083. It’s Okay Not To Be Okay… But Stop Pretending You’re Fine [Part 2]

You're the fixer. But what happens when it’s you that needs fixing?

In this hard-hitting follow-up, Brad Schriefer peels back the layers on substance abuse, trauma loops, and why we suck at taking our own advice. He offers real, actionable strategies for breaking the cycle — without losing your edge or your identity.

This isn’t therapy — it’s survival.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why the firehouse culture of “fix everyone but yourself” is setting us up to fail
• How to replace the bottle with tools that actually work
• One way to rewire your brain and protect your crew
• The science behind why the gym is sometimes the best therapy
• A better definition of “strength” — one that actually saves lives

If you’re a firefighter who knows something has to change — but doesn’t want to lose who you are — this one's for you.

Transcript

TJ: Yeah, you've talked about it's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay, not okay. Number one, what a tongue twister. I had to like rehash it in my head a bunch of times to make sure I said it correctly, but it's such a powerful statement. It acknowledges that the stuff that we see and what we go through and the hits that we take, that they're fine.

That you're not weak and that you are not irreparably broken. But it also puts the onus on us to say, okay, I acknowledge it, but I can't stay here. I can't stay in that boiling pot. I can't stay in that corner. I can't be on that cliff side. Tell me more about that statement.

Brad: So I, I use this all the time with peer support. We are no more skin, bone and emotion than the people we go out to help because we have fancy uniforms and million dollar apparatus and that, that pains me to say million dollar apparatus because that's what they're costing now. But just because we have all this stuff and we get to do the cool stuff.

Doesn't mean like we had to turn over our emotions. Uh, uh. I mean, you've, you've got time in the service. So I, I remember as a volunteer, they would always say like, yep, leave your feelings at the door. But we never picked them back up. We never dealt with them. We never came back to it. So yeah, you run a call and, you know, pediatric arrest, like, it's sad.

Like anybody that doesn't cry over or feel any emotion over a dead baby, if you've never done CPR on a dead baby, I don't wish it on you. But when you're doing that and you don't feel any emotion, like that's there, there's something deep there, right? So if it makes you sad, be sad. Um, I, I, I had my share of anger management that I had to deal with, but what I realized is anger was coming out as this dominant trait, this masculine trait, because I was denying myself to be sad.

To be, you know, whatever that was. And so, yeah, if it, if it takes, you know, five minutes after that call to go find a corner and, you know, let out some tears because it was sad. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, you, you would cry if one of your parents passed away or you know, your blood brother or anything like that.

It, it, it's sad. So it's okay to feel those emotions. Like they're, they're there for a reason now, when those emotions control everything, when it's now three weeks later and you know, you're taking six showers a day at work, so you can cry and nobody can see your tears. You know that now that's, that's something else.

Or your, your emotions are now pushing you into substance abuse or whatever that maladaptive coping mechanism is. That's where. That's where we start to really push people to more professional help. Um, but we're, we're finding just that cathartic release after a call. Like I said, we're doing our peer support rounds and you know, one of my buddies is tearing up about this call and I'm like, Hey man, it's okay.

It let it out. And the next morning on his way home, he text me. He is like, man, that was, that was awesome. Like, it sucks that we ran that call, but the way you handled that was just awesome. And we can't deny those emotions. So it, it's okay to feel these emotions. It's, it's not, it's not there to hurt you.

TJ: They're perfectly okay. They're okay to to experience and yeah, it doesn't make us any less of humans, any less of, doesn't take away what we do on the job.

So we've talked about your story. We've talked about your work within peer support. So now you're using your story to help those already out in the field to help those who are experiencing those things. Now, let's go back to what we talked about in the academy. That's where you're headed. That's the time that you're gonna spend with those classes.

You're gonna be running the show. Is there a plan to weave the mental fitness, mental health, fitness into the academy? Training officially or unofficially, or what is, what is your, I can't picture you letting the academy classes go by without preparing them to dodge those punches or to take them and have them heard less.

Brad: So with the first couple weeks, that's usually all the onboarding stuff, right? The, the personnel, the payroll, the rules and regs. Um, the, the health, the health and safety. Just getting all that out. We have, in, in the past we've been plugging that in and just doing a little bit of a talk. Just, Hey, you guys are gonna see a lot of stuff.

