077. Don't Wear Your Uniform Home [Part 2]

Don’t wear your uniform home—your kids will thank you. 

Tara Cornett (FLAME Decon) returns with a family-first decon plan: keep gear out of living spaces, run smarter laundry, and make kid station visits safe. 

Volunteers get a no-shower, low-budget workflow that still works. 

We also talk money, purpose, and what it really takes to push this mission.

What You’ll Learn:

• Volunteer decon on a budget: bag the gear, store it outside the house, strip and shower fast, run a washer clean cycle.
• Home laundry that helps: separate loads, enzyme + charcoal detergent, no mixing with kids’ clothes.
• Kid-safe station visits: wash hands, change out, decon clothes when you get home.
• Mindset shift: uniform stays at work—good for your family and your head.
• How to make the case so the department funds personal decon for everyone.

 If you’re a firefighter who wants to keep cancer-causing junk out of your home and lock in simple, cheap habits, this one’s for you.

Transcript

TJ: Today we talk about what happens after the call from the cab of the apparatus all the way to your home's front door. Terra Cornet, the founder of Flame Natural Decon, returns to lay out a family first set of habits, why uniforms should stay at work, how kid visits to the stations can be had without hidden risks.

Laundry that doesn't share contaminants at home. And the volunteer reality plan for when there's no showers at the firehouse. We also get real about budgets and leadership priorities, how firefighter owned companies are teaming up, and what's next on flames roadmap. If you want a long, healthy career and a safer home and family, this one matters.

Narrator: Welcome to the Keep the Promise Podcast, where we help build resilient and well-rounded firefighters.

TJ: You

mentioned the clothing. It, it reminds me of something that one of the guys, Nick Lindsay said in a previous podcast episode, which really resonated, is that for him, he makes it a point to never wear his uniform home because it is now time to be dad.

It is now time to be, not Nick the firefighter, but Nick the dad. And be in that mindset, get, start getting that shift in, in the thought process, in the feelings and the actions and now we have more evidence that it's important to do that. Like for the mental sake. Yes. And also for not bringing carcinogens to your kids because maybe it was a chill day, maybe it was just 12 hours, maybe it wasn't anything crazy, but by virtue of being at a firehouse around the gear that's offgassing all the time around the apparatus that is spewing out the diesel into the bay, still bring those scogs or you know, you just happen to rub by a wall.

That's somebody ended up, I don't know, with their turnout gear on and now you just pick that shit up.

Tara: Absolutely. I love that mindset shift too of the, the getting home and just the mindset shift to the family life, um, as opposed to the fire life. I think that just helps the, you know, automatically transition. Um, so I wanna talk about one, um, a little bit about the laundry detergent, but then I wanna talk more about kids.

Around the fire service. Um, so one, our laundry detergent is, so you mentioned something about the formulations. So our, our activated charcoal blend is the same in everything. Um, the shave soap is, um, different in that it has stuff that helps it, like glide on the skin, right? So that's different than the regular soap in that way.

Um, our laundry detergent, we took out all of the, like, foamy ingredients and we added an enzyme. So these enzymes break down the fats, oils, carbs, sugars that bind these carcinogens to the close, and then the activated charcoal is then able to do its job, get close to it, bind to it, and wash it away. So that's why the, the, the laundry detergent works and works so well for what you guys do.

Um, so then let's circle back to kids around the fire service because I think this is an important topic to, to talk more about. So you have firefighters going home with carcin engines on them. We wanna make sure they're not doing that. But also kids love visiting the fire station, right? And we're not gonna take that away from these babies.

They love it, but I think it's really important to be mindful of when they're there, don't let them touch things and then put their hands in their mouths, which kids love to do. Kids are constantly putting their hands in their mouth. I think watch that super closely decon them when you get home. Decon their clothes when you get home.

Um, make sure, you know, before they eat at the station, they're washing their hands. I think all these little things that we can do to help mitigate their risk as well is super important. I'll also say like, we don't know for sure where these cancer rates in children are coming from. It was one study, it was a small study, and we don't know if it is.

Solely the carcinogens that they're coming across, or if it's that mom or dad has been a firefighter for so many years that they've passed that on through DNA changes. We don't know. Um, but all we can do is, is protect the kids the best we can.

TJ: Right. Sort of make that assumption in the right direction and work off of it.

Tara: Absolutely.

