Emergency Responder Exhaustion: How to Avoid Silently Burning Out

We have Jeff Denning and chief Josh Francis , and we'll get into some intros in a minute , but I want to start off with a quick story about Josh chief Francis , because I started my first EMT class back in 2007 , back when Debbie was in charge .

Oh man , and I just remember day one , josh and John Fulmer come walking in and I was just like and Josh is super built and just Looks like the epitome of what you know I could fire fighters should look like , and then , right out of the gate , they share this story about how some car ended up upside down on the river and Josh went in after him and , like

, dove under and Got in the water and I was , just like it , totally star-struck , and from that moment forward I knew I wanted to be exactly like Josh Francis and then you met me for real and decided it's not every , every interaction just reaffirms my , my Goal to be , to be like him .

So anyway , but that was a long time ago , but what that has stuck with me forever . And that was back with the gray EMT shirts . These hands .

Yeah , well , you made a great first impression , so here I am and here we are together on the couch .

chief Francis , but Jeff , tell us a little bit about you , your background and kind of . I know it's lengthy and you got quite the rapport .

I'm I also retired a couple years ago from Salt Lake City Police Department and doing mental health counseling . Now that's kind of a short version military veteran and some other stuff , but thank you for your service .

It's called warrior SOS and I I work with a handful of guys from the joint special operations community , so guys from Delta Force , and Not that I wasn't in that organization , but I just happen to know a lot of good dudes from a lot of different organizations .

So the first guy to go public with his post-traumatic stress from the unit Delta Force did so in my book , and actually three guys from the unit wrote in my book . So which is kind of different anyway , every chapter is a different story .

And there's a handful of guys who are also police officers , you know Navy seal and you know some other stuff just telling about their story .

So it was very cathartic for me to interview them and then , you know , put publish that , because I thought , in fact , one of my buddies from from the unit said you know , I said , hey , I feel I shouldn't be feeling the way I'm feeling because my experiences were so much less than yours , and that's one of the bad things we do .

We tend to compare yeah , that compare it's bad , it's yeah , when we compare it's awful . Anyway , I remember him saying Jeff , don't ever say that your experiences are hard-run . I still wouldn't believe it , but anyway , so that's that's that . I did some stuff with the State Department and and US government customers .

What I can say is classified contract and yeah , I did some stuff with air marshals and you know just some stuff here and there makes it sound .

There's like 27 million millionaires in the US , but there's only 364,000 full-time firefighters . And so it was just like it's pretty cool that you have a job that really it's a pretty small group and no one can buy their way into this job . Like no you know , and so anyway it's .

But to have some of those experience , it doesn't matter who you are or what kind of power you have , like some of these jobs , you have to go through a specific channel to get there , and most people just don't have what it takes , right , yeah , so I think that's pretty neat .

Tell us a little bit more about you know , for a Topic that's usually pretty taboo , you know no one wants to talk about it , no one wants to address it head-on . You know it's usually something we all avoid .

How come you chose to , you know , jump in with both feet and kind of start addressing and books and blogs and you know All the things to really kind of get some information out there and then , of course , go the full .

So I have a lot of that background and I work with an organization called first responders first . It's not the California rehab one , that's a different one , it's the Utah based first responders first and we just work with First responders and their family members and have contracts with different agencies .

But I think you know a lot of times I just wanted to kind of figure out I've always been fascinated by Psychology , especially in the 90s when I first took a crisis negotiation course from from . I just fascinated by how people work and dealing with suspects and just human beings .

And I think you know , even before going over to Iraq I was doing some stuff with the state department in Israel . We were escorting us diplomats into the West Bank on the Gaza Strip and just talking about the whole mindset it takes to do a job , some kind of first responder type job .

We're dealing with life and death and so the mindset for years and years , especially from a tactical point of view , oh , I eat that stuff up .

Yeah , you know everything , from Reading Dave Grossman to whoever else and just trying to comprehend and understand how it is that we can do what we do and do it so much differently than the normal population , kind of like you pointed out . You know , sure , it'd be nice if we were millionaires , but we're not .

If there's 27 , whatever , how many , 27 million , 27 million millionaires , that's crazy . That's a lot like anybody can do that .

I had done a lot of stuff in law enforcement . I was at Dallas police department before 9 11 and that 9 11 changed everything . And then that changed of course Of my career , when I started doing stuff with the government and then air marshals , and then eventually led me out here to Salt Lake City when I retired . But you know , I don't know .

funny , tells a bit about , about your resume and you know all the different jobs that you've had and and what's neat about yours is you've had them all like at the same time .

Well , actually the interest in becoming a paramedic started when I was six .

My brother and I were twins and born pretty early and he had some medical issues and would have seizures all the time and I noted I think was about around one of my six years old Paramedics had come in and and do their job and , you know , make everybody Feel good and take care of my brother and stuff .

And I just noted that I wanted to be that for somebody else someday and that kind of stuck with me and off and on I wanted to be a dnr guy and I wanted to be a cop and all those kind of things . And in 1996 I got the fortunate opportunity to join Menden City volunteer fire department and that's where I fell in love with the fireside as well .

The rest is history . You know I've worked for quite a few different agencies . You know volunteer agencies with Menden and North Logan , and I worked for thai call fire department , ogden fire , roy fire , you know , and law enforcement side Cache county sheriff's office , where I still am Davis county north park police department .