This is, these are the resources that we have. Um, we've got this cortico app that has tons of resources in there. They'll have access to it, their families have access to it. So we, we've been plugging it in. Um, once I really get ahold of the schedule and see what that looks like there, there's most likely gonna be, you know, a, an hour or so where we really dive into it, like, you know, lean on each other.

This is, this is the important stuff, right? You, if you don't take care of this, you're not gonna make it 20 and 30 years. Unless you just don't run any bad calls. But we know the statistics say that the average American has three traumatic experiences in their life, and the average public safety official has nine a year, like nine a year.

And it, it's just staggering numbers. So it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. yeah, that it's, it's on my radar. It's something that I'm gonna plug in there. Um, and, and I've been doing a, a presentation with our fall skills that, that doubles as our BLS research stuff. Uh, and we're getting tons of great feedback.

So it would probably be easy to just roll that presentation right into the academy and, you know, hit it, hit it head on.

TJ: Yeah, I think the, the timing is also important because I remember there was a bit of talk about it when we started the academy, like just at the beginning, Hey, you know, these are all the county officials, these are all the, the admin folks. They're gonna do all this stuff. And by the way, you know, this is, if somebody needs EAP or whatever, this is what you do.

You're gonna see bad shit move on. And then, you know, six months go by and everybody is itching to get onto the field and graduate and like, let me add 'em. Like you're, you're at that starting line. You're ready to just sprint. I feel that that might be the perfect time because you are so tuned in. You are so ready to go.

You're ready to be that sponge and absorb. That would be the perfect time to pull aside those trainees, recruits, whatever you wanna call 'em, booters, and just be like, Hey, this is what's going to happen. You're gonna be out there, bright eye, bushy tailed. You might have to experience some shit the moment you leave.

I think there, there was a, a graduating class. Their first day in the field was the day that Nate got killed. So they come out all excited and they're like, Hey, by the way, we're all going to a funeral in a week. And they're like, the fuck. And I think that would be the perfect time when they're ready to go to just sort of, yes, take that like your, that pent up energy.

Be ready to go out and give it all and add some of that energy. Like set it aside to help yourself when you need to understand that it's okay. Understand that you will not see that you're gonna see shitty things and that it is totally fine to reach out and talk to people. And I think that's the, go ahead.

Brad: so the one thing you just, you just touched on was like, take care of yourself. And I use the, uh, the airplane mask analogy, right? Everybody, anybody that's been on a plane, I know you've heard it. By all they have to tell you, put your mask on before you put, you help somebody else. We're the worst at doing that. Like we're, we're the fixers. We go and fix everybody else's problems. We, we pick up grandma's off the floor, we change smoke, smoke detector batteries. We get ducks and cats outta storm drains. Like we fix everybody else's problems, but we're the worst at fixing our own. And I, I would argue there's this, this thought of being selfish by taking care of myself and, you know, so we're, we put all of our stuff on the back burner and it's like the, the mechanic who fixes everybody else's car and his is coming in on fumes and the exhaust is hanging in and everything else.

Like, we see it, we, we see it every day, but if we can't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of the, the civilians that we swore to take, take care of. We just can't. So I'm, I'm here to tell you like, it's not selfish to take care of yourself, you know, whatev, whatever that looks like, as long as it's constructive, you know, if it's like, you know what?

I'm not cutting my grass today. I'm gonna go play golf because I just wanna relax and play golf. Like, okay, do it. You know? Just take care of yourself. It's not selfish.

TJ: There's a thought that I have about who we all are within the fire service in terms of the fixers, and I think a lot of it comes from.

When we're fixing somebody else's problems, we don't have to focus on our own. And now we have a societal, almost like cheer, like an eruption of claps and cheers that say, yes, you're amazing. You are a hero. You are a frontline workers. Amazing. So now when society is telling me I'm amazing, I am great. It's just reinforcing the fact that I do not have to deal with my own shit.

I go out, I pick up grandma off the floor, change the smoke detector batteries, get ducks and cats outta the storm drains. I am doing my duty. I am amazing. Society tells me. So meanwhile, I have all the shit festering. I have all these unfinished loops on like open loops of shit that is not being fixed. And I think that's a massive issue in just the awareness and the recognition part of the post-traumatic growth.

What are your thoughts on that?

Brad: So. This might go down the, the psychology rabbit hole.

TJ: Let's go.

