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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show former firefighter turned stuntman Eric Salas. Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from his own journey into the fire service, some of the calls he still carries with him today, his transition into the world of stunts, elite skydiving, base jumping, fitness standards, training diligence, driving, mental health,
and so much more. Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for others to find and this is a free library of well over 1 000 episodes now so all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them. So with that being said I introduce to you Eric Salas. Enjoy! Well Eric I want to start by saying just welcome thank you so much for driving all the way to my home today as you mentioned before we hit record this is a long time coming our paths across through a really unique journey as well but I just want to start by welcoming you to my home today.
Well thanks for having me man I uh I know we've talked of doing it over a computer but I was like no way I had to come sit down with you man face to face and that smile dude like I'm in bro. All right well I've normally asked people where would we find you usually but the entire planet is your home at the moment so why don't we start at your origin story and then we'll work through to this incredible profession that you're part of now.
Tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic what your parents
did how many siblings? Okay so I was born in Sarasota Florida uh we grew up just north of there in Bradenton but if you know that area everybody's kind of like oh Bradenton Sarasota right that whole little stomping ground was home um I have a twin brother named Jesse who I believe you've interviewed before yeah and I have an older sister named Jenny and I have a half brother named Joe and my parents my dad was from Mexico my mom a nice German Irish girl up in Wisconsin they met
in Wisconsin took off down to Florida and that's kind of where it all all goes down we uh you know simple dynamic my dad was pretty hard working and my mom was you know of great support system very nurturing uh they were in the restaurant industry when we were little and as time went on they got into real estate um and it was yeah I think we won the parent lotto you know dad was pretty disciplinary my mom very nurturing uh that dynamic together you kind of see it in all of us kids as
we've grown up um you know my mom more adventurous wanting to be at the beach on the weekends my dad's that old school Mexican of work work work loves it you know lives for it um so that that compare and contrast if you will those two kind of opposites combined I think was really good for us to where now as an adult got this work ethic but at the same time I love my adventure you know I always want to wander like you're just saying uh my my home is everywhere whatever tv show takes me or
movie or just life adventure it's always pulling me in different directions um yeah I grew up in Florida pretty simple went to high school there uh you know we're my brother and I got in a good fair bit of trouble um as we got into high school my parents split up and we were kind of just having fun you know I kind of was in the like hey that's your business I'm over here being a teenager I don't really care and now that you guys are apart I can get I can do whatever I want and I love my
parents they seemed happier apart so I was like hey cool do your thing I'm over here doing mine and uh the discipline that we grew up with we always kind of got in trouble but we kind of knew that line where we wouldn't cross it I say we because my brother and I have always kind of referenced the two of us uh so we kind of would walk that boundary line of getting in trouble being a teenager but never the stuff that would get you in jail right you kind of we could see it I'm
gonna leave now this seems like you get to a place that I don't want to be part of um so we did all that in high school found our ways into trouble and uh you know teenagers nothing too bad but but uh yeah that was that was growing up that was that was life man am I remembering correctly that your dad was a veteran as well yeah my dad was a Vietnam vet uh you know drafted 18 19 so there's a lot of uh sternness and discipline maybe it was already in there as the Mexican that I always chalk
up to is the hard workers that we know so well uh but I think that military veteran in him there's definitely a an aspect to him that as time goes he makes more sense right like saying I love you isn't a normal thing from him uh and knowing his background coming up losing his mom when he was young you know going off into Vietnam uh and trying to imagine being 19 going off into Vietnam you know we always have such a high view of that like trying to envision experiencing that knowing
that he did and what they went through and uh it shapes a lot of how I see him as time goes in his simple quiet very kind mentality but yet there's that sternness to him still you know I was acting a fool not too long ago and he just cut the shit you know who do you think you are and you sit back and you're like oh man sorry dad my dad you're still my dad you're still my dad and you're still gonna call me on my shit so but yeah he's a veteran and he's still with us and you know
he's still three purple hearts I want to say got wounded a couple times I think he has a bronze star as well you know he just pulled the medals out for the first time last year never saw him and out of nowhere he pulls him out shows them all like whoa all right you've done some shit
stuff that I can't imagine now let alone at 19. Well I mean it's interesting as well because I love these multi-generational conversations you know you hear about dad or granddad or grandma and you there's so many powerful immigrant stories you know and so many people that came to this country and gave so much you know and whether it's serving in the military whether it's um you know starting from the bottom and working the way up I just had a neurosurgeon and his dad immigrated from Mexico
he was a mechanic became a mechanical engineer and then his son becomes a brain surgeon for crying out loud so in this environment where the word immigrant is kind of held with a lot of negative connotation I think it's important for us to hear all of these incredible immigration stories and how much of the fabric of America does come from overseas and it's awesome you say that because I think and agree heavily uh I'm living the reward of his sacrifices of my parents sacrifices right
they both did it together and because of what they gave up in order to raise us the way that they did what they went through to get to where they did and believing in you know my grandfather came here with my dad when they were young and they made sacrifices to give my dad my dad made sacrifices to give to me and you know my siblings and through that it's a driving force within a lot of my not slowing down you know I'm 42 now and I think I'm coming into my prime you know the knowledge is
there now maybe the body isn't as uh understanding as it was in the 20s but that's okay I think that's you know you give up certain things uh to have certain experiences and continually driving forward is my job because of what my parents have done for me and to take full advantage of every opportunity I have and there's some kid that would sacrifice everything to get to be doing what I'm doing and be where I'm being and maybe they won't get the same opportunity as I will maybe they're living
the process that my dad lived right and in terms of better opportunities for their kids and so as time goes and you know you see the world as it is I think if we have the opportunity to chase life and live it and keep progressing and keep advancing and keep improving those around you I think the more you grow the more it spiders out to everyone around you and you impact those around you and by you know you never know you could be the lighthouse for somebody looking for light and so shine bright
right don't tone yourself down be who you are authentically shine bright keep your eyes open shine bright keep growing and I look at it and I keep every time I look at my dad and I'm like wow man like what he went through and I look at him and I go yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna go as far as I can take this thing and I'm gonna make you proud you know so it's it's interesting and immigrants you know I think anybody who gets here and sees the opportunity in this world and goes after it
will be greatly rewarded and I think if people stop looking so negatively at those around them and maybe focus on themselves a little more and their own goals and their own life ambitions and whatever that looks like whether it's becoming fit maybe they're out of shape they need to become fit maybe it's I want to start skydiving maybe it's I want to read better I want to juggle I don't know whatever a challenge that could be those little simple things if you focus on yourself
and go after it you stop looking at those around you being like you know that immigrant's just trying to have a better life you know and if they're operating within society and being a good human being and working hard I hope they have everything that they came here for that's a great American dream right 100% yeah I love that phrase if you want to change the world start at home I mean it's easy to look outside at everything and everyone else and not look at yourself
and all the answers all the things all the shortcomings all the reward all the stuff starts with you inside where are you at where's your mind are you happy are you the best version of yourself and without it you're always going to be looking outside and everybody else sucks and everyone's wrong and this isn't fair and this isn't right and life's inherently not fair and people inherently are I think inherently good but I think with the times it feels like people are
angry people feel uh uh wronged shorted I don't know uh I don't know I try to just stay positive and try to everyone that I interact with try to pull a smile out of them well it's because I think you know certainly the last eight years arguably longer people have been told you need to choose a side it's us against them I haven't seen any unification of the states for a long long time and it's you know we talk about the greatest country and I agree I think it's a competition
but you know the American dream is a real thing I mean I'm an immigrant from the the UK and you know love it here but that anger I think comes from this deliberate division which has spanned both sides of the aisle both you know tv stations we all know which one aligns with which political organization and so you know we've been cleaved as a nation you know and it was evident when when the pandemic came you know you pro or anti-vax you know you pro or anti-police like well wait a second
these are nuanced conversations what do you mean pick a side it's not world war one so I think that's where a lot of the anger comes but I'm very optimistic that there's an awakening now and I just was going out with my wife last night and there was two older couples having a conversation and they were talking about Donald Trump but they were picking apart all of his all the things that he said he's going to change and he was in North Carolina which seemed like a good thing but the
North Carolina vote was was on the on the defense so he probably helped me to force that vote so rather than just saying oh Biden's an idiot they were actually having an adult conversation about you know what these promises are are they going to be delivered and that's the first time I heard that and what was interesting as well they were also talking about all the countries they visited so they got outside their little box saw the world view and so I think this is the next step I think
that most of us normal people the 80 in the middle have realized that we have been divided and now you know we're not holding any of these political people as the the second coming of Christ I'm certainly not but if you've got you know individuals who like for example RFK are saying we're going to address the obesity crisis we're going to address PFAS you know then I think that's a huge step forward and it's not about which party did it I think it's just that as a country we're having a
you know hopefully a kind of renaissance of awakening where oh we are all American oh it is really what's best for the country that's important not who you align with so so I think that anger came from that division but I really hope that as we move forward now we're going to see that dissipate because the the party that wins now is the one that unifies us not divides us I love what you said there and I couldn't agree more you know we're all on this boat together
