047. Save the Next 100 - Sean Conant [Part 2]

In the second installment of our conversation with Sean Conant of FILO Apparel, we discuss the alarming statistics of firefighter suicides, with nearly 100 reported cases each year due to job-related stress. We introduce Next Rung, a nonprofit supporting mental health within the fire service, and highlight FILO Apparel's initiative, including their coffee brand FILO Fuel, aimed at supporting this cause. Sean also covers the importance of both physical safety through PFAS-free gear and mental health support. The episode also explores the entrepreneurial challenges within the fire service and the significance of creating lasting, positive impacts.

00:00 The Alarming Reality of Firefighter Suicides

00:56 Challenges with Firefighter Apparel

01:36 Addressing Critics and Marketing Strategies

03:37 Supporting Mental Health with Next Rung

03:51 FILO Fuel: Coffee with a Cause

05:44 The Importance of Mental Health in the Fire Service

17:05 Entrepreneurial Lessons in the Fire Service

21:52 Future Goals and Legacy of FILO

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Transcript

Sean: the data is showing that 100 firefighters kill themselves every year. 100 firefighters. kill themselves every year. These are just the ones that are reported that we know was from basically stress within the fire service. We're not talking about some off duty firefighters who go to the bar and maybe have too many drinks because they were on a bad call yesterday, get in their car, drive home, getting a car accident.

They're drinking because of the bad call yesterday. We're not putting them into the 100 suicides per year, but I think we should, you think, oh, it was just because they were drinking.

That's not what it was. That was the tool that pushed them just far to give them the courage to do this, 

Sean: we have a few of the older guys that I personally work with are in, they're not even wearing FR material. They're, they're wearing, uh, I think some of them are wearing like Dickies, uh, which I've, I've tried to, these guys, these are guys that are, six months to a year away from retirement. You're not going to change that.

They, they've been eating the same breakfast for 20 years. You're not going to convince them to buy a different pair of pants. Uh, a ton of people in the department that I work for, they, they do buy phylo. They are on uniform allowances. They do buy the phylo apparel, pants and the shirt. They, they, to me, they look the best of all the guys.

Of course it's a

TJ: Hell yeah.

Sean: Uh, but to go back, let's, let's go back one thing with what you said about the critics. Because I think that's an important question and that's something really important to hit on. So I, I believe, I believe in let's, let's look at the full picture here. Are we marketing on PFAS free?

100 percent we are. We absolutely are. Are, are we, are we high ranking on Google when you look for PFAS free Nomex? Absolutely. We are. Are we also ranking on, Are we also marketing on quicker shipment times? Absolutely. We are. Are we also marketing on more affordable pricing? Absolutely. We are. All of these things we are marketing on to all we're doing, trying to do is gain awareness and show the firefighters and the fire departments.

There is a better option out there. For that's safer more affordable and quickly to deliver to you These are our these are our foundations and our pillars that we build our company on So, of course we're marketing on it So if you want to be critical of that Then are you telling me that we shouldn't market on this and we shouldn't show that there's a safer option you want to put these guys With an apparel that has pfos in it because we we're in a free market here The other competition could market on that as well if they want to That's what I that would be my long answer to the critics And if you know, i'd love to hear what their answer would be on that But we haven't heard it.

We haven't had any critics say anything like that to us

TJ: Well, I'm going to turn that clip into a reel for Instagram and I guarantee you the critics are going to come out of the woodwork because they always do. It is amazing watching the comment section devolve into just absolute mayhem over things as innocuous as sleep or, you know, mental health or any of those things.

If you're not, yeah, it's um, it's exciting. I love, I love watching it just turn into absolute pandemonium.

Sean: Absolutely.

TJ: Now that I mentioned, go ahead.

Sean: Go ahead. No, you're good. Go ahead.

TJ: I was going to say that the whole mental thing, mental health thing kind of pushes me to talk about your involvement with Next Wrong, which I think would put us talking now about filofuel.

Is that correct?