Brad: Um, and if you have clinicians that listen, they're all going to, they're all gonna like jump for joy when I say this, but it's about the ACEs score, adverse childhood experiences. The reason we're all fixers is because we've had experiences in our life that we wanted somebody to help us and they didn't to our expectations.

So now we're making sure that that doesn't happen to somebody else, if that makes sense. and a lot of your listeners are gonna like, take a deep gulp and they're gonna be like, yeah, exactly. Um, but again, this is, this is like, you know, part of my, my growth and, and the moving forward, right? It's not just, it's not like you, you sprained an ankle and you do PT and the ankle's fine, and you stop doing the exercises.

You keep doing those exercises, you're not gonna sprain your ankle as bad the next time. So, you know, I do a bunch of reading, I go to conferences, uh, like some online classes and stuff like that just to see how much further down that psychology rabbit hole we can go to find those things that are predictable and preventable.

So, uh, you know, I, I still go to therapy now, and that's, that's a lot of the stuff that we talk about. Like, you know, hey, I, I joke and say you, you know, the, the first 40 years of life are the hardest only because I'm 40 now. But, but now it's like, you, you look back at all these things and you're like, yeah, oh yeah.

They build on each other. And, um, so like with, with going to therapy, like I, I, I tell everybody about it. Like I don't, I don't hide it. I'm not ashamed of it. I encourage everybody to do it. We go to a dentist twice a year. You go get a physical once a year, you go to the cardiologist. You do all these other things, but we leave that part out and I, I would argue that a lot of us are afraid to open that up and see what, how much shit is actually hiding in there.

But because all that shit's in the box, you know, 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag, we're afraid to open that bag. But let's make the bag lighter. Let's, let's offload some of this stuff. Let's think through it. Um, and so I started as a volunteer when I was 15 years old. I got hired when I was 20. We're also learning, and we know that the, the brain doesn't stop, or it doesn't, it's not fully developed until you're about 25. So the first 10 years, uh, the last 10 years of my brain development concreted all of these negative and bad things that, that we learned in the fire department. So that's something that I've had to go and completely restructure and really let go a lot of, maybe some tradition to move forward. And, you know, my, my oldest daughter is 17.

She's doing a high school vo-tech program, uh, for firefighting. She wants to be a firefighter now. And I'm like, and her argument is, I'm like, look, you could do so many other things. And she's like, yeah, but all of my friends, and you know, when I talk to their parents, they hate their jobs. And she's like, you love your job. And I'm like, fuck, you're right. And I'm like, right. But now, now the dad voice comes in and I'm like, I'm telling you, there is so much more involved than a cool shift and a cool shift work and have an off during the day.

And like, that's, that's the really cool part. But there's. a lot more to that iceberg that you don't see.

TJ: We are good at PR, bro. We are super good at PR when it comes to the fire service.

Brad: Right. But yeah, it's a lot.

TJ: I'm glad that you mentioned that about the, the brain development because that's something that we, we failed to take into account for so many years is that those of us who started in our teens and got to see, I think, you know, there's one call that sticks out with me. I was 18, I had just left high school track practice on my senior year and went up to the volley house and five minutes later we're cutting a dude out of a car that slid on black eyes, got t-boned like three times, and he was dripping brain matter on me.

And at the time it was just cool. Right, because I got to cut a dude out of a car and I was like, whoa, that's what a brain looks like in real life. I was 18. Like it's, it's not until later that the freight train hits you that you're like, yeah, that brain, that is that person's memories, like family trips that he took or like kids' voices that he heard from his children and like that's what was dripping onto my hands.

And it wasn't until that hit me that I'm like, oh dear God, there's a lot more than the cool aspect and it hits you when you're like, fuck. Like my formative years, were of foundation of just mayhem. Not to say that we need to revamp the entire system and be like, don't get hired until you're 25. Just like you can go through those cadet programs and learn the basic skills of firefighting and EMS at 17, 18, 19 years old before you're fully formed.

Brain, mentally speaking, start picking up the skills. How awesome would the fire service be if we start getting those cadets who at 16, 17 are learning that it is okay to seek help? That therapy is not a stigma, that it is not a bad mark on your record. What are they gonna be when they have 25, 30 years on and they're gonna be the advocates to be like, no, no, no.

We're taking that entire company outta the field. We're making sure they're taken care of, and then we're moving forward. No stigma, no bullshit. Let's go.