and we're all trying to pursue life and be happy and if we're busy fighting about little things our differences instead of celebrating them that's a problem what are we doing this life that we're living this experience that we're having is going to come to an end and so how you spend your days mad at the world mad at this mad at that you should have done this they did should have done that believing that the politicians are going to save us you know happiness you know it's it's an inner
thing and it's it's a lot with what's going on in the world and feeling like everything's ramping up but I do feel like there's a shift awakening is a good way to put it I feel like change is happening and hopefully we become more united because again I don't care what your where you come from what your background is what your orientation I don't care about any of that stuff are you a good person you know are you helping those around you to to be better right like you want to feel good
you feel like you're wrong go spend the day volunteering with some handicapped kids go look at some people who will never get to live or have the opportunities that you will get to have for no other reason than they were that's the cards they were dealt you know when I was when I was young this is a fun story I crushed my right hand you know and they weren't sure they're going to amputate it they didn't know if it was going to grow uh surgeon comes in plastic
surgeon pieces of back together and uh I can remember the day a couple weeks after it happened my my hands in a sling and I'm right-handed so my right hand is no good anymore and my dad calls me in the kitchen sits me down at the table he says sit down there's a pen and a piece of paper there college-old paper a lot of lines he's like pick up the pen start making small circles continuous circles like I don't want to do that I didn't ask you what you wanted to do sit down start doing
circles he's like you're going to learn to use your left hand I was like well I just want to wait till my right hand's better you know I don't care you know this that the other one more time and I'm crying you know I'm I'm 10 crying you know again I didn't ask you what you wanted these are the cards you've been dealt your right hand's no good anymore you're going to learn to use your left hand when the page is done you can get up and that lesson stayed with me and it stays with me today
life isn't fair it ultimately doesn't care you have to adapt learn grow and make your situation work for you and I think about that with everything now as life unfolds and sometimes it can really kick you hard and I think being able to go well this isn't what I had planned today but these are the cards I'm dealt how do I bob weave slip fade and then crack it right down the pipe with the right straight and keep moving forward so where it goes from here I like you I'm optimistic I'm
excited I think we needed change I think what RFK is doing is awesome I think health wellness plays into everything from how we feel day to day our mental game and I you know I love listening to your podcast and I love you know I was listening at firefighter the wildland guy just recently was it Ben uh had been um hot shot guy yes yeah and then talking mental health and you know you guys dove into it quite a bit and I think when you move your body
and you take some time to check in on yourself and your brain and where you're at everything else just spreads out from there you know if you're feeling good and your mind's clear you can navigate things a little more clearly you know does it make sense no completely and it's that's why you know when we talk about mental health you know the fitness standards in the fire service for example there is no downside if we want to address mental health physical health is
a big part of it sleep is a big part of it you know ability to process the trauma is a big part of it but you know you look at the US we are 70 percent overweight or obese we're actually 40 percent obese now almost half the country's obese clinically obese um and you and then we have a mental health crisis you know we consume 75 percent of the world's opiates for example so by simply making the country healthier not only is it going to ease the pressure on our EMS
and our hospitals you know on the actual you know tax base of Medicaid Medicare when it comes to that side but you're just going to make the country happier and I think what I've seen history has tried to tell us don't let these tyrants rise to the top they will cause so much death and destruction amongst normal people you know like I always point to how many Russians actually woke up one day and said oh I think I'd like to live in the Ukraine probably almost zero but those young
men are dying and as are the Ukrainians for this bizarre plan that some tyrant came up with if you actually have a kind you know compassionate culture and that is that nurtured in you that is the essence of who you are when an evil shit bag starts to rise you just lop the head off and then you go back to your normal way but if you are a divisive hateful divided country already it's so easy to miss the real bad guys until they're all way in the top and that it's uh you know circling
back to the health aspect and how it perpetuates into that it's sad for me to see people so unhealthy you know I see a very obese person and moving looks hard looks like it hurts and I know having been you know stunk eye and beaten my body up when my body hurts it affects my day to day my my mental awareness out into the world right and so you see the the breakdown from as simplistic as diet exercise you know these things that we have this meat missile that is essentially the most
important thing that we have if you don't have your health what do you have and if you don't take care of your body it's going to fail you and once it fails you it makes everything else in life hard and so if we can attack the diet the eating the physical activity and you know I think somewhere physical activity becomes looked at as like you know sit down you're making us look bad yeah it's it's funky man you're the one looking bad dude and you feel for people because where'd you get the
mindset where do you get the and I've lived it like I've I've trust me I I mentioned this year earlier my brother's all you said it my you know like the north star my brother's always been the north star he's a health and wellness guy his knowledge is insane and I've lived a path of a little bit of debauchery you know full transparency and heavy drinking you know I I got on Adderall at some point some prescribed this medication and I lived through these things
that were inherently really unhealthy and luckily through great friends support and all is that shining light with my brother I was able to put a lot of these skeletons in the closet and lock them in there and get control over them but when I was in it when I was unhealthy I didn't I didn't even know how I didn't know there was a problem and I didn't see the problem at all and you could see how it carried into everything from my attitude towards others you know and the way that I treated
people and the way that I felt about myself and you know inherently I'm a socially open happy go lucky guy but I was super lacking confidence and I was super lacking you know how to how to recognize these problems and then as they become apparent and as they become realistic you start going well now how do I get out of this hole you know I'm down here I don't know I don't even know where to start right like oh I'm a mess you know I'm drinking all the time and
taking Adderall like it's Skittles and when you're up you're up and you're moving you're ah and then when you're down buddy whoo would you be down and it felt like it perpetuated a monster within me whether it was my attitude towards others like fuck that guy he sucks and now he's this and he's that and odds are he was a great guy but I had my own man and so I think it all I was a mess I wasn't happy I didn't feel good and so it perpetuated out
and how big that monster would get would depend on where I was at with my day to day and so you see it carry over into these perpetuating monsters of you know whether it's Russia and Ukraine or you know Trump Biden right and whoa I'm on this side or I'm on that side and yeah I think so much of it comes back to all right well I can't control the monster but I can I can control myself and how can I be a better shining light to the interactions that I'm gonna have stay out of the narrative
that monster was never real and you realize that yeah it was a boogeyman big time the big the the monster in the brain and that's why I go back to you like we talk health and wellness and I always say there's a monster that lives inside my mind right and it's my job to keep it in check in cage lock and key and through fitness you know I'm a big advocate of I wake up and before the outside influence comes in of the world I dictate what influences my mind so I always listen to something
positive something motivating whether it's Kobe Bryant or Les Brown Jim Rohn the name a few people that I'm big fans of and I listen to that message of optimism of get after it of the way you see the world is on you and everything that life's gonna hit you with today the magnitude of what it is is how you can embrace it how you can go into it right whether it's sitting in traffic and losing your mouth the fuck or why am I stuck here what why is this happening right now right what's
why am I going through this so believe in something positive and I believe in moving my body moving my body through ranges of motion exploring where it's at listening to it in sync with it and then with that comes some flow toy play right when I say flow toys it's like poi balls or a simpler one juggling uh and connecting with my mind hand-eye coordination and just being present to nothing but I'm here trying to juggle nothing else matters right now can I can I wrap my mind
into this and nothing else and so I take control of my mind first thing in the morning and now I go out and just see the day and I feel good I've connected with myself I know where I'm at I can kind of tell sometimes now more and more when I'm in a mood you know like what's going on why am I why am I and I go out and maybe I'm not as personable or I'm looking at people a little more judgy and we talked about Ted Lasso and one of my favorite sayings I took from his
be curious not judgmental and I try to look at so much like that now like the the weird guy and I want to where it's like ah he's a unique character he's different from every other person I might see today what is it about him oh I don't know what is it about her you know I don't know but they're weird and I love it and it feels like they know themselves right it's like my thing with the transgender stuff I don't get it I don't have to to me if someone knows who they are to the level
where they're gonna identify and confidently meet the world as that other person good on them I can only hope that I can know myself that well beyond that I don't care is it mental health is it this is it that I don't know I don't care it's not my uh it's not my day to day it's not my life to live and I go well how lucky am I that I'm not having to navigate am I a man or a woman does it make sense you know I just I try to be compassionate right old Eric would have been
fuck that guy and weirdo and now I'm like good for them I hope you're happy like it reminds me of another phrase I love you know when when to say you've got that salty firefighter for example used to be like what the fuck's wrong with that guy and then say don't ask what's wrong with them ask what happened to them so for that guy it might be 20 years in the fire service of not sleeping compounded by the fact that his dad left when he was three years old and now all of a sudden you've
got a a path a reason you know where we're so judgmental like today well I'm not an addict well good for fucking you you're lucky huh can you imagine having to just you know the most important thing in the world is getting your next fix that's your reality you know so I think putting that compassion and empathy towards all these people you know what happened to you how did you get here you know you're homeless you're a sex worker you're you know you're a member of a gang
you're the ceo of a company like you know tobacco that's killing hundreds of thousands of Americans and you're unfazed by it all these things what happened to you how did you get here and how can we get you back so I think the that's again that kindness and community it's easy to just judge and them and us you know and the same with the transgender I'm sure most people that are you know navigating that just want to navigate it on their own they don't want to be some part of a
