054. Find Your Why: The Firefighter's Guide to Passion and Brotherhood [Part 2]

On Part 2 of this series with Barrett Pittman, we explore various aspects of being a firefighter. Join us as we discuss the importance of finding one’s why in the fire service to avoid burnout and stay passionate. 

Reflecting on the significance of brotherhood and community, our conversation touches on the modern-day challenges and misconceptions about the fire service camaraderie. 

This episode also addresses the dark side of the job, including mental health struggles and the importance of talking to each other. 

Finally, we reflect on balancing job dedication with personal life, and provide advice for both current and future firefighters.

00:57 The Brotherhood and Fire Service Connections
05:07 Generational Changes in the Fire Service
09:10 The Dark Side of the Fire Service
11:32 Balancing Fire Service and Personal Life
21:23 The Importance of Therapy
23:49 Reflections on Retirement and Legacy
34:13 Advice to My Younger Self
37:01 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Barrett: There's nobody else. This, this country guy from, from Louisiana, you know, um, so, but it's, it's those connections and, and that will be, that's something that I'm going to have to face is that when I retire, that is the biggest thing.

Like when we talk about these characters and these clowns at this circus. I'll miss that. And so as much as I like to think that I'm going to walk away from the fire service, it's probably not going to happen. I mean, I'm being honest, um, that I will have to find something else to do fire service related.

But again, it's, and I want you as the listener to know. You know, to, to he, you know, hear this passion knowing that, you know, push you, like, if you feel like, Hey, you're, you're at the end of your, or not even at the end of your career, but you feel like you're stuck, you bogged down, man. I'm just, I'm just this, I'm just a firefighter.

I'm just a paramedic. No, no, no. Like you're more than that. Yeah. And if, if that's where you feel, then we need to look at something, get you into something else. And I, you know, for, for the classes that I do get to teach, you know, And again, this is my why and you know, if you're just that status quo guy, but you kind of feel like you're bogged down, find your why in a fire service.

This is a career. This ain't a job, man. Make this your career. Own this thing. You find your why and mine. My why is obviously it's fire service, but I really love tech rescue. That is my why in the fire service. And yeah, I love a good fire. I love like taking that beating, you know, that, that, you know, when you're on your fourth and your fifth bottle and you look out and everybody's.

They're doing their thing, but we're still grinding. Um, you know, and some people, they, they, they'll love that. Like they, they, they might've found their why, but I'm in, I'm, um, uh, not to say encouraging, but I'm, I want you to find your why I want you to do some self reflection, look in that mirror and say, what is it that, that I'm good at in this job?

Is it, is it being that driver? Is it being that, that tech rescue guy that has my guy, whatever it is, find that why, and you sharpen that blade. Until it's razor sharp. And then that might ignite you to want to light somebody else up,

TJ: Light their fire. Don't light them up. Don't actually, like, shoot them or stab them. Light their fire. Around these parts, when they say somebody got lit up, it means they got shot. So, I mean, listen. You heard it first, Barrett is advocating violence. Did I even introduce you at the beginning of this? I don't remember.

Barrett: you did not kind of, we just like

TJ: Okay, cool. I also, I think you're baiting me with the whole, um, job versus career, and we'll get to that, but I want to go back a little bit because you keep giving me more stuff to talk about. The lip service and the brotherhood. I will challenge you to say that I don't think the Brotherhood is that I think we have this perspective, maybe this old timer view of what we think the Brotherhood is going to be, and I think it's a case of missing the forest for the trees.

I think we are so bogged down in being like, Oh, this is what, you know, the FDNY had in the war years. This is how they had it before, not realizing that we were living our very own versions of that Brotherhood, that in 10, 20 years, somebody else is going to be looking back and be like, They had that brotherhood and we're fucking missing it.

I grew up watching rescue me, right? 16, 17 year old me watching rescue me. And they would all in all the episodes, there'll be building decks or doing like home renovations and shit like that. Drinking beer and whatnot. Never once in my life built a deck for anybody in my crew, but attended plenty of birthday parties and visited plenty of sick friends and checked in on people who are in the path of a hurricane or who have gone through line of duty deaths.

