Ep. 25 | Hotshots: Wildland Firefighting Special Ops | Justin Demoss

Jordan Ryan talks with Justin Demoss about the world of wildland firefighting, focusing on smokejumpers and hotshots. Justin shares his firefighting journey, highlighting the importance of physical and mental fitness. They discuss deployment, training, and fitness advancements, as well as balancing performance and wellness in the off-season. The episode introduces Hot Shot Wellness and the Wildland Adventure Resilience Program, emphasizing family dynamics and resilience. They also explore the ties between veterans, the military community, and the coffee business, along with using surf therapy as a therapeutic activity.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah.
So you're saying that tell me the differencebetween smokejumpers and hotshots because I
didn't know that those were different things.
Yeah.
So within the wildland firefighting, like,spectrum, we'll just talk about hand crews
specifically.
So hand crews are individuals who are going outon these assignments and basically hiking into
the fires with tools, chainsaws, Pulaskis,various types of roles all relating to fire

(00:25):
line construction, either direct or indirectattack on the fire.
So boots on the ground, we hike in, you sleepon the fires.
Like, that's kind of the job characteristicthat's common for most hand crew populations.
But there's Type 2 crews, there's Type 2 IAcrews, and then there's hotshot crews.
So the distinction between everybody else Type2, Type 2 IA, and hotshot crews has to do with

(00:50):
fitness, self-reliance, and expertise.
So you have to have X amount of captains, Xamount of people with various levels of
experience.
So you kinda just essentially need to hit athreshold of fitness requirements and hours
logged on fires, whatever, like stuff on yourred card that qualifies you to be a crew boss,

(01:11):
a squad boss, a captain, superintendent.
You need to have a combination of individualsthat exceeds that threshold to be considered a
hotshot crew.
And when you get that type of designation onyour crew, you're seen as a federal resource.
And a lot of times fires will ask for hotshotcrews specifically, and they'll have an
explanation like arduous terrain, inaccessibleterrain, things like that.

(01:34):
So essentially, you get put on this list ofthis crew capable of withstanding these demands
that would typically exceed that, which a Type2 crew would go in and maybe be put at a
potential safety issue.
So not to say that there aren't Type 2 crewsthat absolutely get after it.
There are.
That's like a wide spectrum between Type 2,Type 2 IA.

(01:58):
And essentially, like Golden Eagles, forexample, if we were to lose a captain, we might
have to go and get downgraded to Type 2 IA.
Same crew in terms of like the individualsmaybe putting in the line, but just the
expertise required to be on that fire requiresthis amount of squad bosses, this amount of
captains.

(02:18):
So we would then get that Type 2 IAclassification and maybe be restricted from
going to certain assignments.
And so a smokejumper, like, what I was kind ofbringing up just for because we just started
talking right before we started recording.
What I was, what I was telling him, I'll, andI'll introduce you in a minute, but I knew a
guy in college who was a, I believe he was asmokejumper then, and maybe I'm wrong, but what

(02:44):
he would do is he did the same thing, workedfire season and then was off like nine months
or whatever, you know, he worked like, youknow, four to six months and then the remainder
of the year he had off, but he would parachutein with hand tools, you know, behind and, and
like kind of create fire lines.
And so is that, is that a smokejumper?

(03:07):
Is that, like, kind of the deal?
Okay.
If they jumped out of a plane, that's for surea smokejumper.
Gotcha.
And so smokejumpers are different than hotshotcrews, but they're kind of considered like two
special forces within the wildland firefightingspectrum.
Another group that could be coordinated inthere is rappel crews, who rappel out of

(03:28):
helicopters and do similar things like what asmokejumper would.
The main thing, just to keep it simple,smokejumpers get different types of assignments
and they go on different types of incidents.
Right?
I would imagine that in most scenarios, ofcourse, I've been involved in this field for a
very limited time.
So there's probably going to be somebody who'sa 30-year vet being like, who's this guy?

(03:49):
What's he talking about?
And it's like, this is my interpretation as aone-year vet.
Anywhere.
They just love talking shit.
That's kind of their thing.
So
Anyways, I'm doing my best interpretation of myview of the scene.
So smokejumpers typically get called for, like,small incidents right when they start because
there's easy access of getting them parachutedin these really remote areas where it's

(04:10):
impossible to really get there on, right, motorvehicle, and it's, like, probably hard to get
it.
For example, in Alaska, there's not a ton ofroad systems where these fires probably go
down.
So it's easier just to fly a plane over, dropfour to six people off to go and try and IAA
this thing, get it contained before it getsbig.
Those are the kinds of assignments smokejumpersare probably getting more often than not

(04:35):
because it's just a small, small operation,small numbers.
That's why they're probably like a little bitmore towards those smaller scale incidents just
because, gotcha, of the limitation of gettingpeople up in a plane and getting them out
there.
It's just the idea of getting the most, like,savvy, experienced, gnarly workers out there to

(04:58):
just plug in and get this thing controlled iskind of the objective there versus a hotshot
crew.
Most of the assignments we're going to areprobably large incidents where they need a ton
of manual labor.
We're like, interesting.
Know you're getting a workhorse crew of 20-pluspeople who can get down day in, out and just
put a lot of work on the ground.

(05:19):
So that's kind of the shift in assignments thatwe get.
And for that reason, I feel like a lot ofpeople maybe it's not a direct path of whether
you wanna go smokejumper, hotshot.
It's not like a perfectly linear
route.
Know what that kind of sounds like to me islike the difference between, like, Green Beret
and Army Ranger.

(05:40):
I don't know if you're like
I'm not super fluent, so yeah, if you want to,like, expand on that.
Yeah, sure.
So like the Green Berets' mission set is kindof, I mean both are special operations forces.
They all are under USASOC.
This is like Army Special Operations Command.
And many Green Berets are Rangers and manyRangers, you know, will become Green Berets,

(06:04):
but it's not exactly like a ladder.
It's not like one is better than the other.
It's just a different mission set.
And so Rangers are kind of the premier elitelight infantry force.
So when you need a lot of dudes that are moretrained than like your average infantry to like

(06:27):
take an airfield or, you know, assault a townor something like that.
Whereas Green Berets are a little bit moreforeign internal defense.
They're kind of like embedding with locals andkind of living off-grid, you know, a little bit
longer.
So it's not like a one-to-one comparison, but Ikind of see how it's like the, in the

(06:51):
smokejumpers, it's a very specialized insertionmethod.
Yeah.
And smaller teams, a little bit different of amission set than what the Rangers are doing.
Yeah, definitely.
And just being on fires with them, every singleperson who's in that smokejumper categorization

(07:11):
is unique.
And the fact that they probably had a ton ofexperience because anybody who's going into a
smokejumper assignment, they're IC-ing that.
Like they're taking the control.
They're putting in resources at play.
Like they have to see the big picture of what'sgoing on and being very tactical and strategic
about how to manage that initial, like, phaseof attack on that fire.

(07:32):
So they have to be very dialed with the bigpicture view of how to operate this wildfire
scene, which, I was a first-year hotshot, and Icame on with very, like, I had no fire
experience and got minimal training going intoit.
I just basically was a workhorse like that.
You just got me on the crew because that's likethe potential.

(07:53):
A person who's generally inclined academically,a person who had a lot of fitness in their
background, a person with manual labor, and youcan plug them in and play like a cog in the
machine.
Mhmm.
And adapt, which of course I became more savvyand in tune with the operations as the season
went on.
But right from, like, the first fire, if I wasin charge of anything, that would have been a

(08:15):
shit show.
So, like, that's just one kind of loophole ordifferentiation.
Everyone who's a smokejumper has been involvedand has a high level of knowledge because they
have to be put in those situations to be ableto, like, really make strategic developments on
those operations and be like right in the midstof the operations as a whole versus like I

(08:35):
could just go in and swing a tool for 16 hoursand that's my job.
Jesus Christ.
Right, right.
That's great.
Well, let me introduce you really quick.
So let's see.
Welcome back to the Mind Body Mushroom, thepodcast where we dive deep into holistic
health, personal growth, and the mindset shiftsthat fuel high performance.
I'm your host, Jordan Ryan.