national politicization of this topic they're like this is my personal identity like my religion like you know my sexual orientation and it's only again this division that has rammed this down our throats where all of a sudden people are putting pronouns on their LinkedIn accounts like we didn't have to do that dude this is a this is a personal thing I've never put spiritual not religious on my fucking Instagram you know what I mean it's so funny you say it because I think about it so
heavily like I could care less if your gender is your identity I feel bad for you if your sexual whatever your uh if your culture is your identity that's cool like right on uh but when it's uh uh you classify people based on their sexual orientation or their skin color or their religion and I just go there's so much more to every single person like I don't give a shit about who you want to be with how you want to live if you're not hurting anyone and you're not
being a you know a problem to others who care what you do behind closed doors that's your business like at all if you're happy that's great like good great where and then to circle back even again with what you're saying about you know what happened to that person and what's going you know what they live through I try to look at everyone that way I don't know what they've been through I don't know what life they've lived I you know we saw in the fire service you'd run the calls
and you when people talk about being abused or a victim I have inherently a hard time with hearing those things you know what a fucking victim is right like for me a victim is that child who was abused in ways that people cannot understand and you've seen it I've seen it I've seen it and I always reference somebody who's had it worse than whatever I'm dealing with or what I'm seeing and I try to be compassionate and I try to be understanding and also not
downplaying right like when someone's like oh I'm a victim I'm going through this thing and I maybe don't understand it and I don't agree with their abuse of the word victim but I inherently go back to well if it's your worst day then it's your worst day like I don't I your experiences are different than mine your you know everything from your parents to your mentors to your you know you could have a firehouse and have a horrible crew that affects the mentality of
the young guy coming up or young gal and now you have this person in motion it's now on a 20-30 year career if they stay in it and when you had that young brain that could have been molded and shaped with great leadership they're affected by this crew of guys or gals and now you have another shitty person within a crew that carries on so it's fascinating but compassion I think compassion is a great way to look at a lot of stuff is moving forward in life and society and
everything around us absolutely well let's get into the fire service so tell me how old you were when you entered and then kind of give us an overview of the highs and the lows the mentorship and the toxic leadership that you experienced through your career oh the fire service was a great chapter uh senior high school I didn't know what I wanted to do you know it was my mode I'm an adult now I gotta get a real job and I was in television production class and I went to shoot
uh a project on the school to work program so my brother was in the fire academy already and he was doing high school for two hours and they go to the fire academy and when they would graduate they'd be firemen so shoot I go to shoot this video and they're doing search and rescue training I'm like I want to do that fuck that's badass you know I had aspirations of being in the military my dad Vietnam vet very different perspective on the military really didn't want us going down that
path but when I saw firefighting I knew it's like this for me this badass so senior year it became all about I'm gonna graduate I'm going straight to the fire academy well I had been in a bunch of trouble and I wasn't really good in school and I was failing and I had to go to summer school my senior year to graduate and if I didn't pass my summer school class I was gonna have to repeat my senior year and now all I wanted to do is be a firefighter I already knew I can't be a fireman
I'm gonna be a fireman oh this is what I'm gonna do and I said well can I go to you know fire academy those are college credits will that count towards this half a credit no gotta go to summer school so I go to summer school get through it my parents had split so my dad's in Orlando and I you know I was in trouble and one of the local cops who I was friends with you know I got along with the police we were always cool so you got to get out of here or you're gonna be like your loser friends
and you're gonna end up in jail and in lots of trouble so I graduate I find a volunteer fire station up in the Orlando area my dad's in Orlando so that's where I was going and I'm in EMT school like out the gate the fastest program I could get in which I think was three months at the time was that mid Florida Tech it was mid Florida Tech that's where I went to oh did you that's awesome and yeah I went to mid Florida Tech and then it was central Florida fire academy at the time
and uh it was a lot it was a lot being a guy who wasn't good in school straight in EMT school and uh I got through it my dad was super supportive I was like well I feel like I'm gonna fail I feel like I'm going over my head and if you fail you fail he said to me he goes and we'll pay the money and you'll do it again you'll pass the second time but cool worried about that focus on doing as good as you can and studying as hard as you can and if you study as hard as you
can you know you gave it your all and you don't pass then it's okay you gave it your all I ended up passing my national registry on the first try so I didn't have to take the state test it was I crushed it in the end so that support system was pretty phenomenal straight into fire excuse me straight into fire academy from there I'm 18 at the time and I'm working as a volunteer firefighter you know I'd found a volunteer fire station my brother had been working as a volunteer firefighter
senior year of high school so I knew out the gate like cool I'm in the fire academy I can get on a volunteer truck I can start learning when I do apply to a department I'll already have a resume going I'll already have experience and I'm not just a guy who went through the fire academy and that hey here's my application right I'll have this experience and I was obsessed with it I wanted to be a fireman I wanted to be uh I wanted to live it I it wasn't a job it was a calling it was a
passion it was I get to do this I get to be in service of others I get to you know potentially put my life on the line for my fellow human being like what an honor like you know I thought I mentioned earlier a samurai like I'm willing to lay it all down for this cause right and you know I'm working as a volunteer I'm going to the fire academy and uh fire academy was it was awesome you know I'm a hands-on guy I'm not inherently good with book work but you know you tell me
teach me how to pull a hose and you know take a door and man it was it just made sense right tie knots yeah let's do it like search and rescue hell yeah so really did well in that uh graduated you know we you know you go through the process and next thing you know it's over you know and it seems like such a big thing at the time you know being being a young dude and a kid you know you don't really realize uh then that you're just a kid you know you think you got it all figured
out and you're no I'm an adult now and I'm farming and and all the while it's it's comical to me to think back like I was 18 19 right and even at 24 25 I was like I was a fucking kid you know on the truck running the calls doing the thing and you know a lot of it looking back you're able to be a little more compassionate with your idiocracy at that age with your lack of knowledge at that age and again everybody comes from different walks of life right I didn't come from a dad in
construction who was teaching us hand tools and he was busy working to provide for us and so when I went to the fire service it wasn't you know put the blue stuff on the red there was a lot more technical aspect to it that I just wasn't prepared for and you know you talk about trauma and hardship within that learning process um I worked with a lot of great guys but I worked with a lot of shitty guys not that they were shitty
people their ability of leadership wasn't there and as a young guy you know I think that mentor aspect is somebody who sees the potential within someone sees the energy I'm going to take all that and I'm going to make them great where I kind of got you know we let me circle back just a little we got on Seminole County Fire Department when we were 19 How competitive was it when you were looking? It was super competitive. What year was this?
It was super competitive. What year was this? 2001 or 2000 2002. Okay. 2002 because I graduated in 2001 so 2002 we got hired and there's over a thousand applicants and it was applications on a piece of paper and we had enough know-it-all my brother and I were I was pretty sharp with simple things like hey you should take this application typewriters are still thing we got our hands on a typewriter we put it through a typewriter so it wasn't just hand written on there they told us out
of thousand fifteen hundred applicants there was like seven of us who did that so we are automatically we're looked at like okay this stands out you're going into this process from here we passed our written stuff we did the whole thing and we were great with the whole process of all right now you're going to come in and do the physical test and you know there's people scattered throughout this process that are just there like okay they're at the door you're waiting
to go in to do your medical exam and there's a guy sitting there and hey I'm Eric I'm so and so how long you've been a fireman all that and you sat there and talked to these guys and they were 20-year veteran firefighters and we carry on a conversation and generally curious about them and their experiences and this is I mean I dreamed of this I'm getting the test for this department got this firefighter who's been doing this for 20 years that's knowledge it's experience it's
this dude's a badass he's been through some shit I don't know in my head they have in my mind this this person's you know they've lived the things that I'm hoping to live and we went through the process and we got picked up Seminole County 19 years old you know we were my my twin brother and I say we see there go again everything the we when I talk about the we I'm referring to my twin we got hired together at first department and I had done a bunch of tech rescue classes
while I was waiting to test for Seminole because there was a time frame between graduating fire academy and actual hiring going on and when the hiring go on you know it's competitive there was a lot not as many jobs then but there was a ton of applicants well this is what needs to be underlined as well tell people this even goes back to about 10 years ago we have a massive recruitment crisis now and people when I talk about well we've got to fix the things that
are broken this is why no one's testing this fire fires anymore oh well how are we supposed to hire people now I'm like dude 10 years ago we had thousands of people for a handful of jobs or hundreds depending on where you were testing we weren't it wasn't that long ago that this was truly a coveted position this is how much you have failed our profession that in 10 short years we've gone from that level of competition and I had the same thing you had to have a resume that stood out
you had to have something special to even be considered for you know that next round of testing and now they're offering fucking hiring bonuses and you know taking 18 and a heartbeat in a lot of places and it's just like we need to get back to where we were but these young people are so intelligent now they'll look at the working conditions and go no that looks terrible so it's up to us as a profession to fix the things that are broken the work week is the thing that I
dumped like a you know beat like a drum it doesn't make any sense that the people that we asked to save lives work 56 hours a week 80 hours with a mandatory overtime which is all the time and yet the person in starbucks where you got your coffee earlier you know works 40 hours so just I just like underlining that the generation that we came from and we were testing you know was so so competitive and this is what we need this is a profession where our mistakes truly
