Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Leap of Faith - Navigating Risks, Military Ambitions, and Life's Callings

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

In this episode we dive headfirst (pun intended) into the thrill and perils of skydiving, exploring the razor's edge between risk and respect in high-stakes hobbies. Then, our Q&A segment turns the mic over to you, the listeners: First up, a listener at the crossroads of life shares their journey from a stable job to enlisting in the Army's 18x Green Beret pipeline. Amidst the looming questions about meeting standards, fitting in, and preparing for the intense mental and physical demands, they ask for actionable advice on building a successful military career, maintaining family peace in the face of service, and nurturing relationships against the backdrop of duty. Next, we hear from a battle-weary paramedic grappling with burnout after years of relentless public service. They seek guidance on reclaiming their compassion and zest for life amidst the embers of exhaustion. Explore and sign up for Starlink Service here: ⁠https://www.starlink.com/residential?referral=RC-14303-34690-52&utm_source=Starlink2MoAndy⁠ **The 2-month free offer will only show in your account after you fully complete your account and activate the service** This offer expires 12/1/23. Offer available for the United States and Canada only The Speed of War Comic Series:⁠ https://www.thespeedofwar.com/⁠ Sign up for the new G14 newsletter here: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/exclusive⁠ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: ⁠https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/

So you want to be a skydiver? You want to start jumping. You see you in a bunch of YouTube videos. All right. You want to join the military. You got questions about what you should look at before joining the military or how to sustain a relationship while you're in. Or you're just feeling burned out on your job.

That's what we're going to be talking about today. But before that. But before that, Monday morning's episode Change Agents is with a man named Jason Jones, an expert at what's going on in the border cartels and the influence that they are having and the reach and penetration inside of the United States. So don't miss that. But before that, let's get into this full auto Friday. Here we go. All right, everybody, welcome back. I think I mentioned this on last Friday's episode. Sometimes I get some thematic questions. And when I do, I take the opportunity to try to address them.

Recently, for whatever reason, people have been asking me about skydiving. Now, from just a baseline, I absolutely love skydiving. I've been jumping for 24 years, started just before the turn of the century. And I love it. It's one of my favorite activities. I was exposed to it when I was first in the military, fell in love with it, was able to pursue all of the military air qualifications. And then when I got out of the military, I had the opportunity to do some things that the military doesn't allow for. specifically jumping in a wingsuit because there is no military application.

As much as I wish I could find a way to do that and just teach military members how to fly a wingsuit, there's just, I mean, where are you going to put your weapon? Your gun, your body armor, your helmet, all those things. It just sucks. And then base jumping, of course, too. And what I have found is people have been reaching out. They're curious. They're enthusiastic. They want to start skydiving.

And my concern is that what they're doing. is watching highlight reels on YouTube. And I am never going to talk anybody out of trying to pursue that hobby, which is essentially what it is, activity, however you would want to describe it. But I think making educated decisions is the best thing that a human being can do. So let's explore a little bit some of the things that can go wrong, how fast they can go wrong, and how quickly you need to deal with them. Now, I used to, when I started in the military, I got my tandem qualification and I was an MFFI, military free fall instructor. Then I became a civilian tandem master and I had my AFFI, which is the civilian version of a military free fall instructor.

I'm not current in either because I don't really have a desire to jump in that capacity anymore. I'm all about going out and jumping with my friends, but I just, I don't want to, especially on the AFF side, I don't want to take somebody through that protocol, which is generally somewhere between one to eight jumps. It's a ground school and you start with two instructors holding on to you. Then eventually one will let go. Then both will let go. Then you'll do a one-on-one instructor jump where they are exiting the aircraft with you. And eventually you exit the aircraft on your own.

At the end of that, you are qualified to safely exit an aircraft in flight by yourself. Deploy your parachute at the appropriate altitude. Deal with any malfunctions that may occur, both high speed and low speed. and hopefully navigate your way to a landing zone and land on the ground safely, pack your parachute, and do it again. That should be the goal of every skydiver on every jump. We're going to successfully make it through this evolution and live to jump another day. My concern, of course, like I mentioned, is people only looking at the highlight reels and not understanding how quickly things can get out of control. I describe skydiving and base jumping in exactly the same way.