Sean: Uh, correct. Yeah, so so filo fuel was brought on it's it's a It's our coffee brand that we brought on specifically to be able to help support next rung. So right now we're running a campaign called save the next 100. You can find save the next 100 at filofuel. com. And what that does is for every coffee canister sold, we don't use bags.

We made these little round canisters. We call them 12 ounce hydrants. And for every one of those souls, a portion of the proceeds go to support next rung. Next rung is an absolute. phenomenal, phenomenal organization, nonprofit that helps mental illness within the fire service, PTSD, mental illness, any mental health.

Uh, if you're a current firefighter, formal firefighter, Uh, anywhere in the fire service, they're not going to turn anybody away. If you're in the healthcare field or in law enforcement, they're just a phenomenal organization to help people that do, you know, that might go through some traumatic situations that they just need to talk to somebody.

So we started when we were in our endeavors of finding a, uh, a manufacturer for our apparel, we were able to. We stumbled upon a Nicaraguan farm that makes incredible coffee. This is obviously biased. I drink it now. Uh, but incredible coffee. It's straight from the farm. And, uh, we said, we need to bring this on.

We wanted to do something to, we want to do something to give back. And that's when we, I met a, uh, rekindled a relationship with an old friend of mine. I've known for over about three and a half decades. We went to Sunday school together and he's, his name's Caleb Gressman. He's part, he's the peer support director for next rung.

And him and I just, we got to talk and I said, this is divine intervention. This is, this is where we need to give proceeds back to, for the coffee.

TJ: I love it because that's been one of the tenets of keep the promise. So the whole, the whole purpose of the, of keep the promise, the community, the podcast is to build resilient and well rounded firefighters, meaning we go beyond the strategy and tactics you and I have talked about and, and, That includes the mental health side of things, which we have seen come to the forefront as of the last few years, which is amazing.

But I think most of us for the majority of our careers, it was that aspect of the job that just got pushed aside. It's like, Hey, Are you okay? That was a pretty traumatic call. Yeah, dude. I'm good. Okay, cool. Uh, talk to somebody if you need to. And then that was the end of it. Or people would have the idea of just ripping shots about whatever traumatic experience they had. So seeing place, seeing organizations like next rung and seeing you guys support it kind of gives me hope for the not. Just not even just my generation or the one after, but like the ones that are going to come after the fact that we were not dealing with, I mean, shit, I, I'll put it out there. I was super good friends with, um, with Sean Yarbrough from, um, from the St.

Augustine area. And he gained notoriety a couple of weeks ago because I don't know what the hell happened. He snapped, shot his wife, shot himself. And all of us who knew him were like, okay. What the fuck? What could we have done that the fire service, I think the fire service led to it. We can attribute a lot of our issues to the fire service.

So having, having the support coming from NextRung and having you support NextRung, kind of for the long term, for that long time horizon, is um, Kind of gives me the warm of fuzzies

Sean: Yes. So I, you know, I, I, I, I choose my words very wide, very carefully when I talk about this, because when I talk about next rung, I don't want to ever come off like a sales pitch. I don't want it to be an elevator sales pitch. Cause it's not, that's not what this is about. Okay. This isn't about somebody trying to become a coffee company.

This is about supporting an organization that is supporting the people who are going on these traumatic calls. The general public doesn't always know, you know, what the firefighters endure on a regular basis at two, three o'clock in the morning. It's not going and getting, you know, these sweet little fuzzy kitties out of trees with the ladder truck.

Like you see on movies, you're seeing things that can be traumatic. So it, the, The thing with, with Sean out of the ST john's county area is, is we'll never know what was the final straw that broke the camel's back in this case. But we, you know, everybody's questioning themselves. What could I have done differently?

What could I have done? It's not just his friends. It's not just his family's. It's, it's The guys he was on shift with the the guys that were his opposite that he relieved the guys that Uh relieved him and he went home and the guys he worked with the day before And then the guys who came in to give let him go home that day to go and do that And then his kids are in and her kids aren't there like It's just, it's a terrible scenario in all ways and we have to stop that.

