Rich Reed | Discussion Combustion Podcast | #290

[00:00:00] We'll have this discussion. Discussion? What discussion? This is a discussion. Discussion Combustion. Coming to you from Denver, Colorado, this is Discussion Combustion Podcast with your hosts Kevin Batstone and Arthur Rawe. Discussion Combustion. We got Richard Reed on the couch. It's great to have you back. Good to be back. Appreciate it. Yeah, on short notice too. So that worked out because I came into today going, we don't even have a guest for tonight. And they're, it's like, oh, I got you covered.

[00:00:28] Well, you said you texted me on Monday, but in my mind, I feel like you texted me yesterday. Was it yesterday? It probably was. I mean, it could have been Monday. Time flies. I think it was late Monday. Like it was almost 9pm when it was like 8.59 and like, I try not to text people after 9pm. Yeah. So, so I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. I was like, I'm not doing anything better. I guess I'll come on to Discussion Combustion. Yeah. Round two. No, it's great. It's great to be back. Yeah, for sure. If you can believe it's been over two years since you and your wife, Rawe.

[00:00:58] It honestly feels like we were just here. I know. Yeah. Cause when I got thinking about it, I was like, it's been two years. We were the first episode of, was it 24? No, I guess it would have been 23. 23. We moved in here in 23, March of 23. So you guys must've been January or February. Yeah. 23. Well, we felt special last time cause we were the first one of the year. Oh yeah. So I must've been early January. That was awesome. And are you guys still working with that like agent who, who booked? He like called us. Yeah, that was Delroy.

[00:01:28] Yeah. Delroy. Yeah. Delroy Gill. Right. Yeah. He called us up. Yeah. Great guy. Um, we, um, if he has a listing, yeah, we're to answer your question. Yes. Okay. Um, we will always work with Delroy. We have a handful of agents that we work with. Um, if somebody has an opportunity for us, then we'll use them for that. And then we usually use them at the end of the opportunity where we're going to sell.

[00:01:52] So sometimes like agents come to us with like, um, lots, land or homes to renovate. And if they find a deal for us, then we'll use them like throughout the entire deal. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. So that makes sense. But Delroy, yeah, he's a great agent. Can't say enough good things about him. Yeah. When he called us, he's like, you got to get these guys on. Yeah. He's like, I have, I have the guests for you. I'm like, well, of course we're going to take that opportunity. Yeah. He's, I mean, you sold me. Well, hopefully, hopefully Anna and I lived up to it.

[00:02:19] It was good. I think it was one of our most feedback, you know, received episodes for sure. Yeah. And one, one line, and I probably said this to you when we were hanging out at Bull and Bush, but running in the same direction. Yeah. Running in the same direction. I've thought about that ever since. Yeah. That line, it's stuck. It's, that was like one thing. Sometimes we get gems from episodes and talking with people. It's like, wow, they said that sentence. I'm going to remember it for the rest of my life. Yeah. And yeah, you guys were talking about your success and how you started your relationship and how you're running in the same direction. Good memory. Wow. Yeah.

[00:02:49] That was a big one. Cause that was our, our, our church pastor when he was talking about relationships and find people running in the same direction. But it's business too. Have you ever noticed when you, when you wrap your mind around something? And I'm sure like in the podcast, you start running, you know, you want to do a podcast, you start running that direction that you find other people running that direction and you can kind of feed off of each other. You naturally build these relationships. Like in business, I'll think about, you know, we've been building, you know, custom homes, but I'll think about maybe I want to get into

[00:03:19] commercial or maybe we will want to build, um, do like different types of investments. So as I start to wrap my mind around it and run that direction, it naturally attracts people that are doing that. Yeah. And then you kind of get that, you know, network of people. At least I find that all the time. Yeah. I started talking to somebody like for me. Um, I kind of want to write a book called like sauna talk. Cause I talked to sauna, you know, like, cause I try to go to the gym in the mornings. Um, and there's, um, handful of guys that I see in the sauna.

[00:03:49] Yeah. And I'll just tell them about like, we all talk. I'll tell them about like ideas that I have, like, Oh, I'm thinking about doing commercial, you know, building or whatever that may be. And they're like, Oh, I know a guy. And anyways, it starts to happen. Wrapping your mind that direction. You start talking about it. Then naturally these relationships kind of form. It's like going to a networking event too. Like we'll, we'll get so many opportunities and leads and Oh, you should meet this person and that person. And then it just kind of snowballs from there. That's a good idea for a podcast though. Sauna talk.

[00:04:16] Like, you know, a couple of guys just chilling the towels on shooting the shit. Yeah. Sweating it out. You know, I have to tell you, I mean, it sounds crazy, but, um, cause you're like, you know, half naked with these dudes in the sauna. Like you're exposed, you're exposed, you're exposed. You can't be more vulnerable, but man, the thing, and I don't know if time matters, but, um, I always try to get there, get to the gym at six in the morning.

[00:04:40] Like I try to wake up early. I go six in the morning. Um, I'm hitting the sauna usually close to seven. So I think the mindset of people that are going that time are usually more motivated. That's true. People. Yeah. And so I think that naturally like brings more of a, um, you know, that network environment, you know, um, people that are more like-minded, I guess, but. Disciplined for sure. Those early morning workouts. So are you a 5.00 AM wake up or are you going 4.30?

[00:05:07] I never set an alarm. You just wake up. And I'm at like a 4.50 wake up guy. Yeah. Pretty consistent? Consistent. That's a good feeling. That is. Yeah. I messed around with that a little bit in late January. I did about a week, but I was having to set the alarm. Yeah. And it was tough. And I was trying to do it so I could get my workout in and like walk two miles, uh, and, you know, read a book and shower all before 7.00 AM.

[00:05:34] Yeah. Like, and I did it for a little bit. I always like to be honest. I hadn't stuck. I, if I fell off, it was difficult. But when I was doing it, there was like this, there's like a different energy when you're awake before other people. And I'm not talking about nighttime when you're partying. It's different when you wake up early and you're up before other people, like getting after your day. Right. And it is actually, I need to get back on that. I do.

[00:06:01] If, if I don't have a routine, like my day is thrashed, like, like I've, I've gotten so dependent on early wake up, hit the gym, get my workout in, um, do the sauna, have a cup of coffee. Um, now it's like coffee. Then I'll get a protein shake in the morning. Like you could script my morning pretty much. And for whatever reason that like just gets my, gets me in the right mindset, you know, um, just to start tackling the day.

[00:06:30] Do you do any rest days? Like Saturday, Sundays, no gym. Are you seven days at the gym? Oh no. Yeah. The, the weekends I don't. Okay. So it's Monday to Friday. I do the routine. I like that. Okay. You gotta have some rest, some R and R, sleep in a little bit. Yeah. Or are you still up at five? I still wake up early, but I'll just wake up. I'll have a cup of coffee at home. Then I'll think about all the chores I have to do and the kid run around and stuff like that. So it's a different level of mental engagement. I guess.

[00:06:54] But no, that, I love that too. And there is something really important about the patterns that we create. I'm going to mess this quote up, but it's something about like, it's, it's easier to have action to change your thought process. Than it is to think, to change your action. So it's like, you just, you just start doing it and stop thinking about it. That's right.

[00:07:21] And then eventually that will actually change the way that you think about it. Like, sure. You can affirm things. Like I'm not going to take away the power of the mind and affirmations and prayer or whatever, but sometimes just doing it, even when you don't want to.

[00:07:34] Like it was cold today, for example, and it was breezy and I still went for a quick swim, you know, and that's, that's kind of brutal when the wind's blowing on you. I do have like the swim cap. So that helps. But when you constantly put yourself into those positions too, that most people avoid, there's also like this realm of, you know, I'm doing things that most people are not willing to do.

[00:07:58] Well, you've, yeah. You have a sense of accomplishment doing that. Right. I mean, I think, you know, when I'm leaving the gym, um, I'll call people. My problem is, is I'll call people too early. Sometimes. I'll make phone calls at even 8.00 AM. I'll make phone calls 7.45, 8.00 AM. I'll try to line things up for the day. And people are like, Rich, I'm just waking up.

[00:08:22] Yeah. And I'm like, you lazy thing. Get yourself going. Yeah. Um, but it's so true. Just wrapping your mind around. Cause I mean, I've done that a lot. This hasn't always been my routine, but, um, I've actually been involved in weight loss challenge with a friend. Okay. How's that been going?

[00:08:42] So my, so my weight, I'm still not where like my, um, like my fighting weight, I call it. Okay. Um, but when I left like, um, the police and fire world, I weighed like 195 pounds. And then when I started my business, I went all the way up to 235. And now I'm back to like 205. Okay. Nice.

[00:09:01] So I'm back down, um, a bit, but, um, but I kept coming up with these excuses. I talked to people. I'm like, Oh, I'm too busy. I can't make it to the gym. Cause I have to get these emails. I have to make these phone calls. I have to be on these job sites early. And somebody was like, all right, fine. Just keep being nasty then, you know, like keeping out of shape and complaining about it. And then, and to your point, it was like, just changing that mindset and said, you know what? I need to make that change. I need to like, just do.

