24.250 --> 00:16:27.169 nights. And again, if we're talking about correlations, 00:16:27.169 --> 00:16:30.230 yes, the number of calls is definitely a contributing 00:16:30.230 --> 00:16:35.830 factor. The overuse of 911 using the emergency 00:16:35.830 --> 00:16:39.070 system and the 911 calls is a factor. So there's 00:16:39.070 --> 00:16:41.509 almost that kind of organizational stress. But 00:16:41.509 --> 00:16:44.970 I bet you could probably draw a correlation as 00:16:44.970 --> 00:16:47.389 well with the number of hours they slept in that 00:16:47.389 --> 00:16:50.289 generation and the number of hours we don't sleep 00:16:50.289 --> 00:16:54.019 now. and see a linear relationship between suicide 00:16:54.019 --> 00:17:01.700 cancer and those hours 100 i mean 100 you and 00:17:01.700 --> 00:17:05.440 i have talked offline you know the sleep i'm 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:08.480 a big breath for a guy big on sleep like those 00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:11.180 are the pillars it used to be diet and exercise 00:17:11.180 --> 00:17:13.460 i mean if you really look at it empirically scientifically 00:17:13.460 --> 00:17:16.359 like Neurobiologically, emotionally, and physically, 00:17:16.420 --> 00:17:18.420 the two pillars of health are sleep and breathing. 00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:20.200 If you can breathe right and you can sleep right, 00:17:20.299 --> 00:17:24.039 we can solve like 70 % of what ails you physically, 00:17:24.119 --> 00:17:28.099 emotionally. And the job, like you said, we weren't 00:17:28.099 --> 00:17:30.500 getting called on people who had knee pain at 00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:32.980 two o 'clock in the morning, right? They weren't. 00:17:32.980 --> 00:17:34.759 They weren't even going on EMS calls, right? 00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:37.559 When my grandfather started, very little. And 00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:41.759 like you said, the exposure was way down. And 00:17:41.759 --> 00:17:44.049 like you said, they were sleeping. They were 00:17:44.049 --> 00:17:47.410 sleeping. They were exercising, right? They were, 00:17:47.410 --> 00:17:52.230 you know, there wasn't the, they were breathing 00:17:52.230 --> 00:17:55.049 correctly, right? They weren't eating a bunch 00:17:55.049 --> 00:17:57.390 of processed food that softened our palates. 00:17:57.450 --> 00:17:58.809 They weren't doing a bunch of, there wasn't a 00:17:58.809 --> 00:18:00.869 whole bunch of orthodontic work that changed 00:18:00.869 --> 00:18:03.390 the shape of our mouth. They were nose breathers 00:18:03.390 --> 00:18:06.369 and they were sleeping. And so, yeah, you're 00:18:06.369 --> 00:18:10.339 absolutely right. And that's 100 % of. i see 00:18:10.339 --> 00:18:14.000 right the correlation that we have today is the 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.220 sleep and and the exposure that we have and then 00:18:17.220 --> 00:18:21.480 the big one right too is those changes occurred 00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:25.799 without right the bell curve didn't swing inversely 00:18:25.799 --> 00:18:30.859 with the stigma yeah right exactly i you know 00:18:30.859 --> 00:18:33.619 it's like i equate it to it's hard now because 00:18:33.619 --> 00:18:36.039 you know rapid intervention was the big one when 00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:37.960 i came on right like i don't want to be rick 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:41.240 you know And now it's like embraced and it's 00:18:41.240 --> 00:18:43.359 a combat position and it's something that's good. 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:45.859 Same thing with the BA, same thing with this. 00:18:45.900 --> 00:18:48.700 Well, you know, and that's one thing that has 00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:50.799 to happen. And now that the stigma is changing, 00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:56.259 I think that's a big thing, you know. And I correlate 00:18:56.259 --> 00:18:59.579 a lot of that to for the fire service, you know, 00:18:59.619 --> 00:19:02.440 they understand, you know, the. Phoenix Fire 00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:04.099 Department did the study after, you know, the 00:19:04.099 --> 00:19:06.019 Rick study after Brett Tarver passed away in 00:19:06.019 --> 00:19:08.359 the supermarket fire, right? And their findings 00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:10.880 were 75 % of our training should be how to stay 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:14.119 out of the situation. 25 % should be when the 00:19:14.119 --> 00:19:16.039 shit hits the fan, right? And then they did the 00:19:16.039 --> 00:19:17.440 study again. And guess what? The numbers were 00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:20.180 exactly the same. Why are we not doing that for 00:19:20.180 --> 00:19:22.039 our brains? Why are we not doing that for sleep? 00:19:22.539 --> 00:19:25.799 75 % of our stuff should be how do we stay out 00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:27.579 of this? How do we break the stigma? How are 00:19:27.579 --> 00:19:30.000 we proactive in this? And then we'll give you 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.400 the 25. when the shit hits the fan right what's 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:36.720 interesting when i reflect now and you know we 00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:40.319 see it kind of on on the social media walls where 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:43.380 there's a lot you know young young young guys 00:19:43.380 --> 00:19:45.079 they've already grown out the mustache they got 00:19:45.079 --> 00:19:47.380 the leather already you know they're they're 00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:49.859 taking selfies in front of burnt out homes um 00:19:49.859 --> 00:19:54.500 that they didn't save and uh the reality is we 00:19:54.500 --> 00:19:56.819 don't get as many fires anymore i watched it 00:19:56.819 --> 00:20:00.359 decline in my 14 short years visibly watch it 00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:02.200 decline because that's a good thing. It means 00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:04.119 that houses are getting safer, less people are 00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:06.740 dying, less people are losing their homes. And 00:20:06.740 --> 00:20:09.500 so what I think that the stigma is almost being 00:20:09.500 --> 00:20:12.839 fed is there's an identity crisis because we 00:20:12.839 --> 00:20:15.839 have these groups and you hear them, I just want 00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:19.000 to do the fire. Well, that's fucking stupid because 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:21.859 that's only about, you know, 5 % of what we actually 00:20:21.859 --> 00:20:24.519 do. You're not interested in extrication. You're 00:20:24.519 --> 00:20:26.920 not interested in rope rescue and all the true 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:29.180 life -saving interventions you do on the EMS 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:31.660 side. You just want to be going in with a hose 00:20:31.660 --> 00:20:34.539 in your hand. I mean, for fuck's sake. But this 00:20:34.539 --> 00:20:37.079 is what I think some people struggle with is 00:20:37.079 --> 00:20:38.900 that that's their identity. I'm Kurt Russell, 00:20:39.099 --> 00:20:41.720 2025. It's like, you're not. It's just one of 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:43.759 the things that you do. It's one of the tools 00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:46.519 in your toolbox. So I think that there's almost 00:20:46.519 --> 00:20:49.740 like people breathing life into the stigma because 00:20:49.740 --> 00:20:54.099 they're afraid to admit that. We are truly first 00:20:54.099 --> 00:20:55.980 responders and fire is one of the things that 00:20:55.980 --> 00:20:58.319 we do. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it, especially 00:20:58.319 --> 00:21:00.019 on a truck company. And we'll get into Rio Hondo 00:21:00.019 --> 00:21:02.339 in a bit. My favorite thing in the world is a 00:21:02.339 --> 00:21:04.400 freaking bomb burner. And you've got a saw in 00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:08.039 your hand three stories up. But even then, let's 00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:09.920 say that you, you know, you make a save, you 00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:12.980 make a grab. It's a body recovery unless you 00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:14.599 know what to do on the medical side once you 00:21:14.599 --> 00:21:17.359 pull the person onto the front lawn. So I think 00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:19.359 there's that we've really got to have this conversation 00:21:19.359 --> 00:21:22.950 of identity like. It's okay to not run any fires 00:21:22.950 --> 00:21:26.170 or very many fires anymore and take it seriously 00:21:26.170 --> 00:21:29.450 and train for it. But that is a sliver of what 00:21:29.450 --> 00:21:32.029 you do. Just take a step back, be honest with 00:21:32.029 --> 00:21:34.809 yourself. You do a lot more of the other things 00:21:34.809 --> 00:21:37.829 than you do the fire. And so we prepare diligently 00:21:37.829 --> 00:21:40.549 and we do our VES, we do our ladder throws and 00:21:40.549 --> 00:21:43.410 practice our hose lays and catching the hydrant. 00:21:43.490 --> 00:21:46.809 And that's so, so important. But that's not who 00:21:46.809 --> 00:21:49.250 you are. That's not your identity. That's not 00:21:49.250 --> 00:21:52.730 your avatar. You know, the way you really make 00:21:52.730 --> 00:21:55.029 the biggest difference, ironically, is in the 00:21:55.029 --> 00:21:57.309 back of an ambulance. True. You know, this is 00:21:57.309 --> 00:22:00.170 just the way it is. But what a beautiful calling 00:22:00.170 --> 00:22:03.349 to then clear an EMS call and then go make entry 00:22:03.349 --> 00:22:05.890 on a fire. That's the kind of amazing human you 00:22:05.890 --> 00:22:08.309 are. But we've got to let go of this. I'm just 00:22:08.309 --> 00:22:11.029 a firefighter bullshit because I think there's 00:22:11.029 --> 00:22:13.970 a lot of stigma attached to that kind of pseudo 00:22:13.970 --> 00:22:19.769 masculine facade of what we do. you know submit 00:22:19.769 --> 00:22:21.930 to the fact that you are a jack of all trades 00:22:21.930 --> 00:22:24.589 and what other profession is like that that you 00:22:24.589 --> 00:22:27.650 show up and it doesn't involve the cops you're 00:22:27.650 --> 00:22:30.049 it you're the ultimate problem solver that's 00:22:30.049 --> 00:22:31.950 the identity that we should be leaning into and 00:22:31.950 --> 00:22:37.450 be proud of that my grandfather speaking of him 00:22:37.450 --> 00:22:40.950 he used to say we're he used to say we're the 00:22:40.950 --> 00:22:45.690 oh shit squad somebody says oh shit who do i 00:22:45.690 --> 00:22:48.549 call you call the fire department Yep. Right. 00:22:49.529 --> 00:22:51.869 And, and that's what I, when I'm teaching, whatever 00:22:51.869 --> 00:22:55.130 I'm teaching resiliency or truck company operations 00:22:55.130 --> 00:22:58.190 or extrication, whatever it is, it's like, yeah, 00:22:58.269 --> 00:23:01.630 embrace that. Like, and I know we'll get into 00:23:01.630 --> 00:23:04.250 it. Like you have to be your authentic self. 00:23:04.349 --> 00:23:06.490 Don't let the title, right. I don't like titles. 00:23:07.190 --> 00:23:09.390 Roles are one thing. I don't like titles. I say, 00:23:09.410 --> 00:23:11.690 get rid of the fucking titles because the titles, 00:23:11.849 --> 00:23:14.809 we don't live up to an expectation and we get 00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:16.470 in it. Don't let that, you're a human being. 00:23:16.490 --> 00:23:19.309 You're a person. Let that person flow through 00:23:19.309 --> 00:23:21.490 you in everything you do. We got on this job 00:23:21.490 --> 00:23:25.710 because we love helping people. We love the schedule, 00:23:25.829 --> 00:23:28.910 right? You never know what's coming. The bell 00:23:28.910 --> 00:23:30.549 could go off at any minute. It could be a career 00:23:30.549 --> 00:23:32.730 -defining incident, whether that's a fire, a 00:23:32.730 --> 00:23:36.309 rescue, or whatever, right? And I agree with 00:23:36.309 --> 00:23:42.130 you 100%. Have that talk. I got a buddy that 00:23:42.130 --> 00:23:45.079 was in the SEAL teams. Okay, special forces. 00:23:45.099 --> 00:23:46.640 And he says he got out and he didn't want to 00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:48.079 go SWAT. He didn't want to go to the fire department 00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:49.960 because we're the special forces of the civilian 00:23:49.960 --> 00:23:54.480 world. We do everything. I am so, again, my blessing 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:58.920 is my curse. I was so lucky to work at Corona. 00:24:00.500 --> 00:24:01.880 I'm the only one in my family that didn't go 00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:04.279 to LA County, right? I joke, I'm the only one 00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:09.039 that could think for himself. But I went to Corona 00:24:09.039 --> 00:24:11.119 and then, you know, I did get a call from LA 00:24:11.119 --> 00:24:13.670 County. and i'm like i that was one of the hardest 00:24:13.670 --> 00:24:15.289 calls i ever made would call my dad and say hey 00:24:15.289 --> 00:24:18.369 dad i i'm not going to pursue this and he's like 00:24:18.369 --> 00:24:20.609 dude i wouldn't either like he was at montebello 00:24:20.609 --> 00:24:22.390 a small station he knew everybody he knew all 00:24:22.390 --> 00:24:25.789 my friends and here's the thing i'm not a number 00:24:25.789 --> 00:24:29.089 i'm a person i'm greg rudiger like that's my 00:24:29.089 --> 00:24:31.450 energy i like to be known i have that energy 00:24:31.450 --> 00:24:33.009 my wife and i were talking about this morning 00:24:33.009 --> 00:24:35.230 she's like that's what you're called to do you 00:24:35.230 --> 00:24:39.880 have energy share it And then I do. And I got 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.279 to teach the academy. I got to go on wildland 00:24:42.279 --> 00:24:46.279 fires. I was part of USAR, you know, FEMA USAR 00:24:46.279 --> 00:24:48.440 team six, you know, out of Riverside County. 00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:52.759 I got that experience. I was on a truck. We got 00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:55.240 to be a jack of all trade. And, you know, in 00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:56.680 LA County, you want to do USAR, you got to go 00:24:56.680 --> 00:24:58.200 to 103. You want to do wildland, you build a 00:24:58.200 --> 00:24:59.579 wildland, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? 00:24:59.859 --> 00:25:03.519 I got to do it all. And how rich and rewarding 00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:05.779 was that? And I had, and there were guys on my 00:25:05.779 --> 00:25:08.960 job, my mentors that were just. They said that, 00:25:09.079 --> 00:25:12.279 you know, it's not about, let's be a professional. 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:15.880 Somebody calls 911 and to them, whether it's 00:25:15.880 --> 00:25:18.059 a flooded toilet or the house is on fire or they 00:25:18.059 --> 00:25:19.619 stubbed their toe or their baby's not breathing, 00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:23.339 to them, the world has gone to shit and we're 00:25:23.339 --> 00:25:26.559 there to stop the problem. And I think when we 00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:29.119 reframe that too, we get out of that title, like 00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:32.240 you said, that expectation, because those things 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:34.880 are very hard to handle mentally. If you don't 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:36.930 have the, if you don't have. that resiliency 00:25:36.930 --> 00:25:40.250 going into it. And so I couldn't agree with you 00:25:40.250 --> 00:25:42.490 a hundred percent more. It is getting ahead of 00:25:42.490 --> 00:25:44.769 that early on in people's career that they have 00:25:44.769 --> 00:25:48.309 an understanding and an expectation. Absolutely. 00:25:48.670 --> 00:25:50.849 Well, you mentioned again, you have grandfather 00:25:50.849 --> 00:25:54.269 in LA County, you have dad in LA County. When 00:25:54.269 --> 00:25:55.930 you were progressing through the high school 00:25:55.930 --> 00:25:58.049 age, were you already thinking of fire or was 00:25:58.049 --> 00:26:04.289 there something else on your mind? My mom said 00:26:04.289 --> 00:26:06.329 there's video. I'm like two years old and I was 00:26:06.329 --> 00:26:08.930 going to work for L .A. County. So I was going 00:26:08.930 --> 00:26:10.670 to be a paramedic. That's because I didn't know 00:26:10.670 --> 00:26:12.990 any better. But I realized about truck stuff 00:26:12.990 --> 00:26:14.569 and I'm like, I'm not going to be a paramedic. 00:26:14.569 --> 00:26:16.670 I'm going to be a truck. I'm a truck guy. I'm 00:26:16.670 --> 00:26:19.869 a rescue man. No, from a young age, that's all 00:26:19.869 --> 00:26:24.170 I wanted to do. And that was where I felt called. 00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:26.660 And that's what I wanted to do. And then going 00:26:26.660 --> 00:26:28.480 through high school, I mean, baseball is my passion. 00:26:28.539 --> 00:26:30.880 I played baseball and soccer in college. And 00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:33.000 then I got into surfing and really surfing was 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:36.019 where I really wanted to go. And, you know, one 00:26:36.019 --> 00:26:39.880 of the things I struggled with, too, was I felt 00:26:39.880 --> 00:26:42.359 like I could have pursued that. You know, that 00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:44.160 was kind of the beginning of the extreme sports 00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:47.299 age. You know, there's no money in surfing, you 00:26:47.299 --> 00:26:49.319 know. And I went to college and then I got on 00:26:49.319 --> 00:26:51.349 the fire department. You know that. that's one 00:26:51.349 --> 00:26:53.309 thing that I still surf and I'm still very much 00:26:53.309 --> 00:26:56.470 engaged in the water, but it was fire department. 00:26:56.470 --> 00:27:01.069 And then my, my junior year, I hung up all the 00:27:01.069 --> 00:27:03.829 sports activities and just wanted to focus on 00:27:03.829 --> 00:27:06.289 finishing out my bachelor's degree. And I was 00:27:06.289 --> 00:27:08.089 already taking fire science classes, you know, 00:27:08.089 --> 00:27:10.990 just to accelerate and get on the job. I was 00:27:10.990 --> 00:27:13.630 very lucky. I mean, you were in Southern California 00:27:13.630 --> 00:27:16.710 for all my SoCal people out there. Like I worked 00:27:16.710 --> 00:27:18.470 at the Heights, you know, as soon as I turned 00:27:18.470 --> 00:27:20.190 18, I went and worked at La Habra Heights. Like 00:27:20.190 --> 00:27:22.890 if you're from everybody, there's this, this 00:27:22.890 --> 00:27:26.809 gigantic bitch in community of volunteer, you 00:27:26.809 --> 00:27:28.589 know, you got your start at the Heights. And 00:27:28.589 --> 00:27:30.450 so I did that when I was 18 and started as a 00:27:30.450 --> 00:27:32.549 dispatcher and then went worked on Thursdays. 00:27:32.549 --> 00:27:35.690 And that's what I wanted to do. And I just, I 00:27:35.690 --> 00:27:38.549 just loved it. I love the energy. I love the 00:27:38.549 --> 00:27:40.680 people. you know, I didn't want to be a number 00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:43.859 and I definitely didn't want, you know, I always 00:27:43.859 --> 00:27:46.180 said, you could pay me $10 million. I'm not wearing 00:27:46.180 --> 00:27:48.140 a suit and a tie sitting in a box. That's for 00:27:48.140 --> 00:27:52.059 sure. Absolutely. It's funny. I just had a Kona 00:27:52.059 --> 00:27:55.119 Oliveira on the show. He's a Hawaiian firefighter 00:27:55.119 --> 00:27:58.980 and big wave surfer. Yep. It's awesome. Amazing. 00:27:59.660 --> 00:28:03.509 All right. Well, So what was it that took you 00:28:03.509 --> 00:28:06.150 to Corona? Was it that it was that hard to get 00:28:06.150 --> 00:28:08.529 hired back then? And were you pursuing LA County 00:28:08.529 --> 00:28:10.630 primarily or were you deliberately trying to 00:28:10.630 --> 00:28:13.849 get to Corona? Oh, I wanted LA County. I mean, 00:28:13.869 --> 00:28:17.009 there wasn't even another department on my radar, 00:28:17.089 --> 00:28:19.910 right? I was 18 years old. I'm third generation. 00:28:20.130 --> 00:28:21.650 Like I've been raised in this. This is what I'm 00:28:21.650 --> 00:28:24.950 made for, you know? I studied the book. When 00:28:24.950 --> 00:28:28.710 I took the test when I was 18, I took the test. 00:28:29.569 --> 00:28:32.930 It was at... it was at pomona fairgrounds it 00:28:32.930 --> 00:28:35.849 was like three days it was you know 10 000 people 00:28:35.849 --> 00:28:40.109 testing it was nutty and and they had changed 00:28:40.109 --> 00:28:45.089 the test so you know and very blessed um you 00:28:45.089 --> 00:28:49.589 know 4 .3 gpa you know excelled and you know 00:28:49.589 --> 00:28:51.910 math is all that stuff's my strong point you 00:28:51.910 --> 00:28:56.940 know and um i'm like Come on, man. Reading, writing, 00:28:57.019 --> 00:29:00.200 mechanical aptitude. Let's do this. I got this. 00:29:00.660 --> 00:29:02.359 I'm thinking I'm going to be the 18 -year -old 00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:06.799 that gets hired by LA County. Wonder kid. I said 00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:10.680 wonder kid. You ever watch Ted Lasso? Oh, yeah. 00:29:11.259 --> 00:29:17.500 I said wonder kid. That's funny. I took the test, 00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:19.900 and they had changed it a little bit. That year, 00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:21.579 it was reading, writing, mechanical aptitude, 00:29:21.619 --> 00:29:24.910 and then they gave you a test booklet. Right. 00:29:25.490 --> 00:29:28.329 You hadn't, it was going to be, I had that thing 00:29:28.329 --> 00:29:30.789 memorized. Right. I was like, goodwill hunting. 00:29:30.930 --> 00:29:33.230 I could have told you what, you know, page 17, 00:29:33.410 --> 00:29:36.509 third paragraph said, you know, I wasn't going 00:29:36.509 --> 00:29:39.390 to mess around. And, uh, and then they did, uh, 00:29:39.849 --> 00:29:40.970 I don't know, it was the first time they did 00:29:40.970 --> 00:29:44.930 the, uh, psychological human resource one. So 00:29:44.930 --> 00:29:47.569 I can't remember a hundred, 200 questions, something 00:29:47.569 --> 00:29:49.789 like that, you know? And, and, and so that was 00:29:49.789 --> 00:29:51.170 the thing. And my dad's like, listen, you've 00:29:51.170 --> 00:29:54.230 grown up in a fire station. Your whole family's 00:29:54.230 --> 00:29:56.309 in the fire service, right? All of our friends 00:29:56.309 --> 00:29:58.190 are firemen, you know. I used to go to Station 00:29:58.190 --> 00:30:00.089 49 and see Mike Cook and hang out with those 00:30:00.089 --> 00:30:02.569 guys all the time. And I had like, I didn't have 00:30:02.569 --> 00:30:04.089 an older brother. I was the oldest of three. 00:30:04.130 --> 00:30:06.829 So Mike Fitzpatrick at LA County was like my 00:30:06.829 --> 00:30:10.069 older brother, you know. And so my dad's like, 00:30:10.109 --> 00:30:12.190 just answer like you would. Answer like you're 00:30:12.190 --> 00:30:17.849 a fireman. So I did. A band, you know. I'll never 00:30:17.849 --> 00:30:20.250 forget. I got the letter and I opened it up and 00:30:20.250 --> 00:30:25.339 I was C band. And I was devastated. And I tore 00:30:25.339 --> 00:30:28.579 the letter up and was like, fuck it. I'm done 00:30:28.579 --> 00:30:31.579 with this shit. This is bullshit. You know, and 00:30:31.579 --> 00:30:33.940 come to find out that they weren't looking for 00:30:33.940 --> 00:30:36.220 the, you know, quintessential old school fire 00:30:36.220 --> 00:30:38.940 department job, right? It was, you know, you 00:30:38.940 --> 00:30:40.700 catch your engineer smoking something that you 00:30:40.700 --> 00:30:42.339 believe is marijuana in the parking lot. What 00:30:42.339 --> 00:30:43.839 do you do? And I'm like, well, you can, you know, 00:30:43.859 --> 00:30:46.279 you go out and confront him like lowest level, 00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:49.470 like peer. That wasn't the answer HR was looking 00:30:49.470 --> 00:30:51.950 for. So that's how I didn't do very well in that 00:30:51.950 --> 00:30:54.569 area. So snitches don't get stitches? Is that 00:30:54.569 --> 00:30:57.809 what you were saying? Yeah, not in today's world. 