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Pains Purpose
A joint exploration into the nature of life in a way that empowers each of us to be who we are.
Pains Purpose
Pains Purpose Episode 0.1 - 90 Proof Wisdom with Jeremy Barker
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for supporting us!
We recorded this episode six months after my medical retirement. I wanted to share it in case you wanted more context. And, if you're looking for more wisdom, here's a link to the 90 Proof Wisdom YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/zoAPvpgGo50?si=pQpY_lQWZ0msqPJa
See the below episode description created by AI for more details:
What happens when a firefighter who built his identity on physical strength suddenly loses that ability? Evan Fitzgerald's journey takes us through the transformative power of trauma, first as a 7-year-old boy watching first responders try to save his father after a farming accident, then as a veteran firefighter whose career ended when a burning tree struck him during wildland firefighting.
Evan candidly shares how childhood trauma shaped his approach to life, driving him toward firefighting while developing innovative wellness programs for departments across Utah. His passion for helping first responders manage stress, sleep deprivation, and mental health challenges became his mission—until his own devastating injury changed everything.
Following the accident, Evan developed post-concussive syndrome and eventually a rare autoimmune disease called relapsing polychondritis, which attacks cartilage throughout the body, including the airways. This forced medical retirement sent him spiraling into what he calls "the dark night of the soul," challenging his very sense of self-worth and purpose.
The conversation delves into deeply personal territory as Evan reveals his struggles with the medical system, financial uncertainty, and profound identity crisis. Yet amidst this darkness emerged unexpected light—a renewed understanding of compassion, vulnerability, and human connection. Through writing poetry, developing children's programs on emotional resilience, and embracing a new definition of strength, Evan is crafting a powerful second act.
This episode examines how the fire service brotherhood supports its own, the challenges facing first responders in today's world, and the sacred journey of discovering who you truly are when everything you thought defined you is stripped away. Evan's story reminds us that our deepest wounds often become our greatest teachers, and that finding purpose in pain might be the most heroic act of all.
If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is Houston, we're copying.
Speaker 1:Uh, everything is going. We shall fight on the beaches and in the streets. We shall never surrender.
Speaker 2:I'm in it just to rewrite history, cause I'm in the mood to Label us the leaders of the leaders of the new school. This ain't for the radio. Can't find this on YouTube.
Speaker 3:This the type of killing that these critics ain't used to.
Speaker 2:You're a group of happy rebels. You've said no to the rules of the game and the regulations of the day. You've said no to the conventional wisdom. You're all originals. In this day and age, I got time for innovation, time to be creative.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the 90 Proof Wisdom Podcast, where we dream big and challenge the conventional wisdom. This podcast is about distilling the lessons we've learned in life business, and turning them into tools that will help you succeed personally and professionally. We're about standing firm, running toward the battle, building communities, changing the game and staking our claim Really quick. We're here today with Evan Fitzgerald. So, evan, we worked together years and years ago, I think you got into fire 2012. Is that about right, evan?
Speaker 1:Well, actually I got into the fire service when I was 17. Volunteer up in Mount Green.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right I do remember 2009.
Speaker 1:Emt was 2003. Oh shit, that's a long, long time.
Speaker 3:Emt was 2003.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, that's a long long time I've been around for a little bit. Yeah right, Good for you.
Speaker 3:Even though he looks like he's 18, he's put on most his years, the last three.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, but we'll get into that. I got real great, we'll get into that.
Speaker 3:But before that I'd look at him and I'm like, damn it, when did we hire my son? And I'm older than you? It's weird, right, it's weird, but anyway. So we're here, we're excited to have him. He's got a great story, he's done a ton in his career and we're excited to have him and I appreciate that he's here. A lot of emotion there, a lot of super wins too, which I thought was amazing, right, and that's where kind of Evan really hit it off with me, ken is his fitness level was almost as great as mine, right, he almost could pull it off, right. And so the discipline this kid had and the vision he had for the fitness world of the fire and public service was fricking awesome. And it still is right. The whole story behind it's there. And then to just see the transformation in what he was able to do, even with Salt Lake city fire in a short time, you weren't at Salt Lake city very long when you started that whole.
Speaker 3:I was there five years yeah, I mean when you started the fitness deal, it was fast took a year and a half and we um, it's still running, doing well yeah right, I mean, who can say that going? To an apartment as big as salt lake city and in a year and a half, change something.
Speaker 1:It's pretty incredible that stars kind of align to make it happen.
Speaker 3:It's not a star other than you, right?
Speaker 1:No, no, there are a bunch of stars before me lined up to make it happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, but it's the background, I mean, and that's kind of where it is, and Evan's going to be like this the whole time. I'm sure not take credit for anything which makes it easier right. But year right. But again from the outside, looking in my man, it has been super impressive, all from the very early onset when you worked, you know, when we worked together years ago, and then to watch the, the progress.
Speaker 3:So I started it, uh, in morgan in 07, got my mc in 93 and uh took some time, and then back to morgan county and then roy fire and layton. Now weber just haven't worked still. You guys may wonder why I'm not shaving. I don't have to work until next week, but we got Lake Powell and Country Jam.
Speaker 1:Oh man, you got to rock the beard when you can. You got to right. I'm trying to keep up with Evan but you got me beat again.
Speaker 3:I think you got a half inch on me, man.
Speaker 1:I don't know, we should put our faces together.
Speaker 3:I'm just pulsing in here to measure it. That's a write-up, yeah, right Anyway. So I want Evan to kind of dig in. We know beautiful wife Sarah, right, yep, got three kids, is that right? I?
Speaker 1:do Three boys, three boys, a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:The Fitzy boys, right, Mm-hmm? I think they try to beat you every day, right, oh man?
Speaker 1:it's not creepy. I appreciate the support and I haven't been able to really express it enough. But, man, we couldn't do what we've done in these past couple of years without the support of our fire family and our friends, you know, and family that have, just you know, sent energy, prayers, love our way and it really does make a difference being on this side of it. And finally, now that I've been forced to accept help, that's kind of how it's gone.
Speaker 3:Humility is hard to swallow, right.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's our breed, we are wired to help, right, and it's hard to figure out how to be helped, and that's an important thing to learn. For sure, and that's part of the wellness idea is that concept to think about it and what it means, and the team-minded approach, right?
Speaker 3:Well, I want to get into it. Let's start from the beginning. Let's hear Evan's story right at the early on Heavy load you said earlier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty heavy. So I grew up on a farm in Cedar Valley. Now it's Eagle Mountain. It's just crowded and crazy. Now that was all our land. We had cows, beef cows out there. My dad was a fish fishing game biologist and it was the day after my birthday.
Speaker 1:I was seven, grew up on a farm, everything was rainbows, haystacks and bows and arrows, right, and then all that got turned upside down and I had to grow up real fast because the day after my birthday my dad um, he was loading a tractor onto a trailer and it the discs, the tilling discs weren't stowed correctly, so it tipped over on top of him and uh, my brother went to see where he's at because he was supposed to take us to school. And he came back and you know I've done therapy for this, like it's trauma, right. And uh, the the most fear that I felt that whole experience was seeing the look on my brother's face after after he saw my dad and asked me to call 911. And it was the look on his face that made me freeze and I told him I didn't know how to call 911.
Speaker 1:And uh, you know, from there I think I set up a life that was, uh, to defeat any fear. That was going to limit me again, and it wasn't very healthy. I lived a reckless, uh, childhood, um, I wasn't really too afraid of death. Actually very curious at a morbid curiosity of death, um, so that's your job, you chose yeah, the job, yeah, exactly, and I, I did the.
Speaker 1:You know, if I was afraid of a trick snowboarding I would do it, even knowing that I would land on my head, right.
Speaker 2:It's because I, because I had to face that right.
Speaker 1:It is weird, man. It was weird, um, and now I'm trying to wrap my head all around all of that, um, knowing what I know now, but that seven year old kid, uh to, to do that you have to have compassion and understand where that guy was, you know, and and how that broke um a big part of who I was, or just you know. It just limited my potential in a way that was painful, obviously growing up, but maximize my awareness of what it meant to be a dad. So now I can see how it was kind of the worst thing that happened to me and the best thing because of the perspective I've gained. And that's a big part of why I chose to be a firefighter and why I'm in wellness now.
Speaker 3:Don't you think incidences like that are really nonverbal programming? So it doesn't need someone to teach it, it doesn't need someone to show it. It's not what somebody says to you, it's a visual course that's immediate, that changes your whole future. So it's just an MVP, a nonverbal program that gets issued to you. They can change a direction of your whole life. And it's super impactful and it's a 10th of a second.
Speaker 3:And honestly, like you said, it's been super traumatic for you. And then it also set a positive direction, and I think all positive directions come from a super traumatic experience and that's just the hardest part is seeing it when you're in the middle of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, that is the hardest part. But, that being said, I mean that's a great point, because now, actually, I can live in this painful spot that we'll get to, I'm sure, uh, what happened and everything, but I can be in this moment and not physically be what I was not even close, right, uh, but I can see the value and I can see what can come from it. Um, the challenge is to be patient and to allow the process and to be still and and let things happen, because that's not that's another part, I think, of our personality. We got to be actively doing something to make it better. But sometimes there's nothing you can do, man, and that's you just have to sit with it and sit with your pain, and if you can do that, then you'll likely not make it worse. But if you resist it, that's when shit gets terrible and despair starts to set in.
Speaker 1:And, uh, there was a point where I chose you know that I I needed to to live. Um, there's worse things than death, and maybe I thought for a little bit that death was coming a lot quicker, so it had to be in a state of anxiety, but, um, that the death that I'm talking about is is the death of the part of us that that uh continues on. You know that uh lives through our kids and through our families and through the people we've loved. Um, and all of that is negatively impacted by the way in which we endure, I guess, and the dignity that we maintain through the struggle.
Speaker 3:Right, Well, I think that's a huge piece for your has motivated me not to fall to pieces, man. I.
Speaker 1:I almost well I have, um, my wife has had to be there to pick up the pieces, um, but what a blessing for a kid, you know, to see a dad who was physically yeah.
Speaker 2:Great, great, really yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was. I was one of the fastest at the task performance test at saw lake, you know I I mean, I I was just really physically strong and capable and anaerobically, aerobically, um, but all that was kind of taken, uh, and I've had to live with large parts of what I thought was my identity kind of cut off, you know stripped off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a weird spot too, right, because I've never had that ever. Physical fitness has never been my top priority, although it should be. I go to the gym in the morning. I'm not great at the gym, but I just don't want to get any fatter than I already have. B cups are enough for me, right, you know what I mean you look good in B.
Speaker 3:I look good in B, but I think C's a little heavy. C's a little heavy, c's a little heavy. So, but it's funny because I've never identified under the physical fitness category. I've, and I feel absolutely not as good when I'm heavier at times than when I'm lighter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But it's hard from my perspective to look at it and say, hey, how could you find all this identity in just a fitness piece? You know, just outside going man, you have so much more. Well, that's a good question that I see.
Speaker 1:Well, man, that's really kind of you to say, and that's what I'm figuring out right now is just like where, where is the real? Me Like, what parts are real and what parts do I need to focus on now? And uh, yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3:Well, that's just a piece right, your self identity that we picked. You chose to pick yourself.
Speaker 1:Kind of right Going back to my dad, if you can you.
Speaker 3:you have a son who's out of the high school now yeah, just I don't know you didn't see him at 19, yep just out of high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's taller than me. I I gotta meet him yeah, you bring him in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, tayden, you remember when he was just a little yeah camper.
Speaker 1:yeah, man, it's been a while, um, but anyway I have my, my two oldest have just kind of surpassed where I was when my dad died, and it's been how old are they?
Speaker 1:So eight and 11. Um, so it's been really eyeopening because I can see myself for who I was then and what I needed more than anything, and it was that presence to reinforce confidence and uh, to reinforce confidence and uh, and even self-compassion, and uh, that's something that you have to be around, you know, and that's something that I kind of missed out on. We all grow into what our parents paint a picture of, you know, as far as an ideal, and my dad was always just physical presence. Right, I wanted my kids to have a dad that um was there was, was respectable, was there, but also physically.
Speaker 1:You know, was your dad a big guy. He was tall, he wasn't.
Speaker 2:I mean he had a, he had a root beer belly.
Speaker 1:He worked non-stop man. He, he coped by working more and anyway, that's another story. But I guess the focus that I had growing up and trying to imagine what I needed to become was okay. I wanted to be a firefighter because of what those guys did on my worst day. I reflected on that a lot, you know, and I saw how they were there when nobody else was and they tried. Even though they couldn't do anything for him, they tried and they even let. My brother, who was 11 at the time, my older brother, he they tried to call it and he started swinging on one of them and told them like not yet, you know, like there's still potential there and I guess, as far as like taking those hits, they just let him hit him and it's just that image of that kind of selflessness and that kind of love.
Speaker 1:Sure, it was always powerful.
Speaker 3:So then you decided to be the guy that let people hit you.
Speaker 1:Kind of yeah. So I needed to be strong and I needed to be able to take a hit and I just the problem was I kept lining up for him and, just, you know, asking for the hits, Um, and well during your reckless teenage years, right Yep. Well, even fire I, I've always been just reckless. Um, so that's anyway. That's a battle with the reckless.
Speaker 3:I don't. I mean I've been on calls with you. You're not as far as that. I try not to be reckless.
Speaker 2:You're pretty good with other people's lives right, right, right, with your going into fires and whatnot, pushing the limits, pushing the limits.
Speaker 1:I've always been been there to push those.
Speaker 3:Pushing the envelope a little bit, a little bit fine, yeah, but I wouldn't say as far as the patient and the and the people you're with, I would say it was far from that well you're very good damn good at your job well, thanks man well you.
Speaker 1:You were my medic supervisor yeah, I guess. But so you have to say that yeah, no, I don't these guys. If I'm terrible, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I better right, you better be good. I I can say you know, from the outside looking at it, you'd never know the trauma that you'd been through. I, I've worked, we've known each other since. Well, I guess probably even sooner than that, if you were at mountain green but, at least I remember at least 2012 ish, 11 ish I was trying to think back today, when we really met working with. Northview and Roy Right. So I'm like, okay, that was when he was there, right? Isn't that about when you?