Us Kind of sounds like I drove around a lot , right like I'm a bad employee or something , but it was just . I just couldn't get enough of it . You know , your passion drives you sometimes and really enjoyed my career . I flew for air med from 2016 to just as of last year , which was a super cool job .

That's a whole different aspect of public safety that kind of gets overlooked , but it's pretty amazing . It's a lot of fun . That's also pretty stressful , and you know so , but I've had a really lucky career Really , and I feel very fortunate that I've been able to do everything I've been able to do so Well that's pretty awesome .

And I actually had A guy tell me on fridays hey , when are you guys going to do a podcast on burnout ? How's that going ? Well , you are in line , so . But I think that's a huge issue that a lot of people just don't know how to deal with . Right , and sometimes we deal with it by Taking on even more , because that's what you know .

As long as we're busy , then we don't really have to deal with burnout , we can just Distract ourselves with something else , and so we invited Jeff here today to answer all of our questions and solve all of our problems .

What are some , I guess , warning signs , or you know , because it seems like one of those things that you kind of kick that can down the road and then all of a sudden , like you're a zombie , right , and there's got to be some earlier warning signs that you could do to prevent from getting to that stage .

In fact , let me say , let me point out something that Firefighters in one study said that over the course of their career They'll experience seven , 700 critical incidents , if I'm getting that right to two , as civilians .

So over the course of a career , 700 critical incidents versus two , and that's 350 times more than any civilians that your experience critical incident . So it really takes a toll and at some point or another there's going to be some symptomology of post-traumatic

stress . Now I don't want to say I don't label people . I don't want to label people , and nor do I want to be labeled of having post-traumatic stress Disorder . But what I'd like to call it is something that's called emergency responder exhaustion syndrome and everybody , at one point of their career or not , is going to have it if they're a first responder .

An emergency responder exhaustion syndrome has four components one is depression or sadness to isolation or withdrawal , and then the last two are physical and emotional exhaustion . So if you combine all four of those that's just burnout .

Now , the DSM , which is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , the latest one , it does not say or include burnout , but the international classification of disorders , icd number 11 , does include burnout and the three main components for that is , excuse me is exhaustion , which was already pointed out in the Emergency Responder , exhaustion Syndrome , negativity

and cynicism . That doesn't happen , right , oh , never . And then having professional difficulties , engaging or working . It's burnout . Burnout is very normal and I think we could normalize , saying okay , yeah , why does somebody get burnout ? It's 100% normal At one point or another . That exhaustion's gonna happen At one point or another , sadness is gonna happen .

It's because , one , you're human . But sometimes the sadness or depression , whether it's clinically diagnosed or just you're just feeling burnout or sad , it's because you're normal . And part of it comes from what Victor Frankel , who was held by the Nazis forever , kind of talked about it as like , what's your meaning ?

The meaning in suffering , and the other part of it is their biological changes that occur . So what happens is firefighters get in the job and they say , okay , here's what I wanna do , I wanna go save people , I wanna help people , and you get on the job and you go to the same things over and over .

Let's say , you go in a mental health situation and pretty soon you get really frustrated at that person . You're like , nah , I just don't wanna go again to this person . And it starts to wear on you and exhaust you .

A lot of people especially you've been in the job for a while can identify with that and then eventually it wanes out and you find your happy place . But you can get really irritated at that because you're constantly exposed to negativity and you can't do the job without getting some of that on you to some degree .

It doesn't mean it has to be huge or colossal . In fact , you probably can think of people who are a little bit more prickly than others with the negative negativism and cynicism and you're like , okay , well , that's just burnout , yeah , what's ?

Because I think we all have the moments where it's like , dude , I'm done , but it's like then you have a good four off and you're recharge , ready to go , but then it seems like there's almost like a deeper burnout where it just feels like there's no amount of break or relaxation that gets me out of that rut . And I don't know if that's a different thing .

Maybe that's not burnout . I don't know if you felt any of that before , josh , but man , like , certainly for me , I just feel like sometimes I'm so busy on my four off trying to keep all the other plates spinning that by the time I get back to shift , like the shift is actually my break . I'll go on any crisis you want me to go on .

This is my chance to like turn everything else off and just come here and kind of hide from the world for a little bit . You know , I'd be interested to hear what Josh .

So what you described initially sounds like stress to me , but the accumulation of the stress with no real way to relieve it ends up turning into burnout , with the exhaustion and the fatigue and the isolation and those kinds of things . So if we don't deal with the stress , it turns into burnout .

But with the whole peer stuff that we're doing right now , it's amazing because we can recognize that in somebody , and it used to be probably same for you . But back when we started in this business , it was like , hey , man , this is your job . You suck it up , push it down , push on , because this is what you do .

So you didn't talk about it right , and so you'd be sad by yourself or you would question am I the right person for this job ? Whereas now we tell people right off the bat hey , this job can eat you alive , and we want to talk about it . Every time we have a bad something happen or we recognize something and somebody doesn't seem right , let's address it .

And it's like going to a structure fire . It's like how do you put the fire out if you don't recognize the house is on fire ? And so that's what we're doing now the peer program , all of the stuff we're doing with therapy , therapists , and having to come right along with this , having to talk with us in podcasts amazing .