(08:56):
And as always, this episode is brought to youby Wind and Sea Coffee, the world's best
adaptogen coffee, instructed to fuel your bodyand mind.
But today we have a truly inspiring guest,Justin Namos, a man who has dedicated his life
to service, wellness, and resilience.

(09:17):
Justin is a humanitarian at heart, committed toimproving physical, mental, and spiritual
well-being.
With a master's in exercise science from LongBeach State, he has worked as a strength and
conditioning coach, training competitiveathletes and tactical professionals.
But his journey didn't stop there.
He sought firsthand experience as a firstresponder, becoming a Golden Eagles Hotshot,

(09:39):
battling wildfires across the U.S.
as a lead EMT.
Now, as director of Hotshot Wellness, anonprofit based in Oregon, Justin is on a
mission to support the health and personaldevelopment of wildland firefighters, helping
them not just survive, but thrive both on andoff the fire line.
We're gonna dive deep into his experience, hisphilosophy on holistic wellness, and the work

(10:00):
he's doing to make a real impact in the worldof firefighting.
Justin, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me.
It's an honor.
Yeah.
So one thing that I was why I was kind ofbringing up this guy who was a smokejumper,
that was surprising to me because and maybe youcan kind of clarify with this.

(10:23):
It seemed like there are like private companiesthat do a lot of these wildland fires, you
know, you think it's all kind of like under thegovernment, right?
The Forest Service.
But it sounded like it was private entitiesthat were that they literally were working for.

(10:43):
How does that work?
Yeah.
So before I got into fire, I had no idea what afire assignment would look like.
And I think just overall that being a fieldresearcher going into the environment, seeing
what's going on was probably the mostbeneficial aspect of my career as it continues
to be more of a health practitioner researcherrole because this is the most unique kind of

(11:07):
environment that I've ever seen.
You go up to a fire and it's at least alarge-scale one, like an entire city.
There's people that get contracted out for,like, putting showers up, putting, like,
laundromats up, caterers.
There's, like, just a bunch of different tentsfor managerial purposes, planning, data,
logistics, mapping, devising different plans.

(11:29):
It's like on the Park Fire, for example, lastyear, there were like over 12,000.
I don't know the number, but like dozens ofthousands of personnel connected to it.
There's no way that the federal workforce aloneis probably going to be able to administer all
the pieces responsible for coordinating thatkind of event.
It was just like an entire city.

(11:51):
Like we took up probably like a20,000-square-foot lot for all the crew
buggies, all the logistical needs, and thenyou're driving an hour or two back to go tackle
this fire.
So like just overall, if you don't live in avery rural area, you're probably never gonna
see the scale of an operation that a large firetakes up.

(12:14):
So along with just to your point, there arehandfuls of Type 2 crews that get filled with
those spots, like from independent contractingcrews, independent wildland firefighters.
It's not all Forest Service, BIA, BLM crews.
There's a lot of people that you go out thatwould be characterized as manual labor workers
who specialize in wildfire tactics.

(12:35):
So really, a good percentage of the workforceon these fires is coming indirectly from the
federal government.
That is true.
There's definitely a lot of cogs at play thataren't federally funded.
And who's like the lead, you know, force that'skind of organizing all this stuff?
Is it federal or is it state, or does it kindof depend on the fire itself or where it is?

(12:59):
So yeah, it's definitely geographicallydependent, at least in California's case.
We would go to incidents and they would eitherbe IC'd, incident command system set up by CAL
FIRE.
And then they would be working in coordinationwith federal workforces.
Or there's events that were like in, I mean,pretty much every other event I imagine outside
of California.

(13:19):
This is again based on my one year of limitedexperience.
It was mainly IC'd by a Forest Serviceindividual.
So in California, I feel like it's a rarescenario where like it's a lot more even spread
between CAL FIRE and federal people who get tothe event, see it first, get hands on it, start
deploying resources where they see fit.
Yeah, that definitely is a unique one for ourstate.

(13:42):
I think most of the other fire incidences wouldprobably run by federal services, but I could
be wrong.
There could be other state agencies, but CALFIRE is pretty massive, and they got a handful
of these assignments.
Yeah, yeah.
So take me back to your story.
You know, what's kind of your origin story?
You started in strength and conditioning andeventually made it to firefighting.

(14:04):
So kind of walk me through that.
Yeah, totally.
So I guess it probably is worth mentioning justlike how I got into strength and conditioning
to start.
I was coming from a spot in like my upbringingthrough the end of high school leading towards
the typical route of like an athlete, somebodywho played football, wrestling, basketball,
track, like, just a lot of different, like,common sports always kinda, like, with the

(14:27):
blind intention of, oh, I want a scholarship.
Oh, that'd be sick to play in college.
Like, that's the route.
That's the route.
Like, all my friends are in sports, and mywhole life revolved around sports pretty much
just from sunup to sundown.
It was like academics and sports and repeatforever.
And I like
You stash.
I definitely feel like I get asked that a lotof, baseball really?

(14:51):
Seems more common than anything else.
But, yeah, football was the main hope and firstplay of the first scrimmage of my senior
season.
One of those stories gets tackled low, snaps myankle, three months of recovery in a boot, all
those scholarship hopes lost and probably wentthrough the first experience that I've ever had

(15:12):
with like, without knowing it, depression, justkind of a loss of identity, not knowing where
to go from there.
That led into the route of like, okay, maybeI'll study something related that I can be
involved in sports.
And that led me to kinesiology, sport, a lot ofvarious internships, got involved with, like,
the physical therapy side, the OT side,chiropractic, explored these avenues for

(15:33):
essentially just kind of blind reasons ofrhetoric, like, "Oh, if you like sports, you
should do these things." I just kind offollowed that.
And fortunately for me, I had a decent level ofa headspace at the time to critically think
about what was making me happy.
And I found strength and conditioning to be thething that gave me the most optimism of a
career, at least in terms of what I enjoyedstudying.

(15:56):
Because at the surface, it's the shittiestcareer of, like, the most hours for the least
pay, the least job security.
Like even if you make it to the highest levelsof, like, collegiate professional sports, you
could get let go like that no matter what.
It doesn't, like, the team could suck, and itcould be not your fault, and you're out.
It's like this job sucks at its core, but Ijust like studying it.

(16:17):
The idea of human performance just intriguedme.
So that is kind of what captivated me at firstwith it.
And then I stopped in my tracks one day andkind of looked at what I was doing.
I was working at Sports Academy, had theopportunity to work with high-level athletes on
a very large scale at a very young age, and itwas super cool.
I was having fun.

(16:38):
And it was cool to be saying, like, I'm workingwith pro athletes.
This is sick.
Like giving them the opportunity to go andachieve their highest levels.
It all sounds awesome, but then existentially,when I stepped back, do I really care about the
work I'm doing?
Getting a person to come in and get theirvertical an inch higher, get their 40 time one

(16:59):
second faster.
What good am I doing with all this potential,services, and knowledge that I'm acquiring?
I had this epiphany moment, and that was inperfect coordination with an opportunity that I
had with Sports Academy to get involved withVentura County's fire department and do some
more training implementations, program design,go out to their tower and work with them and

(17:23):
see their training.
I just fell in love with the concept of humanperformance and first responders.
This is sick.
I have to get into this now.
And that led me down the path that I did withmy thesis of wanting to find a population in
the first responder realm who was not reallybeing given all these resources.

(17:44):
I just was kind of searching around.
Not to say that any group of these firstresponders doesn't deserve the same amount of
attention.
I just noticed from a friend who gave me thisanecdotal story about hotshot crews and how
they're like, he just kept saying things like,they're freaks.
They're the endurance athletes of the firstresponder population.
They like go out and they like, nobody knowsabout them.

(18:05):
They're just out in the woods getting after itevery day.
And they just like, just like chew tobacco anddon't eat.
And I'm just like, okay.
What is going on?
Like, I have to find out more about thispopulation.
And that like, I would just started coldcalling everyone.
Like, just looking up north and south ops,going down the list, trying to get ahold of
every superintendent I could, just sending outmass emails like, let me come hike with you.