Speaker 1:took off, like to you know, from full-time to do this.
Speaker 3:December. I didn't do it till June 2016, bro. Oh really, yeah. I worked full-time till June of 2016 at Roy, and then I went to Weber in August of 2016. I've been at Weber five years. Okay, isn't that crazy that is nuts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, love it. Yeah, good for you. I, I do. But I look back and I think you know what. You've a lot of years to not know your backstory and to hold yourself physically is one thing, right, but mentally you've done a really good job as well. Maybe not so much in the last few years, but as far as your patient care, as far as the way you held yourself on calls your ability to stay stable, well, it's not. It's not even to compliment you. I'm just telling you the facts of working with you.
Speaker 1:It's good to hear, because sometimes you never know that right. Sometimes obviously we're our worst critics, but I did. I had a lot of passion for trying to be there on, you know, somebody else's worst day and I had the opportunity to be there on a lot of those almost 18 years of fire service Almost too many years, almost too many calls of people's worst days.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean that that is a big weight, uh, and homeless. They would swing, you know, and spit and all that, but, uh, but the swings and the hits, you know, that we usually take were more psychological and, uh, a lot of it was because we were there too late, there was nothing we could do and we had to walk away with a similar situation that I was left in. And that's, it's just painful, it's just life, man sometimes is the worst, and we got to be there for a lot of those worst days for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:I think the worst swings I've ever received are from myself, brother. Oh, yeah, right, we, we swing the hardest on ourselves, which is almost unfair, right Cause we put ourselves to these levels that a lot of people don't I'm not saying that most the majority of public doesn't but I'm like where we've signed up for and what we did in the fire paramedic world. We've set ourselves up for the highest risk of failure, like when you're going to a cardiac arrest, you're going to be 96 percent chance of failure and then we walk away, beating ourselves up on how come we didn't win? Yeah, right, like, really so when you, and then maybe even less than that, right, it may be 0.4 percent, but whatever it is, depending on how long they've been down and typically as we show up in fire here in Weaver County was four minutes and 40 seconds Well, you may, if they've been down for five minutes before that, you're already in a bad spot, right? So unless you're inside that, you know, seven minute window, or so you, you had the best chance. But then we're walking into something that most people are saying oh good, they're here, they're going to fix it. Yeah, well, we're 15, 20, and then we walk away because it was a nine-month-old or a three-month-old or a kid's dad, right, and we'll go into one call that kind of.
Speaker 3:When you told me your story, we had a call in and I probably shouldn't even talk about where because it's a pretty unique situation, but we went in. It was a husband and wife. He was being deployed military. The next morning, 35-year-old male, as I said were. They were together and in the bathroom, uh, felled around the neck, sadomasification stuff, right. Well, the kids knocked on the door. Mom leaves, forgets about the husband, right, come back. We work at patient. Unfortunately can't get back. This guy still warm, still perfectly fit, like you were seriously six-pack, like the guy shouldn't have any. He has every reason to live. He has the body that should be able to get through this. Can't do it, little kids. You know you got eight, seven, yeah, man it takes a lot and they're watching you.
Speaker 3:And then that minute I left, we called it on scene. We got to the car, another call to a cardiac arrest. It was on the same block. So we go down the street, what right? It's right off the road.
Speaker 1:That's really unusual.
Speaker 3:Right really well, we had next doors in riverdale we went from one house to the next door neighbor to the next house, but so same block, same day, drug addict that had died on us three times. Guess what we get back you got him back again. Oh man yeah not that he doesn't deserve to live.
Speaker 3:That contrast though, right, it's frustrating, right? You got this guy that doesn't take care of himself and doesn't do anything, but always is overdosing, and we're in there trying to get him with Narcan. Get him back. I mean, fine, I dealt with that a lot.
Speaker 1:Salt Lake downtown, yeah, sure man, there's full of it's full of people who are out for their own um benefit and they don't care. They actually get pissed off when you come in our can of munch. Yeah, breathe them back to life. Yeah, man, anyways, um. But that contrast, I think, is something that the public really needs to try to wrap their heads around, because that's what our police do, right a hundred percent agree.
Speaker 3:So they beat us there. I got pulled over the other day. Guess what he said what? Who's the second responder? I'm like, oh really, yeah is this where we're going?
Speaker 2:so?
Speaker 3:second responder. He goes, I go. What does that mean? He goes, you're second, you're never there first, like I'm always first.
Speaker 1:I'm like okay, fair enough yep, those poor guys sitting there or ladies sitting in their car waiting, and they are a lot of times doing CPR way before us, the good ones, right. Anyway, in Salt Lake it's so understaffed we don't even have them on auto accidents, or didn't you know? They still don't. There's a big problem in Salt Lake with that and we could talk a little bit more about that. But the point I wanted to make was if the police are affected, fire is affected, we're family Right. Was if the police are affected, fire is affected, we're family Right. And no one in the first responder group, including ERs, hospitals, all of them, none of them suffer alone. We all suffer together. And one thing that they've dealt with is just the ignorance in regard to that shift in autonomic flexibility. Right, they have to go from sympathetic I'm going to get shot, I need to protect myself, I need to, you know, pull my gun to pulling over a sweet little lady who shouldn't be driving anymore because she's too old.
Speaker 1:Right, fair and having to, you know, bring it down from this level to that level with 20 seconds. 20 seconds, but also years of sleep deprivation, years of stress that no department, even though we have the understanding, the technology, no department that I know of in Utah, is doing what needs to be done for their first responders to manage the amount of stress that we are and we are expected it's not just us, the expectation hovers above us to be superhuman, right.
Speaker 1:Every call, every call, every person. Yep, they all expect that, but governments, you know, don't really want to provide we just talked about that Even the slightest amount of financial support to make that possible At all. And that was so frustrating to me with our wellness programs. That was so frustrating to me with our wellness programs and anything political that came in that would threaten jobs of the bosses. All of it would just be pushed off or it would dissolve into nothing, Right, and it would be put on the backs of the guys and ladies who are already bearing too much but aren't going to say no. Because that's not what we do. We don't say no.
Speaker 2:You can't.
Speaker 1:I mean we can't, but I mean there is a line Well, mentally we can't we, mentally we can't. Mentally, we can't. I mean, that's taken advantage of, I think.
Speaker 3:I agree. We were just talking about this earlier. I said you know, the bad thing about fire for me and it got me in more trouble than duty was conduct on and off duty Like. Not only are you expected to be this great person at work, you have to be a great person at home, and it's not that you don't want to be, but just to let it out sometimes would be wonderful.
Speaker 3:But then you're worried about a write-up for your conduct off duty Like and I don't mean being flagrant, but just whatever it may be Maybe just being a jerk to someone at the gas station where you're not even in uniform, but it gets back because you worked for Salt Lake City Fire, that this guy was a dick. Well, you don't have the other half of the story, but you're getting a write-up. And even though that guy stole your gas thing and pushed your wife you know what I mean you can't even let go ever. So you're held to this unrealistic expectation that is given to you by the general public that you have to, you know, conduct yourself in a way that you're always on duty regardless, and it's not that it's an impossible thing to do, just an unfair expectation, it's.
Speaker 1:It's unlivable right. It's because it's not just there. We're in a society where distractions are. We're drowning in them right now. Their social media is built to basically show us only what we want to see, which is not helpful as far as what's pitted against us right now to really step into the potential that we're all capable of, which I think is incredible. The unreal expectations through media as far as what a husband should be, what a wife should be, what marriage is meant to be. I'm just learning that it's not meant to be maternal, it's not meant to be soothing and comforting like it's meant to be a crucible amen, yeah, really hard.
Speaker 3:It is hard, man. Shannon and I've had our run man, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:Four years of hardcore before I mean the last couple years been fine, but there was a bump oh, we're, we're in there, man, we're fighting yeah, it was hard yeah, it's a grind to just I don't know how many times I left the house in the trailer like I'm out, and then I did like one night we left to move out. I'm like I'm out of here. I'm like I get it. You want me out? I can feel it. Yeah, I'm gonna pack up the rv. I got two flats by the time I got to the camp two, two, not one, two, both wrapped around the axle. So guess where? I slept? On the side of the freeway, right in my trailer and I'm like huh.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's the worst.
Speaker 3:So I called back. I'm like you think I can come home. I got the rubber tires wrapped around the axles. I have one spare tire, not two. Like I really don't want to but dude it. It's brutal. It's brutal and fire doesn't help it and it's what's not fair to her. It doesn't. You're gone 48 hours, shifts or 24 on whatever you're doing, and then you have to deal with what you see every day and you know we'll sit there and have conversations. She's like I don't know you were on that call. Like I don't know you did that. Why didn't you tell me you did that? Like there's just too many like when do you share, when don't you share? And then sometimes you don't want to share it because you lost in your mind the something that was already set up to lose or it's heavy man and it's just painful I don't want to talk about it and they don't need to hear all of it which back to your cops.
Speaker 3:This is what's unfair to police even more. We got a partner.
Speaker 2:I got you sitting next to me in my truck these guys get their car by themselves.
Speaker 3:They can't even work it out. Yeah, you and I can banter and maybe joke unfairly like that's some ways that we get rid of it, right? It's like oh well, you know, whatever it made me hungry, let's go eat. But whatever, right. But there, however, you're going to deal with it. Those poor buggers.
Speaker 1:Man, the expectation for them to be isolated, like you're saying, but also put in these situations where they are operating in a superhuman realm and really that's what happens, I think you know. We go into fires, as far as firefighting goes, and we're in 600 degree temperatures and our bodies and our minds, man, through all of that, they take an incredible beating and then we're expected to just be normal and, you know, continue to produce positive outcomes and it's just not realistic if, if they're not taking into account the wellness of the individual and the uniform this is what I loved about what your program that you're working on right I I really I think it's a super important part like this whole wellness program you're setting up and then fitcon and all the stuff that you've been involved with.
Speaker 3:But back to your, your initial story. I totally agree when it comes to police and fire and our expectations in the realm we live in. But you got to put it back on a little bit like we look at ourselves and and you see your story of where, like I, I identified here as fitness. But evan, what? What about the other 99.9 percent of the rest of the world to know about us, about you? Right, because to me so that was. It was impressive, thank you Period.
Speaker 3:You know I get to get emotional. It's impressive because, you know, I get more emotional when I look at you, simply because it was such a shallow piece of who I know about Evan, right, little piece. What is your fitness? Impressive for sure, thank you, man. But it was not it that the Evan that I knew was like this, this other person that was super disciplined, that is this yeah, great. You know, I love the fact that you set this up and it was cool and I couldn't live to that. So maybe that's why I kind of diminished those pieces, but it was a small piece of Evan so well, thank you man.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm going to take that and I really appreciate it. But I'm also going to give some of that glory back to my family and my my mom. She's a rock star man, she, she raised us five kids. My older brother, who lives with me, has down syndrome.
Speaker 3:My little sister, so is that a picture of the fit con? Is that your little older, your little brother that I saw? Older brother, my older brother?
Speaker 1:freaking awesome picture slightly. Yeah, we're working out. Oh yeah, yeah, we got it. We did a fit con thing together, um, with uh, a group that we kind of put together for him to have some friends to work out with, basically, and we did just some odd object fun um looks like that. It was a lot of fun, but he's definitely a big part of me coming to terms with, with really who we are and what we can contribute, because he's operating at maybe an 11 year old level.
Speaker 3:Was he the older brother that found your?
Speaker 1:dad? No, he wasn't. It was my older brother, joe, who's actually a year younger. They're Irish, irish twins, james and joe, so joe's kind of always been the older, you know, um, brother. But anyway, yeah, he was the one that found my dad and he was actually, uh, of the the tragedy I I was set up man with a good crew, a good family, good friends, like I man. So part of the reason I feel motivated to do this is for that reason is just my gratitude. Talk about that. So when you say do this, let's help us understand my gratitude talk about that.
Speaker 3:So when you say, do this, let's help us understand it.
Speaker 1:So pull that up, yeah this is a curriculum for wellness coordinators. We changed the name um. We kind of took, uh, the idea of fit to respond and added fit to retire for the mantra, because it's really important the people that put in the years on the job deserve a good retirement.
Speaker 3:Truth is physically and mentally, both truth yeah.
Speaker 1:But truth is that that doesn't happen. No one's doing it, no, and it becomes so much, it almost has to become so much part of your identity, um, to survive it, that when you're not a firefighter anymore that's something I've been dealing with is like okay, so where's my value then, if I can't do these things anymore, if I can't contribute in that way? But that's why I feel also, um, like you know, I don't know, uh, set up to not be destroyed by what's happening right now with me.
Speaker 3:Um, because using this and pushing this still.
Speaker 1:Well, I haven't been able to much lately. Lately I've been dealing with lawyer battles and we can talk a little bit about that in a minute. I had to medically retire, did that?
Speaker 3:go through, by the way, cause I've heard both stories. No, it hasn't yet.
Speaker 1:Okay. So yeah, we're going to talk. We're going to talk about that too. Going back to my brother, right, those paramedics that showed up on our farm. They walked away with some heavy trauma, yeah, right of the kid. Just, you know, up until they leave home. I think, and I'm just starting to realize that, that they have a grasp on reality through through us.
Speaker 3:You know, I think even that's that's not even quite fair. I think maybe even 50% of them forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Maybe that's true, yeah, right Cause. I mean you're 50,. You may have only had eight years of impression from your father.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But don't tell me you don't have half of your father in you today.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I mean that's the thing that is, um carries the part, part of him that lives on through me Right. So that's part of the gratitude that um motivated me to create this program to honor those guys that came and sacrificed. I don't know them, I don't know what happened, but I'm sure that they felt the pain that we both felt, you know, going home and trying to be good husbands good play pass.