They are awesome until they're not. So let's take a look at two jumps that occur early in the AFF pipeline. And I'm just going to talk you through what I'm seeing, what happens, and how close these individuals got to a catastrophic event. And by that, I mean severe injury up to it, including losing their life. Why do I want to highlight this? Well, I think it can buffer and buttress the highlight reels a little bit. A lot of the videos you see on the internet are people just carving through the air three-dimensionally, creatively with their friends. And these people are professionals.

They're amazing. I love watching those videos as well. That's the highlight reel. Let's talk about the reality of it a little bit to give people a better foundation with which if they want to, they can pursue this sport. And again, I would never talk anybody out of it, but I would try to talk into having the most. information possible so you can make the most informed decision humanly possible. So let's get ready. Let's get into it. Let's watch some videos. All right, this first one here that we're looking at is earlier on in the AFF phase, which you can barely see right now as the head

of the instructor on the reserve side of the parachute and the main instructor, if you would want to call it that, on the main side of the parachute. This is a student rig, so each instructor has the ability to deploy the main parachute. And for those of you listening, this is going to be perhaps a tough one because I'm talking about things that I'm looking at on video right now. Maybe surf over to a video platform if you want or if not, just listen. For those of you watching, you can see the left hand of the instructor. Just to the right of that left hand is an orange piece of PVC. If the instructor or student were to pull that, the pilot shoot is going to deploy on the main parachute.

And there is something on the reserve instructor's side as well that would allow them to deploy. So they just exited the aircraft and they're shaking the student. The reason they're doing that is they're trying to tell the student to just relax. Easier said than done. The instructors on both sides are controlling the student. If you're looking at it right now, the reserve side instructor just let go. But he's maintaining his position there in case anything is needed. The student is doing a practice record touch.

And eventually, it looks like what happened right now, the main side instructor let go. And the student's kicking ass. relatively relaxed. Their body position is neutral, meaning they're falling straight through the column of air as opposed to going either forward or backwards, until that moment right there, where they were supposed to deploy their parachute. And at this point, I'll pause it. This is worst case scenario. Actually, it's probably not worst case scenario, but this is a big old bag of dicks that you need to deal with. The instructors are going to try to get a hold of this student. They're now on their back.

They're going to be spinning. And they are probably burning through deployment altitude. Now, one of the key things when you're skydiving, especially early on, one of the rules, if you will, is that you do not sacrifice altitude for stability. Meaning, if you are unstable but you are at pole altitude, you deploy your parachute. Why do you do that? Well, you need to slow down to a rate of speed that's not going to kill you. and pancake you if you were to actually hit the ground. You may have a malfunction because of your body position

and the way that the parachute deploys, but that's why you have a reserve and you're briefed on your emergency procedures. Also, if you commit to reaching back and pulling, you need to pull your main parachute. This student committed to reaching back and then flipped over onto their back and is now in a flat spin headed out to sea.

So let's continue. They are probably approaching somewhere between 5 to 3,000 feet, pull altitude for a student, both instructors have let go and this person is spinning on their back. Let's see how it plays out. Oh, yeah. As an instructor, resting heart rate has gone somewhere between 150 to 210. The instructor is able to flip the student over, and I don't know if people were able to see it right there, but it was the instructor that actually pulled the student's main parachute PVC slash ripc cord, which means the free fall or the instructor is still in free fall. And gopros make it difficult.

This person is extremely low because they committed to pulling for their student. And now this instructor has an interesting situation. This instructor has two parachutes that have been deployed. His main parachute or her main parachute, I don't know the sex of the instructor. Modern parachutes have what's called an AAD or automatic activation device on them. Most of them do. and of a criteria of airspeed and altitude or met, it fires your reserve. If you pull your main parachute at an altitude where it doesn't have time to deploy as you fall through that altitude,

you're going to have a main parachute deploying and a reserve parachute deploying. And that can be an absolute nightmare. You can totally deal with it, but it defends on the configuration. Some configurations, you would cut away your main and swing underneath your reserve. other configurations, especially if they are entangled, you have to ride it out. But this situation right now where I can see visibly reserve risers and main parachute risers is not awesome. And what you can see drifting off actually in the upper right hand side, that's actually

the free bag from the reserve. That's the bag that pulls the reserve off of your back and then separate so it can't get entangled. This instructor committed to saving that student's life, but now potentially maybe fighting through their own life threatening situation. Yeah, so two parachutes are out. Again, GoPro's, okay, and he just cut away his main parachute. So now he's under reserve. GoPros make things look like you are farther away.