(18:30):
Let me come hike with you.
Let me come talk to you.
And fortunately enough, I got in contact with acouple different crews.
The hotshot crew that I worked with for my datacollections was the Arroyo Grande Hotshots, but
pretty much the
Is that in NorCal or in Oregon?
They're actually in the Central Coast ofCalifornia.
So, yeah, I went out and convinced them to letme collect some heart rate data on them.

(18:55):
It was the most cool experience.
Like showing up, a bunch of these individualsjust like had no idea who I was, had never seen
a researcher come out, had never like hadanybody in academia even interested.
Then coming out and slowly, hiked enough sothat I think they started to trust like, okay,
this guy's getting after it too.

(19:16):
Maybe I'll let him in a bit.
I started just asking questions, promptingconversation, throwing out some performance
tools and kind of gauging their interest.
And I was like, there's something here.
Like, really, I dig this.
Like, I enjoy being out here.
I'm in the mountains.
I'm hiking around, just being of service tothese individuals.
And it kind of sparked that thought of drivingthis further.

(19:38):
It was solidified.
This population was pretty much like, I don'tknow, at least on the small scale, being given
many resources, if not any, towards sportperformance, like nutrition knowledge, very
basic to none.
Like strength training, like the topic ofresistance training was like foreign and
obscure and not like being implemented.

(20:00):
Like, the more I've gotten into the field,there are individuals that take advantage of
these principles, but the majority of them, Iwould say, still abide by tradition and things
that have just been implemented in the past andaren't necessarily wrong, but just haven't seen
and opened up their eyes to the gauntlet ofsport performance, tactical knowledge we've

(20:21):
accumulated with other fields like military,police, and fire over the last 20 years.
Right.
Right.
And what are the backgrounds of a lot of thesehotshots?
Like, are these like kind of good old countryboys, or is it more of a traditional sports
background?
It kind of sounds like they're lacking some ofthat before you came, but they're all freaks
out in the field.

(20:42):
So, you know.
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
And I'm still like piecing together, like whatis primarily like what consists of this
demographic.
Yeah.
But it's so diverse.
It's probably the most diverse population I'veever seen when you're on a fire.
It's like the thing that really is a non likethe differentiator between any of these

(21:02):
individuals and the rest of the world is yourwillingness to like, suffer in these obscure
environments and work with your head down, notcomplain just like absolute grit to the max.
So that's kind of like a cool way that combinesall this diversity and has an even playing
field.
Because if you can work, nobody gives a shitwhat color you are.

(21:24):
Then
women too.
Is
it Yeah,
there's a
lot of there's a lot of women in wildfire.
And it's a population that's grownexponentially, I'm sure, within the last decade
or two.
But yeah, I mean, it's a pretty even playingfield for the most part when you like there's
of course select individuals that still likewill have little things in the back of their

(21:47):
mind make it harder for individuals and maybejust don't create this amazing environment for
inclusivity.
But if you get down and you get after it, youwill earn the respect of somebody of your crew.
So that's something that kind of seems to holdtrue in most I know.
You're a white dude athlete, and just becauseyou were coming from academia, they were kind

(22:09):
of like, who is this outsider?
Right?
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, they need to see like, oh, are you likesome preppy little bitch who's gonna cry at,
like, the first sign of, like, okay.
They just need to see that you're one of them.
You can endure the suck.
But yeah, a lot of previous sports athletes,but a lot aren't.
There's a fair amount of people who probablyjust did manual labor through their entire

(22:32):
lives and found themselves into this routebecause fire sounded cool.
Maybe pyromaniacs, maybe people who have maybethings on their record that limit them from
getting in a structure department, and this isan easier route of access to fire.
There are individuals who don't want to go EMTor paramedic, but want to do something in the
fire realm.

(22:52):
There's a bunch of different mindsets, bunch ofdifferent backgrounds.
There's really no one commonality that I canthink of, of like, this is what a wildland
firefighter is.
I think that's cool.
Think that's something to be tapped into.
Just like non-identification with a certain setof backgrounds, just whoever wants to get after
it and work, come on out.
Can you do the job?

(23:13):
Get a life out in the mountains with noresources.
Like, that's good for everyone.
Wanna be like the biggest advocate for like, ifyou're 18, you don't know what you wanna do,
get your ass on a crew.
Totally.
That's super cool.
Now, okay.
Let's, I want you to walk me through kind ofthe process of, so let's say Park Fire, you

(23:39):
know, burning down tens of thousands of acres.
They call you guys up, kind of walk me throughlike, how do you guys get deployed to this and
what does that look like?
Yeah, so we, for the Park Fire is a goodexample.
We go on 14-day assignments typically, andsometimes that'll get extended into 21 days.

(24:01):
So we'll usually have a day or two of travel inthe buggies to get to that assignment.
And then we'll get set up on the first day,kind of like just tie in with whoever's leading
the IC system, get our radios all like hookedup, do everything behind the scenes to be like
prepared to go into the fire assignment.
Then we either go on night ops and go directlyinto this thing.

(24:23):
If it's burning and we can get to it and makesome progress and it's worth it, go right in
and start putting in some line or directattacking this thing in the dark, or we'll wait
up till the next day and get plugged in in themorning.
So it's pretty volatile in nature.
You just show up to an assignment and justlike, how can we help?
Like, that's pretty
much have to move in pretty far between like,okay, you probably have like, I'm just gonna

(24:49):
use like military analogy because that's all Ireally know.
But you have like a FOB or something someplacethat's like, it's forward deployed, but it's
not like literally the front line, right?
Yeah, exactly.
The fire camps are typically like, it varies inaccordance with the fire's significance and
topography and whatnot around it.
Like, if you can put the fire camp relativelyclose, that's ideal because it minimizes

(25:12):
transport time.
But unless you're spiked out where you justhike in and get all your stuff flown in to your
spot and you're just camped out in that exactspot where the fire is, where the fire's edge
is, where you're working, you're typicallygonna drive back out of the fire and stay in
the fire camp area where you have designatedspots for people to set up tents or maybe

(25:35):
sleeper units come out.
But, yeah, you show up to the fire camp, getyour assignment, see what you can do that day,
then you would drive in.
So our farthest tran some of these road systemsare just god-awful that you have to go in. So
go in. So it could be like 10 miles away fromthe fire in like a three-hour drive time.
Oh, wow.
It's kind of nuts.
So it just depends.

(25:56):
Like we've had times where it's a 30-minutedrive into the fire, other times where the
driving in and driving out is so annoying thatyou just don't even wanna do it.
You'd rather just
You gotta walk.
Rather just work all day and just set up yourtent and just sleep right there because it's
like do that.
do that. When
You drive into the fire, like how far is likethe physical flames from you before, you know?

(26:20):
Yeah.
I mean, it definitely varies so much.
There's a lot of times where it just, if we'regoing direct, that would mean we're going
against the fire's edge where the flames areand we're trying to wrap this thing directly
against it.
But on the case like the Park Fire, if you have30, 40, 50-foot flames being driven by a

(26:42):
headwind, there's no way you're gonna doanything close to that.
Like even when you're considered hotlining andyou're going and attacking the fire with your
tools, removing brush, even a four-foot flamelength makes your face wanna melt off.
You don't realize how hot this shit actually isuntil you're right next to it working.