Brad: So I just had this epiphany while, while we were, we're talking miry, the Maryland Fire Rescue where we get all of our training in the state of Maryland, you have to have prerequisite courses. Maybe the absolute very first prerequisite course to take anything should be something like that before you take it.

I, I took EMT at 16 years old, like, like that, that just, now I look back and that blows my mind. There was no business for a kid to be doing what we were doing with the, like, the bravado of like, Hey, go out and run these calls. The more gruesome calls you run, the better you're gonna be at your job. Don't worry about the baggage that comes along with it.

You'll, you'll deal with that in your forties when you're, you know, drunk and kicking the dog 'cause it barks too much. So maybe, maybe that's where, that's where it needs to start. Like, that's the prerequisite because, uh, teaching fire one in EMT, there's maybe two slides about it. Uh, it, it maybe it needs to be like an actual course of, Hey, this is what to look for, this is what you can do, these are the resources, and then you have to take that before you can take any classes at all.

TJ: I like that.

Brad: I mean, that would be, that would be groundbreaking and it would be. It wouldn't work because the volunteer system's already struggling to get volunteers and recruit volunteers. So now it's just one more class that you have to take. So I know there's a mountain of struggle to get there, but it's an option.

TJ: Yeah, and for those of us who are advocating for this, it's so easy to, like you said, look at that mountain of struggle, of like, Hey, there aren't mandatory classes. What can we do? But it's that this is the reminder for those listening, that we can do a lot of things on our own, not fully sanctioned by departments or by miry or by the NFPA or whatever.

You don't need to be, like you said, you don't need to be part of a team to pull aside your homie on the shift and be like, fuck you, you're struggling. I can see it. I know you better than you know yourself. What's going on or go to your officer if you trust him. Be like, Joe Schmo over here. Uh, I'm getting a bad vibe, like hasn't been the same since a fucked up call.

What can we do? You don't have to have all the classes, you don't have to be a PhD, you don't have to do any of those things. We can affect a lot of change at our level within our people and fix it ourselves. We talk about, hey, the officer shouldn't have to get involved in fixing issues within the shift. The senior firefighter shouldn't be the one that should be the one that can fix those issues within the shift. So we don't necessarily have to have that structured approach. We can do it on our own in almost like a subversive way. All right. I wanna talk about post-traumatic growth because it gives us a hopeful angle, but before we do that, 'cause we've kind of touched on it a little bit, I want to get your thoughts on this because it's gonna piss off a lot of people and I love doing that. Substance abuse in the fire service.

Substance meaning drugs, alcohol, sex. Extreme sports, whatever you want to call it. What are your thoughts on that as a coping mechanism?

Brad: I mean, we know it's there. Um, I think we normalize it. We, what's the best way to describe? So like I've, we had a shift, uh, that I worked on that if we worked on Thursday and got off Friday morning, we had Friday breakfast beers, we would all get off, we'd go have breakfast. You know, maybe a bloody Mary, a beer, whatever it looked like. And we just didn't think anything of it. It was, it was our Friday night, right? Everybody else, they worked Monday through Friday, and if they want to have a, a cold beer or a couple on a Friday night, there's nothing wrong with that. But we just worked, you know, three eight hour shifts in a day. This is now our Friday afternoon. It just happens to be 8:00 AM and we've all seen people where that turns into all day, all night. It turns into their 72 hours or 48 hours off. It's, it's now, well I have, this is my weekend. Like, and just like everything else that we've normalized, you know, sweeping all these emotions under the rug, we've now normalized that that. I'm a firefighter.

I work, I work a screwed up shift, and I didn't sleep last night, so I'm entitled to daydream all the time. It's when that starts to take hold. And that's now like your, your everyday normal. Like that's, that's what you need to function. That's what you need for that. Um,

TJ: I think it's an empty crutch, if you will. It's a shaky foundation at best. And I say that because I've done it, you know, pub Dog in Columbia, I'm pretty sure I kept that joint in business for many, many years because you know, shitty $4 beers, you got two little ones, hot bartenders like okay-ish atmosphere, like mediocre pizza.

At best. God, I'm just giving the worst endorsement. I actually love Pub Dog. But that was a time in my life where I hadn't even acknowledged that I had a problem. That was just normal for me, like you said, would get off work or would like work a couple of hours of overtime and then go sit at a bar at 3:00 PM and not leave until 2:00 AM And then there's things that happened at 2:00 AM that I'm not even gonna like self incriminate, but doing that for so long, looking back on it, I was like, it's not, there's nothing wrong for me to do it once or twice, like it's no big deal.

