067. The Fire’s Out, But the Stress Stays: Finding Peace After the Chaos [Part 3]

In Part 3 of our powerful series with retired FDNY Captain Rob Cefoli, we explore how first responders—and anyone living under high stress—can take control of their internal world. This episode dives into body-based interventions like tremor manipulation, breathwork, and focused energy redirection to help release chronic tension and build lasting resilience.

You’ll learn:

• How to direct tremors and energy to areas of discomfort
• The meditative aspects of TRE and body awareness
• Why emotional trauma is often at the root of our struggles
• How Rob’s methods are being used with first responders, retirees, and even school-aged kids
• The intersection of training, therapy, and sustainable health
• Raw stories of parenting, personal growth, and finding purpose after hardship

This episode is a blueprint for using body-based healing to improve your mental health, physical performance, and emotional clarity—both on and off the job.

Transcript

Rob: Right. And then you learn it, you get, you're comfortable with it. We show you all different ways to, uh, intervene, which is how to manipulate your tremor or entice it to travel through those areas of tension, right? So it's, if it hits a wall, maybe we can do an intervention to maybe make it shift a little bit further in the pelvis and up the body in the chain.

TJ: that's the part that. That has most of my attention. Being able to sort of harness that energy and take it throughout your body, because when you started explaining the warmup, I, there was a meditation app that I used for just to, just to fall asleep years ago. I forget Andrew something, Andrew, I forget.

It wasn't humor, man. It was, this was pre huberman days. This is, I'm talking like 2009, 2010, but this dude like, I guess big in the meditation world would have you basically take stock of your whole body. He's like, Hey, feel your head, feel your jaw. Relax it, right? And, and going down and basically just feeling everything.

And by the time that I would get to my hips, I'd be asleep, bro. Like I would be, I'm like, all right, I feel my fingers and like out like dead to the world. And. So I've always been fascinated by that ability to, to focus the energy and the thought into a place in my body. And now that you're telling me, we can take that and harness it and almost pinpoint in a certain way the issues that's, um,

Rob: It's

TJ: appealing.

Yeah. That's the, you know, because, because, well, the, the follow up question that I had for you is that you've talked about your back, you've talked about your pec. Are you, at this point, now that you have these skills, are you going basically through and saying, all right, I had, you know, neck issues, let's try to harness that energy and move it in that direction, or does it come automatically and what do you think the end state is gonna be like?

There's gonna come a point that you go through your entire body pretty much, and for lack of better term, you've shaken all that shit off. What next

Rob: Well, I. The life, life goes on. Right. And the shit, the shit doesn't end.

TJ: I'm getting that on a t-shirt.

Rob: Yeah. Life, life goes on. The shit doesn't end right. So we have to shake it out still. So it's a mitigation tool now. Right. So I use it to just keep myself from going up too far in that, in that level and with multiple kids.

And, um, we're homeschooling, we're, you know, toddlers basically like kindergarten age and under. And um, just every day is like craziness. I have three boys. It's like, like I said, pterodactyls screaming at each other. Uh, monster trucks everywhere. Um, emotional breakdowns every 27 minutes, I would say, or less.

Right. Constantly, like everybody's hungry at different times. It's just like you're trying to stabilize life and just be normal. Like, I think just normalizing that like life is chaotic. So you do need these tools to just continually. Manage yourself and, and not feel that way again. 'cause it can easily come back over time.

Right? We're looking at chronic issues, so you're not, it's not gonna fix you, quote, quote unquote. It's just gonna help mitigate a lot of this stuff. Um, it may help you to reassess, like when I train now, I, I, I train different, I have different methods. I use, I use a lot of the things that we teach in my own personal life.

Um, like less of that, that bro session type stuff. Um, less of CrossFit type stuff. Um, some of everything, but mainly a lot of just movement. 'cause now I'm 45 ish, gonna be 45 to 50 to 60. Uh, like half of my time is mobility. Like 50% is phone. I'm on that phone all the time because I'm constantly tight and I'm like, how am I so tight if I just have, you know, TRE I've done all this stuff.

And I'm like, why am I so tight? You know? I'm like, well, because. You go inside, it's like, and you are like, I just want to go into the woods and be quiet. Right? I wanna go, I take hikes with my kids now just to shut 'em up. Like, let's go for a two mile hike. And they, and we all walk around and we, we engage that way rather than sitting in a house with toys and everybody, he's like, like, we gotta get rid of everything in this house.

Like, it's just, it's too much noise. My kids are getting anxiety. My wife's got anxiety. I'm, I think I have anxiety. Like I'm trying to do all this breath work and this tre and, and, uh, what do I do? It's just one day at a time because it doesn't end. And I, I just think that we have something that it, it helps you to explore yourself more.

It helps you to really kind of pull out what you love and like what your purpose is. And I think my purpose for a long time has been training people. Um, I was always into health, quote unquote, even though I was probably unhealthy, the unhealthy, healthy guy, right? I've done a lot of damage to my body over, over the years with stupid shit that, you know, was at the time, you know, I didn't know any better.