TJ: Now, what if I am at a middle of Middle America volunteer fire station? What can I do? I'm probably not gonna have the budget to be able to afford all of those things. What steps can I take to at least mitigate a. Bit of that risk. Might not be able to nullify it all entirely, but you know, we gotta, just because somebody doesn't have the budget doesn't mean they should be left behind, you know, high and dry to get whatever weird cancers we get,

Tara: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about volunteers. I would love to circle back to finances at fire for fire departments afterwards though.

TJ: we'll get back to it. Yeah.

Tara: Okay. So, um, volunteers, I. Oftentimes I know like there's not the access to even the shower at the fire station. They're not going to the fire station, they're going to the fire, they're going home.

Um, I think it's really important to one, have a bag. Um, sergeant fire bags makes one. I think there's a couple of other companies out there that make them, that are, that are airtight and meant for your turnout gear so that you can put those in there, um, you know, before and after a fire and, and keep them in there when they're not being laundered, so that they're not offgassing into your vehicle.

That kind of thing. When you go to put that in your vehicle, if you have a a car with a trunk that closes, make sure it's in there. If not, make sure it's in the back of your truck, SUV, what have you. And then when that gets home, make sure it stays somewhere other than inside your living quarters. Keep it in the garage, keep it in the storage unit.

Um, if you have to bring it inside. Make sure it's stated in there sealed and shove it in a closed closet. I mean, do the absolute best you can to keep those carcinogens away from your family. Um, I think, uh, I've heard from many different volunteers that when they get home, they'll strip down outside, take off all their clothes outside so that they can go and put those in the washer right away.

Um, and then they'll go get in the shower themselves. And I think it's a great practice. One thing to keep in mind though is that when you're putting those clothes in the washer, don't put your kids' clothes in with it, right? Wash those clothes by themselves. Um, maybe even run a cleaning cycle after that.

Just run the washer itself. Just get them out of there. Um, especially if you're using like a regular laundry detergent, you just be extra cautious.

TJ: It reminds me when I started on the volunteer fire service and we used to sleep in at the firehouse. Oh God, this is, we did a lot of dumb things like not wear seat belts. We used to disable the seatbelt sensors in some of the newer stuff because again, like early two thousands it was, it was a wild, it was a wildlife, like the the type of shit that he would take your facepiece off immediately after the fire was out. 'cause it wasn't cool to be breathing during overhaul. Right. That kind of dumb shit. We used to bring our turnout pants into the bunk room so we could just slip into them immediately,

like. Straight from bed, like

looking back 

Tara: me

TJ: oh, I, I'm looking back at it. I was like, whatever I have coming, it's well deserved because I did a lot of dumb things.

Tara: not deserved. Um, you know 

TJ: actions have consequences, right? I have, I know better now, but back then it's like, man, if I have a guardian angel, that bastard has like, it's probably chain smoking now because it's so tired of putting over my shit. Let's talk about finances. That's what you wanted to circle back to.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. So how I've grown this business is by let having firefighters try the product, right? Firefighters try the product. At first, I gave out thousands and thousands of our single use packs, our little half ounce packets. Um, so that guys would know this wasn't snake oil. They'd see that it works.

They'd know it's works. They talk about it in rooms I'm not in yet, and they go to their departments and they ask for it. That's how I've been getting department orders is that guys go to the department and say, we need this. That's how they come in for me.

There are departments though that look at this as a budgetary thing, and I think it's complete bullshit. I think that if you don't care enough to reduce your firefighter's risk of cancer, you don't belong in that leadership position that you're into. Me making these decisions

TJ: We are just pissing off everybody today, aren't we? Right?

The workout and gear people, the clean cab people, the bean counters. Okay. I'm into it.

I'm into it. We pissed off

John sitting in his 

Tara: pissed off John. Pissed off our friend.

TJ: Okay, so you're

saying change the line item in the budget from generic laundry detergent to something that is, you know, flame

Tara: I have large departments getting our shampoo and body wash for their entire department for between, for between 20 and 40,000 a year to stalk them for the entire year. That is a pay raise for for a brass person. For someone wearing brass, that's a pay raise. Skip that pay raise, and you've provided dcon for your entire fucking department.

TJ: Wow. I'm just amazed that the apartments will actually buy personal. Stuff for firefighters. Fascinating. Fascinating. Let's get away from the brass because they're boring and the chief's listening to it. I'm sorry. It's just who we are. We, um,

you 

Tara: I would, I would think that the Chiefs listening to your podcast probably care about people in their health.

