EMS: Erik & Matt Show
After hours style conversation focused on the hidden and often overlooked parts of first responder life. Discussing everything from continuing education and home life to health and wellness.
EMS: Erik & Matt Show
Resiliency Podcast
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In this episode of the Erik and Matt Show (EMS), we talk about resiliency. Whether you work in a hospital setting or prehospital, working in healthcare can be difficult. Especially in emergency medicine. From long hours, high stress situations and witnessing traumatic events, it's important as healthcare workers that we take care of our mental health. Part of that is being resilient. Listen in while Dr. Axene and Matt discuss this important topic.
I think the balance has kind of gone a little too far. People are too sensitive and don't offend anybody, and I think there's gotta be some grit.
SPEAKER_06And and because you know what? No matter what happens in your life, you're going to experience hard times.
SPEAKER_00We're listening to EMS with your host, Eric X, Matt Ball.
SPEAKER_03I'm excited about this topic today. This is something that we've been talking about for a long time, and we've never done a podcast on it.
SPEAKER_06Well, and we weren't really planning on doing a podcast, but then we got into this passionate conversation this morning, and we were like, wait a minute, we should do this on camera.
SPEAKER_03And I was at a conference last week in Milwaukee talking to another fire chief, and we got fired up about this same topic.
SPEAKER_04Sounded like he got real fired up.
SPEAKER_03No, he did. Yeah, we and uh we're uh we're hoping to actually talk about it uh at FDIC. So what's how that goes. Well, I think it's uh a lot of people call it resilience. Um we were calling it grit, uh maybe toughness, you know, something that we feel like is lost a little bit now, maybe in some of the younger generation of folks coming into our industry, whether young physicians or young firefighters, paramedics, CMTs, yep. So um you know, I'll just give a medical example. Uh there was a day when I would work 120 hours a week in the in the ICU training in residency, right? But now with different requirements, they're uh a little bit easier on the new uh the new new recruits.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And uh the baby doctors. Yep. And uh I think there was a transition, and I was right in that transition, but there's uh there's been a transition within medical training. And uh I think uh a lot of people want to kind of you know promote family life balance, and I think those are good things. Uh those are good things. Uh but I think there's I think the balance has kind of gone a little too far. People are too sensitive and don't want to offend anybody, and I think there's gotta be some grit, uh some some resilience, some toughness out there. I think we've lost something, and I I think I got some people fired up at that conference. I know you and I got fired up talking about it today. Um you know, it's uh we signed up for something tough. We see a lot of things most people aren't supposed to see. That's right. And there's gonna be some tough situations.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. And you gotta kinda power through sometimes. And I don't think, you know, and we've we talked about this earlier, that you know, we're big on, you know, mental health and and just overall health and wellness, right? Your physical body, your mental state, all those kind of things. And so we're not in any way dismissing mental health. Absolutely not. Um, or anything like that. However, I think that there's a balance to be struck between um, you know, taking care of your mental health and having some grit and resiliency that life's not always gonna be easy. You're not always just gonna work eight hours and go home exactly on time, or a 12-hour shift, or you know, you're gonna have one shift on the fire engine or ambulance that's busy and one that's slow. It's not always gonna be hard and it's not always gonna be easy. I think we've moved over from always hard to we want everything always easy, and especially in this modern age. And so I think there's a balance to be struck there between having resiliency, but yet having a good work-life balance. I think that is important. And I I think, you know, to some degree that is a good thing that they've said, you know, hey, wait a minute, we're just killing these young doctors, making them work just insane hours, you know, and and burnout. And, you know, it's like maybe there is a balance to be struck there where we could lessen the amount of requirement. The standard is still the same, but maybe we prolong the training over, you know, whatever, two years as opposed to a year, and they have a more manageable schedule over that time, as opposed to trying to cram it all into this short amount of time. Well, this is what I did. You know, we're we're not again, we're not saying that you know, taking care of yourself and having a work-life balance isn't important.
SPEAKER_03No, you're right. And I think I came from this culture where I I never I didn't take a sick day. Yeah, yeah. I didn't uh I I would, like I told you earlier, I'd place an IV in myself and I didn't place the IV, but my nurse would place an IV and wear long sleeves that day so it cover up my IV. Yeah. I just, you know, before my shift started, I got a liter of fluid, some tortol, and some zofran.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_03And I felt better. Yep. And I started my shift treating patients who frankly weren't as sick as I was. Right. I broke my arm skateboarding and I went to work with a broken arm. A friend of ours took you to the hospital. That's right. So I guess I I think maybe honestly, if to be totally transparent, I I think I'm probably too far to one side. Sure. Where there are probably days I should have taken a sick day. Right. But in the culture in emergency medicine, it's it's not something that it's really not something we do. I in fact I remember when I 14 years ago, I was talking to my medical director at the time. I said uh, so anything with sick call or anything like that? And he goes, Oh, well, just just let me know and I'll write you a prescription. And come to work. Basically come to work, you know. Yeah. And I think it's the same thing true. I mean, even even in my training, I just you just you just go to work. And uh now I've I've seen medical students where I've been attending and attending up north and uh as an attending physician seeing some of these new baby doctors come through. Or uh even some of the medical students that I'll work with who are scribes or hoping to be a medical student, they're you know, like a college-age kid uh not showing up for work because they're they got some sniffles or something.
