Emergency Responder Exhaustion: How to Avoid Silently Burning Out

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brent Harding (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of our
firefighters sport podcast.
We're here today with twopretty special guests, some more
special than others, I justkidding.
We have Jeff Denning and chiefJosh Francis, and we'll get into
some intros in a minute, but Iwant to start off with a quick
story about Josh chief Francis,because I started my first EMT
class back in 2007, back whenDebbie was in charge.

(00:23):
Oh man, and I just remember dayone, josh and John Fulmer come
walking in and I was just likeand Josh is super built and just
Looks like the epitome of whatyou know I could fire fighters
should look like, and then,right out of the gate, they
share this story about how somecar ended up upside down on the
river and Josh went in after himand, like, dove under and Got
in the water and I was, justlike it, totally star-struck,

(00:46):
and from that moment forward Iknew I wanted to be exactly like
Josh Francis and then you metme for real and decided it's not
every, every interaction justreaffirms my, my Goal to be, to
be like him.
So anyway, but that was a longtime ago, but what that has
stuck with me forever.
And that was back with the grayEMT shirts.

(01:07):
These hands.

Josh Francis (01:08):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Yes, you know, it's amazing howsomeone will come to you and
say, hey, do you remember this?
And it's, you don't rememberthat moment, but they remember
it for a long time.
So those are kind of I love tohear those stories.
So, thank you.
Yeah, well, you made a greatfirst impression, so here I am
and here we are together on thecouch.

So so we'll circle back the chief Francis,
but Jeff, tell us a little bitabout you, your background and
kind of.
I know it's lengthy and you gotquite the rapport.

Jeff Denning (01:32):
That's just because I have an ADD and then I
jump and do a lot of differentthings.
You too.
Yeah, you know it's prettycommon.
Let's see.
Right now I'm the chair for thestate's Utah critical and
stress management team, so we'rehelping out with debriefings
all over state.
I've been on the executiveboard there for a long time and
that's been good.
I'm I also retired a coupleyears ago from Salt Lake City
Police Department and doingmental health counseling.

(01:53):
Now that's kind of a shortversion military veteran and
some other stuff, but thank youfor your service.

you know, wait a minute, let's just have a talk
about that really fast.
Hey, I have a brother andsister that served to you.
I know the sacrifice that'smade for that.

So the neck of a sacrifice it really is, and I
think of my poor wife stuck athome with a kid, yeah.

So when I say thank you, I mean it from the
bottom of my heart.
I appreciate it.

I don't know about you, though, but when people
say that to you, because youknow whether you're a veteran or
a first responder, and theycome up and say, hey, thanks for
your service, they're like whatdo you say?
I don't know, we need to comeup with a different phrase.
You're?

right and because it makes me feel odd.
The funny thing about it is I'm.
I look at it like I don't knowwhat to say, but then I'm like
you know what.
Thank you for allowing me to dothis, because this has been an
awesome career for me.

So yeah, I learned my answer from you as
well, but I've heard you say acouple times when people say
that it's like you know what,Thank you so much for the port.
I or support.
I really love my job.
Yeah.

I love what.
I think that's what happenswith firefighters.
But you know, as a cop, medidn't happen.
It was more like hey wavingwith a one finger get on you,
stuff like that.

It's a different experience then, but as a
soldier, you know, and retiredat that it's it means something.
So, yeah, I know the sacrifices.
As far as what my family made,yeah, well, I think we need it.

We need a few more details, you left out quite
a bit like author in a couplebooks.
Oh, okay, let's see talkedabout your deployments.
I mean, you've been involved insome pretty and then some
security for high-profile.
Oh, I didn't tell you that yousearch in the end, or?

something.
Let's see.
So, yeah, I the book actually.
So after Iraq I started a blog,I turned it into a book.
I don't do anything with a blogand haven't?
It's called warrior SOS and I Iwork with a handful of guys
from the joint specialoperations community, so guys
from Delta Force, and Not that Iwasn't in that organization,
but I just happen to know a lotof good dudes from a lot of

(03:37):
different organizations.
So the first guy to go publicwith his post-traumatic stress
from the unit Delta Force did soin my book, and actually three
guys from the unit wrote in mybook.
So which is kind of differentanyway, every chapter is a
different story.
And there's a handful of guyswho are also police officers,
you know Navy seal and you knowsome other stuff just telling

(03:57):
about their story.
So it was very cathartic for meto interview them and then, you
know, put publish that, becauseI thought, in fact, one of my
buddies from from the unit saidyou know, I said, hey, I feel I
shouldn't be feeling the way I'mfeeling because my experiences
were so much less than yours,and that's one of the bad things
we do.
We tend to compare yeah, thatcompare it's bad, it's yeah,

(04:21):
when we compare it's awful.
Anyway, I remember him sayingJeff, don't ever say that your
experiences are hard-run.
I still wouldn't believe it,but anyway, so that's that's
that.
I did some stuff with the StateDepartment and and US
government customers.
What I can say is classifiedcontract and yeah, I did some
stuff with air marshals and youknow just some stuff here and
there makes it sound.

So not just just, but I think that's pretty
awesome.
Some experiences we weretalking about it on shift the
other day is just we looked upLike you know, everybody aspires
to like have tons of money orwhatever and so we looked up how
many millionaires there were inthe US.
There's like 27 millionmillionaires in the US, but
there's only 364,000 full-timefirefighters.

(05:02):
And so it was just like it'spretty cool that you have a job
that really it's a pretty smallgroup and no one can buy their
way into this job.
Like no you know, and so anywayit's.
But to have some of thoseexperience, it doesn't matter
who you are or what kind ofpower you have, like some of
these jobs, you have to gothrough a specific channel to
get there, and most people justdon't have what it takes, right,

(05:24):
yeah, so I think that's prettyneat.
Tell us a little bit more aboutyou know, for a Topic that's
usually pretty taboo, you knowno one wants to talk about it,
no one wants to address ithead-on.
You know it's usually somethingwe all avoid.
How come you chose to, you know, jump in with both feet and
kind of start addressing andbooks and blogs and you know All

(05:44):
the things to really kind ofget some information out there
and then, of course, go the full.

Yeah, well, let me first just kind of point out so
I now, as far as therapy goesand teaching peer support and
doing stuff like that, which Iwas a peer support supervisor in
Salt Lake city Before retiringthere, and a negotiator, hot and
a SWAT guy and have.
So I have a lot of thatbackground and I work with an
organization called firstresponders first.
It's not the California rehabone, that's a different one,

(06:10):
it's the Utah based firstresponders first and we just
work with First responders andtheir family members and have
contracts with differentagencies.
But I think you know a lot oftimes I just wanted to kind of
figure out I've always beenfascinated by Psychology,
especially in the 90s when Ifirst took a crisis negotiation
course from from.
I just fascinated by how peoplework and dealing with suspects

(06:34):
and just human beings.
And I think you know, evenbefore going over to Iraq I was
doing some stuff with the statedepartment in Israel.
We were escorting us diplomatsinto the West Bank on the Gaza
Strip and just talking about thewhole mindset it takes to do a
job, some kind of firstresponder type job.
We're dealing with life anddeath and so the mindset for
years and years, especially froma tactical point of view, oh, I

(06:56):
eat that stuff up.
Yeah, you know everything, fromReading Dave Grossman to
whoever else and just trying tocomprehend and understand how it
is that we can do what we doand do it so much differently
than the normal population, kindof like you pointed out.
You know, sure, it'd be nice ifwe were millionaires, but we're
not.
If there's 27, whatever, howmany, 27 million, 27 million

(07:19):
millionaires, that's crazy.
That's a lot like anybody cando that.

I know right.

Anyway, yeah, we're first responders, are a
really small and unique breed,so trying to tap in to say, okay
, how do we operate the way weoperate and how do we think the
way we think, I don't know, it'sjust Unique, it's different.
And so, anyway, fast forward alittle bit.
You know I was I think it wasabout I don't know 15 years or
so.
I had done a lot of stuff inlaw enforcement.