00:30:57.970 --> 00:31:02.390 But it was funny looking back on it, right? The 00:31:02.390 --> 00:31:04.730 good Lord had better plans for me, bigger than 00:31:04.730 --> 00:31:07.849 what I knew. And in fact, when I got hired in 00:31:07.849 --> 00:31:09.609 Corona, it was one of those things. I went to 00:31:09.609 --> 00:31:12.650 Rio Hondo. I went through class 55, had a blast. 00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:14.859 you know i was sponsored by santa fe springs 00:31:14.859 --> 00:31:17.539 and i was testing for everybody right springs 00:31:17.539 --> 00:31:20.240 and then of course like you know anybody in the 00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:23.140 fire service it comes in waves you never get 00:31:23.140 --> 00:31:25.039 like one job offer at least back in those days 00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:27.759 you know so i got i actually had offers from 00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:30.759 pasadena springs and corona and i chose to go 00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.279 with corona my dad thought that was a good one 00:31:34.279 --> 00:31:36.319 because they were growing they had a great reputation 00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:39.599 you know there was a lot of growth opportunity 00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:46.390 and That's what I chose. Again, that was a fantastic 00:31:46.390 --> 00:31:49.549 decision for me in my career for the opportunities 00:31:49.549 --> 00:31:53.690 it gave me. When you were at La Habra, did you 00:31:53.690 --> 00:31:58.069 ever work with a guy called Joe Aldacoa? The 00:31:58.069 --> 00:32:00.250 name sounds familiar. He didn't work with us 00:32:00.250 --> 00:32:02.609 on Thursdays. That was the cool thing about the 00:32:02.609 --> 00:32:06.009 Heights. You got to sign today. Every Thursday, 00:32:06.089 --> 00:32:08.490 like that was our group. And so you have this 00:32:08.490 --> 00:32:10.369 little badge of honor. I work Thursdays. These 00:32:10.369 --> 00:32:12.769 are the Fridays or the Sundays or Tuesday. My 00:32:12.769 --> 00:32:15.630 buddy was a Tuesday guy with those guys. So it's 00:32:15.630 --> 00:32:17.690 pretty neat. I think that's where he worked. 00:32:17.750 --> 00:32:20.609 Yeah, he was my engineer. Just a freaking giant 00:32:20.609 --> 00:32:24.569 of a man, Hispanic, shaved bald head, power lifter, 00:32:24.569 --> 00:32:27.029 big old walrus mustache. So yeah, you couldn't, 00:32:27.049 --> 00:32:28.509 maybe you didn't know his name, but you probably 00:32:28.509 --> 00:32:32.190 maybe saw him walk in at some point. But I think 00:32:32.190 --> 00:32:36.119 it was there that he worked. Going back to the 00:32:36.119 --> 00:32:37.980 testing, though, I've had this conversation with 00:32:37.980 --> 00:32:42.279 a few people. It's crazy when you reflect back 00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:47.200 at the kind of mythology of what they think the 00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:49.539 right candidate should be and what their resume 00:32:49.539 --> 00:32:52.119 should look like. And when you understand, as 00:32:52.119 --> 00:32:54.700 we're going to get into, I'm sure, so many of 00:32:54.700 --> 00:32:57.980 us have struggles when we were early in our lives 00:32:57.980 --> 00:33:01.240 that ultimately are going to, if processed, are 00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:05.069 going to become strengths. that a good firefighter, 00:33:05.069 --> 00:33:07.349 a good cop, a good paramedic, a good correctional 00:33:07.349 --> 00:33:10.369 officer, even arguably a good dispatcher is going 00:33:10.369 --> 00:33:12.210 to have some shit probably when they were young. 00:33:12.250 --> 00:33:14.130 Not every single person, some will have a straight 00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:16.029 edge lifestyle and it just worked out that they 00:33:16.029 --> 00:33:19.670 had the tools, but a majority of us, supposedly 00:33:19.670 --> 00:33:23.250 our ACEs score around six. That's pretty up there. 00:33:23.309 --> 00:33:24.970 It's the same as the incarcerated population, 00:33:25.230 --> 00:33:29.490 to give people some idea. So to then have this 00:33:29.490 --> 00:33:32.349 facade that you want this choir boy that was 00:33:32.349 --> 00:33:35.089 castrated at three years old and all he's done 00:33:35.089 --> 00:33:39.250 is Bible study for 18 years is pure insanity. 00:33:39.569 --> 00:33:42.549 And I had this in Miami Beach. I was honest about 00:33:42.549 --> 00:33:45.690 what I tried in my past. Nothing crazy. Ironically, 00:33:45.690 --> 00:33:47.609 the same compounds that we know work now for 00:33:47.609 --> 00:33:51.910 PTSD. And they threw the pre -app in my face, 00:33:51.990 --> 00:33:54.230 literally scrunched it up and threw it. And I 00:33:54.230 --> 00:33:56.309 was like, oh, okay. So we have to lie to get 00:33:56.309 --> 00:33:58.710 in this job. Got it. Loud and clear. And again, 00:33:58.890 --> 00:34:01.609 I don't say this to be braggy or anything, but 00:34:01.609 --> 00:34:03.769 it was like, okay, I was told I had to lie through 00:34:03.769 --> 00:34:07.109 a polygraph. So I did three times. Did I do anything 00:34:07.109 --> 00:34:09.389 horrendous? No. But had I tried things that were 00:34:09.389 --> 00:34:11.769 supposedly on the list of naughty? Yeah, I did. 00:34:11.849 --> 00:34:14.409 But why do you think I'm here saying I'll go 00:34:14.409 --> 00:34:16.329 into a burning building? I'll cut a family out 00:34:16.329 --> 00:34:18.829 of a crushed minivan. Because I've seen some 00:34:18.829 --> 00:34:21.909 shit and I've done some shit. So the way that 00:34:21.909 --> 00:34:23.969 they've looked at testing, it's the same in law 00:34:23.969 --> 00:34:26.530 enforcement, you know, is blowing up in their 00:34:26.530 --> 00:34:28.510 face because that's not the kind of person that 00:34:28.510 --> 00:34:30.730 you need. Yes, you need to do a stringent background 00:34:30.730 --> 00:34:33.690 check. And if they've been stealing pills or 00:34:33.690 --> 00:34:36.630 touching kids, then absolutely, immediate disqualification. 00:34:37.090 --> 00:34:39.369 But if they've got speeding tickets or they tried 00:34:39.369 --> 00:34:43.050 stuff years ago, that's a disqualification. No, 00:34:43.110 --> 00:34:45.780 that's just someone who's, you know. Their path 00:34:45.780 --> 00:34:48.400 has been a bit rocky, and that's going to translate 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:51.340 into actually understanding the streets when 00:34:51.340 --> 00:35:00.559 you finally get on them. Yeah, we come into this 00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:04.099 job, and that's what I've learned about myself 00:35:04.099 --> 00:35:06.760 and through this and helping others, especially 00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:11.119 on the fire department and then others even in 00:35:11.119 --> 00:35:14.659 the first responder world. Most of the time we 00:35:14.659 --> 00:35:18.360 come into this job because we're hiding from 00:35:18.360 --> 00:35:22.039 something else. We're going to help everybody 00:35:22.039 --> 00:35:24.639 else so we don't have to help ourselves. Or we 00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:26.780 were hurt and we want to be the protector now. 00:35:26.900 --> 00:35:29.059 Well, we might have buried that stuff, but you've 00:35:29.059 --> 00:35:31.320 got two paths. Let me go and hurt people too, 00:35:31.460 --> 00:35:35.659 or let me go help people. It's really one of 00:35:35.659 --> 00:35:38.639 the two, right? And you might have the, you might 00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:40.679 have, you know, you do have the people out there 00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:43.639 that, oh. Oh, my uncle was a fireman and had 00:35:43.639 --> 00:35:48.320 a great schedule. And so they jump into it. And 00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:50.739 there are those things. And I agree with you 00:35:50.739 --> 00:35:54.219 100%. And what I have seen a little bit, especially 00:35:54.219 --> 00:35:57.019 in our area, I think those disqualifiers, like 00:35:57.019 --> 00:35:58.579 have you ever smoked marijuana? Well, now it's 00:35:58.579 --> 00:36:01.960 legal in most states. So those things are starting 00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:03.300 to go away. But I think we're starting to look 00:36:03.300 --> 00:36:06.000 at it more as an opportunity. In fact, my organization 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:09.230 is awesome. And, you know, I've even heard the 00:36:09.230 --> 00:36:10.889 people that are getting hiring. And after the 00:36:10.889 --> 00:36:12.469 chief's interview that my fire chief so cool, 00:36:12.510 --> 00:36:14.309 he comes in to us at health and safety. And he's 00:36:14.309 --> 00:36:16.489 just like, man, these people are ahead of the 00:36:16.489 --> 00:36:17.789 game. Like they have a counselor and they're 00:36:17.789 --> 00:36:19.230 doing this and they're doing that. Right. And 00:36:19.230 --> 00:36:21.530 so the pendulum swinging. And so instead of looking 00:36:21.530 --> 00:36:23.650 at it as a disqualifier, we're looking at it 00:36:23.650 --> 00:36:26.510 as like, I told my son, he's asking me, you know, 00:36:26.510 --> 00:36:28.329 the classic, what's your strength and weakness. 00:36:29.230 --> 00:36:32.130 And I'm like, be yourself, man, be vulnerable. 00:36:32.349 --> 00:36:33.710 And that's what they're looking for. If you can 00:36:33.710 --> 00:36:35.630 be vulnerable. And if you're like, yeah, I just 00:36:35.630 --> 00:36:39.349 like, I stole shit. You know, whatever. But you 00:36:39.349 --> 00:36:40.710 walk in there and be like, yeah, you know, I 00:36:40.710 --> 00:36:43.269 had a rocky start. You know, I did this. I tried 00:36:43.269 --> 00:36:46.329 this. How did that shape you into today? That's 00:36:46.329 --> 00:36:48.590 where I think we're growing as a fire service 00:36:48.590 --> 00:36:50.769 is the question isn't what did you do, but how 00:36:50.769 --> 00:36:53.610 did it form you into who you are today? What 00:36:53.610 --> 00:36:55.289 did we learn from that? Because we learn more 00:36:55.289 --> 00:36:57.309 from our failures than we ever do our successes. 00:36:58.289 --> 00:37:03.469 And if we start looking at how do we use that 00:37:03.469 --> 00:37:06.230 for our advantage? We come out with a much better 00:37:06.230 --> 00:37:10.110 product. And again, like I said, it's 75%. How 00:37:10.110 --> 00:37:11.929 do we stay out of this shit? Well, we got to 00:37:11.929 --> 00:37:13.989 address it ahead of time and we can't be afraid 00:37:13.989 --> 00:37:15.630 of it. That's my other thing is we got to stop 00:37:15.630 --> 00:37:18.630 living in fear as a person, as a society, as 00:37:18.630 --> 00:37:20.789 the fire service, like, Oh, well, we might want 00:37:20.789 --> 00:37:23.289 to hire him. They do, you know, no, like this 00:37:23.289 --> 00:37:25.309 is a human being. We're hiring a human. This 00:37:25.309 --> 00:37:28.070 is a human business. My dad said, you could teach, 00:37:28.090 --> 00:37:29.469 you could teach a monkey to stretch hose and 00:37:29.469 --> 00:37:32.179 put water on the fire. You can. You can teach 00:37:32.179 --> 00:37:34.280 a robot to do it. We have engines now that'll 00:37:34.280 --> 00:37:38.000 do it for you. It's the human interaction. And 00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:40.179 so, yeah, with you, that was part of it, right? 00:37:40.719 --> 00:37:45.400 Like, no, you know, you never stole one pencil 00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:48.599 at school. Yeah, we all did. We all took a pen 00:37:48.599 --> 00:37:50.159 from the bank. Like, what are you talking about? 00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:53.079 You know, so we were putting the wrong emphasis 00:37:53.079 --> 00:37:55.480 on the wrong syllable, right? Back in those days. 00:37:55.599 --> 00:37:57.360 And we weren't looking at the human qualities. 00:37:57.460 --> 00:38:01.050 And I think the testing. At least from what I'm 00:38:01.050 --> 00:38:03.250 seeing is we're starting to refocus on the human 00:38:03.250 --> 00:38:05.789 aspect of this job because that's truly what's, 00:38:05.789 --> 00:38:08.010 I mean, that's what's killing us, right? Not 00:38:08.010 --> 00:38:11.590 to negate cancer, but the human aspect is what's 00:38:11.590 --> 00:38:14.269 taking more of us out in the first responder 00:38:14.269 --> 00:38:16.449 world than anything else. And I'm glad to see 00:38:16.449 --> 00:38:19.590 that. And I'm glad that, what I'm really glad 00:38:19.590 --> 00:38:22.070 is that there's people like you and there's people 00:38:22.070 --> 00:38:24.849 like me and there's other people out there, my 00:38:24.849 --> 00:38:26.510 other friends that are doing other podcasts and 00:38:26.510 --> 00:38:30.329 stuff. this circle shrinking and the tribes getting 00:38:30.329 --> 00:38:32.409 stronger and we're sharing this passion and we're 00:38:32.409 --> 00:38:34.210 getting it out there and we're breaking the stigma 00:38:34.210 --> 00:38:35.949 and we're educating people and we're letting 00:38:35.949 --> 00:38:38.510 people know. And when I go and speak to other 00:38:38.510 --> 00:38:42.369 organizations, like what you do this. Yeah, that's 00:38:42.369 --> 00:38:44.389 okay. And it works right. Get out of the black 00:38:44.389 --> 00:38:46.710 and white mentality. And so, yeah, I love to 00:38:46.710 --> 00:38:48.150 hear that. And I love that you're preaching that. 00:38:49.230 --> 00:38:51.309 You mentioned about, you know, how competitive 00:38:51.309 --> 00:38:53.230 it was when we first were trying to get hired. 00:38:53.880 --> 00:38:56.539 In your area now, or even if you've heard from 00:38:56.539 --> 00:38:59.920 your California peers still, how does that compare 00:38:59.920 --> 00:39:07.500 to recruitment at the moment in 2025? I call 00:39:07.500 --> 00:39:12.079 it the Make -A -Wish Foundation now. Not to negate 00:39:12.079 --> 00:39:15.139 the Make -A -Wish Foundation, but it's like every 00:39:15.139 --> 00:39:18.039 kid gets a trophy. We're fighting standards. 00:39:18.219 --> 00:39:19.900 We're even lowering standards because we can't 00:39:19.900 --> 00:39:21.579 get people on the job because people don't want 00:39:21.579 --> 00:39:24.860 to do this job. It's not the culture. It's not 00:39:24.860 --> 00:39:29.199 the society. We were blue -collar workers that 00:39:29.199 --> 00:39:31.840 were blue -collar people doing blue -collar work. 00:39:32.739 --> 00:39:35.340 It was very family -oriented. And then we got 00:39:35.340 --> 00:39:37.519 white -collar pay for blue -collar work. And 00:39:37.519 --> 00:39:40.179 then overtime became my second job. And then, 00:39:40.219 --> 00:39:42.219 well, I don't have to do this. Well, now we're 00:39:42.219 --> 00:39:43.679 running into, well, I don't want to work overtime. 00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:47.360 And people are figuring it out. And this new 00:39:47.360 --> 00:39:49.219 generation is figuring it out. And it's partly 00:39:49.219 --> 00:39:51.079 because of people like us out there talking about 00:39:51.079 --> 00:39:53.460 it. Well, shit, I don't want to see a baby with 00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:56.460 its head cut off. I don't want to go on this 00:39:56.460 --> 00:39:58.559 fire and pull a burnt person out. I don't want 00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:01.800 to be away from my family for seven days, mandatory 00:40:01.800 --> 00:40:04.199 overtime, lack of sleep, not seeing my family. 00:40:04.300 --> 00:40:06.340 Like there's other things I can do, right? I 00:40:06.340 --> 00:40:08.840 can be a social media influencer. I can do this. 00:40:09.820 --> 00:40:11.619 And I love the pendulum swinging because like 00:40:11.619 --> 00:40:13.260 my kids, you know, they want to get on the fire 00:40:13.260 --> 00:40:17.059 department or my oldest boy is 18. He's going 00:40:17.059 --> 00:40:19.159 to graduate and he's like, you know, I don't 00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:20.840 know. I'm going to be an electrician or an auto 00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:24.760 mechanic. Right. And so that's happening. And 00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:29.519 so part of what we're seeing too, is that I think 00:40:29.519 --> 00:40:31.519 reality is catching up to us. And I think society 00:40:31.519 --> 00:40:34.059 also, there's just people that don't, the reality 00:40:34.059 --> 00:40:35.960 is people just don't, they don't want to be gone 00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:37.699 for 24 hours. They don't want to put the physical 00:40:37.699 --> 00:40:39.500 labor and they don't want to do the hard shit. 00:40:39.559 --> 00:40:43.500 And that's fine. Right. And that's just where 00:40:43.500 --> 00:40:46.559 we're at. And it is very, very difficult. It 00:40:46.559 --> 00:40:48.960 is very, very difficult. My kid wants to get 00:40:48.960 --> 00:40:50.360 on the job. I'm like, dude, you couldn't be in 00:40:50.360 --> 00:40:53.570 a better time. Right. And I've even had people 00:40:53.570 --> 00:40:56.710 at work, you know, I had some probies. It's funny. 00:40:56.769 --> 00:40:59.449 It gets back to you. Right. Well, when you go 00:40:59.449 --> 00:41:01.210 to Captain Ruger, you know, don't do this and 00:41:01.210 --> 00:41:03.210 don't do that. Make sure you shake his hand and 00:41:03.210 --> 00:41:06.309 don't put the list on his desk. And, you know, 00:41:06.309 --> 00:41:08.449 I heard somebody say, you know, don't, if we 00:41:08.449 --> 00:41:10.170 have to hear him talk one more time about him 00:41:10.170 --> 00:41:12.409 sleeping in a car or sleeping in a chair, you 00:41:12.409 --> 00:41:15.929 know, or being in a thing to get a job. And that's 00:41:15.929 --> 00:41:17.670 part of, right. That's part of what I'm battling 00:41:17.670 --> 00:41:20.690 is my frustration. of people complaining about 00:41:20.690 --> 00:41:23.630 being on an aid car complaining about overtime 00:41:23.630 --> 00:41:26.409 and all stuff i'm like i would have killed i 00:41:26.409 --> 00:41:28.690 i was killed to get on this job and then they're 00:41:28.690 --> 00:41:30.650 like hey do you want to work overtime tomorrow 00:41:30.650 --> 00:41:32.929 and i'm like i don't have to go lay floors tomorrow 00:41:32.929 --> 00:41:35.289 i can work in overtime in the fire station like 00:41:35.289 --> 00:41:39.849 again and and part of my thing is is i was an 00:41:39.849 --> 00:41:43.489 excessive of that for other reasons staying away 00:41:43.489 --> 00:41:45.230 from home and wanting to be at work and all this 00:41:45.230 --> 00:41:48.219 other shit but you know there's that balance 00:41:48.219 --> 00:41:51.099 there. And I think, I think that's just a struggle 00:41:51.099 --> 00:41:53.239 that we're up against, you know, and, and I don't 00:41:53.239 --> 00:41:55.219 know, I I've seen, I've seen a little bit of 00:41:55.219 --> 00:41:57.219 uptick. I've seen more people that are more passionate 00:41:57.219 --> 00:41:59.699 about it. It's nice to see like my kid and his 00:41:59.699 --> 00:42:02.019 friends that are doing the fire stuff. And they're 00:42:02.019 --> 00:42:04.659 asking me all these questions and, and that, 00:42:04.659 --> 00:42:06.400 and I, and I, but I think we're also doing a 00:42:06.400 --> 00:42:07.940 better job getting ahead of it. We're doing a 00:42:07.940 --> 00:42:10.400 better job educating people in the Academy and 00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:13.679 pre Academy. things like that for the mental 00:42:13.679 --> 00:42:16.079 health aspect of it and preparing them truly 00:42:16.079 --> 00:42:18.139 for what it is, right? We're not blowing sunshine 00:42:18.139 --> 00:42:20.400 up your ass anymore about, yeah, you're going 00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:22.320 to work 24 hours and have six days off and it's 00:42:22.320 --> 00:42:23.639 going to be great. That's a great schedule for 00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:25.840 your family. And, you know, no, you're not going 00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:28.420 to see bad things. And so we're actually getting 00:42:28.420 --> 00:42:30.780 ahead of that and giving them the tools. But 00:42:30.780 --> 00:42:33.920 I'm sure you've heard it too. You interview a 00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:36.599 lot of people across this country. I think even 00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:38.199 the people that are getting on this job, it's 00:42:38.199 --> 00:42:40.920 not a lifestyle anymore like it was for us, a 00:42:40.920 --> 00:42:43.570 career. you know, it's a job. And so they're 00:42:43.570 --> 00:42:45.210 on there for 20 years. I'm going to take my pension. 00:42:45.269 --> 00:42:48.489 I'm going to go do something else. It's interesting 00:42:48.489 --> 00:42:50.769 because you look at all these compounding elements, 00:42:50.869 --> 00:42:53.289 like I said, working on the side, like your grandpa, 00:42:53.409 --> 00:42:55.829 grandfather's generation did, and then doing 00:42:55.829 --> 00:42:58.409 a nine to five job, even if it's a manual job 00:42:58.409 --> 00:43:00.869 and having dinner with the family and go in the 00:43:00.869 --> 00:43:03.849 bed, you know, next to your spouse compared to 00:43:03.849 --> 00:43:06.489 the meat grinder that we spent most of our lives 00:43:06.489 --> 00:43:09.489 in, which was 56 hours a week. And then, you 00:43:09.489 --> 00:43:11.550 know, voluntary and or mandatory, because I've 00:43:11.550 --> 00:43:14.010 said this several times, you know, a lot of times 00:43:14.010 --> 00:43:16.750 when they're not counting, you know, volunteered 00:43:16.750 --> 00:43:18.289 overtime, it's like, well, yeah, but there's 00:43:18.289 --> 00:43:22.750 also that if I don't volunteer for this, my firefighter 00:43:22.750 --> 00:43:24.989 who just had a little girl three months ago is 00:43:24.989 --> 00:43:27.630 going to get forced. So it's skewed numbers too. 00:43:28.130 --> 00:43:31.190 But I think you're right. It's our fault, our 00:43:31.190 --> 00:43:33.150 generations, because all these chiefs and everything 00:43:33.150 --> 00:43:35.670 now, they came on when we came on. They're our 00:43:35.670 --> 00:43:40.599 academy. you know, mates basically. And I've, 00:43:40.599 --> 00:43:43.519 I've said this a few times now, your father, 00:43:43.599 --> 00:43:46.119 your grandfather's generations were the pioneers 00:43:46.119 --> 00:43:49.880 on smooth board nozzles and fog nozzles and SCBAs 00:43:49.880 --> 00:43:52.500 and, you know, jaws of life. And there's not 00:43:52.500 --> 00:43:54.460 really a lot more that I think can be innovated. 00:43:54.539 --> 00:43:56.800 It's only so many things you can weld to a Halligan 00:43:56.800 --> 00:43:59.800 these days. You know what I mean? But, you know, 00:43:59.820 --> 00:44:02.239 the next step in a technological age is obviously 00:44:02.239 --> 00:44:04.559 going to be drones and, you know, that kind of 00:44:04.559 --> 00:44:06.760 robotics element, just like you said. making 00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:09.780 it safer for us to do the human things where 00:44:09.780 --> 00:44:12.860 we have the ability to truly be the next you 00:44:12.860 --> 00:44:17.119 know um pioneers is on the human side and where 00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:21.159 we have failed our profession is by not standing 00:44:21.159 --> 00:44:24.159 up and saying hey this line is going downwards 00:44:24.159 --> 00:44:26.880 of recruitment where it's going upwards of all 00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:29.840 things suicide cancer divorce childhood you know 00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:32.329 diseases When are we going to actually address 00:44:32.329 --> 00:44:34.869 it? And then I'm just going to do the ostrich. 00:44:34.869 --> 00:44:36.869 I'm going to stick my head in the sand. And now 00:44:36.869 --> 00:44:39.269 here we are. And I think where we're getting 00:44:39.269 --> 00:44:42.530 a lot of those kids today's conversation is because, 00:44:42.550 --> 00:44:44.789 as you said, the bar has been lowered. So now 00:44:44.789 --> 00:44:46.590 you're seeing kids that never would have even 00:44:46.590 --> 00:44:50.449 made the list in, you know, 10, 15, 20 years 00:44:50.449 --> 00:44:54.090 ago. So until we acknowledge that we have been 00:44:54.090 --> 00:44:56.929 doing the job so well, but the working environment 00:44:56.929 --> 00:45:00.460 so poorly. And why are we working 56 when the 00:45:00.460 --> 00:45:03.000 cops work 40, the ER doctors and nurses work 00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.719 40, your barista works 40, you know, it's insanity. 00:45:06.920 --> 00:45:08.940 And we just keep turning our heads. Then you 00:45:08.940 --> 00:45:11.840 have a recruitment crisis. Now that 56 becomes 00:45:11.840 --> 00:45:15.079 80 becomes 120, you know, and then it gets worse 00:45:15.079 --> 00:45:18.059 and worse and worse. So we have an amazing opportunity 00:45:18.059 --> 00:45:20.639 to turn this around. And in Florida, there's, 00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:22.840 I mean, there's the dominoes are falling. It's 00:45:22.840 --> 00:45:25.059 amazing. But departments are going, we're going 00:45:25.059 --> 00:45:27.139 to invest in one more shift. We're going to do 00:45:27.139 --> 00:45:29.840 a 42 hour work week. And I've had people now 00:45:29.840 --> 00:45:31.460 where it's gone in place and that dude, I would 00:45:31.460 --> 00:45:35.019 never go back to a 24, 48. This is so much better. 