I mean, fuck when we lost Nate. I had homies from. All over the country, fly in people that I hadn't talked to in years. They remembered and they showed up. So while my brotherhood wasn't building a deck or, you know, mowing someone's grass or doing all of these things, we're going out with them every single day, when push came to shove.

It was there. So that's, that's my challenge. I think I, I don't think it's dead. I think if we keep saying that we're going to kill it.

Barrett: don't think it's totally dead. I just think it is sometimes people have this misconception,

TJ: I think we have to shift our perspective. It's 2024 after all. Also, look at who we're hiring now. It's 2024. Now we are working with people who were not even alive when 9 11 happened, right? You get an 18 year old. Now they were born in 2006.

Barrett: right?

TJ: Five years post 9 11, right? There's people making memes and making funny reels on Instagram about 9 11.

That tells you that generationally, they don't feel the pain that we felt. They didn't watch the people jump from the towers. They didn't watch the planes hit. They didn't sit there, go, what the fuck is going to happen to this country now? And they didn't watch their friends go to war and get blown up and get killed.

So generationally, it's that change. We can't change it. I mean, you can sit there and be your, you know, Louisiana boomer and be like, these kids these days don't understand. No, you're never going to change them.

Barrett: the back in

TJ: All right. The back in my day, it's going that kills brotherhood. But I think this is a challenge.

To foster this new type of brotherhood, to take advantage of what we have. There are folks that I've talked to that I have interviewed that I consider brothers and sisters that I've never met a day in my life, but something like keep the promise brings us together and something like sharing that same hardship, but in a different scale brings us together brothers and sisters.

Nonetheless, from the Pacific Northwest to Florida and everywhere in between. I may never have built a deck with them or gone to a fire with them or, you know, gotten drunk with them, but they're still part of that brotherhood.

Barrett: Well, it's just like one of the listeners, um, that you put me in conversation with, he was a Florida firefighter and wanted to know about the Mississippi, like the smoke diver course. I mean, it's just, it's that like, and you're right. It is that kind of. I don't know this guy from Adam, but I've had multiple conversations with him about the smoke diver program.

No different than what I'm doing now with another guy. And he's from Louisiana. We're two hours apart, but he was put in conversation, um, with me from those instructors and like, Hey, here's, here's a man that, that's a huge advocate of the program. And We still, like I said, I have yet to shake this guy's hand, but we've had multiple conversations and I shared, you know, episode 11's podcast and it was, I think we, we, we talked for 90 minutes and, and again, just to, you know, he's shared that it's kind of like the old Wayne's world, you know, and he tells two friends and he tells two friends and now they know about keep the promise.

TJ: Hell yeah.

Barrett: And so it just echoes. It just, it does echo. So maybe you're right. It's, it's not that we're all out there and you're going to all these kids birthday parties and you're building decks, but it's that, um, that if so facto kind of, you know, they're the brotherhood. I'm not saying it is dead. I mean, if I did say that, I recant that statement, but it's, um, you know, we, I think we are, we are, we are doing things that we don't realize.

And it is happening literally right in front of us. And because I've experienced those things, um, especially within us last year, we didn't build any decks, but we were here in my shop doing things we were, you know, going on hunting trips together. And it's not, not that's to me, that's more than a, just a friends at work.

That's that is the brotherhood. I mean, cause at the end of the day. You know, we are, we're all coping with something and for the things that we see that are just not meant for humans, other humans to see. And, you know, I think it takes a special place for

TJ: kind of crazy to deal with that kind of stuff.

Barrett: Yeah. Oh yeah. And there's, there's no doubt that we're all crazy to do this job.

But, and, and you're right, it's like, it's, it is, that is, uh, we're still going. I'd like to see it. Would I see better? Absolutely. Do I want to see it improve? Absolutely. And so it's getting that buy in to, to do that.