SPEAKER_04I need a mental health day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So that's frustrating to me sometimes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I don't I don't like it. Uh it's uh it's frustrating to me. I feel like that's something that we need to have in our society, but we need to have to have a balance though. It's being too you know, not looking after yourself and not finding balance and working too hard is not good either. And I fall prey to that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and like I said, it's a balance. It's a balance, right? It's a balance when you know when your body or your mind is telling you, hey, we need a break. Yeah, you know, we need we need to take a break, whether that's you need to get some more sleep, you need to go on a vacation, just decompress for a little while. Great. Um, but like I remember when I got at my department, when I started in my department, um, we had an unwritten rule in that department that you did not take vacation and you definitely did not call in sick on a holiday. Yeah, you you drug your butt into work. I don't care how bad you feel, you come in and they'll send you home, but you come to work on Christmas Day. Because again, like we said at the beginning, that's what you signed up for. Like I would tell people when I would do new higher orientations, like we did not come grab you off the street and come say, hey, you're gonna come be a firefighter. You came to us wanting to do this job, and you knew what that job was. You knew it wasn't an eight to five or nine to five job where you had weekends off and holler, you knew that. And so, and then over so that was for probably the first decade of my career. That was like I said, if you ever, and we had guys over that time period that they came into work deathly ill and were like, go home, because we don't want you to get everybody else sick, you're truly sick, go home, right? And so those that's that's how it was. You never took vacation. The senior guys would actually book those days so nobody could put in for vacation, and then as that day approached, they would cancel their days and show up to work, right? Well, then slowly that started to fade away, and guys started taking vacation days on those days. When I mean admin, from an admin perspective, you couldn't tell them no because they have the time, there's spots available on the calendar. So from an administrative perspective, they can't come in and say, No, you can't take Christmas Day off. That's that we have this unwritten rule on I can do whatever I want. What are you gonna do about it? And it that has evolved into, or I should say, devolved into, now every holiday is booked with vacation. Everybody takes and so all the senior guys started seeing this and saying, Wait a minute, I've been doing this for 15, 10, 15, 20 years. I've never taken a holiday off. Now this one year guy's coming in and taking Christmas off. Uh-uh. And so they started putting their names in because it was based on seniority. And and then guys calling in sick on holidays. Like, what are you doing? You know, like you knew going into this that was part of the gig. And now you're and sometimes I remember I was the first guy in my fire department that was gonna get hit with mandatory overtime on Christmas Day. So I we were on 2448s. I was working my normal shift on Christmas Eve. Nobody in the history of my department had ever been hit with mandatory overtime, meaning I was forced to stay at work on Christmas Day. On Christmas Day, and the battalion called me that evening, six, seven o'clock that evening, saying, Hey man, I'm sorry, but so and so just called in sick. And so, and I was, I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty hot because I'm thinking, again, we had this rule, you don't call in sick. Thinking about your girls. Well, yeah. I mean, my kids were young at the time, and I was like, dude, I paid my dues. I came in on Christmas Eve, like this is my year, I get Christmas Day off. Luckily, kudos to the leadership in my department at that time. Uh, the battalion, we had battalion drivers, and they actually, because this was, like I say, unprecedented, this never happened, and the acting battalion on my shift called the battalion for the next day, Christmas Day, said, Hey, this is what's going on. And they're like, Can we drop staffing down by one? And he said, Yeah, I don't need a driver. He goes, I'll just go without a driver, I'll drive myself, we'll reassign the driver, it's his normal shift, and ball doesn't have to come in on Christmas or doesn't have to stay for Christmas Day. So I didn't have to, but again, it was because somebody called in sick. Yeah, and so it's like now you're kind of for lack of a better word, you're screwing over your brothers or sisters because you want to call in sick and stay home with your family. Well, wait a second. This isn't, you know, this is your year to work it, bro. Like, sorry, that's just if you don't like that, go do something else. Yeah, um, and that goes to calls. Like you told me about a difficult conversation you had to have with our patients' family.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was terrible. I I'm yeah, I'm glad you reminded me of that. Uh so it was uh a guy in his 30s came in, family dropped him off. Um he ended up um passing out in the waiting room and we, you know, emergently got him into a bed, brought him into the back and worked him. Anyway, unfortunately things didn't go well and and having to communicate. Um I'm sorry, I think I have the genders backwards. But anyway, yeah. We had to communicate with the family who was thinking that he was fine.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, or not that ill.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So anyway, and they I had it was one of the most difficult calls I've had to to deal with talking to uh a spouse that was expecting you know her spouse or sorry, uh his expecting her his spouse to be okay. Yeah, and kiddos are yeah, hey, where's mommy? And mommy didn't make it. And we didn't know um that the family was waiting there, and it was kind of a tough situation. Anyway, every ounce of me wanted to just go outside and take a breath. Yeah. But we had a full waiting room and we had uh tons of traumas and just there's a chaotic day, you just gotta keep churning and burning. Um it's hard, but you gotta be able to in certain environments you have to be able to compartmentalize things, and I think there's it's a good thing in our industry to be able to do that. If you have a bad call, be to be able to compartmentalize it and move on to the next call is a good thing. Yeah, but I think the thing I didn't do was to really process it later. Later, yeah. I never did anything about it, yeah. And those things can accumulate over time, yeah. And uh and I think it contributed to some of the burnout I felt later in my career. But um I think that the the balance isn't necessarily hey, you know what, I need to call somebody in. I can't do this.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03It's it's being aware of the fact, boy, I'm gonna need to process this later. Now might not be the time, but I'm gonna need to process this later. And there are certain situations too, like we talked about your that's uh one of your colleagues, I think uh their spouse was a patient or something.
SPEAKER_06Well, yeah, guy from another department, yeah, who showed up on the scene and his wife was the patient on scene and not good if I had to treat my wife for a life-threatening emergency and things didn't go well, I think I'm out.