00:45:35.599 --> 00:45:38.019 So that is a thing, you know, when we actually 00:45:38.019 --> 00:45:40.599 fix the things that are broken, we're going to 00:45:40.599 --> 00:45:42.659 go back to thousands of people lining up around 00:45:42.659 --> 00:45:44.760 the building. And now that list is going to be 00:45:44.760 --> 00:45:46.199 full of rock stars. And we're not going to have 00:45:46.199 --> 00:45:48.159 this kids today because every single one of them 00:45:48.159 --> 00:45:51.239 work hard to be on that list academically, you 00:45:51.239 --> 00:45:54.289 know, physically, operationally. But when you 00:45:54.289 --> 00:45:56.449 lower standards and refuse to fix it or broken, 00:45:56.610 --> 00:45:58.650 then of course, the people that really get it, 00:45:58.710 --> 00:46:00.269 that are educated, they're like, well, I value 00:46:00.269 --> 00:46:03.349 myself and I value my relationships. You clearly 00:46:03.349 --> 00:46:07.090 don't. I'm going to go be a welder. Right. You 00:46:07.090 --> 00:46:09.690 know what I mean? So this is a great conversation 00:46:09.690 --> 00:46:11.429 because we have the opportunity to fix it. This 00:46:11.429 --> 00:46:14.829 is totally fixable because as you said, 10, 15, 00:46:14.909 --> 00:46:18.829 20 short years ago, we were lining up in stadiums 00:46:18.829 --> 00:46:22.440 to pick up an app. to even see if we would make 00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:25.659 it to the written. And so saying, oh, you know, 00:46:25.719 --> 00:46:29.019 we can't get people, bullshit. We used to until 00:46:29.019 --> 00:46:31.260 you fucked it up. So what we've got to do is 00:46:31.260 --> 00:46:33.800 unfuck it and we'll be back to all these young 00:46:33.800 --> 00:46:37.219 people banging on our doors wanting to do this 00:46:37.219 --> 00:46:40.199 job and us having the luxury of picking the top 00:46:40.199 --> 00:46:45.239 10%, the cream of the crop. Yeah, I couldn't 00:46:45.239 --> 00:46:51.699 agree 100 % more. I feel... I always thought 00:46:51.699 --> 00:46:54.880 my, I thought my destiny was to be a truck captain. 00:46:55.280 --> 00:46:57.440 That was my whole life was geared towards that, 00:46:57.480 --> 00:47:00.539 right? Sports, grandfather, dad, blah, blah, 00:47:00.579 --> 00:47:03.179 blah, right? Rio Hondo, you know, that was just, 00:47:03.239 --> 00:47:05.840 you saw, I was on the truck my whole career. 00:47:05.880 --> 00:47:07.619 They put me on the truck when I first got hired. 00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:10.880 And, and what I'm realizing is, is that the whole, 00:47:10.880 --> 00:47:12.579 that whole journey was setting me up to do what 00:47:12.579 --> 00:47:15.119 I'm doing now, right? That I'm, that I'm the 00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:18.739 captain of health and safety on a 40 hour work 00:47:18.739 --> 00:47:21.800 week. right that i'm making the impact on that 00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:24.139 i'm helping my my department you know thank god 00:47:24.139 --> 00:47:27.500 and this state and this county are are really 00:47:27.500 --> 00:47:30.440 i'm investing in that and they understand it 00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:32.679 and they're understanding the human aspect of 00:47:32.679 --> 00:47:35.500 it you know and and we're starting to make that 00:47:35.500 --> 00:47:40.280 change and i think the the big chain right the 00:47:40.280 --> 00:47:43.579 hard part is is it it's us we're our own worst 00:47:43.579 --> 00:47:46.199 enemy right what do firemen hate change in the 00:47:46.199 --> 00:47:49.119 way things are so trying to educate them on that 00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:51.579 but educating the up -and -comers and these new 00:47:51.579 --> 00:47:53.719 people i've even told my kids like i don't want 00:47:53.719 --> 00:47:58.480 you to get on the job who says that like any 00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:01.400 any of us who've like we would kill like right 00:48:01.400 --> 00:48:04.039 nepotism is alive and well in the fire department 00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:06.159 why do you think that is because it's a great 00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:10.420 job right it is the best job we haven't done 00:48:10.420 --> 00:48:13.460 a good job with the, like you said, the other 00:48:13.460 --> 00:48:16.320 shit that impacts us in that job, the sleep, 00:48:16.340 --> 00:48:19.139 the stigma, the lack of resources, all the stuff, 00:48:19.139 --> 00:48:20.679 you know, that I've heard you talk about and 00:48:20.679 --> 00:48:23.420 that we, that we're trying to get ahead of. And 00:48:23.420 --> 00:48:25.940 I've told my kids like, yeah, go be a welder, 00:48:25.940 --> 00:48:27.940 go be a dude, go be an electrician, especially 00:48:27.940 --> 00:48:31.719 in Washington. You'll be dry. You're not going 00:48:31.719 --> 00:48:33.460 to be out in the goddamn rain to be an electrician, 00:48:33.460 --> 00:48:35.880 right? You'll be dry. Go be a welder, right? 00:48:35.960 --> 00:48:37.960 Go do this. But my son, he really wants, you 00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:39.400 know, they want to be, they want to get on the 00:48:39.400 --> 00:48:42.380 fire department. And I'm like, absolutely. Like, 00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:43.960 I'm going to help them any way I can because 00:48:43.960 --> 00:48:46.579 I'm seeing the pendulum swing. And I think we 00:48:46.579 --> 00:48:50.699 are doing that. And I think that education is 00:48:50.699 --> 00:48:52.960 paramount. Having the empirical data and the 00:48:52.960 --> 00:48:56.639 scientific backing, right? As much as I thought. 00:48:57.630 --> 00:49:00.210 I voted against a 48 -96 when I was in Corona 00:49:00.210 --> 00:49:02.769 to stay on a 4 -6 schedule. I mean, insanity. 00:49:02.949 --> 00:49:06.010 Do you know why I did it? Overtime. Oh, that 00:49:06.010 --> 00:49:09.809 cuts into my overtime. I'd work 120s every month, 00:49:09.869 --> 00:49:15.070 right? And you wonder why I had PTSD and suicidal 00:49:15.070 --> 00:49:17.889 ideations and an alcoholism and almost two divorces, 00:49:17.929 --> 00:49:20.989 right? There's not an accident there. It's not, 00:49:21.010 --> 00:49:24.360 oh, woe me, right? and so getting out of that 00:49:24.360 --> 00:49:25.900 and then looking at your studies and i've had 00:49:25.900 --> 00:49:27.599 a lot of people like well we want to go to a 00:49:27.599 --> 00:49:32.480 48 -6 day i'm like well the 48 -6 day is not 00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:34.000 going to change things unless you change your 00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:35.860 sleep habits unless we start at a later time 00:49:35.860 --> 00:49:39.480 and the studies showing the 1 -3 schedule the 00:49:39.480 --> 00:49:42.739 24 72 is actually the best way to do it especially 00:49:42.739 --> 00:49:44.960 you put later start times in there man now you're 00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:47.019 regulating sleep now you're mitigating that you 00:49:47.019 --> 00:49:49.280 know what about overtime what about trades i 00:49:49.280 --> 00:49:51.769 live out of state like Those are choices that 00:49:51.769 --> 00:49:53.989 you have to make, right? It comes back to that 00:49:53.989 --> 00:49:58.809 extreme ownership of what matters. Like, and 00:49:58.809 --> 00:50:00.650 I try to, that's one thing I'm really passionate 00:50:00.650 --> 00:50:02.309 about now is again, like I said, getting rid 00:50:02.309 --> 00:50:06.329 of titles is what matters. You, you matter. Not 00:50:06.329 --> 00:50:07.809 the title of you being a fireman, not you being 00:50:07.809 --> 00:50:09.889 a husband or a father or an aunt or an uncle 00:50:09.889 --> 00:50:12.010 or a teacher. You, you got to find out what's 00:50:12.010 --> 00:50:14.250 best for you. And if living out of state's best 00:50:14.250 --> 00:50:17.050 for you, then you know what? I got sick of commuting 00:50:17.050 --> 00:50:20.000 for two years. Okay. I commuted two years from 00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:22.480 California because they didn't want to leave 00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:24.179 surfing. I didn't want to leave Corona, but I 00:50:24.179 --> 00:50:26.239 missed my kids. So what I do, I lateraled up 00:50:26.239 --> 00:50:29.559 here. Right. I had to do what was best for me. 00:50:29.639 --> 00:50:31.460 And so you got to do the same thing. Get out 00:50:31.460 --> 00:50:33.579 of that victim mentality of excuses and fear. 00:50:34.739 --> 00:50:38.159 And the nice part is, is that there's a group 00:50:38.159 --> 00:50:40.019 of us out there that are champion this. And I 00:50:40.019 --> 00:50:41.659 think we're educating people. And I think we're 00:50:41.659 --> 00:50:43.320 starting to see the pendulum swing and some leadership 00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:46.380 too, that are starting to understand this. Right. 00:50:46.440 --> 00:50:49.289 Oh. If we do this, guess what? Our sick call 00:50:49.289 --> 00:50:53.230 outs go down. The trade usage goes down. We actually, 00:50:53.429 --> 00:50:55.789 we're like self -insured. We're seeing our insurance 00:50:55.789 --> 00:50:57.550 premium down because less people are getting 00:50:57.550 --> 00:51:00.309 sick, less people are going to the doctor, right? 00:51:00.369 --> 00:51:02.190 And then we need to start seeing that number 00:51:02.190 --> 00:51:05.449 go down, right? Retirees, 45 % increase in suicides 00:51:05.449 --> 00:51:07.030 over the last two years. That's not acceptable. 00:51:08.389 --> 00:51:11.150 Yeah. When we just had a Miami -Dade, they had 00:51:11.150 --> 00:51:13.150 the third suicide in eight months and that was 00:51:13.150 --> 00:51:16.250 a retiree. I think two years out they were. And 00:51:16.250 --> 00:51:18.409 this is what I've talked about a lot recently 00:51:18.409 --> 00:51:22.070 is when we leave, not only we do a terrible job 00:51:22.070 --> 00:51:24.469 of preparing, but when we leave, let's just talk 00:51:24.469 --> 00:51:27.769 about numbers. We cease to be a statistic. And 00:51:27.769 --> 00:51:30.829 the 22 a day that the military talks about, that's 00:51:30.829 --> 00:51:33.760 veterans. not active duty. There are more within 00:51:33.760 --> 00:51:36.599 active duty, but that's 22 veterans. And even 00:51:36.599 --> 00:51:38.099 then they're not counting all of them because 00:51:38.099 --> 00:51:40.239 then everyone participates, but you have the 00:51:40.239 --> 00:51:42.699 ability to at least track most of the people 00:51:42.699 --> 00:51:45.400 that used to wear a military uniform. What do 00:51:45.400 --> 00:51:47.219 we have in, in the first responder profession? 00:51:47.559 --> 00:51:50.719 Like nothing, zero. You know, most of us don't 00:51:50.719 --> 00:51:52.579 have healthcare. So you have Cobra for a year 00:51:52.579 --> 00:51:55.340 and then, you know, go fuck yourself. And then 00:51:55.340 --> 00:51:57.820 as far as, you know, you and I, you have a heart 00:51:57.820 --> 00:52:00.199 attack and I get cancer and die. We're not on 00:52:00.199 --> 00:52:03.820 any stats. We're not counted. And so not only, 00:52:03.860 --> 00:52:06.000 especially the mental health stuff, woefully 00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:10.980 underreported because the national suicides that 00:52:10.980 --> 00:52:13.000 we supposedly had, I think it was 2024, was like 00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:16.699 72 or 76. I could literally think of almost that 00:52:16.699 --> 00:52:19.280 many in the state of Florida alone. So there's 00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:21.639 no way in hell it's even close to that. It's 00:52:21.639 --> 00:52:24.920 way more. And that's us. Well, that's them now, 00:52:24.980 --> 00:52:27.559 not me anymore. That's you. That's people still 00:52:27.559 --> 00:52:30.949 wearing the uniform. I would argue. That knowing 00:52:30.949 --> 00:52:33.070 that this stuff really is going to manifest in 00:52:33.070 --> 00:52:35.409 your 50s, 60s, 70s, the physical and mental health 00:52:35.409 --> 00:52:38.070 disease, that that really is, even if you got 00:52:38.070 --> 00:52:40.130 the right number, that is then the tip of the 00:52:40.130 --> 00:52:42.769 iceberg of how many people's lifespans are woefully 00:52:42.769 --> 00:52:46.530 shortened, you know, after retirement. So no 00:52:46.530 --> 00:52:49.630 matter who I ask around the country, and we're 00:52:49.630 --> 00:52:51.909 not a profession that's known for interacting 00:52:51.909 --> 00:52:55.210 on health stats, that five or six years after 00:52:55.210 --> 00:52:59.230 retirement, police, fire. All over the country, 00:52:59.309 --> 00:53:01.210 they say the same thing, yet supposedly it's 00:53:01.210 --> 00:53:03.570 not even a study. So clearly it's an observational 00:53:03.570 --> 00:53:08.849 number that we're all seeing. Yeah. And it's 00:53:08.849 --> 00:53:14.650 scary, right? And I'm fortunate now, like I said, 00:53:14.750 --> 00:53:18.070 one of my mottos is no coincidences. I don't 00:53:18.070 --> 00:53:19.869 believe in coincidence. I don't believe in luck 00:53:19.869 --> 00:53:21.949 anymore, right? To me, that's a victim mentality. 00:53:22.150 --> 00:53:23.829 We need to own it and get out of that. Like, 00:53:23.849 --> 00:53:27.000 oh, what a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence. 00:53:27.139 --> 00:53:28.840 It's happening for a reason. Take that ownership 00:53:28.840 --> 00:53:31.380 and go do it. I'm in my position right now because 00:53:31.380 --> 00:53:33.360 of where I'm at and my passion and my background 00:53:33.360 --> 00:53:39.079 and my connections to help. We have a retiree 00:53:39.079 --> 00:53:42.780 peer support. My HR department, when they know 00:53:42.780 --> 00:53:44.900 someone's retiring, peer support is part of the 00:53:44.900 --> 00:53:47.780 checklist that gets forwarded to them. We're 00:53:47.780 --> 00:53:49.460 working on trying to get lifetime medical. And 00:53:49.460 --> 00:53:52.239 like I said before, my real passion in this whole... 00:53:53.469 --> 00:53:56.110 resiliency thing you know we'll get into you 00:53:56.110 --> 00:53:59.789 know my my rad stuff i'm sure right how it went 00:53:59.789 --> 00:54:01.650 from just being rad to resilient another day 00:54:01.650 --> 00:54:05.429 was you got to get ahead of it we got to be proactive 00:54:05.429 --> 00:54:08.610 we got to give people tools that's where that 00:54:08.610 --> 00:54:11.869 study from phoenix is so beautiful in life is 00:54:11.869 --> 00:54:14.809 you got to spend 70 time 75 of the time preparing 00:54:14.809 --> 00:54:17.469 to stay out of the shit now we'll give you tools 00:54:17.469 --> 00:54:19.590 for when you do get that bad call Right. When 00:54:19.590 --> 00:54:21.250 you do have the divorce, when you do have the 00:54:21.250 --> 00:54:24.130 lack of sleep, when you do have the trauma, when 00:54:24.130 --> 00:54:26.610 you do have the things that are out of your control 00:54:26.610 --> 00:54:30.150 affect you. Right. But we need to be preparing 00:54:30.150 --> 00:54:34.309 people. Sleep hygiene. Are you breathing right? 00:54:35.230 --> 00:54:38.550 What are we doing? Right. That's when our resiliency 00:54:38.550 --> 00:54:41.570 program, we give them through all eight areas 00:54:41.570 --> 00:54:44.980 of wellness. Right. Not just the big four. Here's 00:54:44.980 --> 00:54:46.719 all the different things that you can look at 00:54:46.719 --> 00:54:48.619 because something's going to grab you and that 00:54:48.619 --> 00:54:50.519 becomes your passion. And when you have the passion, 00:54:50.579 --> 00:54:53.179 like, you know, right. All of a sudden things 00:54:53.179 --> 00:54:56.039 start to work. And when you do the new things, 00:54:56.159 --> 00:54:58.019 I just talked about it. Right. And it's one of 00:54:58.019 --> 00:55:00.199 my favorite things. You know, you do the hard 00:55:00.199 --> 00:55:01.900 things, you do the things you don't want to, 00:55:01.940 --> 00:55:04.380 you try the new things, right. Not to get into 00:55:04.380 --> 00:55:06.519 neurobiology, but that part of your brain, right. 00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:09.139 That anterior mid cingulate cortex that grows 00:55:09.139 --> 00:55:11.440 and shrinks. When we do the hard shit, it's your 00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:13.869 willpower to live. And guess what happens? We 00:55:13.869 --> 00:55:15.809 see people who are doing that now. Now we're 00:55:15.809 --> 00:55:18.530 seeing retirees that aren't suffering an identity 00:55:18.530 --> 00:55:21.030 crisis. If the door closes and it's like, well, 00:55:21.070 --> 00:55:23.090 shit, I don't have an identity anymore. No, they're 00:55:23.090 --> 00:55:26.210 spending time ahead of time doing equine therapy. 00:55:27.829 --> 00:55:29.889 They didn't even know they liked horses, but 00:55:29.889 --> 00:55:33.309 now they're cleaning shitter stalls. Now they 00:55:33.309 --> 00:55:35.409 got a purpose. Now they have identity. Now they're 00:55:35.409 --> 00:55:40.170 happy. Now we're being resilient. Now we're growing. 00:55:40.829 --> 00:55:42.630 now that guy's not going to eat a bullet or jump 00:55:42.630 --> 00:55:45.750 off a bridge on the five freeway that's the difference 00:55:45.750 --> 00:55:48.730 we're making that's where we're pushing these 00:55:48.730 --> 00:55:50.889 departments that's where my department with administrative 00:55:50.889 --> 00:55:53.809 wellness retiree wellness getting ahead of it 00:55:53.809 --> 00:55:57.010 giving them tools offering this stuff pre -academy 00:55:57.010 --> 00:55:59.090 while you're on the job hitting it every quarter 00:55:59.090 --> 00:56:02.309 so that it becomes a lifestyle that it's not 00:56:02.309 --> 00:56:07.369 the fire department it's we're human beings that 00:56:07.369 --> 00:56:11.519 are doing this job and if My dad used to say, 00:56:11.519 --> 00:56:13.179 you know, leave work at work and leave home at 00:56:13.179 --> 00:56:17.280 home. And I understand what he means now, right? 00:56:17.360 --> 00:56:19.500 Like you leave the role of fire captain at work, 00:56:19.619 --> 00:56:21.840 right? Because that was one of my downfalls. 00:56:21.940 --> 00:56:23.739 I'd come home and run this house like a fire 00:56:23.739 --> 00:56:26.639 station. Not effective for your wife and kids. 00:56:27.179 --> 00:56:32.539 Don't try it, okay? But you can't. You can't. 00:56:32.539 --> 00:56:34.579 You're a human being that has emotions. And if 00:56:34.579 --> 00:56:37.730 you try to turn that shit off. You're going to 00:56:37.730 --> 00:56:39.309 wind up like I was. You're going to wind up with 00:56:39.309 --> 00:56:40.530 darkness. You're going to wind up depressed. 00:56:40.650 --> 00:56:42.250 You're going to wind up fighting who you truly 00:56:42.250 --> 00:56:46.349 are. That's why I say we want a good human being. 00:56:46.409 --> 00:56:49.030 If I get the best human being I can, then you're 00:56:49.030 --> 00:56:50.530 going to be the greatest firefighter. You're 00:56:50.530 --> 00:56:51.750 going to be the greatest dad. You're going to 00:56:51.750 --> 00:56:54.190 be the greatest whatever you do in life. You're 00:56:54.190 --> 00:56:56.389 going to be the greatest at that. But you got 00:56:56.389 --> 00:56:57.869 to get out of that. And you got it. We got to 00:56:57.869 --> 00:57:00.909 stop thinking that like, oh, 8 a .m. I punched 00:57:00.909 --> 00:57:02.510 the ticket and I go home and now I'm just going 00:57:02.510 --> 00:57:05.570 to. No, that's why we see divorces. right? Dr. 00:57:05.750 --> 00:57:07.690 Gilmartin's whole biological rollercoaster, man, 00:57:07.730 --> 00:57:09.750 we come off of that shit. There's a physiological 00:57:09.750 --> 00:57:13.309 and emotional and a spiritual impact on the body. 00:57:13.889 --> 00:57:16.769 And if we don't do that for everybody, including 00:57:16.769 --> 00:57:20.409 retirees that are leaving this job with care, 00:57:20.650 --> 00:57:23.849 like we still offer them the resources that we 00:57:23.849 --> 00:57:26.710 have, right? So that they don't walk out of here 00:57:26.710 --> 00:57:28.389 just without anything. They still have phone 00:57:28.389 --> 00:57:31.070 numbers. They still have contacts. Very powerful. 00:57:31.579 --> 00:57:34.500 Very powerful. That's a sense of belonging also, 00:57:34.639 --> 00:57:37.199 right? In the human species, we are designed 00:57:37.199 --> 00:57:40.099 to interact. We're not great white sharks that 00:57:40.099 --> 00:57:41.599 are supposed to swim around by ourselves and 00:57:41.599 --> 00:57:46.219 just eat shit. And so taking that approach, we're 00:57:46.219 --> 00:57:48.639 ahead of the game. We're definitely ahead of 00:57:48.639 --> 00:57:50.920 the game. And I'm very, very lucky to be a part 00:57:50.920 --> 00:57:53.239 of it. And sometimes I say we're outrunning our 00:57:53.239 --> 00:57:55.260 siren a little bit because of the shit we're 00:57:55.260 --> 00:57:58.099 doing. Some of the people are like, oh, what 00:57:58.099 --> 00:58:00.780 are you doing? We got to do that. You got to 00:58:00.780 --> 00:58:05.119 challenge the norm. Otherwise, we're not putting 00:58:05.119 --> 00:58:07.039 ourselves out there and being the best that I 00:58:07.039 --> 00:58:11.539 can be. I want to get to your own personal mental 00:58:11.539 --> 00:58:12.980 health journey, and then obviously we'll get 00:58:12.980 --> 00:58:16.320 to the creation of RAD. But just before we do, 00:58:16.519 --> 00:58:19.820 my favorite position in the fire service, aside 00:58:19.820 --> 00:58:22.739 from working with my hands as the medic when 00:58:22.739 --> 00:58:25.099 you're actually truly in an ALS life -saving 00:58:25.099 --> 00:58:28.119 situation, was Tilleman on a truck company in 00:58:28.119 --> 00:58:31.800 Anaheim. True truck company, roof work, extrication. 00:58:32.219 --> 00:58:35.860 So talk to me about the California truck role. 00:58:36.059 --> 00:58:40.360 And I'd love to hear some debunking of myths 00:58:40.360 --> 00:58:42.500 because over on this coast, for example, they 00:58:42.500 --> 00:58:44.360 were like, oh, it's different over there. We 00:58:44.360 --> 00:58:46.179 have lightweight construction here in Florida. 00:58:46.659 --> 00:58:49.159 Now, I remember everything being lightweight 00:58:49.159 --> 00:58:51.280 construction in California, the whole building. 00:58:51.340 --> 00:58:53.760 Florida is usually brick as the actual walls. 00:58:54.719 --> 00:58:56.920 Talk to me first about what drew you to the truck 00:58:56.920 --> 00:58:59.099 company, and then let's talk about that world 00:58:59.099 --> 00:59:02.000 for a bit and vertical ventilation and why you 00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:06.539 love that to this day. Yeah, that's awesome. 00:59:06.699 --> 00:59:08.699 Bob McClellan was my roommate in Huntington Beach, 00:59:08.760 --> 00:59:10.539 by the way. And Dave Baker was one of my good 00:59:10.539 --> 00:59:12.800 friends. I won't tell you Bob's station name. 00:59:12.960 --> 00:59:16.519 It would be offensive. Sideshow Bob. That was 00:59:16.519 --> 00:59:19.179 another one. It wasn't so nice. I know. Yeah, 00:59:20.159 --> 00:59:22.460 and I love those. It's great. Right. Cause again, 00:59:22.539 --> 00:59:24.579 no coincidence. I have a relationship with those 00:59:24.579 --> 00:59:29.260 guys from, from that. Yeah, I started and I was 00:59:29.260 --> 00:59:31.079 at station three and Corona engine truck house 00:59:31.079 --> 00:59:33.719 and I was just really drawn to it. Seeing my, 00:59:33.800 --> 00:59:37.260 you know, my grandfather on a truck and, you 00:59:37.260 --> 00:59:39.019 know, seeing the truck work, my dad, you know, 00:59:39.019 --> 00:59:41.639 four at 49 is where the truck was and starting 00:59:41.639 --> 00:59:45.139 to just understand kind of what it was, right. 00:59:45.239 --> 00:59:48.829 The old school mentality of. you know, probably 00:59:48.829 --> 00:59:50.630 on the East coast a little bit with the rescue 00:59:50.630 --> 00:59:52.309 companies, right. You had to earn that. And so 00:59:52.309 --> 00:59:54.269 when I got a Corona, it was kind of your senior 00:59:54.269 --> 00:59:56.829 guys, your bad -ass guys were, you know, they 00:59:56.829 --> 00:59:58.989 were assigned to it. They, they weren't your 00:59:58.989 --> 01:00:01.070 slugs, you know, cause you had a lot of shit 01:00:01.070 --> 01:00:03.130 to do, man. Mondays was tool equipment day. There's 01:00:03.130 --> 01:00:04.909 a lot of shit to do. And then you got to do ladder 01:00:04.909 --> 01:00:07.150 maintenance and stripping a hundred foot aerial, 01:00:07.269 --> 01:00:09.449 right. Isn't the funnest job in the whole world. 