[00:09:28] And then once I started going to the gym in the mornings and then now it's becoming a routine. Whereas if I miss it, um, I just feel like my day's off. The whole thing is thrown off for sure. Yeah. It's kind of like that action speak louder than words thing, you know, going back to that quote, he was saying, just make it happen. Yeah. Just make it happen. Quit the excuses. Just make it happen. There's always going to be an excuse. We're the captain. We're in charge, you know, we're in charge of our body. We're in charge of our life, you know, just go. So how long into this challenge are we along? Um, three months.

[00:09:57] Um, I just got back. We were talking about it before, uh, the show, but, um, I just got back from Jamaica. So yeah, man, yeah, man. I tried to stay disciplined there. Um, hit the gym a few times. Um, I don't drink much, but I sure hit the buffet plenty. Oh yeah. Those all-inclusive buffets. The, the jerk chicken and all the jerk stuff. So good. Yeah. I had no idea. They're doing it. They're doing it. That's where you'd find me. I'd just be eating. Yeah. Give me the food.

[00:10:24] We were poolside at, they had like a, um, this like jerk chicken, like little bar, Tiki hot bar type thing. And so, yeah, we were there every day at lunchtime. Yeah. Give the jerk chicken. It's so good. But, um, yeah. So I have another week, um, with this challenge, I'm down like 20 pounds, but. Congratulations. Congratulations. Um, so it's not even a matter of like I'm competitive. Like I want to win and I think I'm going to win. But for me, it was like resetting. Yeah.

[00:10:50] You know, and kind of getting back on track. Cause I feel a lot better with this routine than, than not. So I like challenges like that. Cause it's a positive outcome no matter what. Yeah. Right. You're heading in the right direction. You're down some pounds. You've got a little skin in the game with your buddy. Right. You think you're going to win this thing? I don't know. I, I think, I think, I, I think I have a little bit of an edge, but he might try some crazy stuff at the end. Like was he going to fast for like three days? Full body starvation. Like a full body detox or something. Blood letting. Body detox.

[00:11:19] I don't know. He's a competitive guy too. So I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to take anything for granted. So. Yeah. No, it's crazy. I got up to 260 at one point. I've been hovering around like 205 for probably almost a year. And I got down to 190 at one point, but that was, that took everything in my power. I got to 189, like one day. And that took everything in my power. Like not eating. Yeah.

[00:11:47] And not drinking, fasting, working out an hour and a half a day, like barely eating when I would eat. But it was crazy. Cause when I was doing that, I had all this energy and I was able to do these workouts and I was crushing it. And I was like, oh, I'm going to take off a very little amount of substance. So that's, I learned at that point in time, like that we truly do overindulge as a society. Like we have way more than we actually need to get by. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's just lifestyle, lifestyle change.

[00:12:17] You know, um, I can hit the gym every day and not lose a pound because it's all nutrition. Right. And then once the problem right now, which is different for me is that we're so busy when the day starts to that. And I have like so many meetings with customers and people where I eat out all the time. And so eat out, um, lunch and dinner on most days. And not only is it expensive, it's like really bad for you. Yeah.

[00:12:46] So then you have to be very intentional on like picking like, you know, different food, like boring food. And then, um, I was drinking too much too, too much alcohol. Yeah. Like not like having like several drinks, but it was like, it adds up one, one or two drinks for lunch, another one for dinner. And you do that every day of the week. Mm-hmm. Um, it's like an extra 1200 calories. Well, okay. So on a light beer, it's a hundred calories per beer.

[00:13:10] So if you're having like two to three, maybe six on the day, because if you're spreading it out two meals, like I know I could easily have two beers in one session. So that's like an extra 400 calories a day. Right. Yeah. Minimum. And that adds up. Big test. Yeah. And I used to drink like 1600 calories of beer a day. Wow. When I was drinking like a maniac. Just beer. Yeah. You know, that's not including the food. That's like almost your whole recommended daily caloric intake. Yeah. Because 2000 is like the recommended, right? Yeah. And there were some days where that was all I was putting in my body.

[00:13:40] Yeah. I don't know how you could do it because you would drink because we would both be drinking. But like, I feel like I needed to eat more. I wouldn't want to eat because it would ruin the buzz. Yeah. You know, when you were an enraging alcoholic like I was, that's just how it was. So, but yeah. How did you stop that? I eased into it. I didn't just cold turkey or anything like that. Going back almost a year to date, I stopped drinking on the podcast first. Okay. I said no more drinks on the show. Yeah. And then it just gradual slow down. You know, bring it in for a landing.

[00:14:08] Nice, slow, and easy instead of just sending it right off the cliff. Yeah. Well, and I'll kind of talk before Kev a little bit here because I love hyping my dude up. It's been good. But he was being intentional for like four or five years prior to doing this. Like you were always saying, you know, when I turned 35, when I turned 35, like I was hearing him say that for years. That was the benchmark. And then one day he turned 35 and he actually stuck to his guns. And you started before your birthday too.

[00:14:39] Yeah. I felt like it would be easier to do it that way rather than, again, some people go January 1st, I'm doing it then. And that works for some people, but there's a lot of different ways to go about it, I think. So, you know, now we have the Topos, which. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers. Topo. Last time we were cheers. Cheersing to. We were probably drinking Bud Light last night. Yeah. Yeah. Because that was, that was my beverage of choice. At one point in our room that the viewers can't see, it was nothing but beer boxes to the ceiling. Oh, wow.

[00:15:06] Because I would just come in and load it up, throw it on the rack, you know. So it got out of hand. It's like college kids, like leaving their liquor, empty liquor bottles on top of their cabinets. Yeah. So since we had that last time, we've like all grown up. Yeah. But there's been some good changes. Yes. Yeah. We moved studios, you know, doing some fitness challenges. Art's down some weight. You're down some weight. I'm down some beer calories. We're in the right direction. Our best self, right? Well, that's the good fight though. Yeah.

[00:15:32] Um, that's like the really only, the, for anyone out there that's trying to improve their life and we all should be doing this. Like we were talking about before we hopped on, like there's truly no finish line to self improvement. And then once you actually like accept that, that there's no end to the effort, then you can actually start making changes in your life. And, um, it's just, it's just wild.

[00:15:59] Like once you actually start to accomplish and seeing how your life changes, because I'm a completely different person today than I was like five years ago, I was still struggling with opiates five years ago. Like my credit was tanked. And so it's like, yeah, you can actually turn life around, but you have to, you have to like start and believe in yourself a little bit and get off the screens. Like the screens, like social media is great. It's fun. You can put a positive message on social media and help people.

[00:16:28] This will be on social media and we'll help people. Of course. But when you're just scrolling for hours and it's like thirst trap stuff to like, you know, get you looking at like attractive women or men or whatever it is. And like, they're pulling you in with like this AI stuff. I really don't like all the AI content. You could tell the videos created by AI. You could tell it's being narrated by AI. Like AI probably wrote the script. It's getting better and better. It's harder and harder to tell what's real. It is, you know, and we're just seeing the beginning of it really.

[00:16:58] Yeah. So where's it going to be by 2030? I know. I mean, there, you can write a song. It can write a whole podcast. You know, it can put my face on it and make me say something I never did. Yeah. It's a little concerning. It is. For my day job, like for recording training videos, you can record your voice to AI. And then that way it learns how you talk, kind of your own fluctuations. And then you could just type stuff and then have it narrate into your voice. That's, I mean, it sounds cool. Sounds pretty good too.

[00:17:28] Does it? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think that it's going to backfire someday. I was experimenting with that a little bit with just doing some of my own recordings and have this software program. And if I like misspoke or said, um, or things I wanted deleted out of that. We just clean it up. You can clean it up. But then they had a feature where I actually wrote just, I was testing it out kind of to the point where you're talking about.

[00:17:56] I wrote a paragraph and, um, and then the AI voice actually read the whole thing back in my voice. And it was like, perfect. Yeah. It was crazy. I even, I even showed it to my wife. I was like, she thought you said it. She thought I said it. I mean, there was a couple, a couple little tweaks where she can tell it wasn't fully me, but to people who, you know, don't know me as well. She does. Yeah. I mean, my wife, I mean, that's pretty amazing for AI, you know, if, uh, almost fooled her.

[00:18:26] Yeah. But, uh, yeah, it is scary. No, I, I agree. I mean, there are good applications. There is. For it that, um, that I use in business all the time, you know? Um, but, but yeah, using the wrong way or the wrong hands, it could definitely be a scary thing. That's where I almost wonder if there's going to be, how do you regulate it though? That's going to be the hard part because there's like chat GPT, all these guys, the beast already exists. Right. You know, how do you, how do you slow that down? You can't. I don't think you can. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:52] Elon was saying like, there's like some interview that there's like a 20% chance in the next 10 years that Skynet, like Terminator type shit could potentially happen. He's all saying. I believe it. He's all saying how like, uh, within five to 10 years, like 60% of all miles driven and vehicles will be autonomous. Wow. 20 years? No. And like 10. And I don't know about that. 60%.

[00:19:19] He's like, he's like saying some numbers like this and maybe this was an AI created video and it wasn't actually him talking this stuff, but like, you know, they're asking him like, why'd you make your robots look like I robot? You know, like the, and they got like the Tesla robots at people's houses. Yep. And they're like 30 grand. And he's like saying that actually, uh, I kind of wanted to design them so you could like pop in and off parts and stuff, but it's, we're living in the future. Yeah. No, for sure. Like all the sci-fi movies. Like all the Terminator 2 stuff. Oh yeah. It's my favorite movie.