Right? And I think you have to elevate your, your consciousness. You have to elevate your education on things and kind of say, okay, what's best for me as I move through life? 'cause it's like, it's like progression. It's like a, it's like a flow chart, right? Like, we're going from, all right, I worked 20 years in the service.

Should I do another 20 and do 40 and then just drop dead? Or do I have, you know, what is my give back? Because I felt that I did a lot and we had a lot of good things happen, but I felt capped where I was. I felt like I could easily just stay there and be complacent, and I didn't want to be that to my guys.

I, I felt that wasn't as into it anymore. I was into this actually, I was actually into, I, I'll travel, like maybe I can go around and see different people and help them. 'cause we put it in here. Our, our instructors are still here and we, and we have it established here. And is that it? Do I just keep doing it?

Do I just keep doing the same thing? The the rat race? I'm not like, I got promoted every like five years. Like, I was like, you know, as much as I wanted to stay in one spot, I felt like I, that wasn't me. Like I needed to just continually evolve, continually to see what's next and like, just challenge myself and, and think outside the box a little bit.

Like, this is from nothing. Like we, we learned TRE but it was like, okay, now what developed workshops? We, we added modalities. We, we became, uh, we're working with people downtown and like our legal team is doing it and our fire inspectors have done it. And our EMS people have done it. 'cause we're not really, we have siloed a little bit.

So whatever we learned, we have to get out to the whole, the whole department, you know, and every person deals with shit. So it is a human mechanism. It's not just a first responding mechanism, isn't just around the world, it's just humans in general have this ability to, um, shake out things that. Affect their bodies through fight or flight, through the sympathetic response.

And once people know about it and they're into their health, which a lot of first responders work out and they try to keep themselves, it's part of your job. You have to do that. Not everybody does. And those have more issues. They have, you know, structure issues and, and, uh, musculoskeletal injury issues and, you know, cardiovascular issues.

Like we die of wanna do deaths or heart attacks. They're heart attacks, cancer, um, suicide, drinking yourself into a hole, losing your family, you know, getting divorced. Right. Just issues with your kids. Relationship issues, like just, uh, intimacy issues. You know, hugging is a problem. Hugging is a problem for, for was, was for a long time for me.

And my, my kids actually. My son loves to give hugs. I'm like, I always, now I give hugs. I'm like, you want a hug? Do you want a hug? I tell the guys you wanna hug what? Come in and I'll get 'em, you know, 'cause something like that, that connection is a human connection. And I think you have to go past the bravado and you need to say, listen, we're all freaking humans on this planet trying to feel better.

We're trying to do the right thing, raise good, raise good, uh, kids, and be assets in the world. And I want my kids to be assets. I want the younger generation to come into the service better. Uh, I want our guys to be better. And our retirees initially was the idea like, get to our retirees from this. Like, let's get a nonprofit, we'll get workshops to our retirees.

I, our first time I spoke on this, I went to like 120 guys in Long Island, guys, probably 50 to 80 to 90 drinking beers. They go, here's Rob Foley. And they just gave me the microphone and I'm like. Nobody knows anything about why I'm there, what I'm doing. And I just explained to them that we were doing some things with trauma and recovery and, uh, the body and, you know, how the, we dis we disconnected and the residue with our families and what the void that you have when you retire and, you know, maybe like, you know, you're here 'cause you need that connection still.

You lost your kitchen table, you lost your team, you lost your guys, you retired or you got put outta work and now you're like, what am I, what am I doing here? I was a firefighter for 30 years where I was on the job and this is my life. So I realized over the last year and a half that my identity was not Captain Rocks Foley.

I, I was a captain and I need to find out who I am and what my purpose on this earth is. And I think that if everyone just did that, we may be a lot happier, but we can't 'cause we're blocked and we just go through the, we go through the motions. Um, if you're in the service, uh, a first response, uh, you're there for a reason.

You're to help people. Ultimately we're a cop, firemen, you know, military, your EMS, uh, hospital staff, nurses, everybody does things that takes from them because they have to give themselves to that profession, right? You, you, you, you're losing part of yourself. 'cause you're dealing with those people, you're dealing with those incidents and, and the compassion fatigue and the, the trauma and just the, the family members and just like the death and the burden and the funerals and, you know, it's, it could be a lot on one person, right?

And then you come home, like my, my neighbor's a nurse. She's like, I, I come home. I don't wanna talk to anybody. I talk to people all day. I can just deal with people all day. I just wanna come home. I'm on silence. 'cause you, you now are home and you just can't chill out to be present, to be, to play the video game with your kid or to build the, the magnet tile structure.

'cause you got a million things in your brain and you, and you just can't chill out. And I think that if we could just chill out a little bit. We can all be better. We can kind of redefine ourselves a little bit. Uh, come together as a, as a community of people that want healing. You know, we call it healing workshops.