So, we use the term, save the next 100, because right now, the data is showing that 100 firefighters kill themselves every year. 100 firefighters. kill themselves every year. These are just the ones that are reported that we know was from from basically stress within the fire service. We're not talking about and I, and some of these analogies that I'm going to use may seem, may seem really bold to some people, but this is what I believe is equating Uh, some off duty firefighters who go to the bar and maybe have too many drinks because they were on a bad call yesterday, get in their car, drive home, getting a car accident.

They're drinking because of the bad call yesterday. We're not putting them into the save the next 100. We're not putting them into the 100 suicides per year, but I think we should, you know, or people who, you know, maybe you think they were at the bar and they jumped off of a bridge. Well, you think, oh, it was just because they were drinking.

That's not what it was. That was the tool that pushed them just far to give them the courage to do this, but that's not what it does. That's why next wrong is so special in that we knew there was something we had to do. So again, I don't want to sound sales pitchy when I say this. We started the apparel company to make, to make you physically safer.

We wanted to make sure that you weren't bringing in any type of inherent danger, you know, any, any carcinogen that wasn't necessary. The, uh, the, the coffee side of things we brought because we wanted to help on the mental aspect of things, not that we're personally doing it. We're just giving the tool.

And with that said, Let's let me tell you why we pick coffee as well because this is something I think is important The reason we pick coffee was is asking for donations from as you've said a blue collar worker. You may not have Disposable income so we thought instead of asking starting a campaign and just asking for money. Why don't we try to just have Individuals substitute something they're already drinking. Coffee, the majority of people drink coffee. I mean, that's, it's just a fact. You know, not everybody, I understand there's some people who don't drink coffee, but there's a lot of people in the country who drink coffee.

So instead of drinking this brand or that brand, just drink Philo and help give back to NextRung. That, that was our whole point. We're not a coffee company. We're an apparel company. Who's trying to help an organization like Next Run. That's it.

TJ: You answer the question I had. It's like, why coffee? And it makes total sense because the donation side of thing is, yeah, you might get some, but it's for the effect that we want to make for the, the long term gains that we want to make within the fire service, which require money. It's, it's impossible. I, um, I remember for years, uh, A bunch of friends and a bunch of coworkers and colleagues, and I would grow out her hair back before I started losing it all and shave it off while collecting donations for St.

Baldrick's. And I think over a span of 10 years, I think the total, I'm pretty sure we broke a million over a span of 10 years with a bunch of people. And that was cool. Like again, grassroots effort. And it was a lot of work asking for donations. You're just annoying your friends and family members. And I eventually came to the same realization you did that it's.

It's much easier to just sell something that is going to help your customers and take proceeds from that and support your cause. You can scale a company. You can scale a product. You can scale that marketing way easier and way more effectively than you can donations. And that's. I do the same thing within keep the promise that there's the whole Patreon community where you sign up for a monthly membership.

And the goal has always been, Hey, once we have these 150 monthly subscribers, we're going to take a huge chunk of that and give back to firefighters who may be at the center for instance, who may have gotten injured, who may have fallen in hearts, whatever it might be. Hey, listen, this is just going to help you out until you get back on your feet.

It might be good for the mortgage. It might be good for car payments. It might be good for groceries, whatever it might be, but here you go. And it's so much easier and so much more meaningful when the consumer, the customer, if you will, get something in return.

Sean: That that's literally, you said it exactly the way we tried to draw it up is. So it's also important to note in the Save the Next 100 campaign, we have a spot on the website where if you don't drink coffee, or if you're just. Absolutely. You set on drinking the coffee that you currently have, then you can't also donate.

So it wasn't that we were, it wasn't like some people said, well, you're just trying to sell coffee. Not necessarily like if you, if you believe in next rung and you listen to what we're saying. If you want to help, go donate, just go donate to them. And we have had people actually donate. It's, it's been incredible.