Speaker 3:Have fun at the soccer game yep, yep exactly wonder why you're not in a good mood to your wife yeah, like how come? What's wrong with you today? Yeah, you're not even going to say hi, or okay, I said hi, but what? And it's?
Speaker 1:and we don't even put the two and two together, because it it's so, uh, fragmented in our brains. Really, what? Where all the discontent, where the pain is coming from? Because it's hard to. I mean, some of these things we deal with are impossible to comprehend. The death of my dad for me is going to take forever right For me to wrap my head around that, and every next great thing that happens or you know bad thing that happens in my life is always going to be accompanied with a grieving process of him not being there. I don't even know if you should ever get over it.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's something we shoot for right. I think it's something we appreciate.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that's the thing that I mean terminology, the ideas of what it means to to lose somebody, uh, all of that, I think, needs to change. I think we need to not use terminology of get over it or, um, you know, not even transcend it. Be with it, right, and that's hold it hold it, appreciate it Exactly.
Speaker 3:Where does that sound it? Hold it, appreciate it Exactly. As weird as that sounds. No, I could take you to some of those traumatic calls that we've seen and go back and be like you know what. I can appreciate that and I actually can use this as as leverage in my life to make my life better and to appreciate small things.
Speaker 3:And maybe to keep my kid off the tramp or whatever it may be like. It brings just a little bit more awareness and we don't let those visual nonverbal programs go to waste, Right Like, hey, let's not, let's not do that. Help a neighbor, help a friend or just appreciate these small little things that we may look past.
Speaker 1:The job is dealing with time and trying to preserve that precious time that we have together. You know, and it goes in two seconds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything goes out the window, right. Every care, every care goes out the window when, when that happens, when somebody's life is in danger, and we're trying to bring them back, you know, and and that is what we're dealing with is trying to restore or protect that time that we have together. And yeah, I think that perspective, man, it's incredible. That's the bright, good side of this weight that we have, I think, to manage, but part of the death.
Speaker 3:It's a lens right. So I have a good friend named Bo Lewis and he's creating a program, uh, called lens desk Right, so he talked about it. So it's more for an employment base deal, an employee employee relationship, and he had a little program with his employees internally that really kept his attrition down low and I'm like how do you do this? Well, he goes we read these books and we do these programs and we implemented some of it here, like we hired some of his coaches and we did some of this and it really helped our business a lot, and part of it was the lens conversation. Yeah Right, trade lenses. Now look it through mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or look it through the employee, or look at through our patient, or look at through their family member, right, and so now I'm not great at it, but I try really hard to remind myself to just trade me lenses really fast, like, do you mind just look through mine? Yeah, look through mine for a second and I'll be happy to open mindly, right, is that word open-mindedly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so, that's it, you nailed it.
Speaker 3:Look at the uh, look at what you're seeing, look how you're seeing it. Right, and it's completely different. Right, and it's funny because it comes to simple as a picture. When you look in the mirror and you see your face, you see one thing If you do a 180s flip of that face image, which is actually what other people see, you won't appreciate that picture. You won't like the picture that people look at because that's not what you see in a mirror. Yeah Right, but other people won't like the picture that's reversed, because that's not who you are to them. And it's that simple. It's as simple as a lens.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so when Bo was teaching me this whole concept, I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to take five minutes and just swap your lenses. Whether I like you or not, there's a reason. You visually see something the way you see it, man.
Speaker 1:I love is beautiful. That's actually a big part of building rapport and part of our wellness program that put together and that that was a big piece that really helped me um, you know, survive, or I guess from my part of marriage it's it's helped me to survive this past struggle. Basically, we don't see life as it is. We see through the lens, as a perception that we've developed over time.
Speaker 3:The fragmentation that you're talking about. The reason why we go home and see a different thing that your wife's seeing. We don't understand why they're mad and we're more mad because they're mad and they don't understand what we've had and we can't even put it through, they don't have our lens on and we don't have theirs.
Speaker 1:So it's some like a good practice that I've done. Meditation If you haven't done. It really is like a life changing. That's one thing that has helped me to detach and to gain that perspective is uh I, I just you know. Perspective is uh, I, I just you know. Sit and try to imagine that, as far as what she's experiencing and and uh, how that compares, um, and it really has made a big difference, um, so, if you know, if you don't get anything out of this, I think that's a pretty good.
Speaker 3:I've never done a little nugget.
Speaker 1:I should try meditation. I think you do it, but you just I love Asian food.
Speaker 3:Is it the official idea, the official meditation?
Speaker 1:You said you just do it, man. You do it when you try to reflect on how somebody sees a certain thing, or when you're just being grateful and when you're being in the moment, whenever that is. That's mindfulness. It doesn't have to be a strict.
Speaker 3:In fairness to me, I have to say that it's usually after I lose my temper, you go back to that. Then I'm like I wonder what they're damn it. Why did I do that again? I'm really trying to be to learn. The discipline is slow to anger.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like that.
Speaker 3:It's really hard. It is hard for me, like I mean I I have a tendency to just say what's on my tongue, you know unfortunately, I have a history of whatever.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking you got it and that's not always a great deal, but at the same time I've been trying to just remind myself hey, you got to be slow to anger, especially to our kids and, even more importantly, to our wife, because they're dealing with the other half of us that we don't love about us too right, which is a burden that they're trying to help improve, which may may feel like only half of us, but feels like 99% of us to them, because it is the heaviest part. Oh yeah, right, so I believe it is anyway. I don't know if that's the truth, but I know when I have my frustrations with my wife, she's 99.9% wonderful, but that 0.1% seems extremely heavy when she's not right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as far as um as that introspection, you can't really see clearly unless cultivate that self-compassion or that self-awareness. Sitting with the pain that I have on a daily basis has made a world of difference, man. It's like just allowing for it to be sets me up so that I am a little less quick to anger. And I think anger is good if we use it to break down the parts that need to be broken down. But kids, man, there's a lot of vulnerability there and we can hurt them in ways that last a long time if it's not revisited and addressed. So I agree with you, man, especially with kids, we gotta figure that out careful, yeah, and I I'm not good at it.
Speaker 3:So, especially with my boy, if I have anything like I think, as I look at our parenting and I'm sure 100 of all parents say this the oldest had the hardest discipline and the biggest fear and he was the soldier like tayden had to deal with the worst of me for sure oh yeah, I, he is a way better man than I am or I ever was at 19.
Speaker 3:That's every parent's dream, every parent, and he is every parent's dream, like you know, graduated in honor with honors. He got a scholarship and two scholarships. So I mean, and then he also was not always the straight, a nerdy student either, like, he did give me my heartburn and and he did go, he stole mom's car at 14 and smoked weed and got pulled over by Corey Stark and you know what I mean, like, ran away and went to the mountain. The kid wasn't smart enough to realize that in the middle of the dark in Morgan, when you're walking the M with a flashlight, we probably can see you Right. Like there he is Right, anyway. So you know, know, he did give me the heartburn and he did give me part of the stuff that I was like my whole life, similar and far from yours, by the way. But my parents got divorced early and my mom was a single mom and we had no money. It was church welfare, same man, it's same.
Speaker 1:Sob story, right yeah, it's just different, right different my dad disappeared to california.
Speaker 3:He packed up and moved out. He tried to. Uh, he was rough with my mother. I said get out. He packed his shit and he left and never to see him again, never moved back in, right, he just was gone.
Speaker 3:And that was really odd. I was, you know, 15 or 16 years old and then they got an argument over some stupid books and grabbed my mom by the throat and held her up to the wall and I jumped off my bed and I remember decking him and I said get out of my house. And he left Right, and I've never really had a deep relationship with my dad. I don't. We're not the same people. He's, he's not me and I'm not him and I'm thankful and I'm sure there's things that I should be about him. But again, for me it was kind of the and I don't mean it in the death sense, of any form of death but it was a weird dynamic. I picked sides, sides, so he'll will no longer be at 16. I was so mad that you're dead to me kind of right and it's like I said, it's nowhere near the same.
Speaker 1:I love my dad, we're just different people no man, I, I think that, uh, it's, it is. I think, first off, that everybody faces their own everest.
Speaker 3:That is biggest to them, facing it right, sure it's perspective it's all my problem was is I wrote it off fast, didn't care, probably right back. I don't give a fuck whatever he's gonna let it bug you I tried. Yeah, but it I tried. I'm 46 years old, yeah and here I sit with, obviously, some frustration in it right, I have my own animosity towards it right the same pieces that I missed.
Speaker 3:You know he was the VP of EF Hutton and so a stockbroking firm early on. And then the stock market crash of 87. Here's my dad, ultra successful corner office, you know. We're flying around wherever we want Fiji for vacation, france, wherever we were going and then all of a sudden, church welfare my mom's still in toilet paper rolls at the gas station, right. So it was a super dynamic change and thank God it happened because then I had some appreciation to what real reality was. I had none right. There was no appreciation of what is real look like. And then then all of a sudden it was like uh, what's the salt and pepper from? Is this Denny's? Yeah Right, it was a weird world and it was okay. But what I did was a weird world and it was okay. But what I did what, if I could be thankful looking back is it did teach me the appreciation of work and the value of a dollar, which I had none like. If I got an a, I got a go-kart bro what you got an.
Speaker 3:A. What go-kart do you want? It's huge.
Speaker 1:No, it's dumb, like ultimately I mean it's, it's huge as far as skewing motivation and where it should come from, right as far as development and all of those things. If it, uh, yeah, I could see, um, how that devastation is similar to the devastation that I felt. Man, I'm grateful just like it sounds like you are that I got hit by life early, so that maybe I can enjoy it a little bit more.
Speaker 3:You're way younger, you're half well, well, I mean, you know, I mean that I don't know what I would have done at eight because my dad was still my tower all the way up until I started seeing some deterioration, you know, in his character and I don't mean that in a positive or negative way. I mean what I felt like is important. Maybe this is a skewed deal, but work for me is what is important, obviously probably. But for him, when shit hit the fan and this is hit the fan and this is, I can assure you, this is where this comes from when, when shit's the fan, my dad's a giant puss and he lays down and watches tv and does nothing for fucking seven years. Nothing did nothing, right. So I got this huge.
Speaker 3:My mom worked her ass off to two jobs every day, cutting hair, doing this. My dad to go count the money and go do his thing, right, you know. So I had this. I started after that age, whatever 1987, right. So october, something, 1987, it was during the deer hunt. All of a sudden I'm like who is this guy?
Speaker 3:yeah, right wait, am I hero? Yeah, I can. And now you're stealing from my mother in my and that's how I visually saw it wow, because my mom's cutting hair and he'd come down and he'd take the money, members, and he'd go buy books. And we have. No, my dad doesn't work for seven years. My mom's cutting hair Every person can. He'd come in, get money, go buy books, go buy drinks, go buy whatever for him. Here we are doing whatever.
Speaker 3:Now, he's a wonderful, kind man, but it was always self-centered. He still struggles with that today. He can't see what he does to others, right, and, and it is what it is. I'd tell him to his face it's fine. But at the same time, I got really angry at it and I thought you know what? I can promise you one thing when shit hits the fan, I swear to god I'll never lay down. Yeah, never lay down. And I think this is a critical point for you and take it as you will. This is where you have to stand up. Oh, yeah, this is where you have to stand up, because your kids are learning now. Granted, three years of laying down is okay, but there's a point where you're like okay I learned my lessons.
Speaker 3:I don't um, I don't I'm not saying you're not laying down.
Speaker 1:By the way, I'm just no, no, I, I. I understand where you're coming from and I did you know the the ego or the insecure part was like oh shit, am I laying down?
Speaker 2:is that what?
Speaker 1:I'm doing sure and I I understand where that's coming from what I mean by that.
Speaker 3:So to clarify it really fast yeah, go ahead Is. This is a really impactful time where you can multiply it by a 10 factor. Yeah, or you can say look what my dad did, what happened to him and how he created this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Regardless of the pain, regardless of the devastation, yeah, right. And that there is positive daylight, that the sun will always rise and that flat waters are boring. Yeah, that waves matter, that paddling matters, that breakdown matters, that appreciation only comes from tough times. It only comes from there. If look at britney spears, right, you go through these wonderful, wonderful periods and then you never lose.
Speaker 1:So when you do lose, you don't even know how to deal with it.
Speaker 3:Right, and so I I appreciate fell. What do we say? Fell fast and fell frequent. As much and as fast as you can, the more fell fast and fell frequent. Right, and why? Because the faster we fell and the more frequent we fell, the fall's smaller, the scar's less, the wounds are quicker to heal.
Speaker 1:So you encourage your team to fell fast, fell every day, and you don't stay down as long after you figure out how to get back up, because it's not a cliff right.
Speaker 3:You look at this Britney Spears deal and I appreciate everything she's done and that she's been through. It's not a demeaning component, but she's on what the world sees as a mountain and it may be completely wrong. Yeah, we may be wrong, right, but that all of a sudden that she has a trip up and it's a giant cliff because she's going from disney and music to everything that the world sees as an empire, to the very bottom, and now we're shaving our head, not knowing who we are right, which to me, I completely it, especially after I went through what I went through. People are like, oh, who the fuck's that lady? She's crazy. Like no, she's human, yep, it's two different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, without our own pains, we wouldn't be able to understand the pains of others. And that's what we need as parents we need to be able to empathize and and feel what they're feeling and and, uh, have the courage to sit with them and and remind them. Like you said, the sun will rise.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 1:Nothing's permanent here. You know it's going to change and it's up to you whether you want to make something of it. You know, and that's the, that's the difference. You know, as far as my pains, my struggles, you know, I don't think it's fair for me to say that maybe I've had more or less than others, because it's all they're different. Yeah, it's all the perspective of the individual and not just the perspective, the level that you can handle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and at any certain point, christ, not whether church or not. I mean, obviously I heard a scripture as you were listening to it. So, by the way, why, if he even does it, when he's by himself? So amen, and which is a beautiful thing, right, but I don't think God throws any trial at anyone that they can't handle. We just don't know we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, we just don't know we can and he doesn't bless us in the way that dogmatically we've been taught. That he blesses, it is through suffering.