This person is a few hundred feet above the ground. And the modern AADs are generally going to fire somewhere between 750. You could set them, and they have an offset mode. So I'm going to say broadly, not precisely, somewhere between 700, to 1,500 feet AGL above ground level. This instructor had two out, cut away his main parachute is now under his reserve, and is having one of the shortest canopy rides of their life. Ressing heart rate again?

Probably close to 200. Pants change required on the ground? Absolutely. Did the student pass this jump? No, they didn't. But if you realize watching this video, how things went from being pretty dog, Lossile, both instructors right there. Stable, free fall body position, spinning on your back at pole altitude.

Students' life was saved. Instructor, polls, falls through Cyprus fire or I can't remember the name of the other one off the top of my head at the moment. Vigil, I think it is. That's another common manufacturer inducing their own emergency, which they dealt with. We're talking a matter of seconds. It was awesome. And then it wasn't. So, that was example number one.

Let's slide over to example number two. Okay, example number two is a little bit farther into the AFF process. I say that because I'm looking at this, and this is now a one-to-one ratio. And the student is going to be exiting the aircraft without positive control from their instructor. They're in the front of the aircraft. It looks like the instructor has already climbed outside. There's probably a step. It's called a floating step, or they're in the rear float or camera step position.

and the student's getting ready to dive out. Let's take a look at it. A student goes out, nice diving exit. And, you know, everything looks to be okay at this point. If you're looking at the video, you're seeing the student tuck up right here. The reason that they're doing this is that one of the dives requires front flips and backflips. And it's not about being able to do a front flip or a backflip perfectly. It actually doesn't have anything to do with that.

The reason that you're doing those particular exercises is you're trying to introduce instability so that a student has practice recovery. Because if you only jumped out of an airplane and you went belly to earth and that's all you did, you would not be prepared to recover from ending up on your back or on your side or being hit in tumbling forward or tumbling backwards. So in one of the jumps, I think it's this, I don't even know. Like I said, I'm not current. Maybe the sixth or seventh. you're going to go out and do front flips, back flips. And again, it's not about the flip itself. It's about recovering stability, which is what this student is about to encounter.

And they do a really good job with this. The flip, not great. The body position recovery is a little bit stiff, not uncommon. Another front flip, and this is exactly why you do this exercise. The student over-rotated and ends on their back. And now they have to figure out how to get off their back in free fall, which is not difficult to do, but you need to practice. A student gets off their back, flips over. I'd say they're a little bit stiff, another front flip.

They're just getting after it, a double, actually. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but get some. If you're going to do one, you might as well do two. And I'll all say about this student. I'll try to pause it in a good configuration. Right here is a good one. When it comes to skydiving, you're just falling through a column of air. And one of the terms you'll hear when you've been in the sport, even early on,

but you'll have a better understanding of it later on. is relative wind. When you exit out of an aircraft, if the tip of this pen is the front of the aircraft, your relative wind is coming down the fuselage of the aircraft. So when you exit an aircraft, you actually present to that relative wind, where it's going to hit you in the chest. Once you get into free fall, the relative wind is going to become vertical. And so you are orienting yourself to falling through the column of air. If you tilt either forward or backwards, you're going to move either forward or backwards. And you can see with this student right here, their arms are extended out in front of them a little bit. And their heels are a little bit too close to their butt or the

bottom of their pack tray. And what that's going to do is kind of can't you up at an angle. And this particular student is backsliding. Not the worst I've ever seen, but they're certainly not falling vertically through a column of air, which is what you want to do, especially when you're learning. You need to understand because the visual references, how would you know that looking down. You're not going to pick a spot over planet Earth and say, I'm just going to fall directly over the spot. Sounds easy, but it doesn't end up working like that. So this particular student is sliding backwards. Not a big deal. Let me just tell you, I've been a power back slider many times in my skydiving journey. But you have to learn what it feels like to fall properly. So not that

big of a deal. You'll see an instructor probably given him, yep, the two fingers right there is extend your legs. The purpose of that is so you can fall vertically. Going through a cloud, not awesome to do with a student for a visual reference, but not the end of the world. Getting a pole altitude. You can see on the body angle. They're still sliding backwards. Reaches into pole, didn't commit to it, and now is riding the bull. Kind of the same situation if you watch the first video on your back, staring at blue sky above you, as opposed to green ground below you, spinning.

basically the worst situation imaginable. Again, instructor heart rate accelerating at this point. Maybe a few P drops coming out. It's hard to say. Maybe that'll happen after they get down under the ground. But this is the most challenging teaching environment that I've ever been in because you have about 60 seconds. You can talk about this stuff all you want to.