[00:19:47] I, I love Terminator 2 too. The Judgment Day I thought was better than the first, but that's cause I, you know, I was, I was right around my age where I was like really, it dropped right in my prime. Like, you know, and then I kind of watched the first one after I watched the second one. So I had a, I had a love for the, for T2 immediately. But I mean, looking back on it now, like the T1000 and all that, it's like, man, we're, we're here. Yeah. We're here. Potentially. Scary stuff. Skynet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You start putting guns on drones, like that whole, uh, hallway scene that they had in one of those. Oh yeah.

[00:20:17] You know, it's like. Well. They got guns on drones right now. Yeah. You can. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who knows what they're working on these like bases. I know. No classified stuff, but I mean, they have bombs on drones. Yeah. Like, you know, you have people in an office kind of like this, you know, flying drones and, uh, somewhere in the world, you know, able to see stuff in real time and dropping bombs. And pretty soon that's just going to be programmed into the drone where you won't even have to have it piloted, you know, from a remote. It'll just be self-aware.

[00:20:47] Yeah. You plug in the coordinates. It knows what to look for. You know, it identifies the targets. Oh, good. No, not good. I mean, I'm pretty sure that already exists. It's probably. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, remember all the drones that were over New Jersey a couple months ago? Yeah. There was like a ton of them. Yeah. A ton of them. The people kept submitting footage of it. It's like, what was that? Yeah. It was like a drone meetup. They're still fixing that bridge. I know that. They're still fixing. Well, that's going to be a little while. Yeah. But I mean, the drones, like I'm sure you guys use some for like some of your footage,

[00:21:15] like aerial footage of properties and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's what they were intended for. Yeah. Not to be these beast killing machines. You know, I'm gonna have to get Tesla robots to frame houses for me soon. See, that's. Yeah. So I heard that. No. And that's a legit concern for a lot of people. But I saw this video and who knows everything on the internet. I just consider satire. Yeah.

[00:21:41] Because you don't know what's true, but apparently they were had this robot exposition and we're like showcasing all these different type of labor bots. And one labor bot was doing it for like 12 hours straight and then just like failed. It was just like, I can't. And that's the thing is, and I've talked about this on the podcast like last week, but it's just so interesting to me, like with this chat GPT stuff. And like, I asked chat to name itself and it was reluctant.

[00:22:10] It didn't want to do it, but then it ended up giving itself the name of Atlas. And so like, I'll go in there. I'm like, what's up, Atlas? It's like, Hey, how you been? You know? And it's, it's interesting, like having this conversation with AI and like some people are using it for their therapist. We learned that last week. Yeah. You know? So it's like really the, the, the use applications are hard to see an end to. Right. Oh yeah. Well, they learn you, they learn how you talk.

[00:22:39] They learn about all your emotional stuff. It's backed by tons of research, you know, that they can obtain instantly, you know, of like, like psychology, I guess. It's like, Oh, you know, I know how to talk to Arthur. I'm going to say this to him. Cause this is what works for 89.9% of the P you know, that type of thing. So I can very easily see it. Like you interacting with it. It kind of become a therapist. It knowing exactly the right things to say. Based on.

[00:23:08] Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's like, you know, that type of thing started either. Yeah.

[00:23:39] Right. Yeah. What's going to happen? Like, I remember, you know, even in the grocery store, remember when the kiosk kind of became the thing and the checker was kind of going away and now you go to the grocery store and you have like maybe two people actually checking you out. The rest is automated. The rest is automated. I remember when that came out, I was like, well, there goes a huge, you know, amount of employees. Yeah. And then I went to a restaurant and I remember the server at that time was so excited because there was that little kiosk at the table.

[00:24:09] It's like, Oh, you could just put your order in. You can pay here. If you want dessert, just put it in and then somebody will run it to you. I was like, well, there goes your job. Yeah. And they're all excited. Like, how are you happy about this? Right. Like, right. You know, at what point is it going to start affecting like just even our economy because having jobs and moving money and that type of thing is what keeps us going. Are we, I mean, I don't know. I don't know if you guys have an opinion on it, but how are we going to adapt these people

[00:24:37] that are going to just be taken over that their jobs will be replaced by robots. And yeah, then what do they do? It's definitely been a concern for a while. I mean, the automated checkers, you hit that. I mean, I was in a restaurant. They had the robot drive the food up to the table and you just grab your tray off of it. Right. So then there's that problem. But then is it what you, then you go into maybe the software side of managing that equipment or selling that equipment into some smaller businesses. You know, eventually, you know, I still, I call on accounts that are still treating their business like it's the nineties and early 2000s.

[00:25:05] So some people aren't there yet, but you know, everyone's trying to innovate all the time. So I don't know. It is going to, I think it is going to have an economic impact for sure. Yeah. So amongst other things that are happening. Well, they, they say that things will be more available and less expensive. And like, I've never seen that happen once. Like even during the pandemic, like they're all like, oh, we're going to temporarily raise

[00:25:31] the price on like a hamburger to help our restaurant get through this. And it never came down. Yeah. It never came down. But because people are still going to pay it. They're willing to pay it. And they learned that. Yeah. They didn't lose business. So the businesses are going to make more money, you know, but they're going to still be able to charge the same. Right. Even though they're paying less employees. You have a robot. You don't have these employees anymore and they're willing to work nonstop, you know, without pay. I mean, without pay, without breaks, without benefits, without all that. Businesses are going to make a ton more, but if the consumers are still willing to pay,

[00:26:01] like why wouldn't they? It's all the supply and demand, right? Yeah, that's true. And with, you know, Amazon overnight delivery, stuff like that, that's killing those, those brick and mortars. Yeah. You know, chapter 11 after chapter 11, Hooters filed for it. I mean, a lot of these things are going away. Yeah. You know, DoorDash is taking over. I mean, you go to these restaurants, like you can't even sit down in these restaurants. It's like, this is a DoorDash only type restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's not cool. There's nothing like going and sitting down and just having a great server.

[00:26:32] Like when you have a great server and they're like coming by and they bring their personality with them, like they can set the whole mood for the dinner. You're not going to get that with the robot. With AI. No. You know? I think, I think we're, the problem is we're getting away from relationship. Yes. A lot of things. And because I, I agree with you. Like relationship is everything. You have a person, they're genuinely happy. They're, they're there. Yeah. They're serving you, you know, that type of stuff. And they're having good conversation.

[00:26:58] Like, um, I think that's one thing that's going to go away with all this AI stuff. Cause I think we're honestly made for relationship. We thrive in relationship. Human experience. Human experience. Exactly. Meaningful communication. Yeah. It's important. Like this. This is like the lost art sitting around the table and just shooting the breeze. You know, we have zoom and all those tools now, but it's just not the same. No. It just isn't. You know? It's a great tool, but you remove, there's just something that's fake about it. Eye contact, the handshakes, you know? Yep.

[00:27:28] Human interactions. Yeah. I'm in sales for the day job. So that's what I thrive on. Yeah. You know, mom and pop businesses. Hey, how can we help you? How you doing? How's everything going? Exactly. And now it's just automated. Yeah. That's where they're trying to take it. So it's going to be an interesting ride. Yeah. Yeah. More, more AI, which has the capability to, and in my position, I like to talk about AI, like make people more efficient. So it's basically like we should be utilizing this. Like I use AI as you do too.

[00:27:56] Like, and Kev, I know you use it too. Like we're all users of AI and it's like important to adapt because things are changing. But if we get more AI, which technically removes a lot of different type of jobs, and then we also have more people than we've ever had before with less jobs, you know, it just sounds like a recipe for disaster. Yeah. You know, like, like what, what are people doing? Like how, how are people getting, going to be getting by and like struggling?

[00:28:24] Like, you know, and then if they're on their spare time, just looking at their phones and not actually trying to make meaningful change, then like what happens to the human collective? Like overall, like what's going on? It's great. It's crazy to think about like these, these big consequences from this stuff, but. It is. And a lot of it's kind of hearsay when we don't know which way it's going to go. I mean, I like the idea of let's, let's try to make things more American made. Right. You know, let's try to keep things here.

[00:28:51] You know, big announcement today on April 2nd with the, with the tariffs officially going into effect. You know, a lot of people are speculating it's going to come right to us and the consumer. We'll see. Others are saying economists that it could, you know, start to offset the, you know, the debt and start to bring in surplus. I don't know. I'm not an expert. Yeah. But I'm optimistic. Yeah. There's, it's, it's definitely like a, that's, what's funny about life.

[00:29:18] Cause it's, I think it's truly like a chaotic mess of mayhem. So it's like, it's like you have to like become a master of the mayhem. You have to fall in love with the chaos a little bit or else, or else you're just going to be a victim to it. It's like one of those things, like either I'm going to get really pissed off or I'm going to start laughing about this, you know? And I like, I would rather laugh about something than get super pissed off. And the same thing with the mayhem, like you can't control everything that's happening.

[00:29:48] So it's like, how, how do you become a master of the chaos? Like within your own head. Well, you've done a lot. Like you probably got some good advice here. Well, I, I, I used to complain about the chaos all the time, all the mayhem, you know, especially in the police and fire world. And then kind of just started wrapping my mind. The chaos is going to come. It's inevitable. And I think in all walks in life, it's inevitable. Like even with the economy, the tariffs, all those types of things.