TJ: let's go into the darker side of the fire service because we've been cheerful and happy and rah, rah, rah. we're talking about burnout because we've all been that person who goes hard. At things. And then we look back and we have a good career in the fire service. We've done things and our family life, our personal life could be an absolute disaster zone.

There were many times that the woman I was dating at the time came to me and said, you're literally going to these classes every three months. We haven't been on a vacation in over a year. What are you doing? And we're going to get really dark because we're recording this on the last day of September, which is suicide prevention month.

Is it awareness or prevention? I feel like I should know this. Anyway, it's all about the suicide. Um, and the staggering statistic is that we lose firefighters to suicide more than we do to anything else. And we've all had those really close People to us and things that way I want to talk about that balance and this this comes to mind because we were having a conversation earlier about mushrooms and people doing drugs and then kind of going crazy, but it kind of it kind of remind me that I mean, right back in what, June, July, my boy.

My boy Sean from Florida left the shift in the morning and then went home shot his wife and shot himself. And uh, right. It was we're all just

Barrett: never eat

TJ: like, what? And uh, you, I mean, you talk brotherhood. He, we, we met at Red Nuke school in Las Vegas. We, we, Add a blast, we almost got kicked off the secure facility because we were, we were burning cardboard out in the, um, in the little bonfire area and drinking booze that we had managed to sneak in past all the armed security guards and now he's gone.

So I think there is a dark side to the fire service that. While we are acknowledging we are still losing the fight to so I just want your input on how we can balance that chest beating rah rah I want to be ate up with a job attitude with I still need to take care of myself and tying into the fact that.

We make our fire service our job, our whole identity, which I think is a fatal flaw and people will crucify me for that. That's a hill I will kill on and I will die on that making this job. Our identity is fatal,

Barrett: Um, so it's a lot. Um, we, we just had a, uh, a suicide within our department. Um, the, the, the man diagnosed with cancer, um, was set to come back. He, he was dealing with a lot of things and it was kind of, you know, he had it, you know, he had, I say that the brotherhood, there were, there were members. that reached out to him, you know, some on a daily basis, some on a monthly or a weekly and then a monthly. And then, you know, some of the just never really never talked to a guy. Um, and we were on duty when we found out that, that he did that.

Um, and so a lot of things went in, I think, went into that for him. Um, some, he had some anxiety, I think, returning to the, back to the, to work and, um, some, you know, anxiety. Just a lot of different things. And I, I guess trying to make my words here, you kind of see I'm kind of struggling, I'm struggling with it, but just trying to write the, put the right sentence here, um, it's for all of us to recognize, you know, that, uh, and I've lived it, not every day is a rockstar day for me, um, Lord knows I've had my stressful moments, um, where my.

My family life has suffered for it. Um, kind of, you know, you know, with, you know, what you referenced, you know, like, Hey, you're taking this class every three months. Well, you know, my, my wife came and said like, Hey, um, man, you're making, making life miserable, you know, you're bringing work home. And that's, it's being able to check when, you know, when you go to the firehouse, you check your personal life at the door and when you come home for your personal life, you check your fire life at the door. And it's, it's a very hard balance. I wish. That's like a million dollar question, man. I, and I had guys that I would call and we would talk and they would give me great advice, but you have to, you have to listen to that advice. You got to heed that advice. You got to take that and you got to under grasp that and understand it.

You can't keep running the way that they're telling you to run or you're thinking you need to run. They're telling you, and it's some like, unfortunately, like, Hey, you're not going to save everybody, meaning the, our job side, you know, you're not going to save that employee. Some people are just destined to do what they want to do.

And I don't like to see people fail. I don't like to see people, you know, I, I like to try to, you know, influence when an influence everybody that I come across, but there are some that are just destined that you're not going to save. They're going to be their own demise. And, and that's a struggle for me.