But that was my decompression. And I am decompressing by throwing poison at my body by not moving, by eating shitty food, by chasing after, you know, meaningless sex. And at the end of the day, you're hungover, you're feeling empty and alone, and then you gotta get the fuck up and go to work and do the same things again.

That led you to those shitty behaviors.

Brad: Well, that, that's just the deflection. That's the, that's the smoke and mirrors game that we play with ourselves. That like, just because we ran bad calls or we were up all night or whatever, we make that an excuse to now drink and, you know, drink to excess. You know, like it's, it's one thing to come home and have those two beers, you know, 'cause you, you, it's Friday, uh, you're done. But we've, but we've done that. Like, oh, I'm a, I'm a firefighter. Like, I, I'm like, these things don't happen to me. Like it does, like I know that drinking too much can, can start to become a problem, but it doesn't happen to firefighters because we're immune to everything. See, I'm immune to all these emotions that I'm sweeping under the rug.

I don't feel those things. So I won't become an alcoholic. Yeah, but you've been at Pub Dog six outta seven days, dude. but I'm in control. Like, we, we run calls for these people, like we see it and we're like, oh, because I see it on calls, it's not gonna happen to me. You know, firefighters' houses don't burn down.

Like, because like we, that's what we do. It doesn't happen to us. We know how to be fire safe. Uh, but we're actually the exact opposite. Like, if you've ever been to a bonfire and there's firefighters there, it's probably one of the best bonfires you've ever been to. Um, you know, so like

TJ: Yeah.

Brad: we joke with ourselves or we, we lie to ourselves that we can control these uncontrollables and, uh, I don't know. I mean, I'd like to sit here and tell you that. There's no alcoholism in the fire service, but all your listeners would destroy me on social media.

TJ: Yeah. I mean there, there is, and it's, this is by no stretch of the imagination, us talking down on anybody who is struggling with, or who enjoys alcohol, but we know that it's a problem. We know that we've, we've known plenty of people who will get that DUI. It's like suddenly somebody gets pulled off the floor and you're like, what happened?

They're like, oh, we think they got puffery doing, and you're like, oh, well, like it's, it's just business as usual. And not saying we should normalize that, but it's also you're, we're not gonna fix any issues if we demonize them. If we come out, you know, rim, stone and fire holding a Bible in one hand saying, thou shall go to hell for doing this.

Like, just like you pull your brother aside, sister aside, and you go, Hey, you're struggling. Let's try to work on this. I think that's a better approach. Just be like, Hey man, I'm kind of worried about you. That can, can we chat about it? And if not, if, if you don't want to, that's fine, but we can still try to solve those issues and kind of change the trajectory a little bit at our level.

Brad: Yeah, uh, I mean, I, I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm, I'm holier than thou and I don't drink

TJ: No,

Brad: uh, and I'm, I'm the equal opportunist margarita or a beer, or my, my wife actually just, uh, got this drink the other day at a restaurant and it's not something that I would ever order,

TJ: what is

Brad: got home. It's, uh, I can't remember what it was called, but it's, uh, like, it's vanilla vodka cranberry and lime juice.

TJ: That's an interesting combination.

Brad: It's amazing. Um, I feel like I have to put my pinky out when I drink

TJ: Hell yeah, dude.

Brad: put it in a Yeti cup and you can't see what it is. It tastes delicious. Um, so no, I'm, I'm not sitting here demonizing alcohol, but, uh, like you just. You started saying it's like, hey, when you're, when you're leaning on that, what are, what are you getting away

TJ: Right,

Brad: And, you know, hey, I would rather, let's, let's work through it now so that when we're on the other side, we can sit there and share a beer and say, Hey man, I'm, I'm glad you're, I'm glad you're on a better side. I'm glad you're, you're, you're really in control, right? That's, that's what we say when we have, we have enough beers and somebody might bring it to us.

No, I'm in control. I'm good. I'm good.

TJ: Yep.

Brad: I, I'm gonna politely disagree with you. So let's, let's make it, let's fix this. Let's fix what's underlying. Let know you're, you're sweeping stuff under the rug and you're using alcohol to do it, so let's, let's fix that and then we'll share a beer at the end and, you know, talk about how proud we are of you.