Speaker 3:Everyone's blessings always seems better than ours. Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Looking out, it seems like everybody's struggles seem harder because, man, like your story with your dad, I can't even comprehend that Mine was devoted to us right, and I think he sacrificed his life for his love of nature and and us.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I don't know exactly what that means. I don't I'm not saying it was consciously. I think that it was a sacrifice, though, and and I honor him and I even honored people that have wronged me by doing something with, with that pain that I was given, and whether it be a call, whether it be, you know, whatever struggle we're dealing with, if we can extract some meaning from that and find purpose and build our path. You know, marcus Aurelius, I think, is uh, he's got a quote that's something like uh, the obstacle becomes the way. There's a book, um, a really good one, by ryan holiday. It's entitled that, um, it's about stoicism, but it really is the truth and it's up.
Speaker 1:So you've been reading a lot because you sound really well oh man, I've been, I've been trying to figure out his vocabulary is great like.
Speaker 3:I have to say like so you're searching I'm searching, yeah, so let's hear it, let's hear the story. Like we people are probably wondering what the frick oh yeah, so what's this whole? Thing yeah, let's, let's go right. So you left, tell us about the department you leave. You progressively go to salt lake, so let's go through the step mountain, mountain, green.
Speaker 1:So Mountain Green started when I was 17. And you know still remember the first calls. It was first time CPR on I-50, i-80. 84. Yeah, 84. It's been a while Anyway. Yeah, it seems like it's yesterday and my brother was there with me. Les Stone Stone was the chief, yeah, chief Stone with me um and, uh, less stone, less, yeah, chief stone. He actually is dating my wife's aunt, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3:Tell him hi for me I haven't seen him in a while. Tell me, miss him. He's nothing wrong with the new chief, but he's no chief compared to stone.
Speaker 1:So yeah, he held it down for a long time, um, and he, uh, he's, I think, can join his retirement Anyways. So yeah, I went on a mission, served an LDS mission, went to San Jose, california, and you know as far as my views of religious belief, they've definitely changed since then. But I am not, I don't regret doing that. I think there's a lot to be said about just devoting completely yourself to serving, you know, for some time, whether it be two years or whatever you decide it should be Well, I think, christ what he said live like him right, which?
Speaker 3:what was his life Service? Oh weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Was it coffee? Probably not.
Speaker 1:Was it beer? Probably not, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't think it was words of wisdom. Fine, right, but their wisdom like, don't walk on white carpet with shitty boots Right. I'm just saying that when we sit down and I may be completely wrong my wife this is my wife and I's pit right now, by the way, and bless her heart she's. She's probably right, probably is I'm just saying that my coffee is my pit Right and I don't drink that much. This is just something.
Speaker 1:No, man. Well, that's where I've changed right. Because he came and he said basically hey, all of those laws of Moses, those are out the window. All right, stop focusing on those. The Pharisees, you know the Sadducees, they were crushing the spirit of the law by forcing the letter of the law. It's important to realize that, because that's where we're at now. He says basically no, that goes out the window. Everything serves this law, which is to love God and love your neighbor and even love your enemy and that man. It's such an important lesson because the enemy resides within us, right?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, that's pretty profound.
Speaker 1:We have to figure out how to love that part of ourselves, and that as far as making my marriage oh wow, that's pretty profound. What's the harm in letting people just kind of figure it out on their own? And and yeah, those, those are good things to try to construct and and understand. You know as superficially or you know as deeply as as we'd like, but the problem is we don't give people space to do that.
Speaker 3:You know, or too quick to judge, right Too quick to judge and social media doesn't help and all these other things that we live on every day. They're pixel deep. I was telling a friend of my wife's. So we have this little friend. She's a wonderful person. She's been struggling with emotional depression and suicide and I don't know her dad very well. Calls me yesterday out of nowhere saying, hey, I don't know what to do, yeah, so-and so's coming home. Um, really nervous, she's gonna be by herself tomorrow, first time she's been by herself in four months and she's been in the psych or in the mental health care facility.
Speaker 3:Right, don't need psych work, but, yeah, mental care facility help her just deal with mental health, which, by the way, I think was completely underserved in america yeah, completely underserved. Back to your homeless people. But I said, look, here's the problem. I said this young lady is super owned by her phone, right? So this is kind of a flip phone thing I like, because you get completely owned by it. You, you can see, it consumes all your time, and then your emotions are built off of a super pixel deep relationship. I said, unfortunately for her, she has a huge tiktok following and a huge instagram following, a huge right, so she's a social media person that has a big following, but when shit hits the fan and she needs to reach out to a friend, there's nothing. I said, so we have to look at this and I think where we get skewed is and most of America right when it comes.
Speaker 3:This is kind of what Ken and I were talking about yesterday when we talked about the first amendment and I said, hey, look, we get. We get a little bit, um bit numbed by by X boxes and death games and and you have, you know what is it? Grand theft auto and pub G and fricking halo and call of duty, where you get scores and points for blood and rape and stealing cars. So you get bonus points, right and you level up. Well, if you start this programming at one right Cause, kids babysit off their phone and they don't really understand that they don't get another life or they don't get points by shooting somebody else, right, there's just completely numbing. And then they go in and they share this on a social media platform that's a million people wide. And then when she hits a fan and they don't understand how to deal with reality, there's no depth that it's a mirage in the desert.
Speaker 3:Right they have this big, huge, giant field of what looks like a lake of friends, but when they dive in the water to really look for help, it is nothing. It is one pixel deep, hugely broad. Distorted reality completely. There's not one shoulder to cry on. So what we've lost is our ability to have social interaction at a human level. That just doesn't judge somebody to cry on my shoulder.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I don't know what you're going through, but I'm here.
Speaker 2:Here's my shoulder.
Speaker 3:Don't care, but right, I'm here for you.
Speaker 1:That's what church was meant to be as far as I concerned. I think you know Christ said that.
Speaker 3:I think it's still meant to be that way.
Speaker 1:Two or three are gathered together, there will I be also. But yeah, dogma, andma and uh, judgment always interrupts that into the superficiality of our, um, our environment.
Speaker 3:Lately it makes it almost impossible it does make it and I'll give you one story really fast I talked to ken.
Speaker 3:I went to the bishop's interview. Haven't been for a long, long time, bless his heart. I know where he was going with it, but it was really off-putting. You know, I want to just go to church. Sometimes my wife's been going and I love the fact that she goes and it's great for her and it's great for my family. She's a great example. If that's what we need to put our effort in, then more power to her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, I'm trying in a very poor way, like I'm not great at it, right, I want to go with very little attitude, right, but I in my heart, my head, I guess in my heart like, yeah, you know what, every time I go it, and then this is probably really shallow, but it's like, hey, you haven't seen you in a while. Man, we're lucky, we're not getting thunderstruck or something. Okay, funny, I get it. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, um, are you ready for a tithing settlement? Like no, I just came to church today, like I've been here in months, I get, I know we haven't been able to catch you. I'm like, okay, maybe that's it. Well, no, probably, cause you do need to tithe, no matter what. You have to give 10% away. I firmly believe it, not necessarily to the church, but you better give away 10% or you'll never get.
Speaker 1:life is balanced. Yeah, and I, I don't see it just financially giving time? Yeah, it can be time I mean time is more valuable, and that's kind of the way I've seen it.
Speaker 3:And that's what I. People leverage dollars for time and so they they feel like they're giving cause. They just say, yeah, I paid my tithing, but you wouldn't roof the neighbor. That's bet, that's. You know, water was leaking on his mattress and you went to church to talk about the great things you'll do, but you refused to roof his house because he's an alcoholic Money is superficial man. It's digital numbers on a screen and there's zero happiness there.
Speaker 1:Superficial Yep Right, it really the, the connection and the church or you know that uh relationship with the divine or you know with the, you know the higher powers, it. It is in every conversation where two people are honestly trying to understand what the hell is going on?
Speaker 2:What in the world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how we can make something of it and how we can encourage and support other people in doing that, and that's why I really appreciate what you do, man, and that you have success and you're not just using it for your own gain.
Speaker 2:I don't need anything, I know man, I just using it for your own gain. I don't need anything. This is I know, man, I just give it away, I don't care, I don't care. It's incredible.
Speaker 1:And that's probably man.
Speaker 3:I love to see people find success with that sort of attitude, but I, I think. So back to the church thing. I go to the. He's like hey, can you come meet with the Bishop, right. And I'm like, okay, and granted, I go in defensive Like I'm not getting a calling. I've been to church twice in six months and because you saw my face doesn't mean I want to go to church tomorrow. Yeah, right, but okay.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:So I go in there a little guarded. I'm off putting anyway, probably because it always seems like you're walking into a loaded interview. Right, I appreciate it, it is appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I feel like right.
Speaker 3:And I was in the elders quorum presidency and I did that and I probably missed that calling the most. I felt like I was good at it. I swore like a sailor, but I still felt like I was good at it. Um, so I walk in and we have this conversation. He's a wonderful guy and I think he means all well, right. And then we got into the conversation. Hey, I see that you had to recommend back in the day and I says yeah, yeah, I've never been.
Speaker 3:I felt a little bit off I I felt like I didn't deserve to go and my stake president before said that um, you know, if you feel good about it, I feel good about it. I don't care if you drink coffee, as long as you do better like it's just super minor to me yeah and he goes.
Speaker 3:So when I got home and I had my recommend, I'm like I don't know if I feel good about it or not. So we never went my wife and I didn't, but we got one and we just were like I don't know if this is okay, cause we still drink a drink or something at the time and then we'll have a cup of coffee every morning. And I did, but he said it's so minute, like you want to just help, but we don't care about that, we're just going to let you go to the temple.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, I think, how it should be man.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Cause it's I on those, I never went letter of the law things and we crush the spirit. What is it supposed to? What are we learning with this here, like why, why is that rule there? And I mean, you have to understand the letter of it before you can appreciate the spirit of it. Right, like it. So that's why the old testament came before the new testament is all old testament, like a lot of rules 613 or something like that for moses laws. Dude, I've never read the scriptures you. I mean I haven't, but I've never done it.
Speaker 1:I haven't read them well so yeah anyways, as far as that goes, I think that's kind of how life is patterned, is we? We gotta figure out how, what the letter of the law is, and then, once we feel like we've mastered that, we push it and we try to live, live in that spirit of the law, and then we have to um contract back in when we mess up right or when it gets a little too crazy, or that's dead on too many too many drinks or whatever.
Speaker 1:No, that's dead on yeah and and if we're continually trying to progress in that way, that's what it's meant for man, and and if we're honest about it too, right, sure, that's not easy. So, uh, getting back to our timeline, went on a mission, was good, came back, got a job at uh gold's gym the old one on 25th street.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I was most jealous about. You kept trying to get me to fly. Still, I'm too big of a puss to do that to this day. I wish my daughter and I for halloween's went in there during COVID and we watched these kids and my daughter wanted to so dearly.
Speaker 1:My nine-year-old. She was just like.
Speaker 3:Dad, I want to do that. So bad, I'm like I still do it.
Speaker 1:We should get in there, do you really? Yeah, freaking Still let me so.
Speaker 3:This has been something that I.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a, I mean it. That was a big piece of where I developed a lot of self-confidence. Growing up, man, I was the worst student. I was always snowboarding and skateboarding and and trying to avoid any kind of discipline and just uh, you know, trying to destroy all the fears that I had and not knowing that the real fear was fear itself. That continued to plague me Um still does, but now at least I know Um. So I got knocked out probably eight times when I was in high school.
Speaker 3:So doing snowboarding, snowboarding, just real real reckless.
Speaker 1:Um, um anyway, uh, that's where I met. My wife was at iFly and, uh, after working there for a little bit, I got hired with Northview Fire Department, a little small town. Part-time, full-time.
Speaker 3:That's not so slow anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's not slow, no, they're picking up quite a bit Crazy. I remember coming home and my middle kid he's just like all sorts of fun and wants to play all the time, Just wants to experience all of life, and he wouldn't even come talk to me anymore. When I came home he was like, oh, this guy isn't, he's not going to, you know, reflect the best in me and he's grumpy. So I'm going to go find something else to do. And it was that that just hit me in the nuts and was like, Holy shit, what am I doing?
Speaker 1:And I had to really look at what was going on and the job was kicking my ass, man, it was. It was wrecking me physically and emotionally and spiritually, all of them. I was getting pummeled. So I started to try to find answers and realize, man, we, there is such a wealth of information out there to help with the issues that we have. So started at Northview as a health and wellness coordinator and they let us start with the first program, which was good but was terrible also because it was just so new, and to figure out all of the parts that needed to fit together and how to build rapport and how to have the the right tools that were needed. So there's always progression to offer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we learned some and then 50% or 60% is garbage, and then the other we'll keep, and then we take the next step.
Speaker 1:So it's evolved and it's progressed and we found the good resources and tools to give people that were in need and the assessment that really fit the job, which basically is looking at the areas that are impacted the most, and it's going to be sleep deprivation, the chronic stress and the exposures to chemical and psychological.
Speaker 3:So our own body, chemical, oh yeah, all those things, the chemical and psychological. So our own body, chemical, our own, oh yeah, all those things. So I've got a question where you've been on the complete extreme physical fit side that we've had the opportunity to see on one, would you say what do you think is more dangerous? Is it the physical fitness piece or do you think it's the mental fitness piece? Or fire, ems, police, military, where do you think you see the largest degradation in a person? Is it mental first, physical first combined?
Speaker 2:or is there?
Speaker 3:a priority into your program.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say that the one serves the other and it's like a what's the most dangerous? It's a structure right, and the way that we talk to chiefs about it is looking at the structure of wellness that has the pillars of nutrition, mental health, fitness, you know, even data collection, and and and. When one of those pillars falls, it makes it the whole you know, fire department, or the whole individual more vulnerable to collapse. So I would say Three-legged stool. The three-legged stool? Yeah, Is that what you think.