SPEAKER_03You're gonna have to find somebody else.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, fire me. You can f exactly. You can fire me if you want, pal. But um, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we've that's even a form of grit too, looking out for yourself, right? For sure. It's like hey, you know what? There's a limit here. I have boundaries. Yes. This is way over the top. I need to process this. Yeah. I just think that that l that that threshold or that boundary is just a little too sensitive right now to me. I just you know, it it's so frustrating sometimes for me to see the the the levels of sensitivity or not weakness necessarily, just the inability to function with some difficulties. Yeah. You know, we gotta be able. I mean, we talk the World War II vets that I know.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah. Just came back from, you know, a year or two years or however long their time was in the military, just every single day seeing horrible, horrible, traumatic events with people that they knew and having to do horrible, horrible things that uh you know the mind can't process. And there's no time to there's no downtime. We gotta go take this hill or we gotta whatever, you know. You you just and then what happened and then they so they serve their time and then they come back home. What do they do? Do they sit around and cry about it? Did they no, they just went back to work. And again, I we're not saying that should they have probably dealt with some of the trauma that they experienced? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You know, we're not again, we're not suggesting that they shouldn't have, or anybody shouldn't. But again, I think there's a balance there because I I think, and I've talked to counselors about this too, that sometimes, you know, you you run across people that are big into the mental health thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And I you know, I think their heart's in the right place. They they want to take care of people's mental health, but yet I feel like sometimes it can be, and we talked about this earlier, a self-fulfilling prophecy that it's like if you're telling yourself you're always depressed, you're probably always gonna be in a depressed mood. Yeah. You know, where you know, yeah, that that man, that call sucked. That was terrible. But you know what? I I gotta go back to work. You know, there's other people that need me. I I gotta go back to work. And but there's some times, again, like you said earlier, there's some times where a traumatic event is so traumatic that it's like I need to step back. I'm no good to my patients, I'm no good to my crew, I'm no good to my nurses because my mind's just not in the game right now. I need to step back, I need to go home, I need to take a break, I need to take a breather, and that's okay too. But it can't be every single time you get a difficult call. No, you know, it just can't be that way.
SPEAKER_03So there's those traumatic sorts of situations where we need to have that grit and resilience, but I think there's also the work ethic side of grit and resilience where you got that colleague that perpetually shows up late at shift change, or is perpetually leaving early, leaving early, yeah, looking for the easy way. Um you know, there's there's something to do in the right thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And even when it's a little painful, we do the right thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's that can be another level of frustration too, where we're all towing the line. We all work hard, we're cleaning the you know, the kitchen. We got our whatever, you got your schedule and the station for what you do. And then the ER, we got our culture of the way we do things.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03We typically will show up 10-15 minutes before a shift ends. Hand off. Handoff. And then we go we hit the the ground running. Yeah, right. Um 12 hours.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Running. Yeah, literally running. So then uh then you've got a a colleague maybe. I'm just painting a potential picture there showing up a couple minutes late. Or when you're going to, you know, take out you know, sign out, they haven't seen any patients for the last you know 45 minutes, waiting for me to show up early, and their bags packed and ready to go, they're out the door before shift changed. And so, you know, there's there's something about the work ethic side of it too. Yeah. Being willing to do the right thing, you work hard.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_03And uh but there's balance there too, like that video clip we saw, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, from the pit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, young, young uh med student leaving the ER. They had a crazy day. Um you guys can watch the clip, but you leaving?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, my shift is over and I'm getting paid to be here. Quite literally the opposite.
SPEAKER_02Well, I I don't know if you noticed, but we're sort of uh in disaster mode here still. We put in the extra time if we need it.
SPEAKER_01You know 62% of eight bucks reports suffering from phenomenon.
SPEAKER_02Painfully wear.
SPEAKER_01So maybe we'll need a lunar texting to learn how to set some boundaries. Like me. See you tomorrow, Doc.
SPEAKER_06Maybe you maniacs should take that into consideration when you're working a 12-hour shift and then you're staying for four more hours to like maybe you should have that balance, right? Again, we're not saying there's times where you're gonna, okay, I'm gonna stay an extra hour because, like you said, you're about to leave and a major incident comes in or something.
SPEAKER_03There's a bus accident.
SPEAKER_06You're not gonna stick your colleague with 12 patients.
SPEAKER_03I stayed four hours late into the next shift just to know. You just do the right thing.
SPEAKER_06Yes, and you take care of each, and hopefully that gets reciprocated back. Your colleagues recognize that and say, Man, Eric, you're a good guy for stepping up. You could have gone home and left me with this mess, and instead you didn't, and you stayed and you helped me, and I really appreciate that. And you know, yeah, that's being a good colleague, that's being a good person. Um, I mean, same thing with the fire department. You know, you got those guys that um, you know, they they come in 30, 45 minutes early for their shift, every shift. Yeah, and because that way, if you know that they get a call, yeah, they'll jump that call for the offgoing shift. That way they're not having to stay a little bit late or not leave, you know, on time. And hopefully that gets reciprocated. But you got those guys, they show up at you know, 5.59 when shift changes at 6, you know, and then it's ironic how those same ones are the same guys that are out the door at 559. Yeah, and it's like, hang on, where the guy that you know comes in early is usually the one that's gonna hang out and you know stay a little bit later, not necessarily running calls, but yeah, it's just character to me. That it's just character. And again, work-life balance is super important. Uh, taking care of your mental health is super important. There are times when you got to back away, take a break, take a breather. You know, one thing too, traumatic call, as you talk about that. I remember we had a traumatic, it was pediatric trauma and uh rough call. And um, we got done with the call when we got back to the station. I I may have told this story in the past. But our captain, kudos to him, came up to me, came up to us or the whole crew and said, Hey, if anybody needs to go home, go. I called battalion, we'll get coverage for your shift. That was a traumatic, like that was an unusual call, right? An unusually traumatic call. If you need to go home and hug your wife, hug your kids, do it. And we all I remember was all kind of sitting around, we were in the back of the ambulance cleaning up after the call, and we all kind of sat around and we were like, I don't really want to go home because and and again, I think I've talked about this before. I thought, well, if I go home, my mom my my mom, my wife and my kids are gonna be like, what are you doing home? You know, and they're not gonna understand the what I just experienced. They they they can't fathom what I just dealt with. But all my brothers and sisters that were sitting in the back of that medic that were on that call with me, that are all moms and dads, they know exactly what we all just went through and the thoughts and feelings that I was having, because they're having the exact same one. So I thought, I mean, I knew that I was still capable to run calls. It wasn't like I was just, you know, okay, I really have to step away. But I just felt like, no, I'd rather stay here with my brothers and sisters, and that'd be more cathartic to me to sit around with them and talk about it. And you tell me what your thoughts were, and I'll tell you what my thoughts were, and we can that was more cathartic to me than going home and hugging my wife and kids, going, What are you doing home? You know, what what's going on? And then they're all worried, they don't know how to deal with you, you know, all that kind of stuff. So sometimes I found it better to stay on shift. Yeah. And kind of like Chief Ducks uh the uh Chief um Duxbury, Massachusetts.