So, you know, it, and I, hopefully it shows people who are listening that we're not just about the selling the coffee aspect of things. Again, we're an apparel company. We're bringing on the coffee to help the mental aspect of things in, in the fire service. It, because also everybody who, even if you, let's just say the critics who say, you're just trying to sell coffee. Cause we're trying to bring our, our major goal here is to bring awareness to next wrong. Every time a critic goes and looks at that page just to hate on us, they also saw next wrong as well. And that's the doing exactly what we were trying to do is bring awareness to the next wrong organization, the next run logo.

And if you actually scroll down to the bottom of the page too, You'll see the other, uh, I think it's, I think ourself plus 24 other firefighter owned companies, uh, that are also part of the, save the next 100, 100 campaign who bought into what we were trying to do for them. All who know next rank personally, I believe, you know, John from rescue one CBD, he

TJ: That's my boy.

Sean: there's your boy.

He's part of it. Uh, flame decon. Just to name a few of them. I'm going to do some name drops here. Fire wipes. Um, who else? Uh, fire innovations. My boy JC out in California. We got Cody over at BA shields. I mean, the list just goes on and on. Uh, Griffin over it's a stash saw all these guys. Ryan from car in a bunker gear, but these guys all got involved.

They all believed in what we're trying to do. It's not about one of us trying to push a product. It's one, it's all of us collecting to try to get awareness for next.

TJ: 25 companies cause I'm definitely going to get involved in that.

Sean: All right. Now, now we're about to move on to 25. Then

TJ: about to move to 25, let's talk now that we're talking business, because I really, it really scratches an itch that, that I enjoy. Tell me about some lessons that you've learned from the entrepreneurial side of things as it pertains to the fire service. And I mean, we, you don't have to do all of them because we would be here for the next eight hours.

Sean: I'll tell you, um, you know, one of the biggest lesson, the biggest lesson that I've learned. from the entrepreneurial side in the fire service is do not get discouraged by the critics and the haters. Keep, keep a, keep focused on your goal and keep focused with a positive attitude For every one positive feedback you get from, and I tell you who's the worst is coworkers.

The, the one positive feedback you get from a coworker, you'll get five negative people. You'll never find more critics than the person sitting across the table from you who will tell you if this isn't going to work, you can't do this. And if you let them get in your ear, You'll, you'll never start anything you really want to start if your passion.

And I told, I told Ryan from car to bunker gear this earlier this morning that you can, you can see the passion coming out of it. It's like pouring out of him every time he talks about it. And if you have that kind of passion and when you talk about something, there's a level of intensity. Or passion. You can say to me, it's the same term that you, you stay the course and you, and you keep plugging forward and you don't let the critics get in your way.

TJ: It's always those shiftmates. It is always the ones who know us the best, who know that big red button to damage us the most, who will always, oh, and I, I choose to believe that a lot of it comes from, The fact that we know each other so well not for malice and also from the fact that the fire service is You know, i've used the expression.

It's like trying to steer the titanic with a popsicle stick You're it is so hard to change that inertia that that momentum that has been going for hundreds of years You're not going to change people's minds the the dudes that you work with who have been eating the same breakfast for 25 years You're never going to change that And it's hilarious that you mentioned the co workers because I i've experienced the same thing.

It's um, You That one, that one cuts deep. How do you deal with not just the critics, but I'm more interested in the fact that you're still on the line, you are running file apparel, you are running file of fuel, how do you not go insane doing all of those things? And you have a family.

Sean: So that's a great question. Some days I feel like I'm running crazy, but with that said, it's that, that's an easy question for me to answer. I don't even have to think about it. Okay. One, I, I have an incredible support system. My wife is incredible. She's, she's involved in this company as much as possible.

The, the, the other own, the, the two other owners, they're involved in much as possible, as much as possible. When they, when, when one of us is. We try to use the same mentality that we use in the fire service. Like, we're a team here, we're a crew. Just as the same story that I told about my father with the crew that came in at the beginning of this.

We're a team, we're a crew. We pick up each other when we're down. We're not always gonna have, not everybody's gonna have a good day every day. Someday you're gonna, you're just gonna wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It just happens. But if the other people are, are also have positive mentalities, they're also passionate about what they do.