can cost lives our own our crew or the people that we serve and the fact that we've allowed it to come so fucking low now whether you're just begging for people to do this job you know we are at a crisis point and I think it's a great opportunity to turn it around but the voices of you know 10 20 years ago and what testing should look like need to be you know reiterated yeah and you know it's I had
no idea about the hiring crisis you know I'm pretty removed from the fire service now it feels like another lifetime ago for me when I think about firefighting at that younger age one day on two days off is awesome you know what a what a thing and you look back now and you as we learn about health and wellness and maybe that just comes with age and so I love the fight that you're you continue to move forward with because that wisdom and time that you have and knowledge now
can carry down to affect that younger generation of firefighter and the longevity of their life and it is a real thing and rest is a real thing and these work environments and these things that are asked of people to do in the positions that they're asked to put themselves in it's a lot it's a lot and it can cost you everything you know if you're not well rested and you're running calls in the middle of the night driving that big truck with water in the back and that moves around
and you're not sharp it can cost everything you know one poor judgment call because you're lacking sleep can cost you everything and I always loved it when I was younger I don't need the sleep I'm an animal I'm a badass let's go let's go and it's great and that young energy is awesome and it's great and that young energy is awesome and again I felt I still feel so fortunate to have been a firefighter at that age and to get to have a job that I was excited every shift I got to go
in and so to look now and look at it and be like it can be better for them we can make change and I think a lot of the change that has to happen does come at an upper admin level in some retrospects but I think there's a cultural change within the firefighters that needs to shift as well you know we talk about a lot of mental health and I hold a high accountability on the guys and gals themselves because inherently the upper echelon has their world and they're going to do
what they're going to do and I think the fight always has to stay there after them to be better for us and do more for us and provide more but at the same time I think within the culture the shift from ego and alcohol as a solution to personal mental health and ways to work through the stuff that we deal with and see and go through on you know a shift basis right we act as if working a code on an old person's no big deal still going in and breaking ribs still slamming a tube down
a human being's throat you're still pumping drugs into him trying to bring him back to life or take that out of the equation add in a child or you're cutting somebody out of a car and then you're telling the family I did everything I could I'm sorry and you're having to see that stuff you don't think it at the time that it affects you remember as a young guy my first big fire you know we did a search and I mean I'm shit man it was a horrible horrible scene but you know I was
in my early 20s and you know a second alarm big house fire no veto I'm sure if someone you wanted to research that they could find it I think four kids died that day and I remember showing up in the best reference I could use it was like band of brothers where everything slowed down it was these kids are coming by in the arms and lifeless bodies no facial features it's all been burned off and the dad's back there crashing through trying to break into the house he's covered in
blood they're pulling him away and like oh you guys are gonna there's one more kid in there you guys are going in and then it's like you know we dropped down we're putting our masks on we're putting our gear on I'm like oh yeah train for this let's go and we drop in this window and you can't see your hand in front of your face and you're doing the search and I can remember sweeping the room you know I grabbed my partner's boot I trained this right grab my partner's boot okay cool now
I sweep out right and I remember like oh it must be a toy or something and I go wait a second I think that's hey I think I found I think I found one and the guy I was with oh where that's it you know and the body goes they go to the window pass it out you know we find our way out of there as the last kid and long story short we go back to the firehouse and they're going hey you know they're going to do a debrief on what went down like a what do they call it the health
and wellness you know yeah the after action yeah that after action CISD yeah yeah CISD that was it do you want to go I'm like I don't need to go well I need to go for I look at my partner like you do you need to go the lieutenant goes you guys are going and I remember going in there and sitting back and just kind of being trying to be the tough guy like and there's a guy a big burly firefighter I want to say he was with a veto talking and crying and back then I remember being like
pfft pussy and now I look back and I'm like that was one of probably the strongest human beings in that room and what that dude saw that day we passed I didn't even see the kid my partner passed her out as last we saw them they put up tarp walls and they were the medics that were working on those kids they were the guys that really saw it all and so you think back now and I go it's good to talk through this stuff it's good to recognize that what we were seeing
what our current teams are seeing is a lot it's a lot to see life and then it's gone and it's a lot to see the crying families and you carry it with you you do and I see it as a blessing I see it as a reminder that all of this ends I said it before already and to be happy be happy when you can because the dark days are coming and the dark days are coming for all of us and you know you have bad days and I'm like is it a bad day or is it just a day because a bad day
somebody really close to you is going to be sick that they're never going to recover from bad day somebody close to you that you love is is gone and you're never going to get to see them again and so I save the bad days for that and I keep that mindset from the fire service of this is such a gift life is such a gift man it's it's it brings back so many memories of the little things the little things that you would run you know you've seen it yep it stays
with you right mm-hmm I mean I wrote two books about it which I'm excited to read which I'm excited to read thank you for those you're at the top of my dake yeah actually one of the one of the chapters is going to resonate very deeply after what you just told me so yeah I mean but this is it and I've had so many people not focusing on my book but just so many people have said to me I had to put it down after chapter one chapter four whatever because
I saw myself and I went and got help or I went and did you know one of my friends has psychedelic journeys a lot and he was like I had to go do a journey and someone had told their friend about it and he'd said I'm scared to read it and I'm like okay this is good because this is how it should impact us you know not that it triggers you and you regress but it's like this mirror like hey the validation what we see like it should have an impact human beings are not supposed to see and
do this you know and then you add in again the sleep deprivation all these other compounding layers and you know what you brought into the job but uh yeah I mean just on its own when you look I mean I only had a 14 year career that was it that's half of what a lot of guys have women and I think back like you know when I was writing the books I wrote on a piece of paper not the deaths that would be the whole fucking pad full but the the worst deaths and it was to say two
sides of you know letter paper a4 of just oh this guy this guy this woman this kid I was like holy shit this is just 14 years um so yeah I mean how can it not this is what we need to be talking about is it doesn't have to crush you I think that you know you there are so many incredible tools now that can help you work through this but the way going back to you know the fire service the way that we've got it designed the same way as the way they told everyone to go
through the pandemic was to not see family and friends stay inside eat fast food drink alcohol binge watch Netflix was clearly not the way that you make people healthier the way that you take away coping mechanisms from firefighters is you work them into a ground you challenge their family dynamic at home because they're never home you know you mean you create such stress and sleep deprivation that they tend to lean into alcohol so it's the same thing I believe that human beings
can do this incredibly courageous job and have a healthy career but only if we give them the fucking environment to allow them to heal and you do not process these traumas when you don't sleep let me ask you this do you feel there's a healing aspect in your writing as you write your book as you circle through these things that you saw so it's funny I was telling um even Josh Brolin because he wrote the forward of the first book and so uh I've been going back and forth um he's a
great guy yeah he's phenomenal I got to do some random movies with him oh really yeah just playing you know just part of the film that you know he's a main actor on coming to the stunt guy for a couple days and he's always just so lovely and he was a firefighter he volunteered for three years wildland that's awesome so um but yeah I was I was asking him because he just wrote an extremely gritty biography uh from under the truck and he did the audiobook and I started my audiobook and
I was messaging him like this is fucking brutal man and he goes yeah I mean it really he found it extremely hard so the writing was cathartic you know the writing process can be extremely you know exhausting because you're just whittling down and you know oh this doesn't flow how am I supposed to make this work but ultimately it was cathartic but then when you read an audiobook and you're reliving all these things and you're allowing that motion to come through the microphone
that was almost the opposite so writing was cathartic but reading it aloud like reliving it for the storytelling almost had the opposite like negative effect so it was kind of interesting you know reflecting after I was done with the audiobook I had to kind of step away and you know lean into my self-care to let that shit go well that's good that's that's cool to hear I'm always curious on what works for people and what doesn't and what they get out of it there's this
guy ever heard of dr joe dispensa yes big fan and he talks about loop cycles and reliving experiences which in turn affects your perspective and how the brain doesn't know whether you're living it because you're thinking about it or you're actually going through it and so reading it I guess could create that loop cycle of emotion and feeling which in turn carried over to where you had to get your get your vibes back right yeah yeah yeah I think about that stuff a lot right
you know we get fixated on something whether it's a bad call or a life experience or you know a bad interaction and we loop it and we loop it and we loop it and we think about it and we think about it and we keep festering over and over and it compounds and then it carries out into life again and so for me like I went through a bad breakup at one point and I was you know so caught up in it and I couldn't move on and I was just a mess and I heard this joe dispensa thing and talk about it
and visualization and thought process and living in the past and it was such a transitional phase of my life that helped me just put things behind me and so I think about that with the calls and I think about that with the life interactions and maybe where I could have been a better friend or you know a better partner or you know better brother or sister you know not sister but better brother to my sister that's what I think I meant to say and yeah I don't know where I was going
with that yeah no but I mean like you said about that that looping thought I mean this is I had this a while ago and it was it was so stupid it was thinking about it was near the election and just that kind of you know stuff that we've been bombarded with and I do not you know plug into that but this was just becoming more and more and one night I had those intrusive thoughts and it just wouldn't shut the fuck up and it was around that same time so I'm sure it was all