01:00:09.809 --> 01:00:12.469 So, um, I was just really drawn to what they 01:00:12.469 --> 01:00:15.570 were doing, right. With being an adrenaline junkie 01:00:15.570 --> 01:00:19.179 anyway. um, having that draw and actually knowing 01:00:19.179 --> 01:00:21.300 what it was. Like I wanted to be on front of 01:00:21.300 --> 01:00:22.820 the hose line with a can. I wanted to be on a 01:00:22.820 --> 01:00:25.260 roof with a saw. I wanted to be doing those things. 01:00:26.019 --> 01:00:28.300 Um, and it was great. Cause when I was in that 01:00:28.300 --> 01:00:32.079 house, um, I was on the engine initially, right. 01:00:32.159 --> 01:00:36.400 As a probie. Um, and then it was great, but I 01:00:36.400 --> 01:00:38.059 was out there every waking minute. They were 01:00:38.059 --> 01:00:39.519 out doing tools. I was doing tools. They were 01:00:39.519 --> 01:00:40.940 doing matter of minutes. I was doing matter of 01:00:40.940 --> 01:00:42.519 minutes. And I wanted to learn from those guys. 01:00:42.539 --> 01:00:45.260 And, um, that was really how it kind of started. 01:00:46.210 --> 01:00:48.789 And I just fell in love with it. And yeah, I 01:00:48.789 --> 01:00:51.670 will tell you, that was one of my best days. 01:00:51.829 --> 01:00:53.489 That was one of my favorites. It will forever 01:00:53.489 --> 01:00:57.550 be etched in the front of my mind was that first 01:00:57.550 --> 01:01:00.030 time. And you know what I'm talking about. When 01:01:00.030 --> 01:01:02.849 they check you off and that first bell goes off 01:01:02.849 --> 01:01:05.150 and you're the tillerman. And for me, it was 01:01:05.150 --> 01:01:08.769 after dinner. And in SoCal, you know, after dinner, 01:01:08.909 --> 01:01:11.610 that sun's kind of setting and you get that bitch. 01:01:12.110 --> 01:01:14.889 orange glow and i get truth bumps thinking about 01:01:14.889 --> 01:01:17.670 it i jumped in the tiller box you know and we 01:01:17.670 --> 01:01:19.389 tear out of there my engineer was like straight 01:01:19.389 --> 01:01:21.409 for 60 bud and beep beep you know and off we 01:01:21.409 --> 01:01:23.630 go and i just remember the lever we pull out 01:01:23.630 --> 01:01:25.349 you know it was like emergency we're pulling 01:01:25.349 --> 01:01:27.369 out the engines in front of it god it was bitching 01:01:27.369 --> 01:01:29.489 and we're going down the road and there's a my 01:01:29.489 --> 01:01:31.889 first call to told me there's a damn header from 01:01:31.889 --> 01:01:33.630 a house fire and i'm just like this is awesome 01:01:33.630 --> 01:01:36.869 you know doors are open and i'm just like this 01:01:36.869 --> 01:01:39.809 is fantastic so that was it i don't know i was 01:01:39.809 --> 01:01:45.400 hooked and so you know it evolved and um it was 01:01:45.400 --> 01:01:47.480 cool because i was teaching at rio hondo and 01:01:47.480 --> 01:01:50.420 then um a group of us you know we had gone to 01:01:50.420 --> 01:01:52.760 the riverside county truck academy that was kind 01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:54.940 of the first one and then a group of us that 01:01:54.940 --> 01:01:58.039 was teaching steve shoot and dave kang and dan 01:01:58.039 --> 01:01:59.639 claridge and tyler shook and some of us were 01:01:59.639 --> 01:02:01.719 like hey we can make our own here at rio hondo 01:02:01.719 --> 01:02:06.920 and so we sold it to chief beckman and um to 01:02:06.920 --> 01:02:08.820 Chief Rickman, and we went to Beckman, and we 01:02:08.820 --> 01:02:10.920 got buy -off. And so then all of a sudden the 01:02:10.920 --> 01:02:12.960 Rio Hondo Truck Academy started. And there was 01:02:12.960 --> 01:02:14.460 a lot of time where, you know, we weren't getting 01:02:14.460 --> 01:02:16.400 paid to do it, and there was money out of our 01:02:16.400 --> 01:02:18.199 pocket. You know, the old credit card or electricity, 01:02:18.340 --> 01:02:21.320 who was buying OSB and U -bolts for the class? 01:02:22.199 --> 01:02:23.719 You know, and it grew into that. And I think 01:02:23.719 --> 01:02:25.639 that also spurred a lot of it. I love the truck 01:02:25.639 --> 01:02:27.300 work, and then I love teaching it with the guys 01:02:27.300 --> 01:02:30.420 I did. you know and then it's funny i was having 01:02:30.420 --> 01:02:32.139 a conversation with a buddy of mine up here in 01:02:32.139 --> 01:02:34.900 washington yesterday about truck stuff and you 01:02:34.900 --> 01:02:37.079 know we don't ventilate and when does it go to 01:02:37.079 --> 01:02:39.739 the roof and when don't they and you know southern 01:02:39.739 --> 01:02:42.820 california it's like we really emphasize we cover 01:02:42.820 --> 01:02:44.940 conventional construction because there is still 01:02:44.940 --> 01:02:46.900 some conventional i was in corona so there was 01:02:46.900 --> 01:02:49.340 conventional out of the beach cities have conventional 01:02:49.340 --> 01:02:53.460 you know you're you know 16 you know 16 or 24 01:02:53.460 --> 01:02:57.420 on center true two by 12, you know, real construction 01:02:57.420 --> 01:03:00.559 roofs. Um, but a lot of it is lightweight and 01:03:00.559 --> 01:03:02.820 it comes down to cost. People aren't going to 01:03:02.820 --> 01:03:05.739 put a conventional real roof in like we used 01:03:05.739 --> 01:03:08.500 to see heavy timber. It's going to be your lightweight 01:03:08.500 --> 01:03:10.880 panelized or your lightweight open web trusses. 01:03:10.920 --> 01:03:13.519 And so, you know, we spent a lot of time on that 01:03:13.519 --> 01:03:15.340 panelized and lightweight construction because 01:03:15.340 --> 01:03:16.679 those are the ones that are going to kill you, 01:03:16.699 --> 01:03:18.659 especially in today's fire burning hotter and 01:03:18.659 --> 01:03:21.880 stuff. And so it's, it's interesting because 01:03:21.880 --> 01:03:23.500 we used to say in Corona, every house gets a 01:03:23.500 --> 01:03:26.090 hole. Right. And then looking back, it's almost 01:03:26.090 --> 01:03:27.989 embarrassing. Again, it goes back to what you're 01:03:27.989 --> 01:03:30.269 talking about, about being a professional. Right. 01:03:30.329 --> 01:03:32.190 And having this job and being a jack of all trades. 01:03:32.230 --> 01:03:35.130 Sometimes, you know, being on the truck is we're 01:03:35.130 --> 01:03:36.429 going to search out in front of that hose line 01:03:36.429 --> 01:03:38.110 with a can. Right. We're going to we're going 01:03:38.110 --> 01:03:39.989 to go in and we're going to we're supposed to 01:03:39.989 --> 01:03:41.889 be the building experts. We're supposed to have, 01:03:41.989 --> 01:03:44.449 you know, the fire behavior experts. And we should 01:03:44.449 --> 01:03:46.289 we should know all that from the engine company 01:03:46.289 --> 01:03:49.369 work to go to the truck to have that read on 01:03:49.369 --> 01:03:51.489 and communicate with interior. Not just because 01:03:51.489 --> 01:03:53.050 we want to go cut a hole, but what does interior 01:03:53.050 --> 01:03:55.489 need? They're the ones that are dictating where 01:03:55.489 --> 01:03:57.670 the fire is and what the direction needs to go, 01:03:57.750 --> 01:04:00.090 right? So maybe it's horizontal. It worked great 01:04:00.090 --> 01:04:01.510 because you're not going to cut a hole in a three 01:04:01.510 --> 01:04:03.570 -story apartment complex when the fire's on the 01:04:03.570 --> 01:04:06.050 first floor. So what are your other options, 01:04:06.170 --> 01:04:08.809 right? You're a ventilation expert, right? Dropping 01:04:08.809 --> 01:04:10.570 a fan at the door and doing a coordinated horizontal 01:04:10.570 --> 01:04:14.010 attack. Using hydraulic ventilation, very, very 01:04:14.010 --> 01:04:16.900 powerful, especially for... And California places 01:04:16.900 --> 01:04:18.619 like Florida, you know, Washington, it gets a 01:04:18.619 --> 01:04:20.460 little, you know, you get down into the teens 01:04:20.460 --> 01:04:22.460 and stuff, you know, again, water damage. But 01:04:22.460 --> 01:04:24.579 again, properly applied, it's worked fantastic. 01:04:24.900 --> 01:04:28.579 And so changing that, you know, debunking the 01:04:28.579 --> 01:04:30.860 mythology of just, you know, we're going up there. 01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:32.539 You know, you see the guys on the news. I was 01:04:32.539 --> 01:04:33.880 part of it, right? You see the guys on the news 01:04:33.880 --> 01:04:36.780 at LA City. They're just up on the roof. Those 01:04:36.780 --> 01:04:38.659 guys aren't just willy -nilly up on the roof 01:04:38.659 --> 01:04:41.400 cutting. Those guys know they're first in. And 01:04:41.400 --> 01:04:43.480 they know that it's conventional. They've walked 01:04:43.480 --> 01:04:45.849 that building, right? They're not just. pulling 01:04:45.849 --> 01:04:47.829 the trigger. And so, you know, a lot of that 01:04:47.829 --> 01:04:49.789 probably like for you is we spent a lot of time 01:04:49.789 --> 01:04:51.590 on doing roof walks and then our first in and 01:04:51.590 --> 01:04:53.769 what are our target hazards and, and, and doing 01:04:53.769 --> 01:04:56.309 that. And, and then I, you know, I say the truck 01:04:56.309 --> 01:04:58.989 is the special forces of the fire service. We 01:04:58.989 --> 01:05:01.210 need to be the best at everything. Like that's 01:05:01.210 --> 01:05:03.150 my standard. When I was, when I'm a truck captain, 01:05:03.170 --> 01:05:06.369 we are training on everything from, we took a 01:05:06.369 --> 01:05:08.929 lot of pride in canceling the engine on an EMS 01:05:08.929 --> 01:05:11.690 call. I don't need a paramedical. This is BLS. 01:05:11.690 --> 01:05:13.250 Get out of here. I'll transport with AMR. You're 01:05:13.250 --> 01:05:16.840 right. We would. drop bundles to put out dumpster 01:05:16.840 --> 01:05:20.019 fires like that's the level of pride we wanted 01:05:20.019 --> 01:05:22.440 to have that we that we made it on that truck 01:05:22.440 --> 01:05:24.699 company right and then also to be the professional 01:05:24.699 --> 01:05:27.440 to not cut a hole in someone's roof that doesn't 01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:29.119 need it right how many times we cut a hole in 01:05:29.119 --> 01:05:30.739 an attic fire and burn the roof off the damn 01:05:30.739 --> 01:05:33.659 thing it's like uh maybe we keep the box controlled 01:05:33.659 --> 01:05:35.480 pull some ceiling because we're the truck we 01:05:35.480 --> 01:05:38.280 do a surge we do some overhaul i know people 01:05:38.280 --> 01:05:41.360 like that word do a little salvage right and 01:05:41.360 --> 01:05:43.139 then and do that and so that's kind of the growth 01:05:43.139 --> 01:05:44.659 of where we're going and really getting that 01:05:44.659 --> 01:05:47.719 education and construction is what it is man 01:05:47.719 --> 01:05:50.659 it's materials are limited and cost is is one 01:05:50.659 --> 01:05:53.139 thing so you're not going to get a lot of heavy 01:05:53.139 --> 01:05:56.739 heavy you know like you have you know your real 01:05:56.739 --> 01:05:59.239 good construction of brick not even pre -33 you 01:05:59.239 --> 01:06:01.000 know you're looking at like you know 33 through 01:06:01.000 --> 01:06:03.199 the 70s where it was reinforced masonry but you 01:06:03.199 --> 01:06:04.780 still had you know you still had the real good 01:06:04.780 --> 01:06:06.719 roofs on there and then we get into the lightweight 01:06:06.719 --> 01:06:11.960 era of trusses and glue and, you know, and, you 01:06:11.960 --> 01:06:13.699 know, wooden I -beams and all that, you know, 01:06:13.699 --> 01:06:16.579 we can get into all that stuff. But yeah, that's, 01:06:16.579 --> 01:06:18.500 it's really cool to see the evolution of it, 01:06:18.559 --> 01:06:21.380 depending on where you work is, is just being 01:06:21.380 --> 01:06:23.940 the professional on the truck. And I just, that's 01:06:23.940 --> 01:06:25.539 what I love about it is you're going, you're 01:06:25.539 --> 01:06:26.960 going on every good call, you're going on every 01:06:26.960 --> 01:06:28.500 rescue, you're going on every fire, you're going 01:06:28.500 --> 01:06:31.659 on every thing. And so prepare for that, right. 01:06:31.739 --> 01:06:33.460 And be the professional and you can, you can 01:06:33.460 --> 01:06:36.019 steer the ship too. Again, you can be calm and 01:06:36.019 --> 01:06:39.219 have that demeanor and lead. not freelance and 01:06:39.219 --> 01:06:41.320 and that's that's one thing that we really try 01:06:41.320 --> 01:06:44.619 to preach it was really interesting because i 01:06:44.619 --> 01:06:46.860 went to school in the fire school in orlando 01:06:46.860 --> 01:06:49.619 then i worked for miami area hialeah for just 01:06:49.619 --> 01:06:53.239 under a year and that their academy was phenomenal 01:06:53.239 --> 01:06:55.980 but again it wasn't really truck at all it was 01:06:55.980 --> 01:07:01.280 mainly engine and and ems um and then i go to 01:07:01.280 --> 01:07:03.840 california and i'm in the academy i got hired 01:07:03.840 --> 01:07:06.239 and i'm in the orientation with all these california 01:07:06.239 --> 01:07:08.760 trained firefighters And they're sticking the 01:07:08.760 --> 01:07:11.179 ladder and I'm like, oh, shit, I've got some 01:07:11.179 --> 01:07:12.900 things to learn. Because the way I was taught 01:07:12.900 --> 01:07:14.739 is you lay it flat on the floor and then you 01:07:14.739 --> 01:07:17.400 walk the rungs up and then, you know, you hold 01:07:17.400 --> 01:07:19.599 it from the side, which when you look at it now 01:07:19.599 --> 01:07:22.699 is like that couldn't be less secure if you tried. 01:07:23.159 --> 01:07:24.960 And then they're like, you know, shouldering 01:07:24.960 --> 01:07:27.079 it, sticking it, you know, putting the knee, 01:07:27.139 --> 01:07:29.300 wrapping the leg and the knee around, not even 01:07:29.300 --> 01:07:31.860 rotating it, like tie it off right. We're good 01:07:31.860 --> 01:07:34.820 to go. Get in there. And then you get into, you 01:07:34.820 --> 01:07:37.920 know, that full. super aggressive probationary 01:07:37.920 --> 01:07:41.699 year where 25 % of every class, including mine, 01:07:41.780 --> 01:07:43.980 would be let go by the end of the year. That's 01:07:43.980 --> 01:07:46.320 how seriously they took their standards. And 01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:48.880 like you said, it's training over and over and 01:07:48.880 --> 01:07:50.760 over again. You're either cutting roofs or using 01:07:50.760 --> 01:07:54.760 the chalk saw on the bay floor. And then you're 01:07:54.760 --> 01:07:56.679 building construction and all these different 01:07:56.679 --> 01:07:59.900 things. And then you go. Maybe you're working 01:07:59.900 --> 01:08:02.360 on an engine that day and you're inside and you 01:08:02.360 --> 01:08:05.679 see all the smoke just fucking disappear. Oh, 01:08:05.760 --> 01:08:07.179 there's the fire. I'm just going to walk over 01:08:07.179 --> 01:08:09.239 to it and put it out. And then the opposite. 01:08:09.340 --> 01:08:11.639 Now you're up on the roof and you're going to 01:08:11.639 --> 01:08:13.260 hear them screaming for ventilation. And then 01:08:13.260 --> 01:08:15.440 you do it and then everything comes out the hole 01:08:15.440 --> 01:08:18.159 and you extend it a bit. And then you go back 01:08:18.159 --> 01:08:20.739 to Florida and you hear this, oh, it's too dangerous. 01:08:21.119 --> 01:08:22.720 And then you're like, but you're going to put 01:08:22.720 --> 01:08:25.960 two companies under that roof. And that's where 01:08:25.960 --> 01:08:28.939 I realized there's a lot of yap -yap. The difference 01:08:28.939 --> 01:08:31.979 is, because I was at a station that had a truck 01:08:31.979 --> 01:08:33.500 and they were all beating their chest. And the 01:08:33.500 --> 01:08:36.140 first fire I saw them at, I mean, you talk about 01:08:36.140 --> 01:08:39.199 monkey fucking a football. It was embarrassing, 01:08:39.359 --> 01:08:41.600 you know, and so because they don't have that 01:08:41.600 --> 01:08:44.239 kind of training. And I think where the disconnect 01:08:44.239 --> 01:08:45.939 is, and I'd be interested to kind of get the 01:08:45.939 --> 01:08:50.279 rough, you know, what's the word I'm looking 01:08:50.279 --> 01:08:52.760 for? What those two weeks look like anyway, syllabus, 01:08:52.880 --> 01:08:56.340 is it was that year of training and that never 01:08:56.340 --> 01:08:58.220 stopped. You know, as you carry on, you keep 01:08:58.220 --> 01:09:00.399 doing, you're constantly doing training and good, 01:09:00.479 --> 01:09:04.029 realistic training. you understand when to get 01:09:04.029 --> 01:09:06.310 on a roof and when not. You know, understand, 01:09:06.510 --> 01:09:09.470 you know, has it self -vented? Has it not? Like 01:09:09.470 --> 01:09:11.670 you said, different types of ventilation. Am 01:09:11.670 --> 01:09:13.689 I just softening the structure on this one? Kind 01:09:13.689 --> 01:09:16.149 of, you know, assisting RIT rather than, you 01:09:16.149 --> 01:09:19.810 know, what needs to be done. And so me cutting 01:09:19.810 --> 01:09:24.569 a freaking pallet in the corner of a fire academy 01:09:24.569 --> 01:09:27.319 somewhere is not truck training. you just cut 01:09:27.319 --> 01:09:28.939 a piece of wood with a train saw and that's what 01:09:28.939 --> 01:09:30.500 they were getting over here and they would get 01:09:30.500 --> 01:09:32.220 you know the truck academy is a little bit more 01:09:32.220 --> 01:09:35.220 but it was nothing nothing like what i was getting 01:09:35.220 --> 01:09:38.739 in california so just illustrate what the rio 01:09:38.739 --> 01:09:40.939 hondo truck academy looks like because when i 01:09:40.939 --> 01:09:44.079 was there that was like the revered academy by 01:09:44.079 --> 01:09:47.899 that point i'll appreciate that yeah it's um 01:09:47.899 --> 01:09:51.760 11 days is what we've got it too right and it's 01:09:52.359 --> 01:09:55.460 building construction. We do roof locks. We do 01:09:55.460 --> 01:09:59.060 a chainsaw class. We do a horizontal class. I 01:09:59.060 --> 01:10:01.619 do a horizontal ventilation class, you know, 01:10:01.640 --> 01:10:05.739 coordinated attack. And then heavy on vent, right? 01:10:05.840 --> 01:10:08.380 The props that we built are incredible, right? 01:10:08.460 --> 01:10:10.319 We have flat panel lines. We have conventional. 01:10:10.439 --> 01:10:15.300 We have pitched. We dice. We do one by six. You 01:10:15.300 --> 01:10:18.470 know, we do axe work. Right. Chainsaw appreciation 01:10:18.470 --> 01:10:24.369 class. And I've done it. It's terrible. Right. 01:10:24.449 --> 01:10:26.170 And I teach the act stuff. They give me the fun 01:10:26.170 --> 01:10:30.149 stuff to teach. And we do that, you know, we're 01:10:30.149 --> 01:10:32.029 working off beam. We're doing off Perlin. We're 01:10:32.029 --> 01:10:34.050 doing specialty cuts, dropbacks, pullbacks. We're 01:10:34.050 --> 01:10:35.289 trying to give them everything that they can 01:10:35.289 --> 01:10:37.930 encounter. Right. We do. And then we get into 01:10:37.930 --> 01:10:42.029 VES. We do elevator rescue. Steve does a phenomenal 01:10:42.029 --> 01:10:45.850 job with that. Right. And then we get into firefighter 01:10:45.850 --> 01:10:48.949 survival. for a couple of days you know getting 01:10:48.949 --> 01:10:52.609 into that we teach auto x we're doing aerial 01:10:52.609 --> 01:10:56.609 operations using trucks for high changes and 01:10:56.609 --> 01:11:01.489 rope rescue stuff and yeah it's pretty it's definitely 01:11:01.489 --> 01:11:05.319 you will cut a lot there's a lot of osb that 01:11:05.319 --> 01:11:07.899 goes into it and then we do forcible entry you 01:11:07.899 --> 01:11:10.000 get it you get this whole and tyler's done a 01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:11.739 fantastic job we have just about every forcible 01:11:11.739 --> 01:11:13.800 entry prop you could possibly imagine from scissor 01:11:13.800 --> 01:11:17.060 gates to panic hardware to conventional forcible 01:11:17.060 --> 01:11:19.300 entry to all the mechanical forcible entry on 01:11:19.300 --> 01:11:22.579 you know rolled steel or slat doors and everything 01:11:22.579 --> 01:11:26.039 and so yeah it's it's really cool we do auto 01:11:26.039 --> 01:11:29.300 x For two days, we get into company simulations 01:11:29.300 --> 01:11:32.159 where we're running now. We do a Rick scenario, 01:11:32.479 --> 01:11:35.060 and we've just developed a lot of props. We do 01:11:35.060 --> 01:11:37.560 vent over fire. We do forcible entry under fire. 01:11:38.180 --> 01:11:41.560 We do VES under fire. I'm my horizontal class, 01:11:41.720 --> 01:11:44.539 and I do a piss can class, right? How do you 01:11:44.539 --> 01:11:46.319 make horizontal ventilation fun? Well, you put 01:11:46.319 --> 01:11:48.399 live fire and you use a can, right? Because a 01:11:48.399 --> 01:11:49.920 lot of people have never used a can. They don't 01:11:49.920 --> 01:11:51.779 know that you can actually shoot at 40 feet and 01:11:51.779 --> 01:11:53.399 put a shitload of fire out, right? And we just 01:11:53.399 --> 01:11:56.180 do it in a Connex. Yeah, that's, that's what 01:11:56.180 --> 01:11:57.939 it is a real heavy on building construction. 01:11:58.079 --> 01:11:59.579 We've been very fortunate. We go and do building 01:11:59.579 --> 01:12:01.600 walks in the area and show them the different 01:12:01.600 --> 01:12:03.819 unique buildings and have them get a read on 01:12:03.819 --> 01:12:05.720 it on from, you know, a hundred thousand square 01:12:05.720 --> 01:12:09.060 foot, large panelized warehouses to smaller ones 01:12:09.060 --> 01:12:10.640 that show, you know, a different construction 01:12:10.640 --> 01:12:13.920 conventional versus lightweight. So it's super 01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:17.960 cool. I mean, it's definitely, you know, it's 01:12:17.960 --> 01:12:20.220 two weeks, it's two weeks of our lives that our 01:12:20.220 --> 01:12:23.100 families hate, but it's fantastic. We love it. 01:12:23.159 --> 01:12:26.800 And, um, It's awesome. We were very honored to 01:12:26.800 --> 01:12:29.600 have the success we have, you know, the support 01:12:29.600 --> 01:12:33.500 of Rio Hondo and then the guys who teach. We 01:12:33.500 --> 01:12:35.560 found out again that it's sold out in like a 01:12:35.560 --> 01:12:39.520 minute 30 this year. So 50 spots are sold out, 01:12:39.579 --> 01:12:41.300 you know, and then of course, a hundred people 01:12:41.300 --> 01:12:42.680 on the waiting list. And then it's like, why 01:12:42.680 --> 01:12:44.340 don't you guys run this more? Well, we did a 01:12:44.340 --> 01:12:46.859 couple of years. We ran two a year. That's two 01:12:46.859 --> 01:12:49.539 months, right? Plus of rehab prop, you know, 01:12:49.539 --> 01:12:51.819 rehabbing props, prepping, and then time away 01:12:51.819 --> 01:12:55.000 that we're teaching. And so. um it's usually 01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:58.039 run in january or february and it's a hell of 01:12:58.039 --> 01:13:01.159 a good time and then it's um really been great 01:13:01.159 --> 01:13:04.539 because it's branched out into steve and tyler 01:13:04.539 --> 01:13:07.140 are flying up on sunday we're going over to wenatchee 01:13:07.140 --> 01:13:09.960 valley to teach a five -day truck class to them 01:13:09.960 --> 01:13:11.479 where we're going to be focusing on ventilation 01:13:11.479 --> 01:13:13.720 and elevators and a little forcible entry and 01:13:13.720 --> 01:13:16.760 stuff so it's been we've morphed it into some 01:13:16.760 --> 01:13:18.939 five -day classes for people too which is awesome 01:13:20.760 --> 01:13:23.239 As I progressed through, I only had 14 years, 01:13:23.300 --> 01:13:25.720 so it wasn't like I was some salty vet. But as 01:13:25.720 --> 01:13:27.319 you can probably tell, I'm someone who likes 01:13:27.319 --> 01:13:29.800 to question things a little bit. You know, why 01:13:29.800 --> 01:13:32.239 are we doing it this way? And so perfect example, 01:13:32.500 --> 01:13:36.300 using water on a car fire and acting like you're 01:13:36.300 --> 01:13:39.159 actually saving something when really it's a 01:13:39.159 --> 01:13:42.380 glorified class B dumpster fire doesn't make 01:13:42.380 --> 01:13:44.300 a lot of sense. And whether you're using AFFF 01:13:44.300 --> 01:13:46.300 or whether you're even trying one of those massive 01:13:46.300 --> 01:13:48.579 tarps that seem to work really well from overseas. 01:13:49.399 --> 01:13:51.300 Just thinking like, how else can I do this? And 01:13:51.300 --> 01:13:53.359 what even makes sense? Like risking people to 01:13:53.359 --> 01:13:55.579 be up against a car that you're literally saving 01:13:55.579 --> 01:13:57.619 nothing. It will be written off. And this is, 01:13:57.659 --> 01:13:58.979 of course, as a person in there, it's a different 01:13:58.979 --> 01:14:02.460 story. Why are you not just hitting it hard from 01:14:02.460 --> 01:14:04.359 the yard by that point? It's literally a dumpster 01:14:04.359 --> 01:14:07.680 fire. And like I said, it's class B. At the academy, 01:14:07.739 --> 01:14:09.739 we teach water doesn't put out class B fires, 01:14:09.880 --> 01:14:14.659 which is why I use the whole tank. But when it 01:14:14.659 --> 01:14:18.090 comes to even the searching, I remember. And 01:14:18.090 --> 01:14:19.750 pretty much the whole time, well, we start the 01:14:19.750 --> 01:14:22.210 primary, you know, we start and we do a right 01:14:22.210 --> 01:14:23.470 -hand search. And I always remember going, but 01:14:23.470 --> 01:14:25.949 what happens when you hit the fire? Like, no 01:14:25.949 --> 01:14:28.170 one talks about that bit. There's a part of the 01:14:28.170 --> 01:14:30.430 house that you can't get to. Now, what, did you 01:14:30.430 --> 01:14:33.010 go back? Do you try and go around it? You know 01:14:33.010 --> 01:14:35.590 what I mean? That was never answered. And the 01:14:35.590 --> 01:14:37.770 other one was obviously, you just talked about 01:14:37.770 --> 01:14:41.220 it, 100 ,000 square foot warehouse fires. The 01:14:41.220 --> 01:14:43.260 last place I worked, Protect Disney. I mean, 01:14:43.279 --> 01:14:45.699 the insane warehouses they had there, some of 01:14:45.699 --> 01:14:47.739 which were full of rolls of paper and plastic. 