I wish I had this when I was starting my career . Yeah , so I feel like the stress builds up over time , but we're doing such a better job of dealing with that stress , but that person still has to recognize it themselves . Everybody around you can say , hey , you seem a little stressed , are you okay ? Or I feel like you're burned out , bro , what's going on ?

But if they don't recognize it themselves , they still can't be helped . So that's the part where we all need to band together and bring in professionals to help us , Professionals that understand what we're going through . I was telling you earlier I've been involved with so many processes of critical incident stress debriefings and it wasn't called management .

Then it was debriefing , and you'd go into these and you'd be surrounded in this big room , in this big circle of everybody that was involved , Sometimes people that weren't involved , and it seemed like a blame game .

It seemed like the psychologist or therapist that was there had no clue what we do for a living , and so I'd shut down immediately and I wouldn't even participate , and so I had lost faith in this whole process until the peer team started doing their thing and I thought you know what , if I'm gonna help our people be healthy , I need to go talk to a therapist

just to see the process . And I found faith in it again because I got help through a process that I didn't even know I had . So it was pretty amazing . So I'm a 100% believer in the peer program , in going to therapy and just when something's not right , say something . If you see a need , take care of it .

And that means if you're not doing well , I need to say something to you and talk to you about it and forward you to the people on the peer team that can help .

And so you know , if somebody comes in a little different , that shift or snaps or something they usually don't like , I think the crew picks up on it pretty quick , but it's , do we just give that guy his space , or do we bring it up , or do we poke the bear even more , which firefighters would never do ? No , never , no .

But you can break down stress into two different categories you stress , which is EU , which I think it's Greek or Latin for good stress , and distress , which is horrible and awful . So even the good stress can be exhausting .

And by good stress I mean you know what , if you're looking for a new car you gotta buy , or you're having a baby or you're moving those , even if they're good , it's exhausting and so and it still kind of it takes a toll on us a little bit .

So there's , I think , part of the biggest thing about identifying and kind of managing our own burnout is to realize one we're first . We're human . So if we have a sad day , that's 100% normal .

But from a chemical point of view , if you're constantly going , if you're going on calls initially and you have an adrenaline dump and it just you're getting all the different chemicals , the epinephrine and norepinephrine and even hits of dopensiratone and stuff .

That's kind of what's been called to be in a flow state where you basically forget about everything else and you have to concentrate and those chemicals take effect in your brain and they affect your body . So it's like , hey , life and death is on the line .

I have to concentrate , I forget every single , and it feels good to be at work , it feels good to have those calls . So we tend to want to continue to do those things that will help us fill that way , which is why we sometimes continue in the same career fields , even on or four days off .

So you got firefighters being firefighters elsewhere , or flight medics or whatever , just because it feels good , and so we can become almost addicted . I'm addicting addiction's probably the wrong word , but as high performers we want to continue to do that and it feels good .

And then we say , oh , and this is my family , these are people who get it , they understand me . Sometimes my family might not understand me entirely , because so-called normal people they don't get it , they don't understand . So it's sometimes gonna just shift us a little bit where we might be having more attention to other career fields .

Now , that's not to say that it's bad not at all . In fact , oftentimes we need to have another job because we're not getting paid enough anyway .

Because I feel like I'm addicted to being in stressful situations , and a part of it , too , is because I don't have to think about what I'm gonna do , because I'm trained right , and so when I go into a situation where it's a stressful environment and you gotta make decisions , it goes back to training and I fall back on that and I don't have to think , I

don't have to second guess myself . It just happens right , and so I get addicted to that feeling and I feel like all the stuff I've done , and I've all done it close to the same time . I was gonna ask you do you think it's possible I was addicted to stress .

But what happens sometimes is if our expectations is one way and reality is not what our expectation is , so we go on those calls , we're like , oh cool , it's a crash , and we get there and it's like little kids , then that can psychologically give us a blindside , because all that we hoped for is like , yes , a cool crash with sometimes nasty stuff , and we're

like , all right , I can handle it today . But if reality something in that is not what we expected , then it gives us distress , not the good stress , it gives us the bad stress . So it imbalances us , just like because I brought up 9-11 , just like that Tuesday morning , all those workers going up into the World Trade Center .

They didn't think about killing themselves that day , but the fire got too hot and they jumped to their death . And so sometimes it can switch on a dime really immediately , really quick to say , oh , that was not what I expected . Now it's 100%

different . Now , to get more pointed , I guess on what you're talking about is the addiction to stress . The chemical makeup just makes us feel alive because it's so important . We're dealing with life and death , and so what happens is I can remember multiple times going with my wife and her friend and her friend's husband .

So we're going on a double date and we're dinner talking and they're talking about boring , dumb stuff that doesn't matter , and I'm like , why can't we talk about something about life and death ? So the boredom of life and the boredom of other people we start to isolate because they're like , they're not normal . I'm normal and guess what ?

I'd rather be with people who are more like me . Does that make more sense ?

But in the moment of a call it's like I know I'm doing the most important thing right now and I know if they saw exactly what I was doing at this moment , they wouldn't blame me for not working on their project . They'd be OK with me responding to this accident or helping this family , and so that's where I would put that addiction side is .