(27:02):
And for anybody who's listening, if you've justgotten too close to a campfire and you feel
that radiant heat coming off towards your face,that's kind of the best picture I could give
you and that's probably a two to three-footflame length.
So now imagine an eight.
It's ridiculous.
You can't even get close to it.
So a lot of times, it's just better to back up,big box the thing, go around, just get crews in

(27:27):
place to work, I don't know, I don't know, 50,12.
I don't even know what numbers I'm saying.
But just far enough away to where that fire isgoing slow enough to where we can actually
successfully wrap around it in the time thatit's starting to go outward.
So yeah, there's those two different routesthat would probably create different scenarios

(27:48):
for your question of how far away are we?
Park Fire, really far away.
Another small-scale fire where the flamesreally aren't that crazy and we can go after it
direct.
You're going right up to it.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Now, what sort of training does somebody need,like, you know, you're 18, you want to fight

(28:09):
fires.
This seems like an interesting route.
What's kind of like the pipeline from signingup to getting out there?
Yeah.
So a lot of the time people will—so ifyou're—we'll just keep the conversation to hand
crews because that's what I know.
If you want to go helitack, you can probablytake a completely different set of avenues

(28:29):
because there are different routes people willdo to get in.
Sometimes they'll work for the CCC, theCalifornia Conservation Corps, because that
gets you kind of involved with the fire scenein general.
But you could be, like, separating trash, oryou could be just rolling hose, or you could be
just, I don't know, the various assignmentsthat exist on the fire.

(28:51):
The CCC is kind of a potential route forsomebody who's 18 with no resume towards fire.
It's an easy one; they will accept you becauseit's—I think their motto is legit, like,
"shitty circumstances, shitty labor, shittypay." Like, it's something like that.
They are very upfront and advertise it.
So yeah, any 18-year-olds who want an immediateacceptance, that's the route.

(29:14):
If you want to get on a Type 2 crew, there's alot of, like, for example, in San Diego,
there's a Type 2 crew, I think it's Crew 5,that they will get typically younger
individuals who then take a year or two tofamiliarize themselves with the aspects of
wildland firefighting, gain the fitness, gainthe knowledge.

(29:36):
And then if they want to go up into a hotshotcrew, the Golden Eagles, for example, on mine,
we've gotten several individuals, even justfrom my rookie class last year, that came from
Crew 5.
So there's kind of a pipeline that existswithin various routes.
So like the crews I tested for my thesis, SantaLucia has Crew 7, that's their Type 2 crew.

(29:57):
Then the AG Hotshots are right next to them.
That's kind of the feeder system.
So it seems like that's kind of a parallelwhere you'll have Type 2 crews where 18, 19, 20
fresh people come in, get the experience,adapt, and then build their way up to either
going into a hotshot crew, or they'll get outof fire and realize it sucks and they don't
want to do it, and it's just not for them.

(30:17):
That's kind of the pipeline route.
And so there's not really like a physicalscreening test or some sort of athletic test
that you take to see if you're up to snuff oris it just kind of like
Yeah.
So pretty much every crew has to do the BLMfitness assessment.
It's like a 1.5-mile run, max push-ups, maxpull-ups, max sit-ups, like that kind of thing.

(30:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then you have to pass the pack hike test,which is a 45-pound pack, three miles in under
40 minutes.
So it's basically just you're not supposed torun.
It's not supposed to be a ruck.
It's just like a speed walk.
And those are decent ways to get a bigobservational view of somebody's fitness.

(31:04):
It's not necessarily giving you all the tools,in my opinion, that you would need to be like
that person's safe to be on a hotshot crew.
It's a starting point because if you're missingany of those prerequisites or you fall below
those standards, that tells us a lot right offthe bat.
Like if you can't do that hike at that pace, ittells us a lot about your aerobic capacity as a

(31:25):
whole.
And if you're working at an aerobic capacityabove 50% of what your max is, you're not going
to be able to withstand that work for 12-plushours.
It just gives us general traits and assessmentof where you're at from an aerobic capacity
standpoint, a basic muscular endurancestandpoint, and just kind of piece together
this like, is there anything that draws uscompletely right away?

(31:49):
You're a hazard, like you should not be inthese situations.
You need to have these requisite things met.
But going beyond that, there's certainly hopesin my mind that we'll be able to fine-tune
this.
Yeah, what would you add?
That's what I was gonna ask you next is like,you know, coming from your background, what do
you see that's sort of missing in either thescreening or in that initial sort of training

(32:10):
component?
So to be honest, my headspace when I was inlike my master's program was super like human
performance optimization, like going kid in acandy store of like, oh my God, we could do XYZ
things, and it'd be sick.
We could do all these tests and get all thesemeasurements.
And like, you talk to people in this field,they're just like, slow down.
Let's not kick people out of their jobs.

(32:34):
That's good.
And I was like, oh, shit, you're right.
If I make the standards, the standards have tobe based on empirical evidence.
And honestly, those BLM and the PAC test havebeen around for so long.
There's a lot of long-term data you can pullfrom.
And I don't think there's anything wrong withutilizing those.
But the thing that could be added in my mind ismore of an emphasis on like different

(32:58):
assessments that crews can take advantage of ontheir own that have correlates to performance
like, for example, a vertical jump that's safe.
It's an effective measurement of power andstrength or not strength, but overall
performance from a lower body standpoint thathas translatable skills based on these other
tactical populations that observe increasedoccupational performance and the vertical jump.

(33:20):
And then you get involved with maybe some sortof anaerobic test, like a 300-yard shuttle.
I'm not necessarily saying that those are thetwo gold standard ones, but those are key
performance indicators that allude to a lot inreference to military, police, fire.
And there's a lot of things and conclusions wecan draw to not the exact fire, like wildland

(33:43):
firefighting practice, but just generalobservations in high performers and other
fields typically exhibit these trends andincreases in performance.
And there's anaerobic components to wildlandfirefighting.
Maybe we should incorporate some sort ofhigh-intensity energetic test.
There's like a lot of things that could beimplemented.
But overall, I think like the wellness side ofthings should probably take precedence over

(34:08):
performance, like getting individuals to dodaily or sorry, yearly blood work, having like
a mandatory nutrition consultation.
Like I'm more in the headspace of like, how canwe keep the workforce but enhance their
performance rather than like, let's weed themout with some performance metrics that we don't
even know have like the most monstrousrelationship to the job.

(34:31):
Because when I look at the members on my crewin particular, there's individuals that maybe
would suck on a 300-yard shuttle, but areabsolutely like workhorses out on the fire line
and like dudes who could get stung in the eyesix times, get poison oak, could have like
blisters all up and down their feet and justkeep working.

(34:52):
Where's the test for that?
Where's the performance metric that tells youthat person's going to have a lot of these
harsh circumstances brought upon them andthey're going to be able to push through it?
I'm so not in the same headspace as I was in myacademic years, because I just see the realism
that exists here of
like,

(35:13):
just because you're a sports freak doesn't meanyou're going to be a good firefighter.
Just because you have the highest bench or thebest power clean or the best mile time, that
doesn't mean anything if you can't do the job.
And if you start crying when you can't talk tonormal people in your life throughout the life,
if you can't withstand the environment, nothingelse matters.

(35:34):
So I'm not, like, to dictate performanceintervening on these individuals' lives.
Yeah.
You know, I kind of compare, like, highperformance in sports versus, like, high
performance in military or first response.
It's, you know, an Olympian is trying it, youknow, they're a peak performer, but the stars

(36:02):
kinda like have to align.
You know what I mean?
Like, gotta get a good night's rest.
You know, you want to make sure that, like,nothing has really changed out of your normal
routine because that's what matters is, like,those, you know, fractions of seconds, you
know, or whatever.
Whereas, like, in military, and it sounds likein hotshots as well, it's like when everything

(36:23):
is fucked and you are super tired and, youknow, exhausted and yeah, you have blisters all
over and you don't have the creature comfortsback home.
Like, that's just baseline.
That's when you have to, you still have toperform, you know, and that seems like it's
kind of a difference.
And yeah, it definitely seems like a harderthing to screen for initially.

(36:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
And yeah, that's kind of what shifted mypurpose within this field to being more of like
performance optimization to just like givingindividuals the tools and like the resources to
enhance their well-being on and off the fireline instead of like putting it out there as a
man, we need to make sure these guys are dialedin the off-season.

(37:07):
We need to make sure they're training.
Maybe we should talk about this from abig-picture perspective of the mental health in
the off-season if that is not on track and theydon't have the tools to combat inner dialogue
or have poor relationship dynamics and havepoor communication skills.
Like what the heck does a box jump matter ifthey don't have a healthy life at home?