Speaker 3:So you kick a leg, you're more vulnerable, you topple over Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the thing. So if you're not accounting for mental health, then your physical health will be impacted definitely, and vice versa. Health will be impacted definitely and vice versa. So the approach is to just find the it's Occam's razor right, trying to find the easiest starting point to impact the greatest change. You know, as far as trying to understand where the individual is struggling the most, that cascades out all of these issues, and a lot of times it comes down to sleep deprivation, because it is man, it's.
Speaker 3:Well, it's non-existent, sleep doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:Well, it doesn't. And if we didn't need sleep, we would have evolved over these millions of years not to require as much. But we haven't. We still need the you know, probably the same amount Um, and a lot of that has to do with our intelligence and how we organize things that we learn in the day. That all happens when we sleep. So if we've gone on a lot of gnarly calls and have dealt with a lot of stressful things at home, all of that stuff isn't being put and filed into the correct places in our brain so that they'll be integrated in our defrag system exactly and used when needed, um. So that alone just places us in a higher state of uh, awareness or uh, you know, um. Hypervigilance is the word that they use for ptsd um. So, anyway, that that was the approach and that's kind of what I tried to do, and a lot of the things that I tried to incorporate really did make a big difference.
Speaker 3:And I still working with that program, Are you still?
Speaker 1:well I am. I. I don't know exactly where I'm meant to go with this. So the program is meant to help firefighters, support firefighters and I was starting to work with Salt Lake PD and that started to fall apart and I also worked. Jay Cutton is a guy who is huge in the fitness industry and he's got a bunch of different fitness apps and we had one that we built together, based off his others, called Frontline Tactical Performance, and we piloted that with Salt Lake and it went really well, man, but then I got hurt.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So all of that said, when I was told at Salt Lake that I could do this program because there was a day position open in Salt Lake, day positions would come open, you could apply for them.
Speaker 1:You go in for an interview and they would you know, based on how well you fit for the job, they'd give it to you or not, and based on, you know, longevity and seniority and all of that. So, chief Fox, I had the spot open for EMS coordinator. I went in and said, hey, al, I'd love to take the spot, but I want to do this. We need a wellness program. We have nothing and there's been a lot of good things that have happened that have been just dropped and left, and we need to kind of gather that back up and try to build something that is going to support the sense of meaning and purpose that drove us into this job, because that's what is being assaulted right, is that sense of meaning and purpose that makes us want to get up and get after you mean it's not transfers or a perfect report maybe for some man.
Speaker 1:That's not how I know, I know, that's just how I just are wanting a doctorate to you know.
Speaker 1:Report off of a well of a 12 dollar an hour wage. There are people that get into the job because they love wearing the badge and and the you know the credibility that gives them what the public and that's we all know those people and the true people who well, not people, but the true servant minded individuals get into it to try to make a difference and try to, you know, reduce the impact of chaos in people's lives, and they do make a difference. The great paramedics not only make a difference with the individuals they see on the call but, like yourself, man, I took you and what Parr parish taught me, and I took that with me to Salt Lake and and hopefully the impact that you gave me can also was also um given to those people that I interacted with. So it's huge. It's as far as the fire service goes, it's a brotherhood and we build off each other's energy. Um, and and that's what's part of our program that really went well.
Speaker 1:It's been different, as we tried to look at, you know, programs like CrossFit, like why did that blow up? Why was that so successful? It's because of the community that you built and the brand and the solidarity that you feel when you're with each other. We already had that component. Now we had that component Now we had to just kind of pull out the weeds of backbiting bullshit and, you know, figure out how to build rapport and and have all that pre-work done so that when shit got sideways we would feel comfortable talking with somebody that was on the department about that Cause I think you know as well as I do a lot of the departments um go through phases right where I wouldn't talk to a single person on the department I worked for. You know that your crew, just because there's so much backbiting and it's hard, I mean, if you hear somebody talking shit on another person, you're not going to want to talk to that person about anything, because likely they're going to be doing that.
Speaker 3:It's crazy. All of a sudden you'll be on a crew that's just like family and they go fishing and hunting and boating together. And then the next shift you change to. All of a sudden you don't even want to sit in the day room together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Chief Fox gave me the opportunity to run with this program and we built a robust health and wellness program. I think I've had a lot of people come and say that it's been helpful and, um, you know your feedback. There's just been a lot of really good feedback. Um, and it was, it was a labor of love, man, I have a lot of respect.
Speaker 3:Did you put this whole book together with your team?
Speaker 1:Yeah, salt Lake, so a lot of it is, uh, the curriculum.
Speaker 3:How many inches is that?
Speaker 1:Like 12 inches. 12 inches, like. Who can write that long?
Speaker 3:No, a lot of it is the curriculum. How many inches is that like?
Speaker 1:12 inches 12 inches, like, who can write that long? No, a lot of these are studies that support the concepts, so it's a textbook. This one is more meant for the firefighter in the station. This one I made for Northview Fire, basically breaking up the need of the firefighter in those four categories of chronic stress sleep deprivation, um, and exposures, uh, so that you can address those issues, um. So anyway, my mindset is part of the reason I got so hurt when I got hurt, right, um, so what happened? So I've never heard it. I devoted, okay, I don't know what. So I've never heard it. I devoted, okay, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 3:I've I've heard like this level and and truly don't know Like. I know that there's been some injury. I know it's something about a tree. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know this much detail as much as I know, which is a lot, come come from stories. So little preface to that. So I learned a lot of stuff really quick when I got into this program because I tapped into this part of myself that I never really understood before, this intellectual side that after I got hurt actually started to grow even more. But I got this arrogant idea and it started with a few stories that I heard. So Oreo Palmer is a guy that he's a. He was a chief in New York and nine 11 came. He was one of the battalion chiefs on call and he was the very first one up to the top of the tower and he was known for his fitness Right.
Speaker 3:So a lot of the people via stairs, stairs, 110 stories. Yeah, yeah, is that right 110?
Speaker 1:I'm just guessing, I don't remember I don't remember the exact, I think it was in the 70s, to be honest with you, okay is where he ended up, but it seems like a lot.
Speaker 1:it. I mean dude like uh, wells fargo, I've done, I've done some stair climbs and nothing is even close to that. So anyway, he got an award named after him, a fitness award, and some people that talked about him said that he lived more in 40 years than most would live with 100. You know he did more than most would live with a hundred. You know he did more. So that, combined with this quote that I love by Jack London, it's his credo. Want me to read it to you? Oh yeah, let's hear it. It set up my mindset that wasn't super healthy, right.
Speaker 3:But these are great people. So you want us to hear something to set us up for something that's not super healthy.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to bring it all around, so we make a full circle. Got it Right? So he says I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant Brit, in a brilliant blaze, than it should be stifled by dry rot. Stifled by dry rot, I'd rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me magnet in a magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time so that combined. You know, I had this idea of. I wanted to do that again. Sorry, jack london, I wanted to do the most.
Speaker 3:Who was that again? Sorry, jack London.
Speaker 1:Yep, wanted to do the most with the time that I had, and it it turned into an arrogant ambition that consumed my life. My wife will tell you, I spent 16 hours a day at the office putting the program together and it it was a time that I'm really grateful for. I think I needed to push myself. I think everybody should try to push themselves, you know, as hard as they can, hopefully before they get injured 16 hours a day isn't bad. I mean, you probably do 24 hours a day.
Speaker 3:No, no, no but at least eight, at least eight, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So I was trying to recover from a lot of sleep deprivation, but not really recovering. I was just grinding as hard as I could because I do feel passionate about this. We're leaving a lot of people without the tools and resources they need to thrive and, to you know, help as much as they could and also to limit the amount of shit that their family has to deal with because they didn't sign up for the job Right.
Speaker 3:So and they don't get the glory either no, they don't.
Speaker 1:They don't really, um, and that man, that's not something that they're aware of when they sign up to be a spouse to somebody that does a job like this. I don't think that we're any of us are really aware of what we're signing up for when we sign up for it. I have this picture on one of the books that we made of a recruit stepping off of a tower. Stepping off, if you can imagine, you know, those old, big looking like trampoline nets used to catch people with. And that's to me a really good analogy of signing up for the fire service is you got your crew below you, the department that's supposed to catch you when, when you make that step. But we're not, we're letting people slam.
Speaker 3:We are. Yeah, the trap's gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, or we've only got two people holding that big net and Wow Cause there's some really solid people right that try.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're only so empowered.
Speaker 1:The 20% have made it up the difference, I think for the you know application of responsibility on the 80 percent side, and it's the the matthew principle, right um? So anyway, I I was building the program and then this opportunity came up for me to go to california to help with the wildland fires, and I jumped on it because I've always wanted to be on that large scale of an operation, which was incredible to see.
Speaker 1:But I also, you know I I'm one that likes to experience everything and I want, wanted to help. I mean that's why we sign up. So my wife was a little uneasy, um, but she, you know, somewhat agreed to me going.
Speaker 3:Which means she said no.
Speaker 1:No, she might tell you now that she said no, but no, I think that she was uneasy about it, and for a good reason. Right, fires are some of the most dangerous things that we deal with, just because of the nature of weather and uh, fuels and and slopes and how they all kind of can be chaotic and do crazy things. And you know, one second going one way, the next second a few miles towards you, you know, or on you, um. So, anyway, we were part of task force team two, uh, and we were sent to help initially with the lilac fires, uh, by seaside, california, and we were protecting, uh, a racehorse ranch, um, some of them were million dollar breed, uh bred racehorses that compete in kentucky, derby, um.
Speaker 1:So we're doing spot fire checks, uh, and it was the end of the night and this part I remember I, I saw something on the hill and my crew I think they were kind of done wanted to get back and I was like I want to get after it and I asked him if we could go check it out Ended up being on a slope that was, uh, it was steep man, um, it was borderline cliff, uh, it's like those really steep slopes, um, that are gravel, you know. So you almost exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yep, so about 200 feet. Feet up, there was our tree. So we pulled the line you put on our shelter, put on my helmet, climbed up there and the tree looked sketchy. It was older and it had been hit by some fire. Still was smoldering, stuff was smoldering all around it and the the concern was everything was so dry. We didn't want it to kick back up and get near the horses or near the houses, anything that wasn't burning you just want to take it down, yeah, yeah and that's what our assignment was.
Speaker 1:So I got above it and I remember hitting it with a straight stream and it didn't budge right.
Speaker 1:So then we started to operate underneath it and, uh, the next thing I can remember is a large crack, and I don't remember anything other than that for a few hours after that. But my partner said that half of the tree basically cracked and a big portion of it came down, and he bailed out, kind of like a diagonal down the hill, and I traversed apparently traversed right underneath where that tree was falling, and it hit me square on top of the head, broke the harness in my helmet and sent me ragdolling down that hill, just throwing my, like my shelter. All of my equipment fell off, um, going down, and I landed face first, uh, down at the bottom. My partner, uh, described it as like a campfire landed face down on that, a little burn on my stomach and and he grabbed me after a little less than a minute is what he approximated pulled me up and, uh, I popped right up and claimed to be okay, you know, because that knockout experience for me was pretty familiar um, and I so the whole, thing, the whole.
Speaker 1:Thing is really embarrassing. No, I don't really remember any of that. Um, first thing I really remember is going back to the uh, the group, our base camp, and being with all the other firefighters being like whoa, like I must have been knocked out because they're the way that the conversation was going and the way I was acting. It was like this is familiar. Um, I was knocked out and, uh, altered for the next couple of days, dizzy and whatnot. Um sent me up by ambulance to the ER and uh, matt Burchett, uh the guy that died in Salt Lake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he died in Cali I think it was California on a forest fire. He helped with that process. Captain Doyle was there as well Big, you know, appreciation to them and their families, man, because, yeah, that was that was a pretty terrible feeling. I felt like a liability. I felt like I'm still kind of embarrassed talking about it. But it's weird to be embarrassed about a freak accident that you know, we tried our best to avoid. It's just part of the job, right, it just happens. And that's some of the acceptance that I'm dealing with now.
Speaker 3:But isn't that funny. Like from over here, I'm like what is there to be embarrassed about? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's weird, Isn't that funny? Like from over here, I'm like what is there to be embarrassed about?
Speaker 3:I don't know it's weird, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Like I wouldn't know, because I can't even relate, you know, at all, in the sense of injury or being knocked out, taking away from the crew. You know not being able to support and participate. They pulled me off the line for three days. I begged the doctors not to send me home.
Speaker 3:Money was a big deal, but also you don't leave your crew and you don't give up, right?
Speaker 1:I mean, that's too into out, right? Yep, that's, that's part of the mentality. So they agreed to let me stay, um, and I, you know, stayed in the hotel, felt like shit while they were sleeping on the ground. I was in a hotel next to mapper chet and hung out with him went to the some ribeye feeling guilty exactly, yeah, yeah had the option to go to the movie.
Speaker 1:I was like no man, I can't do that. Sat by the pool, yeah, I just felt like a worthless piece of shit. But um, finally got back to the crew, um, and pretty quick realized that, man, I would myation, I was more aggravated than normal, easily pissed off, uh, for instance. So we went down to the Thomas fire. That was a pretty big one. Um ran through a town I think it was paradise, um and in in the matter of an hour when miles, because the wind picked up and carried that fire and burned everything in its path, um, and that's, that's where we were operating and uh, so first or second night there, um, we were sleeping on cots and some guy took captain doyle's cot. That was the nicer one, dude, I lost my shit.
Speaker 1:I was like, really our captain, like he's making sure everybody's all good and you're taking his yeah, you're just taking advantage of him being busy and doing his job and like going above and beyond and you're gonna make him sleep on this shit. Give me it, I'll fucking take. It is what I told him and it you know it was awkward. Afterwards I was like holy shit wow who am?
Speaker 1:I, I got real angry, um, where'd that come from? But anyway. And then a cough started, right back up to um that night actually. So it wasn't very bad the next couple days, but cough, uh, sleep was terrible. Um felt like there was shit in my lungs. Um so long story short man. Uh, we finished the deployment. Everything else went pretty good. Um then came back and went into occupational medicine, tried to figure out what's going on. Um got post-concussive syndrome and reactive airway asthma after a few months trying to figure out what's going on and then, uh, that progressed into so reactive airway asthma after a few months trying to figure out what's going on and then, uh, that progressed into reactive airway asthma.