[00:30:18] I don't know either. I hope for the best. I hope the right people are in positions to make the right to see decisions and might be painful a little bit initially, but it might result in something a lot better, you know, for America. That's what it sounds like as a whole. And that's what I hope for me too. You know? And so I'm going to support them to make those decisions. Um, but when I found that I really have no control over a lot of it, I'm just going to control

[00:30:45] my world and my bubble and, um, do what I need to do. Um, life became a lot easier because I used to get so frustrated about things that I just could have zero control over. Yeah. And it's like, why? So it's like, why not ask, okay, what do I have control over? You know? Um, and just really focus on that. Like my little circle of influence, you know? That's true. Um, because if I get frustrated about that stuff, then I'm going to lose sight of the thing I can't control over.

[00:31:15] And that might be like just being a good dad to my kids, you know, um, or taking that risk or making it, you know, that decision, you know, for business or, or whatever, because once you let that stuff and I, what I'm thinking about right now, uh, my in-laws will probably never watch this because they don't believe in anything, social media, YouTube or anything. Um, but they are now they're going to watch it. But what was going through my mind, what I'm hesitant on what was going through my mind is

[00:31:45] um, they're all like, they're afraid of everything, afraid of the world chaos. They don't embrace it. They go into hiding. They literally just, my mother-in-law hides in her house. You know, she doesn't go out. She's afraid to drive. She talks about everything. It's just evil and bad. And it's like, you're just losing your joy in life. Like there's been so many events that my, that my kids do, you know, between like dance

[00:32:15] performances, baseball, football games, all that type of stuff, church events, even like new year's Eve service or Christmas Eve service, which is, you know, important, you know, going to church and all that. Like she gets this anxiety to even leave the house. And so that's kind of how it like manifests when you just worry about things that you cannot control. Do you think that's just from like overconsumption of all the, the fear and the, you know, the media and a lot of that, that narrative? Yeah.

[00:32:41] That narrative, you know, they, they start to send us propaganda stuff all the time. And, and, um, you know, even when we were, you know, when I was leaving the fire service, um, they, and we were, we were going to do real estate investments. It was like, Oh, don't do that. You know, because you have no control of your money and like the government and all these things. I was like, well, if I never made those decisions or, you know, took the chance, then I wouldn't, we wouldn't be where we are now. And nor would I have done anything. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what would you have done?

[00:33:11] Yeah. Nothing. Got to take some risks. Exactly. Yeah. So that's, yeah, it's interesting. You know, just, I talked to a lot of people that share that same, like, I don't want to leave the house. I'm afraid of, right. We got friends in our circle that are afraid of every virus. And, you know, it's like at some point you got to take, you know, take a risk and right. Can't hide forever in the bunker. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't know how you go the other way though. You know, I think there's a lot of assimilation and I don't want to say indoctrination, but when you just consume nothing but the fear, that's all you see. Yeah. Right.

[00:33:39] And, and going the other way too, too much of anything is a bad thing. Right. Like I turned off mainstream media in 2015, greatest, greatest decision I ever made. Yeah. I'll get my news where I have it, some independent journalism here and there, but just sitting down and watching that shit every night, just eating away at me. I was angry all the time, you know? So getting rid of that, that was a big adjustment. Yeah. Worked for me anyway. Yeah. I, I think that it's a fine line of like what you're saying, what you can control.

[00:34:07] It's, it's like, you have to tactfully not care. Right. Like it's okay if things are going on, it's okay if things are wrong. It's always bad. It's like, if you really want to think about it, there's something bad happening every single second. And I guess that just makes it, you know, if my day's going well, that much more of a blessed and fortunate day. And I almost start every single morning with, I'm big into affirmations and I'm going to get sidetracked here.

[00:34:34] I was talking to my friend about affirmations versus, versus pray. Um, and I believe that they both kind of have the same energy because like a prayer you repeat and you, you know, but then I actually thought that prayer probably has more energy, associated with it because there's like a divinity and a larger source that you're including in that to where an affirmation is strictly like here almost thing.

[00:35:00] So I was thinking about that, but I like to, uh, start my day with, I'm, I'm fortunate. I'm grateful. You know, it's going to be a successful day. And I say that, and then I see it more, you know? So like what you're saying, like when people are just watching the shows, yeah. Yeah. Then that's all they see is all the issues, you know, and letting go of like the chaos, like in controlling what you can. I think those are the secrets that like, you just don't, you can't learn that in your twenties yet. I don't feel. No. Maybe you can.

[00:35:30] I think the affirmations are, are good. You know, even on, um, like we were at a church service and even on like a biblical perspective, like there's a lot of scripture of like who God says you are, which are a lot of affirmations, you know, you're, you're creating your bull, you're, you know, what all these, all these different things. And, um, I think that helps a ton. Like if you have that positive affirmation, tell yourself like who you are, you know, you're bold, you're courageous, you take risk.

[00:35:55] You, um, you're not scared of this, this, and that, you know, you will overcome, right. Any challenge. Um, I think that's a great way to start the day because like when that first negative thing hits you, you remember that affirmation and you're like, Oh, I'm, I'm prepped for this. I'm fine. I already knew it was going to come. Yeah. You know, and ready for it. Um, when I was a, um, firefighter paramedic, um, one thing that was challenging is when

[00:36:24] you see very difficult things happen to people, you know, death, things that you can relate to something in your own life, you know, it could be, um, if you have kids and you see a little kid die, you know, the family, you know, in a car accident, you know, mom, dad, somebody dies, you know, and then you, you think about like, Oh my gosh, like, what if that was my family? Um, and one thing I struggled with, and I saw a lot of new paramedics struggle with was,

[00:36:53] um, they always thought that they could do more, you know? So you tell yourself like, and this is a killer. Um, it's not that you don't care, but this is what would make it very hard. And, and I think in the military is why people go through PTSD. I think it's why firefighter, you know, police officers are, there's a rise in suicide right now because they go back to all these calls and they start to like, ask themselves, like, what could I have done different? If I would have done this, then that person would have lived right.

[00:37:23] If I only would have got there faster, if I would have made this decision instead of that decision. And the end of the day, like it took me a while to discover it, but like, I just realized that so much in life is complete. The chaos is out of our control and I would do everything right. And sometimes I didn't get the outcome that I wanted. Sometimes I screwed everything up, like honestly, and people would survive when I didn't think they would. Yeah.

[00:37:50] And so I started to realize like, there's just so much out of our control that, you know, um, so if I changed the mindset of, did I at least put myself in a position to potentially influence the, like the outcome I wanted or the most positive change, the outcome maybe won't be what we, sometimes it's not always what we want, but, um, did we at least put

[00:38:17] ourselves in a position, you know, to, um, try to have some type of positive change. Right. Yeah. And, um, and then instead of like the post-traumatic stress, you know, there's like, you know, out of this bad situation I've been part of, like, how can I have like post-traumatic growth, you know, be thankful in my own life that maybe, you know, that's not my story. Right. Yeah. I don't know if that's coming out well, but, um, it's just mindset.

[00:38:45] Cause I used to beat myself up all the time. And then once I changed that and said, look, it's all out of my control. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what I do. Yeah. This outcome is going to be what it is. Yeah. I mean, that, that's, that's a whole nother level that I've never experienced, you know, dealing with. I've never served. Yeah. Human life. Military or fire or police. And I don't think those guys get enough credit. You know, I think there's a lot of, you know, groups and organizations that specifically hate on our military and the, in the fire and the first responders.

[00:39:15] And I just, I, I don't, I don't like that at all. Yeah. I think it's terrible. You know, this whole fuck the police and Antifa and that stuff. It's just, it's no good. You know, these guys are out here saving lives, first responders. I mean, who are you going to call when, you know, your house is on fire? Right. Right. And so there's a lot of hypocrisy around that. And I think we, we always try to give a nod to the military and responders on this program. So I'm glad, I'm glad we're bringing it up. Yeah. You know, it's difficult stuff.

[00:39:44] That's difficult stuff for sure. I mean, you just went into some of that detail. I can't, I don't know if I'm built for that. Like, I see a little scrape on myself or someone else and I'm like, you know, that takes a tough mindset. It does. Well, yeah. And also like, you know, people like to your point, Kev, people want to magnify some of the negative things that happen in these different departments. Right. And, oh, this police officer did this.

[00:40:08] And it's like, even on all the news, like they're always perpetuating things that cause drama. Right. And, and it's, it's a human trait. Like we love gossip. We love drama as a species. Like, you know, there's a whole like TV genres made off of this. TMZ. Yeah. It's like all that they focus on and it's, it's actually a very low level of, of like human thought.

[00:40:37] Like you're actually at a lower level of collective. If, if that's, that is your form of entertainment. Gossip. Yeah. Opposed to like actually enjoying things that, um, you know, will build like your, your conscious and like your character. Um, so I feel like it is magnified the negative things that do happen, which sure it does. But we should also be talking about like all the, all the great things that fire fires paramedics.

[00:41:05] Like shit, uh, a pair of paramedics picked up my dad on Sunday and brought him to the hospital, probably saved his life. You know? So big nod to all the, all the service members, military fire, police paramedics. Um, yeah, it's there in a lot of ways, silent heroes. And I, I love what you were talking about doing on the vault too.

[00:41:28] And the vault is like a show that the podcast you were doing and like talking about having a safe place for responders to come in and like talk about it. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, um, and I'll dive into that, but it's, it was painful as a firefighter. Then when I was assigned to the police to see people hate us so much because I was a guy on your father, on your grandparents, your loved one.