SPEAKER_03Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_06Reardon, thank you. Chief Reudin, you know, when when they had that traumatic incident.
SPEAKER_03Resilience.
SPEAKER_06Million percent. Oh, a great picture of leadership and grit and all the things.
SPEAKER_03All of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And but what did he do? He brought everybody to the firehouse.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06This is where we're gonna heal.
SPEAKER_03And that's how you learn it. That's how you learned grit. That's uh the resilience.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because you gotta sometimes, and it you know, some of the you know, mental health people might say, Oh, tough it out, that's a bad mentality. Not always, not always, not always. Sometimes you gotta tough it out.
SPEAKER_03And it's something that's learned over time, it's not something you can immediately just get it if you don't got it. You're not gonna be able to go to the gym and suddenly squat 700 pounds. No, it's gonna take some forever, some training to to develop that kind of strength, and it you know, something you develop over time. And I think that's the s that's the truth for us too. And for a lot of us that you know, we were talking about earlier today. I asked you to give me a couple sentences about where your grit came from, your resilience. Obviously, we're nobody's perfect, none of us have the the perfect amount of grit and the balance and all that. But you know, you mentioned your dad, I felt the same way. Uh some of the family heritage stuff passed on.
SPEAKER_06And I think it was that generation too. It was just, you know, back when we grew up, you know, I mean it's men were just kind of built a little bit different. Not obviously not physically, just more mentally built a little bit different. Yeah, they were hard workers and they provided and you know, those kind of things. And I'm not saying men don't do that today, but it's kind of yeah, I I again I think it goes back to people just looking for the easy way out. Immediate gratification. Social media has played into that, technology has played into that, immediate gratification. We don't want to work for anything, we don't want to go to the gym and put in time to build up our strength to be able to squat 500 pounds. We don't want to do that. We want to, if I can't do it right now or in five minutes, I don't want to do it. Yeah, and so um I I do think that not only our family, but I think just that generation. I mean, it's kind of joked about online about how you know Gen X, you know, we were just raised a little bit different, the way that we played when we were kids. You know, we go out to your mom kicked you out of the house in summertime. Come back when the street lights come on. Yeah, and you're out just figuring it out, you know, staying alive, like Devin said earlier. You're just surviving for 10, 12 hours, using your friends to stay alive and you know, having a good time.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's one of the I think it's one of the pieces of developing some of the resilience I think that we all want our team to have. Yeah, is when we have a team that's functioning healthy as a team and somebody's struggling with something, they walk through it, they do it, they build that muscle of resilience, walking through some adversity. Yeah, but they've got the support of a team around them.
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's part of what it means to be in a team with camaraderie for sure. Uh where you have that community of folks who support one another. That's I think that's part of the recipe for developing some of the resilience that we want our colleagues to have, and we really would hope our new recruits would have is uh being a part of a team, the community of team, and also, like you said, doing the right thing. And that's not something that's easy to train either. Those virtues of of the integrity of making the right choice. Uh unfortunately, there are some lazy people out there. Yeah. And when you're not making the right choice, uh that could, you know, it's not necessarily resilience, but you know, just the laziness of things. And that can be frustrating as well.
SPEAKER_06And those bonds with crews, you know, they talk about in the military how there's no stronger bond between two people than a bond forged in war. Yeah. You know, like me and you are in a foxhole together fighting for our lives together, you're watching my back, I'm watching your back, I'm depending on you to keep me alive, and vice versa. That's a strong, unbreakable bond that we would that is very hard to break. And that's why, you know, people that serve together, whether it's in the military or police or fire, EMS, you know, in medicine, you know, you see and experience traumatic things together. You know, your situation isn't necessarily life-threatening, but like in our situation, it's like I need to know that you have my back, that you're not gonna bail when things get hot. Yeah, you know, literally, um, that you're gonna be there right with me handling doing what we gotta do. And that forms a very it's a very special bond. And that again, that's uh I think a lot why a lot of people are attracted to the fire service is because of that brother sisterhood, that family. Um, but that bond is not made easily. That bond is made through resilience and grit and toughness.
SPEAKER_03For about close to ten years, I was part of a night crew that was amazing. Yeah. And like you said, we were we it wasn't life-threatening, right? Which is a different level of it.