Speaker 3:What is that?
Speaker 1:so it's just, uh, they say it's temporary, um, for me it progressed into something else and it's still there, um, as a primary problem, um, but it basically like you get exposed to some smoke or something like that and it creates a temporary asthmatic response. Got it any irritants? Um. So anyway, uh, that progressed for me into something called relapsing polychondritis and I don't know. You can see my ear, um, the cartilage in my ear on both sides, uh, it was inflamed and then hardened, and that's how they identified it. It's like a one in a million disease, um. So that you're saying you have a chance.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, one in a million one in a million.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the wrong side of that, um uh, but it's it. You know it's not a. How progressive is it's not the worst thing ever, right? And you know, nine months after that happened to me, matt brachette died. A tree fell on him. It was, circumstance was different, but it was like holy shit, man, like I didn't take it seriously at all. I would tell people, a twig hit me in the head and it you know I get knocked out, yeah we make light and we downplay everything.
Speaker 1:And that fucked with my head man. It really messed with me trying to make sense of what was happening. For the longest time I thought it was in my head, but luckily I found some really good docs. Through you know some great friends peer support, salt Lake huge shout out to them. Relief Association and the union Salt Lake huge shout out to them. Uh, relief association and the union Salt Lake. They all have been incredible. Um. So uh I I got into a good clinic called uh, cognitive FX. They help people with concussion issues Um, and got a good neuropsych doc there who helped me kind of stabilize as far as understanding what was psychosomatic, because there is some stuff that is, but I'm so aware of it and that it you know and I know I knew enough that when I was lucid and able to comprehend that it wasn't all psychosomatic and that kind of was secondary, it was aggravating my PTSD, the breathing problems were were aggravating the post-concussion.
Speaker 3:They were just compounding each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, each of them were synergistically building on the other and it just turned into this debt of fatigue that I just could not find my way out of. It was like I was getting pummeled by waves of fatigue and I couldn't get out of the. You know, the, the surf, um, the undertow kept, you know, pulling me back in, so I had to just uh, go try to get help at. Cognitive FX, took some time off and it did help a lot.
Speaker 1:Um, with concussions, it messes the way, messes with the, the way that your brain works. So the it was described to me like we can do the same things, but it's like walking on your hands right, you can do it. It's just a lot, a lot more energy, not very efficient, and that's what was going on. So my energy was just being sat because even the way I use my eyes it was messed up. That's a big part of what kind of therapy I went through was trying to just get them to work correctly so that when I'm looking at something, they're not having to flex extra hard to get there, you know, or to relax, and that's a big anyways.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of stages that went into that, uh, in the recovery. That helped with fatigue, but it just wasn't. It uh alleviated and the relapsing polychondritis came in. Um, I was being seen at the university of utah pulmonology it was. This whole thing has opened my eyes to a little bit more of the nightmare Our medical system is in. It really is so twisted man, and to the point that I'm at right now, the system is built to serve itself at all costs.
Speaker 3:You think with the Taj Mahal hospitals and the grand pianos and stuff in the band it's. I mean, that's what we need in the yard, right exactly the piano player and a grand taj mahal. Better than the, than the nicest casinos in vegas it.
Speaker 1:It really is so bizarre. Um, but that's kind of secondary. I guess we could talk about that some other time. I have a lot of thoughts as far as that goes, but, um, as far as my experience went, uh, it got to the point where it got so bad that, like on a daily basis now it feels like I'm cracking my lungs open to take a breath still. Yeah, it's the relapsing polychondritis, that same deformed ear, the cartilage we have, uh, cartilage rings in the upper part of our lungs and then in the lower part there's those plates deteriorates poly or uh cartilage.
Speaker 3:I looked it up a little bit so it says it's just a systemic inflammatory disease. This is what your wife posted about. Okay, relapsing polychondritis, which is a systemic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology. Right, yeah, it said they can be fatal. The disease affects multiple organs, particularly contiguous structures such as ears, nose, airways joints, as well as eyes, skin, heart valves in the brain yeah right, and then you started taking some type of chemo drug methotrexate methotrexate was the one we tried first but it didn't work.
Speaker 1:It just silly for a couple days after broke me down, man, it just uh tore me up Um so that one didn't work.
Speaker 3:What's that? Since your size? Well, that's a part of it.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of one thing I was going to get into was, uh, I do have a higher tolerance for medication, that's for sure, but, uh, because I was so fit before I didn't fit in, I don't still fit into a lot of the normal categories right as far as lung capacity, and because I take responsibility for my health and I don't place it all on the doctor's shoulders and I. You know that that didn't go well with pulmonology at the University of Utah. There my experience was they were very arrogant to them, Like it was just painful to go there, man. I I struggled to even try to make sense of it because they made me feel crazy, because I was fucking hurting and I was just to breathe yeah, Just to breathe and they're like well, we don't really see a lot that's going on.
Speaker 3:Finally, you've been working out. Your lungs are huge, my lungs are huge.
Speaker 1:That's going on. Finally, you've been working out your lungs are huge. Well, my lungs are huge, but I'm also, like, anaerobically adapted. So I use um, sugar and stuff a lot more efficiently because I train my body to do that for a long time. So, um, I can operate in an anaerobic realm, which just means without oxygen better, and without. So I compromise a lot better, right, so that's the best way to put it.
Speaker 1:Um, but the problem, the main problem with the systems, just like the letter of the law, crushing the spirit, the systems strip people of their context to fit us into little boxes of objective algorithms, yep, and it, it dehumanizes and man. So that was a big mental battle that I had to face that I still kind of deal with, um, because I'm somebody that takes, uh, you know the, the fact that I can be blind and the fact that I can tell myself lies. I take that seriously. And so when a legitimate group workers comp, these doctors at the university of utah are looking at me and talking to me like I am a crazy person, it okay. Well, I need to look at that.
Speaker 3:And it got to the point where it was like I actually hope that I'm crazy because that would be nice if I just had some therapy and it wasn't a medical issue. Fix this all up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be great, but that's not the case. So it's legitimate and I'm you know, I'm learning how to accept it. I can't do anything that I did before. Physically, really, I don't even. I can't exercise anymore. So you don't exercise, the only thing that I do. What's your shape? How come you're still in shape? Well, that's bizarre. Right part of it is because, like I said, I do breathing uh, exercises uh. Wim hof I don't know if you've heard of him I've heard of it, but I I heard him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's there he, he's a beast, um, and yeah, so there's breathing techniques where we can teach our body to basically adapt to less oxygen, and that's kind of one thing that I've done.
Speaker 3:Is that because of your fear of the breakdown of your lung capacity in the future that you're doing it now?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's just me trying to live more fully now, but also that, because I do, it has progressed. When I was working at Salt Lake.
Speaker 3:You were off for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah was off and you went back. So I went back. Yeah, let's go back, it's I. I tried to go back. It was the worst time that I could have tried to go back. I was methotrexate wasn't working and, um, I went back and it was like at the height of covid and I would try to do an mT shift, because I was told that if I went back and didn't have a, a slot right, a position um, then I would only have three months on days until they would separate me. So I tried to get back into a legit position, um, and first call was a 350 pound lady stuck in a two byby-two bathroom.
Speaker 3:They always are. With diarrhea all over her Between the toilet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was man. It was rough and then a homeless lady who had her colostomy bag out was throwing fecal matter at people. So there was a bunch of shit that first day, literally yeah, um.
Speaker 1:And then I did the covid training for salt lake and realized shit, I can't differentiate between my symptoms and a sore throat for four weeks, you know, and I couldn't, I couldn't, and I had to tell my, my captain, that I couldn't and he was like, well, we got to send you to get tested and you're going to be off, you know, and never went back, basically after that. That was last July. So, man, almost a year is crazy. And then it wasn't until July one, right now. Yeah, um, it wasn't until January that I officially retired, uh, and I've been working on the medical retirement side of things.
Speaker 3:I've heard the medical retirement is the biggest battle. If you want it, you have to fight for it. Yeah, Really, really hard, which is odd right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's some things that really need to be considered there. Uh, I, I understand that there are people that take advantage of the support and I never. Most firefighters don't want to be that guy. We see those people all the time. It's like I'd never want to be part of the problem and that was a big barrier to me, accepting help and allowing myself to be hurt and, you know, relying on those resources. Um, but I, my family, deserved it, so that's why they do deserve it still, and that's why I'm continuing to to fight, can't they see it?
Speaker 3:I mean, what well, that's the thing anybody that's worked with you know exactly medically see it like and I'm not trying to take you down, you know yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But when I see Evan two years well, four years ago, let's call it and today there is a significant change.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, man, I actually dyed my beard, are you?
Speaker 3:silver, silver.
Speaker 1:I have a big gray spot right here on my beard so I dyed it a little bit, but my hair has gone almost completely gray and I've aged a lot in the past three years. Um, and the pro, all of this stuff I kind of had to just drop and I the reason I retired was I realized you read the relapsing polychondritis. It can kill me and the job just does not jive well with that condition.
Speaker 3:so I had. They relate this to the accident, or they?
Speaker 1:well, science is too afraid. But I have good doctors. I have, uh, really great doctors that have said basically ptsd. You know, the post-concussive syndrome, the reactive airway asthma and the relapsing polychondritis are all from that injury and I've sent those to Statements to the retirement Utah retirement, yeah, and they still. Is it URS? You're fighting with Both URS. I have a lawyer for URS and I have a lawyer for workers' comp. You would think they'd be the same.
Speaker 3:How's the union supporting you?
Speaker 1:They're helping me with the URS side of things, because they do have a there's there's man, legal fees should be covered with the union right uh, yeah, to a certain point they're. The financial state of local 81 isn't isn't in the best position right now. Yeah, but doesn't that convert over to?
Speaker 3:the.
Speaker 2:IEFF.
Speaker 3:I mean, this isn't you talking, this is me. So local 81, total respect but, at the same time, there's a point where it turns over and is accepted by the IEFF right yeah they don't have to carry the burden. They do the initial and then it gets over and accepted by and I might get there.
Speaker 1:Um, it still hasn't. Yeah, why? Uh, well, because the union is supporting. We're meeting with the lawyer on tuesday, I see, um so you still aren't there? Yeah, still early, so hopefully this by the end of this month, you know be, able to come back and chat about some good success stories there but yeah, so we've had to pay cobra insurance, man, we we weren't gonna financially be okay unless people stepped up and helped us out, man. And luckily I had a really good friend, uh, brian griffin, freaking hero of mine.
Speaker 3:Oh, he's a hero I love that little bald bastard he's not, he's not so little well, yeah, he's really puffy. I think he got stung by a bee. I saw him last saturday at the mexican restaurant.
Speaker 2:Each muscle he's having an allergic reaction, I think so I see every freaking muscle on his body.
Speaker 1:It's bad, it's bad, it's really bad, really vascular.
Speaker 3:I saw him so I look over and I see this older gentleman really bald kind of puffy yeah, not my puffy and I'm like he's got his hat pulled down. So we were sitting kind of kitty corner and then of course I'm pretty cute so he couldn't help but check me out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it was so good to see him oh, yeah, he's there's man, this job, it still is the greatest right. It crippled me, sure, but you wouldn't change man, I, I wouldn't know what I'm capable of now, that's one thing, but I wouldn't have this family, that, uh, I know that I can rely on. Like it, there's there. You know, when somebody comes up to you and says, hey, man, if you ever need anything, give me a call, I'll be happy to be there. Um, you know the people that mean it, and when they say it, it's as if it's done all right, yeah, and it's that's happened, then they're put off.
Speaker 3:If you don't yeah, like you didn't even call me. Oh, yeah, for sure, like this is a problem, yeah, and and because we all know we can't bear it alone, man.
Speaker 1:It's impossible to bear something like this alone. So well, not, not just that but it's life Exactly.
Speaker 3:Hence the deterioration of our youth. They're trying to figure out how to bear it alone in their phone.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:Right and you just can't yeah, so we need to figure it out. So not to get off tangent, but Brian Griffin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I mean it all plays in, because we're all dealing with similar impossibilities In their own way. In their own way. And kids these days and I can't imagine being a teenager in this day and age it was a nightmare when I went through man not having a dad around. That was part of the struggle and just being as reckless as I was. I was somewhat suicidal in in high school but, um, when this happened, it took it to a new level, right, because, man, I just felt so broken and I felt so right reason, yep reason, it all kind of goes out the window well and you get a reason.
Speaker 3:You were like now all that stuff is being taken away which you hit you prided yourself most, in which was your fitness and your ability to outperform most. I mean, just coming from me, you outperformed all, really, when it came to performance and delivery of just not just your mental needs but your physical ability, and so then you feel like you got stripped of what you felt was most visible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you still, or who I was?
Speaker 3:Right, this is where I identify.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so now you have a reason to be more suicidal in your heart, right, not for yourself. Not for any of us, by the way. Plus, yeah, I mean, there's never obviously looking now, there's never a good reason to think that way. Right, I mean, there's always a way out, there's always light, there's always, you know, a, a sunrise, a moment that's going to make it all seem worth it, right, and that is what we have to hold on to man yeah, and recognize and reflect every time yeah, yeah, and and that's our job as family is to remind each other of that and that's luckily.
Speaker 3:luckily, I have a lot of brothers, you know, and close family that has had my back the whole time and as far, as sorry I was going to say, don't you think it's kind of a cheat, Like most people on this planet have just their wife and their kids and their grandparents and their parents. And then here we sit as a firefighter and we go through some weird places, but. And then here we sit as a firefighter and we go through some weird places, but then we have 500 phone numbers we can call.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like our brother. Right so you got this extended family when your wife just can't bear the burden, and understandably so. Like my wife, your wife, every wife gets the point, and especially your wife. Like your wife has had a shit ton to try to can't handle. Right, she has totally respectfully, but she has totally respectfully, but at the same time, it's like there's a point where all people sit back and go. I cannot bear this burden. Yeah, when's he?