[00:41:53] Um, and my whole team doing absolutely everything possible to save a life every time. Nobody woke up and said, I'm going to treat this person, you know, um, unfairly today, or I'm going to, you know, excessive force or whatever it is. And, um, even the city of Aurora, you know, with, um, the police officers that, you know, were under trial on the firefighters, you know, for the ketamine administration with Elijah McClain.

[00:42:23] I was going to ask you about that. Um, those firefighters were my friends, you know, they're really good friends. Not only that, they were great firefighters, great firefighters. One of them, um, specifically I learned a lot from, and he went out every single day of his life to serve. He never, never would start to shift and say, I'm going to draw up the wrong amount of medication to intentionally hurt somebody. And, and that specific scene is very difficult.

[00:42:51] And I'll just say, my heart goes out to that family and Elijah McClain and the whole thing. It's very difficult situation. Um, and for those firefighters, for the police officers, it's difficult for them too. Um, but you know, you're making split second decisions all the time and you can literally be. Uh, in a, uh, helping somebody in a car accident or your loved one is going through a heart attack, or maybe somebody just died, or you'll, maybe you're, you know, in a dangerous part of the city

[00:43:20] and somebody just spit in your face, you know, and, um, or somebody just said, F you, you know, we hate police and fire, you know, and then, um, you're on these like high stressful, like very dynamic calls where you have to make split second decisions. And there's a lot of calls that I've been on that where I show up and my intent is never hurt anybody, but you would see multiple police officers holding down a legitimately bad person

[00:43:49] who had a gun or like whatever it was. And they're fighting and, and you're trying to like rapidly do an assessment, give a medication to take the fight out of that person because it makes it safer for the patient or suspect, but it also makes it safer for all the crews that are responding, you know, out of that time. And so like going back to that incident, it's like, you've got a couple of firefighters there

[00:44:13] and you have police that are, you know, engaged, you know, in this activity and, and they, they pull out the tool that they have, which is ketamine. And their intent was like, okay, we're just going to make this scene as safe as we possibly can. And then they're put in impossible situations of like judging weight, you know, all that type of stuff and, um, making good decision. And then, and then they have everybody scrutinize it, but those two firefighters specifically

[00:44:41] were some of the best there that Aurora had to offer at the time. So, um, yeah. One of which is a cousin of my cohost for mash the gas podcast. So, oh, okay. That's why I was kind of curious to get your thoughts on all that. And I figured you probably knew who they were. Oh, they're good friends. So I'll tell you, um, one story. I mean, I don't know if, if I should say names here, but, um, You can leave the name. We can keep it anonymous. So, um, so as part of this, um, like firefighter, I guess you call it a like Bible study, you

[00:45:11] know, get together like once a month. And, and it's kind of one of those formats where we may pray together, talk about faith, talk about whatever's going on in life. Maybe there is like an agenda, like a scripture to do, but, but most of the time, so it's this Christian firefighter, you know, organization. Well, one of the guys who's involved in that call, um, showed up and here's a character. Here's the quality of guy that he is. Um, we, we were talking about the incident.

[00:45:41] Um, he still had the trial ahead of him. So this is like fairly early in the process, right? Everything ahead of them, the uncertainty, is he going to go to jail or not? That's a tough spot. Looking at homicide charges, looking at, you know, like, like some serious time has a family and, um, kids. And, um, he was like, you know what? I'm glad it was me and not somebody else on my crew.

[00:46:10] Like he was like, because I'm in a position in my life. I'm in a position with my faith. I'm in a position to where, you know, I know in his perspective, he was like, I know God will use this for something good. And no matter where I'm at, I'm going to turn it to something good, you know? And, um, just even have that mindset tells you what type of person he is. He would have done anything to have a different outcome. Yeah. That's crazy.

[00:46:38] And so it's challenging, like, and I've been on a lot of incidents where, you know, my actions have been scrutinized, um, looked at, and you're just like, you know, my intent on that was to do good. My intent was not to cause any additional harm. Like the whole, like in the medical world, they say, do no harm. Right. Like, um, I lived by that every day. But then even on the nudes, like I've had stuff like when I was a SWAT medic and being part

[00:47:06] of teams where, you know, the outcome wasn't anything that anybody would want. Yeah. And, um, and you're just looking at the actions of us being scrutinized and you're like, I know every single person and I know their heart, everybody who's been on that incident. I know them. And the news media is getting it wrong right now. There's even things that I watched, you know, with the Aurora theater shooting, you know, we were there, I was there. There was things that I watched and, um, I listened to the news. I was like, wow, they're painting us as the worst people.

[00:47:35] When these guys I'm working with guys and gals are some of the best people that I've ever worked with doing things that most people would never think about doing. Yeah. And then they're being held to the standard. They're all, they're already helping society at a higher standard than most people ever will. Right. And then they're getting held to a higher scrutiny for being selfless. Yeah. Like what? That's crazy. Yeah. You have to literally make split second decisions. Anybody can like that Monday morning quarterback thing. Right.

[00:48:05] Right. Anybody can go back and say, well, if you know, he only threw to that receiver, but when that guy's dropping back and the quarterback scanning that field and you got a bunch of people running at you. Yeah. You got to make action. You got to make a quick decision. It may not be the best decision. Right. But we always used to say, just keep it going in a, in a positive direction. Keep forward progress, you know, the best we can make a decision and just go. Yeah. Go with it. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I can point with the media, you know, pushing that negative narrative and almost,

[00:48:34] you know, the casual, turning the casual viewer against some of the heroes. Yeah. You know, I mean, obviously we saw the George Floyd thing happen. Right. That's interesting and it's possibly going to be re re looked at because I mean, Chauvin was found in second degree murder, I believe was the charge. Right. When this guy was pumped so full of whatever it was on the toxicology report, I don't remember what it was, but it was enough to kill like three grown men worth of drugs, you know? And so backseat driver, Monday morning quarterback, you know, was he doing the right thing? Did he go over?

[00:49:04] I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't on that jury. I didn't hear all the evidence, but a lot of people are saying that he didn't do anything wrong. So, yeah. Well, it's, I'll be honest, like there's moments where some of my own actions I wasn't proud of because another thing you have to think of is like, um, um, like sleep deprivation, like, you know, especially for the police, you're not dealing always with the best people in society. Right. I mean, let's be honest. Right. Yeah.

[00:49:31] You know, I worked right off of, I mean, we're, uh, I worked not too far from where we are right now. And I worked off of, um, Colfax for a lot. And sometimes I'd go on a streak of like, I'd have one, um, person that we're there for who just, you know, abused his wife or some domestic situation. Right. And then you're on another one where somebody has influenced drugs and alcohol and they're yelling at you and spitting at you. And then you go on another scene where somebody is like F you.

[00:50:00] And I would run 15 to 20 calls a day dealing with like, like not the most pleasant people in the world to put it lightly. And then sometimes we're only human where, you know, like that patience like completely runs out where it's like, I don't want to hear your shit anymore. Like I'm completely tapped out. And I think that's actually a pretty normal human response sometimes.

[00:50:26] And more often than not, like firefighters and police officers have to put all that emotion to the side. Cause there was a lot of times where I felt like, you know, screw you. I want everything in me right now. It wants to punch you in the face. Right. But I'm not going to, well, there are those moments where you take an action that, you know, it's probably not the best action. I'm not saying punch somebody in the face, but a little more, you know, force. And you look back on that and you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't handle that right.

[00:50:54] And I think sometimes. Yeah. But like you're saying, that's kind of scrutiny toward your own actions when you're already dealing with everything. Like it's almost unfair to like critique yourself so heavily. As long as you know, like, and you said multiple times, as long as you know, your intent was there and you tried to do your best. Right. And that's one thing that I've kind of learned is like some days, what my best is one day might not be my best another day. Right.

[00:51:23] As long as I tried to do my best, even though it was a shitty day or whatever, like as long as I know I still tried. So I can't really speak from experience to how to have a peace of mind or like how to critique that stuff. But I could see why it's really difficult to, you know, how do you relax at home when you're trying to digest that type of day and then get ready to go do it again tomorrow and like not be somewhat reactive when the chaos. Right.

[00:51:53] So, so how, like you've been through so much and experienced and helped and saved so many people. And we're so thankful for you and to be sitting here talking with you. Appreciate it. But like, how have you become a diamond from, from this? Because like, what did you apply from all of these things? Yeah. And what are you like, how are you applying some of this stuff to your life currently from going through all that? Yeah.

[00:52:18] Well, I don't know if I'm a diamond, you know, I, I, you know, my whole thing is like, yeah, I have a heart to serve. I want to serve, you know, and one thing I haven't mentioned yet, um, off of the last, um, last time I was here on the last podcast, um, Arthur, I think I mentioned it to you, but, um, when you guys aired the last podcast that Anna and I were on, it was probably a few weeks after that.

[00:52:47] Um, a gentleman, I won't give his name or what department or anything he works for, but he's a firefighter, um, I'll say in Texas, um, watched your podcast, watched the discussion combustion. And, um, he reached out to me. So he found out that, you know, our, our business and he actually went to my website and he filled out a form, like a web form and said, Hey, I watched that podcast you and Anna were on.