SPEAKER_06But you're still experiencing traumatic things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're we're in the you know, we're alone. You're in the trenches of the ER. Trenches of the ER, seeing the you never know what's gonna come through the door. Some days we feel like we're way understaffed, yeah, and some days we we're not. But it it's usually chaos. And there was a special bond, I think, between all of us. Sure. It was being forged over time. For sure. And that is a special thing. Yeah. And I think that's something you experience in a team. 100%. Isolation isn't there's this this there's this kind of a myth of uh this Epicurean sort of a self-sufficiency as being the ultimate form of strength. And I really think that's just a lie. The self-sufficiency is not strength. I love the story we've told this before of the horses, the the draft horses. A draft horse, extremely strong animal, can pull 8,000 pounds. Two draft horses don't pull 8,000 pounds times two, though, 16,000, two draft horses, 24,000 pounds. Four times. And even more than that. Yeah, well, the uh more than double, right? So you think anyway, so but then if you get two draft horses to work together, it can pull 32,000 pounds. Yeah. Um the teamwork, there's there's something that happens in relationship when you're working together, you can withstand a whole lot more. Yeah. And that I think uh is really what I think the kind of grit and resilience we're looking for in the fire service is is more along the lines of that team member that's got your back. Yeah. And we can do this. For sure. That's what we're looking for. And I think that's I mentioned that fire chief I was talking to in Milwaukee. Yeah. That's that's what we're talking about. Yeah. We really wanted to experience and have our crews experience the kind of team that we've experienced in the past. Of hey, we got this, we can do this, let's, let's, let's pull this together. Yep. Whereas I think a lot of what I've seen, they're not some they're on the day in the day room on their phone. Yep. When the like I think you mentioned somebody out cleaning the med unit and the new recruit was Yeah, sitting there on a cell phone, yeah, while everybody else is out working.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's a big no-no. Uh but yeah, it's definitely something that um, you know, again, I I do think there's a generational aspect to it. Um, because I think that, you know, as parents, we want to give our kids everything, right? Yeah, we want to just because we love them, right? And so we don't want them to go without. We don't want them to experience hardships. But sometimes that's the best thing that they could do is experiencing some hardships and some toughness because that builds resiliency. Yeah, you know, my daughter last year went through the Air Force uh basic training and very hard. Not it was hard from a dad perspective. You know, seeing my little girl go off like for the first time. She's 19 and she's going off and she's gonna get yelled at and have to get up early and you know, uh do all these things. And so that was hard for from a dad perspective, but it was a billion times harder for her because she's away from everybody that she knows, foreign environment, whole new culture from civilian life to military life, adjusting to that, um, all these different things. But as after she got out, we were talking, you know, about you know, oh well, you know, what was it like, and you know, just she's telling us about her experience. And she kind of said, She's like, Dad, I'm kind of glad you didn't raise me like a wimp. And I was like, What do you mean? And she said, Well, you know, like we'd go and do a ruck or something, you know, they'd go a do a three, four-mile ruck or ruck. Ruck, you know, march. So they're marching, they've got, you know, maybe a 40-50 pound ruck on, okay, and they're on a march and for you know, four or five miles wearing full, you know, military gear, maybe carrying a weapon. So they got, you know, my daughter's 132 pounds, and she's carrying a 40-50 pound backpack, and she actually got assigned to this large machine gun that's probably 60 pounds. So she's carrying probably 100 pounds of gear close to 100 pounds of gear for four miles. That's not easy, you know. When you weigh 130 pounds, yeah. Well, that's not I mean that yeah, that'd be like you carrying around 200 pounds. Yeah, I mean, that's hard. And she's like, and you know, some of these other kids, you know, we'd be a mile in or a half mile in, and they're over there crying. And she's thinking, what are you crying about? Like, yeah, this is hard, but it's we're not gonna die. Like, it's not that hard. Just tough it out, you know, and and she went through that hard time and then she went to tech school, and that we didn't realize was even harder than basic was gonna be. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, tech school was more difficult than than the basic was gonna be. And so she's done over over the this last year, it's been almost a year, she's had to go through these tests almost of grit, of resiliency. And I mean, you look at any military training, that's what it's all about. Whether it's basic training for any branch of the military or if it's some kind of a special operations training, everybody talks about seals and buds, and they're looking for that toughness, you know, that resiliency. Like when you when it sucks and you're hot and you're tired and you haven't slept and you haven't eaten, are you gonna be there for your brother? Are you gonna be there? Can you perform? Can you do that? That's what they're looking for. And a guy your size, they're looking going, man, look at this physical specimen. This guy's gonna be an animal. He's gonna he'll drop out in two days. And then some little dude my size who's got the right mindset will come in and be able to do the whole thing and survive it. And so a lot of it is about mindset. A lot of people think, oh, it's physical prowess. You talk to any of those guys, and I'm not claiming to be any of those guys, but you talk to any of those guys, and they will tell you it has nothing to do with your physical ability, it's all about what's in your body.
SPEAKER_03Well, the Navy SEALs, we've talked about this, they've learned this, we've spoken on this. They used to look for those performance metrics to choose and to select Division I athletes, all these things, yeah. And uh they were looking at those, which were important. The performance metrics are important, it's part of the job. Physically you have to perform. Yeah. Um, but there's also this whole side of the the character performance. But how do you assess character? And uh what they've developed are ways to assess character, and they actually value that over the physical performance now. In the past, they were willing to accept those high performers and then they would sacrifice on the character issues. They've actually flip-flop now, and they aren't uh unwilling and they do not compromise on the character excellence. Yep. They're willing to compromise on some of the physical metrics and performance metrics, knowing they can train them up. Yeah, you can't train someone up on character.
SPEAKER_06I can make you stronger, I can make you faster, I can make you lose weight, you know, whatever it is. I can do that for you if you have the right mindset.