compounding yeah but yeah I mean you know I I've been so lucky that I haven't really experienced the depths of some of you know our men and women that get to that darkest darkest place I had one kind of flashback in Disney flashing back to a three-year-old girl that was pretty horrendously killed in a car crash and the push them was pushing a stroller and it had the same blanket that we put over this kid and I just kind of flashed back there for a second that was it
that was you know mining a tiny little insight and then I had a real deep depression when I went back home right after the pandemic so you had all that shit we had to spend almost a thousand dollars on fucking covid tests which they scrapped three weeks after I did my traveling by the way and we just you know one bullshit thing after another and so that but um yeah that those intrusive thoughts man I can't imagine having that over and over again of these calls so you
know it is something to be cognizant of and you know it's it's good to hear that you found a way of kind of breaking that cycle it's uh it's something that I think like you said there's an awakening right there's a big awakening happened and I'm a huge advocate for psychedelics I will say it over and over mushrooms would save lives I mean my brother talked about on your podcast years ago um you know I was fortunate in the my you know era of my life when I was trying to figure
out myself as a guy I think we all go through this phase where we're trying to figure ourselves out and uh ultimately become the version of ourselves that we aspire to be and I I started listening to Joe Rogan and I listened to Joe Rogan talk about psychedelics and sensory deprivation and self-work and it really inspired me to listen to this guy who is so open to all different perspectives and self-work and and exploring his consciousness and it stayed with me and I ended up dating this
really amazing woman for for a couple years and she had explored psychedelics quite a bit you know I'm on the back side of this Adderall thing that I had to put behind me and you know I'm I'm trying to get control of myself from being a mess and I said we should do some I want to do mushrooms I'm gonna do mushrooms and you know I come from a pretty straight laced family smoked weed but that was kind of the extent of what I would do you know I never really
what I wanted to go beyond that you know I'd seen cocaine but I was like man that seems messy like where that place is it could take you so I always had that I'm good I'm good uh so when mushrooms became more in my perspective from listening to Rogan I went I want to I want to tap into that aspect of myself I want to tap into the spirit world and go on a deeper level and into a new dimension I don't know I didn't know I didn't know what was going to come out of it
and so this this I call her badass she and I decided we're going to eat mushrooms one day after a long day skydiving and we somebody had given me these chocolates and I was like cool we're each going to eat one I'm with this old school stunt guy he was out skydiving with us he was in town doing a movie beautiful human being named Joey Box he was Johnny Rico for Starship Troopers like really cool eccentric stunt guy from the old days and he's like oh you're gonna
eat mushrooms how many do you have and I was like oh we have these chocolates he goes eat all of them eat them all oh I don't know Joey and you can tell when you talk to Joey that he's done some psychedelics as a true eccentric like himself would like he's a high diver trapeze circus guy turned stunt man and just a really cool guy so anyways we eat the chocolates that night and we kind of go walking down the runway and the visuals start to happen and it ends up being a
really long night of spiritual journey visuals and the next day you know my partner she goes whoa for your first time we ate a shit ton of mushrooms you went deep I was like oh all right but what came out of it was so profound I felt so so much healing had happened that I didn't even realize needed to happen I called my mom and it's like I did mushrooms last night and oh I love you and I care and I'm gonna be a better son and dad and brother and sister and all this stuff that I had no idea
could be so prevalent and I felt like I tapped into myself and the inner warrior that was in me and all this confusion that I was having inside felt so clear and so when I came out of that I'm not an inherent big mushroom person you know this was probably shit man 2014 or 15 that I had that first mushroom experience and the big it was a big one and I've explored microdosing and it's not really my jam you know it's something that I think is good for people if it helps you and and helps
you find answers or gives you a calm inherently for me if I'm going to do mushrooms I want to go deep I want to go crack myself open and really dive into myself and look at what needs healing look at where I feel lost and it for me it takes you to those places and you can look at yourself raw and it gets scary I won't act like I haven't had some bad I can remember my buddy and I who's been a is my base jumping mentor another really weird dude that had younger Eric met him would have been
like this fucking guy to where now he's one of the most fascinating human beings I've ever met I always joke that going on an adventure with him is like getting on Willy Wonka's boat it's like a beautiful little boat and then all of a sudden people are screaming and I want off this thing and Willy Wonka screaming back at him and then all of a sudden it's over and he's like ha we're here ha we're here where we're here right that that's going on adventures with this guy and you
sorry I just got lost for a second there I do this I get these stories and I get a little lost pat you're talking about cracking yourself wide open and wanting to go on those deep journeys of self-discovery the journey's a steep yeah I just got lost in there dude it happens to me anyway I got so lost it was a good one I was going somewhere good with that well the base jumping mentor anyways well that's a good segue so we'll do that and if you remember
then we'll jump back in but there's a lot of us that you know what not us because I'm sitting here not in uniform anymore but there's you know most of us when we enter we assume we're going to be there for 20 25 30 years I think one of the most powerful things is hearing people that have just transitioned out for whatever reason like mine was almost like kicked out by the universe like hey you know you're not going to fix this from the inside you know go be a voice
for them on the outside never ever thought I'd be stepping away from the rig and you know here we are now my identity as a podcaster which sounds like you know saying youtuber it's so weird to hear but so talk to me about the world of stunts because you know I found myself bizarre twist of fate in Japan working as a stunt man doing live shows but you had obviously a much different journey that took you into film and television so you're wearing a firefighter's uniform walk me
through those crazy sequences that put you in the world of skydiving and beyond all right uh you know everything's a chain of events right and it's easy to look back and connect all those pieces on how you find yourself to where I'm at today had you told Eric 24 years old all of a sudden I want to be a stunt guy and I've gotten really no clue what I'm talking about you know Hollywood is so far away and I didn't know about the live show world that I would be living what
I'm living now I would have I never would have imagined it and I'm grateful for every day of my of my current life that I'm living but I was working as a firefighter and I just failed the Orlando test because I was going to switch departments and I'm on shift working with a gentleman named Mike Edmondson and everybody knew Mike Edmondson he was a pretty unique firefighter to me he was a badass he didn't say much he didn't really talk unless
he liked you and I believe he was ex special forces maybe it's just another layer to the version of I've generated in my mind but uh I'm working with him and everybody knew he had done Band of Brothers and he had been a stunt guy on that and he had a stunt acting spot on it too and uh so I'm working with him and I'm like dude he did Band of Brothers you know and we started talking about Band of Brothers and he starts telling me about stunts and I'd been looking for something uh to do on the
side of firefighting I didn't know what I was taking college classes what I wasn't really good at it and I kept failing them I was more there to meet chicks than it was anything else uh when he told me about stunts I was like I could do that that's badass so he tells me well I call him I'm like hey man am I crazy am I too old to start pursuing this you know I'm 24 but I feel like been a fireman for five years already I think I'm an adult I think you know
my life is behind me um whatever I don't know what I was thinking and he laughs at me and he goes dude you've been a firefighter for five years you're 24 years old if anything this is a great pre-rec to pursue something like this because your background in safety is a great pre-rec like this because your background in safety which comes full play into my career as a stunt guy but won't get into that yet so he tells me start taking acting classes uh start skydiving because
that was what got him on Band of Brothers they did all the the round parachute jumps and he played the jump instructor for them in the first episode and uh find a stunt school you don't know anything about stunts so go take a take a class on it go learn about it I'm like all right go well what about that I guess there's nothing else to talk about right now dude I told you what to do go do those things once you're doing those things there might be something more to talk about after
that all right cool so I find an acting school and I sign up for acting classes and I start skydiving and man uh I wish I could tell you that out the gate I was like hell yeah skydiving I was fucking scared man I was so scared I never imagined myself getting into skydiving uh I'd done like a tandem once when I was in my early 20s I'm still in my early 20s at this point uh when I was like 20 and it was like cool we're gonna go do a skydive I got this dude strapped to my back you know I had
that firefighter mentality like it's all gonna be fine and if it's not we'll deal with it from there right and so here I am signed up you know you do seven skydives in a ground school and you're a student skydiver so you know I go I do my full day of ground school learning all about the equipment learning about the jumps what's to be expected how to fly your parachute and next thing you know you got a rig on your back and an instructor on each side of you and you're getting thrown out of
the plane and they're hanging on to you and you're doing your skydive checkoffs for that jump the pass and you deploy the parachute and now you're on your own you land the parachute there's jump one so I do one jump that day and I go home and I come back a couple days later and I do jump two I go home come back do a jump go home not the best way having taught skydiving it's not what I would tell people to do um but each day was so intense for me that I didn't need another jump that day I just
I just that one for me was my day wow I just did that and jump three I would say I had all this inherent fear all of a sudden I could die doing this what am I doing this is nuts I sit down with my dad and I'm like you know I'm going you know I'm having these emotions I'm feeling sway and he goes there's not much I'm going to tell you in life not to go after and pursue so I was in Vietnam and I lived through it he goes I think you're going to be just fine skydiving just pay
attention okay like that's all I needed to hear and I came across the book by this guy named Brian Germain and uh to be honest I can't remember the title of it right now but it was a lot of fight or flight a lot of flow state a lot of being present a lot of uh just what I needed to read and I think I read the book in two days I was so obsessed with it and I never looked back I was the fear was gone and I I knew if I took care of my equipment I knew my emergency procedures when the day comes in
skydiving that I need to make decisions I will and I'll deal with the malfunction parachute or I'll deal with whatever's happening right there's only a handful of things that can go wrong sky diving but they're pretty big things when they do um odds are if you are I always say there's guidelines that I operate under within skydiving and if you respect those handful of rules that I hold for myself if I respect my rules within the game you'll be just fine aside from something that