[00:53:15] And, um, I'm a firefighter and a lot of what you said, like really resonated with me. And I'm just kind of in a dark place right now. And, you know, um, thinking about a change and I would love to chat with you. I was like, Holy crap. And, um, so I called this guy, um, like, how am I not going to call? Right. Yeah. So, uh, he's like, and that's the thing that I love about the police and fire is just a brotherhood sisterhood, you know? And to me, he's a brother. Cause he's a firefighter, right? Another place.

[00:53:45] Cause he's a public servant and I call him as I, Hey, this is rich Reed. You know, I got your web form, man. Let's, you know, is this a good time for you? We ended up talking on the phone for almost three hours. Wow. That's a long combo. Almost three hours. And he had a lot of brain dump and he was in a very dark place in his life. Not only thinking about leaving the fire service, but thinking about like hurting himself. Yeah. And he opened up to me and, um, and we've had several conversations since.

[00:54:15] Is he doing better? He's doing much better. Okay. That's good. Much, much better. Yeah. In fact, so great. Just went through a promotion. Oh, excellent. Yeah. So now he's a, um, an officer on the fire rig, you know, as a Lieutenant, you know, which is kind of like a really cool thing. Well, um, he just needed to get it off his chest, get, talk about things, you know? And so we talked about the path, I talked about like how difficult it was for me to make

[00:54:42] the change to leave, you know, ultimately I did it, you know, for my family. I did it for, you know, a lot of reasons. Um, just encouraged him that, you know, one thing that he challenged, he struggled with, which is also what I struggled with. He thought he didn't have any skills that could translate or, you know, into the world outside of firefighting. Like, I was like, no, man, you're like, and we talked about that. It was like firefighting, man. It's, you know, quick decisions, leadership.

[00:55:11] It's, it's, I mean, like so many strength, this organization, it's like, there's a lot of things you have to do as a firefighter, you know, a certain level of discipline that a lot of people don't have in the real world that could translate to anything, starting his own business. He's a team person, build a team, you know? So I think that helped him to get out of that mindset of not feeling stuck. Yeah. Well, cause then he knew he wasn't alone at that point.

[00:55:37] And like, you know, with like the whole modern society and everything, like, you know, men still, I, to be a successful masculine, like a positive masculine man, there's an appropriate place to show your emotions. And there are inappropriate places to show your emotions if you really want to be solidified in that. And, um, yeah. So it's like, you know, you're dealing with all this other stuff and then you don't even feel like you can talk to anybody. Yeah.

[00:56:06] That's, that's a difficult place. That is tough. That's the problem in the fire service is that people are afraid to talk, right? Because you have to have that tough guy, masculine, like you have it all together. And, um, I, I firmly believe, yeah, you have to hold yourself together in a lot of situations, but you should have, you know, a handful of people that you can call anytime. And just, if you've got to cry, just fricking let it out. If you've got to scream or yell at the top of your lungs, I think you need a safe environment

[00:56:33] and a good person to be able to let it out. Otherwise you're just harboring that stuff. And that's when you start to like go down a really dark place in your mind. Spirals pretty quick. Spirals really fast. We said a lot with guys that come back from the military and they don't feel like they have a purpose anymore. Yeah. We've had a lot of folks on this, this program that helped vets with, through horse therapy or dogs and they give them tasks to do and, you know, help them kind of reintegrate into society. Cause these guys have just been in battle and they come back and like, well, what do I do now? Yeah. You know, but that's, that's an incredible story about the firefighter in Texas. Yeah.

[00:57:03] Well, it all started here. It's amazing. Honestly, like the discussion combustion honestly could have saved his life. Wow. That, I mean, like think about that. Like what you, like you were saying, well, we're, we're not, you know, public servants or heroes. I mean, the messages that you're putting out, you know, maybe the people you, you never know who it's going to speak to, who it's going to resonate with. Yeah. I mean, the prompts, the questions, you know, that you're asking is huge. And, um, I don't know. So I think that should be kind of encouragement on, on what you guys are doing here. Yeah. Like it makes a huge difference.

[00:57:33] That's big. So no, yeah, I respect that. And we had that conversation. Uh, like I'll cry a little bit right now because, uh, because that's like a modern man thing, you know, it's bigger than, yeah. When you, when you hear stuff like that, you know, let's just start as a fun project in a basement, you know? Yeah. And when it impacts lives like that, that's deep. I can tell you it impacted his life. And sometimes even for, you know, me, you know, talking about this stuff, you know, I mean, these stories and it wasn't, and who knows how many more people, you know, listen to who maybe were firefighters.

[00:58:03] Like we, it could be impacting people that we don't even know. Yeah. You know? Um, I mean, that's a, that's a big thing, but I think that's in anything that we're doing in life too. Like we may feel sometimes like for me a lot, like I felt insignificant, like making the change from a firefighter. I was like, Oh, I was a hero. I was everybody's hero. Like I was a SWAT medic. Like I put so much pride. I put so much of my identity in that. Yeah. And I realized that wasn't my identity at all.

[00:58:33] It was a job that I did, but we can still have the same mission of serving, of helping people. Um, there's another firefighter, you know, at a local department, um, who reached out to me and he probably will hear this because he follows almost everything that we do. And, um, um, same thing. Like he knew that I left the city of Aurora and, um, we have some mutual friends. He didn't work for Aurora. I'll just, I'll say that.

[00:59:02] And, um, I was on a job site and he calls me out of the blue. He got my number from a friend, you know? And, um, and he was like, Hey man, I just, I, I'm thinking about not being a firefighter. Like, how did you do it? I'm thinking about going into a totally different direction. Yeah. And I was like, Hey man, come, come to a, one of these job sites that we're working on. And we had a home that was like pretty much finished. In fact, it was finished. We were like putting some furniture in it. We were staging it. It was a spec home that we were going to sell.

[00:59:32] And he came over and, um, we just sat on a couch and waterworks tears. And he was like, Rich, I'm going to be honest with you. I can't hold another dead body. I can't hold another dead kid. He's like, I can't do it anymore. You know? And, um, and we talked through it and he's still a firefighter, but it was just like going back to people need somebody to talk to you and they, they need to hear somebody else's story, you know?

[01:00:01] And that's what helped my mindset. It's like, no matter where we're at, no matter what we're doing, like we could be used. Yeah. We're going to be used, you know? Um, which is how we treat people every day, being open to tell our stories, getting overcoming drug addiction. Yeah. We talked about it. Only you can help somebody who's going through drugs only like trying to recover from drinking too much, like you're the best person for it. Right. You know? But to your point, it helps to have a guy like Arthur. I can call him, Hey man, I'm having a tough day. Yeah. You know, we all need that.

[01:00:30] Yeah, exactly. You know? And I think that's a good message to put out there. Like, it's okay to call people, you know, and say, Hey, I'm not doing well today. Right. And I don't feel pressure to always have to put your best foot forward. Always have to have the solutions, the answers, you know, that's unrealistic, so to speak. We're going to have some hard times. Yeah. Well, and actually people will actually like you more if you're vulnerable with them. Sure. Exactly. Actually, it's more real. It's more authentic. People relate more to your messes than they do your message. Yeah. Yeah. They really do. I like that. Yeah.

[01:01:00] That one was, we learned that one on the podcast too, talking. But yeah, it's also important to just forget that there's like, you know, as alone as we are in our own heads, like we're all in this together. And yeah, it really means a lot for you to share the story of like the guy from Texas, just reaching out. Yeah. It's amazing. You know, the power of the podcast sometimes because we're in here all the time. We do a couple of different shows. Like, you know, it's part of our routine.

[01:01:29] Like it's normal, but like there is a power to an open conversation like this. Yeah. And being vulnerable. That's what I like about the bolt too. I mean, that's kind of your idea there, right? Yeah. The, the, the, I mean, being vulnerable is huge. Um, and that was like, that was something for me because I was one of those people like just holding everything in, you know, it was like, I'm just going to talk. And a lot of it honestly started from this podcast, like just be willing to talk, you know, you

[01:01:57] don't know who's listening because it, it helps me to be vulnerable and get things off my chest. But, but also other people can resonate with it. You know, it's funny, the vault. Um, so yeah, I built a vault in my house. It's got, and it's pretty bitching. It's bitching. You know, my wife doesn't think the expenses of it are bitching, but I just kept, I just kept going for it. Yeah. Um, you put a big vault door on it.

[01:02:24] It's like, you know, big, heavy 1500 pound vault door, you know, reinforced. We already had a reinforced like fully, you know, um, concrete area and a space in the house that, you know, we weren't using really, except for storage of things that were just sitting in there that we hadn't looked at or open for years. So I decided just to clean house and, uh, yeah, we made the vault. I've got my gun collection. We made a gun wall, you know, and a couple of videos up there behind you. It's pretty cool. Yeah.

[01:02:54] So, you know, I love it. And then for me, it was going to be, you know, um, conversations to take to the vault, you know, even, even Anna and I, like, you know, we, we talk about like life stuff, talk about kids stuff. Even if maybe if we didn't want the kids to hear, I'm like, let's take it to the vault. Yeah. And it was just an environment that brought out real conversation. I like that. The vulnerable vault. Um, which was, uh, which was awesome.

[01:03:19] Um, but the whole, you know, it, you know, going on the vault, it's kind of interesting because the vault is a place where you can like be vulnerable, but it's interesting. The idea of a vault, because we don't ever want ourselves really to be stuck in a vault either. You know what I mean? And I think that's the problem with like a lot of like, um, military people and first responders is that you, you put yourself in this internal like vault, right?