TJ: It's gonna taste so much better after you fix the issue. And alcohol does not, does not kill the underlying problems because trust me, a bunch of us would've already been akay and all fixed if alcohol did it, but unfortunately it doesn't.

Brad: if it got rid of our problems. I, I, I think I have, I've gotten enough, got rid of enough problems for two lifetimes,

TJ: dude. Yeah. Like I'd be, I'd be on the running for the next Pope if, if alcohol got rid of all my sins. Instead, I'm fast tracking my way to hell, but neither here nor there. Let's talk about growth post-traumatic growth. It's that hopeful angle. We're not talking about post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress disorder or injury, post-traumatic injury growth.

I think there's something to be said about that light at the end of the tunnel that dawn breaking after a super dark night. So let's, let's explore that.

Brad: so I, I, I kind of mentioned it earlier, it's, it's like carrying that backpack. Full of stuff and all you're doing is bitching about how he, how heavy that backpack is. It hurts your back, it hurts your knees, you know, you're tired when you get rid of that heavy ass backpack. Imagine that. Like, just think of carrying something, uh, you're on a fire for an hour and you finally get to take your pack off and you're like, Ugh, I could stretch a little bit.

Like that's what it, that's what it truly feels like, you know? That, that's why I stay with counseling. You know, I, I, I'm not saying I don't have bad days. I still have, everybody's gonna have bad days, but now I have a constructive outlet. I've learned, you know, I, I stay in the gym pretty regularly. Like, that's, that's my, that's my time.

I can put my headphones in. Sometimes I don't even put music on. I just put 'em in so I don't have to talk to people. But I can get my thoughts out. Like, I can sit there and think, think my way through a problem. And, uh. There's, there's actually science that says exercise. Exercise and sleep are your best friends through post-traumatic growth. But the, the exercise, by using both sides of your body at the same time, so like alternating, you know, uh, lifts or walking, running, whatever, swimming your left side of your brain controls your right side of the body. The right side of your brain controls the left side of your body, but the left and the right and left sides of the brain don't talk to each other unless you're using both sides of the body. So your left side of the brain is like logic and fact-based, and the right side is more emotionally based. So if we're just sitting here talking, only one side of our brain is thinking. So the emotions can run rampant and the logic doesn't balance it and vice versa. So just by going to the gym, going for a walk, a jog, whatever, you get a chance for that emotion and the logic to balance each other out.

So the emotional side might say like, man, that was a shitty call. I'm scared, I'm sad. I'm this, whatever these emotions are. And the logical side can come in and say, yeah, but you guys worked really hard. Like you didn't put that person in that situation. You did a great job. You should be proud of your crews.

Yeah, but I'm really sad. You know what? You're allowed to be sad. You can do that. Like, you can be sad, but be proud of yourself as well. If we just sit here and do nothing about it, one side goes crazy. And that's where we start feeling that helpless, that hopeless, that alone, you know, all these things. And um, so like that's been a huge part of my, my growth. And you know, the, the same experiences you can have at a bar, you can have at a gym, right? You might have, you might have been sitting there waiting for your pizza and a guy pulls up next to you and you guys spark a conversation and next thing you know, you're talking for hours. Same thing happens at the gym, you know.

I've met, I've met more friends at the gym than I never knew, just by seeing them there all the time. And, you know, you just spark conversation and even sometimes talk about your struggles. Like, let's, let's talk about that and uh, I'll spot you while you're lifting. You know, just little things like that.

Um, if you look behind me, there's my, my bookshelf. That was, that was another huge, huge part. As a kid, I, you could have given me a book of the Book of Life, read this book and you'll be happy forever. And I would've been like, nah, I'm not reading that. It's too many words. Too long. Didn't read. But going through this growth stuff, like, I started finding books that resonated and I'm like, holy shit, the answers are in here.

Like, they were right. There is a book on the Secret of Life. It's in many books, but, but now I can. I can sit and read that book and, and learn from somebody that went through similar struggles or different struggles or whatever. There's, um, you know, psychological books that just go into like how the body works, how the brain works with the body, all these things.