'cause you come out of there feeling good, you have some good tools that you learn. You learn something very new, very strange. But if you practice it over time, it gets better. Like, people have come back and they've done our, we do some zooms and stuff like that to finish the TRE aware training, but they have, oh, I tried it twice since the last time we did it.

And I had it got up to my chest and now my, you know, my arms are going, it's like, it's the craziest thing. And I'm like, well, just keep going. Right? Because it's like you're a new person. Every time you shake, basically, you shake out that stuff, you basically reintegrate to your body. So when you, if you get off the floor, you feel looser, you're gonna walk different.

You're gonna, you're gonna interact with people different because you feel better, right? If I felt like shit all day, my back was killing me. I was a miserable fuck. I was just like, get the fuck away from me. Just sitting in pain. I can't get up holding my breath to get up out of a chair. I'm the director of fitness for the largest department in the world, and I can't even squat through a box.

Are you kidding me? I quit, I'm quitting. That's, that was my, that was where I was at. And I was like, this came at the right time for me. And I think it had to happen that way. I honestly, everything you go through is you look back, well that happened 'cause of this, and this is the reason why I'm here. You, you have to go through bad stuff to learn, um, and overcome.

And then now, years later, I can talk about all the crap, honestly, and just say, you know what? I'm not perfect. I fucked myself up more than anything else. I made so many mistakes, but there probably was reasons why I was acting that way that I didn't know about the time. And if I knew how to handle it, then maybe I would've done things differently and then maybe I would've. You know, again, I don't, my life is great right now. I think I have great kids, I have a great wife. Um, I have great purpose. We have great people around me and I think that it had to transform this way. And now we're able to go out, we're able to get on a plane, show up somewhere with like 15 to 20 people that I really excited to learn something that's gonna help 'em.

'cause now they see some of their testimonials. They've seen, you know, we had to start telling people from nothing. Now we show other people, look at everybody else, it's not me. We have to, we had to build it that way where we have the testimonies of people that are giving them to us because they know it'll help somebody else. And I just, I love it. I, I think it's really interesting work. I think it's kind of like, it's hard because I don't know really how to build it out to a capacity that I know it could be. It could be. It's gonna be big. I mean, I've been told by tens of people that this is, this is gonna grow really fast 'cause they feel it.

And they see with the friend they brought to the session and they go look at this. And everybody's amped up about it and they want to explore it more. They wanna look at, Hey, does this work with other stuff? Like if I did some supplementation or I did, you know, if I worked out first. I'm like, you can do it however you like.

That's the beauty of it. It's like it's your tool. You have to put it into your life how you see fit, you know? And if you want to do it, um, in the morning it might, you know, relax you too much, maybe do it at night 'cause it helps you sleep or maybe do it after your workout. So it helps you downregulate the system and helps you kind of loosen up like you would do a yoga session or something like that.

So, however you like to do it. But these other tools that we've put together make a great, uh, experience for the everyone that attends. We have, uh, great feedback, like a hundred percent, five star rating so far.

TJ: Is this fire tribe?

Rob: yeah, this is just, you know, us doing our thing and you know, it's, it was like, it was a parallel mission 'cause we had what we were doing for the job and then we had what about our retirees? I was like, what are we doing with them? Like they, they probably needed more than anybody else. They're gone. They didn't learn the nutrition, they weren't taught all the things we're teaching these kids early on in the, in the academy, they didn't have all the online resources that are in the app. They don't how to use their flip phone.

They don't know what to do. Let's, let's try to bring them back. And that's a, that's a hardest nut to crack. That's the hardest nut to crack because they might be just too far out there in their own world. But when we speak on it, I get a lot, we get a lot of head nods. When I went to that, uh, retiree, uh, meeting, people came up to me on the break.

They're like, that sounds great. Uh, where can I learn more? Here's emails, da da da. And, and then we, that was like the first thing. Then we got into our peer support group. We got into our World Trade Center nurses. We did a session with them. They were like, this is insane. So we still have to follow up with all these people again and keep them in the loop.

And so if we just stopped, if I just said, you know what, I'm not, I'm gonna do it for myself and I'm just gonna feel better. You can't do that when you feel, when you have something that's really good and it's gonna help, basically everyone you've seen so far has gotten help from it. Then basically in my book, everybody can do it and everybody should, because if you're suffering any way, if you have any stress in your life, it's just something you don't know about yet.

It's been around the world. It hasn't been here, it hasn't been in our community. Um, and I think coming from us, like it's not coming from the outside world, it's coming from us. We, we've translated it from Dr. Belli and TRE trainers and they, they, you know, that back and forth of like, how we're gonna work this up.

I'm like, just let us do it. 'cause I think we're smart enough to put it together in a way where we can all understand it, uh, for ourselves and our community and any way else. It, it doesn't work at this point because if it would've worked, these, these trainers would've had every department doing it and whatever, but they didn't have it.