(37:32):
Like it just, it's been a much more effectiveroute for me to foresee improvements in this
field to just try and develop the individual tobe the fullest version of themselves.
Whatever else happens from there, cool.
Like they already have the mindset to withstandthe environment.
They have the ability to cope with thosedemands, physically get the job done.

(37:53):
There's no real need for me to, like, get themto be the most sport performance-based freak
possible.
But like, how do we retain that individual?
How do we get them to have a better time withinthis field, keep them around longer, give them
better support systems, better financialbacking, and just get this workforce who's
already like the most loyal franchise in firstresponder history, getting like shit on for

(38:18):
decades and still coming back.
Right.
Right.
And give them a better opportunity to liveholistically, and you've got a supreme
workforce.
Totally.
You know, so why, I told you about that, thesmokejumper guy and why I was kind of bringing
him up.
So we talk a lot on this show.
It's about holistic wellness, mental health,etc.

(38:41):
But so this dude was funny.
His name was Greg and, on his off-season, Imean, I think he was on his like second or
third divorce.
Yeah.
You know, he would, when he was not in the fireseason, you know, he would, we'd go over to his
spot and there would be like beer canseverywhere.
He'd just be playing kind of Xbox and he wouldtravel and do some other stuff.

(39:03):
And I'm not trying to like shit on the guy.
But it's funny looking back because this is thecase oftentimes in military law enforcement,
where you have these very high performers onthe field, but then off the field, they're kind
of like degenerates, like their life's in acrazy way.

(39:24):
And so I don't know if that's maybe aself-selecting type of person or if it's the
rigors of the job that sort of create thesemaybe unhealthy coping mechanisms.
What's been your observation?
Yeah, no, it's definitely an interestingperspective for me.
I've just been in it for a year, but seeing howindividuals treat the off-season, it almost

(39:49):
kind of just parallels the themes of burnout inlike Mhmm.
Kind of just a dialogue of Yeah.
Man, this job is like just killing me for sixmonths.
It's nonstop stimulus.
It's the most overbearing nature of anassignment where you can't escape it.
For six months out of the year, you just haveto be turned on all the time.

(40:11):
Because as soon as you leave for an assignment,you leave that station.
No matter what happens, it's a volatile world.
You have to be ready for things to change.
So that just creates this like, you'reconstantly in sympathetic mode almost all the
time.
And of course, like I was fairly lucky to comein when I did because I had all these tools and
things built up in my arsenal for how tomodulate my experience within fire, like breath

(40:35):
work, like meditation, like journaling, likewhatever, any tool that I found applicable, I
could use it, implement it and make a verybalanced approach to my day.
And a lot of people don't have those exacttools in their arsenal.
So they fill it with ways that are just maybenot conducive to finding balance during six
months of work.
And then now they come home, don't know how tomanage the amount of time they have at their

(40:58):
disposal, have this like dialogue of, oh, it'stime to rest.
It's like, I can turn off now.
Yeah.
And maybe just end up sitting on the couch forsix months.
Yeah.
Like that lethargy and that like, it almostjust creates more like antsiness.
Feel like when I talk to people, they're like,yeah, when are we going back to work?
When are we gonna cut line?
Dude, you have six months off away from this.

(41:19):
Just channel your energy into another avenue.
So that's kind of like, I think there are a lotof people are probably urgently looking for a
way to find the same level of stimulus.
Like, those circuits that are on for six monthsare still like, what's going on?
Where's our environment?
What do we have to do today?

(41:41):
That energy can be channeled in positive ornegative ways.
I think, yeah, it's definitely a wide spectrumof how an off-season goes for individuals.
But that's one of the main things that drivesHot Shot Wellness, the nonprofit, is to find
ways to make the off-season the most effective,whether that means like going out and taking

(42:01):
advantage of health practitioners to work onthings underlying beneath the surface, or it's
just getting out and finding something sick todo.
Just finding an activity that you can enjoy andget out in nature, distance yourself from
negative self-talk or like this internaldialogue that's not serving you.
Just it spans the whole spectrum, and I justwant individuals to find some way to make their

(42:22):
off-season good for their personal developmentand overall well-being.
So that doesn't necessarily need to be anythingin particular, but there's an immense amount of
opportunity to grow during those six months.
And I want individuals to have the resourcesand the knowledge to go out and explore those
routes, whatever it may be.
Do you find that the job itself takes like abig mental toll on the firefighters out there

(42:49):
doing it?
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, I can't, like from my position, it'svery work-oriented.
Like when you're just starting out, you're kindof like head down, working fire line
construction, prepping roads, all this stuff isjust like super physically demanding.

(43:11):
And I feel like it's a similar trend probablywith police, military, fire, where like as you
advance up and you become more of like yourskin in the game has to do with operations,
logistics, the big picture of things.
Yeah.
Less movement-oriented, more mentally draining,more stress because you're in charge and making
decisions.
I don't have like any mental stress going intomy day some days because it's like, yep, what

(43:31):
am I gonna do?
I'm gonna pull brush for 12 hours, and I'mgonna want to die and that's all I have to do
today.
And like, that's that's like what people findfun in this field.
Like, oh, yeah.
Let's go, like, kill ourselves today.
This will be sick.
Like, that's an easy position to be in versus,man, I gotta, like, be working the radios all
day, coordinating drops with helicopters.
I'm sitting or like maybe I'm like watching andcoordinating.

(43:54):
Just like the the same things that kind ofplague people as they advance in their careers
among first responders still exist here.
We're like moving less, more stress, not a lotof tools and outlets for like, I don't know,
better sleep and recovery because theseindividuals are up all night planning
sometimes.
So the mental toll is like a dichotomy betweenentry-level positions and more managerial ones.

(44:19):
But yeah, it's overall, I think a fair amountof stress that accumulates on the physical
body, but more so even mental.
Like anybody in this field has very littleproblem with the physical rigors of the
demands.
It's like the time away from family, lack ofsocial networking that may be like harmful or

(44:40):
toxic relationships that exist on your crew,the things that you just can't escape, and it
just keeps your mind racing all the time.
It's like a perfect cascade of things tocreate.
Like, without the right tools, you're going torun rampant in your mind all the time.
Right, right.
And then like in military and law enforcement,you know, PTSD and suicide, like, is a huge

(45:05):
problem, you know, and something that we'vekind of talked about on this show is how many
times like it's deep-seated, like childhoodtrauma that, you know, kind of manifests over
time and as PTSD, you know, almost in a wayless so than the, the.

(45:26):
Stuff that you're doing overseas.
Do you—is that a problem?
Like suicide and substance use, addiction,depression?
Is that a big thing in firefighting?
Oh, yes, the suicide rate for wildlandfirefighters is three times higher than the
national average.
I think
it's crazy.
It's probably the smallest, like, overall firstresponder population.

(45:50):
I think there's less than 40,000 federalemployees that, like, exist in the wildfire
industry.
But per capita, I think it's percentage-wisethe highest rates of suicide.
The rates of depression, anxiety are absolutelythere.
The substance abuse and just addiction realmsare also very at play.

(46:10):
It's almost kind of up in your face when youtalk to people in this population.
Everybody is on either like Zyns all day,chewing tobacco all day.
And it used to be the kind of scene where like,I don't see it nearly as much and haven't heard
about it.
But like decades ago, people were just gettingshit-faced all the time, like going and I don't
know how.

(46:31):
I'm like dying on assignments and I haven'tdrunk once in the last 10 months and I'm still
like, dude, this was the hardest thing on mybody I've ever done.
And I'm like performance optimizing to the max.
You guys are like thinking of a hotshot like 30years ago, not rolling out ever.
Yeah.
Not stretching ever.