TJ: I hope so.

Doesn't mean that they're gonna get off easy and we're not gonna take shots at them because

a lot of the people that I was, you know, rank and file firefighter with are now assistant and deputy chief. So I feel a little bit, a little bit better being like, oh yeah, fuck these chiefs. It's cool. I can say it.

I used to ride ambulances with them. What have you learned? Not so much. What have you learned? What have firefighters taught you? helped you change your products? I'm talking in terms of how you talk to them, in terms of how you explain things. Was there a wall that you were hitting? We talked about the skepticism.

We talked about everyone in the fire service. As a skeptic, we all look at things like, huh, this person's just trying to make money. What sort of changes have come from you working with your actual audience?

Tara: Gosh, so, uh, I, everything, 

TJ: The warning label that says, don't eat. That's a start,

Tara: Don't, don't eat the soap. Ev everybody's like, what flavors? 

TJ: What flavor, right. Give the people what they want. Tara, give them what they want. We want edible soap, clean the cancer from the inside.

Tara: what if I just provide like activated charcoal? Tablets 

TJ: I was just going to, yeah, put that and like make it a laxative and you're literally cleaning the carcinogens

from the inside with the activated 

Tara: to, we don't have to make it a laxative. It can just just be activated 

TJ: Oh, you gotta make sure it goes out the right way. I don't want to be puking up the charcoal.

Tara: doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be laxative.

Um, okay, so we're, before I, before I address that, we're, we're gonna address the activated charcoal. Activated charcoal is great for decon. In your insights, just make sure that you don't take it any, any like close to when you take medications. If you have medications that you take that you need to take, make sure that you have a few hours in between taking your medications and taking activated charcoal.

When you're eating, take it a few hours away from eating too because it can stop the absorption of pro of nutrients in your food. Activated charcoal is great for you, especially if, if you only run two to three fires a month, like do it after for a few days, like three days after each fire. I wouldn't do it more than a few times a month.

Um, 'cause you don't wanna constantly be taking, you know, nutrients and stuff outta your body. But activated charcoal is a great thing to, uh,

TJ: Time out.

Time out. We're talking about actual like activated charcoal. That's ingest. We're not talking about people chugging

Tara: Don't drink the,

TJ: shampoo

or body wash. Okay, 

Tara: how many times do I have to say this? Don't eat 

TJ: well, I made the joke and you're like, oh, activated charcoal's good. I was like, all right, am I supposed to eat the soap or

not? Okay.

I had no idea. I had no idea that we're 

Tara: the store.

TJ: Okay.

Interesting. 

Tara: my story. 

TJ: Don't eat. Yes, do not.

Tara: What have I learned from firefighters? I've learned everything from firefighters. The only thing that I haven't learned from firefighters is this sailor mouth because she came with the package. Um, I'm a former sailor, so the sailor mouth came and the attitude came. But the fi firefighters have taught me everything about the fire service that has helped me develop my products.

Um, I mean, just like we were talking about with the laundry detergent, I had guys using the shampoo and body wash, so I knew that they needed that. I was out in an Eckert Fire Tactics training once, and, um, Mike 

TJ: he paying you? 

Tara: himself on something and I was like, hold on, let's clean out that wound be because there's, I mean, his hands are black and he's got an open wound with.

You don't want that. So I'm helping clean out this wound and realizing just how, um, embedded all of this stuff is and his calluses and his nails and all of that same training, Vince from Rafi Attacks came up to me. He was like, I need something to get the, the carcinogens, like out of my nails and stuff.

Within a month I had pum stones. You can get into those, those calluses and nail scrubbers. They're now on our website that you can get and use with our hand soap. Um, because I realized that was a need by firefighters showing me. Uh, that kind of stuff happens all the time. It helps me develop the products, help me develop, um, bring in new things.

Um, like I said, the shave soap was just something that firefighters kept asking for. Sure it has our proprietary blend in it. Um, that pulls away the carcinogens as you're using it, but is it necessarily like a Dcon product? No. But they love it, so we keep it

TJ: Yeah, so your building with the fire serve is not

added. 

Tara: Absolutely. 

TJ: And I, I think that that speaks volumes to just you as, as a founder and also to what I believe is a, it's a scalable model. It's you. You just go and talk to what your, talk to your people, figure out what they want and give them what they want. It sounds super simple, but we see it all the time that people will say, no, this is what they need.