SPEAKER_03And what they would say is I can trust you with my wife with my life, but what I really want is to be able to trust you with my wife. Yes. And I think that character side is a lot to do with what we're talking about. Yeah. Is the the virtue uh it's not just work ethic, it's not just integrity, it's that uh the the resiliency to stick to what's right even when it's tough.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_03Anybody can do the right thing when it's easy. It's can you do the right thing when no one's looking? Can you do the right thing when it sucks and you're hurting, it's hot, you're tired, you're hungry, life is unfair and you're you're depressed, but you still do the right thing even when the chips are down. Yep. That's grit. That's what we're looking for. That's the kind of person you want to hire.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03On the flip side of all of it, again to circle back around to balance, we can't burn the candle at 14 Ns, right? You gotta be able to have life balance so you can have that grit and resilience. You gotta look after yourself.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. That work life balance is hugely important. You gotta go home, you gotta have time, downtime, you gotta get proper rest. Um that makes you better. It's kind of like Jerry Well says, like when you're at the fire when you're at the fire station, be a fireman. Yeah, you know, worry about your side job when you're off. You know, and again, I mean if you have a family emergency or something like that, okay, yeah, you it's time to go, you gotta deal with, you know, you're a dad first, you're a husband first. Um but when you're at the fire station, when you're at the hospital, you know, be a doctor, be a nurse, be an EMT, be a paramedic, be a fireman, be a policeman, whatever it is. You know, be here now. Um and a lot of guys, a lot of people, again, I think a lot of it is just this I think it's more of a socially thing acceptable thing that we want the easy way out, just like you said. You know, we we want to take a shot to lose weight, we don't want to go to the gym and eat right. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, you know, we we you we that's what we want to do. That's the easy way out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06As opposed to, no, you gotta go and be consistent and go to the gym. You know, discipline. Uh, my I think it was Mike Tyson that his quote on discipline is what was the definition of discipline? And it's uh take something that you hate to do it and do it like you love it. Something to that effect. I'm paraphrasing. But that was what his idea of discipline was, and that's like David Goggins, same thing. He hates to run. What's the first thing he does every morning? He gets up and goes and runs. Because he's like, if I can beat that, I can do anything else. Because I'm doing the I'm forcing myself to do the one thing that I hate, and that's grit. That's you know, yeah, all these things that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_03But then you got the guy like me with a bunch of knee surgeries. I used to love to run. Yeah. Uh, you know. Well now you stair climb. No, I stair climb, but I I bound bike, but but bound bike? Mountain bike. Oh, mountain bike.
SPEAKER_06I thought he said bound bike. I'm like, what is bound biking? I've never heard of that. It's a new form of mountain biking. Yes, let's go.
SPEAKER_03No, but uh, I guess what I was thinking was it's like Goggins or whatever. Is that Goggins? Yeah, but um he's a main bag. I think a lot of us, myself included, have a tendency uh to to use the analogy of running. It's like uh yeah, I know I've got a bunch of knee surgeries and I'm gonna trash my knee by running every day, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Because that's what I gotta do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like we we have to be aware of our limitations. Yes, there's other things you can do to Yeah, and it's and you know, asking for help is a form of strength too, right? Hey, uh a great example. I think we talked about this before, but um I remember trying to play football. I walked onto the team, I I didn't have a lot of experience playing football, and then walk on to a college team, and I was pretty bad. And I remember some of the games or some of the new defenses that I wasn't really familiar with. My offensive tackle would tell me go left number 42, push him to the sideline or whatever. Yeah, uh, and I re I but he only did that because I asked him for help. It's like I keep missing these blocks, can you help me?
SPEAKER_06And good on him. Yeah, on saying, Screw you, I'm busy doing my own thing, right? No, I'm gonna help this young guy.
SPEAKER_03But I went through the work, I studied the playbook. Exactly. Uh, and I was need I was needing help recognizing these defensive formations I was struggling with.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And uh anyway, all that to say, uh, there's there's more to grit and resilience than just you know picking yourself up by the bootstraps and just going. Yeah. There's balance, there's asking for help, um, you know, and and you know, depression and anxiety. We briefly mentioned that as being an obstacle here. You you're feeling uh uh bit depressed or something. You know, you may need some help to be able to have the kind of grit and resilience you really want to have. Yes. Sometimes we gotta take care of ourselves and get some help with some depression, or maybe there's something you need a counselor for. Maybe there's some you know physical thing you gotta take care of, maybe there's some relational thing you gotta take care of. You know, being mindful of that and taking care of yourself, uh, you know, your body and your mind, your soul, your spirit, who you are is your greatest asset, and you've really got to take care of yourself. But absolutely. But being lazy is not a good way to be either. And you gotta push yourself from time to time. And sometimes adversity can be a really good thing. Pushing through and and making it through and succeeding in the face of adversity can be a real optimal sort of an opportunity for growth.
SPEAKER_06Well, didn't you tell me once about dopamine? Yeah. And the good dopamine is when you do that, when you challenge yourself to something hard, whether it's you're going through paramedic school and you're working hard to pass paramedic school or med school or whatever. It doesn't always have to be a physical thing, but you want to lose weight. You put in the time in the gym, you sh get up early, you go to the gym, you start eating right, you know, and then when you meet that goal because it was hard, that's the good dopamine, that's the long term, right?
SPEAKER_03Yep. So glad you brought it up, Matt. Yeah, it's like a today's society is a it's the thumb flipping, yeah, swiping generation of instant gratification. Well, that's boring. I flipped through it. Well, I'm looking for that hit, that dopamine hit.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03When you're looking for instant gratification and you're getting that quick dopamine hit, it feels good, and that's why we like it. Our limbic system wants to repeat dopamine release. It's that hunter sort of mentality. It's like, hey, I found dopamine, I'm gonna find a pathway to repeat it and repeat it. That's instant gratification, and that dopamine release is is uh something we enjoy. The problem is it hits the same receptors, the pain receptors, the pleasure and pain. And when we receive a lot of pleasure impulses, the body doesn't like that imbalance, and so the brain actually secretes or stimulates that pain response to balance things out because we're getting all this instant gratification by flipping our cell phones and swiping or whatever, our body actually balances things out and and really stimulates the pain centers of the brain to give us a bit of a balance. And that's why after social media and you're done, you're gonna feel depressed. And I think that's a lot of why social media has been associated with depression and anxiety. Now, like you said, on the flip side, you decide, hey, you know what? I'm gonna get myself into shape, I'm gonna wake up early every morning, I'm gonna start going to the gym. I everything in you wants to sleep a little bit longer, but you get yourself up anyway. Yeah, and you do something that's a little uncomfortable for a goal down the road, that pain that you're getting uh by doing that, the body wants to balance it out by stimulating the pleasure response. Now your brain's starting to release dopamine on its own, and then you get that runner's high feeling of, hey, I feel good about doing this. Yeah, you do that, you do that, you do that. That's another way to really reward the the grit and the resilience of doing something difficult.