(46:52):
Not doing any off-season training besideshiking, and then just getting shit-faced doing
all this.
Like, there's some mental insane things to beobserved in this population because none of
that's coming from physical performance andgenetic factors.
It's like you just have a mindset thatsurpasses everything below.
Like you're going to get this done, whetheryou're in the worst of shape, best of shape,

(47:15):
it's nuts to see.
But yeah, at the same time, that individual islike, when you talk about depression, these
individuals don't have depression in the samesense that the common world thinks of
depression where you're like in bed, can't getout of bed, don't have the drive.
It's like the exact opposite where like they'rejust turned on, engaged, highly functioning,

(47:37):
like just absolutely kind of like throwingeverything under the carpet because they're
filling their plate with like running for eighthours a day or like just doing absurd amounts
of work.
Like everybody, when you talk about like whyyou missed the season, I think it's because now
you're left with your thoughts.
Now you're left with no stimulus or noworkload.

(47:58):
And it's like, that's what left you withhappiness during the season because you could
turn everything beneath the surface, all thosechildhood traumas, all the moral injury, all
the poor, like, relationships that you've beena part of, all the, like, negative self-talk on
yourself.
You don't even have time to think about it ifyou're working.

(48:19):
Yeah.
So
that's one main dilemma that's allowed thispopulation to be, like excelling on the fire
side of things, but just continually gettinglike just in a poor and poor mental health
state through the lifespan.
And how old are some of you know, it'sobviously like 18, and maybe some of the more

(48:39):
junior guys are like 18 to 20s.
But do you see, like, 45-year-old dudes outthere on the fire line?
Wow.
There's a, I'm in my rookie class.
One of my best friends on the crew is namedJuan.
It's a 42-year-old rookie.
Oh my god.
I love the guy, and I laugh at him because hewas the dude who, on the rookie class, would be

(49:02):
up at 4 a.m.
wiping down the buggies.
Wow.
Ready to go, like, stay.
Like, he just didn't come from a background ofperformance or anything.
Yeah.
And, like, I don't know.
He trains, like, at the same time, like, thedude's gonna run a marathon this week, but then
I see his training.
We're in the gym today, and the dude just did400 burpees.

(49:22):
If I'm training for a marathon, I'm not gonnado—he just does things that I wouldn't picture
in my sport science head, but I'm like,
who
am I to tell this guy who's like, at the sametime, I look at him cutting line and he gets
after it and has no issues, like how he shouldbe doing his training.
If you wanted to get your burpees and fuckyourself off because it's fun, you should go
ahead and do it.

(49:44):
Just let me give you the tools to leverage yoursituation and maybe throw a couple cool food
items you could throw into your plate or like,maybe you roll out today because your Achilles
started to get aggravated.
Kind of like supplementing them, not totallyreorienting what the culture of this community
is with being so obscure and abstract.

(50:06):
Like, our, yeah, our first saw, best, like,like, hiker on the crew arguably.
And the dude is small, like, 150 pounds max,like 5'8", but has a heavy saw on his shoulder,
heavy pack, and he fuels with Bangs andPop-Tarts nonstop.

(50:28):
And he can go and pull trigger and work for 16hours with the saw and never be tired.
Who am I to say?
No, cut out all your Pop-Tarts, all your Bangs.
It's more like, just like give you the thingsthat give you happiness, but scale it to where
it's not going to create a health detriment foryou 20 years from now.

(50:48):
It's kind of...
Just like, that's the role that I seeperformance in this population having to
coordinate.
It's like not redirecting, just like kind ofenhancing and like providing options to like
keep what they're doing, but within reasonswhere it doesn't become destructive for them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now tell me about your nonprofit.
How does that kind of tie into your mission?

(51:10):
Yeah, so Hot Shot Wellness was originallyfounded by one of our partners, Jason Lieber,
who was in charge of the social media page forHot Shot Wellness when it first started.
It was kind of just like a page for fitnesscontent to be up there, health content to be up
there, all catered towards the wildlandpopulation.
And I started doing a similar thing after thisseason.

(51:31):
I was posting, like, just various fitness typeof reels and posts, we collaborated, got on a
call, just devised a plan to really take it tothe next level, seeing both of our missions of,
like, getting practitioners, gettingindividuals with high-level knowledge in these
respective fields to have a voice and have,like, a more, like, direct route intervention

(51:52):
with wildland firefighters.
So they're not like just left with browsingthrough the onslaught of terribleness for
health and wellness that exists on social mediaand things that just are absolutely not
applicable to wildland.
So that was kind of the overarching thing thatspawned this idea of we need to make this

(52:13):
professional, we need an organization approach,we need to go large with our reach.
So then the nonprofit idea kind of came intoour head.
We put together this idea for a wellnesssummit, and we just like word-of-mouth, small
scale, like we just became a nonprofit and hadno funds.
We were able to kind of gather the mostjam-packed list of speakers possible for

(52:35):
Wildland.
Like Brent Ruby, probably like one consideredone of the godfathers of research in my opinion
for Wildland, like probably has been on everypaper involved with exercise physiology,
metabolism, nutrition, and wildlandfirefighting.
He was more than willing to come on and talkabout it for all these people, did it for free
just because they love the concept, want theservices to be out there.

(52:58):
And we just kept adding more and morebombshell-type speakers like the head honchos
in their respective fields of mental healthresilience, physical training, dietetics,
research, created this star-studded lineup outof nothing.
So that was our first real big project as anonprofit, and it was pretty damn successful.

(53:20):
We were able to get a lot of reach, put out aton of quality resources.
All of the lectures were recorded and put onour website for people to view for free at
their disposal.
So it was kind of like the first big home runfor us.
And we're continually developing newinitiatives.
One we're really excited about is anoutdoor—sorry, let me get it right—the Wildland

(53:41):
Adventure Resilience Program.
So that's like a new initiative that we havewhere we're coordinating with existing
organizations like you've probably seen allover the veteran community where you get people
out doing activities in the outdoors, bring onsome cool, enticing activities to do.
And then you coordinate with practitioners,mental health professionals to facilitate

(54:02):
conversations, engage in these practices thatmaybe would have been viewed as therapeutic.
But now it's just being viewed as like, let'sjust go do some sick stuff and talk about our
issues.
Let's just get together.
It's just a bunch of people who have gonethrough similar stuff, just getting stuff off
their chest, have an open and safe environmentto just chat it up and not feel like you're

(54:23):
burdening anyone.
So that's kind of one of our big nextinitiatives we're stoked on.
So one of
those things are people like opening up about?
Like when you kind of create that space andallow people to talk about their issues, what
kind of issues are you hearing brought up?
Yeah, I'll allude to a few, but a better groupof individuals to probably expand on this in

(54:49):
great detail would be like the social workers,the clinical psychologists, those individuals
that we had on the summit, which I'll providelinks and give you access and all your
listeners who are like, maybe interested indiving into this topic further.
They go into like hour-long lectures of like,their experience working with wildland folks
and the obstacles that plagued themspecifically.
But one main one that kind of like hit home aslike a, damn, that sucks.

(55:14):
Like was individuals talking about how theyfeel like a burden to their family when they
come home.
And I was just like, shit, dude.
That's like, you're gone for the whole season.
You miss your kids.
You miss your wife.
But then, like, you come home.
And it's just like the dialogue that theyalluded to was kinda like, man, everybody's
like pissed off when I'm around.

(55:35):
They're like, I'm not like the bestcommunicator.
I'm like creating stress on my family.
Like, do they even want me here?
I'm just like, thinking in my head of like,that person's year sounds so tough.
Like to be going through this six-month periodwhere you don't get communication with your
loved ones.
You're trying your best to maintain andoptimize those relationships maybe.

(55:56):
And then you finally have the opportunity tocome and see them and be home for a significant
period of time.
And it's not being capitalized on.
And it probably could be capitalized on withjust the right conversations with these mental
health professionals, the right strategies, theright tools to bring to conversations, a
different headspace, different techniques tobring down your arousal levels or distance

(56:19):
yourself and be a more effective communicator.
All these amazing empowering tools that soundabstract to people who haven't ventured down
that avenue.
Right.
I look at it like a sport performance scientistof this is gonna help my, it's gonna help my
professional skills, it's gonna help my qualityof life.