We support each other. That's what we do. That's what the fire service is here for. We're here to support each other, our brothers and sisters. And that's, that's how I get to answer your question. I get through it with the team that, that I'm associated with. My, my family is some of my biggest supporters and I could not do this without them.

And. So that's, that's the first part to answer your question. The second part is I'm very passionate and intense about what I do. This, I do keep a positive mentality because I know deep down this is making, this is going to make a positive impact. on this industry and, and this, and the world for that matter, I, you know, we haven't gotten to where we ship outside of the country.

So I know using world is a big term, but in the fire service in this country, we're going to make a really positive impact. And we're going to be able to leave behind the legacy that means something.

TJ: You just teed me up for the next question. Now that we're talking about legacy,

Sean: Okay.

TJ: what do you envision for phylo peril and phylo fuel in the longterm in the, you know, maybe, maybe the 10, 15 year range. And when it comes to those goals, what's the plan on getting there?

Sean: Uh, the goal is to, to basically be, the ultimate goal is to be in every firehouse across the country. That's a huge goal. We, that's, but you know, if we make it halfway, that's still a great goal that we reached.

TJ: Yeah. Aim big.

Sean: right. I mean, the, the, the whole, our whole goal is to be as, in many, as, as many firehouses as possible.

And the way we do that is By being on podcasts with people who believe in what we're doing, just like yourself, TJ, like we want to, we want to talk with people who have connections with the fire service, just like we do that can, that can sit around and have kitchen talk, kitchen table talk, and, and just spread the word out there.

That's all we're trying to do. My goal is to, is to phylo until I just physically can't work anymore. I'm, I'm 41 years old. I'll be 42 in November. Uh, my goal is, is to be running this, this company as long as possible.

TJ: I dig it. I dig it. Now what about the fire service? Because you've been around for a while, you've seen the changes. What do you think we're going to be seeing in the next 10, 15, 20 years? And pick your poison. We can be talking about strategy tactics, but I kind of want to steer you towards the PFAS stuff, the, the gear, the mental health.

Sean: So what I hope, what I hope happens within the fire service, I, and I, and I will hit on, on what you just said on the PFAS, the mental health and all that stuff. I think that's important. The, I think it's a long road ahead for the fire service. As you've probably heard this saying, firefighters hate change and firefighters also hate the way it is.

So it's, I mean, it's, it's like you're just beating your head up against the wall. Uh, what I really hope happens is that we can start in the fire service. We can start being proactive and not reactive. I would, I would love to start being, I'd love to start seeing more, more proactive measures within the fire service, our, our tactics.

And I mean, I can only imagine how, how many people thought being proactive with sprinkler systems was something crazy. You know, because well the fire's not going to be burning when we get there. So how are we going to fight the fire? They're just going to get rid of the fire service altogether because of these sprinkler systems.

But in all reality, we, we save probably millions of lives due to sprinkler systems. So what I would like to see is more accountability station where, um, station where on bunker gear on any, any type of protective level of equipment. So obviously I have a biased opinions towards station where, because that's what we do, mental health.

I would like for it to stop being. a check in the box within the fire service and be something that we take more seriously because in my opinion, one person committing suicide is not okay. It's just not okay. Okay. So I think we need to be more proactive in what we put our firefighters in throughout the world.

And I think we need to be more proactive on how we're handling their mental health and not just looking at as a check in the box for accreditation or something to show. someone to make sure we get our budgetary dollars

TJ: Oh, I love the check in the box

Sean: that that's probably going to piss a few people off when they hear that, but it's the, but it's the truth. I've seen it happen over and over again.

TJ: The last physical that I had to do for the department, the physicals always include the mental health questionnaire and I've been feeling down. So I answered truthfully and the doc came and started talking to me and asking the questions to the point that I'm like, Hey, what's the highest score that I can get on that?

And what is it going to tell you? And she's like, what do you mean? I was like, start asking me the questions and went down the list. And I answered all of them truthfully. You know, I'm trying to get an eight plus type thing because I've always been a good student. And I think I got like eight or like nine out of 10 of the markers. And the whole, like the whole point of it after we talked about it, she's like, Oh, I think you might have a little bit of depression. And I'm like, And that's it. Like, what do we, what do we do now?