Yeah , so I'm going to always go on calls because that's how I avoid the stuff that I'm behind on that I don't want to deal with . But man being on shift and it's just I don't know . I've been running my business for 10 years and it's a passion too .

But something I've always loved about the fire department is I'm doing something that matters on the most fundamental level , like helping people with their marketing or helping people with these projects , is awesome and I love being creative and doing those things , but at the end of the day .

It's like fire department , that's like stuff that on the most basic level , like this matters , like if my business and that skill set went away tomorrow , the world's going to carry on , but if the fire department , the Logan City fire department , went down tomorrow , that would be national news and that's pretty crazy to think about .

But anyway , for me I think that's whether you call it avoidance or procrastination or whatever label that's what I found at the fire department . It's hard to sometimes switch back to business mode on the four off , because I love that feeling so much and it was a good , pure escape , doing good things that matter .

And that happens a lot . So after a few years and I've read some studies , but in my own view I've seen , and I've said it for years , about seven years you got some serious baggage . You know your emotional trash bin is full and you've got to find a way to empty it and so burnout can happen big time before then or after then .

But about then it starts to happen and it's the symptomology of some post-traumatic stress that just starts to accumulate and then it gets complex , cumulative post-traumatic stress . Not that everybody has it , but everybody has emotional or emergency responder exhaustion syndrome at one point in their career or another where you just feel burnout .

So if you're burnt out at work , how do you pull the reins on that ? How do you try to say , okay , I need to help myself , because here's the other thing that happens . You go on these high speed calls all the time where nothing else matters and you're feeling in the flow While you get some dopamine and serotonin hits during those calls .

When you get so good at it like you were explaining Josh , where you're like okay , I can thrive in this area because I know what I'm doing Once you get so good at it , then you sometimes don't even get the shakes , like the first time you're intubating somebody , you might have some shakes and your guts are changing a little bit , and afterwards you might have

a little bit of adrenaline shake at the end . But guess what ? After the hundredth time you have no emotion . I remember having this situation that was pretty heinous happen . I came home and I told my wife . I said I didn't shake , I didn't feel anything , I felt numb . And she goes that because you're broken .

But it's not because you're broken , it's because you get used to the feelings of adrenaline . So when you're not in those seconds and in those moments that matter , your dopamine , the neurotransmitter that makes us feel good , your dopamine , your serotonin , your endorphins deplete , they go straight down . And if they're down , then it just makes you feel numb .

In psychology it's called a flat A-fect , where you don't feel anymore , you're just , you're like well , I used to like doing this . Now I don't . All right , I used to like doing something , but I just feel numb inside . I remember after coming home from Iraq I told my wife . I said I think I'm gonna go skydiving , and a lot more than I had in the past .

And I said and then I'll get my certificate , my birth certificate , excuse me so I can go be a trainer , just because I needed something to feel alive again .

So sometimes first responders engage in behaviors that makes them feel alive again , and sometimes those are negative , whether they're getting on a motorcycle and going 180 or they're engaging in risky behaviors .

Now that could be risky sexual behaviors , it could be risky relationship behaviors , it could be out , it could even be drug use , something that says , okay , I need something to feel alive again . So when a first responder gets in trouble for behaviors , I would say it's because of , or at least in part because , of , the several years of doing the job .

We cannot say , we cannot take the private life and the personal and the professional life and say , well , they're separated now .

No , I can tell you , I can think of a handful of individuals who've gotten in trouble or lost their jobs or gotten an administrative leave , and I could very clearly say they're not dealing with a burnout , they're not dealing with the trauma and that's what's caused the problem .

So the behaviors have , well , the accumulation of trauma , which disturbing events I think we use trauma too much the accumulation of disturbing events have gotten so compiled in that in our emotional trash bins that we decide well , we just need to feel alive again .

That's the burnout right , or the depression and the sadness and withdrawal , the physical and emotional exhaustion . Now , because I don't feel alive again , I need to do something that makes me feel alive again . What is that ? You have either positive or negative behaviors , whether you're going and sleeping with strippers or doing other stuff that's risky and unhealthy .

It because it makes you feel alive . Wow .

Sometimes , but so if you're in spot where I feel like I'm right now , where work at the fire department is my stimulant or whatever that's , but from what I gather from what you're saying , if you get over time that's gonna get to a point where that stops , like you stop finding the flow because you're just not stimulated by that anymore , and then that's a

dangerous spot to be right , like if you've and whatever else is going on in your life , and then you're out of the flow at work because you've done it so much you're numb . Well , that's a bad place to be because you're desperately gonna seek somewhere else , right ? Am I understanding that correctly ?

Now it's not per se the numbness , because sometimes training can get so good and experience can get so good that if we're doing something like hey , we're on scene and we're used to going to scenes , it's mass chaos and we take control on it to ABC and D , and we can do that , and we can do that in a very good way , that we're used to it , we need to ,

and that's not necessarily a bad thing . But if we start to feel completely burnt out , we need to find something that gives us energy .

And part of that might not be the job , because after a while , when it went the energy that drove us into the job , after a while it might deplete us , and so we have to find something else that we need to focus on to help us to find that passion .

And it's not about just finding pseudo-passion , it's not about finding something that's like gives us a fix , it's finding something about giving us purpose , giving us meaning , making us feel good . Now , the body is very tightly connected to how we think and vice versa . So I would say the number one thing to help with avoiding burnout is sleep .