is out of your control right you know when you deploy your parachute how you take care of your equipment how you handle emergency situations if you operate within those guidelines you'll be just fine so skydiving in that realm for me always has stayed this exciting thing that uh just improves my life it makes me happy I go out there and I'm jumping out of planes and I'm playing in the sky with my friends with my magical backpack on where all I got to do is get away from them and then
deploy my magical backpack fly my parachute I land I get the pack up and do it again and it holds my brain like in a really unique way it's the first times that I learned to what flow state was and what was happening where there is no past there is no future it is just this is skydiving such an impact on my ad brain where I could reel it all in and it it still does day carries and I found other ways to get that now without having to jump out of a plane
but I didn't understand what was happening then and yeah it really allowed me to see skydiving as this thing that just made me a better person and so skydiving was a big part and it it has stayed a big part of my stunt career but I was skydiving and I was taking acting classes and within the acting classes we had this teacher who was all about the law of attraction the secret and this was uh something that had come out early on and she was you're gonna make vision boards
you're gonna get the audio book the secret and you're gonna get the actual book and it's part of our acting class stuff and my dad had given me the book the secret years before and I threw it to the wayside that was so impactful on my pursuit in the stunts because again I didn't know how I was gonna do it I didn't know anyone in it and when you don't have those things it seems so impossible like how am I gonna do this thing you know it's movies it's television in that
and in the firehouse inherently oh you're gonna become a stuntman sure you are yeah real I bet you will right it's kind of a joke it's fine it's a byproduct of daring to be great people are gonna laugh at you and think you're crazy and if they don't then you're not you're not really let me reword that if you're taking on something that is truly great people are gonna laugh at you and think you're crazy until you start to have momentum but that early phase is a bar to entry
you know it's it's it's what you have to go through and I think when people think you're crazy and think you're nuts it's a compliment you're the rare you're the unique and in this day and age in this day and age those are the people I want around me those are the people I want to draw inspiration from I want somebody who's seems nuts nuts because it's not just another day to them they're not just going through the motions of life they're trying to tackle things that are like whoa wow
and so the secret really shaped that mindset that I needed constantly in the background of you know the headlights only shine 40 feet in front of you and if you focus 40 feet in front of you ultimately you're going to get to your destination you can't see it but you know that you're going to eventually get there and that stayed with me as I was in this process of I don't know what I'm doing spending money trying to do this thing but am I doing it is is this gonna
am I just a joke right is this you know is this ever gonna take shape and in that acting class I met a girl uh whose dad had been a stuntman who was a stuntman at the time sorry he's retired now but he had he was a stuntman and stunt coordinator and uh she ends up introducing me to her dad connection point right there it is never would have thought in an acting class that that would happen right and her dad has this property in Han City where all the stunt people come out to train
and he's got flying trapeze he's got high fall towers and Russian swing and he'll light people on fire and he'll train with you right and it's funny to say right it's like wait light people on fire it's a skill within you know I don't have to tell it to you but I'm gonna say it because it's a skill within my my world well it's funny as well because when you said this story before and I asked you who it was like you literally ended up by chance meeting the biggest legend
in the fire service in Florida I'm sorry in the stunt world in Florida yeah I mean I never work with him but I work with so many people who you know under so many people who train with John Zimmerman and you know that's that's if you're gonna if you're gonna be connected with one person back then I would imagine that John was probably the perfect person and John and I hit it off man we with my dedication my dedication with my background in firefighting and my discipline
towards safety and work when I met John John was ex-military very stern very direct and because I had been a firefighter he was he allowed me to come out and meet him and come out to his property and out the gate he's like I meet 20 people a week who want to do stunts if you're around in six months we'll have a conversation till then you're welcome to come out and train on the weekends with us and good luck and I'm gonna be like shit yeah six months from now
copy that cool I can come out and train and what I did was when he would hold his Saturday workouts I would get there 30 minutes early I'd be the first guy there the firehouse mentality firehouse mentality man it stays with you these little these little little little little little little these little these little things that go so far in life with whatever it is that you want to do right everything's built on relationships everything's built on uh to me discipline
and hard work right we look at these things as negatives I'm like man they are the most freeing elements to so much with life it's silly and they're 30 minutes early I learned what he would set up every Saturday last person to leave stay and help clean up in the amount of people that I look at now who show up play leave never cared to get there early and now I'm there early and I'm getting to pick John's brain I'm learning about stunts I'm learning about the industry I'm
being able to be of service and it got to the point where we'd have our coffee we'd talk life experience the industry and he'd go inside to get ready and I would set up and I was I was so stoked honored I get to do this thing everybody would leave it's me and John breaking shit down and there'd be times where people would stay don't get me wrong but inherently life happens people get to where they're at and they're in out they do their thing and you know I heard uh this
great stunt rigger say once you don't have to help but don't slow me down and I try to remember and I try to remember that a lot now because it's easy to be like why aren't they helping and why are they who cares right it's my time I get John to myself so John and I really hit it off and you know there's another layer to the story that where it really became almost like I was destined to do this I feel that way people might call me a kook I don't care I'm I'm more than used to it I
think uh my brother and I both are very like Winnie the Pooh we're a la la la and we go on these we live these life experiences and we're pretty happy go lucky and we just keep moving forward I'm working at my firehouse I'm now with Orlando I a year later I tested and I got on with Orlando I'm actually on Orlando at this point when I finally met John so uh I'm with the city of Orlando and I'm working at my fire station and it was a year that three hurricanes kind of just came through
Florida there's nothing too too gnarly I'm sure some people were really affected I'm just probably oblivious to it um and there was a storm sitting over Orlando it flooded everything yeah just sat there yeah and yeah it was just a wet nasty one um this gentleman walks into our firehouse and he's having you know a medical situation and we sit him down and it's he's actually going down the pipe and we're doing our normal thing we're talking getting them talking getting medical
background and we end up rushing them lights the sirens to the hospital excuse me and we end up saving his life that day right maybe it was our efforts the hospital's efforts it's a combined thing you know we're all in on this together turned out to be Glenn Wilder who in the stunt world is a legend start was one of the original founders of stunts unlimited which is a famous stunt group within Hollywood and you know this guy did fights with Bruce Lee Elvis Presley and he
left his bag of medications at the firehouse that day how I get to take him to him I go I knock on his door one day and he invites me in and just a man who had lived a life that you could sit and listen to forever and he was so kind and he was so cool and he's telling me about he's telling his stories he knew what the older guys do you know he's telling these great stories with Elvis and Bruce Lee and I'm sitting there going this guy maybe off his rocker this guy maybe a little
little loose in the head and then he pulls out a book and he shows me photos of him and Bruce Lee and Elvis and I'm like and I knew already because I had researched him that he was the real deal but I couldn't comprehend in the moment as he was telling this stuff they were like Bruce Lee like really you really fought with Bruce Lee on a film but holy shit and this guy became a staple for me he was you know you are our paths were meant to cross we were meant to meet and
it became somebody who would teach me and share with me and when I told John that I met Glen Walden what happened John's like that's it you're just you're meant to be here and he's like you you're meant to be here everything I'm at your disposal and we just became I mean I lived eaten slept training stunts now you know if I wasn't at the firehouse I was skydiving if I wasn't skydiving I was at John's training and it became a consuming life and now I'm meeting
people within Hollywood and John's going off to do movies and eventually John's like hey come to this film set come hustle and I learned what the hustle was where you you have to sneak on to set and you have to try to meet the stunt coordinator and in that time you have to try to hand him a headshot and pitch yourself and that's what you did back then luckily John would be on a set and he would let me come so now I'm being introduced to the stunt coordinator and you know you're doing
this stuff all while training and all while trying to find your path and it takes time you know like years have gone by already of me trying to pursue stunts and each person each lesson each experience all kept compounding with momentum with momentum more and I'm understanding more and then Louisiana is blowing up for the film scene and did you ever work with a guy called Trace Trace Jeremy yeah I know Trace Jeremy I was in Japan with him what a beautiful soul right there amazing human being
Cajun coon ass just funny you bring up Trace I was just talking about have you ever met Mark Norby you know that name he used to double Brolin him and Josh are super tight oh okay so I don't know if I know that name or not great guy another I mean that guy's lived a life you could you would love to talk to him he's a fascinating human train hopping through South America double McConaughey they were close friends how he came over bro I don't know but just a guy that life is better
when he's around he's just one of those people we're talking about Louisiana Louisiana so I was literally working for Mark Norby Thursday Friday I got a random call the main double on a tv show was got super sick so Mark called me at like 6 30 in the morning hey can you get in here right now I was like uh yeah on my way go to take a shower and I'm like right now means right now I throw my stunt bag in the truck I haul ass I end up on set Thursday I had to get boot healed in a chair
backwards and then Friday I had to go learn a fight sequence and you know step in for the guy who designed it and is the main stunt double which I I feel horrible you know it's always a great that's a a really neat thing to design a fight and then get to go perform it and this guy Luis Valdez is so talented and he's the main double on the show and he got super sick so I had to come in intimidating I have to learn a fight that Luis designed and was going to perform
and now I got to go perform this fight and learn it on the day with this crew that's been training it all week and go perform it so Friday was pretty special for me I feel horrible for Luis but uh I was honored to step in and you know give it Eric's performance it's probably not Luis's he's a phenomenal fighter or I'm inherently I'm a good fighter I ain't Luis fighter and there's all these different levels of performance within the stunt world and you know how how well you're