(56:39):
It's going to be just a constant positivefeedback loop.
If I invest in my mental health, how is thatnot the most priority in my training this
off-season?
How am I gonna rationalize trail running forseven hours a day and not work on my
communication skills so I can be a betterpartner, a better father, mother?
If that's the best performance-enhancing drugon the planet, it's just digging your life.

(57:03):
Yeah.
Just having a really solid relationship withyour training, with your job, with your
activities outside of it.
I don't give a shit about what your maxstrength is, what your max power is, what your
aerobic capacity is.
If you don't enjoy what you're doing, what doesit all mean?
Yeah.
Wow.
And where do you kind of see this organizationgrowing into?

(57:27):
I see it being probably like, I'm veryoptimistic and we're a small-scale
organization.
But I see it redirecting how individuals inwildland view health and wellness.
I see it being a redirection of how theyapproach getting tools for their health and
wellness, as well as hopefully guiding andbeing a facilitator of policy changes that

(57:51):
facilitate health and wellness.
So there's like those three avenues that happenon the level of getting academics, researchers,
practitioners in all the hard work they'redoing to create evidence-based strategies to
improve these situations, giving them a voice,empowering them, getting those individuals with
the platform that they deserve so that there'snot somebody toxic who gets millions of views

(58:16):
being propagated and just advertising theirstuff.
So I want to redirect how people view, how theyget that information and put the right
individuals in play to put that content outthere.
And then providing those community events,those moments of resilience building, knowing
that there's individuals that want to help themout there, just being kind of a source of

(58:38):
community for these individuals that they knowthey can reach out to and go get help that
individuals actually care about them, want themto have a quality of life.
Because to be honest, moral injury is probablyone of the things that strikes this population
the most.
You don't get paid well, you don't getbenefits, you don't get compensated.
Oh, wow.
The struggles.
If you're full time, do.

(58:58):
But that change is slow and you can't depend onit.
But just showing individuals theirorganizations and people that care about you
would go a long way because you don't getcompensated with the necessary things that this
job should provoke with the drastic mental andphysical health tolls it takes.

(59:19):
So that's another just side hope for me of justcreating a positive influence in how people
approach this job, knowing that there's like alittle bit of a moral uplift and like an
uprising of people that want to be benevolentand do right by them.
Just one of the only organizations like this?
No.

(59:40):
So that's like one cool thing about Hot ShotWellness is like we don't necessarily want to
reinvent the wheel.
There's a lot of cogs at play.
There are agencies with really great health andwellness tactics and funding and put on cool
events.
There are other nonprofits that are notfederally funded that do other amazing things
like FUSEE just put on the Firefighters Unitedfor Safety, Ethics and Ecology.

(01:00:05):
They just put on the most cool event.
It was like firefighters going to a ZenBuddhist monastery and they were doing
ecological fire practices, forest management,and then meditating with monks.
Oh, wow.
That's fucking epic.
More events like that need to happen.
Totally.
So it's not like, Oh, Hot Shot Wellness needsto provide everything, to recircuit how this

(01:00:28):
whole field is approaching this topic.
It's just we wanna be the entity that cansupport and just accelerate the growth of
everyone else.
So individuals and organizations like FUSEE, ifwe can assist them with social media presence
or getting them plugged in with crews.
Like any way we can assist them, cool.
Then there's the U.S.
Hotshots Association who provides educationalscholarships to wildland firefighters.

(01:00:53):
They donated over $50,000 in scholarships,giving them a platform and uplifting them,
another cool opportunity.
And then there's other organizations at thefederal level that have a lot of time invested
into making sure research is going towardsvarious fields.
And we just kinda wanna be that central hub ofresources where everybody can come, everybody

(01:01:16):
can get connected, and we're just gonna makesure that this information gets to wildland
firefighters and is being used to assist yourefforts.
So we wanna put on our own initiatives, but atthe same time, we just want all these other
programs and organizations to have an addedsense of, like, we have help.
We can contact Hotshot Wellness, and we canscale this thing to the max.

(01:01:40):
Like, let's go to them and let's partner.
Let's collaborate.
Let's figure out how we can magnify thisproject or this initiative, this goal.
Wow.
Yeah.
I think it's so cool that you know, becausesports is really where all of the money and all
of this, you know, research and education andeverything's going into.

(01:02:02):
And it's like you say, it's going into, youknow, adding an inch to someone's vertical or
shaving off seconds in a 40-yard dash.
Whereas realistically, like what is the purposeof improving these things?
And I love that when it's being applied to, youknow, military law enforcement first response

(01:02:25):
in all kinds of aspects, because that's reallywhere it matters, dude.
It matters so much more than, you know, gettingthe Bengals another field goal, you know, it,
you know what I'm saying?
So I think what you're doing is superimportant.
And to that point, that's why our partnershipand collaboration with university entities

(01:02:46):
becomes so crucial.
Because you have this like insane workforce ofresearchers in postdocs, in doctoral students,
in fellows, in master's degree students, justan entire gauntlet of people who need to do
projects, need to do research.
And when I was in my program at Long Beach, Iwas finding like when we would be sitting in

(01:03:08):
class hearing about people's projects, over 90%of them, I could automatically tell no one gave
a fuck about what they were studying.
Had zero passion towards it of like, this isgoing to change.
Even if it was like, oh man, I grew upwrestling and I really want to enhance the
lives of us, go for it.
Everybody needs help.

(01:03:29):
That's no problem.
But it's like, come at it with some sense oflike, what's my end goal with this?
Where does this like become a critical buildingblock for other research to kind of take place
in and go off of?
Nobody had that.
Not saying nobody, but like a large portion ofstudents at 20 years old, 22 years old, how
could you?

(01:03:50):
You haven't even thought about these.
I had a very unique upbringing and backgroundand set of circumstances that led me in the
position to think the way I do at a youngerage.
But you give all these individuals atuniversities, this kind of talk, this type of
exposure of like, and there's a cause thatcould really use you.
There's like a project that could be done.

(01:04:12):
And you could do something of like magnitudesgreater than you can even comprehend for a
population that goes underserved.
Like you give that pitch to universitystudents, gold mine.
That's kind of like, we want to keep formingthese academic relationships to the max because
research is what drives policy change.
That's what drives legal change.

(01:04:33):
You can't just be like this, please give usmore money.
You have to give them data to back up why it'sgoing to benefit them, including retention,
reduced injury rates, whatever.
So just getting those individuals plugged inand having a major role in this is massive.
So that's another key feature of Hot ShotWellness is developing those university

(01:04:55):
partnerships.
That's huge, dude.
Now, what advice would you give to someone,whether they're like firefighter, athlete,
entrepreneur, just maybe stepping out a littlebit of your specific niche, but based on
everything that you have, you know, ascertainedover your career, you know, looking to build
resilience and take better care of their bodyand mind.

(01:05:17):
Yeah, I would say the first step towards like,the thing that led me to the most success was
solitude.
Like having some sort of practice that you canengage in or get outside of your norm that just
gives you time to think, whether it's likeputting your phone away in a place where you

(01:05:42):
don't have access to it for five hours andyou're going on a walk.
Like, even if it's like you have minimal timefor this in your unique circumstance, dedicate
a portion of your day to being bored.
Go ahead and turn the phone off, turn thescreens off, turn life off, find an environment
where you can just be there with your thoughts.
And that essentially kinda like that's notgonna solve any problem.

(01:06:05):
Just giving you kind of like the foundation tobuild off of where the next steps can happen,
where you can actually have like an organicthought and not be provoked by societal things
going on all around you where like, oh, I needto check emails.
Oh, I need to do this.
I need to go to the grocery store.
Oh shit.
Just like you need to kind of veer out of theconceptual way of living and more into one

(01:06:27):
that's just maybe a little less attuned to you,a little more abstract.
And I feel like that really, that happened tome when I started traveling.
Cause I had unstructured time and it freaked meout to the max.
And I was just kind of left with this.
Okay, why am I overwhelmed?
Why am I feeling these emotions?
Why does it kill me to sit still?