This is what they want from a lot of chiefs usually. And it's like, no, maybe if you just talk to your people, you'll understand what they really need and what they really want versus what your limited perspective gives you.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely.

TJ: I feel that we need to go into the business side of things because I think we both appreciate that. Anything else parting thoughts on the products, the community, the people before we move on into the business side?

Tara: Oh,

TJ: I also feel like Bobby's paying you because you've mentioned Ecker fire tactics like 5,000 times already.

Tara: Oh, you know, I didn't 

TJ: chaing, Chaing, 

Tara: they're such huge supporters of flame and have been since the very beginning. Um, it's incredible. They're really incredible and they're ghetto firemen that I know. If anybody ever fucks with me, they'll fuck with 'em right back.

TJ: yeah. Bobby was on a, on a couple episodes, a few months back, and I know that he's buddies with John and he's friends with you, and it's, it's cool seeing that, seeing the good people sort of congregate together, if that makes sense. I talked to you and how, you know, I, I met him in, I met Bobby in 2019 and my man was larger than life and it's, um. It's awesome seeing so many of, so many different people from so many different areas of the fire service and businesses that revolve around the fire service, how they sort of like gravitate to, to that dude. And he's, he's good people. I know he's got a lot of detractors. He's the, the villain,

the most 

Tara: A villain.

TJ: um,

listen, 

Tara: uh, he's like a brother to me and his, his crew has become as well. Bobby and I actually share a birthday, so if that explains anything while we're, why we're both crazy.

TJ: nature versus nurture, right?

Tara: Right.

TJ: All right. You launched in 2020. That's when, that's when flame came about. And business is not easy. Entrepreneurship is not easy. It's um, I think Elon's a piece of shit. But he talks about how.

Tara: glass.

TJ: Eating glass and getting

Tara: Let's talk about 

TJ: Yeah. Let's talk about eating glass every eating glass and staring into the abyss and

not knowing when it's gonna end.

So tell

me about your, your eating glass moments.

Tara: I don't keep track of that Scott stuff. I don't keep score of it. I think as a business owner you have to have grit and those things are gonna come almost every day. Those, what the fuck moments are come all the time. And it's how you just quickly deal with them and move on. That counts, I think, because that's what you have to do in business.

Um,

yeah. I know you, you had asked like, like the one thing that, like what's one thing that like, kind of threw me off kilter. It's when it's when the personal stuff happens, right? Like I can, I can deal with the business stuff all day when the personal stuff happens and like your mental health is affected. I think that is when, that's when things get hard.

Um, in 2023, I had a bad breakup and ectopic pregnancy within like three weeks of each other and they were, uh, I didn't realize how hard either would affect me. I when you get to that point where you feel like your body feels empty inside and the entire world feels hollow, and you're not sure you wanna be on this planet anymore,

that's, that's the challenging part of putting one foot in front of the other and knowing that like, at that point, I'm the only one still making product, doing the marketing, doing everything for this business. And if I stop doing that, business falls apart. So in a way it's how do I keep doing this? Why do I keep doing this?

But on the other side of that, it's part of what pulled me through. It's part of what saves me in those hard moments. You put one foot foot in front of the other, you feel those rewards from the business still, and it slowly like nurtures you back to life. Um, and it's one of those things that, like, I think if I ran a business that didn't have any purpose, maybe I would've just called it quits right then.

But I have, I have a goal, I have a mission. I want my brother to be around for his babies. I mean, my dad died when I was 25. He dropped dead when I was on the other side of the world. And I know what it's like to lose a parent early, and I do not want that for my niece and nephew. So, so important to me that my brother is here for all those important moments in life for his kids.

Um, and then that transfers to the rest of the fire service. I want firefighters to be here for their families, so that purpose pulls me through no matter what's going on.

TJ: Yeah, talk about a higher purpose. Talk about a calling. Wow.

Tara: Yeah.

TJ: Yeah. It's interesting how the business or whatever job at hand is what initially just kind of throws you that lifeline. And I think it's just long enough to realize, like, timeout, there's something larger at play here. There's it's, it's easy to approach it. Well, not easy, but I think a lot of times you just have to look at business and be like, this is just an obsession.