Speaker 2:and that's when the brotherhood steps in again it's like okay, brian griffin, for example, yeah, you have to let them right, yeah and honestly, here's the deal it's it's it's wrong of you not to, it's not fair it is because I'm robbing that I'm from me or him?
Speaker 3:like we need this. So when you tell people no, they go over there. They feel good you're robbing them of theirs, which will then hence give you one yep. So then you say I don't know why I'm not happy. Well, it's because you're trying to steal it all. Yeah, you want to feel like in your own self-pity a little bit we all get there.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to pit on you no, no man, all I'm saying we rob it from them and they're like, hey man, can I step up? You know, think about these people. You're willing to step up? I could call you tomorrow. Despite of your physical condition or mental space, I say, hey, evan need some help, bro.
Speaker 1:Exactly that's the point, man you'd be never we can never sit back and think, oh that person, everybody's dealing with hard stuff, my hard stuff is just gonna make their hard stuff worse. That's not how how it works. That's what's weird about humans and about the spiritual side and you know, the I'm going to say eternal side is when somebody really is genuinely trying to support in love and kindness, there's somehow, there's like an energy that supports both struggles Right, and that's what I'm realizing. An energy that supports both struggles Right, and that's what I'm realizing now is that is the way we deal with it is we have to lean on each other, um, and you have to let the other person help.
Speaker 1:Uh right man. Like I said, I was a complete hypocrite, built this wellness program and totally ignored the concepts that were in it. That were in it. So I set myself up up. The term that we use is allostatic load, um, and when trying to assess somebody's state, allostasis is just uh it's a newer term built off of homeostasis, which a lot of people are familiar with just balanced physiologically but, allostasis, takes it to the psychological level and incorporates the homeostasis with it.
Speaker 1:So it's where we are uh in our overall capacity to uh handle stress.
Speaker 3:So I got a question. You've written and you've worked on all this. Have you read it?
Speaker 1:for you. Oh, I mean, I'm starting, I I'm starting to incorporate, like I said, I, through the grace of god, this stuff. I learned all about it before I needed it so in my opinion, that was yours it wasn't yeah like that was for you to prepare it for everybody else not knowing that it was a lot, probably mostly for me.
Speaker 3:um, even if it's only for you, I mean yeah, hopefully, and God bless that it helps a million other people Exactly, but ultimately, but anything we create, it has to be right.
Speaker 1:It has to be that interaction with yep, our own experience.
Speaker 3:Like teaching paramedic classes, you're in.
Speaker 1:Who learns the most?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Right, exactly. Talk at church or whatever. Who learns the most? Yeah, exactly right, exactly, talk at church or whatever. Yeah, who learns the most?
Speaker 1:same principle for sure, right? Yep, so yeah, I started to incorporate these things, but, um, it got to the point. Uh, because this thing was so big. Right, it wasn't just chronic illness that our family's dealing with now, it's chronic illness and a loss of income. And, you know, it wasn't just that, but it forced me and my wife to deal with all the shit that we had, you know, swept under the rug. And we both come from histories of trauma, and my trauma triggers her trauma, and vice versa. Right, because we're completely opposite in how we deal with it.
Speaker 3:My wife too polar, oh really Polar opposite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's been just a man.
Speaker 3:Kind of a godsend though.
Speaker 1:A godsend, but yeah, I can see that now. But I'm thinking of one night when it was just like man I would. After I got hurt, my wife knew there was something different right away. Right, and I can see it now. But I didn't really have any clue at the time. I was trying to like deal with all my stuff through her Right, and so she built up some resentment for that I was trying to. She was my, my person, the only one, um, because I wanted it to be her. I didn't want to go to anybody else and I was robbing people of that opportunity.
Speaker 3:And bearing the load under her shoulders.
Speaker 1:Yep, and just trying to carry it myself. And then one night we got in an argument and it blew up and I struggled dealing with emotional or anything at night. I couldn't comprehend it. It was the most bizarre thing, um. It would just put me into, you know, that sympathetic fight or flight triggered state, um, and so you know some holes in the walls and and some you know you got good a drywall well, yeah, there's still some holes.
Speaker 1:I gotta fix up but this was the last hole I think I I put in the wall, um, and this was I don't know long to october, maybe before that, um, but it was just like I all that trauma. It's stored in our bodies, right, that's what makes it trauma, is it doesn't make it past our amygdala up into the prefrontal cortex area, it's, it's stored throughout our body. I still have a lot of that from when I was a kid, years after my dad died so how would you describe that?
Speaker 3:I mean, I so for me, I like okay. How do you explain that? It's not stored in our in a filing cabinet here? How do we express it? So when, when it's triggered?
Speaker 1:I would go back to that seven-year-old kid and I would act like that seven-year-old kid and to see a grown man of my size, you know to maybe not act completely, but I would act out my frustration, I would embody it and it would be uncontrolled, like a possession that's the best way I would describe it Like you were possessed, yeah, man, and and I mean this this night the possession got real. Right, I used alcohol and I'm not going to bash on it at all. Right, I think that there's a place for it and that needs to be heard, you know, and and repeated in a way that is understood correctly. There's a place for it to hold the tension for a moment. It's not something you rely on long-term, absolutely agree. So, um, I did and I went back to it and I, um, it's an easy out, it's an easy way to escape and and avoid the pain. Uh, so that night just paused.
Speaker 1:It's just positive, it's almost. Uh, you make it worse.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a multiplier right Anytime we resist it. Yep, it multiplies like weeds. Yeah, yeah exactly, so you got to get the first one.
Speaker 1:Uh, I love this kid's book that I read to my kids. It's Billy Bixby. And I love this kid's book that I read to my kids. It's Billy Bixby and his dragon that grows, right, it starts out as this little dragon on his bed and it, you know, it tells his mom and his mom says, no, it's no such thing as dragons. And then the dragon is at breakfast, eats all his food and he only gets one pancake. Grows, and she says there's no such thing as dragons. Gets as big enough to take away the house. And she says that there's no such thing as dragons. And it's not until she's willing to look at it that it starts to shrink.
Speaker 1:And the question is why does that? Why does it have have to get so big? Just wanted to be noticed, right. And that's our inner trauma, wanting to be realized and seen, and that's the self-compassion that we refuse to give ourselves. Man, so I had to um deal with. This night was the dark night of the soul. I don't know if you've heard of that term, it's. It was uh horrific. Um, it's embarrassing to you know, for me to uh even think about it, because it I put my mind in such a terrible state that it just took over.
Speaker 3:I don't know if embarrassing is fair to anyone.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and that's just a normal egoic trigger that I have. Right, it's just like well that that violates my idea of who I am, but that actually made me who I am that night has a large part to do with who I have. Right, it's just like well that that violates my idea of who I am, but that actually made me who I am that night. It has a large part to do with who I am.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Back to the muscle breakdown and build right. Yeah, exactly, Got to get it all the way to down.
Speaker 1:It's the death and rebirth that Christ talked about. It is the cycle that we all have to go through, and I see a counselor still, um, great guy, and we were talking about development. I had to go through a little, through a significant early development when my dad died and then this happened. I had to grieve my dad again. I had to see, you know, that he wasn't just a physical presence, there was a lot more to him. He was imperfect, you know, and and the ideological way that I saw him wasn't helpful. It was like trying to attain to, uh, you know, become Superman, and I was never going to be there in high school. That almost killed me, uh, because, I felt bad man.
Speaker 1:I just felt evil. I felt like I was not even close to who my dad was and then when all this happened, it you know all of that kind of came down and was cut off of me, and it was that night, really, that a lot of that happened. I drank way too much and I don't remember much of the night, but I woke up with bruises, felt like my head was slammed against the concrete, the basement was shredded and glass had cuts on me. Um, it was just ugly. Um, it felt like a possession. There's no other way to describe it. I felt like I was fighting for my soul. I don't, I mean, that might sound weird to people, but uh, you just that's the best way to describe it. Um, and Sarah had to wake up to the feeling of that presence in our house and it was a separate. It was a separate presence that she felt and she was terrified. I guess maybe that's why I feel embarrassed. It's like man, I can't believe I put her through that.
Speaker 1:But and you know, this is stuff that we're we're working through and hopefully one day she'll be able to forgive me for, but she thought I was going to die. You know, she thought maybe I'd overdosed. Um, I had taken some, uh, anti-nausea medicine. Um like Zofran or something. No it, no, it was uh, the fenugreek. That doesn't go well with alcohol.
Speaker 1:Um, that's kind of why they pulled it out of our rigs, right, yeah, and I also was having bouts of fainting, so I may have, you know, drank too much but also fainted, hit my head and, I don't know, blacked out. I didn't, I only had nine, which my brother-in-law just died of that really two months ago. Yeah, he drank too much in ogden right.
Speaker 3:Sorry to hear that wonderful kid drank too much, fell down, hit his head yeah, he died.
Speaker 1:That's why, man, we can't rely on that as our.
Speaker 3:He was such a good dude, yeah, but that was his crutch and he admitted it. Like it is what it is, and I feel like you understand sarah's role or her problem. You introduced it, you welcomed it.
Speaker 3:And obviously it's hard to understand, but at the same time you know there's some really tough hurdles that you have to work through together and it's not fair Like I've done this to my wife not to that level, but I'm sure I've done it to myself at times and then I know she's been there before, yeah, and then I know she's been there before yeah.
Speaker 3:And you know, I look at it in a sense that, like, I've helped her get there and she's got there on her own in her own way, with her own demons, I'm sure. But at the same time, um, it's kind of my responsibility to not at least walk away from her in those points. This is exactly what I agreed to when I said, for better or for worse, right? So it's like, hey, um and I'm not trying to pick on Sarah, sarah, it's not it but at the same time it's like, hey, this is the bad part, this is the bad part. And so, like I told you earlier, we had some issues for some some years, but so thankful, like it wasn't a three-year deal, it was a four. So if I would have known at two or three what I've waited for, I don't know what I know now Sure, absolutely would have. But there there's that. That's a long time to just sit there and go. Do I want this? Like, is it worth it? And I'm not trying to take this on an individual level, but I'm sure she's right.
Speaker 1:I mean, she still has bouts of that and I don't know if I want it yeah, right, I mean, but don't, you can't hold those demonistic actions that you obviously had.
Speaker 3:Like you said, you store it all over your body, whether it be in your brain or your body. Yeah, it had to be out so.
Speaker 1:So when me and sarah fought that night like I, it just felt like so impossible, the medicine wasn't working. If I had to live in that state with that sort of pain, like it was excruciating pain, man and I, I deal with it pretty well as far as like faking, like I'm okay. So a lot of people don't really have a lot of uh, you know, insight to what that, what I, what I've been dealing with, and I'm trying to be more real about that now. Right, because, like I said, with the twig comment, with the tree hitting me on the head, we downplay everything and we have to be real man, we, we really there's no
Speaker 1:healing in faults yeah how do we address an illusion? I mean, how do we take a mirage and make it better? We can't. So I've had to really come to terms with what what was real and what wasn't, and my pain is significant and I deal with it on a daily basis, and I had you know, at that time I had been in medicine wasn't working, we weren't working, and it was just.
Speaker 1:I was done. I was just pleading for God to let it be done, let me go. And you know the message that I was getting from, I guess, workers' comp in the process of trying to get support for my family, because it is my concern. Who knows what this, you know illness is going to do? Um, uh, and what direction it's going to go. But I know that it's going to be a financial burden, um, so I'm going to fight right. But at that time it was like the message is I'm better off dead and maybe it was better that I would have died that day.
Speaker 3:Um, for what reason? Right like there's none to me, yeah, man but I'm on here right, there's none, and I can see that now right, but that night that was your tunnel. So I look at it's like, what does the financial burden look like for you, right? What does it look like? And I can tell you, you're so much, I so much, I'm not even that, but you're, you're very well spoken, oh thanks. So as far as your growth over the last several years, that's, that's really you can it's really noticeable.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:So what I think at looking out like you know, they have so much to give, I'm looking like my gosh. You don't need your muscles to do this, you don't. But there is so much to be taught and you just need to sit down, regardless of your ability, it's just takes that little bit of belief that there is the stuff you need to deliver.
Speaker 3:There is. There is a message here that can't be held and you not first off showing your kids what your opportunities look like and what you can do, regardless of the hurdles that are thrown at you? It's going to be much more impactful than you do for anybody else. Period.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 3:So that's an important priority. Your kids are going to walk through that and say, if my dad put himself through this and I understand it, they're not going to get it for until they're probably 25 or 30, right? They're not?
Speaker 3:going to understand Until they have kids of their own, and then they'll at it and say, hey, this here. This was a lesson for you early, but now it's an opportunity for you to even make it more impactful and for you to really start sharing your message and for you to really get out there and start pounding pavement.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean what you can do on, you know, just digital emails and voicemails or visits, like you're obviously still able to come over and hang out and do your thing yeah to where you can really get people's attention and where really people can sit down and learn and be willing to listen, where sometimes, when looking at you um, previously, it's not that, it's off-putting, it's unobtainable. It's easy for you to walk in when you're this guy and pitch to me a muscle story and go fuck that guy. Yeah, right, of course it's for sure you're making me feel flabby.
Speaker 1:Well, I've I felt that man and I actually was a lot less confident than that. I am now right, and it's because now I'm sitting in who I am, actually a lot more than I was then I think you have a leverage now with this tool that you've been awarded.
Speaker 3:As dumb as this may sound, no, I I think that's appropriate. That's this tool, not just this, but this injury that you were awarded in the hurdles and the lessons that you've learned in the muscles and the, and the stone that's been pounded into this solid level granite or steel that's now freaking titanium, right that becomes so freaking forged. And this mission is just different. It's just again a lens.