Here's the problem with firefighters If you're at a busy station , you're not getting sleep and then , on your four pack , you're going to work another fire job . What's your sleep like ? Or what's your sleep like on your four pack ? The number one thing is you've got to monitor and give time for your sleep .

You need seven to nine hours , according to this studies . You've got to focus on your sleep and lots of times people are like eh , I can survive on less .

Yes , it was very minuscule , so I was tossing and turning and so I mean I have to use Ambien to go to sleep because I can't shut my mind off . But am I really restful at that point of ? Not , right , because it's just .

Yeah , I may be still , but my mind is still going crazy , and sleep is probably the biggest downfall for me in the recovery process of all of it . I can't sleep and I don't know exactly why I've been like that for a long time , because there's been a lot of years where you're .

But when you're a light sleeper or you're getting tones , or if the tones are going off , but even though you don't have to go , maybe it's you know and you're used to that and you have to get used to that , then you become a light sleeper at home and then sometimes if there's additional worry , additional stress , then you're not sleeping well .

And then you know , after 20 years and you retire , guess what ? It's still going to be somewhat similar . It's hard to shut it off .

. I didn't even put that together .

The other thing is , if you're drinking coffee first thing in the morning because you feel tired is because you're not getting enough sleep before Now . Is caffeine needed sometimes ? Heck yeah , absolutely . But you got to be careful of the caffeine intake .

Caffeine , nicotine they will cause massive sleep issues and actually , interestingly , caffeine and nicotine addictions are mentioned in the diagnostic statistical manual for mental disorders Like interesting .

I've read something the other day that it's like the work-life balance thing is such a terrible thing to try to go after because it's just impossible unless you're willing to let go of some things . You can't just keep piling stuff on your plate and expecting to balance that Like that's going to be a miserable way to live .

But it's so hard to let go of things right . And I kind of want to dig into your decision to leave Airman , because I know that wasn't easy .

I had been gone for a couple of days and then I was going to be going immediately into doing some training for my own trauma long attack and my son , jack , he's 14 . Well , he was 14 . He's 15 now , but at the time he said something really profound to me and that kid's brain man , it's incredible .

But he just said hey , dad , you're never here , I'd really like to have you here . And he said something about my oldest son , logan , who's 19 now but was 18 at the time . He says hey , logan's , he's no longer a kid , he's 18 . You missed all of that . I don't want you to miss the last parts of me being a kid .

Not exactly in those words , but that was his meaning and it was like , oh my gosh , that's what finally had me take a look at it . And I don't know why it took that , but for my kid to tell me that something's not right . Obviously my wife has told me hey , man , you're too busy . You got to slow down .

But I think I was involved with that passion , that drive , and I kept thinking I'm doing this for my family . But I don't think I was . I think I was doing it for me . The more we talk , the more I feel selfish . But I was always thinking , man , I've got to make the money , I've got to be everything I can be so my kids have everything they need .

There's no wants or anything like that . But what it really comes down to from what I'm realizing now , is I was probably pretty addicted to that stress response and being in the moment , because I live my life in moments . It's I don't know , hypervigilant is probably a good word for a lot of the stuff I do too .

I mean , it's like you know as well as I do . You go into a restaurant . You sit with your back against the wall so you can see the door . You never sit with your back to a door , stuff like that . But it's those kind of things over time that build up and I'm like I probably should start figuring out how to be normal , because I'm close to retirement .

My whole identity , my whole life has revolved around the fire service , being a law enforcement officer and being a flight paramedic and my self-value was based on that . It's like I'm not a good person unless I do these things . It made me feel great . That gave me that feedback that I'm doing a good job , that these people need me , right .

And so when my kid told me that Jack , I was like hey , he needs me . And so I made the very difficult decision to quit a job that I absolutely loved . Flying with AirMed was an incredible experience . The people there are amazing . I got to do things that I never imagined I'd get to do . And , let's put it this way , flying on helicopters are just cool .

I mean you know that they're amazing and the stress of being in flight on a helicopter . I mean the whole time you're just buzzing with adrenaline , even if you're just going to a standard flight or you're just rotating aircraft to do some maintenance or whatever . It was an incredible feeling because helicopters are trying to kill you every second you're in them .

There's nothing natural about that . So I mean it's a pretty cool feeling . I love it . The sound , the smell of the jet fuel you know jet A's got a cool smell that I will never forget . I hope they make a cologne someday it's jet A , I would buy it for sure . But you .

To give that up was super hard , and that was the time I decided I need to be the father that I should have been for the last 18 years , and so I gave my resignation notice to my supervisor , which was it literally took me two months to write and I would start writing it and then I'd stop and it's like I can't do this .

I kept saying I need the money , I need the money , and so I was blaming it on other things , but really it was good for me to feel that way . So since I've left AirMed and I've kind of lightened my load , I still work for Cache County Sheriff's Office on the SWAT team , but you know those are trainings and SWAT responses .

I'm not doing that every day , so that's a pretty light workload there . And Trauma Llama obviously isn't an everyday thing and it is a passion of ours , and so I'd really still enjoy doing that . I couldn't give that up .

So AirMed was the victim here for me and it's like this isn't something I have to do , so I let go of it and it was super , super hard for me . I don't think I've ever been , let's say , clinically depressed , but I went through a period of time where I was super sad .