This is just like, this is the path and we're just going to walk when it ends, where it ends. No idea. But as long as I'm walking, I'm still in the game. And is, as you're taking those steps, right? You all you have in front of you is one or two steps. You can take that second to look around and be like, oh, it's actually a lot more meaningful.

It's about those firefighters. It's about the people who reach out and say, I'm healthier, my family is safer. I have, you know, I feel like I'm setting myself up for a longer career. And that's more of an intrinsic thing, like it that gets internalized and it becomes that intrinsic motivation.

I dunno. It's, it's interesting to, to explore those motivations.

Tara: Yeah, I totally agree. And just knowing that you can have, and I, same for you with, you know, changing people's lives through fitness. Like you can have an impact, a true impact on someone's life. And, you know, one of my goals is to make sure that, um, firefighters never know if they were gonna get cancer or not because they didn't get it.

They just have a long career and. Healthy retirement and are able to be there for their children and their spouses and their parents and

TJ: Yeah.

Tara: Yeah.

TJ: It's, it's cool when, when somebody reaches out and says that something you did has helped them. It's like

Tara: Yeah. Absolutely.

TJ: it takes one of those to make five years of eating glass, 1000% worth it.

Tara: Absolutely. Yeah. Do I cuss a lot on, on when those things come up and, I mean, I'm eating glass. Yes. But you d you, you cuss for about five minutes and then you deal with it and move on, you know?

TJ: Yeah, you have to. There's no other choice. You just look around and you're like, fuck, it's me.

Tara: Yeah. Totally. Poor Calin who works for me, like she lets me just vent away at it and like if she tallied up the amount of times I said, fuck, when I'm eating glass and. Poor girl would be rich.

TJ: we, um, we, we've connected through a business group, but we actually, I learned about you from our friend John, who is now out of the office. He's happily back in the field. So good on you, John. I know it was killing him inside. And we've talked about Bobby and we've talked about Eckerd fire tactics, and we've talked about this small world of firefighter and fire service businesses, and talk to me about that sort of network effect because having not met each other, it's like, oh, we know John. Boom. It made like a lot of the bullshit gets stripped away. It's like, cool, if we both know the same person, then this is the level where we can actually connect. What have you noticed about those fire service businesses and, and then networking that comes from them?

Tara: Absolutely. Um, I think with all of it, it's about building the genuine relationships, like the friendships that I build in the fire service are not so that my business can become huge. It's to make an impact on the fire service and truly network and become friends. Um, I, I mean. I come from a military background and like I said, I was working for a PR agency, um, for the, you know, working for the Army before, but very much corporate, um, and realize that my personality does not fit in a corporate world,

TJ: I wonder why.

Tara: so Right.

Just disrupt things everywhere I go. Um, so being able to work with the fire service, um, and being accepted by the fire service is a big deal for me. Something that I don't take for granted. I feel very, very lucky that I have so many fire service friends who, um, yeah, do support the business and help it grow, but also are truly friends of mine and I can call for anything.

Um, I think it's a really important aspect of my life at this point. Um, yeah.

TJ: A lot of people will leave the military and find that camaraderie, that kinship friendship within the fire service. It's not the same, but it's pretty similar,

so it's a no-brainer that you ended up clicking immediately and seamlessly into this group of absolute degenerates that we find ourselves in.

Tara: totally. I got, I gotta give a shout out to, uh, firefighter Rowe too. Our, our FDIC firefighter Rowe, um, all firefighter owned businesses except for me, and they have brought me in as like their little sister. 

TJ: Go ahead And name them. Start name dropping. Let's go. I,

know this is where you're going.

Tara: no, no, no, I'm not going to, I'm just gonna, they know who they are.

Shout out Firefighter Roe. If you wanna know who they are, go to the FDIC page and look like they're incredible. 

TJ: Oh. Name them so I can get them on the podcast later, duh.

Tara: oh, oh, I, here's the thing. I don't wanna name like 10 of 'em and then forget. Five 

TJ: Oh, That's, true. Just forget John. 

Tara: that's where I am. Um, yeah. Rescue one, don't have that guy on.

TJ: I need to get Casper. And I gave him so much shit for the

smoke diver stuff.

Tara: I will, I will send you a list. Yeah. I have Casper on and give him shit about smoke divers. You should just have John's whole team on and have it be 

TJ: Absolutely not that It's like herding cats after you give them catnip. We talked about the people and those associations, those that networking. Do you have any partnerships or anything in the works? I know that you do the, um, I'm gonna

Tara: seasonal soap bundle.