(07:43):
I was at Dallas policedepartment before 9 11 and that
9 11 changed everything.
And then that changed of courseOf my career, when I started
doing stuff with the governmentand then air marshals, and then
eventually led me out here toSalt Lake City when I retired.
But you know, I don't know.

Well, I think we all suffer from that a little
bit right.
Chief funny, tells a bit about,about your resume and you know
all the different jobs thatyou've had and and what's neat
about yours is you've had themall like at the same time.

Yeah, I, I have done a lot of stuff at the same
time, which doesn't make yougood at any of it, which is the
problem.
But you wear a lot of differenthats and sometimes you forget
to take off one, put the otherone on, but I feel like I've had
a very, I've been very lucky inmy career.
So I started as a volunteer.
Well, actually the interest inbecoming a paramedic started
when I was six.
My brother and I were twins andborn pretty early and he had

(08:32):
some medical issues and wouldhave seizures all the time and I
noted I think was about aroundone of my six years old
Paramedics had come in and anddo their job and, you know, make
everybody Feel good and takecare of my brother and stuff.
And I just noted that I wantedto be that for somebody else
someday and that kind of stuckwith me and off and on I wanted
to be a dnr guy and I wanted tobe a cop and all those kind of
things.
And in 1996 I got the fortunateopportunity to join Menden City

(08:57):
volunteer fire department andthat's where I fell in love with
the fireside as well.
The rest is history.
You know I've worked for quitea few different agencies.
You know volunteer agencieswith Menden and North Logan, and
I worked for thai call firedepartment, ogden fire, roy fire
, you know, and law enforcementside Cache county sheriff's
office, where I still am Daviscounty north park police
department.
Us Kind of sounds like I drovearound a lot, right like I'm a

(09:19):
bad employee or something, butit was just.
I just couldn't get enough ofit.
You know, your passion drivesyou sometimes and really enjoyed
my career.
I flew for air med from 2016 tojust as of last year, which was
a super cool job.
That's a whole different aspectof public safety that kind of
gets overlooked, but it's prettyamazing.
It's a lot of fun.
That's also pretty stressful,and you know so, but I've had a

(09:42):
really lucky career Really, andI feel very fortunate that I've
been able to do everything I'vebeen able to do so Well that's
pretty awesome.

And you know, of course you've promoted within
all of those things.
You know who you're chief today, and that's pretty cool too,
that you know not just a part ofall these things, but man
certainly excelling at all ofthem as well.
And now we're running abusiness on top of all that as
well.

Yeah, and we're not.
You know, we're running it intothe ground.
It's running still, so it'sgood.

You know, I think , something with the most at
least Firefighters share, justbecause of the schedule, with
the two days on and four daysoff.
Everybody's doing something ontheir four days off, whether
it's another job or a littleside business or whatever else.
And I actually had A guy tellme on fridays hey, when are you
guys going to do a podcast onburnout?
How's that going?
Well, you are in line, so.
But I think that's a huge issuethat a lot of people just don't

(10:30):
know how to deal with.
Right, and sometimes we dealwith it by Taking on even more,
because that's what you know.
As long as we're busy, then wedon't really have to deal with
burnout, we can just Distractourselves with something else,
and so we invited Jeff heretoday to answer all of our
questions and solve all of ourproblems.

So, right.

So what have you seen, jeff, jeff, from both your
career, but also from the thetherapist side of things like
how does burnout start?
How do we recognize it?
What are some, I guess, warningsigns, or you know, because it
seems like one of those thingsthat you kind of kick that can
down the road and then all of asudden, like you're a zombie,
right, and there's got to besome earlier warning signs that
you could do to prevent fromgetting to that stage.

Right.
So I really like, in fact Idon't talk too much about
post-traumatic stress.
I don't you notice I didn't saythe d word, the disc word,
because everybody has a littlebit of symptoms on occasion
through their career of havingsome post-traumatic stress.
In fact, let me say, let mepoint out something that
Firefighters in one study saidthat over the course of their

(11:30):
career They'll experience seven,700 critical incidents, if I'm
getting that right to two, ascivilians.
So over the course of a career,700 critical incidents versus
two, and that's 350 times morethan any civilians that your
experience critical incident.
So it really takes a toll andat some point or another there's

(11:51):
going to be some symptomologyof post-traumatic stress.
Now I don't want to say I don'tlabel people.
I don't want to label people,and nor do I want to be labeled
of having post-traumatic stressDisorder.
But what I'd like to call it issomething that's called
emergency responder exhaustionsyndrome and everybody, at one
point of their career or not, isgoing to have it if they're a

(12:12):
first responder.
An emergency responderexhaustion syndrome has four
components one is depression orsadness to isolation or
withdrawal, and then the lasttwo are physical and emotional
exhaustion.
So if you combine all four ofthose that's just burnout.
Now, the DSM, which is theDiagnostic Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, the latestone, it does not say or include

(12:34):
burnout, but the internationalclassification of disorders, icd
number 11, does include burnoutand the three main components
for that is, excuse me isexhaustion, which was already
pointed out in the EmergencyResponder, exhaustion Syndrome,
negativity and cynicism.

(12:56):
That doesn't happen, right, oh,never.
And then having professionaldifficulties, engaging or
working.
It's burnout.
Burnout is very normal and Ithink we could normalize, saying
okay, yeah, why does somebodyget burnout?
It's 100% normal At one pointor another.
That exhaustion's gonna happenAt one point or another, sadness
is gonna happen.

(13:16):
It's because, one, you're human.
But sometimes the sadness ordepression, whether it's
clinically diagnosed or justyou're just feeling burnout or
sad, it's because you're normal.
And part of it comes from whatVictor Frankel, who was held by
the Nazis forever, kind oftalked about it as like, what's

(13:37):
your meaning?
The meaning in suffering, andthe other part of it is their
biological changes that occur.
So what happens is firefightersget in the job and they say,
okay, here's what I wanna do, Iwanna go save people, I wanna
help people, and you get on thejob and you go to the same
things over and over.

(13:57):
Let's say, you go in a mentalhealth situation and pretty soon
you get really frustrated atthat person.
You're like, nah, I just don'twanna go again to this person.
And it starts to wear on youand exhaust you.
A lot of people especiallyyou've been in the job for a
while can identify with that andthen eventually it wanes out
and you find your happy place.
But you can get reallyirritated at that because you're

(14:19):
constantly exposed tonegativity and you can't do the
job without getting some of thaton you to some degree.
It doesn't mean it has to behuge or colossal.
In fact, you probably can thinkof people who are a little bit
more prickly than others withthe negative negativism and
cynicism and you're like, okay,well, that's just burnout, yeah,

(14:41):
what's?

Because it seems like, I don't know, have you
seen burnout like accumulate?
Because I think we all have themoments where it's like, dude,
I'm done, but it's like then youhave a good four off and you're
recharge, ready to go, but thenit seems like there's almost
like a deeper burnout where itjust feels like there's no
amount of break or relaxationthat gets me out of that rut.

(15:05):
And I don't know if that's adifferent thing.
Maybe that's not burnout.
I don't know if you felt any ofthat before, josh, but man,
like, certainly for me, I justfeel like sometimes I'm so busy
on my four off trying to keepall the other plates spinning
that by the time I get back toshift, like the shift is
actually my break.
I'll go on any crisis you wantme to go on.
This is my chance to like turneverything else off and just

(15:27):
come here and kind of hide fromthe world for a little bit.
You know, I'd be interested tohear what Josh.