how well you're you fake fall or fake fight you know how you know that that performance aspect of delivering a product you know and there's different levels and standards um anyways so working for Norby on Friday fight goes great everything's awesome we start talking about Trace he's like hey how's Trace doing I'm like it's funny how people bring that guy up and it's it's really neat that you brought him up today because uh I probably had one of the deepest conversations
that I really needed once when Trace Cheramie called me out of nowhere I'd been in a plane that clipped another plane on takeoff and I thought we're going we're crashing this is not how I thought today was going to end and we were doing black widow at the time so I was doing hidden parachute jumps and I ran down because it's the end of the day we're done filming but the skydiving operation is having their own event I run down gonna do a quick skydive with everybody
because all the locals are jumping and I want to go be part of that and have some fun with them clip another plane think we're crashing I remember sitting back in the plane and being like all the hidden parachute jumps we did this week and I'm about to be in a plane crash well if this is it I'm happy man and I leaned back in the plane I was sitting in the tail looking forward at all the jumpers and I wedged myself in I said we're gonna hit and then once if I'm conscious I'm
gonna navigate it from there pilot did a phenomenal job landed the plane safely we're all good parts all over the runway we're dumping fuel it's an experience well Trace calls me randomly and we started talking and I wasn't even going to take the call and I said yeah let me say what's up the trace and long story short he says to me brother in that moment when he thought you were gonna die you weren't begging for another day you sat back and you're
able to go I'm happy I'm okay with it it means you're living right it's probably one of the most to this day touches my soul at trace I don't know where it called me and in that time went that deep with me and he's you know just a good dude and I got to meet Trace out in Louisiana via John Zimmerman you know Louisiana became a big part of my my stunt journey it was blowing up there's a tax incentive there so a lot of movies are happening there and right when I started to have momentum
uh I would drive to Louisiana go hustle a film set drop off a head shot turn around and drive back so it was a normal thing for me to wrap a shift to the firehouse jump in my car drive nine hours sneak on a set introduce myself hand off a head shot turn around and drive home again bar for entry right people talk to me about getting into stuff and doing things I'm like you can go as far as you want and you can make shit happen it's just what you're willing to sacrifice I quit
hanging out back then with friends all the time either we were skydiving together or we were the bar days kind of went out the window I mean I was focused on on stunts and doing this thing and yeah I would drive to Louisiana and we would hustle and uh sneak on his sets and do the thing and it starts to happen right you start to meet people you start to get to hang out on set well I'm not getting paid but I can hang out and learn some stuff maybe I can clean your pads maybe I can
you know be of service in some way but either way you're all of a sudden around it and I'm all of a sudden on sets and I'm meeting people and again it's an industry built on networking and so you you're trying to build relationships with people and get to know people and show that you're a good hand and you can be of service and be a good member of the stunt team and that's how you eventually get a shot right well that's how I got a shot I hustled this coordinator multiple times
over the years and Steve Ritzy great great guy man Steve Ritzy and Lex Gettings are kind of a dynamic team that have been together forever and they were they would let me come on to set and they they worked with John forever because they were Florida based and and so I got to know them and I can remember Ritzy having to kick me off set because it was a big show and I was there hustling it was the first time we met and told me not to touch anything or do anything like this is
a big studio show the old days are behind us you can't be working for free and picking John asked me to pick up a stick of truss Ritzy rounds the corner here I am carrying trust you gotta go I told you John's like shit sorry man go hang out and I'm there like I'm where am I gonna go I rode there with John so I go out to the pad trailer and pads are covered in mud we were filming they were they were filming in this old fort and there's this other gentleman named Thorol that was part
of the Ritzy Lex team cleaning pads so hey let me do that he's like well what and I'm like well they booted me off set but I can clean the pads get it kid there I am I clean probably a dozen pads and round the corner Ritzy comes what are you doing so I know I know I can't be on set and I'm sorry I know I messed up I figured I clean your pads huh and I could tell there was something that registered with him huh fast forward Ritzy gave me my SAG card doing water safety for him
on the lucky one was Zac Efron and it kind of perpetuated from there I quit the fire department not long after that I always said I wouldn't quit until I had my SAG card and I could actually work because I have to make a living I have bills to pay and you know it's it's my responsible mode right I maybe it wasn't burn the boats if you want to take the island but it was my transition from one to the other when it made the most sense so I got my SAG card and
I think a month later I was living in Louisiana I packed up everything uh and went there to to make it I was gonna I was gonna go be a stunt man and I'd met coordinators and I built relationships and again with the tax incentive they had to use x amount of locals and there was only so many local stunt performers there so you had a really good opportunity to get out there and make an impression and try to get on some of the shows that were happening in town and you know it it
was a lot to go from living in Florida uprooting and all of a sudden I'm living in Louisiana different lifestyle just just different um is it baton rouge you live in I was in new orleans no one's okay I was in you know I was baton rouge was it's a different scene um you know that's like what an hour hour 15 north of new orleans um and I say it's a different scene and it just is a different vibe like baton rouge seems so different from living in the city of new orleans um and I
wish I had the perspective that I have now when I was living there I was pretty much like a this place meh um where now I I love love Louisiana I love new orleans the culture's so unique it's so community-based uh it's really a cool spot uh I wouldn't want to live there again and I'm grateful for my time there but it wasn't where I wanted to be it but it was what I needed to it's where I needed to be to make this career happen and so
you know when you you're willing to sacrifice you it's always a give and a take right if you want to be in it and you want to do this thing for me I had to be all in I had to be there I had to be networking I had to be training I had to be meeting people and so this is where it was going to happen and yeah I I would hustle I would network I would get a little sharper each time I would learn a little bit more on how to interact with the coordinators and how to pitch myself and
you know I say I went from the fire service where it's you know it's cut and dry you're told what to do you know where you're at you know your position into an industry where it's highly competitive uh you make good money and so I think that also brings out lots of different variables within people some good some bad and I was in it I mean I was in it and if you don't network and you don't show up and you don't work you don't work you don't get the job you don't get the job
now you're just sitting there okay I gotta find where can I hustle a show how can I meet a coordinator what shows are coming I gotta I gotta figure out how to make this happen and again now I'm in it I'm living it so it it the ways become more clear the hows become more clear I had a very young firefighter mentality I approached it just like a firehouse where I was super excited to be there super hard working do anything for everyone you know I'm the guy you can always call me you
do anything for everyone you know I'm the guy you can always call me I'm always ready to go and uh it was very it served me very well with time uh being that young hard working always count on gave you an opportunity to show work ethic became somebody who wanted did a lot of safety work early on water safety style stuff and I feel like going into stunts having been a firefighter and how we approached calls how we're always looking like as we're approaching the call you
know what's this hazard what's that hazard what's going on there what do I got to map there what do we got to do right that carried into stunts for me so when we're designing action or we're prepping a stunt I almost feel like I'm taking that full 360 view of all the safety aspects that need to go into this how do we do this as safe as possible and how do I keep myself or the other performer safe with what they're doing and it's carried so much where I feel like I can see things
in advance and catch things it's a little stuff that can make a a good day really really bad right and so I'm always watching I'm always looking and that was just ingrained in me and it carried into the stunt world because I was doing the safety stuff and because I was not just getting to be a stunt performer but I was doing the stunt rigging and building the flying systems and you know you got people's lives on wires and you're launching them 30 40 50 feet in the air and flying them
through rooms and around corners and into walls and beating them up but also you know trying to make it as safe as possible for him it's a it's a dance it's a dance within the game that has served me well has served me really well and I always wanted to be the great stunt performer but I learned early on that being a well-rounded stunt person was what I truly wanted so I could jump in and do a fight or I could rig you know the the fall and keep that performer safe or rig the safety
lines for the actor to be on the roof's edge and the coordinator knows well if eric comes I could throw him in the fight I could throw him in the rig safety he can see in advance of what I'm going to need and he's going to know how to be backing me up and that to me is what it all around stunt person is they can fight they can fall they can drive they can safety they can see what the coordinator is going to need as he's there you know doing what he needs to do dealing with
department heads you're listening and going oh we're going to need pads in this next scene or that actor is going to do what okay I know he's going to need knees where my coordinator is you have to think about does that actor have knees oh he knows eric's got it it's funny because that mirrors the fire service again like I had a lot of my tech classes but never joined a tech team because my whole thing was I come on scene you know I'm a paramedic I've got these these classes
even like your physicality right you got a combative patient all right well you know the martial arts side might come in useful to restrain this person but yeah reading reading that even on a code you walk in let's say there's two people work in the code right where am I going to slot myself in so it's interesting even again with that firefighting lens and I misunderstood the evolution of the the stunt world I was asking ben jenkin from the four guy about this it seemed
like you know you had the specialty um stunt performers and I know you do you know the travis pastranos or whatever that are the elite in their sport that are going to do that specific stunt but I kind of just downplayed the importance of everyone else who's the well-rounded person that like you say can do a full can do a fight and I think you know in the in the live show world we we have to do that you look at the the freaking pirates dinner adventure the actual stunts in that
we were doing soul fights 30 feet up we're doing high falls repelling fights all the things so that makes perfect sense but uh that specialization I I thought that was kind of taken over having not been in the movie world from a stunt performance point of view but now you the way you just you know explain that that makes perfect sense it's like being that firefighter it's on scene that you know