TJ: Close enough.

Nailed it. Tell me about it. 

Tara: So every season, every quarter we partner with three different, um, fire. So now we're including some military businesses or nonprofits and they have a soap. So they send me their image or logo, whatever they want on the soap. We do matching stickers to go with that.

They all come in a bundle, um, and they pick what nonprofit that they want a dollar from each bar to go to. If they are a nonprofit, of course it goes back to them. If they aren't, they pick a nonprofit that they want it to go to. Um, we launch that, we run it for the quarter, and at the end of the quarter we make those donations.

Um, and we really kind of take it from there. They also can choose the scent that they want, not flavor of soap,

TJ: Yet.

Tara: and not yet yet. Um. So yeah, we, we do that every quarter and um, it's awesome because it's a really cool way to support other businesses in the fire service and they support us and get that partnership going.

One, um, one that I've done every year until this year, so we're doing something a little different this year, is that when we did our soap of the month every October, November, we would partner with um, San Diego Mustache Madness and do you know, a dollar from each bar back to them that goes to San Diego Firefighter Aid?

And that one's important to me and we do it every year because my brother's a San Diego firefighter. So if something were to happen to him, that's the organization that would step up and help him. Um, so this year they're not part of our seasonal soap bundle 'cause I wanted to try to give back to them in just a little bit greater way.

So what we're doing is we're gonna do a one-off soap for them, um, which there will be 50 available and then all proceeds instead of just a dollar from each bar will go to San Diego Firefighter Aid.

TJ: Love it. I love it. What are some of the, um, non-profits that you've worked with in the past for, for the seasonal bundle?

Tara: Oh my gosh, so many. Um,

TJ: a couple that come to mind. 'cause I'm

sure there are some interesting ones that we haven't even thought of.

Tara: right now, brotherhood buffs, um, Soteria Precision Medicine, um, last quarter was next wrong. And um,

oh my gosh, like I probably worked with a hundred at this point. There's so many. Um, this is where my ums come in because I am, I have a TBI and I have memory issues, so 

TJ: Makes it easy to forget the glass eating

Tara: bear with me.

You asked me then you keep asking me for these lists and it's a lot.

TJ: Yeah, it's not gonna, it's not gonna let up. What about products? Like what about the product pipeline? Are you looking at things. Like the wipes. Are you looking at anything like, we talked about the turt, maybe stuff for the turnout gear. Like what are some ideas that you might be considering without

giving away all your secrets for competitors to steal?

Obviously

Tara: Yeah, no, totally. So we partner with, uh, fire wipes right now for wipes. Um, because they're good at those. We're good at what we do. So let's not double up, um, right now while we're developing other Dcon products. Um,

train of thought.

So ask me the question again. I'm sorry.

TJ: product pipeline. Like what other things are you, are you developing? If you can

Tara: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, um, I have firefighters asking me for deodorant and for like a hair conditioner to go with our shampoo and body wash. Um, the hair conditioner is at the very bottom of my list that, um, it's just, you can get hair conditioner anywhere, any of them will work. It's fine. We will eventually come out with one just to, you know, have it in the line because you, you do wanna use that after you use the shampoo and body wash.

Um, the deodorant will probably work on, so many people want a deodorant. I think it'll be like our shave soap that like will come out with it. It'll have our activated charcoal blend in it. Um, some other things that we know are really good for the body with deodorant that can give you a natural deodorant and actually work.

Um. So that's a formulation that we've been working on there, I've been working on. Um, and then, but a couple of things that I really wanna look at is that, um, when you come out of a fire, you're able to take our products, wash your clothes, wash the rest of your body, right, wash the outside of your body, your hair, all of that.

But what about, um, those crevices that it gets in, like your ears and your nose where you're not able to really clean? Um, we're obviously not gonna like squirt anything into the lungs to clean your lungs, but I think if we can clean the nasal passage, clean out your ears. If I can come up with something really inventive there, I'd really like to do that.

TJ: I like it. I like that. I think you and John should partner up. 'cause you know how he's got the new, new Tropic, the, the, what is it? Rip, heal. I think maybe, is that the right name that we came up with? That should be in your deodorant. So you put it on and now you're like, instantly alert.

Tara: Yeah.

TJ: Catch me starting a new business venture.