I, I, I fight that. Um, you know, no matter, I, I can't do that for you. I can't, I can only tell you so many times. And unfortunately that's just how it's going to be. Um, and so, um, I, I did recently go through that, um, that struggle, um, and to, to finally just cope with it and understand like, Hey, I'm never gonna, I say not so much change you or quote fix you, but you got to understand, do you like the things that you're doing, they're detrimental to you.

And if it means losing one to save nine or 10, then, then that's what I'm going to have

TJ: but you mean losing them as employees, correct?

Barrett: Yeah. Like knowing that, Hey, if you chose to go that route, that's on you. I have other members that I have to be worried about from the probie to the next captain to be promoted. And so, um, but understand like, you know, don't my one of mine is don't hold it in.

And I'll be the hypocrite here is don't hold these in. You got to find somebody to talk to. Um, so when, and his name was Jason, when they found out that Jason had committed suicide, um, it rocked a lot of people, um, for a lot of guys, especially on our crew that day. Um, our chief came in, our assistant chief and, and he told everybody, and I can instantly read the room and I knew there were some probes that had never, they didn't know who the guy was because they never met him.

But we also had guys that one was in his Academy together one, like they literally just text going two days ago. Hey, man, you got to be getting close. I know you're excited about coming back. And I'm a big birthday guy. Once I find out, like, if it's your birthday, I'm texting you on your birthday. And my theory behind that it is like your birthday to me is something special.

And no matter what happens on your birthday, if I can say, tell you, happy birthday, that might be the difference. Like, Hey, that, that I, I like to brighten that guy's day. And so I literally just text him on his birthday and I still had the text. And I shared a little bit of guilt in that because. When I messaged him, you know, I said, happy birthday, Jason.

I hope you enjoy your day. And he thanked me and he said, I hope all is well in your world. And almost like it was an open ended statement to keep the conversation going. And I'm not saying I could have changed Jason's mind from what he did, but, um, there were people that were a lot closer to him. I think it was destined.

Unfortunately to happen, no matter how close you are to somebody, you don't know what that man's thinking. And, you know, but being able to rest your head on a pillow at night and knowing that no matter what the situation that I, I gave him everything that I possibly could. And it's still the, those actions were set in motion.

Like, um, you know, it's, and it also kind of, it goes back into that, that firefighter fatigue, that, that mental, just the mental beating that we get. It's. You know, we talked about it yesterday. It's the day, the day in day out. Um, you know, it's the you got to do this. You got to do that. You got to do this. Got to do it.

It's all day every day. And I had to pump my brakes and recognize that to say, like, look, you know what? I'm very easy read. I can say that. Check these boxes and I'm done. I'm gonna get off your back. Just, just do that. And we finally, uh, when, when this happened with Jason, it's like, it really was a wake up call to some of our chief officers say like, what are we doing?

What are we doing at the end of the day? Is this really worth it? And, and that's when I like, as again, as an officer, I see that and it's like, you know what? It ain't worth it. So let the guys do what they need to do. You know, as long as we're getting what we feel is, you know, for our crew, our mission is getting accomplished no matter which way we accomplish it.

That's it. Um, but it's being able to recognize those things. And not get stuck in that rut. I was in a rut. I was in a bad kind of way. Um to where For for some time I lived with chest pains. I couldn't do anything and even it took me Maybe you can kind of segue into this little bit too of the the helping and the healing What make find out what's what's your what makes you I say not makes you tick but find that That happy gilmore that happy place and I lived in that place when I was starting to go down that rabbit hole of thinking these Things that's what I thought about and that's what saved me And, um, being able to recognize that, like, Hey, I, I got a problem.

I got to talk to somebody. Don't hold it in. Don't, you know, Lord, and I held it in, but I also talked to some people that they tried to help me understand and realize what's going on. And then it took my wife to say, we got, we can't do this. Like you don't realize who you are and who you've become, and we can't keep running like this.

And I'm like, okay, like that's a huge warning sign to me. Like, I got to make that change.