And then you have about 60 seconds to actually jump out with somebody, maintain positive control of them, or catch them. if you need to. You're only teaching them and giving them feedback through hand signals, which have to be recognized, and then people have to actually execute the change that you're asking for. And if they don't, things like this can happen. And you better be Johnny on the spot because every second that clips by, you are falling through the air at about 120 miles an hour. So let's see how this plays out. The instructor, let me see if I can catch it one more time. I'm trying to pause it with the hand signal. The student was on their back looking up at the instructor and the instructor was

giving them, I'll put it like this so people can see it on the camera, an individual finger, the index finger. That means one thing and one thing only. It means deploy your parachute immediately. Don't wave off. Don't do anything else. Pull your parachute. And you might notice that the students on their back spinning. Don't sacrifice altitude for stability. Pull your parachute and deal with what happens after you get some fabric over your head. See if they do it. They're on their back. The pull signal is being repeated. The instructor deploys their parachute first, and it looks like the student is out underneath their main, because they eventually committed to pulling their parachute. Now, those are two examples of how

fast things can get out of control from a student status perspective. But I've seen these things happen with experienced jumpers. I'm not going to say on the far end and spectrum of experience, but I have absolutely seen it happen with people who are out of student status, and thankfully, they were prepared. Skydiving is awesome until it isn't. If you make a mistake, unlike many other activities, it can end in very severe injury. And I'm talking about being life-flighted off of a drop zone. I have watched, unfortunately, a few people paralyzed themselves, and they never walked again.

I've watched a few people impact the ground at a rate of speed where it was not survivable, and it broke probably everything in their body that was able to break. It's something that you have to be aware of the risk in danger. The statistics are in your favor, but statistics are great until you're in a situation where you have to perform and you're not prepared. So I absolutely recommend anybody interested in getting into skydiving, absolutely do so. but please take a reasonable approach to what it is that you want to do. Please do not go onto YouTube and watch a bunch of videos of experts flying through the sky and your only goal in wanting to skydive is to race to that point.

It took those people years to be able to do the things that they are displaying in an effortless fashion. They work their way through a knowledge and an experience base. And that's why they are able to do the things that they can do in a sense. safe a manner as possible. There's still risk involved, of course, equipment can fail. There hasn't been, to my knowledge, a main and reserve equipment failure, meaning your main parachute malfunctions, you cut it away, your reserve parachute malfunctions, and you impact the ground with a fatality in the modern skydiving area. I'm not aware of that happening since I have been jumping,

but that doesn't mean you can't kill yourself under perfectly functioning equipment. And with the introduction of high-speed canopies, elliptical canopies, sail material-type things. If you rush yourself and your enthusiasm outstrips your capability, you can find yourself really in trouble, and you can find yourself in situations where you can't get out of it. And you're going to spend the rest of your life dealing with the consequences. So I love it. It's a great activity, but please give it the gravitas that it... requires. It is absolutely fun. The visuals are amazing. The stills and videos are amazing.

They can potentially come at a cost. And that's it. Let us move on to our next question for today. Switching gears here a little bit. I enlisted in the Army a few weeks ago for the 18X Greenberry pipeline and leave in January. I'm 26 and had a stable job that had a great future. But I didn't feel fulfilled or feel like I was in any way challenging myself. I felt. very regimented and more or less trapped in that life but in that by many standards was great but to me it was not fulfilling I have considered this decision for over a year and was not one I made hastily or without looking at the outcomes I truly believe I am making the right decision for my life but

there is always a doubt or fear that comes with large changes well I meet the standard and make it through the pipeline and on to an ODA while I fit into the team or on the team if I make it have I done and am I doing enough to prepare mentally and physically? If I don't make it, will I have, if I don't make it, will I have set myself behind in life? Just a few thoughts that have occurred to me. My reason for writing isn't for an answer to any of these, as all of these questions can only be answered once I go into the pipeline and some won't have an answer for years. My questions are in order one through three. One, what advice would you give for anyone starting the military to be