01:14:47.920 --> 01:14:51.560 And what have you come up with as an actual effective 01:14:51.560 --> 01:14:55.300 way of trying to organize a search of such a 01:14:55.300 --> 01:14:59.539 huge building like that? Man, that's a whole 01:14:59.539 --> 01:15:01.899 class onto itself. Large area search is just, 01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:05.020 you know, you got to start, you got to take it 01:15:05.020 --> 01:15:08.220 as, most of the nice part is when we do building 01:15:08.220 --> 01:15:11.060 construction, we show. right your seams your 01:15:11.060 --> 01:15:12.739 pilasters on most of these big buildings your 01:15:12.739 --> 01:15:16.420 concrete tilt ups right and so alpha is not always 01:15:16.420 --> 01:15:18.979 your best entrance right you got to get out of 01:15:18.979 --> 01:15:20.819 the mentality of and most people who work around 01:15:20.819 --> 01:15:22.640 these things like i did in corona i was around 01:15:22.640 --> 01:15:25.100 it right that's how i was trained looking at 01:15:25.100 --> 01:15:27.300 scuppers and then you're gonna you gotta dissect 01:15:27.300 --> 01:15:30.020 to that building into Where is the fire? Okay, 01:15:30.079 --> 01:15:32.979 well, maybe we need to do a drive around 360. 01:15:33.279 --> 01:15:34.460 We're not going to walk this thing. We're going 01:15:34.460 --> 01:15:36.220 to take time to save time, do a drive around 01:15:36.220 --> 01:15:39.340 360. Where is this actually at? Oh, shit. It's 01:15:39.340 --> 01:15:42.640 over in the Charlie Delta corner. Oh, we're going 01:15:42.640 --> 01:15:44.600 to make access here, and we're going to use the 01:15:44.600 --> 01:15:46.239 roll -up door on this side, and then there's 01:15:46.239 --> 01:15:48.159 one further down on Charlie, and the trucks are 01:15:48.159 --> 01:15:51.720 going to ladder. I don't want to walk 300 feet. 01:15:52.779 --> 01:15:55.000 I want to walk like 75 feet and cut a hole and 01:15:55.000 --> 01:15:58.130 get off. Cause it's time driven. So that's one 01:15:58.130 --> 01:15:59.869 of the big things, right? Is, is your access 01:15:59.869 --> 01:16:01.710 points. And then what are we really looking at? 01:16:01.949 --> 01:16:04.090 You know, as far as that and most commercial 01:16:04.090 --> 01:16:07.449 buildings, right? We're not finding in most commercial 01:16:07.449 --> 01:16:10.289 occupancies are not so search heavy. That's why 01:16:10.289 --> 01:16:12.210 we say trucks go to the roof because most of 01:16:12.210 --> 01:16:15.510 the time there is a standard on fire protection 01:16:15.510 --> 01:16:17.529 systems, fire alerting systems. So most people 01:16:17.529 --> 01:16:19.810 are getting out. right if there is a search issue 01:16:19.810 --> 01:16:22.449 generally those large area searches are a whole 01:16:22.449 --> 01:16:24.649 nother monster right especially what's your visibility 01:16:24.649 --> 01:16:26.829 driven is this a hose line driven is it hose 01:16:26.829 --> 01:16:30.029 driven is it anchored by um you know by site 01:16:30.029 --> 01:16:31.869 now we have thermal imagers and so things like 01:16:31.869 --> 01:16:34.550 that are all all go into it right and we like 01:16:34.550 --> 01:16:36.890 to just tell people hey don't don't make this 01:16:36.890 --> 01:16:39.090 hundred thousand bucks so big break it down into 01:16:39.090 --> 01:16:41.529 smaller quadrants as to that's where we're going 01:16:41.529 --> 01:16:44.579 to start looking at it right and where are if 01:16:44.579 --> 01:16:46.239 this was manufacturing and everybody's out of 01:16:46.239 --> 01:16:47.560 the building i'm not going to worry about that 01:16:47.560 --> 01:16:49.899 right we need to pop a hole get this smoke up 01:16:49.899 --> 01:16:52.340 because again in commercial if i cut the big 01:16:52.340 --> 01:16:56.600 hole right minimum 16 by 16 to start with get 01:16:56.600 --> 01:16:59.199 this hole opened up we're going to take a lot 01:16:59.199 --> 01:17:01.039 of the products and we're going to get lift we'll 01:17:01.039 --> 01:17:03.479 have fire right we have we can put the fire out 01:17:03.479 --> 01:17:04.939 you put the fire out your fire your problem goes 01:17:04.939 --> 01:17:08.789 away so So that's a lot of what we look at when 01:17:08.789 --> 01:17:10.909 we talk about that. Right. And, you know, ladder 01:17:10.909 --> 01:17:13.170 on pilasters instead of the old, you know, eight 01:17:13.170 --> 01:17:15.529 to 16 feet from a corner. Well, the bigger, bigger 01:17:15.529 --> 01:17:17.310 building is going to be eight feet from a corner. 01:17:17.430 --> 01:17:19.789 You may not even hit a structural number. Let's 01:17:19.789 --> 01:17:23.270 look at being, you know, 24 to 40 feet off most 01:17:23.270 --> 01:17:26.350 buildings. Let's look at being. 120 feet off 01:17:26.350 --> 01:17:28.510 a corner because that's the access we are looking 01:17:28.510 --> 01:17:30.970 for seams looking for scuppers things like that 01:17:30.970 --> 01:17:32.510 on the big commercial so those are things that 01:17:32.510 --> 01:17:34.649 we try to emphasize right we don't want to put 01:17:34.649 --> 01:17:36.789 everybody into a box you know i mean there is 01:17:36.789 --> 01:17:38.949 a way to cut off perlin but you got to read it 01:17:38.949 --> 01:17:41.350 and i think the real value of our academy is 01:17:41.350 --> 01:17:45.090 the guys that that we don't talk at you right 01:17:45.090 --> 01:17:47.050 and we all have the same philosophy we just get 01:17:47.050 --> 01:17:49.100 to do this more than you Right. And we're just 01:17:49.100 --> 01:17:51.720 out there having fun. Most of the time, we're 01:17:51.720 --> 01:17:53.819 the ones goofing off more than anybody else because 01:17:53.819 --> 01:17:56.739 it's like your best friend out there. And I always 01:17:56.739 --> 01:17:58.479 lead when anything I'm teaching, whether it's 01:17:58.479 --> 01:18:01.720 resiliency or truck ops or auto X or breathing 01:18:01.720 --> 01:18:04.739 or rescue swimming is, hey, take what we're telling 01:18:04.739 --> 01:18:07.779 you and go home and try to prove us wrong. Not 01:18:07.779 --> 01:18:09.819 like prove us wrong, like, haha, fuck you. Right. 01:18:10.359 --> 01:18:12.199 But go home and do it because one of two things 01:18:12.199 --> 01:18:13.819 is going to happen. One, you're going to find 01:18:13.819 --> 01:18:15.380 a better way of doing it. Then you come back 01:18:15.380 --> 01:18:17.960 and tell us and the program gets better. Or two, 01:18:18.020 --> 01:18:19.159 you're going to get functional understanding 01:18:19.159 --> 01:18:21.439 of the material to which you can then teach the 01:18:21.439 --> 01:18:23.439 other people that come up against you. And that's 01:18:23.439 --> 01:18:25.399 what we want. We want functional understanding, 01:18:25.720 --> 01:18:27.819 not just because Rudiger said to do it or because 01:18:27.819 --> 01:18:29.640 Steve said to do it or because James said to 01:18:29.640 --> 01:18:32.079 do it. We want this is why and here's the functional 01:18:32.079 --> 01:18:35.520 understanding. I can explain it to you. I'm intrigued. 01:18:35.619 --> 01:18:38.039 Talk to me about off -perlin cutting because, 01:18:38.140 --> 01:18:40.239 you know, when I'm thinking again, ideal world, 01:18:40.340 --> 01:18:42.020 we're on a main beam, we're on a perlin when 01:18:42.020 --> 01:18:43.779 we're doing pullbacks. And, you know, I'm trying 01:18:43.779 --> 01:18:47.149 to visualize that for my own education. yeah 01:18:47.149 --> 01:18:50.369 our main for offensive hall our main is two saw 01:18:50.369 --> 01:18:52.510 opposing is what we call it off purlin operations 01:18:52.510 --> 01:18:56.670 so you're putting two teams generally off the 01:18:56.670 --> 01:18:58.409 purlin up to where we're going to make that cut 01:18:58.409 --> 01:19:01.270 identifying that spacer raft or whatever you 01:19:01.270 --> 01:19:05.090 want to call it and then they're just two big 01:19:05.090 --> 01:19:07.529 boxes so you're getting an eight foot because 01:19:07.529 --> 01:19:09.350 our purlins are eight feet apart you have a team 01:19:09.350 --> 01:19:12.170 on each purlin that have sounded out they're 01:19:12.170 --> 01:19:14.710 getting that eight by four cut, and then we're 01:19:14.710 --> 01:19:16.729 dropping a couple of them in there to give us 01:19:16.729 --> 01:19:19.270 that, you know, eight by, you know, eight by 01:19:19.270 --> 01:19:21.949 16, 16 by 16 hole that we need to get that thing 01:19:21.949 --> 01:19:24.550 opened up. Right. And so working off that Perlin, 01:19:24.649 --> 01:19:26.569 when you're on a panelizer, if you're only working 01:19:26.569 --> 01:19:28.529 off Beamer Perlin. That's okay. So you weren't 01:19:28.529 --> 01:19:30.149 getting off the Perlin. I was misunderstanding. 01:19:31.170 --> 01:19:34.510 We say off Perlin, off Perlin, off Beamer, our 01:19:34.510 --> 01:19:36.489 operations, you're going to cut off of the beam, 01:19:36.590 --> 01:19:38.250 meaning you're going to be on the beam cutting 01:19:38.250 --> 01:19:39.989 or you're going to, I know that's funny. I never 01:19:39.989 --> 01:19:41.810 thought about that before. It's just right. That's 01:19:41.810 --> 01:19:44.420 vernacular we've always used. right it's like 01:19:44.420 --> 01:19:46.340 a crescent wrench no it's actually an open -ended 01:19:46.340 --> 01:19:49.220 adjustable wrench get your verbiage right so 01:19:49.220 --> 01:19:51.300 yeah no no that's what we're talking about okay 01:19:51.300 --> 01:19:53.640 no we're work we're working off of the beam we 01:19:53.640 --> 01:19:56.920 never right that's one okay that's yeah never 01:19:56.920 --> 01:19:58.960 step off never step off right and that's one 01:19:58.960 --> 01:20:00.640 thing we really emphasize like your feet come 01:20:00.640 --> 01:20:04.420 off we really harp on you know heels and toes 01:20:04.420 --> 01:20:07.060 on the beamer program like we don't we don't 01:20:07.060 --> 01:20:09.739 ever step off of those on a panelized even we've 01:20:09.739 --> 01:20:13.199 had people go through roofs on roof locks because 01:20:13.199 --> 01:20:16.119 it rots because all it is is shitty osb and a 01:20:16.119 --> 01:20:19.159 two by four spacer i remember you were talking 01:20:19.159 --> 01:20:21.460 about dicing earlier there was a hotel it was 01:20:21.460 --> 01:20:23.739 like motel six fire i was on it's funny because 01:20:23.739 --> 01:20:25.720 i ended up on the news that the cameraman just 01:20:25.720 --> 01:20:27.659 happened to zoom in on this one firefighter pulling 01:20:27.659 --> 01:20:29.600 ceiling and then it zoomed back and my wife had 01:20:29.600 --> 01:20:32.000 a heart attack at home because the roof is all 01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:34.399 on fire above but as you said it's there's a 01:20:34.399 --> 01:20:37.439 big barrier between the two but yeah they diced 01:20:37.439 --> 01:20:41.600 the roof And then the ladder was up there and 01:20:41.600 --> 01:20:43.819 he decided to flow water. And I don't know what 01:20:43.819 --> 01:20:45.680 it was because it was Anaheim, great department, 01:20:45.859 --> 01:20:47.699 well -trained, but there was a momentary brain 01:20:47.699 --> 01:20:49.739 fart, you know, with sleep deprivation behind 01:20:49.739 --> 01:20:52.239 it, quite possibly. But they flowed from down 01:20:52.239 --> 01:20:54.840 below and they knocked one of the firefighters 01:20:54.840 --> 01:20:58.359 on and luckily the wall caught him. But if it 01:20:58.359 --> 01:21:00.239 hadn't, he probably would have been killed. It 01:21:00.239 --> 01:21:03.340 was three stories up. So, you know, but I can 01:21:03.340 --> 01:21:07.079 always see the roof kind of. you know, louvered 01:21:07.079 --> 01:21:09.340 up there and then him sliding across and being 01:21:09.340 --> 01:21:11.920 caught by the, uh, the wall. So yeah, definitely 01:21:11.920 --> 01:21:13.739 one of the near messes I remember in my career. 01:21:15.460 --> 01:21:17.819 We've had those, you know, and like you said, 01:21:17.840 --> 01:21:19.279 it's interesting. You said, you know, the sleep 01:21:19.279 --> 01:21:21.920 deprivation and we've talked about that. My chief, 01:21:22.000 --> 01:21:24.060 my assistant chief just sent us a, he's real 01:21:24.060 --> 01:21:25.699 big on human performance. He just sent me and 01:21:25.699 --> 01:21:30.140 my boss, Mike, uh, interesting article. They're 01:21:30.140 --> 01:21:33.380 showing that lack of sleep is not based on call 01:21:33.380 --> 01:21:35.899 volume. They're showing. high medium and low 01:21:35.899 --> 01:21:38.180 call volumes and people's average sleep is like 01:21:38.180 --> 01:21:42.739 4 .8 hours and 4 .1 hours, you know, and you're 01:21:42.739 --> 01:21:45.039 going from a high call volume to a low call volume. 01:21:45.279 --> 01:21:47.079 Right. And it goes back to everything that we're 01:21:47.079 --> 01:21:49.760 starting to learn. And one of my big things is, 01:21:49.800 --> 01:21:51.920 you know, that whole Dr. Gilmart thing is when 01:21:51.920 --> 01:21:54.100 we go to work, we're in a sympathetic tone. We're 01:21:54.100 --> 01:21:56.739 in fight or flight. Absolutely. How many people 01:21:56.739 --> 01:21:58.359 have we heard say, I can't sleep at the fire 01:21:58.359 --> 01:22:01.220 station. Right. Now, when you're on a truck company, 01:22:01.319 --> 01:22:04.029 you know. chances are I'm not going to get up. 01:22:04.029 --> 01:22:06.430 I'm going to sleep like a baby, right? So maybe, 01:22:06.529 --> 01:22:08.449 you know, the mind shuts off a little bit, but 01:22:08.449 --> 01:22:10.350 that's something that I don't think we address 01:22:10.350 --> 01:22:12.250 enough in the sleep world that I'm really big 01:22:12.250 --> 01:22:15.829 on, right, with the neurobiology and the autonomic 01:22:15.829 --> 01:22:18.489 nervous system is that we go to work in a sympathetic 01:22:18.489 --> 01:22:20.710 tone. And if we don't acknowledge that we are 01:22:20.710 --> 01:22:22.609 in fight or flight the whole time, you know, 01:22:22.609 --> 01:22:23.729 everyone's like, well, you washed your truck 01:22:23.729 --> 01:22:25.470 and you ate ice cream and you, you know, sat 01:22:25.470 --> 01:22:27.329 in the chairs and you watched football all day. 01:22:28.860 --> 01:22:31.199 We did, but I guarantee you in the back of your 01:22:31.199 --> 01:22:32.720 mind, that whole goddamn time, you're waiting 01:22:32.720 --> 01:22:34.479 for the bell to go off. And without waiting for 01:22:34.479 --> 01:22:35.859 that bell to go off, you're going to be in a 01:22:35.859 --> 01:22:38.079 sympathetic tone. That means we eat in a sympathetic 01:22:38.079 --> 01:22:41.699 tone. We speak in a sympathetic tone. We sleep 01:22:41.699 --> 01:22:43.720 in a sympathetic tone, which means we don't. 01:22:43.840 --> 01:22:45.880 And so really interesting study coming out. I'm 01:22:45.880 --> 01:22:47.340 going to dive into that a little bit more, this 01:22:47.340 --> 01:22:49.439 study that was just sent to me, but really interesting 01:22:49.439 --> 01:22:52.060 because people are like, that's one of the arguments. 01:22:52.810 --> 01:22:54.989 Well, no, you know, you guys are not very busy, 01:22:55.029 --> 01:22:56.909 so you probably sleep a lot. Horseshit, you're 01:22:56.909 --> 01:22:58.930 at work. You could have a career defining incident. 01:22:59.529 --> 01:23:02.770 Your department can run 0 .01 calls a day and 01:23:02.770 --> 01:23:05.109 then you're going to be up 12 times. I mean, 01:23:05.130 --> 01:23:06.949 that's just the nature of the beast. So really 01:23:06.949 --> 01:23:09.810 interesting that I just got that. Yeah. It's 01:23:09.810 --> 01:23:12.369 also, again, you touched on this earlier because 01:23:12.369 --> 01:23:14.029 I know that, you know, I've talked about it and 01:23:14.029 --> 01:23:15.989 you probably, we did when we were talking the 01:23:15.989 --> 01:23:19.470 other day, but that start time, you know, changing 01:23:19.470 --> 01:23:23.229 that to 11 a .m., 12 noon. Now you've eliminated 01:23:23.229 --> 01:23:25.710 the sleep deprivation that comes on your first 01:23:25.710 --> 01:23:28.250 shift, which is getting up at 435 in the morning, 01:23:28.310 --> 01:23:30.590 especially in the L .A. area. I mean, I lived 01:23:30.590 --> 01:23:32.529 in Burbank. I worked for Anaheim. That was like 01:23:32.529 --> 01:23:35.890 a 90 minute commute. You know, it's just another 01:23:35.890 --> 01:23:37.989 way of changing that because, yeah, you cannot 01:23:37.989 --> 01:23:40.829 be in a parasympathetic state sleeping in a fire 01:23:40.829 --> 01:23:42.909 station. And, you know, yes, you're going to 01:23:42.909 --> 01:23:44.569 have those days that are more quiet and you're 01:23:44.569 --> 01:23:46.649 going to have those days that are busier and 01:23:46.649 --> 01:23:47.930 you're going to have those days where it's a 01:23:47.930 --> 01:23:50.069 school shooting. Or the cop that just had dinner 01:23:50.069 --> 01:23:51.970 with you five minutes later has just been shot 01:23:51.970 --> 01:23:54.430 in the face around the corner. So, you know, 01:23:54.430 --> 01:23:56.930 this is what we do. And, you know, do our military 01:23:56.930 --> 01:23:59.829 have to constantly be firing mortars and shooting 01:23:59.829 --> 01:24:02.890 their weapons for you to justify paying them? 01:24:03.050 --> 01:24:05.170 Does a security guard in your apartment complex 01:24:05.170 --> 01:24:07.189 have to be running after bad guys the whole time? 01:24:07.689 --> 01:24:09.909 You know, does a librarian have to constantly 01:24:09.909 --> 01:24:12.250 be putting books away? I mean, any other profession, 01:24:12.409 --> 01:24:16.350 it's lunacy. But with us, oh, you need busy work. 01:24:16.859 --> 01:24:19.079 you're not doing enough dude if we are training 01:24:19.079 --> 01:24:21.399 a lot of us are running our asses off as well 01:24:21.399 --> 01:24:24.619 but we're training we're learning we're you know 01:24:24.619 --> 01:24:27.680 strength and conditioning for the chance that 01:24:27.680 --> 01:24:29.880 when this thing happens that we are as prepared 01:24:29.880 --> 01:24:33.340 as possible and ideally rested so that we operate 01:24:33.340 --> 01:24:36.560 at as close to 100 as possible you know what 01:24:36.560 --> 01:24:38.560 i mean and it's crazy that our profession has 01:24:38.560 --> 01:24:42.119 to justify what we do when we're the only people 01:24:42.119 --> 01:24:46.420 that that show up when you hit 9 -1 -1 right 01:24:46.420 --> 01:24:51.899 and my my um my old man used to say you know 01:24:51.899 --> 01:24:54.640 it was great because i've used it plenty of times 01:24:54.640 --> 01:24:57.239 in contract stuff you know with cities and all 01:24:57.239 --> 01:25:01.439 the other stuff uh we get paid for what we're 01:25:01.439 --> 01:25:06.640 willing to do we're on call we're paid for what 01:25:06.640 --> 01:25:09.260 we're willing to do and i tell this to new recruits 01:25:09.260 --> 01:25:11.239 i tell this to people that are bitching at the 01:25:11.239 --> 01:25:13.810 fire station I have to remind myself sometimes 01:25:13.810 --> 01:25:16.029 too. You're paid for what you're willing to do. 01:25:17.390 --> 01:25:21.369 It's not, well, you ran 47 calls. What is it 01:25:21.369 --> 01:25:24.210 now? No, you're paid to be on staff. You are 01:25:24.210 --> 01:25:28.270 there 100 % of the time ready to go. And as such, 01:25:28.350 --> 01:25:29.729 we need to make sure that we're taking care of 01:25:29.729 --> 01:25:33.250 people. We have a sleep SOG. It talks about sleep 01:25:33.250 --> 01:25:36.789 hygiene and sleep cycles and yoga nidra and how 01:25:36.789 --> 01:25:38.789 to take an effective nap and all this stuff because 01:25:38.789 --> 01:25:41.229 my organization believes in it. We're teaching 01:25:41.229 --> 01:25:44.109 people that. But again, we're fighting. We're 01:25:44.109 --> 01:25:46.050 fighting the other side. We're fighting the other 01:25:46.050 --> 01:25:51.029 side of, you know, later start times. Well, no, 01:25:51.090 --> 01:25:53.810 we've always done it. No, no, no. We'll have 01:25:53.810 --> 01:25:57.649 six. No. I'm like, if you look at it again and 01:25:57.649 --> 01:26:00.350 once you change it, you'll love it. Right. Because 01:26:00.350 --> 01:26:02.310 it's not just coming to work, James, that you 01:26:02.310 --> 01:26:05.689 get the one day. It's the day at work, too. Even 01:26:05.689 --> 01:26:08.189 if you even if you get your ship pushed in. Right. 01:26:08.250 --> 01:26:09.989 And I've worked in busy houses most of my career. 01:26:10.860 --> 01:26:13.279 Most calls are not occurring between 7 .30 a 01:26:13.279 --> 01:26:15.920 .m. and 9 a .m. generally, right? Generally in 01:26:15.920 --> 01:26:18.119 the morning. But when do we get up at work? We're 01:26:18.119 --> 01:26:20.520 up at 5 .30. We're up at 6. You know, bells go 01:26:20.520 --> 01:26:22.180 off at 7 and get your ass out of bed, right? 01:26:22.260 --> 01:26:23.619 Because you got to wash the rig and do reports. 01:26:23.779 --> 01:26:25.640 You got to do changeover. Plus, you want to get 01:26:25.640 --> 01:26:26.979 up and take a shower and get your shit off the 01:26:26.979 --> 01:26:28.359 rig because you want to leave because you don't 01:26:28.359 --> 01:26:29.479 want to wait till 8 o 'clock because you want 01:26:29.479 --> 01:26:32.039 to hurry up and get the hell out of there. Well, 01:26:32.039 --> 01:26:33.739 imagine if you come back from that run or being 01:26:33.739 --> 01:26:35.500 up all night and you can get another sleep cycle, 01:26:35.579 --> 01:26:39.680 another 90 minutes before you go home. You're 01:26:39.680 --> 01:26:42.279 not rushed. You get that sleep cycle in, you 01:26:42.279 --> 01:26:45.159 can clean the rig, maybe you do some down regulation, 01:26:45.399 --> 01:26:46.880 you do some breathing, some stretching, maybe 01:26:46.880 --> 01:26:49.779 get a light workout in before you go home. Oh, 01:26:49.779 --> 01:26:51.520 guess what? You're down regulating and coming 01:26:51.520 --> 01:26:53.600 down off of that. So when you do leave the fire 01:26:53.600 --> 01:26:57.020 station, you're putting yourself into that parasympathetic 01:26:57.020 --> 01:26:59.399 tone to go home and not be an asshole. Because 01:26:59.399 --> 01:27:01.539 you're not really an asshole. There's a physiological, 01:27:02.000 --> 01:27:03.899 right? We understand that. There's a physiological 01:27:03.899 --> 01:27:06.060 and neurobiological issue that's going on that 01:27:06.060 --> 01:27:08.079 we haven't come down or gotten done with it. 01:27:09.340 --> 01:27:11.880 100%. Well, that's a good segue. So let's talk 01:27:11.880 --> 01:27:14.819 about your journey then. So you mentioned Corona, 01:27:15.060 --> 01:27:18.979 ultimately lateral to the Northwest. Walk me 01:27:18.979 --> 01:27:21.420 through the kind of roller coaster that was your 01:27:21.420 --> 01:27:23.859 own mental health journey. And where was the 01:27:23.859 --> 01:27:30.979 lowest place that you found yourself? You know, 01:27:31.000 --> 01:27:33.119 hindsight being 2020, I mean, I can see a lot 01:27:33.119 --> 01:27:39.709 of it now. You know, I was in Corona. successful 01:27:39.709 --> 01:27:44.390 right at work i was successful there um you know 01:27:44.390 --> 01:27:46.510 i was just you know burning the candle at both 01:27:46.510 --> 01:27:48.770 ends doing what i what i thought i was supposed 01:27:48.770 --> 01:27:51.029 to do i i had there were struggles in my first 01:27:51.029 --> 01:27:56.090 marriage um that weren't addressed because that's 01:27:56.090 --> 01:27:59.729 not what we did right you you you you didn't 01:27:59.729 --> 01:28:01.989 get divorced you didn't and i wouldn't acknowledge 01:28:01.989 --> 01:28:03.869 it i would drink through it right not knowing 01:28:03.869 --> 01:28:05.909 any better have another beer you'll be fine you 01:28:05.909 --> 01:28:09.119 know you don't need counseling right and that 01:28:09.119 --> 01:28:13.180 and that kind of shit and uh um the first instance 01:28:13.180 --> 01:28:15.899 i remember i was at corona and um on the truck 01:28:15.899 --> 01:28:18.920 we had a mvc we had a tc on the freeway a car 01:28:18.920 --> 01:28:21.899 drove into the back of a tow truck lady there 01:28:21.899 --> 01:28:24.920 i'm on the truck right i'm at the time i'm running 01:28:24.920 --> 01:28:26.680 you know i'm one of the leads for corona auto 01:28:26.680 --> 01:28:30.239 x right well respected auto extrication thing 01:28:30.239 --> 01:28:33.729 we took it from two to three days right Here 01:28:33.729 --> 01:28:35.789 I am, the lead instructor for Corona Auto X. 01:28:35.850 --> 01:28:37.529 I get off the truck, walk over there. My buddy's 01:28:37.529 --> 01:28:40.369 like, she's trapped. I spread the window, pop 01:28:40.369 --> 01:28:42.750 it, cut it, jack the dash, drop the mic. She's 01:28:42.750 --> 01:28:46.409 out. No, she's not out. Yes, she is. No, she's 01:28:46.409 --> 01:28:52.710 not. Head in there. 