SPEAKER_06My wife would always tell me that she would know if I hadn't worked out because I'd be in a bad mood. And she's like, You need to go work out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Because and I joke, but I'm serious, that like I'll go to the gym and work out 50% because I want to stay in shape, right? And you know, everybody doesn't nobody wants to be fat and out of shape. Um, but the other 50% for 50% is for my brain, from my mind. Like I always feel better on days when I work out. Absolutely. Hands down, no question about it. I always feel better when I do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I uh have been working out with a friend of mine named Connor for a few years. McGregor? Yeah, I wish no, no, actually, no, I don't wish because my buddy Connor is a hero. He was an amazing guy. He's in Oklahoma City now. If he's listening to this, hey Connor, what's up, Connor? Dear friend, we worked out consistently every morning for about three years and it was epic. Great workout uh partner, um, held each other accountable. Even when I go to a hotel, I text him pictures on a treadmill just to let them know that you know accountability holding each other accountable. Well, you moved to Oklahoma City, like I mentioned, and so uh I I stopped working out for a short period of time there. Well, I was actually going by myself, and then every now and then I'd miss. Um accountable. There's nobody holding me accountable. Technically, I never miss because I just my my deal with myself was at least three times a week. But I'd been going six times a week. Yeah. And uh when I would miss a day, just like you, I just felt depressed.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I've really missed it. Well, I started working out with uh another friend that you know, Sean. And we were working, I think we'd worked out for about a year together. And then uh recently I stopped working out with him because I I wanted to prioritize my daughter, and she wanted to power lift. Yeah, and so I started coaching her a little bit. But there was a little time there where I wasn't working out like I was, again, feeling that depression with uh not working and not that not getting that dopamine like uh my brain was getting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh and now I'm with working out with my daughter back in the groove again, and it's it's great. But it's it's really worthwhile to try to find something in life that you can do that's hard work. Uh it will pay you it will pay you uh and d you know, triple. Yeah. Uh In uh the ultimate pro pleasure, the way that our body is really designed to have pleasure, not by swiping for instant gratification, but the kind of pleasure you get when you succeed in a challenge. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, when you do something hard, right? Like I say, you go through paramedic school, EMT school, you go through fire rookie school, you get your first job as a fireman, and your probationary year, you're busting your butt trying to make a good reputation and a good name for yourself in your department. And then at the end of that, you get your helmet or your shield or whatever it is, and all those things. It's like, I did it, you know. I I accomplished something. Yeah, I put in the work, it wasn't easy, it was early mornings, it was late nights, it was blood, sweat, and tears, you know, all the things, but I did it. And I'm here, and then that's just the beginning. Then, but you keep that, right? You keep that discipline, you keep that resiliency, you keep that grit, and then that will just continue to pay dividends as you go through your life.
SPEAKER_03And you and I weren't born with this. Nobody was. We've learned it, yeah. And we've been fortunate to have the challenges in our lives that we've had, and some have a lot more terrible challenges that people have to walk through. And those are the sometimes the things we need help walking through them, right? Yes. But uh a lot of I think I mean in my kiddos generation, uh, you know, this it's just the social media, you know, our kids, uh, that they're used to this instant gratification. You know, they they all the time. And and if they have to work to get something, sometimes it's something they don't want to do.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's like thinking about buying things, like you know, not even just social media, but you think about Amazon, and I mean I'm guilty of it. I Amazon I buy Amazon, you know, but now you I can go on Amazon if I need a new pair of shoes or something. I can go on Amazon, buy it, it's gonna be at my doorstep in 24 hours, as opposed to, well, you know, 20 years ago, well, I gotta go to the shoe store and I gotta try them on and I gotta see, you know, do all these things. It's a whole day going to look for shoes where, oh, yep, that's the pair I want. Boop, bye, it's at your door. And then before you know it, you've spent all this money, you know, and you got all this garbage sitting in your house that it's like, what did I buy all this crap for? And it's instant gratification.
SPEAKER_03You know, not too long ago, uh well, maybe I guess I guess we go further back, a century ago, you know, people were essentially cooking for themselves all the time.
SPEAKER_06Yes, right? And even maybe and killing and cooking, exactly, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then and you fast forward to you know 50 years ago, and it's you know, the advent of I guess it's been about 75 years, the uh fast food. Yes, right? And and uh then fast food and then drive-throughs and all this stuff started happening. But if you look at today, you could be sitting on your couch, your mobile device out, Uber Eats or whatever, food service, you could have the food delivered to your front door.
SPEAKER_06You've got endless options to watch on the TV. Yeah you don't even have to move off your butt.
SPEAKER_03It's you know what, and I think a lot of what we're complaining about really I mean, I mean, I I like to think we're not just complaining, but uh what we're complaining about and what we see maybe in some of the younger generations with the lack of grit and resilience, I don't blame them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, I exactly. That's why I'm saying it's not it's not an individual thing. I think it's it's where the society has gone. I'm gonna pull up that quote that we talked about earlier because I think that's very fitting, if I can find it. I think that's a very fitting quote. Hang on, I gotta look it up.