From what it sounds like to me, there's a
difference between stress andburnout.
Right, so stress can beimmediate from what's happening
in front of you, but it's theamount of buildup of stress over
time that leads to burnout.
Is what I would.
So what you described initiallysounds like stress to me, but
the accumulation of the stresswith no real way to relieve it
ends up turning into burnout,with the exhaustion and the

(15:56):
fatigue and the isolation andthose kinds of things.
So if we don't deal with thestress, it turns into burnout.
But with the whole peer stuffthat we're doing right now, it's
amazing because we canrecognize that in somebody, and
it used to be probably same foryou.
But back when we started inthis business, it was like, hey,
man, this is your job.
You suck it up, push it down,push on, because this is what
you do.
So you didn't talk about itright, and so you'd be sad by

(16:19):
yourself or you would questionam I the right person for this
job?
Whereas now we tell peopleright off the bat hey, this job
can eat you alive, and we wantto talk about it.
Every time we have a badsomething happen or we recognize
something and somebody doesn'tseem right, let's address it.
And it's like going to astructure fire.
It's like how do you put thefire out if you don't recognize

(16:39):
the house is on fire?
And so that's what we're doingnow the peer program, all of the
stuff we're doing with therapy,therapists, and having to come
right along with this, having totalk with us in podcasts
amazing.
I wish I had this when I wasstarting my career.
Yeah, so I feel like the stressbuilds up over time, but we're
doing such a better job ofdealing with that stress, but

(17:00):
that person still has torecognize it themselves.
Everybody around you can say,hey, you seem a little stressed,
are you okay?
Or I feel like you're burnedout, bro, what's going on?
But if they don't recognize itthemselves, they still can't be
helped.
So that's the part where we allneed to band together and bring
in professionals to help us,Professionals that understand
what we're going through.

(17:21):
I was telling you earlier I'vebeen involved with so many
processes of critical incidentstress debriefings and it wasn't
called management.
Then it was debriefing, andyou'd go into these and you'd be
surrounded in this big room, inthis big circle of everybody
that was involved, Sometimespeople that weren't involved,
and it seemed like a blame game.
It seemed like the psychologistor therapist that was there had
no clue what we do for a living,and so I'd shut down

(17:43):
immediately and I wouldn't evenparticipate, and so I had lost
faith in this whole processuntil the peer team started
doing their thing and I thoughtyou know what, if I'm gonna help
our people be healthy, I needto go talk to a therapist just
to see the process.
And I found faith in it againbecause I got help through a
process that I didn't even knowI had.
So it was pretty amazing.
So I'm a 100% believer in thepeer program, in going to

(18:05):
therapy and just whensomething's not right, say
something.
If you see a need, take care ofit.
And that means if you're notdoing well, I need to say
something to you and talk to youabout it and forward you to the
people on the peer team thatcan help.

Yeah, so Well, I think that's a unique aspect of
the fire service is where youthink of a normal co-working
relationship.
You see them nine to five.
It'd probably take you a lotlonger to notice that maybe
somebody's a little off, butwhen you're living with somebody
for 48 hours, you're gonna seeit much sooner.
And so you know, if somebodycomes in a little different,

(18:42):
that shift or snaps or somethingthey usually don't like, I
think the crew picks up on itpretty quick, but it's, do we
just give that guy his space, ordo we bring it up, or do we
poke the bear even more, whichfirefighters would never do?
No, never, no.

Let me have a comment on that if you don't
mind.
So you know, talking about thestress, brent, where you're
saying, okay, just going to workis actually kind of alleviates
some stress, and, josh, I'mreally glad that you brought up
the stress and identifying that.
But you can break down stressinto two different categories
you stress, which is EU, which Ithink it's Greek or Latin for
good stress, and distress, whichis horrible and awful.

(19:20):
So even the good stress can beexhausting.
And by good stress I mean youknow what, if you're looking for
a new car you gotta buy, oryou're having a baby or you're
moving those, even if they'regood, it's exhausting and so and
it still kind of it takes atoll on us a little bit.
So there's, I think, part of thebiggest thing about identifying

(19:42):
and kind of managing our ownburnout is to realize one we're
first.
We're human.
So if we have a sad day, that's100% normal.
But from a chemical point ofview, if you're constantly going
, if you're going on callsinitially and you have an
adrenaline dump and it justyou're getting all the different

(20:03):
chemicals, the epinephrine andnorepinephrine and even hits of
dopensiratone and stuff.
That's kind of what's beencalled to be in a flow state
where you basically forget abouteverything else and you have to
concentrate and those chemicalstake effect in your brain and
they affect your body.
So it's like, hey, life anddeath is on the line.

(20:25):
I have to concentrate, I forgetevery single, and it feels good
to be at work, it feels good tohave those calls.
So we tend to want to continueto do those things that will
help us fill that way, which iswhy we sometimes continue in the
same career fields, even on orfour days off.
So you got firefighters beingfirefighters elsewhere, or

(20:46):
flight medics or whatever, justbecause it feels good, and so we
can become almost addicted.
I'm addicting addiction'sprobably the wrong word, but as
high performers we want tocontinue to do that and it feels
good.
And then we say, oh, and thisis my family, these are people
who get it, they understand me.
Sometimes my family might notunderstand me entirely, because
so-called normal people theydon't get it, they don't

(21:10):
understand.
So it's sometimes gonna justshift us a little bit where we
might be having more attentionto other career fields.
Now, that's not to say thatit's bad not at all.
In fact, oftentimes we need tohave another job because we're
not getting paid enough anyway.

Wow, you nailed that right on the head.
I was actually gonna ask youthe question do you feel that
stress is addicting?
Because I feel like I'maddicted to being in stressful
situations, and a part of it,too, is because I don't have to
think about what I'm gonna do,because I'm trained right, and
so when I go into a situationwhere it's a stressful
environment and you gotta makedecisions, it goes back to

(21:52):
training and I fall back on thatand I don't have to think, I
don't have to second guessmyself.
It just happens right, and so Iget addicted to that feeling
and I feel like all the stuffI've done, and I've all done it
close to the same time.
I was gonna ask you do youthink it's possible I was
addicted to stress.

It's not.
We gotta be careful about usingthe word addiction and I don't
know if we'd even call it stress.
I think that individuals whoget into this profession have
the chemical and psychologicalmakeup to be drawn toward
disaster and so we think, oh,you know what?
I would rather run just likeall the firefighters did in 9-11

(22:30):
.
You run into the building.
But what happens sometimes isif our expectations is one way
and reality is not what ourexpectation is, so we go on
those calls, we're like, oh cool, it's a crash, and we get there
and it's like little kids, thenthat can psychologically give
us a blindside, because all thatwe hoped for is like, yes, a
cool crash with sometimes nastystuff, and we're like, all right

(22:51):
, I can handle it today.
But if reality something inthat is not what we expected,
then it gives us distress, notthe good stress, it gives us the
bad stress.
So it imbalances us, just likebecause I brought up 9-11, just
like that Tuesday morning, allthose workers going up into the

(23:12):
World Trade Center.
They didn't think about killingthemselves that day, but the
fire got too hot and they jumpedto their death.
And so sometimes it can switchon a dime really immediately,
really quick to say, oh, thatwas not what I expected.
Now it's 100% different.
Now, to get more pointed, Iguess on what you're talking
about is the addiction to stress.
The chemical makeup just makesus feel alive because it's so

(23:36):
important.
We're dealing with life anddeath, and so what happens is I
can remember multiple timesgoing with my wife and her
friend and her friend's husband.
So we're going on a double dateand we're dinner talking and
they're talking about boring,dumb stuff that doesn't matter,
and I'm like, why can't we talkabout something about life and

(23:56):
death?
So the boredom of life and theboredom of other people we start
to isolate because they're like, they're not normal.
I'm normal and guess what?
I'd rather be with people whoare more like me.
Does that make more sense?

Absolutely.
You just made me feel lesscrazy.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, I appreciatethat, but I think you are
articulate.