Every time I'd hear a hell of , I'd run out of my house to see who it was or what they were doing . And you know , following AirMed on Instagram , it just killed me to see all the cool stuff they were doing and I wasn't part of it anymore . But what I did ? I looked back and I could see , you know , my kid right there , jack and Logan , and my wife .

I was actually spending way more time at home and all of a sudden I noticed my stress load started to relieve a little bit and I was like I'll be in a home , it's kind of cool . And so I started doing stuff that you know , around the house . I mean , I was always busy . I'm the kind of guy that feels guilty if I'm just sitting , like right now .

I kind of feel guilty because I'm not you know I'm we're talking I'm not the kind of guy that can just sit down and relax , never been able to do that . I don't think a lot of first responders are yeah .

So so I've always , I'm always super , super busy , but now I'm doing projects around the house I put off forever and ever because I didn't have time to do it , you know , and I've actually found some enjoyment in that , and just recently spent a week and a half in the UN is with no phone contact and all that kind of stuff . I really enjoyed that .

I caught fish , I went riding in my razor and you spent time with my family . It was like wow , I might even be able to be retired someday . But I think the self identity part of it is still hard for me because you know I was somebody , right , I was important to the organization . They needed me .

I don't , you know , I used to think my family doesn't really need me . You know , I'm just , I provide a paycheck and I'm , you know , I'm some emotional support form sometimes , but they don't really need me . They can get along without me . But I'm realizing now that's not the truth . Yeah , so yeah .

And so it's just like that impossible conundrum of being a provider and being a dad , like they just bash heads all the time , like how do you ?

I don't know , but I think that's it's pretty admirable to be able to set that aside and recognize with your kid and make that decision and be able to stick with it and now seeing a lot of the benefits , I think that's pretty awesome .

As much as I love flying and being with those people and doing what I did , I think I'm happier now . So I don't know , it's that some weird no you know you hit everything .

Okay , we identify ourselves so much . It's one of the reasons that retirement can be very difficult .

So when you pull back from air med , for instance , you know you're like , hey , that's part of me , that's part of what makes me feel good , just like when you need to prepare yourself for retirement . It's like you need to have something , a passion , something that interests you , whatever it is , that'll help you wake up in the morning .

Yeah , so you have a purpose and a reason to wake up . That's

super important . One of the other things about burnout is we have some unrealistic expectations on ourselves that we put that I was going to ask you about expectations .

You still don't feel like your expectations for your performance and for what happened were always higher than actual reality . But maybe you did the best that could possibly be done . But our expectations are so much higher for ourselves . We leave those calls feeling like oh man , you know , maybe I shouldn't be doing this anymore .

And it seems like that happens on almost every one of those bad calls . Yeah Right , you have those expectations of your performance and it doesn't go exactly as planned and it's hard to . It's hard to feel like you did something good . Yeah , is that weird to ?

And so that's where I think choosing to let go of something has to be part of this process . If you're going to get rid of burnout , you can't keep expecting to do all of this stuff and maintain I'm so glad you brought that up again a second time , brent , because you know you need to say no .

Your plate gets really full and then stuff starts to fall off your plate because you can't do multiple things good at once and you hit that .

I'm glad you brought that up , cause I , the more you do , it feels like , the more you drop , like if you're the go to guy , but the more you're juggling , it's just like all of a sudden you start dropping everything and you're no longer able to perform like you wanted to , and people not saying that they won't come and ask you , but it's like obviously there's

something wrong cause you aren't performing at the level you used to and dropping the ball happens and that's part of being so busy is , and it makes you feel horrible , right and so that's that personal self talk that you're saying , well , gosh , now I'm not good enough , now I can't do this , and , man , we destroy ourselves .

already busy , because you know they're going to get stuff done , which is interesting . Yeah , it's kind of that interesting paradox is somebody who doesn't do anything ever and I'm not talking about fire service , right , I'm just talking about somebody who is completely checked out and lazy . They might not get stuff done .

So I'm going to go to the person who's not that way , who's a driver , to get them done and just putting more on their plates , yeah , and they don't say no , correct , well , and that's like every firefighter , because every firefighter has a second job . Pretty , much everyone that I know of .

And I think it just comes back to because when you have to be organized with your time and you know , they just did better at school , the ones that could only focus on school , they had all this wiggle room and procrastination was easier to take place and it was just interesting . But it's like I don't know . At the same time , you feel guilty .

It's like , well , just because they're going to perform better , do we really put one more thing on this guy ? Or do we do I accept one more thing on my plate just because I know I can , you know , do it better than the next guy , or I know it'll get done if I do it .

But one thing that jumped out to me while you're telling your story , josh , is that you know , come back to finding that source of energy . It seems like you found it with your family , right ?

right .

She's been doing it as long as I have , so she knows exactly what I'm going on . She knows what I'm talking about , she knows the lingo . She , you know she deals with officers , she deals with you know fire . So when I've had a bad call , she knows exactly what's going on , because she probably experienced the exact same call on a different level .

So she's been my rock and not a lot of people have that in their life . So , sandy , if you're listening , I love you , thank you , and now you're making the rest of us so bad , sorry yeah .