SPEAKER_03No, it's just so easy, and when you get things so easy and you're confronted with a challenge, uh it it's normal for someone, especially without a lot of life experience, to think, well, this sucks. Yes. And uh I'm not prepared for this. Exactly.
SPEAKER_06And and because you know what? No matter what happens in your life, you're going to experience hard times. You will, right? You can have every convenience, even if you have all the money in the world, like Elon Musk probably deals with hardships, you know, richest man in the world, I think, at the same time.
SPEAKER_03Well, when he built his business, he was sleeping on the floor. Exactly. I mean, there's all sorts of stories.
SPEAKER_06Working like a madman, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's grit and resiliency right there. You don't get to that position by accident. Yes. It's a lot of hard work.
SPEAKER_06But I mean, even if you're born with wealth, you know, you're still gonna go through hard times. You're gonna exactly so going through hard times, like even working out and creating discipline, that trains your body to have grit and resiliency to get through hard times, right? So when you have something out of your control that happens to you, you have that, your body, your mind, your spirit, whatever, has that experience on how to deal with it. Here's the quote Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.
SPEAKER_03Cyclical, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06It's a good yeah, it's it is it's cyclical, exactly right. And you look back through history, right? You know, you think about America. The, you know, we're about to celebrate the 250th birthday of America, yeah, you know, in a couple weeks. And you know, you think about that was some hard men, hard people, men and women, that you know, said, Well, we don't want to do this. And yeah, would it have been easier to stay where they were at and just yeah, it's too hard to cross the sea and go to this unknown place and all these dangers. We that's too hard. And then look, if they would have never done that, right, and then they did it, yeah. And then look what it created, you know, arguably one of the greatest cultures and nations that's ever existed, you know, arguably. Um, some people will probably disagree with that, but yeah, you know, I mean, but I mean, again, I th and again that those hard men created these good times, and then like I say, hard men want to take care of their children, give it to you better than I had it. I'm gonna work hard so that you have the things I didn't have, all these things. Well, then you're creating, we're partially responsible for what's going on because we kind of dote on our kids and want to give them everything, right? Like nowadays, it's I remember when my girls turned 16 and it was like, Well, what kind of car are we gonna buy? I'm thinking, buy you a car? When I turn 16, nobody's buying me a car. Like, I was driving mom and dad's yeah, I was driving mom and dad's car. You know, if I wanted to go out, hey mom, can I have the keys? You know, dad, can I borrow the car? And now it's that's just like expected. Well, all my friends' parents buy me a car. Yeah, or their their parents all bought them a car. And so it's like, again, we're creating the C is like if you want a car, did you, you know, had to go work for it? Borrowed the the the family van. Yeah, I borrowed the suburban for whatever, you know. But if you wanted your own car, you know, my parents would have been like, okay, well, if you want a car, go get a job and make some money and buy your own car. But now it's like turn 16, mom and dad are gonna buy you a car. Like, when did that start being a thing? Yeah, and I get it, like again, we want to bless our children, we want to give our children things. It's hard to see your kids struggle. You know, it's hard to see your kids struggle. You don't want to see that, but sometimes that's the best thing for them.
SPEAKER_03I I saw uh an interesting article um on technology, and uh this is the first time uh a generation has not been smarter than the previous generation.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I've heard that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's uh it's an interesting thing.
SPEAKER_06And imagine all the technology that we have in the palm of our hands. It's my dad would my dad would tell me that there's more technology in this little thing than launched the first space shuttle to the moon. Yeah, you know, there's more technology right here in my hand that we keep in our pockets, and yet we're get just getting dumber.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's amazing. That's true, right? And I would never and you know, maybe there's something that's a whole other topic, but you know, leaning on technology and what are the bad things there. But as far as instant gratification goes, it's it's more than just the dopamine. I mean, it's also the artificial community thinking that you've got a lot of connections, but it's just comparison and it's it's that's just increasing anxiety and depression, which causes more problems like we talked about. But um, but but to bring it back to the the grit and resilience that we want, yeah. Um we want to be able to in a team, especially in the firehouse. Um as a medical director, what I observe, you know, used to be in a firehouse years ago, but yeah, you know what we really want to have are folks that we we can get through this, got you got our back. You got you know, we're a team, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna stick this out together. Right. Exactly. Yes, it's gonna be tough, but we can do this.
SPEAKER_06Yep. So yeah, we just had uh Odessa Fire Department just suffered a tragic loss last week, and that's when it's time, that's when resilience comes in. You pull together, yeah, that's hard. I mean, that's unimaginably hard for the whole department, for the whole city, right? For everybody. Yeah, um, but that's where you pull together, and that's community, right? That's not fake, that's not online. That's where you really got to pull together and help each other heal and move on, and that's where you take care of each other's mental health and physical health. And that's that requires grit and resiliency to be able to do that and then get on the other side of it.
SPEAKER_03Yep, you know, so honesty, asking for help, being vulnerable, being transparent. Yes, is that Chief Reardon modeled that for us through the trauma that they went through up there in Massachusetts. I think uh that's such a so much to be learned from that. Yep, yep. Well, um, it's a good topic. It's a good topic, it's a hard topic, it's something that's not you know found easily. Yeah, it's something that if you see it, it took a while to grow it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, and I would say for you know the younger generation out there that maybe you don't you avoid hard things, don't avoid hard things, lean into the hard things, lean into things do hard things. It's really good, you know. Uh that that will be better for you in the long run.
SPEAKER_03Sure will be. Good topic, Matt.
SPEAKER_06Yep. See you on the next one.
SPEAKER_03Safe out there.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to EMS, the Eric and Matt Show.