Perfect for me too, because, like you said, you
get all the into that flowright.
You're headed to a call and forme it's like I'll be behind on
so many projects with my otherbusiness and I know I got people
that are waiting on me orwhatever, and that stresses me
out.
But in the moment of a callit's like I know I'm doing the
most important thing right nowand I know if they saw exactly

(24:38):
what I was doing at this moment,they wouldn't blame me for not
working on their project.
They'd be OK with me respondingto this accident or helping
this family, and so that's whereI would put that addiction side
is.
Yeah, so I'm going to always goon calls because that's how I
avoid the stuff that I'm behindon that I don't want to deal
with.
But man being on shift and it'sjust I don't know.

(24:59):
I've been running my businessfor 10 years and it's a passion
too.
But something I've always lovedabout the fire department is
I'm doing something that matterson the most fundamental level,
like helping people with theirmarketing or helping people with
these projects, is awesome andI love being creative and doing
those things, but at the end ofthe day.
It's like fire department,that's like stuff that on the

(25:20):
most basic level, like thismatters, like if my business and
that skill set went awaytomorrow, the world's going to
carry on, but if the firedepartment, the Logan City fire
department, went down tomorrow,that would be national news and
that's pretty crazy to thinkabout.
But anyway, for me I thinkthat's whether you call it
avoidance or procrastination orwhatever label that's what I

(25:43):
found at the fire department.
It's hard to sometimes switchback to business mode on the
four off, because I love thatfeeling so much and it was a
good, pure escape, doing goodthings that matter.

And you need that.
That's something that drivesyou the passion to do that and
the passion to be involved inwith a mental health and peer
support and doing stuff likethis podcast.
That also just enlivens you andgives you energy and that's
what we need.
But taken on the flip side,what about those firefighters
who their work is their burdennow?
And that happens a lot.

(26:16):
So after a few years and I'veread some studies, but in my own
view I've seen, and I've saidit for years, about seven years
you got some serious baggage.
You know your emotional trashbin is full and you've got to
find a way to empty it and soburnout can happen big time
before then or after then.
But about then it starts tohappen and it's the symptomology

(26:40):
of some post-traumatic stressthat just starts to accumulate
and then it gets complex,cumulative post-traumatic stress
.
Not that everybody has it, buteverybody has emotional or
emergency responder exhaustionsyndrome at one point in their
career or another where you justfeel burnout.
So if you're burnt out at work,how do you pull the reins on

(27:01):
that?
How do you try to say, okay, Ineed to help myself, because
here's the other thing thathappens.
You go on these high speedcalls all the time where nothing
else matters and you're feelingin the flow While you get some
dopamine and serotonin hitsduring those calls.
When you get so good at it likeyou were explaining Josh, where
you're like okay, I can thrivein this area because I know what

(27:21):
I'm doing Once you get so goodat it, then you sometimes don't
even get the shakes, like thefirst time you're intubating
somebody, you might have someshakes and your guts are
changing a little bit, andafterwards you might have a
little bit of adrenaline shakeat the end.
But guess what?
After the hundredth time youhave no emotion.
I remember having this situationthat was pretty heinous happen.

(27:43):
I came home and I told my wife.
I said I didn't shake, I didn'tfeel anything, I felt numb.
And she goes that becauseyou're broken.
But it's not because you'rebroken, it's because you get
used to the feelings ofadrenaline.
So when you're not in thoseseconds and in those moments
that matter, your dopamine, theneurotransmitter that makes us
feel good, your dopamine, yourserotonin, your endorphins
deplete, they go straight down.

(28:04):
And if they're down, then itjust makes you feel numb.
In psychology it's called aflat A-fect, where you don't
feel anymore, you're just,you're like well, I used to like
doing this.
Now I don't.
All right, I used to like doingsomething, but I just feel numb
inside.
I remember after coming homefrom Iraq I told my wife.
I said I think I'm gonna goskydiving, and a lot more than I

(28:27):
had in the past.
And I said and then I'll get mycertificate, my birth
certificate, excuse me so I cango be a trainer, just because I
needed something to feel aliveagain.
So sometimes first respondersengage in behaviors that makes
them feel alive again, andsometimes those are negative,
whether they're getting on amotorcycle and going 180 or
they're engaging in riskybehaviors.

(28:50):
Now that could be risky sexualbehaviors, it could be risky
relationship behaviors, it couldbe out, it could even be drug
use, something that says, okay,I need something to feel alive
again.
So when a first responder getsin trouble for behaviors, I
would say it's because of, or atleast in part because, of, the

(29:15):
several years of doing the job.
We cannot say, we cannot takethe private life and the
personal and the professionallife and say, well, they're
separated now.
No, I can tell you, I can thinkof a handful of individuals
who've gotten in trouble or losttheir jobs or gotten an
administrative leave, and Icould very clearly say they're

(29:38):
not dealing with a burnout,they're not dealing with the
trauma and that's what's causedthe problem.
So the behaviors have, well, theaccumulation of trauma, which
disturbing events I think we usetrauma too much the
accumulation of disturbingevents have gotten so compiled

(29:59):
in that in our emotional trashbins that we decide well, we
just need to feel alive again.
That's the burnout right, orthe depression and the sadness
and withdrawal, the physical andemotional exhaustion.
Now, because I don't feel aliveagain, I need to do something
that makes me feel alive again.
What is that?
You have either positive ornegative behaviors, whether
you're going and sleeping withstrippers or doing other stuff

(30:20):
that's risky and unhealthy.
It because it makes you feelalive.
Wow.

So would you say that it almost makes me feel
like I'm in a preemptive stateright, wait a minute, wait a
minute, you don't have to talkabout it.
Sometimes, but so if you're inspot where I feel like I'm right
now, where work at the firedepartment is my stimulant or
whatever that's, but from what Igather from what you're saying,
if you get over time that'sgonna get to a point where that
stops, like you stop finding theflow because you're just not

(30:50):
stimulated by that anymore, andthen that's a dangerous spot to
be right, like if you've andwhatever else is going on in
your life, and then you're outof the flow at work because
you've done it so much you'renumb.
Well, that's a bad place to bebecause you're desperately gonna
seek somewhere else, right?
Am I understanding thatcorrectly?

Yes, potentially.
Now it's not per se thenumbness, because sometimes
training can get so good andexperience can get so good that
if we're doing something likehey, we're on scene and we're
used to going to scenes, it'smass chaos and we take control
on it to ABC and D, and we cando that, and we can do that in a
very good way, that we're usedto it, we need to, and that's

(31:29):
not necessarily a bad thing.
But if we start to feelcompletely burnt out, we need to
find something that gives usenergy.
And part of that might not bethe job, because after a while,
when it went the energy thatdrove us into the job, after a
while it might deplete us, andso we have to find something
else that we need to focus on tohelp us to find that passion.

(31:54):
And it's not about just findingpseudo-passion, it's not about
finding something that's likegives us a fix, it's finding
something about giving uspurpose, giving us meaning,
making us feel good.
Now, the body is very tightlyconnected to how we think and
vice versa.
So I would say the number onething to help with avoiding

(32:17):
burnout is sleep.
Here's the problem withfirefighters If you're at a busy
station, you're not gettingsleep and then, on your four
pack, you're going to workanother fire job.
What's your sleep like?
Or what's your sleep like onyour four pack?
The number one thing is you'vegot to monitor and give time for
your sleep.

(32:37):
You need seven to nine hours,according to this studies.
You've got to focus on yoursleep and lots of times people
are like eh, I can survive onless.

I used to say you can sleep when you're dead,
which quickly would help to that.
And I started keeping track ofmy sleep on my Apple Watch and
it was depressing because Inever got seven hours.
It was in the rapid DMs that itis.
That's the most important partof sleep cycle, right?
Yes, it was very minuscule, soI was tossing and turning and so

(33:06):
I mean I have to use Ambien togo to sleep because I can't shut
my mind off.
But am I really restful at thatpoint of?
Not, right, because it's just.
Yeah, I may be still, but mymind is still going crazy, and
sleep is probably the biggestdownfall for me in the recovery
process of all of it.
I can't sleep and I don't knowexactly why I've been like that

(33:26):
for a long time, because there'sbeen a lot of years where
you're.