We've talked a lot about recognizing yourself , some steps to take and finding a new source of energy , letting go of some things , letting go of some terrible expectations after yourself or some good steps . But now let's say somebody on your crew or somebody close to you . You're starting to tell their burnout . What are some things you can do to help them ?

One is if we're talking about energy , which is really the antithesis of burnout , we need to understand okay , if you look at the mitochondria in the cell , that's what needs us , that's what helps us get in our energy . So we need to make sure we get rest . We need to exercise on a regular basis . That can help produce energy .

We need to eat things that are going to help us not to be , you know , a food Nazi , but we do need to make sure that if we're underweight or overweight , it will . It can mess up our energy , but also just movement and exercise and resistance can help us . But not only that . We need work .

We 100% need something to do and sometimes if there's a , if there's people , firefighters off on a four pack and there's nothing to do , that's a problem . We need people and then we need to really understand that purpose and that meaning . There's something else , that greater purpose , for the reason that we're suffering .

Now , if we're suffering just to suffer , that's masochism . We don't say doesn't whatever . We don't want to just suffer , remove that suffering , but , on the other hand , is like we need to understand well , how can I help others , or how can I help myself , or what is my belief in that thing that causes that distress ? We need to try to remove that barrier .

So , as I would be seeing something like that in a friend , one of the things that I might ask them , the first and foremost , is what are you doing for you ? Self care , self care . People can't make a list and , honestly , it's very difficult to make a list . I would say well , what are you doing for you ?

Okay , if you had , if you have , five minutes , what do you do ? If you had 15 minutes or a half an hour , what do you do ? You better create a list , write down the things that will make you happy , whether it's listening to a song or doing something .

If you have a half a day or a half an hour or two or three hours , what do you do for you to give you energy ? The science has shown that social media , a half an hour of social media or a half an hour of television , will deplete your energy .

Oh , I believe it 100% , and I think with social media it can get even worse , because then we're comparing each other and we're looking at something else and the algorithms are created in such a way that we keep scrolling and then pretty much we just we would get more energy from literally staring at a wall because we have to think about .

So trying to write , what are you doing on a daily basis to help yourself ? I would say write , read and educate . The science behind meditation and prayer is phenomenal , but it's also kind of understanding like , okay , why did I have to deal with this situation and why did I have to ? Let me just say this really fast .

So Russell M Nelson , president of the Church of Jesus Christ of the United States , also developed the heart . He made breakthrough stuff with the heart .

Before that happened , he helped with a family who's a heart deficiency and a little kid that died , and I think he operated on another kid and then he operated on their daughter , a little child , and he and she died . He said he went home and he said he cried all night to his wife . He said I'm never going to do anything again .

It was too emotionally impactful for him to see the pain of this family that they lost three of their kids and that his work or action or inaction , whatever he did to that for that little girl and then she died . He literally cried all night . He said his wife comforted him . He said at five o'clock in the morning she finally said something to him .

That said something to the fact of okay , get back in there and work and develop something . Then that was the impetus that allowed him to develop something , to the heart where he's you know , a world-renowned heart surgeon , because he created something that helped him to help others Purpose .

There was purpose in this suffering and , honestly , a lot of times we miss that out . We just feel like gosh , oh , we feel sad , we feel depressed , we want to withdraw on ice , we're like why ? There is purpose in the suffering and sometimes , like the Stoics say , the obstacle is the way . So part of it is just let's use things a little bit differently .

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

Like seriously , it was incredible .

It's like that would be like in the with the surgeon story , you know , it's like of course that's what would happen in the movie . He uses that as the origin story to fuel this great thing , and so sometimes I try to step back and do that same thing .

It's hard , like it's way easier said than done , but if you can at least start that shift , I think that's a great tool and sometimes helping somebody else . I remember my wife . So my wife's a nurse in the ER , so I'm , you know , also lucky to have somebody that gets it a little bit , yeah .

But I remember she came home one day and was just totally burnt out , you know , exhausted and just feeling like . I can't even remember the exact circumstance . But she's describing all these things to me that she just felt like she was failing and it was much easier for me to do it for her than it is for me to do it for myself .

But I just said here's what I see .

I see a working mom who was just up all night long taking care of sick people , got home , made breakfast for everybody and is killing it , you know , and just reading it and just doing all of these things , like that's pretty awesome , like you know , and but in her mind she was just behind on everything and so I was going to be my my little thing that

again , it's so much easier said than done . But I think sometimes people that are burned out more than because her situation didn't change .

I didn't relieve her of having to do night shifts or the fact that I was now going on shift and was about to dump the three kids on her right , but instead just allowing her to be seen Like I see you and I see what you're doing and here's what I see . That's all she needed for that moment to feel a little less burned out .

Well , at least somebody knows what I'm going through . My burden is the same , everything's the same , but at least I'm seen and and I know in return , you know when that's given to me . It just seems like those are the moments where I feel the lightest . Nothing changed .

But , man , at least this guy knows what I'm going through fully , there's no secrets here and he gets it , and that has gone a long way for me . That's awesome .

Or you know and then just be quiet and listen , or what would you tell them ? Because too often we're not compassionate on ourselves or we don't have the same rules for ourselves that we would for others . Well , I tell him he needs to go talk to a therapist .

Or I tell him it's okay , and but no , we don't ever say that to ourselves , because when we talk to ourselves because everybody does it we're usually telling something that's wrong , and then we believe it because we're the one saying it .