So I think it took time for us to get in front of it. It took some hardship to feel that we had something that we had to try. And then once we tried it. And then had that profound response that I had, I, I was like blown away. I, I really didn't get it really for months, to be honest. I really was like, I don't know, I, how do I, how do I get this funding?

What am I writing up for this? Like, how do I explain this to the FDNY foundation so they can give us some funds? First the certifications for this guy to come here? Like, how do we do this? I was like, I don't get it. I literally don't get it. It took me months and months and then once I had outta the breakthrough, I said, you know what?

This is just fantastic. I was like, I don't get it still, but it's fucking great. I feel awesome. You know, like, so it was a turning point for me. And then after that it's been like just better and better and better. My wife's, my wife does it. Um, she, you know, to, to help with her anxiety. Um, but also now she's opening up the training and doing some of the other foam rolling and like adding these little things in, you know, five years of three babies and some postpartum stuff and some emergency surgeries and stuff like that.

I'm like, babe, you're, you went through a lot in five years. And we also have dealt with, you know, my daughter back and forth and, and legal stuff with my ex. And like all that type of stuff that you have with the wars case and, you know, uh, business issues and stuff like that on top of, I'm never home, right?

And you're always alone. So we're, we're kind of like just regrouping here, uh, right now. And it's only been six weeks, but we've done a lot of, we've made a lot of progress, but I've seen changes in my wife. Uh, my daughter, I introduced it to my daughter, uh, who is on the spectrum, uh, high functioning, uh, and she has a lot of anxiety and again, ripped apart, two, two homes.

I see it. And I had to, I introduced it to her a little slowly and she was at first crying every session, crying, crying. And we didn't even get, almost to the point, we didn't get to the tremors yet. It was just a warmup series. And one day we went here and she cried for an hour. And I just sat with her because I realized I shouldn't say stop crying, right?

Which should be my initial reaction. And back in the day, and when I said, you know what? That's just your diaphragm, baby. I'm here with you. Do you wanna cry now? That's what we gotta do. Great. Let's do that. And then we got to the point where she actually did a, like a 10 minute session of TRE without crying.

And then like we'd roll on the side and be like, chilled out and then go into the chaos again. And I go, this is a tool baby. This, you know, when I see you like riled up all the time, either we gotta walk out, we gotta walk, we gotta decompress, which she does art. Or we gotta come in here and we're gonna shake.

And every so often now I'll get her to shake with me. It's all good. Like she's gotten past that initial, like it was, it was surface. Like her body and her, her muscles are so tight, you know, she has toe walking, uh, like a stim. The stim she has, but her like calves are tight and like, she's like. I'm like, if you just foam roll, like I know if you just would work, stretch and work out and foam roll and dot RE you probably would feel a lot better.

You, I, I see your body and I, I see you come here from, you're, you're at your, you're in your own room, uh, with your mom and then you're here with three maniacs, you know, like, you know, my son's 15 months and he wants to be with the big boys. He's screaming at, damn, they're yelling about stuff. I wanna go hide with her.

You know, like, I'm like, score in your room and draw because, you know, I get it. Trust me. And it took me a few months to, to figure out that it was that transition. Super hard. 'cause again, you going from like, somebody who doesn't have it, that 10,000 runs a year or like 1,000 fires, they go like that one major run that's like coming here to chaos, the circus.

It's a fully circus, I call it. It's like you come in, it's like, we're just getting it done today. I don't know how we're gonna do it, but every day we work it out. Right? Everybody gets in bed at certain time. We're feeding the kids like everybody's paid, like, you know, they got a little homeschool done.

They play time, the workout time. And then we all pass out, and then it's like again and again. So I could see how it affects, um, children, uh, 12 and older can access this mechanism. So with my high school athletes, it's something I'm looking to incorporate into, into the school, uh, as a recovery tool for them.

And imagine, just imagine the, the adults that would come out of lessons like this from high school

TJ: Yeah.

Rob: and how crazy it is that I got involved with the school and, and, and with my daughter's issues. And I'm looking at it from that. I'm looking at the academy and we go, if I backtrack to about 13, 14, or 15-year-old kids and we can start putting 'em on formal and we can start teaching 'em how to do calisthenics and we can start teaching 'em how nutrition.

Which should be in school, by the way. It should be pt. It shouldn't be like gym. Like go, go walk around the walk a lap and sit on your phone. It should be like, we're getting changed and we're working out. 'cause the 30 minute workout would help 'em feel better, let them know how to manage their body, build some confidence, right?

Like they used to do when it used to go back in the day. And yes, you worked out in gym, um, you probably would have a better society going forward, right? You have more people that have more resiliency, more tools in their toolbox, able to have accountability and responsibility and get up on time and meal plan and, you know, get their workouts done and have theirselves as a priority rather than being so on like outside themselves, constantly like playing games online with everybody in the world, but they can't, you know, do a pushup at 16 years old trying to play, uh, high school lacrosse.