This is the rough thing that I've learned about
firefighters my grandpa was afirefighter.
Of course it was back in thedays where they had different
than 48s or whatever.
But when you're a light sleeperor you're getting tones, or if
the tones are going off, buteven though you don't have to go
, maybe it's you know and you'reused to that and you have to
get used to that, then youbecome a light sleeper at home

(33:51):
and then sometimes if there'sadditional worry, additional
stress, then you're not sleepingwell.
And then you know, after 20years and you retire, guess what
?
It's still going to be somewhatsimilar.
It's hard to shut it off.

Yeah, that explains a lot.
So I do.
I mean I don't go on every callthese guys go on, but I listen
to every single call that goesout all night long because it's
my job, right, so I can see howthat'd be hard for my body to
get used to on my four days off.
I didn't even put that together.

Well, part of it is we don't make sleep a
priority.
No, because the other part iswell, why am I not making sleep
a priority?
Cause it's not that important.
I'd rather look at my phone, orwhatever it's like that.

I thought that's why God invented coffee and Red
Bull, red Bull.

So, here's the thing about all that stuff If
you're drinking caffeine afternoon or after 1 PM on your days
off actually, whatever the casemay be, I wouldn't do it at work
either Then you've got to bereally careful, because if
you're drinking later, it'scaffeine has a half life, it's
going to keep you awake.
The other thing is, if you'redrinking coffee first thing in
the morning because you feeltired is because you're not

(34:48):
getting enough sleep before Now.
Is caffeine needed sometimes?
Heck yeah, absolutely.
But you got to be careful ofthe caffeine intake.
Caffeine, nicotine they willcause massive sleep issues and
actually, interestingly,caffeine and nicotine addictions
are mentioned in the diagnosticstatistical manual for mental
disorders Like interesting.

I drink two or three monsters a day.

I like it.
I'm not addicted to this.

It's just like a taste.

That's all it is.
I usually wash down my coffeewith a monster.

Yeah, I take my Adderabbi and my monster, oh wow
.

So I want to point out something that you
said, jeff, as far as findingsomething that gives you energy
and finding that purpose, orfinding something that's not
fire and a healthy thing thatgives you energy, not one of the
negative behaviors.
But I think the other side ofthat, too is also getting rid of
something on your plate.
I've read something the otherday that it's like the work-life

(35:40):
balance thing is such aterrible thing to try to go
after because it's justimpossible unless you're willing
to let go of some things.
You can't just keep pilingstuff on your plate and
expecting to balance that Likethat's going to be a miserable
way to live.
But it's so hard to let go ofthings right.
And I kind of want to dig intoyour decision to leave Airman,

(36:01):
because I know that wasn't easy.

It was a hard decision.

And it feels like your whole life.
You've added things to theplate and doing all these
different jobs and it's beenhaving all the cool roles, but
then to take the first step andactually letting go.
What was that like?
How did you build up to thatdecision?
What's it been like what we'reopposed to almost a year?

now, yeah, september 15th was my last
flight shift.

What's it?
I mean, how's that felt lettinggo of something, how did that
affect your balance and I don'tknow?
Just kind of walk us throughhow you made that decision, how
much time we got.
Yeah, here we go, we're fine.
I might need some help withthis.

So I'll give you the catalyst of what caused me
to make the decision and why Idecided that was what I had to
let go.
I had just got done with theRock Spring shift, up, obviously
up in Rock Springs with Air Med.
I had been gone for a couple ofdays and then I was going to be
going immediately into doingsome training for my own trauma
long attack and my son, jack,he's 14.

(36:56):
Well, he was 14.
He's 15 now, but at the time hesaid something really profound
to me and that kid's brain man,it's incredible.
But he just said hey, dad,you're never here, I'd really
like to have you here.
And he said something about myoldest son, logan, who's 19 now
but was 18 at the time.
He says hey, logan's, he's nolonger a kid, he's 18.

(37:16):
You missed all of that.
I don't want you to miss thelast parts of me being a kid.
Not exactly in those words, butthat was his meaning and it was
like, oh my gosh, that's whatfinally had me take a look at it
.
And I don't know why it tookthat, but for my kid to tell me
that something's not right.
Obviously my wife has told mehey, man, you're too busy.
You got to slow down.
But I think I was involved withthat passion, that drive, and I

(37:40):
kept thinking I'm doing this formy family.
But I don't think I was.
I think I was doing it for me.
The more we talk, the more Ifeel selfish.
But I was always thinking, man,I've got to make the money,
I've got to be everything I canbe so my kids have everything
they need.
There's no wants or anythinglike that.
But what it really comes downto from what I'm realizing now,
is I was probably prettyaddicted to that stress response
and being in the moment,because I live my life in

(38:03):
moments.
It's I don't know,hypervigilant is probably a good
word for a lot of the stuff Ido too.
I mean, it's like you know aswell as I do.
You go into a restaurant.
You sit with your back againstthe wall so you can see the door
.
You never sit with your back toa door, stuff like that.
But it's those kind of thingsover time that build up and I'm
like I probably should startfiguring out how to be normal,
because I'm close to retirement.
My whole identity, my wholelife has revolved around the

(38:25):
fire service, being a lawenforcement officer and being a
flight paramedic and myself-value was based on that.
It's like I'm not a good personunless I do these things.
It made me feel great.
That gave me that feedback thatI'm doing a good job, that
these people need me, right.
And so when my kid told me thatJack, I was like hey, he needs
me.

(38:45):
And so I made the verydifficult decision to quit a job
that I absolutely loved.
Flying with AirMed was anincredible experience.
The people there are amazing.
I got to do things that I neverimagined I'd get to do.
And, let's put it this way,flying on helicopters are just
cool.
I mean you know that they'reamazing and the stress of being
in flight on a helicopter.
I mean the whole time you'rejust buzzing with adrenaline,

(39:07):
even if you're just going to astandard flight or you're just
rotating aircraft to do somemaintenance or whatever.
It was an incredible feelingbecause helicopters are trying
to kill you every second you'rein them.
There's nothing natural aboutthat.
So I mean it's a pretty coolfeeling.
I love it.
The sound, the smell of the jetfuel you know jet A's got a
cool smell that I will neverforget.
I hope they make a colognesomeday it's jet A, I would buy

(39:29):
it for sure.
But you.
To give that up was super hard,and that was the time I decided
I need to be the father that Ishould have been for the last 18
years, and so I gave myresignation notice to my
supervisor, which was itliterally took me two months to
write and I would start writingit and then I'd stop and it's
like I can't do this.
I kept saying I need the money,I need the money, and so I was

(39:53):
blaming it on other things, butreally it was good for me to
feel that way.
So since I've left AirMed andI've kind of lightened my load,
I still work for Cache CountySheriff's Office on the SWAT
team, but you know those aretrainings and SWAT responses.
I'm not doing that every day,so that's a pretty light
workload there.
And Trauma Llama obviouslyisn't an everyday thing and it

(40:15):
is a passion of ours, and so I'dreally still enjoy doing that.
I couldn't give that up.
So AirMed was the victim herefor me and it's like this isn't
something I have to do, so I letgo of it and it was super,
super hard for me.
I don't think I've ever been,let's say, clinically depressed,
but I went through a period oftime where I was super sad.
Every time I'd hear a hell of,I'd run out of my house to see

(40:37):
who it was or what they weredoing.
And you know, following AirMedon Instagram, it just killed me
to see all the cool stuff theywere doing and I wasn't part of
it anymore.
But what I did?
I looked back and I could see,you know, my kid right there,
jack and Logan, and my wife.
I was actually spending waymore time at home and all of a
sudden I noticed my stress loadstarted to relieve a little bit
and I was like I'll be in a home, it's kind of cool.