And it's like, uh, the two books that, that were huge were the Body Keeps the Score and Why We Sleep. what I learned from both of those is that the fire service fucks all of that up, right? So shift work, um, we, we thrive on caffeine, uh, you know, all that stuff. It trashes our sleep. And if we don't get good sleep, we can't process stuff. So you had a bad call on your shift, you didn't sleep at night, you come home with those emotions, then you go to Pub Dog and you close that down so you're not, there's two nights in a row that you're not sleeping and you're just compounding all of these things. So, you know, focusing on getting good sleep.

That's been a, a huge thing for my growth. And then, you know, when the body keeps the score, everything we do in the fire service keeps us on high alert all the time. Even when we're home. Like today, I got nothing going on. I'm at home and you know, now I'm relaxed. Before when I was home with nothing going on and no tones going off and no sirens and emergencies or threat of emergency, that was a scary place because something could happen and I'm not prepared for it.

So like, being able to like desensitize the body. Um, it sounds earthy crunchy, but you like saunas and cold, plunges cold showers. Like these things actually work. Like, like, look, I'll, I'll crawl a hallway with anybody and I'll, I'll go do CPR, I'll run these calls with you guys. But I'm telling you that some of this stuff that we think is earthy crunchy, isn't it?

It it's backed by science and it works so. Those two books right there were huge in, in starting to learn how to, the easiest way is to take the firefighter identity off of me. Right? How many of us, anywhere you go like, oh, you know, Hey, what do you do? I'm a fireman. And that's, that's like, that's our, our alter ego. And you know, I'm, I'm, yes, I, that's what I do as a profession, but that's not who I am. 24 7, 365. So I'll catch some flack from some of the, some of your listeners that they'll say, Nope, you're always, yeah, that's fine. But when I retire, you know? Yeah. And rescue me. They said, you know, when you're that old retired guy, they'll ask, what were you And I was a New York City fireman. That's fine. But the general public doesn't care anymore. They, as, as much as we think they do, they don't. So. A lot of that growth is, is becoming your person that is not the firefighter. And, and a lot of us are gonna struggle with that because we worked hard to get to where we are. We, we've got all these achievements, we've done all this stuff, and nobody's trying to take that away from us.

But we, we live up to that persona so much that we actually start selling our souls for it. Right? We start selling the, the, the, the joys of life to maintain that. And we're, we're seeing it everywhere that people are retiring and they're, they're dead within a couple years. And for what you sold your soul to be a fireman, like, I, I love my job just as much as the next, I love doing it.

I can't wait to go to work tomorrow and hopefully run a fire. But like today, I, I'm taking care of me, I'm doing things that, that I want to do, That's, that's really what that growth is like, just grow into who you are as a person and not the profession.

TJ: Powerful. That is a powerful statement right there. We're getting close to the end here, so I'm gonna hit you with one last question that I didn't even put on the sheet because I want it to be completely off the cuff. Looking back at your life, looking back at what you've done professionally and personally, what is the one failure that you cherish the most?

Brad: Ooh. So this, I'm actually glad you asked this one, uh, and asked it that way. So I had an opportunity to answer this question. In a different arena, and I totally missed it. My divorce crushed me, even though I knew I didn't want to be with that person anymore. So the failure was the divorce, right? I didn't get married to get divorced, but that's what has made me realize a whole lot more. So, you know that now I, I feel like a failure as a husband now. My kids are gonna grow up in a divorced family, all these things. And, and I struggled with that for so long, but that really pushed me to figure life out. Uh, I had, we had kids young, we got married young as a firefighter, I thought I knew everything there was to know.

Um. I told my dad this one day, I said, it took me like 25 years to realize you were my age once, and everything that you've, you're telling me is probably because you screwed it up too. Um, like I was, I was the first person to get divorced in my dad's family. Like, so that crushed me. But now made me so much better because I, I, I saw what I was doing wrong, then I saw what was, what I didn't see.

I, I, I can see past the red flags, right? Like, or I can see the red flags for what they are and, you know, that's, it's helped me being a father and it's helped me grow into this, this peer support role that I've taken. And I can see people going through the same stuff. So, yeah, as, as much as I don't wanna give her credit for being my wife. Uh, like, yeah, thank you for being there to show me what not to do anymore. And, and so having that failure has really catapulted me in life

TJ: It's all about that growth journey. Brad, thank you so much for spending the last hour and a half just sitting here discussing life and discussing the fire service. I really appreciate you coming on.

Brad: now. I appreciate you having me. I'm glad we could finally pin it down and get a chance to chat it out.