TJ: I want to highlight what you're saying. About talking to somebody, if you're new to this, or if you've listened to any of these episodes before, you will understand that I am huge, huge, huge advocate for therapy for talk therapy, because for me, it's what has worked for me. I'm not saying it'll work for you.

I'm not trying to impose my life upon yours. For me, it has worked. So it is one avenue. Talking to somebody, because for me, again, I appreciate having a nerd who has gotten a doctorate in psychology to help me understand how this mass of stuff marinating in brine, aka my brain, how it works. But what Barrett is saying that I want to emphasize and shout from the rooftops is find somebody that you can talk to.

It could be a therapist. It could be a friend. It could be. A brother from a different department. What I will warn against, maybe it shouldn't be your closest family or your spouse. Find a way to fix, not fix yourself, to improve yourself and show up fully for your family. Just like every single day you put on the uniform, but Hey, you worked out, you ate healthy, you got your shit together.

So 100 percent for your shift and for the citizens. Extend that same courtesy and that same honor to the people behind the scene, to the family in your life. So get your shit together. In a different way. Do not burden them with everything that's coming your way, share things, absolutely share, but your spouse, your husband, your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever, they are not your therapist.

They are not going to understand. And they might not know anything about the world. And now you're putting all your trauma on them. And you're like, Hey, I feel great. And now they're in the corner crying because you just told them how you were holding somebody's, you know, brain matter after an NBC. So.

Again, reiterating, find that one person, whoever it might be, that you can talk to, so that you can show up fully for the family, because this ties in, and I want to hear your take on this, this ties in on what I always say about not making this job our identity, crucify me?

I don't care, but at the end of the day, this is a job because you leave, whether it's because you retired or because you were signed or because you fucking died, but you leave and the following day, there's somebody in your seat and a month later, The people stopped calling, and six months later, everybody forgot you existed.

And a year later, nobody's even gonna remember you. And it's a bitter pill to swallow, but I think it's also so freeing, because you can just do whatever. Just be you, do whatever, and the legacy, the people who remember will remember, and maybe they won't. I don't know, maybe that's my nihilism. But I think it's really Really crippling to attach our entire life's self worth to a job that we know will replace us in a heartbeat if we can't do it.

Because, say that, I, I don't know, shatter.

Barrett: 100 percent can agree with you on this because I went down that rabbit hole. I felt that in this is, you know, it took, like I said, it took me some time to understand and process this and then really see it work. Um, you said it best. Okay, I'm gonna, I leave, I retire tomorrow, or yesterday, might have been my last tour, one way or another, somebody else on that list is going to fill my shoes, or they're going to take that spot, and I say fill my shoes. The world keeps turning, the fire service keeps going, they're gonna go, they can go to the same classes that I went to, they're gonna have the same opportunities, it doesn't, You know, at the end of the day, and this is my best friend, he tells me the same thing is it doesn't matter who what you doing right now.

I mean, you live in it, but when you're gone, somebody else, the world keeps turning. The fire service keeps going to the same mundane things. It doesn't matter. We're just cogs in the wheel. And when I realized that, and look, you know, again, I'll quote him a lot here. My last name again, means something to me and I'm going out swinging.

I'm fighting this thing. I'm not, you know, Oh, I got counting down the days. I can tell you how many days I got left, you know, Lord willing, if this is, I was going to pan out for me, but I'm going out with my dignity and my last name, meaning something to me, I'm going to fight the fight to the last day. And then when I leave, when I relinquish, no matter what seat I'm in, then it will be filled with somebody else because I'm going to do something else, or I'm just not going to do anything at all.

And to touch kind of on what you said, and this might sound horrible, but also kind of goes into that brotherhood bit. There are guys, retirees, that I still talk to to this day because they were influential to me. And I don't want to sound like, you know, I'm not, I can't talk to everybody that retired from the fire department, but the ones that were left lasting impressions on me, that my mentors, my formal and informal leaders, all of the, all of these men that those are the guys that I still stay in touch with.