(40:59):
And so I started doing stuffthat you know, around the house.
I mean, I was always busy.
I'm the kind of guy that feelsguilty if I'm just sitting, like
right now.
I kind of feel guilty becauseI'm not you know I'm we're
talking I'm not the kind of guythat can just sit down and relax
, never been able to do that.
I don't think a lot of firstresponders are yeah.
So so I've always, I'm alwayssuper, super busy, but now I'm
doing projects around the houseI put off forever and ever

(41:19):
because I didn't have time to doit, you know, and I've actually
found some enjoyment in that,and just recently spent a week
and a half in the UN is with nophone contact and all that kind
of stuff.
I really enjoyed that.
I caught fish, I went riding inmy razor and you spent time
with my family.
It was like wow, I might evenbe able to be retired someday.
But I think the self identitypart of it is still hard for me
because you know I was somebody,right, I was important to the

(41:40):
organization.
They needed me.
I don't, you know, I used tothink my family doesn't really
need me.
You know, I'm just, I provide apaycheck and I'm, you know, I'm
some emotional support formsometimes, but they don't really
need me.
They can get along without me.
But I'm realizing now that'snot the truth.
Yeah, so yeah.

Well, I think the hard part sometimes is the
money right.
Oh yeah, Because we use that as,like you know, I can't be there
all the time.
But, man, my kids can buy nicethings.
I'm here doing important workthat matters and my kids can buy
all the games and trips orwhatever they want to do.
And so it's just like thatimpossible conundrum of being a
provider and being a dad, likethey just bash heads all the

(42:17):
time, like how do you?
I don't know, but I thinkthat's it's pretty admirable to
be able to set that aside andrecognize with your kid and make
that decision and be able tostick with it and now seeing a
lot of the benefits, I thinkthat's pretty awesome.

Don't get me wrong .
I'd go back in a heartbeat.
But I am definitely trying tosuppress that feeling and I
eventually caught up.
Well, I can't say that becauseI'm still living off my air med
budget, but because you end uppurchasing things, right that
you had the money for before.
Now it's super tight, but I'm Ithink I'm happier right.
As much as I love flying andbeing with those people and
doing what I did, I think I'mhappier now.

(42:51):
So I don't know, it's that someweird no you know you hit
everything.

That just makes complete sense, and I'm sure the
listeners will feel the sameway.
One of the one of theinteresting things that well,
you said a lot of reallyinteresting things, but one of
the things is that that identityand we tend to identify
ourselves so much with theprofession which is way
different than so-called normal.
Okay, we identify ourselves somuch.

(43:16):
It's one of the reasons thatretirement can be very difficult
.

We've seen that in our department recently.
Yeah, people yes.

Yeah, people, when you retire, it's different.
It's difficult because you'renot used to doing the thing that
you have your identity, you'renot used to being with the
people, and so it can kind ofmake you unbalanced a little bit
.
So when you pull back from airmed, for instance, you know
you're like, hey, that's part ofme, that's part of what makes
me feel good, just like when youneed to prepare yourself for

(43:46):
retirement.
It's like you need to havesomething, a passion, something
that interests you, whatever itis, that'll help you wake up in
the morning.
Yeah, so you have a purpose anda reason to wake up.
That's super important.
One of the other things aboutburnout is we have some
unrealistic expectations onourselves that we put that I was

(44:06):
going to ask you aboutexpectations.

I feel like that's part of the burnout process.
Right, let's say we go on acall pediatric call, it's safe
Because those are the ones thatalways bother us the most is the
kid calls.
And you go and you doeverything you can and at the
end of the call you know rather,the kid lives or dies.
You still don't feel like yourexpectations for your
performance and for whathappened were always higher than
actual reality.

(44:27):
But maybe you did the best thatcould possibly be done.
But our expectations are somuch higher for ourselves.
We leave those calls feelinglike oh man, you know, maybe I
shouldn't be doing this anymore.
And it seems like that happenson almost every one of those bad
calls.
Yeah Right, you have thoseexpectations of your performance
and it doesn't go exactly asplanned and it's hard to.
It's hard to feel like you didsomething good.

(44:49):
Yeah, is that weird to?

you?
No, I think you're 100% right.

I'm not as weird as you thought I think you have
expectations for off shift too,right, we have these super high
expectations for ourselves onshift and doing our job, and
then you expect yourself to be agood father and husband, and
it's just like, and you startbringing on all of these things
and then you can't.
You just can't do it all, right.
And so that's where I thinkchoosing to let go of something

(45:13):
has to be part of this process.
If you're going to get rid ofburnout, you can't keep
expecting to do all of thisstuff and maintain I'm so glad
you brought that up again asecond time, brent, because you
know you need to say no.

There has to, and it's very difficult for a lot of
us to say no because one.
If people are coming to us andasking us to do things, that
makes us feel good, it's likeokay, we'll do it.
Or people just ask you to dosomething, you're like, okay,
I'll do it.
Your plate gets really full andthen stuff starts to fall off
your plate because you can't domultiple things good at once and
you hit that.

Oh gosh, I was going to.
I was going to say that too.
I'm glad you brought that up,cause I, the more you do, it
feels like, the more you drop,like if you're the go to guy,
but the more you're juggling,it's just like all of a sudden
you start dropping everythingand you're no longer able to
perform like you wanted to, andpeople not saying that they
won't come and ask you, but it'slike obviously there's
something wrong cause you aren'tperforming at the level you

(46:05):
used to and dropping the ballhappens and that's part of being
so busy is, and it makes youfeel horrible, right and so
that's that personal self talkthat you're saying, well, gosh,
now I'm not good enough, now Ican't do this, and, man, we
destroy ourselves.

Yeah, part of it is just saying, basking in the
things that we like and saying,you know what, this is life, and
even if I'm feeling bad orhaving a bad day or a bad call,
it's like okay, it's okay, I canfeel that way, but I'll tell
you, well, if I wanted to getsomething done and I'm a leader
in organization, I'm going to goto somebody who's already busy,
because you know they're goingto get stuff done, which is
interesting.
Yeah, it's kind of thatinteresting paradox is somebody

(46:43):
who doesn't do anything ever andI'm not talking about fire
service, right, I'm just talkingabout somebody who is
completely checked out and lazy.
They might not get stuff done.
So I'm going to go to theperson who's not that way, who's
a driver, to get them done andjust putting more on their
plates, yeah, and they don't sayno, correct, well, and that's
like every firefighter, becauseevery firefighter has a second

(47:04):
job.
Pretty, much everyone that Iknow of.

Yeah, they did a study with students to see how
different students performed theones that had full-time jobs,
part-time jobs and no jobs, theones that were able to focus on
school full-time and the datawas overwhelming that the
students with full-time jobswere better students.
And I think it just comes backto because when you have to be
organized with your time and youknow, they just did better at

(47:27):
school, the ones that could onlyfocus on school, they had all
this wiggle room andprocrastination was easier to
take place and it was justinteresting.
But it's like I don't know.
At the same time, you feelguilty.
It's like, well, just becausethey're going to perform better,
do we really put one more thingon this guy?
Or do we do I accept one morething on my plate just because I
know I can, you know, do itbetter than the next guy, or I

(47:48):
know it'll get done if I do it.
But one thing that jumped outto me while you're telling your
story, josh, is that you know,come back to finding that source
of energy.
It seems like you found it withyour family, right?

Oh yeah.

Like whatever energy you were getting from
AirMed it was.
You know you filled that gapwith now and I'm doing something
that really matters to Jackthat no one else can do.
No one else can be in this spotand this razor, and the UN is
right now with Jack.
That could make more of animpact on them than you can, and
that has to feel pretty goodtoo right.

Yeah, recognizing that was you know.
That's a source of happinessfor me and I can drink from that
well and be happy as well wasan amazing feeling, and I have
to say I have been super blessedthroughout my entire career
because my wife understands whatI do.
She's a dispatcher.
She's been doing it as long asI have, so she knows exactly
what I'm going on.
She knows what I'm talkingabout, she knows the lingo.