Sean: you that.

TJ: What, what comes next? And she's like, oh, well, um Like maybe like talk to somebody like this is fucking bullshit.

This whole thing is just for that accredited like yeah, of course I've been seeing a therapist for years. Like I know that I have stuff to work through but like ma'am We're just going through the motions here

Sean: check in the box.

TJ: Checking the box trying to get that high score and my shift mates were like dude, you're gonna get in trouble I'm like, whatever like I'll be okay.

I'm not just because I'm trying to get a high score. Let me live

Sean: Yeah, you know, so

TJ: go through the

Sean: this, this is really, this is one of those things. This is why I'm so passionate about pushing next rung as well, because they're not just a check in the box. I've seen it within in the apartments that I've been at. Where you could just, just like the story you just told, you can tell it's them just kind of going through the motions with next rung though.

It's not, they're there to talk to you. They're there to listen. They're an anonymous source, but you may be in Baltimore, Maryland, but you may be talking to somebody in Arizona. And, and, and these, these are just hypotheticals, but you're talking to someone who is In that industry in this industry and can relate to what you're saying But the likelihood of you ever running into this anonymous person This isn't a person that you're going to go back and have breakfast with tomorrow at your local crackle barrel You know what?

I mean? Like you're going to you're never going to run into this person or here's better yet If you're a female firefighter Why do you want to, why would you want to be on a panel and talking to a panel of a bunch of men, uh, male firefighters? Maybe, maybe you don't want to talk to them, but if you call into next rung, you can speak to a female firefighter who you can potentially relate and who's potentially gone through the same ups and downs and ebbs and flows as you have.

That's why this, this right here, where I'm going with this is. To me, a testament of the individuals in the fire service. There's always been a problem with the mental aspect of the fire service. The fire departments themselves, they obviously weren't going to change it. They were just going to keep checking the box.

So what happened? A group of firefighters said enough is enough. We'll fix this. And they did it in an amazing way with next wrong. Same thing with the apparel side of things. I'm tired of being, I'm tired of overpaying, being an unsafe apparel. Well, if you're, if no one's going to give us the option, we'll just do it ourselves.

And that's what I love about it is you give a firefighter, you frustrate them enough, somebody will figure this out and they'll do it the way it needs to be done.

TJ: the people makers.

Sean: The one failure that I cherish the most that would have to be, I cherish it the most because it, because it molded me into I am today. The one failure though, is when I was 22 years old, I had a failed lawn care business. Yep, and I worked that thing from sunup to sundown and it just, it was not going to succeed and, but it taught, it, it, it gave me a work ethic that I've, at that point I said, I never want to feel that type of failure again and it pushed me to the, to the man I am today.

TJ: I love it. I absolutely love it. Coming back from that failure and those lessons learned and making something incredible out of it. Sean, where can we find more about all things Philo and all things Next Rung?

Sean: So currently right now you can go to philo apparel.com. That's F-I-L-O-A-P-P-A-R-E l.com or philo fuel F-I-L-O-F-U-E l.com, philo fuel and philo apparel.com. Or you can find us on our social handle, which is uh, FILO dot USA.

TJ: I'll link all of those in the show notes. Brother, thank you so much for taking time to talk to me today and just, yeah, get your story out there. It's, it's a good one and it's something that's. That's going to leave a lasting impact on the fire service in so many realms that I am honored to, yeah, to be able to spend the time with you and folks like you who will, who will change our world for the better.

Sean: Absolutely. TJ, you know, you, you thank us for doing what we do. We really thank you for doing what you're doing. We, we appreciate you getting out there. The guests that you have on your show are incredible and they, they really are special people, but you're a special person also for, for hosting everybody and giving people the platform to give their stories and let your listeners hear what they have to say.

So thank you so much. And, and it holds true to the title, keeping the promise. So thank you so much for that, TJ.