It's like, no, you're gonna suck and you're gonna get hurt, and wouldn't you wanna win? Don't you want to feel great? Something's coming, boys, you know, I'm 45. Why am I still going? Because I'm showing you the future if you do it right. And I, and that's where I know this is all headed too. And it's all connected because all these lessons that we're learning for even our first responders, it, it matters to our children.

My sons are five, three and one, they come to the gym all the time. My son's doing 15 pushups. He did 6 59 squats the all day, because you can count to 59. And he is up and down, he's up and down. He's up and down. And I'm like, that's a proud dad moment, you know? And I'm like, I don't want to be like, Hey, why can't you do this because you're five years old, man.

This kid like, knows about protein and he likes, he's into himself. He's like, he wants to be a ninja. He wants to be a, like a ninja kid. He's loves, he wants to be a ninja warrior. Uh, he wants to be the fastest kid. Like that's what I want for, for our adults. But if you never learn that until you're 25, when you come to the fire academy, how are you gonna handle the, the third alarm on arrival with people hanging out the window? You're gonna, you're gonna fool man. So we have to build people, whether it be on the job, young, old, all our methods are basically human elements that we can now train on and we can, we can input into school systems and we can input into first responder communities and we can input into corporate world stress, stress management, body awareness, breathing, um, you know what, uh, somatic therapies, right?

Nutrition, sleep. Let's look at that first before we go to the pills and the bottles and the therapist and the, and everything else on the godson that everybody's trying to sell. Say, listen, you know, we are, we are here to share what we've learned, right? Um, we, we have the background with trainers Now. I can't believe I, it's over 20 years like I've been working with people.

It's crazy to think about, you know, and every time I work with somebody, I know that the root of every, all their issues comes from emotions, lack thereof, trauma. An issue, a breakup, a death, an abuse. And they have weight issues and, and, uh, self, uh, imaging issues. And they just don't have the skill sets to manage themselves.

So it's all those things that happen and you come and say, Hey, help me work out. I wanna lose weight. Okay, let's start from the beginning. You know, when, you know, and these sessions like, well, I gotta fire my therapist 'cause you're better than them. Like, well, not only do you feel better, 'cause you've been training now and you got some, some of that, uh, in your body.

We're having conversations of why and methods and habits and like, why do you do that all the time? You know, what's, what's, what's the, what's the block? And it's like, well, oh, uh, you know, I, I had a client said her husband died tragically and has so many, like, she, so she was all over the place and I was trying to bring her in, bring her in, grounding.

Right. Be grounded here. Like, how do you get over that trauma? You know, like we, I didn't know the tool then I would, I would teach it to every single person. I'm literally telling every single person about this because it's useful for everyone as a basis. And then, Hey, how about you try this? How about we look at your meals?

Or what are you eating? My neighbor's down almost a hundred pounds. All I do is just talk to 'em.

TJ: Wow.

Rob: Six months, nutrition, macros, uh, work out normal. But let's look at that. Let's not start ourselves and go do a million hours of cardio and try to lose weight again, the same way we've always done it. 'cause A, you're gonna feel terrible.

B, you're gonna get, you're gonna be a dick to everybody. So let's show you how to do it the right way. How to live with purpose, how to live with the skill sets and how to incorporate it. So you teach your children that. That's where I'm at. I'm at the point where I want to teach the next generation and I keep going younger and younger.

So I started with the academy. Now I'm in high school and I'm in with toddlers. So some, at some point, all these matter. 'cause it's a chain of events of how I, I see society going and I think there's a lot of people out there that in the last couple years things have gone sideways. And we've seen a lot of crazy shit out there.

But let's get back to basics. Like, how are we gonna be a good society? And I was talking about Jack Thelan last night with my family, and his vision was that if, if America was healthier, like the people, the country is better. And I believe that. I think everybody feels better. Their energy's up, they're more productive.

Um, they're better at home. They're not as, they're not as crotchety all the time, right? And that's usually a lot of deficiencies in the body. So are we missing nutrition? Are we're not putting the good stuff in to get good stuff out? Are we just like dev void of that right now? Probably most likely, right?

Supplement industry's crazy. Well, let's just get back to basis good, wholesome food, good rest, good training, good methods and skills, and keep it simple. And every day you're just trying to make progress and see what you're supposed to be doing here. Right? We all go blind through the world, like just doing our job and going home and, and just doing the basic stuff.

You know, TV's off of my house most of the time, you know, I'm not getting caught up in a lot of crap. I, I have certain priorities every day that I try to make sure I hit. If I don't hit 'em all, I'm okay with that. But for the most part, I want them to be taught to my ki my kids. 'cause when I was a kid, I didn't know half this stuff.