Tara: John and I have crazy ideas every once in a while that we're like, yeah, we should do that. Half of 'em are illegal, but it's 

TJ: Oh no. Yet he, yeah. I told him that he should market himself as small pharma because he's going up against big pharma and that was like a year ago. He still hasn't run with it.

Tara: I love that. Now you've told everybody,

TJ: Yeah. Well I said it on the podcast or I said it on one of his lives and then he just forgot about it. 'cause he had life packs to update

Tara: well, now he's officially called out.

TJ: He's gonna listen to this and be like, fucking guy, dude,

Tara: Fuck you both.

TJ: I'm never gonna be allowed in South Florida again.

Tara: Oh, 

TJ: Alright, so let's look at five years down the road and in five years down the road, what things have happened to move the needle for Flame to continue reaching firefighters to contributing to their health.

Like what, what steps need to be taken to get there and how can they keep the promise? Community help.

Tara: For sure. Thank you. Um, one of the things that I've recently done is moved from the basement of my home. We were operating, I was operating completely outta the basement of my home to a facility. Um, and the purpose of that was to bring somebody in. Kaylyn now makes all of our products. I don't do the manufacturing anymore.

She's doing that. And so my goal and my focus is on growth. Um, and the, the reason that my focus is on growth is because I still, I mean, I had, so I had, um, where we moved to, our office is in Littleton, Colorado, and, um, west Metro Station 13 is down the street from us. So, uh, a few of those guys were, um, just right outside our office building a couple weeks ago.

So I peeked my head out there, I was like, Hey, you guys on a call? And they're like, no. I was like, come here. They were probably like, what the hell's 

TJ: flavor do you like?

Tara: Yeah. So I brought 'em into the office and I was like, have you heard of FLAME before? And they were like, no. Like, we haven't heard of it. So I told 'em about it.

I gave them each a bottle in a bar, you know, sent 'em on their way. Um, they asked for my card, took it with them, whatever. But there are firefighters even in my own community that don't know Flame yet. Are there firefighters on the other side of the world that know what FLAME is? Absolutely. But there are firefighters in my community that don't know what FLAME is yet.

So my goal is to make sure that every firefighter knows about flames so that it is accessible to every firefighter. I think taking care of your health is your responsibility. So I, you have to make that, that determination of whether you're gonna do that. Do I think fire departments should be providing it for you?

Absolutely. You still have to use it, even if they provide it for you, but I wanna make sure that every firefighter knows about Flame, knows about how it can help them so that they have that option in their life to reduce the risk of getting cancer in that way. Um, how the community can help is just talk about it in rooms that I'm not in.

Tell somebody about flame. Um, give 'em our website,

TJ: What's the

Tara: tell 'em about the 

TJ: Where do we find you?

Tara: Um, flame dcon.com on socials at Flame Dcon. Um, if you need to reach out for customer service stuff, Kaylyn is happy to help you at support@flamedcon.com. If you're looking for me directly, it's tara@flamedcon.com.

TJ: There you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, you know how to get ahold of her. Last question, what failure do you cherish the most?

Tara: Oh

God, you put me on the spot. I think that there are moments that people can be really shitty, you know? I, I think that's, that's it really. Um, and I mean, shit, I fail all the time. I'm, I'm learning about myself all the time. This morning I had placed a grocery order and had it delivered to my office instead of my home, and had to drive an hour to go get my freaking groceries at eight o'clock on a Sunday.

Like, hello, you idiot. I fail all the time. So I'm not saying that I don't have failures. I think that the thing that I've learned most about myself since, since starting this though. Is, um, we talked about all the really incredible relationships in the fire service there. Everybody's gonna have some that aren't so incredible too though, and that can absolutely eat at your soul.

It can keep you awake at night and can have you questioning who you are, why you're doing this. Um, and I've just learned so much about myself, about not caring what those people think and understanding that as long as I know I've done the right thing, then their problem is about them. It's something truly that they're dealing with.

And it shouldn't take away my sleep at night. They can, they can go out there and run their mouths to the fire surface about me if they want. I think if somebody doesn't have enough character to come and get to know me themselves and see what we're doing here, that is also on them.

TJ: I couldn't have said it better myself. Tara, thank you so much for spending this, these couple hours chatting and giving us your insight. I'm hopeful that we're gonna open up a new audience when it comes to keep the promise members and that we're gonna continue furthering your crusade of mitigating and minimizing cancer in the fire service.

Tara: Thank you. I really appreciate it.