45 minutes later, I couldn't 01:28:52.710 --> 01:28:54.550 get her out. Of course, everybody's looking at 01:28:54.550 --> 01:28:57.550 me to get her out. I don't remember this, but 01:28:57.550 --> 01:29:00.000 my buddy Dave, who was the captain, said, He 01:29:00.000 --> 01:29:01.520 grabbed me and he grabbed me by the face and 01:29:01.520 --> 01:29:03.199 he says, what do you need? And I said, I have 01:29:03.199 --> 01:29:05.159 a chainsaw on the rig. That was my response. 01:29:07.000 --> 01:29:08.800 Because I couldn't get her out, you know. Was 01:29:08.800 --> 01:29:11.960 she trapped in the legs? Yeah, her leg was trapped. 01:29:13.579 --> 01:29:15.399 And I'd been pushing the floorboard and cutting, 01:29:15.460 --> 01:29:19.239 you know, jacking the thing. I cut the pedals. 01:29:19.439 --> 01:29:21.199 We're pushing the floorboard down. I'm pushing 01:29:21.199 --> 01:29:23.119 the dash up. I'm doing all the tricks in the 01:29:23.119 --> 01:29:25.800 book, right? And she's not coming out. That triggered 01:29:25.800 --> 01:29:27.439 Dave to think, man, maybe we need a flatbed, 01:29:27.520 --> 01:29:29.100 a mobile surgeon, something because we can't 01:29:29.100 --> 01:29:32.020 get her out of the damn car, right? And I got 01:29:32.020 --> 01:29:33.579 in there and finally I got a look at it. And 01:29:33.579 --> 01:29:36.279 what happened was, is on impact, she broke her 01:29:36.279 --> 01:29:39.319 leg, right? Her foot broke and she had a tip 01:29:39.319 --> 01:29:42.380 compound fracture. Well, it went into the old 01:29:42.380 --> 01:29:44.560 school steering knuckle of this Honda Accord 01:29:44.560 --> 01:29:46.800 and the steering knuckle bound in her bone got 01:29:46.800 --> 01:29:50.800 sucked into it. So I said, okay, one more move, 01:29:50.800 --> 01:29:53.119 right? I've had my head between this lady's legs 01:29:53.119 --> 01:29:55.479 for 45 minutes, so we're friendly at this point, 01:29:55.560 --> 01:29:58.720 right? She's conscious. My buddies, I'm like, 01:29:58.800 --> 01:30:00.140 give her more morphine. They're like, we gave 01:30:00.140 --> 01:30:02.859 her as much as we can. She's conscious. She knows 01:30:02.859 --> 01:30:04.779 my name. I know her name. So I'm like, one more 01:30:04.779 --> 01:30:06.260 move and I'll get you out. I put the hydraulic 01:30:06.260 --> 01:30:11.920 ram on the rocker panel onto her bone, and I 01:30:11.920 --> 01:30:18.800 had to break her bone out. I set it down. I walked 01:30:18.800 --> 01:30:21.109 away. I said, she's free. And I remember I walked 01:30:21.109 --> 01:30:24.250 away and took my helmet off and I sat on the 01:30:24.250 --> 01:30:29.289 freeway side on the 91 freeway. The 91 freeway 01:30:29.289 --> 01:30:33.229 gives me PTS just thinking about it. But I sat 01:30:33.229 --> 01:30:34.909 on the freeway side of the truck with my head 01:30:34.909 --> 01:30:37.710 in my hands and I started crying. And my captain 01:30:37.710 --> 01:30:39.369 at the time, who was one of my best friends, 01:30:39.449 --> 01:30:41.550 Mike Porter, he came over and gave me a hug. 01:30:41.729 --> 01:30:44.970 And he said to himself, if Rudiger's is fucked 01:30:44.970 --> 01:30:47.739 up, then everybody must be. And it was the first 01:30:47.739 --> 01:30:50.020 time we had EAP in the station. And then, of 01:30:50.020 --> 01:30:51.880 course, EAP came into the station with some, 01:30:51.920 --> 01:30:54.779 you know, jack wagon family counselor, didn't 01:30:54.779 --> 01:30:56.640 know shit about the fire service. You know, how 01:30:56.640 --> 01:30:59.079 do you feel about your mother? Like, fuck you, 01:30:59.100 --> 01:31:00.699 get out of my fire station. You know what I mean? 01:31:01.140 --> 01:31:03.220 But I was actually able to open up and kind of 01:31:03.220 --> 01:31:07.979 share. And I saw in that room that I was crying, 01:31:08.060 --> 01:31:09.579 that other people were being vulnerable. And 01:31:09.579 --> 01:31:11.199 that's kind of where it started to open up for 01:31:11.199 --> 01:31:14.479 me. Didn't know what that was going to take me. 01:31:14.500 --> 01:31:16.939 Didn't really acknowledge anything. Anyway, wound 01:31:16.939 --> 01:31:19.659 up with a separation with my first wife. She 01:31:19.659 --> 01:31:22.600 had moved to Washington with my kids. So there 01:31:22.600 --> 01:31:29.199 was separation there. Battled that. Then I lateraled 01:31:29.199 --> 01:31:32.960 up. You know, we got back together, tried to 01:31:32.960 --> 01:31:36.180 save the marriage. It didn't work, you know, 01:31:36.180 --> 01:31:40.609 for a multitude of reasons, you know, and. When 01:31:40.609 --> 01:31:43.409 I'm getting divorced and then I changed jobs 01:31:43.409 --> 01:31:45.930 again because I wanted to be somewhere bigger 01:31:45.930 --> 01:31:48.430 and faster. And so I went to the department I'm 01:31:48.430 --> 01:31:51.770 at now and just continued down the same path, 01:31:51.949 --> 01:31:53.569 like the same old, same old. I didn't change. 01:31:53.770 --> 01:31:56.250 And so my analogy is I kept just putting shit 01:31:56.250 --> 01:31:57.710 in the basement, right? Because that's what we 01:31:57.710 --> 01:32:02.470 did. And so very difficult, right? As you know, 01:32:02.550 --> 01:32:07.250 to battle through that. And I just didn't have 01:32:07.250 --> 01:32:10.220 the awareness, right? No one ever told me. Right. 01:32:10.239 --> 01:32:12.760 Go get help or, you know, you're fucked up. And 01:32:12.760 --> 01:32:15.579 it was just, you know, I just kept drinking through 01:32:15.579 --> 01:32:21.020 it. And then met my current wife. Absolutely 01:32:21.020 --> 01:32:24.159 amazing. Understood me. Love me. Stepkids. Right. 01:32:24.220 --> 01:32:25.720 I don't call my stepkids. They're my children. 01:32:28.359 --> 01:32:32.000 And, you know, struggled through that, right, 01:32:32.079 --> 01:32:34.920 of commitment issues and blah, blah, blah. Right. 01:32:35.369 --> 01:32:37.770 And my wife's going to be on my podcast with 01:32:37.770 --> 01:32:39.289 me. We're going to share this because I think 01:32:39.289 --> 01:32:41.930 it's time and it's powerful, but not knowing 01:32:41.930 --> 01:32:45.310 any better. And I just kept living in denial. 01:32:46.010 --> 01:32:49.329 I never really took the time to do that. And 01:32:49.329 --> 01:32:51.109 I tell people the hardest thing we'll ever do 01:32:51.109 --> 01:32:52.829 is have to look ourselves in the mirror honestly. 01:32:53.829 --> 01:32:58.770 And I never did that. I was so busy trying to 01:32:58.770 --> 01:33:01.250 be what I was supposed to be or what my dad wanted 01:33:01.250 --> 01:33:04.500 me to be or what society wanted me to be. that 01:33:04.500 --> 01:33:08.119 I never really had a chance to get into that. 01:33:08.300 --> 01:33:10.260 Right. I never did that. I just drank through 01:33:10.260 --> 01:33:12.659 it and chewed through it and lied through it. 01:33:12.840 --> 01:33:18.079 And, um, went on a call, 16 year old ran into 01:33:18.079 --> 01:33:21.239 a chain on a mini bike and we were in the back 01:33:21.239 --> 01:33:23.300 of the rig. And so you being a paramedic, you'll 01:33:23.300 --> 01:33:26.819 appreciate this. We correct him. And, um, I was 01:33:26.819 --> 01:33:29.140 holding C -spine and then, you know, they were 01:33:29.140 --> 01:33:31.800 eating my hot dog fingers to, you know, help 01:33:31.800 --> 01:33:35.369 find anatomy. And, Like hold them open so we 01:33:35.369 --> 01:33:38.229 can get the tube in. And I was on my knees the 01:33:38.229 --> 01:33:40.149 whole way down to Harborview, you know, for whatever 01:33:40.149 --> 01:33:42.930 that was. And holding C -spine on this kid. And 01:33:42.930 --> 01:33:48.350 all I could see was my son's face. And then, 01:33:48.369 --> 01:33:50.369 you know, at the time I'm one of the leads in 01:33:50.369 --> 01:33:53.529 peer support. So, right. Why are we getting this 01:33:53.529 --> 01:33:55.869 job like we talked about? Well, if I can help 01:33:55.869 --> 01:33:57.770 other people, I don't have to help myself. You 01:33:57.770 --> 01:33:59.789 know what I mean? And I'm peer support so I can 01:33:59.789 --> 01:34:01.729 help everybody else because I don't have a problem. 01:34:02.479 --> 01:34:04.680 I'm Greg Ruediger. I got the world by the tail. 01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:10.020 A guy came to me and was like, dude, you're not 01:34:10.020 --> 01:34:12.119 yourself. You need to get help. I'm like, no, 01:34:12.140 --> 01:34:16.000 I'm fine. At the classic, I'm fine. Well, I wasn't 01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:19.560 fine. My wife drinking, punching holes in walls, 01:34:19.800 --> 01:34:22.140 telling my family I was going to kill myself 01:34:22.140 --> 01:34:23.880 in front of them because they were happy and 01:34:23.880 --> 01:34:29.060 I felt like I wasn't part of it. They told me 01:34:29.060 --> 01:34:34.279 to go get help. My wife called one of my good 01:34:34.279 --> 01:34:35.739 friends up here and said, get him the fuck out 01:34:35.739 --> 01:34:38.359 of the house. I'm like, we don't know what to 01:34:38.359 --> 01:34:41.479 do with him. And they said, you need to get, 01:34:41.500 --> 01:34:43.720 I'm like, I'm fine. I go to a counselor and they're 01:34:43.720 --> 01:34:45.819 like, no, you probably need, you need to file 01:34:45.819 --> 01:34:49.479 this claim for PTSD. It's new in the state. Of 01:34:49.479 --> 01:34:51.800 course, I'm like, fuck that. I don't have PTSD. 01:34:52.100 --> 01:34:54.260 You guys are crazy. You know, it's just normal 01:34:54.260 --> 01:34:58.659 day, right? I'm just, and so I did. And I was 01:34:58.659 --> 01:35:01.020 one of the first in the state to get LNI worker 01:35:01.020 --> 01:35:04.020 call for PTSD. um i started you know i went through 01:35:04.020 --> 01:35:07.699 a myriad of counselors and that was great i did 01:35:07.699 --> 01:35:10.140 emdr i did that stuff but you know what i never 01:35:10.140 --> 01:35:14.020 really got better per se right i just i was able 01:35:14.020 --> 01:35:16.359 to mask it more on the job all right i was getting 01:35:16.359 --> 01:35:18.640 help for it and things were coming out of the 01:35:18.640 --> 01:35:21.840 basement but i never never really addressed it 01:35:21.840 --> 01:35:25.979 and that wasn't until um we were in arizona for 01:35:25.979 --> 01:35:29.560 my birthday a couple years ago right my wife 01:35:29.560 --> 01:35:32.939 and i had She broke up with me like five times, 01:35:33.020 --> 01:35:35.840 and I'm relentless, and I wouldn't let her leave. 01:35:37.039 --> 01:35:45.039 We were in Arizona, and it just was a breaking 01:35:45.039 --> 01:35:49.680 point. She says she was living in fear and didn't 01:35:49.680 --> 01:35:51.619 want to lose everything that she had, so she 01:35:51.619 --> 01:35:53.779 kept putting up with it. She had stopped drinking 01:35:53.779 --> 01:35:58.079 to help me stop drinking because I was a true 01:35:58.079 --> 01:36:01.619 alcoholic and anger issues. suicidal ideation 01:36:01.619 --> 01:36:05.960 so alcohol doesn't help and she left me she left 01:36:05.960 --> 01:36:08.619 me we were at the pool we have a house in arizona 01:36:08.619 --> 01:36:14.819 and it was my birthday and she left me she went 01:36:14.819 --> 01:36:16.319 back to the house packed her shit while we were 01:36:16.319 --> 01:36:18.020 at the pool we had an argument and when i went 01:36:18.020 --> 01:36:21.819 back to the house she was gone and that was the 01:36:21.819 --> 01:36:23.439 second time in my life the first time was when 01:36:23.439 --> 01:36:28.920 i thought i was going to lose my kids um I told 01:36:28.920 --> 01:36:30.899 her that I was going to stay in Arizona and I 01:36:30.899 --> 01:36:35.279 was formulating the plan to kill myself. I was 01:36:35.279 --> 01:36:39.340 going to go to the desert and that was going 01:36:39.340 --> 01:36:40.880 to be it, right? The desert would take care of 01:36:40.880 --> 01:36:48.140 the rest. And that was it. And that was my rock 01:36:48.140 --> 01:36:52.399 bottom. And that the one person and these two 01:36:52.399 --> 01:36:54.439 kids, you know, she had lost her first husband 01:36:54.439 --> 01:36:58.289 to cancer. And the kids had lost their dad and 01:36:58.289 --> 01:37:01.250 my kids weren't talking to me. And, you know, 01:37:01.329 --> 01:37:04.789 you're a classic. I was ready to end it all. 01:37:05.010 --> 01:37:08.869 And luckily, by the grace of God, this son came 01:37:08.869 --> 01:37:13.310 up and I picked up the phone and I called our 01:37:13.310 --> 01:37:17.569 friend. And she said some really great things 01:37:17.569 --> 01:37:21.329 to me and changed my mindset. And that was kind 01:37:21.329 --> 01:37:24.470 of the start of my new journey. And I realized 01:37:24.470 --> 01:37:27.189 that I needed. to not kill myself was the first 01:37:27.189 --> 01:37:29.170 thing and then i didn't know where to go with 01:37:29.170 --> 01:37:33.250 it and then um i kept getting the help that i 01:37:33.250 --> 01:37:38.710 needed and um you know counseling wise but i 01:37:38.710 --> 01:37:41.270 wasn't willing to do the work on myself yet because 01:37:41.270 --> 01:37:43.430 i didn't know how to you know i told my wife 01:37:43.430 --> 01:37:45.569 and then as we were talking like i'm not going 01:37:45.569 --> 01:37:48.909 to do the woo shit i'm not going to do yoga i'm 01:37:48.909 --> 01:37:50.250 not going to do breath work i'm not going to 01:37:50.250 --> 01:37:53.130 do this it's not going to help right i'm not 01:37:53.130 --> 01:37:57.600 going to do this And I just wasn't ready to be 01:37:57.600 --> 01:37:59.760 my authentic self. I wasn't ready to truly do 01:37:59.760 --> 01:38:02.880 that. And I thought that I was. And then I got 01:38:02.880 --> 01:38:06.039 a phone call from my buddy, Joe Hughes. And he 01:38:06.039 --> 01:38:08.140 says, you know, you need to come off the line. 01:38:08.579 --> 01:38:11.939 And Mike, my boss now is a good friend of mine, 01:38:12.000 --> 01:38:14.300 said, you need to come off the line. You're the 01:38:14.300 --> 01:38:15.880 head of peer support. We could use you in health 01:38:15.880 --> 01:38:19.659 and safety. He was an army of one. And I'm like, 01:38:19.720 --> 01:38:23.199 fuck that. I'm a truck captain. Like my dad said, 01:38:23.260 --> 01:38:25.699 I didn't raise my boy to be a secretary, right? 01:38:27.420 --> 01:38:32.079 And I was like, there was a point with my kids 01:38:32.079 --> 01:38:36.699 and my family that, again, like I said, no coincidences. 01:38:36.699 --> 01:38:39.340 The good Lord had other plans for me. I wasn't 01:38:39.340 --> 01:38:41.119 strong enough to make the decision on my own. 01:38:41.180 --> 01:38:43.600 So my family made it for me that I decided to 01:38:43.600 --> 01:38:45.399 go off the line so I could be home every night 01:38:45.399 --> 01:38:49.170 and be with my kids. I did. And it was the greatest 01:38:49.170 --> 01:38:50.930 thing that ever happened to me was to go off 01:38:50.930 --> 01:38:52.449 the line and become the captain of health and 01:38:52.449 --> 01:38:56.109 safety. And I started to do the hard things. 01:38:56.210 --> 01:39:01.510 My wife was like, thank God for her, staying 01:39:01.510 --> 01:39:06.409 by me and doing those things. She's a massage 01:39:06.409 --> 01:39:08.149 therapist by trade. And then she started her 01:39:08.149 --> 01:39:10.210 own wellness spa, right, where she does massage 01:39:10.210 --> 01:39:12.329 and we do red light therapy and infrared sauna 01:39:12.329 --> 01:39:15.529 and cryotherapy and compression. brain check 01:39:15.529 --> 01:39:18.149 or brain tap and neural checks and all this stuff 01:39:18.149 --> 01:39:21.329 right and the neurobiology and i'm like that 01:39:21.329 --> 01:39:23.149 you know she's like you're an alcoholic i'm like 01:39:23.149 --> 01:39:25.130 no i'm not i like cores and i like tequila it's 01:39:25.130 --> 01:39:27.569 just good i drink coffee cores tequila and water 01:39:27.569 --> 01:39:30.609 like i'm not an alcoholic right i wasn't willing 01:39:30.609 --> 01:39:37.050 to do that hard thing yet and she said i'm like 01:39:37.050 --> 01:39:38.369 i'm not doing it i'm not doing breathwork i'm 01:39:38.369 --> 01:39:40.250 not doing yoga i'm sure as hell not doing mindfulness 01:39:40.250 --> 01:39:43.340 you know like i have my faith you know i'll do 01:39:43.340 --> 01:39:45.319 my praying and i'll do that stuff and i'm exercising 01:39:45.319 --> 01:39:48.000 right i'm on days i'm sleeping right i'm sleeping 01:39:48.000 --> 01:39:50.460 i'm good you know and and she's like you already 01:39:50.460 --> 01:39:53.520 are dummy you're already doing that stuff i'm 01:39:53.520 --> 01:39:55.939 like no i'm not she's like what do you call all 01:39:55.939 --> 01:39:59.420 the stupid breath hold layered stuff you do what 01:39:59.420 --> 01:40:02.420 do you call the extreme like sauna hot and cold 01:40:02.420 --> 01:40:04.920 with you know what do you call all you know your 01:40:04.920 --> 01:40:07.060 underwater breath training you know staring at 01:40:07.060 --> 01:40:09.600 the ocean for hours looking at wave chart like 01:40:09.600 --> 01:40:14.310 like What are you doing? You are doing it. And 01:40:14.310 --> 01:40:20.270 I was like, holy shit, I am. And that was really, 01:40:20.510 --> 01:40:23.329 you know, if you've heard me speak or on my podcast, 01:40:23.390 --> 01:40:26.090 I talk about two things. It's intentionality 01:40:26.090 --> 01:40:30.810 and it's grace. I wasn't intentional. I wasn't 01:40:30.810 --> 01:40:32.829 giving myself the, I wasn't being intentional 01:40:32.829 --> 01:40:35.430 in my own care. And I wasn't giving myself the 01:40:35.430 --> 01:40:38.890 grace to go do these things. As soon as I did 01:40:38.890 --> 01:40:42.430 that. It wasn't, again, it wasn't overnight, 01:40:42.529 --> 01:40:45.869 but again, my life definitely was on the upswing. 01:40:46.489 --> 01:40:48.909 And then it was Thanksgiving. The other milestone 01:40:48.909 --> 01:40:53.310 was Thanksgiving of 2023. I was sitting in the 01:40:53.310 --> 01:40:57.909 sauna. Love the sauna. Love, love contrast therapy. 01:40:58.069 --> 01:41:01.989 Right. Super good. Right. I love all the different 01:41:01.989 --> 01:41:04.210 modalities. And, you know, like we said, you 01:41:04.210 --> 01:41:06.409 got to throw a bunch of shit at the wall. and 01:41:06.409 --> 01:41:08.010 figure out what works for you. And the other 01:41:08.010 --> 01:41:09.189 thing is you got to figure out what works in 01:41:09.189 --> 01:41:10.930 the situation because sometimes my breath work 01:41:10.930 --> 01:41:13.189 doesn't work. Sometimes the mindfulness doesn't 01:41:13.189 --> 01:41:15.710 work sometimes. So then I have to go to physical 01:41:15.710 --> 01:41:17.829 tapping or I have to go to yelling or I have 01:41:17.829 --> 01:41:19.550 to go to something else. I got to go work out. 01:41:19.609 --> 01:41:21.189 So there's different things. You got to have 01:41:21.189 --> 01:41:23.630 just like a fire, like the fireman. We got to 01:41:23.630 --> 01:41:26.170 have a whole myriad, right? I call it the decision 01:41:26.170 --> 01:41:29.449 tree, right? It's a giant oak tree, right? But 01:41:29.449 --> 01:41:30.989 I was sitting there listening to a podcast in 01:41:30.989 --> 01:41:33.340 the sauna. Being intentional about what I was 01:41:33.340 --> 01:41:34.859 doing, I was listening to Sean Ryan and Laird 01:41:34.859 --> 01:41:36.500 Hamilton, and they were talking and they were 01:41:36.500 --> 01:41:39.119 just talking about not drinking. And I'm like, 01:41:39.119 --> 01:41:41.899 these two are badasses. I really value what they 01:41:41.899 --> 01:41:45.640 have to say. We share the same values. My wife's 01:41:45.640 --> 01:41:47.300 been trying to get me to do this forever. Why 01:41:47.300 --> 01:41:49.859 am I putting the one thing I'm still doing is 01:41:49.859 --> 01:41:51.560 putting this poison in my body. And it was that 01:41:51.560 --> 01:41:55.359 moment I realized I kept rationalizing this cup 01:41:55.359 --> 01:41:58.159 right here. The reason that I have four of them 01:41:58.159 --> 01:41:59.600 and they go everywhere with me was that I had 01:41:59.600 --> 01:42:02.159 one of these, and this was my one drink a night. 01:42:02.699 --> 01:42:06.140 And do you know what it was? Yeah, it was tequila. 01:42:06.960 --> 01:42:08.979 I just have one, or I'm not drinking during the 01:42:08.979 --> 01:42:11.340 week. I was rationalizing it. I quit drinking 01:42:11.340 --> 01:42:14.100 right then. Cold turkey. Called my wife, said 01:42:14.100 --> 01:42:15.819 that was it. Last drink I had was on Thanksgiving 01:42:15.819 --> 01:42:18.239 with my father -in -law, and that was it. I've 01:42:18.239 --> 01:42:22.319 been sober ever since, and it's propelled me 01:42:22.319 --> 01:42:23.659 and been the best thing that's ever happened 01:42:23.659 --> 01:42:26.819 to me. I can look myself in the mirror now and 01:42:26.819 --> 01:42:30.520 I can tell you, James, that I am living my authentic 01:42:30.520 --> 01:42:35.399 self and I am living my best self. And I'm, I'm, 01:42:35.399 --> 01:42:37.300 I can say, and I told my wife the other day that 01:42:37.300 --> 01:42:39.500 I am actually for the first time content with 01:42:39.500 --> 01:42:42.020 who I am. I'm content with who Greg Rudiger is 01:42:42.020 --> 01:42:46.739 and I'm very happy. It's so good to hear. I want 01:42:46.739 --> 01:42:49.819 to go back to the darkest point for a second 01:42:49.819 --> 01:42:51.880 and then we'll get to dive into some of the tools. 01:42:51.960 --> 01:42:56.479 But one thing that, really emerged as a common 01:42:56.479 --> 01:42:58.460 denominator from so many of these people that 01:42:58.460 --> 01:43:01.579 were in this dark place that we weren't hearing 01:43:01.579 --> 01:43:04.039 in these conversations they weren't on the posters 01:43:04.039 --> 01:43:10.140 was the perfect storm of all the contributing 01:43:10.140 --> 01:43:12.899 factors unaddressed childhood trauma you know 01:43:12.899 --> 01:43:15.840 organizational betrayal sleep deprivation alcohol 01:43:15.840 --> 01:43:18.479 the lack of sleep from alcohol you know relationship 01:43:18.479 --> 01:43:24.399 issue The brain literally becomes miswired. And 01:43:24.399 --> 01:43:28.119 so the reality is distorted. And so many people 01:43:28.119 --> 01:43:31.939 said, I felt like I was the reason for my family's 01:43:31.939 --> 01:43:35.539 pain. I was a burden to the people I loved. Was 01:43:35.539 --> 01:43:37.539 that a little voice that you had in your ear 01:43:37.539 --> 01:43:42.899 at one point? I told them I was going to kill 01:43:42.899 --> 01:43:49.760 myself because they deserve better. I was going 01:43:49.760 --> 01:43:53.689 to. Go to the desert because my kids didn't deserve 01:43:53.689 --> 01:43:56.489 the trauma that I dropped on them, that my wife 01:43:56.489 --> 01:44:01.050 and my other kids had already lost, you know, 01:44:01.050 --> 01:44:04.229 lost their husband and dad. They didn't deserve 01:44:04.229 --> 01:44:10.270 it, you know? And it was, that's why, that's 01:44:10.270 --> 01:44:12.989 why PTS is not a disorder. I know that it has 01:44:12.989 --> 01:44:15.109 to be in a book so we can get diagnosis and all 01:44:15.109 --> 01:44:19.710 that bullshit, but. it's it's an injury it's 01:44:19.710 --> 01:44:22.590 a rewiring of the brain it is a non -traumatic 01:44:22.590 --> 01:44:25.470 traumatic brain injury i mean it is tbi to the 01:44:25.470 --> 01:44:28.789 nth degree i i don't care who you are out there 01:44:28.789 --> 01:44:32.229 i mean and i've heard the hubermans they agree 01:44:32.229 --> 01:44:35.109 it's it's the studies are coming out we have 01:44:35.109 --> 01:44:38.810 rewired the brain so badly and we hold that trauma 01:44:38.810 --> 01:44:41.850 we physically hold those traumas in that brain 01:44:41.850 --> 01:44:47.079 right And it was a perfect storm. And I will 01:44:47.079 --> 01:44:51.020 tell you 100%, I thought they were better off 01:44:51.020 --> 01:44:54.579 without me because of this shit that I dropped 01:44:54.579 --> 01:44:58.779 on them and the asshole that I was. This is why 01:44:58.779 --> 01:45:01.079 I think, you know, you look at the conversation 01:45:01.079 --> 01:45:03.779 that would have been around suicide when we were, 01:45:03.840 --> 01:45:07.500 let's say, you know, 25. It's selfish. It's cowardly. 