(01:06:49):
And that leads into a lot of my like, I loveyoga.
I love the aspect of meditation.
And it's because it sucks.
It's because it's not stimulating.
It's everything that I appall because of myWestern upbringing.
And it's like, I know it's the right thing todo because it's building up those skills inside
to concentrate, to be self-aware, to haveintrospection, like all these things that we

(01:07:16):
suck at naturally if you grew up like I did,just going through the norms of my upbringing
derived by sports and academics.
Mhmm.
It's like you never really ponder that questionof, like, why am I here?
What matters?
What's going to happen after this?
Why do I love?
What do I care about?
What's my mission in life?
Like, I don't know.
You don't need to go about it in a superstrategic way, but my foundation was kind of

(01:07:40):
set, which is getting out of my environmentthat I loved at the surface because I was
always stimulated.
I loved working.
Wanted to put energy into everything, everytime, everywhere, every opportunity.
I was like, this is sick.
Life's cool.
I'm just like, on all cylinders all the time.
And just having that break of that realization,man, this scares me when I'm alone with my

(01:08:03):
thoughts.
This scares me when I have nothing to do.
This scares me, like, just get scared.
Go get uncomfortable.
Go do things that push you.
Do everything that you think is uncomfortableand I should escape, stay there.
Yeah.
Like, that's kind of the baseline advice I'dgive to anybody looking to add that layer of
thought to their life and just take it fromthere.

(01:08:25):
Everybody's path is super different.
But if you just spend time with yourself, awayfrom the phone, away from the devices, away
from toxic relationships, you'll find that patheventually.
Keep exploring it.
Yeah.
That's huge, man.
That's such a great message.
We just interviewed a guy McDermott a coupleepisodes ago, and he's a former Navy SEAL and

(01:08:49):
is big into holistic health.
And he was talking about how meditation was ahuge tool that he kind of developed over time.
He does it, I think, twice a day.
And I just, I mean, I've always kind of donemeditation, but like, I also fucking hate
meditation.
But I've been, you know, starting to do sincethat episode, I've been doing like Vipassana,

(01:09:11):
like 15-minute things because what you startyou know, the way he put it and and kind of
like really the the practice is aboutseparating.
You are not your thoughts, you know?
And when we are constantly stimulated by allthese devices, it's like, you're kind of just
being like, you know, dragged around by everysensation, without really building that

(01:09:35):
critical space between the sensations and you.
And in that space, that's where you can kind ofnot be so reactive to, you know, someone cuts
you off in traffic, I'm pissed off, you know,whatever it is.
You know?
So that's that's it's nice hearing you say thatbecause that's something that, you know, a lot

(01:09:57):
of these top performers, it's a similar traitthat they're trying to build, you know?
No.
Exactly.
It's that's 100% true.
And I I always am hesitant to say, Oh, youshould meditate because not every meditation is
the same.
A million ways to do it.

(01:10:17):
Everybody's going to be receptive and findsomething that they'd end up digging.
When I went to India and got my yogacertification, I was living like the yogi way.
Like everything was pretty much you show up,you are meditating and doing yoga for like

(01:10:37):
eight-plus hours a day.
You're eating the yogic lifestyle just straightlike plants, lentils, just going and diving in.
And everybody asked, like, was that like themost insane experience?
Did you take like the most—were you likemindful?
Were you enlightened?
Hell no.
That was the worst 21 days of my life.
I just finished a graduate program where I waslike cogs turning all the time to like, now

(01:11:03):
you're telling me just to sit here in lotusposition and meditate for two hours.
Like that just wasn't successful at all.
And it was like the perfect realization Ineeded to see like, wow, I suck at this, I
should keep expanding.
But that was like the worst experience overall,in terms of like building a meditative

(01:11:23):
practice.
I had zero successful meditations all 21 days.
Because it was all the same, just sitting.
We would do different forms of cleanses,different forms of meditations.
None of them resonated with me.
And you know what does?
Going out and sitting on a surfboard andstaring out at the horizon.
That does the exact same thing for my mind andallows me to do it in a way that is receptive

(01:11:49):
to me.
I get a lot of benefit from it.
I feel rejuvenated.
I disassociate from life around.
Like get out of the conceptual frame of mindthat I want to gravitate towards.
So who's to say what's wrong if it gets at thesame root cause?
It's just kind of like exploring that avenueand provoking the thought of like, you need to
find something that gives you that tool,whether that's playing chess, going on a walk,

(01:12:14):
spending time with your dog, I don't care.
It's just something.
So it alludes to a deeper concept of like,there being a ton of ways that you can get at
the same root cause and whatever your religionis, whatever your ideology is, that similar
theme has been found across every probablylineage that's existed as humans for a reason.

(01:12:37):
It just continues to be repeated as you lookthrough historical texts and biblical texts.
Everybody's got a form of meditation, whetherit's prayer, whether it's meditating itself,
whether it's going out on a giant trek withyour boys running for 100 miles.
Like, I'm sure everybody found a release atsome point through the human evolution, and now
we just have to kind of find one in ours.

(01:12:59):
We're in a very niche novel world.
Humans haven't existed like this for far toolong.
That makes sense why there's such mental andphysical ailments and illness that exist.
You just need to find a way to kind ofcounteract that new environment with your own
biology.
Wow.
Justin, this has been such a greatconversation.

(01:13:21):
You want to let everyone know where they canfind you, how they can support your nonprofit,
and connect with you offline if they havequestions.
Yeah, no, totally.
So hotshotwellness.com is our main website.
My email is [e-mail], and I'mgonna send you resources.
The Instagram page is hotshotwellness.

(01:13:42):
So if you're interested in if you have audiencemembers who want to collaborate, who have,
like, organizations they want to throw, we'relooking to partner and, like, coordinate with a
lot of existing groups.
So if you have any listeners who are like, oh,these people should reach out to them.
Like, I could see there being such coolcrossover.
That's super up our alley.
So we're stoked to make potentialcollaborations and new partners, especially

(01:14:04):
with military communities that have a lot ofthese cool things already existing.
A lot of outdoor programs, a lot ofPTSD-related services.
So yeah, I'm eager to get involved with theveteran and military community because these
topics have just been expanded on for muchlonger than the wildland world.
So yeah, excited for the networking.

(01:14:26):
But yeah, if anybody's interested in justfinding out more about the wildland world,
getting involved, getting plugged in, being ofservice to those individuals, those sites,
those things, those emails, you can alwaysreach out and we'd love to get you plugged in.
It's an all-hands-on-deck kind of effort.
That's awesome.
And I'll include all that in the show notes.
And, yeah, dude, I would love to also helpsupport your mission with our coffee business.

(01:14:52):
We love doing coffee pop-up type stuff.
And I also want to connect you with thisorganization called the Swell Mission.
So there's a lot of surf therapy nonprofits forveterans.
That's actually how I got into surfing.
Nice.
But the Swell Mission is a little bit unique inthe sense that it specifically is for law
enforcement and first responders.

(01:15:14):
And so yeah, it's taking them and theirfamilies and just getting them out into the
ocean, teaching them how to surf and providingthat sort of community.
That's so funny how much crossover there isbetween us.
I've been doing surf therapy for like fiveyears with like AWOW and Jimmy Miller and like

(01:15:35):
all these first responders surf therapy things.
I'm stoked to keep collaborating.
Let's get some stuff going.
It's so great.
I just love that.
It's like, I feel like we're at this right timein our existence because the military has been
around forever, you know, like firefightingforever.

(01:15:55):
Surfing has been around forever, but it's likeonly fairly recently that people are kind of
connecting these dots and being like, this is avery therapeutic modality that people actually
enjoy.
You know, I think selling someone a 21-daysilent retreat is a tough sell.
I don't I

(01:16:16):
don't think it would be well received after meexposing the negative of my experience.
I'm not I don't think it'd be worth going rightinto a yoga cert.
I think there's a bridging of that gap betweenphases.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, awesome, man.
This has been great.
This has been the Mind Body Mushroom brought toyou by Wind and Sea Coffee and Justin Namos.

(01:16:37):
I'll include all that in the show notes.
Thanks for coming on the show, bro.
Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Appreciate your time, Jordan.
You too.