I mean, it's last night I text my old captain, very influential in my career. Um, I messaged him at probably seven o'clock last night. It's something that a song on the radio while I'm in the gym, and it's just those little things that that you remember from when he was there leading you. So it's, it's, you know, um, you know, staying, staying in touch like, Not just letting those guys fall off.

And I saw a little, a little short on YouTube and that's what really like, um, influence this and reinforce this. Like, okay, you know, the guys he's in front of like a white boy, he's talking like, I, you know, when's the last time you talked to your retirees? This is a shame. And I'm like, Oh God, I, now I got, I feel this guilt.

And guys that, again, they were very influential to me that they've retired and come to find out like one had a surgery and this one's doing this and all these things. And so like, I made it a point to like, Hey, you were, you were something in my fire service life and, and we're going to keep this thing going. And so, um, you know, it's, it's just not admitting that. And again, that, that's what, whether you're on or off the job through retirement, it's keeping that brotherhood alive.

TJ: I want to stop you there. I'm holding this book. Excommunicated warrior. And if you're watching the video, you can see it. It's from a guy who used to be a Marine Corps recon, Marsoc, Marine Corps, special operations guy. And it talks about his stages of leaving special operations. So you're not just leaving a career in the military.

You're leaving a high speed thing. And I read it actually on the flight over to Europe a few months back. there was something that struck me because it's a similar narrative to what we hear in the fire service a lot with people who retire and that is nobody reaches out. Nobody hits me up anymore.

He was talking about how the group chat that he had with his unit just kind of dried up and nobody texted. Nobody said anything anymore. it got me thinking. And again, this is my contrarian thinking. We're over here beating ourselves up for not reaching out to the retirees. But, they're the ones with a ton of time now.

They're not the ones who are getting up five times after midnight. And it really, like, it took reading somebody else's narrative, which again, this is why we should go outside of our tiny little world and explore different things to see things differently. Differently, but it took reading his perspective on an issue that we have in the fire service to be like, hold the fuck up the retirees or the ones who resign are the ones that have the most time in their hands.

Why should they expect the people who are still literally in the trenches

Barrett: we're grinding.

TJ: all the work and I'll talk about this, but there's in the latter episode, because I'm not ready to come out with all this stuff yet, but there's. Once you're gone, you have the time, right? You can wake up late, you can text a group chat, you can keep things alive, because you're not the one dealing with the day in and the day out.

But that brotherhood, if we want to keep it alive, it's that two way street. It's that, I get it, I know the same. Short from Travis house that that you were talking about, but I always bring up the same thing. Why? Why aren't the people on the other side of the equation doing something as well? Right?

Barrett: No. And you're exactly right. And, and, uh, I said, never thought about that before either, but if you just, you know, the, I get what the guy's saying, like, when's the last time you talked to your retiree? Well, you know, and some of them, they, they still do reach out. Um, is it as if a frequent? No, but they're still, we're still reaching out.

We still like having these thoughts like, Hey. You know, uh, you know, Barrett, you know, love, you know, loves FDNY. Well, he goes to his, I think his daughter goes to school up there. And so he goes to New York city pretty good bit. So he's on the corner and a couple of rigs fly by and he sends me the video.

And, um, he, he knows like that's so, you know, when we were. Ambulance partners in the city together. And we, we've done a lot of stuff in the, in the fire department together. Classes, you name it, we've done it. And so he still said, Hey, there goes an FDNY rig. Let me send that to Barrett. Um, you know, like I said, there are ones that still, they'll reach out.

Um, some, not so much. And, and then look, it's, it goes both ways. I'm not really into some either. Um, and that's just me. I I'm entitled to

TJ: I was gonna say some just because you retire. It doesn't make you a saint. You just reached. Look, we all have an expiration date in the fire service. And in life, and just because we reached that expiration date does not make us saints perfect. It's so easy to glorify the retired and to glorify the dead.

But I remember having a conversation with folks after we lost Nate, because, I mean, I'll call out not people by name, but there were a lot of people who openly disliked Nate, who talked a lot of shit about him. And after he got killed, they were suddenly all about him, and I'm like, oh, I miss you, brother, I miss, I'm like, A week ago, you were telling me he was a shit bag.