01:45:07.520 --> 01:45:10.800 How could you think of your family? And then 01:45:10.800 --> 01:45:13.250 you listen to these men and women. that are in 01:45:13.250 --> 01:45:15.909 this point that have signed a blank check that 01:45:15.909 --> 01:45:19.829 said, if needed, I will die trying to save someone 01:45:19.829 --> 01:45:22.909 in my community, a stranger. And now you're talking 01:45:22.909 --> 01:45:25.449 about the people that you love the most. So I 01:45:25.449 --> 01:45:28.489 would argue in this distorted state, although 01:45:28.489 --> 01:45:31.810 it doesn't make sense to a healthy brain, these 01:45:31.810 --> 01:45:34.029 people that have lost people to suicide, I guarantee 01:45:34.029 --> 01:45:36.210 you that was fucking terrifying for those people 01:45:36.210 --> 01:45:38.270 when they did it. And it was a courageous selfless 01:45:38.270 --> 01:45:41.989 act. It was wrong. when you brought back to a 01:45:41.989 --> 01:45:44.130 clear way of thinking and alcohol has left your 01:45:44.130 --> 01:45:47.130 system but at that moment they were probably 01:45:47.130 --> 01:45:49.149 hearing this voice saying your family would be 01:45:49.149 --> 01:45:51.329 better off without you and the perfect example 01:45:51.329 --> 01:45:53.649 of this is we had a young couple both in law 01:45:53.649 --> 01:45:56.909 enforcement the the boyfriend took his own life 01:45:56.909 --> 01:45:59.729 and barely a week later the girlfriend did and 01:45:59.729 --> 01:46:03.369 they left behind an infant so the healthy mind 01:46:03.369 --> 01:46:07.210 is like what the fuck but it was just the perfect 01:46:07.210 --> 01:46:09.449 storm i'm sure of all the things that lead it 01:46:09.449 --> 01:46:12.069 led up to that and then of course was the straw 01:46:12.069 --> 01:46:13.729 that broke the camel's back the first suicide 01:46:13.729 --> 01:46:16.390 for the second one of course it was so you have 01:46:16.390 --> 01:46:20.369 this domino effect now but what needs to be front 01:46:20.369 --> 01:46:22.510 and center aside from all the things we're already 01:46:22.510 --> 01:46:24.590 talking about is if you are starting to get this 01:46:24.590 --> 01:46:26.489 belief this little voice in your head that you 01:46:26.489 --> 01:46:30.029 are a burden you are the problem and you're reliving 01:46:30.029 --> 01:46:32.229 that your kids are scared of you and you're arguing 01:46:32.229 --> 01:46:35.039 with your wife like that's a huge red flag to 01:46:35.039 --> 01:46:37.020 start getting help now not waiting until when 01:46:37.020 --> 01:46:39.779 you got jameson and a glock in your hand but 01:46:39.779 --> 01:46:43.239 before that and so removing the stigma of selfish 01:46:43.239 --> 01:46:45.640 cowardly whatever get that false rhetoric out 01:46:45.640 --> 01:46:49.520 it's but when people start saying or feeling 01:46:49.520 --> 01:46:52.439 that they're a burden that is a massive red flag 01:46:52.439 --> 01:46:54.699 that that miswiring is really starting to take 01:46:54.699 --> 01:47:00.300 hold i tell people i call it the darkness because 01:47:00.300 --> 01:47:02.640 that's what it is all right and and the analogy 01:47:02.640 --> 01:47:06.649 i use is falling asleep You never consciously 01:47:06.649 --> 01:47:09.189 know that moment which you fall asleep. You never 01:47:09.189 --> 01:47:12.529 do. You heard you right. You never know that. 01:47:13.189 --> 01:47:15.649 That's the same thing with the darkness. You'll 01:47:15.649 --> 01:47:18.050 never know when that darkness grabs a hold of 01:47:18.050 --> 01:47:20.729 you. Then my wife said she had to swerve us back 01:47:20.729 --> 01:47:22.850 onto the road because I was going to drive us 01:47:22.850 --> 01:47:27.529 into a tree. I don't remember that. Again, back 01:47:27.529 --> 01:47:29.489 to this. Let's go back to the start of the conversation. 01:47:30.029 --> 01:47:33.170 75 % of our effort should be how to prepare and 01:47:33.170 --> 01:47:37.319 be aware of this. Right. And then, you know, 01:47:37.380 --> 01:47:39.359 I've, I've, I've heard, you know, I've heard 01:47:39.359 --> 01:47:40.760 on your podcast, I've heard you guys say it, 01:47:40.779 --> 01:47:44.500 you know, that it's okay to not be okay. Okay. 01:47:44.560 --> 01:47:46.119 That's a great thing, but what's going with that? 01:47:46.520 --> 01:47:49.899 Right. No, you're not a coward. This is real 01:47:49.899 --> 01:47:54.420 shit. And what I'm here to tell you is vulnerability 01:47:54.420 --> 01:47:59.279 equals validity. My vulnerability in this isn't 01:47:59.279 --> 01:48:01.899 to make you feel sorry for me. Fuck that. Don't 01:48:01.899 --> 01:48:06.170 feel sorry for me. Right. I want to be vulnerable. 01:48:06.350 --> 01:48:08.109 I want somebody out there listening to this. 01:48:08.149 --> 01:48:09.670 I want them to be like, holy shit, that's me. 01:48:10.390 --> 01:48:12.590 Same thing when I'm teaching the Truck Academy. 01:48:12.789 --> 01:48:15.409 I'm vulnerable in that I've done the wrong things 01:48:15.409 --> 01:48:17.069 and I've done this and now I become relatable 01:48:17.069 --> 01:48:19.770 so that now you're hearing it and you're listening 01:48:19.770 --> 01:48:26.170 to it. And I'm here to tell you, fuck that line 01:48:26.170 --> 01:48:32.949 of thinking, man. Because I thought that. I thought 01:48:32.949 --> 01:48:37.180 that. Do you know what I am now? I'm the rock 01:48:37.180 --> 01:48:40.039 of my family now. I get to be the man that I'm 01:48:40.039 --> 01:48:42.539 called to be. I get to be the true masculine 01:48:42.539 --> 01:48:45.699 that I'm called to be. I get to be an example 01:48:45.699 --> 01:48:47.979 at work. I get to be an example for my three 01:48:47.979 --> 01:48:50.140 boys and my daughter. I get to be a rock for 01:48:50.140 --> 01:48:53.979 my wife. I get to be the support blanket for 01:48:53.979 --> 01:48:56.020 those out there who are doing it. I get to be 01:48:56.020 --> 01:48:58.220 an example and share with you that when you feel 01:48:58.220 --> 01:49:03.149 this way, that you can turn it around. You could 01:49:03.149 --> 01:49:06.609 turn it around. It's never too late. Stop the 01:49:06.609 --> 01:49:08.970 self -limiting belief. Stop living the victim 01:49:08.970 --> 01:49:13.630 mentality. Fuck the amygdala and the fear. We 01:49:13.630 --> 01:49:16.170 live a fear. We're afraid of what's going to 01:49:16.170 --> 01:49:18.590 or not going to happen. Take the extreme ownership 01:49:18.590 --> 01:49:21.109 that you are the best version of you and then 01:49:21.109 --> 01:49:23.989 go do it. Because the path to what's most real 01:49:23.989 --> 01:49:25.670 is through the hardest things. And it sucks, 01:49:25.770 --> 01:49:28.050 but I guarantee you it's a hell of a lot better 01:49:28.050 --> 01:49:30.590 than not being here. Because nobody benefits 01:49:30.590 --> 01:49:33.199 from you leaving. nobody you have something to 01:49:33.199 --> 01:49:36.420 offer somebody everywhere and i've lost too many 01:49:36.420 --> 01:49:39.159 friends i mean friends people i've known to suicide 01:49:39.159 --> 01:49:45.500 i mean and you want to talk about it wasn't selfish 01:49:45.500 --> 01:49:48.319 or cowardice when they climbed over a railing 01:49:48.319 --> 01:49:50.800 that curves upside down i mean southern california 01:49:50.800 --> 01:49:53.020 knows these and then jumped in front of the fucking 01:49:53.020 --> 01:49:57.539 semi that ain't cowardice exactly bullshit bullshit 01:49:57.539 --> 01:50:00.829 but he should still be here right because we 01:50:00.829 --> 01:50:03.149 didn't let him know that he's better and that's 01:50:03.149 --> 01:50:08.069 that's my whole man it's so funny i look back 01:50:08.069 --> 01:50:10.289 on it now and it's just the fire service is giving 01:50:10.289 --> 01:50:13.010 us i say us because it's people like you it's 01:50:13.010 --> 01:50:14.529 people like me it's people the people that are 01:50:14.529 --> 01:50:17.529 on your podcast it gives us a platform because 01:50:17.529 --> 01:50:19.670 we have an unlimited supply of people out there 01:50:19.670 --> 01:50:22.050 that need to hear this and their spouses need 01:50:22.050 --> 01:50:24.449 to hear this because they're battling it too 01:50:24.449 --> 01:50:29.350 well this is why I wrote the books, but more 01:50:29.350 --> 01:50:32.010 importantly now is why I'm making this TV show. 01:50:32.390 --> 01:50:34.930 Because this is just, we're talking about the, 01:50:34.989 --> 01:50:36.930 you know, hundreds of thousands that are struggling 01:50:36.930 --> 01:50:40.130 in the uniform. And then you extend, you know, 01:50:40.130 --> 01:50:43.430 into everyone else. I mean, this is a human story. 01:50:43.909 --> 01:50:46.909 So, you know, like I always say, if people can 01:50:46.909 --> 01:50:49.489 watch the Tiger King, millions of people, what 01:50:49.489 --> 01:50:51.869 if you showed them a show that actually gave 01:50:51.869 --> 01:50:53.750 them hope and started exposing them to some of 01:50:53.750 --> 01:50:56.880 the tools? So with that being said, speaking 01:50:56.880 --> 01:50:59.079 of tools, then let's just hone in on the sleep 01:50:59.079 --> 01:51:01.119 first, because you mentioned it prior to really 01:51:01.119 --> 01:51:03.140 kind of, you know, realizing you've been doing 01:51:03.140 --> 01:51:05.659 some other things. You were not only doing shift 01:51:05.659 --> 01:51:08.000 work early on, you were working, you know, extra 01:51:08.000 --> 01:51:11.100 OT, then you lateral, but you're still on regular, 01:51:11.220 --> 01:51:14.000 you know, shifts being awake at night. What have 01:51:14.000 --> 01:51:16.600 you observed retroactively about the importance 01:51:16.600 --> 01:51:19.319 of the sleep when it comes to your recovery so 01:51:19.319 --> 01:51:27.109 far? It's the most important thing. I joke with 01:51:27.109 --> 01:51:28.949 Mike. He's like, he kind of does the sleep. I 01:51:28.949 --> 01:51:31.430 do the breathing, right? We go back and forth. 01:51:31.489 --> 01:51:33.390 I say you can go without sleep for three days, 01:51:33.430 --> 01:51:35.189 but you can't go like 12 minutes without breathing. 01:51:35.250 --> 01:51:38.250 So breathing is more important. I win, right? 01:51:39.050 --> 01:51:44.149 The sleep is by far, I think the, every single 01:51:44.149 --> 01:51:48.210 person that I have talked to, every single one. 01:51:49.110 --> 01:51:52.069 100 % without fail. When you go to light duty, 01:51:52.229 --> 01:51:54.130 when you retire, all of a sudden you're like, 01:51:54.210 --> 01:51:56.430 holy shit, I feel better. I'm mentally clear. 01:51:57.470 --> 01:51:59.649 Oh, holy shit. You have some of these ailments 01:51:59.649 --> 01:52:03.050 that go away. Oh, you don't need three pills, 01:52:03.130 --> 01:52:06.369 a pill for a pill for a pill for this. All you 01:52:06.369 --> 01:52:08.729 need to do is regulate your sleep pattern. And 01:52:08.729 --> 01:52:11.789 then consistency, right? The consistency was 01:52:11.789 --> 01:52:13.489 a hard part. I was sleeping, but I wasn't being 01:52:13.489 --> 01:52:16.720 consistent. When we hone that down and we get 01:52:16.720 --> 01:52:18.539 down into the meat of it, it's the consistent 01:52:18.539 --> 01:52:21.279 sleep pattern. So going to bed at 9 .30 or 10 01:52:21.279 --> 01:52:23.760 and getting up every day at 5 .30 or 6, that 01:52:23.760 --> 01:52:25.619 circadian rhythm is really, really important, 01:52:25.779 --> 01:52:29.079 right? I will tell you that sleep, not only for 01:52:29.079 --> 01:52:32.399 mood, but physiologically, it enhances everything 01:52:32.399 --> 01:52:35.560 that's happening for me. I mean, it is unbelievable. 01:52:36.000 --> 01:52:38.319 I mean, everyone's like, dude, you look great. 01:52:38.420 --> 01:52:39.539 Like, is that because you're working out with 01:52:39.539 --> 01:52:42.760 Mike? I'm down 45 pounds. from what I was on 01:52:42.760 --> 01:52:45.119 when I was on the line. Oh, that's because you 01:52:45.119 --> 01:52:46.640 quit drinking. That's because you're working 01:52:46.640 --> 01:52:48.960 out with Mike. No, actually what it is, is it's 01:52:48.960 --> 01:52:51.199 because I'm sleeping seven and a half hours every 01:52:51.199 --> 01:52:54.100 night. It's amazing that the body can actually 01:52:54.100 --> 01:52:57.279 recover, process healthy. I don't have hip pain. 01:52:57.380 --> 01:52:59.119 I don't have knee pain. I don't have shoulder 01:52:59.119 --> 01:53:02.479 pain. They've all kind of gone away. Am I doing 01:53:02.479 --> 01:53:05.619 hot yoga? Am I doing the self -care I am? But 01:53:05.619 --> 01:53:07.300 I will tell you, if you look at the one common 01:53:07.300 --> 01:53:10.470 denominator, it's my sleep. it's absolutely the 01:53:10.470 --> 01:53:13.130 sleep and regulating that sleep pattern along, 01:53:13.210 --> 01:53:15.149 you know, along with, like I said, with my breath 01:53:15.149 --> 01:53:19.510 work has just been, ah, dude, you can't even 01:53:19.510 --> 01:53:21.310 put a price tag on it. You know what I mean? 01:53:22.029 --> 01:53:26.250 And it's, guess what? It's free. Someone, one 01:53:26.250 --> 01:53:27.670 of my guests said that they were like, if you 01:53:27.670 --> 01:53:29.670 could bottle the benefits that you have from 01:53:29.670 --> 01:53:32.210 sleep, you would literally break the internet. 01:53:32.229 --> 01:53:34.670 You know, you'd break the sales world, but he 01:53:34.670 --> 01:53:37.609 said, newsflash, it's free. You don't need to 01:53:37.609 --> 01:53:40.140 pull it. But this is the problem is such a hard 01:53:40.140 --> 01:53:42.000 sell. And then, as we said, with your journey 01:53:42.000 --> 01:53:45.039 on your days off, now you're drinking. We all 01:53:45.039 --> 01:53:47.479 know that destroys your ability to get into deep 01:53:47.479 --> 01:53:50.119 sleep. So now you're just compounding sleep deprivation 01:53:50.119 --> 01:53:51.939 with sleep deprivation. But this is so many of 01:53:51.939 --> 01:53:54.800 us. I'm almost a month into not drinking again. 01:53:54.859 --> 01:53:57.260 I've kind of had periods where I haven't. And 01:53:57.260 --> 01:53:59.800 then, you know, got kind of sucked into the routine 01:53:59.800 --> 01:54:02.539 again. But, but yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, 01:54:02.560 --> 01:54:04.260 even for a dude that has a podcast that talks 01:54:04.260 --> 01:54:06.020 about sleep all the time and understands the 01:54:06.020 --> 01:54:08.659 toxicity of alcohol, I'm still, you know, or 01:54:08.659 --> 01:54:11.359 go to a winery one day and I'll try one of their 01:54:11.359 --> 01:54:13.460 delicious, whatever, because you're telling yourself 01:54:13.460 --> 01:54:15.939 a little sales talk and now you're back on it 01:54:15.939 --> 01:54:18.380 again. But, but yeah, so it's, it's, you know, 01:54:18.420 --> 01:54:20.159 understanding this. And this is what I always 01:54:20.159 --> 01:54:22.960 say to the firefighters that have cancer and 01:54:22.960 --> 01:54:24.779 then they get through it and then they go back 01:54:24.779 --> 01:54:28.109 on shift. I'm like, dude, you just survived cancer 01:54:28.109 --> 01:54:30.649 and now you're going to jump feet first into 01:54:30.649 --> 01:54:34.090 a known carcinogen. Fight to be on a 40 -hour 01:54:34.090 --> 01:54:36.789 work week. If you're going to go back, then go 01:54:36.789 --> 01:54:38.909 back and address it in a way that you're not 01:54:38.909 --> 01:54:41.970 setting yourself up for yet another reoccurrence 01:54:41.970 --> 01:54:44.029 of this cancer. And even with the mental health 01:54:44.029 --> 01:54:46.170 stuff, go to days for a while. If you're going 01:54:46.170 --> 01:54:47.689 to go back and you want to feel connected, that's 01:54:47.689 --> 01:54:50.149 fine. But go to days. Sleep every single night. 01:54:50.310 --> 01:54:52.550 In the meantime, kind of circling around earlier. 01:54:53.439 --> 01:54:56.000 Let's make more sleep a national standard. Let's 01:54:56.000 --> 01:54:58.880 make a 24 -72 with a fully staffed department 01:54:58.880 --> 01:55:01.039 and high demand from these young recruits, just 01:55:01.039 --> 01:55:03.819 like we used to have, so that now our first responders 01:55:03.819 --> 01:55:06.579 are far less likely to struggle with, as you 01:55:06.579 --> 01:55:09.340 mentioned, so many things that so many guests 01:55:09.340 --> 01:55:13.399 on here have vowed. Yeah. And the common denominator. 01:55:13.560 --> 01:55:15.539 You go back to, you hit the nail on the head, 01:55:15.659 --> 01:55:20.960 right? I mean, my dad and grandfather weren't 01:55:20.960 --> 01:55:26.600 dying from cancer either. I'm sorry. We put the 01:55:26.600 --> 01:55:28.619 plasma vents and diesel exhausts in all the stations. 01:55:29.819 --> 01:55:31.560 I used to love going to a fire station because 01:55:31.560 --> 01:55:33.779 it smells like a fire station. What was that 01:55:33.779 --> 01:55:39.100 smell? It was diesel. Those old diesels. Big 01:55:39.100 --> 01:55:41.880 black plume of smoke, right? They weren't dying 01:55:41.880 --> 01:55:45.920 of cancer. They weren't dying of suicide. I understand 01:55:45.920 --> 01:55:48.060 the fires change, right? I understand decon. 01:55:48.079 --> 01:55:51.159 I do understand that. You look at the sleep, 01:55:51.199 --> 01:55:53.340 man. World Health Organization. What's the new 01:55:53.340 --> 01:55:57.979 human carcinogen? Lack of sleep. So I'm 100 % 01:55:57.979 --> 01:56:00.239 with you, right? And that's something that you 01:56:00.239 --> 01:56:02.560 can do. Again, I say get out of a victim mentality. 01:56:02.880 --> 01:56:04.779 Stop blaming the admin. Stop blaming all this 01:56:04.779 --> 01:56:07.760 shit and go do it. As a local, stand up and fight 01:56:07.760 --> 01:56:10.340 for it. Go home and do it. Empower yourselves 01:56:10.340 --> 01:56:13.520 to go home and set a standard. Stop making excuses 01:56:13.520 --> 01:56:16.970 about kids or this or that or whatever. Get your 01:56:16.970 --> 01:56:19.189 sleep, regulate your sleep pattern and see how 01:56:19.189 --> 01:56:22.229 good you feel. And then you carry that forward 01:56:22.229 --> 01:56:25.329 and it becomes the new norm. And then we start 01:56:25.329 --> 01:56:27.470 saving. Now we're really saving more lives. And 01:56:27.470 --> 01:56:31.189 I agree with you 100%. The department that protects 01:56:31.189 --> 01:56:35.329 my family, the county, they've had four suicides 01:56:35.329 --> 01:56:39.390 in four years, all young firefighters. They had 01:56:39.390 --> 01:56:41.609 a near miss that was kind of swept under the 01:56:41.609 --> 01:56:43.869 carpet where a guy gave himself a paralytic in 01:56:43.869 --> 01:56:46.199 the ER and then dropped. And they were able to 01:56:46.199 --> 01:56:49.020 kind of resuscitate him. And then a member that 01:56:49.020 --> 01:56:51.539 was a recent retiree, sorry, he transitioned 01:56:51.539 --> 01:56:54.140 to a different department and then took his own 01:56:54.140 --> 01:56:55.920 life in that department, but worked for this 01:56:55.920 --> 01:56:58.560 department most of his career. So that sticks 01:56:58.560 --> 01:57:04.180 basically in five years. And one of the more 01:57:04.180 --> 01:57:08.279 recent ones, the chief does a press release and 01:57:08.279 --> 01:57:11.340 is like, well, we don't have the answers. And 01:57:11.340 --> 01:57:14.170 I just remember looking at this going. We do 01:57:14.170 --> 01:57:16.750 have the fucking answers. You just don't have 01:57:16.750 --> 01:57:18.810 the fucking balls. And I can say this because 01:57:18.810 --> 01:57:20.569 they haven't changed six fucking years later. 01:57:20.710 --> 01:57:22.329 And these are the people that are responding 01:57:22.329 --> 01:57:24.390 to my family and their emergency. I know how 01:57:24.390 --> 01:57:27.409 low the bar is dropping to. So this affects me 01:57:27.409 --> 01:57:30.630 as a taxpayer. But this is what's angry yet also 01:57:30.630 --> 01:57:33.250 exciting. Angry when there's resistance, but 01:57:33.250 --> 01:57:35.850 exciting when there's actually the courage to 01:57:35.850 --> 01:57:38.489 want to change and save these lives is we do 01:57:38.489 --> 01:57:42.489 have the answers. Can we save every single one 01:57:42.489 --> 01:57:45.789 of us and one of them? No, you can't get every 01:57:45.789 --> 01:57:48.829 single addict out of addiction. You can't get 01:57:48.829 --> 01:57:51.369 every single person suffering from obesity to 01:57:51.369 --> 01:57:53.729 get down to a healthy weight, but you can get 01:57:53.729 --> 01:57:56.130 most of them when you give them the environment. 01:57:56.649 --> 01:57:59.050 So everything that, you know, we'll talk about 01:57:59.050 --> 01:58:01.050 what you're doing right now, but all these tools 01:58:01.050 --> 01:58:04.789 that are out there will work. You address the 01:58:04.789 --> 01:58:07.430 obviously, you know, the work week and the overtime. 01:58:07.529 --> 01:58:09.729 That's one. Let's put that out the way now. You 01:58:09.729 --> 01:58:12.590 know, we know that a lot of us carry stuff in 01:58:12.590 --> 01:58:14.789 from early life. So you now put in tools at the 01:58:14.789 --> 01:58:16.789 front door. Let's start working through that 01:58:16.789 --> 01:58:19.710 probie. We're going to have six sessions in your 01:58:19.710 --> 01:58:21.590 first year and we're going to slowly help unpack. 01:58:21.810 --> 01:58:23.729 There might be very little beautiful. We'll just 01:58:23.729 --> 01:58:25.550 talk about how everything's going on day to day 01:58:25.550 --> 01:58:28.010 and some recent calls. But we might also discover 01:58:28.010 --> 01:58:30.090 that that molestation from your creepy uncle 01:58:30.090 --> 01:58:32.829 when you were five needs to be addressed as well. 01:58:33.450 --> 01:58:37.590 And then you've got, you know, you put the standards 01:58:37.590 --> 01:58:39.869 back, I would argue that toxic environments start 01:58:39.869 --> 01:58:41.829 to go away because you've got good people rising 01:58:41.829 --> 01:58:43.930 through the ranks again. So you've got that. 01:58:44.189 --> 01:58:45.930 And then you've got the tools that we're going 01:58:45.930 --> 01:58:47.590 to talk about, the breath work, the meditation, 01:58:47.829 --> 01:58:50.109 the ice bath, the contrast therapy, the equine 01:58:50.109 --> 01:58:52.449 therapy, all the things. And then let's really 01:58:52.449 --> 01:58:54.729 remove stigma. Let's talk about the psychedelics 01:58:54.729 --> 01:58:58.810 that are available, the MDMA, the ketamine. This 01:58:58.810 --> 01:59:01.510 is what makes me exciting is it's a sound like 01:59:01.510 --> 01:59:03.390 a doom and gloom conversation, but it's not. 01:59:03.449 --> 01:59:05.890 It's only doom and gloom if we do nothing. We 01:59:05.890 --> 01:59:08.510 can absolutely move the needle and start saving 01:59:08.510 --> 01:59:10.289 these lives. And this is what you guys are doing 01:59:10.289 --> 01:59:13.050 with Rad too. We've got to have the humility 01:59:13.050 --> 01:59:16.130 to say the way we do it doesn't work and it's 01:59:16.130 --> 01:59:21.949 time for us to fix it. And I'm very fortunate 01:59:21.949 --> 01:59:25.869 that my organization is really doing that and 01:59:25.869 --> 01:59:29.420 at the forefront of it. That they're empowering 01:59:29.420 --> 01:59:33.800 us. My position, it wasn't even a position, but 01:59:33.800 --> 01:59:36.319 just being there for the year and a half, they 01:59:36.319 --> 01:59:39.819 saw the value in what was happening. And budgetarily, 01:59:39.960 --> 01:59:45.720 there was no new increases to the budget, but 01:59:45.720 --> 01:59:48.239 they saw the value for what we were doing and 01:59:48.239 --> 01:59:51.039 they created the position. I tested for it and 01:59:51.039 --> 01:59:53.479 I was able to get the position to continue this 01:59:53.479 --> 01:59:56.380 mission of doing it. They believe in the human 01:59:56.380 --> 01:59:59.369 aspect. We have an administrative wellness program. 01:59:59.510 --> 02:00:01.010 I went in there and said, you want family as 02:00:01.010 --> 02:00:02.789 a core value? Start acting like it. You know, 02:00:02.789 --> 02:00:05.250 our admin people deserve it. They get 30 minutes 02:00:05.250 --> 02:00:07.449 of wellness every day now. They have access to 02:00:07.449 --> 02:00:09.529 all the same things we do. Families, let's get 02:00:09.529 --> 02:00:11.189 the families involved. We do trainings that we 02:00:11.189 --> 02:00:14.050 involve the families in there, right? I'm speaking 02:00:14.050 --> 02:00:15.689 as part of this group, Resilience in Action, 02:00:15.770 --> 02:00:18.130 with, you know, Matt Quackenbush and Tim Sears 02:00:18.130 --> 02:00:20.470 and these guys in Washington, right? We're inviting 02:00:20.470 --> 02:00:23.210 spouses, chaplains, you know, again, sharing 02:00:23.210 --> 02:00:25.069 this stuff out there. People are interested in 02:00:25.069 --> 02:00:27.130 it. People want to know. Send me your sleep SOG. 02:00:27.550 --> 02:00:29.489 Send me your admin wellness SOG. Send me your 02:00:29.489 --> 02:00:33.369 resiliency stuff because they're seeing it. And 02:00:33.369 --> 02:00:35.729 that's what I'm so excited. And again, like I 02:00:35.729 --> 02:00:37.989 said, no coincidences. The good Lord had other 02:00:37.989 --> 02:00:40.229 plans for me not to be in LA County. My journey 02:00:40.229 --> 02:00:42.069 was to lead me right to where I am to impact, 02:00:42.250 --> 02:00:44.369 you know, not only my department, but I'm helping 02:00:44.369 --> 02:00:46.770 at the state level for the state of Washington. 02:00:46.850 --> 02:00:48.430 And then we're getting this stuff out and I'm 02:00:48.430 --> 02:00:51.310 sharing it with my friends in California, you 02:00:51.310 --> 02:00:54.550 know, and across. With social media, thank goodness, 02:00:54.689 --> 02:00:56.930 we're starting to make people ask questions. 02:00:57.130 --> 02:00:58.930 And like you said, people like us are promoting 02:00:58.930 --> 02:01:02.869 now and saying, here's the priority. And so, 02:01:02.890 --> 02:01:05.670 yeah, it's amazing that we're offering this stuff 02:01:05.670 --> 02:01:09.369 and we're doing it. So you mentioned your wife 02:01:09.369 --> 02:01:11.029 pointing out that you're already doing breath 02:01:11.029 --> 02:01:12.930 work. You're already really sitting and being 02:01:12.930 --> 02:01:14.850 mindful and present while you're reading the 02:01:14.850 --> 02:01:18.539 waves for the session that day. Yeah. What was 02:01:18.539 --> 02:01:21.279 that journey to really realizing and then being 02:01:21.279 --> 02:01:24.640 deliberate in pursuing some of these tools in 02:01:24.640 --> 02:01:26.979 this toolbox? And then how did that turn into 02:01:26.979 --> 02:01:32.880 the creation of RAD? I will tell you that it's 02:01:32.880 --> 02:01:36.300 overcoming fear. And I've done a lot of resiliency 02:01:36.300 --> 02:01:38.279 work with people on my job through our recess 02:01:38.279 --> 02:01:39.979 program and things like that. It's overcoming 02:01:39.979 --> 02:01:45.420 fear. Whether you want to, you know, imposter 02:01:45.420 --> 02:01:47.220 syndrome, right? There's always the underlying 02:01:47.220 --> 02:01:49.539 emotion, right? Of whatever it is. And most of 02:01:49.539 --> 02:01:54.500 the time it's fear. And I was, you know, I was 02:01:54.500 --> 02:01:56.939 afraid because if I started to do that, right? 