Speaker 3:It's like what is my ability? What can I do with this lens? What can I do with this freaking forged steel that I've just insanely carved right? It's going to take you a few years to carve it, and you're here now where you have to finally address it because there is financial burden. And here's here's what I think. First off, I'm all for IFF. You need to step up, they have to step up. This is no question asked. If you let us down here, you let everybody down, and it sends a message that's really going to cost you memberships, as I would support, and I hope that's not the case, like to me. If they don't act the way they should act in this period, the IFF will be sorely frowned upon and be heavily advertised, starting with me. Well, the stance that I have with this is.
Speaker 1:This is unacceptable.
Speaker 3:Totally agree with you.
Speaker 1:My family does not deserve to. There's too much shit already, Right. So well, how many members, if we can if we can make it better for the next guy. That that's my goal. But well, it will be union and I, you know the local and the national, where's.
Speaker 3:PFFU stance. Are they helping? Yeah, they're. They're trying to Jack's there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're. They're always trying to and figure out how to make things better. Yeah, but what's this try?
Speaker 3:crap right. So here's my opinion on try. Like everybody says, it's just a reason not to do something Quit giving you the escape of try Politically, man, it's such a game, bullshit game.
Speaker 1:It's a bullshit game. I couldn't stomach it.
Speaker 3:Here's where I would say Jack, get off. I love Jack Tidrow. We talk, talk, we work well, we donate, we help. But god damn it, man, like this is where you shine, or where these things bother. Right, the people are going to sit back and say what does this really look like? Yeah, and what does the union really?
Speaker 1:right, what's happening here? I mean, let's break it down. I've thought about this a lot. We have an agreement with the departments. We work for the cities, we work and we're paying a fee. Yeah, we pay too into this. This is a do fun. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the union. But I'm talking about, like, the job we sign up to do, this job that puts our bodies in between chaos and individuals to try to limit the amount of damage that's happened to an individual or their home or whatever their property.
Speaker 1:And the agreement is that if we were to get hurt that they would support us and have our back. But yeah, they're. They're dropping their agreement.
Speaker 3:That's the problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not just with me.
Speaker 3:There's a few people and it's really irritating.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And to me it's such a political me there's a few people and it's really irritating, yeah, and to me it's such a political game and regardless of how they vote, like obviously the IFF's on Ken's team, right, and we know how that looks, Ken, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 3:Really Did you just do that on purpose?
Speaker 1:Was that your unicorns and rainbows button?
Speaker 3:Anyway, anyway, that was magical way to go, so timing was great. So I mean honestly, the iff it. It is important that they at least show and it may not matter and at all, anywhere outside of utah, but salt lake city is a pretty big influence, weber county is a pretty big influence, at least for the state. This is a time that you will be judged and if you don't, we'll make sure we magnify the judgment. And I'm not threatening this, is just something that we'll talk about, and not just me, but everyone else around us. Right, we'll make sure it comes up to us that you're still brotherhood.
Speaker 1:I know local 81 is right and I'm not saying that. And I know you're not, yeah, and I'm sensing that. Uh, you know the PFFU is doing what they can as well from their angle.
Speaker 3:But this needs to be expeditious.
Speaker 1:The bigger systems, though, that's when they become convoluted, with politics Convoluted, but monsters that serve themselves, man, they're a self-eating ice cream cone. That no longer gives a shit about the individual.
Speaker 3:So my brother-in-law just made chief of of the air force for, or chief of the air force whatever, sergeant chief of the air force at uh, hickman air force base and he was. We were talking and I probably shouldn't go too that far, but he's like it's just a giant ice cream that looks itself right. That's, that's the military and I I totally appreciate it, but at the same time I look at it in the sense that I I feel, when we say we try, we take away the need for expedition. We need to. This is an expeditious requirement. This has to happen quickly. This does. This isn't fair.
Speaker 3:Same thing happened with, like ian nelson, right when he got wrongfully terminated at morgan county and we step in like I did, and helped it, helped as best I can, but it's so. This is an 18 month process and this is way too long. It's cost him financial ruin. It's cost him all sorts of stuff that's been a mess for him, mentally, physically, financially, all at the worst timing. Again, we don't want to get off on a morgan county tangent, but they're a train wreck. Uh, the council before and now, um, the county, the city's a little better, but at the same time that they can't act this way well, the these are the people that are holding the line in your communities and you.
Speaker 3:Well, all that aside, we have a human obligation to someone that's done this exactly this is it.
Speaker 1:We're also asking these people to continue to put their lives on the line, and not just their lives. That's the problem. It's their families too, yeah, it does not. And livelihoods, exactly. And that really needs to be considered, because all of that's going to impact how well these people respond to your home.
Speaker 3:Well, not just that, that, they're going to sign up to do the job. So, regardless of risk, how they impact because I I would beg to differ you here, evan, on the sense that, regardless of the way they take care of others, you would never neglect a patient or the responsibility to the home of the asset, regardless of your, your, your pay. You volunteered at mountain green, so treat it differently. Yeah, so you've already gone to a job that paid nothing an hour, right. Plus, you've got to notice, you, that paid 13 or 12, whatever it did when you started.
Speaker 3:So I don't believe that a good majority of people would, would sacrifice their care or their efforts. But, at the same time, there's a level of security that comes from the confidence of the politicians and the people that are supposedly having our back. And if you do not come through, or you do not pull through, all you have is a degradation in trust and belief. And sign up, right, we really have the next people coming in and they're not going to. If they know you're going to turn your back on the Evans or the turn your back on the chiefs, or you turn your back on whoever it is it's less lucrative, right. And then you're going to steal from our retirement and that's what I feel like it is, and you know you're going to make it.
Speaker 3:So it's five-year again. We had a big thing on Dan Lillianquist a while back, but you know you start on this thing. It gets to be messy and you're wondering why there's nobody applying. They're checking pulses, right. It just comes down to this and all you're doing is degrading this and now the result's going to be the same. Yeah, but the difference will be you will get your stuff. I guarantee it. I'm. You know, obviously this is going to be, hopefully not an 18 month deal, but what does your financial look like?
Speaker 3:in 18 months yeah, right, obviously you have some good friends and some good brotherhood that's going to step in and they're going to help. Yeah, but who knows?
Speaker 1:right, let me just say thank you to everybody real quick. As far as supporting us in that, go fund me uh that's awesome thank you to everybody for that, because yeah I can't imagine, without the support that extra support that we've gotten, how people would manage this, because basically this is the brian griffin campaign yep, that's what um the way that we've been treated is that we are guilty of insurance fraud until proven innocent. It's not even equal to our judicial, judicial system of you know, until proven guilty.
Speaker 1:And those are a lot of them. Are criminal criminals coming in.
Speaker 3:They deserve that what are public servants don't deserve that, that there's something to prove, you have to prove it.
Speaker 1:Well you have to prove objectively. You have to prove objectively.
Speaker 3:So it's this insane puzzle of well, that's where the money sits, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if you strip context yeah, insurance companies are going to win every time, every fucking time, yeah. So what we need to do is figure out how to make them see how context matters. And it doesn't just matter, it is the thing that all of the rules are meant to serve is the context of that individual's life, and instead we're all kind of forced into these little boxes that are meant to serve the system.
Speaker 3:Now, but you know what, and that's the issue. And again back to like ian, I mean and I probably shouldn't use his name, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind he was on the standard in their fight and fine. But the problem is is when we start picking on our public servants, they're the ones that can least afford to fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're the least likely to fight back To fight and afford it right.
Speaker 3:They're underpaid, they're underserved and they are the most willing to serve.
Speaker 3:So, they feel like they shouldn't fight and they can't afford to do so anyway. So we're actually, if you think of it, in a room of like social, you know, a social exchange. We're picking on the youngest, most able person to fight with, so we decide we can smash them because they're the least able. Why do you pick that? Just like Dan did with the public servants at the retirement plan right, like, why, why'd you pick it? Well, they're the least ones, they're the easiest ones to beat, right, so it's chicken shit man, it is chicken shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, and that's uh. That's why I would have given up a long time ago, honestly, because this has been such a nightmare for us. Um, and I, I think I can make ends meet. You know, figuring out something else. This is your part-time, but but this is the reason I got into the job was to really help people, and that evolved into seeing the pain within the fire service and within the fire family. That I didn't think was appropriate, because there's things we can do well, this is your mission, right?
Speaker 1:this is extending into this. Now, yeah, and for now, this is my mission. This is all of this training that I put together has, uh, you know, come together to help me find what I need, to continue to fight and to show that things need to be different. So that's where my head is right now, but I think, um, the the foresight of what you're talking about looking at, is anybody going to want to be a fireman or a firefighter or a police?
Speaker 3:officer in the future I don't.
Speaker 1:I mean I. I think right now we're scraping the bottom of the barrel for some of the police departments and if we think that's going to make it better, we're in for yeah. So we just need, we need at least one generation of foresight. That's all we need right now. Right, two or three would be great, but if we could just think about that right now of what it's going to look like it's.
Speaker 3:It's not good right now as far as the way we're headed no, it's pretty sad what you're seeing, but I want to just kind of bring in is where I was thinking for you for where you were headed. If you were to take a big picture and say, where would you see this? Where do you see yourself at 80? If you had the opt, what does your perfect look like? What does it look like? And it can be as outlandish as you want, but what does it?
Speaker 3:look like and it can be as outlandish as you want. But what does it look?
Speaker 1:like I imagine myself, with grandkids all over the place and enough financial stability that nobody is stressed out of their mind as far as that goes, but also, hopefully, a lot of lives that have been impacted the reputation. What does it mean? What does it mean by that legacy that, when your name's impacted the reputation, what does it mean by that legacy that?
Speaker 3:when your name's popped up, what does it say?
Speaker 1:that guy helped some people uh, figure out how to find meaning and purpose when it seemed impossible, and he helped cultivate systems and programs with first responders and in elementary schools that set people up to to to realize that there is going to be a sunrise and the darkness doesn't last forever. Uh, and I think a part of that is going to happen, um, with my writing. So I've been writing a lot, have you? Yeah, so books and stuff so methodology would be stories.
Speaker 1:Well, visits, talks. So part of the wellness program that we put together, uh, for the fire department, the wellness coordinators that are certified, they're helping other firefighters are going out. We did this at northview. We have it's called the heroes hero program and are going to the elementary schools to teach similar programs that are adapted to that level of understanding so that they can, you know, detach from anger, hopefully in a moment of mindfulness, to realize, oh, I need to eat, oh, I need to get a drink or you know just those basic things to understand where they're at physiologically and psychologically eventually. So the Heroes Hero program came about through that and also going back to PJ and little Evan, pj was an artist and I love writing and I'm putting together a kid's book.
Speaker 3:Have you always liked writing? No, I always like. I know I was stupid before man.
Speaker 1:And it's actually been uh, a source of, um, I guess, coping uh, and therapy. It used to be exercise. I can't, it's not that anymore, so this has been really incredible.
Speaker 3:It's a form of exercise, right You're just working different muscles.
Speaker 1:Poetry. You know I'm writing my story. I'm just trying to figure out how to write in a way that is going to be appropriate for kids of you know it's the later age in elementary school that I'm aiming at. Kids of you know it's the later age in elementary school that I'm aiming at and it's the hero's hero um series of books and the first one's going to be the first hero's hero, uh, and yeah, it's going to be good man.
Speaker 3:So where do you find so right now, evan? Where do you find out more about this? Where do you have a website? What are you you doing with?
Speaker 1:it. Well, all that is To come, it's to come. I'm still in incubation stage right now.
Speaker 3:So we're going to have you back.
Speaker 1:I keep wanting to you know, move forward with something, but the universe is saying no, you still need to sit in this for a while. Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't, really, I don't get it and.
Speaker 1:I kind of am afraid that I'm not capable of doing anything like this again.
Speaker 3:But I think those are just my egoic fears Outside, would you say is it the universe, or is it just your pride and your fear of failure?
Speaker 1:I honestly think it's probably some of that, but it's also. I'm still dealing with these other things that are sapping all of my energy, and those things need to, you know, shape me, and I need to allow those things to do their thing.
Speaker 3:So when do you start weeding your way through? When does it start next?
Speaker 1:so that's I mean, it starts right now. I'm just I'm trying to stay open to guidance and to um like you got to get your toe out the door, bro. Well, I know, man, and that's one reason.
Speaker 3:I was really excited to chat chat with you.
Speaker 2:I was trying to do something.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to talk with people that I admire, and I'm trying to to see, uh, where this is meant to go because I don't know exactly, I was so excited when you took it.
Speaker 3:I don't know exactly, I was so excited when you took it, when I sent it. I'm like I'm going to shoot because I've been wanting to talk to you for quite a while.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man but.
Speaker 3:I'm like I don't know what's too soon and I don't know what it looks like where you sit mentally, physically. If you're able to talk, who knows right, I didn't want to push you into a realm where you're like man, don't you?
Speaker 2:know what I've been through. A year ago would have been rough, but right right now, man, it's actually the perfect time. So right, and to me, I just encourage.
Speaker 3:There's always fear in in stepping out your door. Right, just gotta step, you don't have to stay out there. Yep, just check the weather yeah and then you go get your pants or shorts on flip-flops or whatever's required so as far as that goes, man, there's some dots that have connected.
Speaker 1:Looking back, I can really really see that I'm you're starting that. Yeah, I'm moving in a direction of what I just mentioned. Maybe next time we can talk a little bit more about what like the the day after that dark night how it? Stopped. Something big happened. That was big happen that was. It was like a light you know that, uh it was like you're not alone and this is all meant for your good.
Speaker 3:Evan, thanks, thank you I appreciate you, brother. And then, we'll be back, for sure, we're going to have them in. I want to hear more and then, uh, bless your family. If you need anything, like I was saying, don't be afraid to reach out. We don't know, we get caught up in our world.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Like hey, man, I could use a freaking dinner. Great, Will you buy me dinner? Yeah, you're damn right. Every single day We'll have you over for a barbecue. Let's do it. Hey, I got a new barbecue I bought like a month ago. I haven't picked it up yet, but I want to use it, all right.
Speaker 1:So hey, flaming.
Speaker 2:Gorge Come up.
Speaker 3:So thank you so much man, thank you, I appreciate you, thank you.