(48:42):
She, you know she deals withofficers, she deals with you
know fire.
So when I've had a bad call,she knows exactly what's going
on, because she probablyexperienced the exact same call
on a different level.
So she's been my rock and not alot of people have that in
their life.
So, sandy, if you're listening,I love you, thank you, and now
you're making the rest of us sobad, sorry yeah.

Sorry, my wife won't listen to this.

She hasn't even read my books, so I'm like well,
I'll read your book.

Maybe, just as we wrap up here, I'd love to get
an insight from each of you onsomething we can do if you
recognize burnout and somebodyelse you know like, and so I
think it's important.
We've talked a lot aboutrecognizing yourself, some steps
to take and finding a newsource of energy, letting go of
some things, letting go of someterrible expectations after
yourself or some good steps.
But now let's say somebody onyour crew or somebody close to

(49:28):
you.
You're starting to tell theirburnout.
What are some things you can doto help them?

We can start with you.
You're the professional.
It makes me sound smart.
I don't feel that way at all.
But you know, 50 years ofexperience and really it.
But here are a couple of thethings that come to mind.
One is if we're talking aboutenergy, which is really the
antithesis of burnout, we needto understand okay, if you look
at the mitochondria in the cell,that's what needs us, that's

(49:53):
what helps us get in our energy.
So we need to make sure we getrest.
We need to exercise on aregular basis.
That can help produce energy.
We need to eat things that aregoing to help us not to be, you
know, a food Nazi, but we doneed to make sure that if we're
underweight or overweight, itwill.

(50:15):
It can mess up our energy, butalso just movement and exercise
and resistance can help us.
But not only that.
We need work.
We 100% need something to doand sometimes if there's a, if
there's people, firefighters offon a four pack and there's
nothing to do, that's a problem.
We need people and then we needto really understand that

(50:35):
purpose and that meaning.
There's something else, thatgreater purpose, for the reason
that we're suffering.
Now, if we're suffering just tosuffer, that's masochism.
We don't say doesn't whatever.
We don't want to just suffer,remove that suffering, but, on
the other hand, is like we needto understand well, how can I
help others, or how can I helpmyself, or what is my belief in

(50:58):
that thing that causes thatdistress?
We need to try to remove thatbarrier.
So, as I would be seeingsomething like that in a friend,
one of the things that I mightask them, the first and foremost
, is what are you doing for you?
Self care, self care.
People can't make a list and,honestly, it's very difficult to
make a list.
I would say well, what are youdoing for you?

(51:20):
Okay, if you had, if you have,five minutes, what do you do?
If you had 15 minutes or a halfan hour, what do you do?
You better create a list, writedown the things that will make
you happy, whether it'slistening to a song or doing
something.
If you have a half a day or ahalf an hour or two or three
hours, what do you do for you togive you energy?
The science has shown thatsocial media, a half an hour of

(51:44):
social media or a half an hourof television, will deplete your
energy.
Oh, I believe it 100%, and Ithink with social media it can
get even worse, because thenwe're comparing each other and
we're looking at something elseand the algorithms are created
in such a way that we keepscrolling and then pretty much
we just we would get more energyfrom literally staring at a
wall because we have to thinkabout.

(52:05):
So trying to write, what areyou doing on a daily basis to
help yourself?
I would say write, read andeducate.
The science behind meditationand prayer is phenomenal, but
it's also kind of understandinglike, okay, why did I have to
deal with this situation and whydid I have to?
Let me just say this reallyfast.
So Russell M Nelson, presidentof the Church of Jesus Christ of

(52:26):
the United States, alsodeveloped the heart.
He made breakthrough stuff withthe heart.
Before that happened, he helpedwith a family who's a heart
deficiency and a little kid thatdied, and I think he operated
on another kid and then heoperated on their daughter, a
little child, and he and shedied.
He said he went home and hesaid he cried all night to his

(52:49):
wife.
He said I'm never going to doanything again.
It was too emotionallyimpactful for him to see the
pain of this family that theylost three of their kids and
that his work or action orinaction, whatever he did to
that for that little girl andthen she died.
He literally cried all night.
He said his wife comforted him.

(53:09):
He said at five o'clock in themorning she finally said
something to him.
That said something to the factof okay, get back in there and
work and develop something.
Then that was the impetus thatallowed him to develop something
, to the heart where he's youknow, a world-renowned heart
surgeon, because he createdsomething that helped him to

(53:30):
help others Purpose.
There was purpose in thissuffering and, honestly, a lot
of times we miss that out.
We just feel like gosh, oh, wefeel sad, we feel depressed, we
want to withdraw on ice, we'relike why?
There is purpose in thesuffering and sometimes, like
the Stoics say, the obstacle isthe way.
So part of it is just let's usethings a little bit differently

(53:53):
.
Whatever our obstacle is, weneed to view it a little bit
differently and then we can liveour life as if we're living at
a second time and not messing up.
This time we're just goingthrough and saying, okay, this
is what I'm going to do now.
You said that perfectly.

I have to tell you that when I went to a therapist
, that was exactly what I neededto focus on was the purpose
right in that tragedy that I hadall of a sudden focused on.
That I had no idea was reallybogging me down and I had to
find purpose in that tragedy andmy therapist helped me do that
and it was amazing how much thathelped me.
Like seriously, it wasincredible.

I've been in video production for over a
decade now, and so I've tried touse that as like okay, if this
was a movie right now of my life, what would the character do?
You know?
at this moment right and in themovies, like of course they're
not going to give up in thismoment, or they're not, they
didn't come this far, they onlycome this far.
It's like that would be like inthe with the surgeon story, you

(54:49):
know, it's like of coursethat's what would happen in the
movie.
He uses that as the originstory to fuel this great thing,
and so sometimes I try to stepback and do that same thing.
It's hard, like it's way easiersaid than done, but if you can
at least start that shift, Ithink that's a great tool and
sometimes helping somebody else.
I remember my wife.
So my wife's a nurse in the ER,so I'm, you know, also lucky to

(55:13):
have somebody that gets it alittle bit, yeah.
But I remember she came homeone day and was just totally
burnt out, you know, exhaustedand just feeling like.
I can't even remember the exactcircumstance.
But she's describing all thesethings to me that she just felt
like she was failing and it wasmuch easier for me to do it for
her than it is for me to do itfor myself.
But I just said here's what Isee.
I see a working mom who wasjust up all night long taking

(55:37):
care of sick people, got home,made breakfast for everybody and
is killing it, you know, andjust reading it and just doing
all of these things, like that'spretty awesome, like you know,
and but in her mind she was justbehind on everything and so I
was going to be my my littlething that again, it's so much
easier said than done.
But I think sometimes peoplethat are burned out more than

(56:00):
because her situation didn'tchange.
I didn't relieve her of havingto do night shifts or the fact
that I was now going on shiftand was about to dump the three
kids on her right, but insteadjust allowing her to be seen
Like I see you and I see whatyou're doing and here's what I
see.
That's all she needed for thatmoment to feel a little less
burned out.

(56:20):
Well, at least somebody knowswhat I'm going through.
My burden is the same,everything's the same, but at
least I'm seen and and I know inreturn, you know when that's
given to me.
It just seems like those arethe moments where I feel the
lightest.
Nothing changed.
But, man, at least this guyknows what I'm going through
fully, there's no secrets hereand he gets it, and that has

(56:41):
gone a long way for me.
That's awesome.

You know one of the things that I might do from
from a friend or a peer.
If I'm having some kind of peersupport interaction and I've
seen somebody struggling, Imight ask him hey, if one of
your buddies were in the sameexact situation that you're in,
what advice would you give tothem?
Or you know and then just bequiet and listen, or what would
you tell them?
Because too often we're notcompassionate on ourselves or we

(57:05):
don't have the same rules forourselves that we would for
others.
Well, I tell him he needs to gotalk to a therapist.
Or I tell him it's okay, andbut no, we don't ever say that
to ourselves, because when wetalk to ourselves because
everybody does it we're usuallytelling something that's wrong,
and then we believe it becausewe're the one saying it.