I didn't know anything when I was a high school athlete. I wish I learned how to be faster. I wish I learned about plyometrics and nutrition and I was put in a weight room in the like squat bench. Do the arm curls, don't do the running program, come to the camp and then try to be the fastest guy on the field you can.

'cause you didn't put the time, you didn't put the work in. So I feel like when I looked at all the people we trained, uh, for first responders and firefighters, a lot of pe a lot of 'em were great and a lot of 'em were missing the basic structure and like the basic tool sets to, to do this job. Not, not just even be a human right.

Nevermind be a firefighter. So I said, man, we gotta get 'em earlier. We gotta go. So we have pre-programed for the academy and I'm like, that's too late. We gotta get earlier. Then I started going right down to my kids and I'm like, wait, that's too soon. They're too little. Let's go in the middle. Let's look at high school.

Maybe I should teach high school kids. I go to my high school, I speak at a seminar full day. I get eight periods of, uh, discussion about my life and what, what happened after high school and entrepreneurship. I had a few businesses, stuff like that. I go, I really like the kids. I like high school kids. And then it just came out of my, my uh, my legal issues, uh, witness on my ex's list was my friend's wife and I go, Paul, just a heads up.

She might get called. And he goes, I'm like, what's up for you now? Oh, I'm not coaching over here now I started this new program. You gotta come help me. And I go, what do you mean? He's like, it's a brand new team. First time these guys are playing lacrosse high school team. I'm putting 'em all together. It's gonna be the first season ever inaugural.

You should do the strength and conditioning. I go, I love that idea. I was like, I get to like mold 'em and like, we can make a team outta this guys and make them athletic. And like, I got rain of it. I got freedom. He's like, when are we starting? He goes, December. I go, perfect timing. I'm retiring, I'll be retiring by then.

And it, we just hit the ground running and I started to work out with these kids like I would do in the, and the fire academy. Have like 20 kids in the gymnasium. I'm in the front. We'll leave workouts. We're structuring it, nutrition, and I feel the, the love of that. And that's all donation. I just go in there.

I'm 6:00 AM in the morning, three times a week. Now I'm retired. I'm like, whatcha guys doing? I'm gonna work out with these 15 year olds and show 'em what's up. And then teach them the little things, little by little, how to build their bodies, how to become athletes, how to work as a team. Um, right.

Everything we've done, I had that history. I go, this is like, just like that. I go, this is perfect. It's so easy. 'cause I had that, I had to have that experience to now bring it into these kids' lives. The parents are on board. Um, they're doing it safely. They're learning, uh, how to push themselves without hurting themselves.

Learning about different types of training programs. TRE is coming for them. It's gonna be put into their, somehow. Uh, I just dunno when yet they're starting their season. So like that type of stuff I've gotten like, out of what we've done here with TRE. It's just like a really weird chain of events that now un unravels the purpose of your life where you can give back now even more.

So that's where I'm at. Long answer though, to whatever question it

TJ: I was gonna say, we started with one question, the original plan, we had

Rob: I'm sorry.

TJ: 20 questions, and, um, the first one took us down this phenomenal rabbit hole where we learned everything about your career. Do not, do not Apol. Dude, this is, this is what we're here for. We, I, I, like I told you before, I'm a little bit jealous now that you guys are all gonna Colorado to hang out with Sammy, and I'm not invited because I need to get in on this T-R-E-I-I.

I'm, I'm curious. You got me, you got me hooked. So I, I want to try it out,

Rob: We have to try it.

TJ: but, uh, listen, the one question I didn't, because you're gonna come back and I want to talk about the, uh, the emotional side and the empathy and that sort of, you know, the eye color, like the. Eyes are the windows of the soul. And you, you notice in a lot of people when within our world, that the eyes carry a lot of heaviness.

So I really want to delve into that, the empathy, the emotion side of things. But we're going on almost two hours here. But the one, it's al, it's awesome. It's awesome. The one question that I have and the one that, um, that I didn't write down is, is more of a personal one. It's, I want to know what it is, what failure it is that you cherish the most.

Rob: what failure in my life like as a learning tool.

TJ: Yeah. Which one do you look back on and you go, yeah, I'm actually thankful for that one.

Rob: I would say that my, my, my first relationship was something that I believed was a plan that I had learned from my parents. Like a plan, like something that I thought was my ideas and it, and it really wasn't. And I had a feeling that maybe I was being pressured or like I was at a time in my life where I really wanted it so bad that I wasn't gonna see through it as well.

And I got to a relationship with a woman that, um, at the time I didn't, couldn't really relate to the feelings I had. 'cause again, this is 2000 9, 10, 11, right? And then I had my daughter and we had issues with my daughter. And I love my daughter to death. I think that's probably the reason why we were together.

'cause her, her whole life was a learning lesson for me. I, I just regret how I was at that point, but I knew it had to happen that way. Now, if that, if that makes sense, where I probably. Could have been better, but I, at the time, I, that wasn't the time for me to be better. That relationship wasn't meant to last.