But you know , the moments where somebody says something like man , you're doing a ton and we recognize it and , coming from admin , you know like man , that has a huge impact .

So where I think sometimes as the leader even of our , the leader of our own families , that mom or dad , like you , feel like you got to fix everything and I'm sure admin feels the same way Like , oh , maybe this crew is unhappy or is going through a lot , I got to go fix it . Sometimes I think fixing it isn't always the answer .

It's just let them know they're seeing , I love that and it's been guys like Chief Francis and I had called years ago as Chief Brady Hansen and you know it's just some of these statements that I know they don't even remember saying , but in that moment man it helped me be seen and just helped validate what I was going through .

And I still had to get through it all by myself , but just knowing that they saw where I was .

I remember I had a really rough call several years ago that bothered me for some time . I don't know if that same calls doing the same thing to you now or if you've had other calls . You know it allows an atmosphere where they can talk and you acknowledge that you're seeing challenges in them and you just open it up .

But the power of a ribbon says hey , guess what I'm going to do ? A buddy check , so I'm just going to . If I'm thinking of somebody , I randomly text them hey , buddy check , he just thinking about you . There's power in that . Oh , yeah , absolutely .

There's power in putting your arm around somebody and saying , hey , you know what , thanks for doing what you're doing . I see it Because too often we don't get those positive reinforcements we often we talk bad about ourselves or we have this expectation of being a perfect superhero to save every single person and we can't .

It's just that's not the way life is , and so if somebody , if you and me , we just go out of our way to say and to do something nice , it might be a huge difference and it very well could . I'll tell you of a story the guy I know he stepped on a IUD or a mine or whatever it was over in Afghanistan , lost both of his legs and his good arm .

And I remember I called him , I wanted to get together and wouldn't recognize him at this speech I was giving and wanted to give him an award . You know , I just want to like hey , I just want to recognize you as a Memorial Day or a Veterans Day event . And I said , hey , john , are you around ?

And he said no , I'm back at Walter Reed Hospital for another surgery . And we just tatted for a little while and I said hey , man , I just want you to know I love you . And I could hear him crying . And he said you know , I really needed that today . I was wondering if it was worth it anymore .

And I'll tell you , we can't see the amputees , we don't see the emotional amputations that are all around us . We need people to say hey , I care about you , I love you . I'm just thinking of . We need to do that . We need to do that for each other . That'll change people and it'll change . It'll get us out of our own discomfort If we're feeling blue .

There's a poem that says If you're blue , find something to do for someone who is sadder than you . Just go find somebody to be nice to , and it doesn't have to be big .

am I doing this job ? I mean , because I was both firefighter and a law enforcement officer and it's like I put on one uniform . I'm a different person than I was when I was wearing the other uniform , but I'm still the same person inside . People see me completely different .

But what made a huge difference for me was someone coming up to me and just saying I see you , thank you for what you're doing in this difficult time , and you know , it's like I brought me to tears right in front of me . It's like I'm you know , I'm in a uniform .

I shouldn't be crying in front of somebody , but when they said that , it was like it meant something to me . You know , because I was stressed . Everybody was stressed during those times and it hasn't gotten much better , but it has gotten better . But there was also a movement on Instagram that was hashtag I see you .

I don't know if you've ever saw those , but it was incredible the message that it did it that they sent , and total strangers on you've just Instagram , which I know . Social media is good and bad , but for the most part bad , but that meant something to me and so you know , even if it's someone you don't know , it means something but recognizing them .

So , as admin , I think that's important and we talk about that in our administrative meetings . It's like , hey , we got to make sure our people know how much we appreciate them . But it's easier said than done , right ?

I mean it's you go to the station and you know you're there to grab the mail and give staff meeting minutes and you know you're kind of just BSing with the guys and sometimes it's hard to remember to say , hey , I appreciate the effort you guys put forth on that last call . You know because you're in the mode of BSing stuff .

But when it comes from someone an admin , I can see you know how important that is , so I will pledge to do a better job , not done a bad job . You know , I think it means a lot . I appreciate that .

And so that even if you do nothing other than and I think that's a healthy , but I think it's cool that we circled all the way back to thank you for your service .

But can you also put yourself in a state where you allow yourself to be seen ? Can you be willing to share things with your crew so that they can see you ? And you know maybe they want to , but because if you're so close off on certain parts of your life , of course that's hard .

How do you see somebody that those emotional amputees like that's not you know , a physical thing that you can see all the time ? And so , just as we , wrap up man , this has been so awesome . We go on for hours but I only have so much storage space on these SD cards so but I really appreciate both of you guys being here today .

I think we probably should have done this episode very begin . I just think everybody has circled the waters or circled this topic in their career and in multiple ways , and so I really think this episode is going to do a lot of good for a lot of guys and appreciate you both being here .

And as always , we try to just end with a shout out to anybody listening , just as a reminder that the peer team is here to help in any way we can . The website and everything is . If you need to get help privately . You don't want people to know . There's a way to do that , but of course any member of the peer team and even admin wants to help .

Just kidding , but just hope you reach out and there's lots of people anxious to help you get to the spot in life that you want to be so you can start getting that happiness and that energy . And so please reach out . Thank you both for being here . We'll catch you on the next one .