Wow, that was profound.
I don't even know what else tosay, Honestly, because the more
you talk to them like I probablyneed to go see Jeff after this-
Well, and I think it's.

You know, I just think too, like through the
different leaders I've had in mylife, from the fire department
too.
It's like those moments where,again, they're not changing
anything about my life.
But you know, the moments wheresomebody says something like
man, you're doing a ton and werecognize it and, coming from
admin, you know like man, thathas a huge impact.
So where I think sometimes asthe leader even of our, the

(57:56):
leader of our own families, thatmom or dad, like you, feel like
you got to fix everything andI'm sure admin feels the same
way Like, oh, maybe this crew isunhappy or is going through a
lot, I got to go fix it.
Sometimes I think fixing itisn't always the answer.
It's just let them know they'reseeing, I love that and it's
been guys like Chief Francis andI had called years ago as Chief
Brady Hansen and you know it'sjust some of these statements

(58:18):
that I know they don't evenremember saying, but in that
moment man it helped me be seenand just helped validate what I
was going through.
And I still had to get throughit all by myself, but just
knowing that they saw where Iwas.

Napoleon knew the power of a ribbon.
He honored the people in hismilitary link with ribbons.
And it's not that we need toconstantly honor that, honor
individuals with awards, but weneed to verbalize those things
that you're saying.
We need to acknowledge that wesee them and sometimes it's we
need to be vulnerable ourselvesto say you know what?

(58:52):
I remember I had a really roughcall several years ago that
bothered me for some time.
I don't know if that same callsdoing the same thing to you now
or if you've had other calls.
You know it allows anatmosphere where they can talk
and you acknowledge that you'reseeing challenges in them and
you just open it up.
But the power of a ribbon sayshey, guess what I'm going to do?

(59:13):
A buddy check, so I'm justgoing to.
If I'm thinking of somebody, Irandomly text them hey, buddy
check, he just thinking aboutyou.
There's power in that.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
There's power in putting yourarm around somebody and saying,
hey, you know what, thanks fordoing what you're doing.
I see it Because too often wedon't get those positive
reinforcements we often we talkbad about ourselves or we have

(59:33):
this expectation of being aperfect superhero to save every
single person and we can't.
It's just that's not the waylife is, and so if somebody, if
you and me, we just go out ofour way to say and to do
something nice, it might be ahuge difference and it very well
could.
I'll tell you of a story the guyI know he stepped on a IUD or a

(59:58):
mine or whatever it was over inAfghanistan, lost both of his
legs and his good arm.
And I remember I called him, Iwanted to get together and
wouldn't recognize him at thisspeech I was giving and wanted
to give him an award.
You know, I just want to likehey, I just want to recognize
you as a Memorial Day or aVeterans Day event.
And I said, hey, john, are youaround?
And he said no, I'm back atWalter Reed Hospital for another

(01:00:19):
surgery.
And we just tatted for a littlewhile and I said hey, man, I
just want you to know I love you.
And I could hear him crying.
And he said you know, I reallyneeded that today.
I was wondering if it was worthit anymore.
And I'll tell you, we can't seethe amputees, we don't see the
emotional amputations that areall around us.
We need people to say hey, Icare about you, I love you.

(01:00:41):
I'm just thinking of.
We need to do that.
We need to do that for eachother.
That'll change people and it'llchange.
It'll get us out of our owndiscomfort If we're feeling blue
.
There's a poem that says Ifyou're blue, find something to
do for someone who is sadderthan you.
Just go find somebody to benice to, and it doesn't have to
be big.

Josh Francis (01:00:59):
Sometimes it's the smallest of things.

Jeff Denning (01:01:01):
right that you don't think about twice I mean,
like you guys could complimentmy nice hairline.
It's incredible.

Brent Harding (01:01:06):
But wait for the right moment to get that in
there.

Josh Francis (01:01:09):
So, jeff, do you remember back I think it was
around 2014, 2013, there startedto be quite a bit of criticism
on law enforcement, startedseeing the big movement where
you know they were criticizingofficer involved, shootings and
demographics that were involvedand things like that and it
started to get pretty rough,like to the point where you felt
like, why am I doing this job?
I mean, because I was bothfirefighter and a law

(01:01:31):
enforcement officer and it'slike I put on one uniform.
I'm a different person than Iwas when I was wearing the other
uniform, but I'm still the sameperson inside.
People see me completelydifferent.
But what made a huge differencefor me was someone coming up to
me and just saying I see you,thank you for what you're doing
in this difficult time, and youknow, it's like I brought me to
tears right in front of me.
It's like I'm you know, I'm ina uniform.

(01:01:52):
I shouldn't be crying in frontof somebody, but when they said
that, it was like it meantsomething to me.
You know, because I wasstressed.
Everybody was stressed duringthose times and it hasn't gotten
much better, but it has gottenbetter.
But there was also a movement onInstagram that was hashtag I
see you.
I don't know if you've ever sawthose, but it was incredible the
message that it did it thatthey sent, and total strangers

(01:02:13):
on you've just Instagram, whichI know.
Social media is good and bad,but for the most part bad, but
that meant something to me andso you know, even if it's
someone you don't know, it meanssomething but recognizing them.
So, as admin, I think that'simportant and we talk about that
in our administrative meetings.
It's like, hey, we got to makesure our people know how much we
appreciate them.
But it's easier said than done,right?

(01:02:35):
I mean it's you go to thestation and you know you're
there to grab the mail and givestaff meeting minutes and you
know you're kind of just BSingwith the guys and sometimes it's
hard to remember to say, hey, Iappreciate the effort you guys
put forth on that last call.
You know because you're in themode of BSing stuff.
But when it comes from someonean admin, I can see you know how
important that is, so I willpledge to do a better job, not

(01:02:57):
done a bad job.
You know, I think it means a lot.
I appreciate that.

And I think you know it even goes just the that
time spent with the guys iswhether you don't have to say
anything specific or not, butjust being back amongst the
crews.
I know that just means a lot toeverybody.
And so that even if you donothing other than and I think
that's a healthy, but I thinkit's cool that we circled all
the way back to thank you foryour service.

Yeah, that is another way I see you.

And I think, because it can be awkward right,
you don't want to brandyourself as the hero or somebody
that deserves that spotlight,but I think in those moments it
is okay to allow yourself to beseen.
And that's the flip side is usreaching out, letting people
know we see them and that werecognize what they're doing.
But can you also put yourselfin a state where you allow
yourself to be seen?

(01:03:44):
Can you be willing to sharethings with your crew so that
they can see you?
And you know maybe they want to, but because if you're so close
off on certain parts of yourlife, of course that's hard.
How do you see somebody thatthose emotional amputees like
that's not you know, a physicalthing that you can see all the
time?
And so, just as we, wrap up man,this has been so awesome.

(01:04:04):
We go on for hours but I onlyhave so much storage space on
these SD cards so but I reallyappreciate both of you guys
being here today.
I think we probably should havedone this episode very begin.
I just think everybody hascircled the waters or circled
this topic in their career andin multiple ways, and so I
really think this episode isgoing to do a lot of good for a
lot of guys and appreciate youboth being here.

(01:04:25):
And as always, we try to justend with a shout out to anybody
listening, just as a reminderthat the peer team is here to
help in any way we can.
The website and everything is.
If you need to get helpprivately.
You don't want people to know.
There's a way to do that, butof course any member of the peer
team and even admin wants tohelp.
Just kidding, but just hope youreach out and there's lots of

(01:04:47):
people anxious to help you getto the spot in life that you
want to be so you can startgetting that happiness and that
energy.
And so please reach out.
Thank you both for being here.
We'll catch you on the next one.

Thanks, thanks, brent.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Emergency Responder Exhaustion: How to Avoid Silently Burning Out

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Emergency Responder Exhaustion: How to Avoid Silently Burning Out

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club