It was meant to bring my daughter into this world at the time. I'd look at it as a huge failure that I, I, I can't believe I'm getting divorced. There's no way in my life that my parents never got divorced. Like, that's not a thing I ever thought would happen to me or a situation I'd ever be in. I never thought I would have a child with, um, some kind of learning disability or anything like that.

I started to second guess everything about myself. Like, you know, is it me? Was it all me? It can't be all me. It has to be both of us. And you know, now I'm like, yeah, I wasn't there. I wasn't there. It wasn't me. I, I honestly, so now I'm still trying to figure myself out 'cause like, what do I really love? Like what I really like to do.

At the time, I was just there doing something because that was what was put into my brain that had to get done at certain points, certain timelines. I. 20, 20 something years old, I don't wanna go out anymore. And I'm, you know, this girl's, you know, I need to sit down and I need to get a house. I gotta, you know, I'm almost 30.

Like that plan is not my plan. That wasn't my plan. That was something. My parents go to college, you gotta be better than us. Don't be a blue collar worker, firefighter. I knew I didn't wanna sit in office, but I think that, uh, that's something I failed at, right? I was a failure at that marriage. I felt I, I failed as making it work and sticking it out.

But as I look back, I realized it wasn't on me. And I, I realized I, if it was totally, if I was full of my full self, I would've been able a better person there to maybe avoid a lot of the pitfalls that I fell into. Um, I think if I didn't have the issues with alcohol at the time, I would have, uh, been better.

But as soon as you drink in my, in my, in my eyes, like, especially like liquor, like liquor. It brings out a fucking asshole in me. Like bad, like really? Like I was like cutting. I cut you. I would cut you. And that, that I regret a lot, um, how I was allowing that to happen. But it was ingrained in me for years.

It was, it was at that point 10, 15 years of binge drinking from partying to fraternity life to traumatic event. PTSD coping where it was all the same. It was all good. It was all okay. 'cause it was, we had fun. Right? Okay. Right. We had a great time. But it's destruction of your body and it doesn't allow your mind to kind of be there for you.

And I think it also disconnects your body too. So like, it just puts you in a depressive state, dehydrates you. It's, it's poison. Yeah, but it was so readily there. It was so readily accepted and pushed that it was so easy to just do it. And then you have days where you're fighting and you're like, you can't fucking feel nothing.

And you're like, you know, if this isn't gonna work, like I can't be, you know, divorced now and what am I do with my house, my daughter, my business together. I'm like, all this shit's going getting fucked right now. And I don't know any way out of it. And I think it's all me. And then I realized later on, most of it was me on my end.

But then there's other shit on your end, you know? And that's okay. And we, we, we made a, a child that really taught me, and it's still, I told my daughter yesterday, I was like, you teach me things every day. 'cause now I'm looking at you like, how am I gonna make you into an asset in this world? You know, are you limited by a freaking diagnosis that was from when you were a kid?

Or is it a system that you're in that just like, it just makes it like more and more, uh, of like a, a crutch. Right. Like the classes, the extra help, the like, that's all great, but it's also a curse. 'cause now you're coddling. So in my home I had to, my daughter's 13 can be 14. I'm like, you gotta start getting your shit together.

You gotta be able to like go shopping and come back. Like, you need to be able to like, you have to be driving in two, three years. Like, can I, can she do that now I'm worrying about all shit. I'm like, man, I gotta catch up here. And I wish that my, uh, her mom and I were on the same page and we're not, unfortunately, you know, that's what it is.

So I have to just control what I can control. And looking back, it probably was the best thing that ha could have happened at the time. It's the worst thing. And since then it's been draining my life here with court and finances. Uh, and, and my, my relationship with my wife now, like the whole time we were together, um, with dealing with that.

You don't have a full like family. Uh, dynamic here you have this other like thing over your head constantly decision making, scheduling money, uh, uh, appearances and like, oh my God, now what? Now what lawsuit? I get sued. Like, just crazy shit that I'm just riding out now. I'm at the point where I'm okay with it because I know the right, the, the truth is absolute right.

And ultimately, you know, I'm, I wanted to settle and get, and move on for years and I was dragged through shit that I was persecuted. I was told I was abusive. I was told that I was, uh, starving my daughter 'cause she wouldn't eat my food. And I, I couldn't have overnights and all this other shit. I'm like, this is all nonsense.

And the court system allows it for years. So this is going sideways again. I'm sorry. But one of my, uh, failures I think was that like, it was allowing, not knowing who I was and then just going with the flow. And then you line up in a life that yes, good comes out of it, but also it was. A fucking horror show of a decade.

And now I, I do feel relief and I, I feel transition. I feel, uh, like moving on. Finally, like I've always said, I wanted to move on. I've always left it. Take the high road. Don't, don't counter attack. Don't fucking say shit. I'm not texting bullshit. I'm not arguing we're I going to police stations? We're just existing doing our schedule, loving my daughter.