maybe you know isn't an expert in ropes or whatever but is a well-rounded first responder that can kind of slot into whatever needs to happen totally and there's always the rarities I wouldn't say rarities everyone's path different right I realized early on that I wasn't going to be the one x stunt double who comes in and that's all they do I realized early on I was going to be the guy that could do a little bit of everything because the way John mentored me the way my path took me and
I knew I wanted to specialize in skydiving but that's such a rarity within the film industry and there's a handful of people who generally do all those so I stayed passionately pursuing my skydiving but sharpening the sword and all the other areas came with time it took me all this time to be where I feel like I'm at now where you know I am the rarity where I can fight I can fall I can drive I can rig I can safety I can cover the set if needed I think to be able to do all
those things at a high level uh is rare and I encourage every young stunt person to learn everything I think you understand your job better when you understand their job as well and you know I look at the guys you know the Ben Jenkins who's just a total badass Colin Fallenweiler who's another badass Heidi Renee moneymaker yeah Jeremy Marinas Shahab I could go down a list of people that I've had the the privilege of meeting not
necessarily hanging with or working with a ton but I see them and I respect their dedication to their craft and how good they are at what they do and I always admire it and the days I get to jump in and perform like I did that fight for Lewis I get to walk away being like yeah like I am one x today man I'm the big the guy pitching the fight and I live that moment and then I step back to my world of tomorrow I might go rig and support my stunt performers and keep them safe or I might go sit
in the cold water all day just sitting there with my water safety lifeguard ring hoping I don't have to do anything because if I'm doing something it's generally not good uh and I observe them and I find great happiness in getting to watch people really do their thing and get to live those moments you know I think it's a I tell people too that inherently with stunts you can be observing people getting to do badass stuff and you can inherently want to be doing it and being like
I could do it better than them or why do they get to do it and I find when you learn the lesson to be able to watch people get to do things you would love to be getting to do and feel happiness for them that they're getting to have that moment because you know how much you would mean to you so you know how much it probably means to them man does it feel good and when it's your turn to shine and step in it's awesome and I love getting to come in and slide
a car now it's like my my skydiving now for me right I'm still big into my skydiving but cars has become a huge driving force into my stunt career and those moments where I get to step on a set and get behind that wheel and slide a car uh all the hard work all the training it all comes down to that moment staying cool staying calm and just crushing just doing my thing and I step out of it I enjoy that moment I really really try to just pause after get into a
big gag and then I let it go it's done it's over it doesn't matter on to the next one on to the next what we got to do here today the next shot you know when they applause like I did a little car crash last year on a show and they were applauding when I got out and I was just kind of like what's next we got a movie to make what's our shot and I appreciate it and I enjoy it and I just take a beat and then I go back to work well it's interesting because you
what you're describing is being part of a team you know an ego has no place in a team where I think there's an interesting parallel with you know what I'm fighting for in the fire services at the moment is you know we have a certain group of people and kudos to them for being out there teaching you know whether it's you know whatever it is force entry v es whatever the thing and that's extremely important and for example in the fire that you talked about that's exactly what
you and your partner did to go get that little girl from that structure fire but that's once in the blue moon and as you know you know you can work 14 years or as I know should I say and not have a grab like I came one room from a grab we did a primary all through the house and then the host team had just extinguished and then found the the woman in the next room and then you know collectively they got her out so there's times where you don't get that carrying the person out
of the you know the home but if the other stuff hadn't happened if the lt hadn't been on the radio if the engineer hadn't been at the pump panel it wouldn't have gone that way where I think it's important as a profession that we need to think about is all that hero shit is all well and good but where you're really going to be a hero is advocating for your profession and more importantly your family like your time at home your time to be a dad or a mother or a husband or a wife
and so that's not hero that's not heroic to fight for a work week that's actually healthy to fight to reduce the funerals and the cancers and all these other things that we see and I think that's kind of a you know what you've talked about is yeah you might get your front page cover photo moment or you might not but you're still part of the same movement and if you're changing you know making a difference from behind the scenes that's arguably even more admirable no one even knew that you were
part of you know 10 years from now the um Boynton Beach that your predecessors fought for a working environment that you enjoy now you're fully staffed you go home when you're supposed to go home you have a you know a strong relationship as far as your marriage and your your kids no one's putting that on the front page of the paper but that's arguably even more important
than being the hero for that one day. And there's so much within what you just said that resonates because I think when you start looking beyond the me and more about the us there's such a such a I don't know when you talk about the photo right in that moment and Mimi that fades away and what means the most to me I want the photo with my team I want the photo with my buddy and I standing on the edge together getting ready to jump I don't care about
me the one photo no it's everybody who's on this ride with me and around me and I'm growing and they're growing right you can inherently look at a lot of the team that I keep with me uh Pat my base jumping mentor you know he was a support system when I was a joke when people would laugh at me like oh you're gonna be a you're gonna be a stunt guy and I would skydiving I was that guy who showed up and didn't really understand the culture but I
was like that little meathead firefighter inherently skydivers a little eccentric little hippie and I was that guy around the drop zone with no shirt on and hanging out waiting to jump and uh as time went on I was like yeah I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a stunt man and Pat was with me through that and then when I started base jumping I reconnected with Pat and we we ran into each other one day base jumping in uh uh Idaho at the prime bridge I'm just out there jumping off
the bridge and I run into Pat and we play catch-up and he inherently became the role of my base jumping mentor that day and he did not he refused to teach me how to base jump a couple years before and now we reconnect and I'm base jumping and so we start jumping together more often and he's taking me off of earth you know base jumping is an acronym building antenna span earth and I jumped bridges in Idaho there's a legal bridge there and so there's the four different
objects that you can jump a bridge which is inherently it's pretty pretty safe thing to a little jump off of antenna which is the a span earth right so I link in with Pat we start jumping together and I'm doing an aerial project a little low budget thing and hey will you come fly camera for me Pat's a phenomenal skydiver as well comes in flies camera for me and then he's my my wing sort wing suit base jumping mentor the base jumping keeps evolving we do some jumps overseas
and now I'm putting a wing suit on and he's coaching me in wing suiting and Pat was a Pat was Pat is a phenomenal rock climber parachute rigger skydiver base jumper paraglider speed rider so he's got this realm of skill set that I saw is value in and I'm I'm a full-time stunt guy now and I'm I'm working like crazy and I would get Pat occasionally on jobs with me because one he coached me in my wing suiting two I saw something within him that could be of service
within our in our stunt world and time keeps going and Pat's done stunt rigging jobs Pat has always been there for me whenever I call to come in and shoot and then last year you know we're in Malaysia and Pat's doing some base jumps for a major movie and I'm assistant aerial coordinator working alongside you know John DeVore who's the head of the Red Bull Air Force who is the aerial coordinator and Katie Hansen who I believe you've met and she's doing some base jumps
and Pat and I are laughing like who would have thought years ago that here we'd be standing and I looked at him I said I told you we would I told you we'd be here one day I told you this would happen I knew this would happen and I surround myself with people like Pat I want the crew I want the team I want the collective I want to look back and have these memories with these people and I want to step back and I could have pulled Pat out and put the camera on my head and gotten
to do those base jumps but I had to go Pat's the best for the job Pat is a tenfold better base jumper than me and Pat has always been there in support of me and I called Pat and I said hey I think I'm going to pull you out and put the camera on my head you know what he said to me okay let's get you ready I'm like I'm just joking with you dude you're the best for the job you're meant to be in this position I got to sit back and I got to watch them live jumping the second
tallest building in the world I can't go into detail I don't want to get in trouble is it in the Middle East it's Malaysia and generally just feel so just full inside knowing like that's got to be incredible and that I find more and more joy in I love it when it's my moment but not every moment's meant to be mine and I think if we can remind ourselves that you know especially in the film world especially lots of money involved especially getting to do really cool things
being able to go this is their moment they're meant to live it I may not understand why the coordinator picked them to get to do that gag that stunt but I don't have to they're living it let me let me be happy for them and it's it's a neat thing man because the support system keeps going you know you you grow they grow you know this this uh guy Travis Finaghi who's a world champion skydiver turnstunt man sent it to me and Travis has been a huge teacher in my life a
beautiful human being feminist which was very bizarre for me early on that old firefighter and his dude we got a little little different time that we came up in but Travis would always say Travis would always say a rising tide raises all ships and Travis would never entertain trash talking or negativity ever he's my Ted lasso right we talked about that new show and I think every young guy needs to watch Ted lasso there's a great message in there but Travis is
maybe not the punctual guy that Ted lasso is but that message that Ted lasso shares Travis has been teaching that to me uh over the years and I'm so grateful for everything that guys showed me and it's yeah you grow they grow they grow you grow we're all building each other up man and if you can do that then you'll be happy and you won't be alone because what's the point of the photo all alone I think that's the perfect place to end I think it's been such a interesting
interesting philosophical conversation of course we could talk about you know specific films and stunts but I think this has been amazing I mean from you know your your life into the fire service and then you know some of the things that you carry and then this journey into stunts it's been an incredible conversation so I want to thank you so much for spending two hours sitting down here telling your your life story and you know allow me to pull some of these parallels because each
one of these different professions and obviously I got to put one foot in the stunt world the live stunt world um you know there's just so many places where the Venn diagram overlaps and and your success and the mentors that you've seen in the stunt world you know literally parallel the great mentors and leaders that I've seen in the fire service so I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today it's been a
pleasure dude I'm glad we finally did this it's fun