02:01:57.100 --> 02:01:58.859 Well, now I'm going to do this, but then I'm 02:01:58.859 --> 02:02:00.880 going to be a fake. And I was battling the imposter 02:02:00.880 --> 02:02:02.640 syndrome. And I used to do this. Well, I can't 02:02:02.640 --> 02:02:05.140 stop drinking because, you know, I'm a fireman 02:02:05.140 --> 02:02:06.800 and we've always drank. And I can't do that. 02:02:06.800 --> 02:02:08.619 And I can't do breath work because then it becomes 02:02:08.619 --> 02:02:14.439 woo -woo shit. And then, you know. No, stop being 02:02:14.439 --> 02:02:19.380 afraid, right? She said, stop talking about it 02:02:19.380 --> 02:02:21.880 and go do it, right? The old David Goggins, just 02:02:21.880 --> 02:02:24.220 do the damn thing. So I did it. I said, okay, 02:02:24.380 --> 02:02:27.939 I'm doing it. I'm here. By the encouragement 02:02:27.939 --> 02:02:30.119 of my boss, Mike, he said, you know what? This 02:02:30.119 --> 02:02:32.979 is awesome. Go do it. And I had a passion for 02:02:32.979 --> 02:02:36.180 it. So I did. I hit the button. I signed up, 02:02:36.220 --> 02:02:38.800 went through the XPT program to be a performance 02:02:38.800 --> 02:02:41.180 breathwork coach, dove into it, realized how 02:02:41.180 --> 02:02:43.619 much. scientist there was so much more than just 02:02:43.619 --> 02:02:46.979 breathing right i mean i did i love larry i love 02:02:46.979 --> 02:02:48.619 what he does i love what he stands for i love 02:02:48.619 --> 02:02:51.859 his way of life right and and then my wife already 02:02:51.859 --> 02:02:54.880 doing that you know the more natural holistic 02:02:54.880 --> 02:02:59.039 well -rounded wellness version um really encouraged 02:02:59.039 --> 02:03:01.100 me to do that but i had to get out of the fear 02:03:01.100 --> 02:03:03.439 of that and i did same same way as putting the 02:03:03.439 --> 02:03:06.859 bottle down i don't i'm done being what everybody 02:03:06.859 --> 02:03:10.039 else wants i want to be me you know and it actually 02:03:11.020 --> 02:03:12.939 Um, when I started rad, it was because I was 02:03:12.939 --> 02:03:15.479 traveling, teaching so much fire stuff. My wife's 02:03:15.479 --> 02:03:17.579 like, you need a company. And I'm like, okay. 02:03:17.779 --> 02:03:18.960 She's like, what do you want to call it? I'm 02:03:18.960 --> 02:03:21.699 a rad. She's like, what? I'm like, yeah, call 02:03:21.699 --> 02:03:25.140 it rad. She's like, no, you got to call it something. 02:03:25.220 --> 02:03:26.880 I go, yeah, call it rad. Cause I love the movie 02:03:26.880 --> 02:03:29.020 rad. We go to rad day. It's my favorite soundtrack. 02:03:29.159 --> 02:03:32.399 I love the word. And I'm like, I don't want him 02:03:32.399 --> 02:03:33.920 to think I'm too professional, but that like, 02:03:33.960 --> 02:03:36.579 that was the first instance of me truly living. 02:03:36.659 --> 02:03:38.960 My authentic self was to say, I want my company 02:03:38.960 --> 02:03:41.760 to be rad. And I'm like, TNC, because that's 02:03:41.760 --> 02:03:43.300 who I used to surf for, right? Town and country. 02:03:43.500 --> 02:03:47.640 Okay, so now it's training and consulting. And 02:03:47.640 --> 02:03:49.479 I was talking to my buddy, Matt, who I do the 02:03:49.479 --> 02:03:51.500 podcast with, and he's a Laguna Beach fireman. 02:03:51.520 --> 02:03:54.420 And he had some health issues. And I just called 02:03:54.420 --> 02:03:56.859 him out to get caught up with him. And we were 02:03:56.859 --> 02:03:58.420 talking about what I was doing. And I just said, 02:03:58.479 --> 02:04:00.680 man, my thing now is I'm just trying to live 02:04:00.680 --> 02:04:02.539 to be resilient another day. And he's like, that 02:04:02.539 --> 02:04:04.140 sounds rad. And I'm like, it is. And he's like, 02:04:04.199 --> 02:04:06.880 no, that sounds rad. And I go, yeah, it's super 02:04:06.880 --> 02:04:11.350 rad. And he's like, no, it sounds rad. I wasn't 02:04:11.350 --> 02:04:13.529 putting it together. It was that organic that, 02:04:13.529 --> 02:04:15.970 that, that happened. And it hit literally, like 02:04:15.970 --> 02:04:17.529 I say, it hit me like a bull's eye. I mean, it 02:04:17.529 --> 02:04:19.189 was in my backyard with my dogs. I called my 02:04:19.189 --> 02:04:21.689 wife. I'm not afraid to say it. Like I broke 02:04:21.689 --> 02:04:23.909 down in tears. I became so emotional that what 02:04:23.909 --> 02:04:25.989 I was doing, living my authentic self, if you 02:04:25.989 --> 02:04:27.729 want direction and you want to realize that we 02:04:27.729 --> 02:04:30.050 don't live in a world of coincidences, I called 02:04:30.050 --> 02:04:32.489 my company rad thinking it was funny and who 02:04:32.489 --> 02:04:34.590 I was. And the whole time it was truly who I 02:04:34.590 --> 02:04:36.949 was. It was about being resilient another day. 02:04:38.520 --> 02:04:40.859 And that catapulted everything. And then I was 02:04:40.859 --> 02:04:44.220 doing breath work at work and seeing the impacts 02:04:44.220 --> 02:04:46.720 of it on other people and then began to share 02:04:46.720 --> 02:04:51.380 my story. And my wife, like Matt, the people 02:04:51.380 --> 02:04:53.079 that I've been around, I taught for Laguna Beach. 02:04:53.100 --> 02:04:54.760 I do a lot of fire training for them, you know, 02:04:54.760 --> 02:04:57.840 that my gift was to speak, to share my story, 02:04:57.899 --> 02:04:59.119 to be in it. That's why I was a good instructor. 02:04:59.239 --> 02:05:01.039 I've been given this gift of storytelling. So 02:05:01.039 --> 02:05:04.250 why not go share it? And that's truly how it 02:05:04.250 --> 02:05:05.949 started. And then getting immersed in this and 02:05:05.949 --> 02:05:08.029 trying different things and doing the breath 02:05:08.029 --> 02:05:11.810 work and doing red light therapy and doing these 02:05:11.810 --> 02:05:13.470 different resilient things that I would never 02:05:13.470 --> 02:05:18.210 do from yoga to tapping to energy work to equine 02:05:18.210 --> 02:05:22.430 therapy to crossword puzzles to reading books 02:05:22.430 --> 02:05:25.649 again, right? To just active stretching to, I 02:05:25.649 --> 02:05:28.750 hated hiking. I hated it. My wife always wanted 02:05:28.750 --> 02:05:31.970 to go hiking. It's the dumbest thing in the world. 02:05:32.010 --> 02:05:34.210 Why would I go for a walk just to walk in a loop? 02:05:34.289 --> 02:05:35.829 Like I want to go somewhere. I want to walk to 02:05:35.829 --> 02:05:37.909 a lake and go swimming. I want to do that. Again, 02:05:38.010 --> 02:05:41.069 no intentionality. And now what do I love? I 02:05:41.069 --> 02:05:42.590 love going on hikes with my wife. We have our 02:05:42.590 --> 02:05:44.890 house in Arizona. We go camelback all the time. 02:05:44.930 --> 02:05:47.670 It's like one thing we look forward to. Then 02:05:47.670 --> 02:05:49.689 it came down to intentionality and realizing 02:05:49.689 --> 02:05:53.810 I wasn't afraid anymore. I wasn't afraid to be 02:05:53.810 --> 02:05:59.600 who I needed to be. Beautiful. So talk to me 02:05:59.600 --> 02:06:01.279 then about what you offer. If people listening 02:06:01.279 --> 02:06:04.319 wanted to bring you on from either side, from 02:06:04.319 --> 02:06:06.359 the fire training, but also especially from RAD. 02:06:07.380 --> 02:06:11.079 Yeah, the fire side we do, we'll do, I teach 02:06:11.079 --> 02:06:13.340 everything from truck company operations to auto 02:06:13.340 --> 02:06:15.739 extrication to firefighter survival, water rescue, 02:06:15.920 --> 02:06:18.380 first aid CPR, you know, the whole thing. I've 02:06:18.380 --> 02:06:21.199 been an instructor for 25 years. So I still offer 02:06:21.199 --> 02:06:22.779 that. Like I said, we're going to Wenatchee Valley 02:06:22.779 --> 02:06:26.319 and doing that class. From the RAD side, it's 02:06:26.319 --> 02:06:28.380 all under RAD, but really through the resiliency 02:06:28.380 --> 02:06:32.859 aspect, performance breathwork coaching, which 02:06:32.859 --> 02:06:35.100 isn't just breathwork. I really like to get into 02:06:35.100 --> 02:06:38.520 the overall wellness and resiliency aspect that 02:06:38.520 --> 02:06:40.079 we're using the breath. Again, intentionally, 02:06:40.079 --> 02:06:43.359 I'm using the breath to be better, right? So 02:06:43.359 --> 02:06:46.619 a lot of that is digesting and teaching people 02:06:46.619 --> 02:06:49.020 how to breathe. I do a lot of resiliency and 02:06:49.020 --> 02:06:52.000 wellness coaching, whether that's helping with 02:06:52.000 --> 02:06:56.180 contrast therapy, Um, a lot of the training and 02:06:56.180 --> 02:06:58.159 stuff that my wife does from energy work and 02:06:58.159 --> 02:07:00.380 things like that, you know, to relationship coaching, 02:07:00.640 --> 02:07:04.739 um, is really what I'm really focused on. And 02:07:04.739 --> 02:07:06.920 the beauty is, is that it really comes down to 02:07:06.920 --> 02:07:08.739 you. Like if you, if you want resilience and 02:07:08.739 --> 02:07:12.770 you want wellness, right. It's individual. It's 02:07:12.770 --> 02:07:14.590 not like, OK, so on week one, we're going to 02:07:14.590 --> 02:07:16.670 do X, Y and Z because we may try something like 02:07:16.670 --> 02:07:19.149 that. That wasn't really for me. OK, well, instead 02:07:19.149 --> 02:07:21.270 of doing performance, instead of doing box breathing, 02:07:21.369 --> 02:07:23.510 we're going to do relaxation breathing or we're 02:07:23.510 --> 02:07:25.430 going to we're going to build in some some breath 02:07:25.430 --> 02:07:27.149 holds and we're going to do some triangle breathing. 02:07:27.470 --> 02:07:28.909 Right. And we're going to tie this thing together 02:07:28.909 --> 02:07:31.170 and build it for you. And then you're going to 02:07:31.170 --> 02:07:33.109 make it what it is because I empower you to choose 02:07:33.109 --> 02:07:36.789 your own adventure story. It's your story. You're 02:07:36.789 --> 02:07:38.750 the one that's got to do the thing. I'm just 02:07:38.750 --> 02:07:40.890 helping you. I'm just your guide on this rad 02:07:40.890 --> 02:07:43.930 venture. You're doing the work. You're choosing 02:07:43.930 --> 02:07:46.689 your own adventure. And that's really where it's 02:07:46.689 --> 02:07:50.189 powerful. We have a lot of resources and a lot 02:07:50.189 --> 02:07:53.329 of stuff that we can help with on that front. 02:07:53.489 --> 02:07:57.050 So that's really what my focus is in offering. 02:07:57.770 --> 02:08:01.689 And I am with you. I am very much a believer 02:08:01.689 --> 02:08:05.039 that... With sleeping and with breathing and 02:08:05.039 --> 02:08:08.119 with natural remedies, we don't need pills and 02:08:08.119 --> 02:08:11.699 we don't need medicine that's made. We need natural 02:08:11.699 --> 02:08:14.779 plant -based medicine. I'm 100 % fully convinced 02:08:14.779 --> 02:08:17.819 on that. And I'm glad that I just got an article 02:08:17.819 --> 02:08:19.800 from a friend of mine who's a clinician that's 02:08:19.800 --> 02:08:22.560 working with us. University of Washington is 02:08:22.560 --> 02:08:25.279 doing, they're actually doing a study. So hopefully 02:08:25.279 --> 02:08:28.420 we'll start getting this changed on psilocybin 02:08:28.420 --> 02:08:33.899 and the use of MDMA. plant -based medicines for, 02:08:34.180 --> 02:08:38.659 you know, traumatic release. So I'm very excited 02:08:38.659 --> 02:08:41.880 about that. Beautiful. Oh, for people listening, 02:08:41.960 --> 02:08:46.359 where can they find Rad online? You can go to 02:08:46.359 --> 02:08:49.319 resilientanotherday .com. That's my website. 02:08:49.579 --> 02:08:53.460 Of course, I got my social handles at stay .rad10 02:08:53.460 --> 02:08:59.189 on TikTok and Instagram. I'm super stoked. It's 02:08:59.189 --> 02:09:02.470 way outside my comfort zone to do this, but episode 02:09:02.470 --> 02:09:06.550 six just dropped of the Radcast. That's my podcast. 02:09:06.649 --> 02:09:11.130 You can find it on Spotify or Amazon or Apple 02:09:11.130 --> 02:09:14.210 or iHeartRadio. So it's the Radcast. And we just 02:09:14.210 --> 02:09:16.869 talk about all things resiliency and it's hour 02:09:16.869 --> 02:09:18.710 long, try to do it every week. And it's just 02:09:18.710 --> 02:09:21.550 been amazing. So that's where you can find me. 02:09:21.689 --> 02:09:27.430 You can always email me too. RadTraining10 at 02:09:27.430 --> 02:09:30.430 gmail .com with any information you may have. 02:09:30.710 --> 02:09:33.069 My contact's all on the website and you can send 02:09:33.069 --> 02:09:35.229 contacts to there. I'm always welcome to phone 02:09:35.229 --> 02:09:38.970 calls, texts, and I just want people to know 02:09:38.970 --> 02:09:42.689 that you're not alone, right? I'm really big 02:09:42.689 --> 02:09:44.989 on that. I like that you're not alone versus 02:09:44.989 --> 02:09:48.239 it's okay not to be okay. That's kind of an empty, 02:09:48.380 --> 02:09:51.119 okay, I'm not okay, now what? I want to bring 02:09:51.119 --> 02:09:53.079 solutions, not problems, but you're not alone 02:09:53.079 --> 02:09:55.359 out there. You have people like James and me 02:09:55.359 --> 02:09:57.079 and other people out there. Reach out. If it's 02:09:57.079 --> 02:10:00.560 a phone call, call me. I'm very big on that. 02:10:00.619 --> 02:10:02.399 You can call me, you can text me, you can email 02:10:02.399 --> 02:10:06.720 me, and I'm here for you. Beautiful. Well, I 02:10:06.720 --> 02:10:08.260 want to throw some quick closing questions at 02:10:08.260 --> 02:10:11.869 you before I let you go. The first one. Is there 02:10:11.869 --> 02:10:14.390 a book or other books that you love to recommend? 02:10:14.649 --> 02:10:16.850 It can be related to our discussion today or 02:10:16.850 --> 02:10:21.250 completely unrelated. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, 02:10:21.270 --> 02:10:23.210 there's so many out there. I'm starting to build 02:10:23.210 --> 02:10:25.149 that library on my website. It's one of the things 02:10:25.149 --> 02:10:29.630 I need to do. James Nestor's Breath is absolutely 02:10:29.630 --> 02:10:33.689 fantastic and is one of my first ones. You've 02:10:33.689 --> 02:10:38.010 got to read that. It is wonderful. The Comfort 02:10:38.010 --> 02:10:41.729 Crisis is another one. that I absolutely think 02:10:41.729 --> 02:10:46.170 everybody should read, especially whether you're 02:10:46.170 --> 02:10:47.770 struggling or not, you need to read that book. 02:10:48.069 --> 02:10:52.069 And the other one that I just read that has gone 02:10:52.069 --> 02:10:54.909 in, that has propelled right to the top is a 02:10:54.909 --> 02:10:58.449 book called The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. 02:10:58.550 --> 02:11:03.869 And it is extremely powerful. I've read a lot 02:11:03.869 --> 02:11:07.760 of... um books on you know where we're going 02:11:07.760 --> 02:11:09.920 and self -help i don't call them self -help books 02:11:09.920 --> 02:11:12.420 but you know that kind of thing motivational 02:11:12.420 --> 02:11:14.600 books and things like that i will tell you that 02:11:14.600 --> 02:11:16.960 those are the three when i get with people those 02:11:16.960 --> 02:11:19.800 that's where i would start for sure and the four 02:11:19.800 --> 02:11:22.760 agreements is that's become one of those it's 02:11:22.760 --> 02:11:26.300 a short read it's a light read i i've read it 02:11:26.300 --> 02:11:29.680 three times already just because The four agreements 02:11:29.680 --> 02:11:31.899 that you make with yourself are so powerful in 02:11:31.899 --> 02:11:35.479 wherever you're going. And it's so proactive 02:11:35.479 --> 02:11:38.380 in the approach as to what you can do and to 02:11:38.380 --> 02:11:42.279 get out of that fear -based mentality. It's been 02:11:42.279 --> 02:11:44.220 recommended many times. Obviously, it's hitting 02:11:44.220 --> 02:11:51.779 a lot of people deeply. Yeah, it's old school. 02:11:51.979 --> 02:11:54.260 I say old school. I mean, it's rooted in ancient 02:11:54.260 --> 02:11:56.420 times. I mean, that's what worked, right? We 02:11:56.420 --> 02:11:59.659 don't need pharmaceutical stuff. to help us, 02:11:59.659 --> 02:12:03.020 you know, we, we need each other and we need 02:12:03.020 --> 02:12:05.119 to find that truth and we need natural remedies 02:12:05.119 --> 02:12:08.520 that are truly what, what has kept us this way 02:12:08.520 --> 02:12:12.060 for centuries. So those, those are the ones that 02:12:12.060 --> 02:12:14.060 I would highly recommend to everybody. And that's 02:12:14.060 --> 02:12:17.000 a nice, they're kind of a nice read across all 02:12:17.000 --> 02:12:19.119 three of those, but I think they really hit the, 02:12:19.159 --> 02:12:22.840 the true points of resiliency and, and living 02:12:22.840 --> 02:12:25.710 your authentic self. i had uh michael easter 02:12:25.710 --> 02:12:27.390 on the show that wrote the comfort crisis that 02:12:27.390 --> 02:12:30.489 was a great conversation yeah i'm indeed i'm 02:12:30.489 --> 02:12:33.250 telling i love that i love that i love that book 02:12:33.250 --> 02:12:35.949 absolutely all right well that's books what about 02:12:35.949 --> 02:12:41.390 films and documentaries everybody has to go watch 02:12:41.390 --> 02:12:44.710 rad it's my favorite i know everyone's like what 02:12:44.710 --> 02:12:48.069 you know yes the 1985 bike movie it's just because 02:12:48.069 --> 02:12:51.350 it's cool right i say that um you know there's 02:12:51.350 --> 02:12:53.680 a there's so many different There's so many different 02:12:53.680 --> 02:12:55.840 ways that you could go with that, man. I mean, 02:12:55.840 --> 02:13:00.739 to be cheesy, I think you need to watch It's 02:13:00.739 --> 02:13:04.300 a Wonderful Life. That's my number two movie. 02:13:04.460 --> 02:13:06.640 I think, you know, it's black and white and it's 02:13:06.640 --> 02:13:08.680 got Jimmy Stewart, but I think the story that 02:13:08.680 --> 02:13:10.680 it tells, especially for what we're talking about, 02:13:10.800 --> 02:13:14.960 the crisis that we're in and truly, you know, 02:13:14.960 --> 02:13:18.439 how many lives. one person's life truly touches 02:13:18.439 --> 02:13:21.020 right and they say they say we impact one person 02:13:21.020 --> 02:13:24.220 will impact seven others you know so so that's 02:13:24.220 --> 02:13:26.479 definitely another one that i think that you 02:13:26.479 --> 02:13:30.500 need to go out and watch um that movie um there's 02:13:30.500 --> 02:13:33.100 so many good documentaries out there uh i will 02:13:33.100 --> 02:13:35.720 say i know a lot of people aren't big aaron rogers 02:13:35.720 --> 02:13:37.560 fans and i wasn't either until i watched his 02:13:37.560 --> 02:13:41.819 documentary that was good i completely changed 02:13:41.819 --> 02:13:43.539 my mindset on it not just because i'm a believer 02:13:43.539 --> 02:13:46.359 in natural medicines but now How cool is it that 02:13:46.359 --> 02:13:49.819 he impacted the vulnerability and the self -reflection 02:13:49.819 --> 02:13:52.579 and actually doing the hard work? So those are 02:13:52.579 --> 02:13:54.399 ones that I would definitely recommend to people. 02:13:55.100 --> 02:13:58.439 Absolutely. All right. The next question, is 02:13:58.439 --> 02:14:00.319 there a person that you'd recommend to come on 02:14:00.319 --> 02:14:03.079 this podcast as a guest to speak to the first 02:14:03.079 --> 02:14:05.300 responders, military, and associated professionals 02:14:05.300 --> 02:14:10.520 of the world? There's two guys, Noel Lilly and 02:14:10.520 --> 02:14:13.100 Kevin Welch out at LA County Fire. They do the 02:14:13.100 --> 02:14:17.220 Fire You Carry podcast. They have the Fire Up 02:14:17.220 --> 02:14:20.319 Foundation. They're doing this stuff, right? 02:14:20.500 --> 02:14:27.859 They're retreats, things like that. And they're 02:14:27.859 --> 02:14:30.439 running the same belief system we are, man. They're 02:14:30.439 --> 02:14:33.479 out there doing it for what's good for them. 02:14:33.600 --> 02:14:38.340 And the irony is that they worked out of Station 02:14:38.340 --> 02:14:40.539 15 with guys where my grandfather worked, where 02:14:40.539 --> 02:14:43.010 I was as a kid chasing chickens. And they're 02:14:43.010 --> 02:14:44.909 like, how do we not know each other? Because 02:14:44.909 --> 02:14:46.409 they're LA County guys. They're like, how have 02:14:46.409 --> 02:14:48.409 we not? And then one of them's like, wait a minute, 02:14:48.489 --> 02:14:51.529 we did meet. You were in the station doing extrication 02:14:51.529 --> 02:14:55.010 with KT and Donnie Butler. So we have met. So 02:14:55.010 --> 02:14:57.689 those two guys are just phenomenal. And the podcast 02:14:57.689 --> 02:14:59.369 that they're doing and the foundation that they 02:14:59.369 --> 02:15:02.409 have are just amazing for the work they're doing. 02:15:03.210 --> 02:15:05.350 Fantastic. All right. Thank you for that. Right. 02:15:05.430 --> 02:15:08.069 The very last question then, what do you do to 02:15:08.069 --> 02:15:18.039 decompress? My decompression is really, my go 02:15:18.039 --> 02:15:21.260 -to is breath work. I do a lot of apnea, so a 02:15:21.260 --> 02:15:24.060 lot of breath holds, extended nasal breathe, 02:15:24.220 --> 02:15:29.779 nasal exhales with an extended holds for my decompression. 02:15:30.420 --> 02:15:33.520 A lot of prayer and mindfulness as I'm doing 02:15:33.520 --> 02:15:37.119 that, setting an intentionality. So my big thing 02:15:37.119 --> 02:15:39.479 when I teach people is no matter what we're doing, 02:15:39.520 --> 02:15:42.420 I like to set an intention. So when I decompress 02:15:42.420 --> 02:15:45.119 and I know I need to do that, it's always the 02:15:45.119 --> 02:15:47.300 intention of what I'm trying to release or what 02:15:47.300 --> 02:15:49.159 I want to hold on to and setting that intention. 02:15:50.119 --> 02:15:52.500 Three breaths in and out, in through the nose 02:15:52.500 --> 02:15:54.500 to breathe in my intention, out to relieve the 02:15:54.500 --> 02:15:57.100 stress or the tension, and then I go into whatever 02:15:57.100 --> 02:16:00.439 breath work or mindfulness. And usually in my 02:16:00.439 --> 02:16:03.020 real decompression, if I'm close enough, it always 02:16:03.020 --> 02:16:06.310 is engaged with water. So whether that's a nice 02:16:06.310 --> 02:16:11.210 bath or a cold pool, I'm very much a water creature. 02:16:11.289 --> 02:16:13.529 So just being in the water is a decompression 02:16:13.529 --> 02:16:20.449 for me. When it comes to like leaving work or 02:16:20.449 --> 02:16:22.489 situations like that where I need to decompress 02:16:22.489 --> 02:16:24.210 in the moment, again, the breath work is mine. 02:16:24.569 --> 02:16:26.489 Holding the breath and then setting that intention 02:16:26.489 --> 02:16:30.369 is really a big one for me. The other ones are 02:16:30.369 --> 02:16:37.819 tapping. Tapping either with the face, the hands, 02:16:37.959 --> 02:16:42.040 the body, working through the different chakras 02:16:42.040 --> 02:16:43.819 and the parts of our body that we use. That's 02:16:43.819 --> 02:16:45.659 my other decompression one is because there's 02:16:45.659 --> 02:16:48.579 so much to that vibrationally and energetically 02:16:48.579 --> 02:16:52.700 that we can use. Fantastic. All right. Well, 02:16:52.780 --> 02:16:54.899 Greg, we've been chatting for well over two hours 02:16:54.899 --> 02:16:57.120 now, so I want to be mindful of your time. But 02:16:57.120 --> 02:16:59.600 it's been such an amazing conversation. I always 02:16:59.600 --> 02:17:04.959 say this. I'm so enamored that there's the trust 02:17:04.959 --> 02:17:07.079 for people to come on here and be vulnerable. 02:17:07.180 --> 02:17:09.420 And I understand that sometimes even revisiting 02:17:09.420 --> 02:17:11.479 some of these calls kind of pulls the scab off 02:17:11.479 --> 02:17:14.379 the wound a little bit. But I know that that 02:17:14.379 --> 02:17:16.600 depth of emotion is going to really hit home 02:17:16.600 --> 02:17:18.840 with people that are listening. So I want to 02:17:18.840 --> 02:17:20.819 thank you not only for being generous with your 02:17:20.819 --> 02:17:23.139 time today, but also for your courageous vulnerability 02:17:23.139 --> 02:17:25.780 and your storytelling. So thank you so much for 02:17:25.780 --> 02:17:28.559 coming on the Behind the Shield podcast. Thank 02:17:28.559 --> 02:17:32.200 you. Can't tell you how blessed and honored I 02:17:32.200 --> 02:17:37.200 am. I'm truly grateful. Great gratitude is another 02:17:37.200 --> 02:17:40.600 big one, right? I am truly grateful for you having 02:17:40.600 --> 02:17:42.659 me on here and allowing me this opportunity. 02:17:42.840 --> 02:17:45.059 And what you're doing, you're truly impacting 02:17:45.059 --> 02:17:45.540 people.