I try to interact as much as I can, but I really can't stand the interactions that we have. And it gives me anxiety, gives my wife a problem. So we avoid it. We address it when we have to. We minimize it on and we put it into the box where it needs to be. And I, and we parent my daughter when she's here the way that we should, but it's a conflict.

So I feel like it's, it's a, it's an can be an ongoing issue, but one, it's one of the things that I wish that I knew how to help myself before everything went to shit. So even maybe the divorce would've been better or, you know, maybe our relationship with our daughter would've been different. Like we just to get more to, we need to be more together with it, but we're not.

Uh, it's unfortunate, but it is where we're, where we're at right now. So that's probably one of the biggest things in my life that affected, affected me. And then I look back on is, uh, I wish I would've did better. You know?

TJ: Well, buddy, you have been beyond candid, open about all of your life, and from the bottom of my heart, I, I truly appreciated. I. And I'm so thankful that I get a chance to help your story and push it out to people who hopefully are listening and will benefit and will take that chance on themselves and Will, will make that effort to, to release that trauma and to be able to, to lead better lives.

So Rob, thank you so much.

Rob: Thank you brother. And I, I appreciate you having me on. I know it's been a while and whoever's listening, I would just leave at this. Uh, reach out, you know, we're online, fire drive.org. Uh, email there. Uh, we have on social media, uh, Instagram and, and Facebook as well. Uh, I'm on LinkedIn There. The people that need to hear it will hear it.

That's what I, how I believe it. I think you just gotta keep sharing it. Um, the right people will come in front of this that are interested. We'll have those conversations. We'll get those trials in. We'll get over to you. We'll have you do TRE, you know, and, you know, we did zooms, you know, we had to do a Zoom session 'cause people have to try it, right?

They go, I really want to get this together, but I don't know what it's like, like you said. So we have to first experience what, what that is for our bodies, and then you can start going down that path. I think it's, it's a system that we can teach a lot of different departments, a lot of different individuals.

Uh, it's a resource that's available. It's easy, it's cheap. They don't need any equipment for it. But ultimately, um, there's so many more people out there that just are suffering. And I think that you either not knowing how much, how bad they feel, but you don't know how good you can feel until you feel, stop feeling good.

So I just start feeling good with the process. You start to just get more and more in tune with your body and like your decision making and stuff like that. And then you look back and you go, you know what? All that, all that shit I dealt with, there's no other way that could have happened. Right? Because you, there's a purpose and a path in your life that's really, that I used to try to control so much.

I used to try to be in control of it so much. Again, controlling chaos, controlling the fire scene, controlling the manpower and everything else in the world and all trying to handle it all. And ultimately you just have to just say, you know what? Let go, let God. And, and I'm here for a reason. Let me find what my reason is 'cause I'm here to walk in that path to, to kind of carry a message.

I think now. And that's, that's where I've come up with, as weird as it is, I think I'm probably getting a little weirder as we go on in this, but it's a very spiritual thing for me. It's a, it's a, it's a calming thing for me and it's a tool that it just re, it reprogrammed my me a little bit and it's, it's continuing to do that 'cause it's being supported by the response we're seeing. And if we weren't getting a response from people. It would, we wouldn't be on this conversa having this conversation, you know? And, um, my long-winded ness sometimes is made fun of, but it also helps me to, um, alleviate my, my, my burdens a little bit by sharing that. And, and honestly I had to get let go of that.

I like who's, who cares what people think of me at this point, I really don't care anymore. So, and now that I'm retired, I think I'm can be even more candid than, than before. 'cause you're still under that, you know, you're under that hub of like, you have to be a certain way to represent your department, you know, and there's things that I can talk about, I won't, but right now, but you know, my perceptions of a lot of things have, have been altered over the last few years and have been per pronounced, uh, there's been a pronounced improvement in how I feel and think about life and the world and people.

And I really know, like we're at, we're at a turning point in the world where there's a lot of fucking suffering is constant. It's like one thing after the fucking next la fucking San Diego. People kill themselves, cops, firemen, everybody. It's like, what the fuck is going on in the world? Right? And I think we're just overwhelmed with so much shit that we get fed that it's hard to just stop it and like figure out a, a better process for ourselves.

So I hope that this message gets through and the next group of people, your area, any area that see and hear this, we can have these conversations. Um, I think that you're gonna be a connector. I think that you're gonna be someone who does TRE with myself, Joe. We'll, we'll set that up. Do zoom. I don't care.

We do it in per person's always best. Always get the best results in person. That's why in workshops for us work well. 'cause we're getting together with our community. We're in person, we're on the ground with you. We're in your socks talking about your feelings, right? That's what we want. We want you guys to, to be immersed in this, to show the power of it, so then you can go take it with you and spread it into your communities.

Um, and, and that's really the main goal for us. So I, I do appreciate you having me on