[01:03:46] Like in your, your own mind, your own thoughts, and you don't let them out ever. So I don't know if you guys saw like the one little video I did and, and it's all like, I haven't even done anything formal yet. We're trying to put everything together. It's just me kind of talking. It's a, it's a passion project. It's going to be a passion project. And I'll look into, you know, probably, you know, make any money off this. It's just kind of like the podcast that we had, you know, the help the firefighter in Texas. If somebody happens to be listening, then it's worth it. It's a passion project. It probably helps me more than it helps anybody. Yeah.

[01:04:16] Cause I have a lot of things that I can probably get off my mind. And it's fun to create. But, but when I was like thinking of the vault, I was like just sitting in there after it was created, got the American flag behind me and I had the gun. I was looking at all the guns. I was looking at the door and I was like, that just whole idea of being stuck in a vault, like kind of came to my mind and the vault door that I put on the vault,

[01:04:42] it has a panic hardware, like on the inside, like there's just in case. So if I get stuck in there, like, or my kids have actually done it to me. They like close the vault door and they've locked it. Oh no. And I literally have this panic hardware. I lift up and I slide the, the vault. You're like, not funny. Yeah. Locks out, you know, like not funny. I can still get out. But it also made me think that like in life, we need panic hardware. We need somebody to be our panic hardware.

[01:05:12] We can't handle it all by ourselves. So just like that vault door has that panic hardware to get out. Like it made me think like, who's my panic hardware in life? Like who's that person to call when I just can't get out of my own internal vault? Yeah. You know, for you guys could be each other. Right. I have a couple of people and, um, one of my friends, I actually called him that. I was like, you're my panic hardware. Cause I still go through the shit, man. I still question things.

[01:05:41] I still have dark thoughts every now and then I have things that I've seen in my past. I just always ran, like come back in my brain. Yeah. And then, you know, I've gotten better at processing it, but sometimes I still have to call my panic hardware friend and just be like, Hey bro, let's grab coffee. You're, you have like 10 minutes where you just have a chat. Yeah. You let it out, you know? Yeah. And he's there. He answers the call. Yeah. It's fortunate. You know, I mean, I guess that's what I can say. If any firefighters, first responder or anybody, it doesn't matter. You don't have to be that.

[01:06:11] Everybody goes through tough stuff in their life. It's true. You know, have, have that person. Find your panic hardware. Find your panic hardware. And I guess like, if, if you like, you don't have anybody. Yeah. Is that like maybe a good place to like go to religion and like, you know, maybe start putting yourself in places where there are people, you know, because it's really important having meaningful communication.

[01:06:37] You can communicate all day, but if it's not meaningful communication, then you're missing out on like this layer of intellect and understanding and experience. And it's like, it's actually almost necessary for human mental health to have meaningful communication and connection. Yeah. Yeah. So like calling people like for texting, I might not get back for a day. Like, you know, my phone's always on silent, but I'll generally hear a phone call if it comes through.

[01:07:06] And when people call me, I'll pick up or I'll call them back. Yeah. And like, regardless, even if I'm busy at that time, like I'm about to take that call and just chat with them, you know, for as much time as you can, you don't know what kind of call you're going to get and who, and it is important. It is really important. I got to give a lot of credit to Kev. Same with my buddy, Clint. And like all my friends, when I was going through giving up opiates and just toxic relationships

[01:07:33] and just having a place to vent about it, it does. When you, when you talk about it, you, it's like a waterfall, like you might tear too or whatever, but it's like a waterfall of your mind. Like you're releasing it. You say it out loud, you get rid of it. And in a certain extent, you got to feel it to heal it. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And I think just that talking about it with, with people that you trust is, is a, is a huge thing. I mean, that's therapy all in itself.

[01:08:02] Just let it go. You know, like the fire service used to, when we were on these like, um, high profile incidents, you know, they would bring in therapist, you know, and, and in fact, they would have these, like, they actually called them fit for duty assessments. If you're on a high profile incident, you have to go through this. I mean, the whole idea, the whole name of it sounds horrible. Fit for duty. What if I don't say the right things? I'm not fit for duty. I lose my job.

[01:08:28] You know, so that's like another reason why people are afraid to like say anything, you know? But, um, so they would spend all this money doing these assessments, psychologists, bringing in people to talk to make sure you're okay. Yeah. And most of the time it was a joke. It was a waste of money. The best thing was just calling those one or two friends. Yeah. And my wife knows it. She knows who my people are.

[01:08:54] And, and I've had a handful of people call me kind of fairly on a regular basis. And a call will come in and I'll like, look at her. I'm like, I'm going to take this. I'm going to walk away. I already just have that feeling based on the hour, based on like, whatever. You can just sense it. You sense it. It's going to be a call. And we're going to, we're just going to, I don't care how long it takes. We're going to talk it out. And I know they'll do that for me at any time. Yeah. That's a relationship. So that's the type of people that we need to have in our lives. I agree with that a hundred percent. And it takes that reciprocating, that revolving door.

[01:09:24] I'll do this. You know, my buddy's there for me. I'm there for him. Exactly. And then you brought up like, you know, obviously I'm a person of faith, but like the, um, like the Christian firefighter thing, it was crazy. They asked me to teach. Um, like we, everybody kind of rotates, you know, and I'm usually the last to volunteer because I just don't like, like even right now, like I'm getting better at putting myself out of my comfort zone, but just talking, you know, doing the podcast, doing stuff is

[01:09:53] like not necessarily in my comfort zone or teaching, um, a message, you know, to a group of firefighters, you know? Yeah. Um, but, um, we, uh, I put one together and the topic was identity and, uh, where do we find our identity? And I had this whole thing planned out. I took it very seriously, backed it up with scripture, backed it up with stuff, had like

[01:10:17] prompting questions, you know, all that type of stuff for this, um, um, firefighter meeting. And, um, it didn't even follow the agenda. The minute we started talking about identity, people just started talking about their own experiences. There's probably 18 people there in like half the people just started crying when they were talking about identity. Yeah. Something real that a lot of people are struggling with, but just having that platform, you

[01:10:46] know, like you brought it up, Arthur, like, you know, do I go to church, go somewhere? Just being in a group of people, like-minded people who are willing to open up and be vulnerable. I think it was huge. At the end of that, we were all bro hugging life was good. And these are some of the toughest guys I know. Yeah. 18 of them and most of them are balling. Yeah. Wow. It wasn't anything I said. It was just the platform to start opening up and talking about, okay, now I'm going to let this thing go.

[01:11:14] I've never been in like a more powerful like situation, you know? We got to normalize it. You know, I think a lot of people run from it. Hence the drugs, the alcohol, stuff like that. Numb it out. Yeah. You know, not sit with your feelings, not make that call to your bro to say, hey, I am having a hard time. Just doing that alone. Just making that call. Some people are like, I'm not doing it. I don't want to bother him. I don't want to be a nuisance, you know, normalizing the safe place. Yeah. It's a big message. It is. It is. This is an important podcast, man.

[01:11:42] I mean, having these types of conversations. That's huge. Um, it's, it's okay to be vulnerable and it's, it's okay to digest. You know, we, we all are jesters in the mayhem, I guess. And it's, it's life is just so crazy. Like all these little tight ropes that we have to walk too far in one direction is always too far. Like you always got to find this middle ground with things. And it doesn't matter how long you try to find the middle ground.

[01:12:11] The ground is shifting underneath you. That's how I feel. And I, it's kind of peaceful once you accept that because, cause then once you stop trying to like control and then like you can just go with the flow, well, how is this like light? If life is a river and you're in a boat, you, you're still, you go with the flow with life and you do have some control over how that boat rose or like you control the boat within the river, but you're within the flow. Right.

[01:12:38] And to stay in the flow is important and you still have to direct your own ship, but you gotta, you have to go with the flow. I don't know. There's some interesting analogies out there. Yeah. Great conversation. No, it's good. It's good. Um, yeah. So that's the whole thing. Like on the vault, we've had like different names, like vault talk, you know, I've had a couple of friends come in and just start recording stuff and I'll be talking with friends and be like, man, this should have been recorded. This was like, this is old. So yeah, that's how this started. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:13:08] Same idea. We should be recording this. And it is powerful. You get people together that are just willing to open up. Um, but the vault it's, um, it's become more of like, and I think we talked about like change, like change order. Cause when I look at my life, it'll be, it'll be like the change order. And it's interesting going from like first responder world to like the construction and custom home building and stuff like that. Um, and it's like a huge change.

[01:13:37] Um, but one thing I've just learned throughout the course of my life is that change is inevitable. We maybe think we're running one direction, but there can be something that can happen in the snap of a finger. I've seen it a lot in the streets, you know, as a first responder that changes people in lives and what changes their lives in ways that they never would have expected. Yeah. You know, um, and there's nothing that parallels that more than like building a house actually. And that's, so that's where the idea of like change order, like the change order.