What the fuck are you saying? And I told my,

Barrett: been going strictly for X amount of time. And

TJ: I told my friends, I'm like, if something happens, remember me as I fell. If I was an asshole, tell people I was an asshole. Don't promote me in death because sure as fuck didn't want to get promoted in life. And if you hated my guts at the time, or if you love me, remember me as such.

So I don't think we, I agree with you. We, the glorifying,

Barrett: me as, remember me as you knew me.

TJ: 100%.

Barrett: ones that love me are gonna love me. The ones that hated me are gonna hate me. And, and I'm okay with that. Um, I don't have any room in my life for a new best friend. Sorry, that's where I'm at in life. The older I get, that's it. Like, I, I don't, it is. Like, that's, you couldn't have said it any better.

Love me because you love me. Hate me because you hate me. That's, that's

TJ: That's it?

Barrett: That's what face value right here.

TJ: That's

Barrett: You know, I'm in, I'm at like where I'm at in my job and that's it. That is no, I think you said it. That's, that's awesome.

TJ: So we've gotten a lot and we barely even touched any of the questions from before, which is awesome because it also, well, no, it opens the door for other podcasts. And, um, I know last time I stumped you with the last question about the failure that you cherish the most and I know you, so you're probably preparing.

So I'm going to throw a curveball at you. We're not going to do that question. The question that we are going to do, though, is. You get in your time machine, and you can talk to Barret 10 years ago. What do you tell him?

Barrett: Yeah, well, you're good at stumping on these questions here. Um, God, I had to think back. So we circa 2014. Um, I would have to say during that time. I was probably still recovering and from a life rut. And though I've talked about leaning back into the job, I don't think I leaned back into the job enough.

And that could have been a time to where I should have probably put a little more stock into my career and done some different things. And it kind of, maybe, maybe this goes hand in hand with what we've talked about today. Um, I felt like I was, you know, in a, in a rut in life in general, not so much in my fire service life.

But from the previous episode, I talked about like leaning back into the job because this job has gotten me through, through life, through my career itself. Um, with. You know, through different leaders and whatnot, or managers, excuse me. Let me, let me rephrase that. Well, that's a hot button. That's not, not a leader through some of my managers, but I probably should have like, Hey, let me, let me do, let me put myself out there.

I didn't, I gotta, you know, be, I guess I'm a hypocritical about, um, there was a time span that I didn't go to classes that I didn't go, you know, get involved more and if I could go back in my time machine 10 years ago, I'd have probably would have done that and it probably would have made. Help me from me and my personal life, my fire service life.

Um, and notice how I said that, how you separate that because there's no doubt in this and, and, you know, we have our home life, no matter what it, what the situation is, what your, what your home life is. Um, you know, whether you're single in a relationship, married with kids, whatever the case may be, um, or in, you know, separate that again from your fire life.

You know, I say, check, check your home, your, your personal life at the door, going into your firehouse and check your firehouse drama before you come home. You got to separate the two. And, but also again, my fire life helps me and my personal and my personal helps me with my fire. So it's two way street, I guess, but yeah, that's, I definitely would have, would have, um, Invested more into me, um, class wise, um, done different, done some, done some things differently in my career that probably would help me out.

TJ: Love it.

Barrett: Good question. Great question.

TJ: My friend, a pleasure as always. We'll keep

Barrett: And always,

TJ: because I love watching the progression and the evolution of Barret, and, and your mindset, which I always appreciate. So thanks again, we're gonna get a ton of value from this episode, and we'll do this soon.

Barrett: absolutely. Thank you again for having me. And, um, man, like I said, just again, that brotherhood, grateful, grateful for, for great friends that, um, you know, to meet and to, uh, you know, Again, I hope our story here is contagious to, uh, to the other, to the members that are listening. Even if you're in the fire service or not, this is good stuff