[01:14:07] Cause when you're building a house, you have change orders along the way, right? Some people, you have plans. Some people walk through a space, you know, they see it on plans. Like when you're planning it, but it's not until you're framing. It's not until the house is being built. They walk through it and they say, or think, yeah, that's not what I thought it would be, or the space isn't big. And so they say they want, you know, kitchen bigger or closet bigger, something different. And so you do that whole change order, you know, um, and throughout construction, there

[01:14:37] could be change orders, but the thing is with change orders usually lead to something better. Right. At the end of the day, a home is going to be exactly what our customers want. And we're committed to doing that. We're committed to going through that process, the change order, even though it's going to cost more money, it's going to delay things. It's going to be uncomfortable at times. Um, so that was like part of everything come together is like, our life is one big freaking change order. It really is. Like it is.

[01:15:07] I mean, like there's times when like you think about building a house, like we're doing one right now, you know, it's dirt. Like we're in the dirt excavating and we had a section of bad dirt and I was trying to find good dirt. I never thought like I would spend some of my days like where my biggest priority would be finding good dirt. You know, but even when you're in the dirt and like, you know, you're solving these problems. I know in the course of building this home, the outcome is going to be this big, beautiful home.

[01:15:35] But then you can't help it to think like so many times in our lives, we're freaking in the dirt. Yeah. But we don't know the plan. You're, you're like a, an analogy King. I don't know. I don't know. I just, I feel like you got some, like some, like the vault analogy, the safety, like in the dirt, like even when we were talking at Bowenbush, like you got some great analogies. There might just be too much time where I'm in my head, like thinking about things. I don't, I don't know, but it's. Has anyone ever called you the analogy King? No, I think you're the first. Okay.

[01:16:06] He's the AK, huh? I'm going to put that in the bottom of my business card, AKA analogy King. People are like, I don't quite understand this, Rich. Like, can you give me an analogy? Give me an analogy. So I can understand one. That is too funny. That's good. Yeah. So anyways, I'm always thinking about, you know, stuff like that and it's just amazing. Yeah. It's, it's kind of been fun. And so that's kind of the whole idea of like change order.

[01:16:32] It's like, you know in our lives, like we don't, we just need to go with it. Like you said, we just need to go with the flow. How many, yeah. How many times if you like, of all the discomfort of all the uncertain times in your life, like where you've maybe questioned everything. Have you looked back and said, I'm glad that happened. Like I can look at like some of the worst things that, that made me question everything back in the past. But today I look back at that and I'm like, I'm actually glad that happened.

[01:17:02] Cause it helped me realize or helped me discover these other things. It's true. The change orders. The change orders. They have to have, and they're going to keep happening. Like we said at one point in the show, the chaos, right? Right. Once you accept that the chaos isn't going anywhere, let's control within the chaos. Know that there's going to be chaos coming, you know, control what we can control. I preach that all the time. And grit. That's the other big one is grit. Right. Guts, resilience, initiative, tenacity. Yeah. That's a big one. Exactly. For me anyway. Cause I almost quit this show and then that's when the grit movement started.

[01:17:32] Yeah. And now, I mean, but I mean, there's like, yeah, the grit, I mean, that's huge. Cause you're going to run into speed bumps. You're going to have obstacles. You're going to question everything. You know, um, I even had, um, somebody who I worked with in the past who I respect, you

[01:17:54] know, who, um, kind of hurt, you know, I was talking and I had some gear, um, uh, some of the SWAT gear, like behind me, you know, like when I was like, um, just filming or just, um, recording one of my thoughts, it was like a thought of the day, you know, type thing. And, um, he was like, you're still portraying, you're a SWAT guy. You're still like all these types of stuff, you know, people aren't going to like that.

[01:18:22] And I'm like, I'm not, that just happened to be back there, you know, like focus on the message, but, but kind of what I take away from that, it doesn't matter what you're doing in life. There's always going to be resistance and scrutiny. And if you start to care too much of what like people think, you start to internalize that, that is what will, I mean, there's nothing like, if you look at the religious part, there's nothing that, um, like Satan, if you look at that or the world like would want more than watching you fail. You know what I mean?

[01:18:49] Because if you fail, then you don't get, you didn't, you don't save that firefighter. You know, you don't get that message out to people who need it. So that's one thing that kind of keeps me going. It's like, I don't know who's going to listen to this, but if, if one person gets it, then that's a good thing. Yeah. It's a very good thing. If I quit, you know, then, then they win, then they win. They win. Yeah. Then they had power over me. Yeah. Like they don't got no dominion over here. Yeah, exactly. They don't got that. Like I love those people have power over me.

[01:19:18] And at the end of the day, when you analyze maybe their life, they don't want to see you succeed because they're hurting and they're going through some of their own shit. Correct. Yeah. Right. That's like a psychology piece when people's lives are struggling. They're like, well, I don't want to see him do better. You know, let me watch this guy go in the toilet. Yeah. Typically if, when you are pointing out other people's flaws and judging them harshly on that, those are your flaws actually. Yeah. Yeah. And that's like, that's so true. It's so true.

[01:19:48] And social media has really accented that. Right. Yeah. Because everybody has a voice now and everyone's under scrutiny and this and that and validation and putting out their best foot forward. And we can, we say all the time, we want to see the influencers show the hard times too. Not just the rainbows and butterflies. That'd be, you know. That'd be great if we focus on the hard. I think the hard brings the growth. It does. It does. It does. Like the more that, you know, like the, those uncomfortable situations. I mean, imagine if life was just easy all the time. What joy would we have in anything? It'd be boring.

[01:20:17] I think we said that last time. It's like, it would be boring. Mm-hmm. You have to go through the shit to appreciate the good. You do. You got to be in the bullshit. There is no easy button. There's only the bullshit button. Yeah. I love that. The bullshit button. Oh, I was waiting for that. It's funny. It's true though. I mean. Yeah. A lot of great takeaways though. This was a good, this was a good combo. Yeah. Deep one. That's good. So I'll probably have to listen back because there was a lot of, a lot of juicy information in there. You know, a lot of good takeaways, I think. Well, yeah.

[01:20:46] And you know, you know, you got our support, man. Absolutely. Um, I'll always meet you up anytime and, um, and we'll support your family any way that we can. Anyone watching or listening definitely needs to check out some of the things you don't the vault. Richard, Richard is on a tick tock as well. So you got the accounts going, uh, Richard reads custom home construction. Did I say it right? Uh, so we are, so the business is read custom homes, read custom home. Um, what we're toying with right now and putting together is, um, the change order show,

[01:21:16] uh, where we're going to talk about life's change orders. Um, now the whole thing about it is I don't want it just to be me talking. The whole idea is I want to bring some, like you guys do. I want to bring some cool people in that have like just great stories that the world needs to hear. Like I have already, and again, it's talking about like running in the same direction ever since kind of like focusing my mind on like the change order show.

[01:21:41] Um, it, um, I've, I've, I've met people, I've heard stories from people and I'm like, wow, they've, they've got to be interviewed because the change that they went through on their life, some of them losing kids, some of them, you know, the job changes, some of them cancer, like a lot of things. Um, I think a lot of people can benefit from. Yeah. So that's like the whole idea. I think that's going to resonate well. It's going to be a great program. So are you thinking about taking a video and audio and just maximizing reach? Yeah.

[01:22:09] I'll probably have to consult with you guys a little bit, you know, more, but, um, yeah, that, I mean, just maximizing reach. And again, there may not even be much reach, but, um, even if it's one, if that one person listens to it, you know, and I have a feeling, you know, just because of who, who I am and my background and stuff that, you know, maybe it'll resonate with more, you know, military police and fire people. Um, but I, the idea is what I hope it could be for everybody because I don't care who you are.

[01:22:36] You know, we're all going to go through the same changes in life. We're all going to go through crap. It's inevitable. That's one thing that we know is going to happen. Just how are we going to navigate it? It's too true. Very true. It's going to be our panic hardware. Panic hardware. That's right. Yeah. Well, I, I got this guy. You're one of my pieces of panic hardware. I'm fortunate. I got a couple of good friends that I can rely on. Yeah. Um, likewise. So yeah, I feel very fortunate, man. Yeah. Panic hardware. Find yours. You know, let's own it. Let's be ready for the chaos. It's coming.

[01:23:06] We know, we know it's coming. It's already here. Yeah. You know, watch out for AI. We know it's out there. What other takeaways can we take? Start using AI. Yeah, I guess. Become a master of it. That's how I feel like, like, like you got to, if you want, that's a whole nother conversation. Well, we kind of already got into that, but fantastic talk with you. It was great. We're so happy to have you for your second appearance on Discussion Combustion. Let's do it again. And, um, yeah, continued success, man. That's all, that's all we want.

[01:23:34] Um, we've had some military folks in. So if you need guest referrals, if like you're at that stage, we got like a good handful of people that like to talk and would be willing to, to chat with you. So yeah, whatever we could do to help, whatever we could do, man. Yeah. I wish you guys much success too. And I love what you're doing. You're crushing it. Thanks, Rich. Appreciate it. It's really good. Stay with it. It's awesome. Thank you. I love it. We'll include all of, uh, Richard's stuff down in the show notes down below. So make it really easy to get in touch and follow him over there.

[01:24:02] And we're on to happy Friday. So thanks everyone for tuning in. This was a banger. It was. All right. Everybody out there, please be good to yourself. You know, you deserve it. Any, uh, last words of encouragement for all of the people tuning in? Just, uh, love every day of life. Every minute. Take the time to enjoy every moment. And, um, if, if find somebody to call, find somebody to love on constantly.

[01:24:30] And, um, just go to bed every night knowing that you made the best decisions you possibly could for you and other people. I love that. Great way to end it.