successful long term in their career? Two, what are the things I can do to help ease the worry and burden a career like this can have on my family? Three, what are the things you did or no others did to have a successful relationship, girlfriend, fiancé, spouse in the military? The opposite of that, what did people do that made them have unsuccessful relationships? This one is not as important thing, as an important thing for me since I'm single and don't plan to change that anytime soon, but maybe one day so I would figure it. I would ask now. All right. So let's just take these in order. We're going to start with question number one. And I actually was able to dig up something that I think might be beneficial for this

person. And I'm going to put it up on the screen right now. And this is your basic military pay chart. For anybody looking to join the military, you are in such a great place right now because of the volume of information that you have available to you. And there's a couple ways that you can get it. You could write in and ask somebody like me about their military experience, but I literally vaguely remember these numbers. You could go to a recruiter, which I'm not going to say you shouldn't do, but I will say you shouldn't listen to everything that they say. Or number three, access the unlimited amount of information that you have available to you on the internet. I wish that I would have had it. I was super young.

I don't even know what I would have necessarily searched for, and I probably would have ignored a lot of the things. that I'm about to talk about. But that doesn't mean the approach that I took was the correct one. It worked out okay for me. But since you're asking this question, I'll answer this through the lens of what I also would have been telling my younger self. So number one, what advice would you give for anyone starting the military to be successful long term in their career? One, decide what it is you want to do in the military and what you would want to get out of your military service. It sounds to me like you have already made that decision. If it's a pipeline, like the 18 X-ray one, that you have decided to go down, research as much as possible each

and every step along the way. So you could physically prepare yourself and mentally prepare yourself to the best of your ability. With that, I would say know what you're getting into from a military perspective in general. And that is why I have this chart up in front of me. Probably a little bit small for people looking at it, but on the left-hand side, the vertical column is the rank, starting at E-1 at the bottom and 09 at the top. And the right-hand column going from readers left to right is less than two years all the way out to 40 years. And this gives you damn near exact numbers as to what you're going to make at any point in your journey. Now, there are some other pays that aren't reflected in here. BHA, basic housing allowance,

COLA, cost of living allowance, dive, demo, jump, hazardous duty pay, all of those things you can look up on the internet. And those are all supplemental to what your base pay is going to be. Now, what I will say is this is taxes hasn't been deducted. You can figure that out on your own, depending on what tax bracket you are in. But this is literally simple. This is, it's not even math. This is an Excel spreadsheet. Pick where you are, go over for how long you've been in the military. So you pick whatever rank you're at. You go to the right. And wherever the two may meet, that's your base pay. And you can figure out what it's going to be when you first enter, two years in, four years,

and six years, and eight years in. And you can just, it answers the question as to from an economic position, where am I going to be? Okay. So I would start there for sure. Is it essential that you memorize this? No, it's absolutely not essential that you memorize this because guess what? It's on the internet. You can find it any time that you want to.

And you're not going to really get a pay raise unless you get an advancement or go into your chunks. And then it's going to be far less exciting than you think it should be from a raised perspective. Don't think you're going to be making 30% jumps. It's going to be probably single digit percentages. But I tell people this all the time. Don't join the military if you're looking to make yourself rich. It's about service. It's about service beyond yourself, about something greater than yourself.

And you will do just fine in the military because what's also not in this chart, health care. You're going to have that car. You're going to have educational benefits. And that's another thing I would put right into my advice for somebody looking at starting in a military journey. Sign up for every educational benefit that is available to you. Research those as well. The military is going to get their pound of flesh out of you.

I assure you. But that doesn't mean you can't take a pound of flesh out of the military. And you absolutely should. So research what's available. Sign up for all of it. I think for me, the GI Bill, for my first 12 months in the military, military, they took out $100 per month out of my paycheck. And after that year, I didn't put anything else into it. And I'm a little bit over my skis because I just haven't looked at it in a while,

but I think it was $40,000 of educational benefits that came from that. Be crazy not to take advantage of that. Number two, what are things I can do to help ease the worry and burden a career like this can have on my family? Open and honest communication. is the best thing that I can say. Your friends, family, loved ones, they're all going to worry about you. And there's probably no level of communication that is going to be able to erase that worry or burden. My advice would be just to maintain as open of a dialogue as possible. Make sure they understand the why.

Why do you want to do this? Why is this something that you want to dive into? and beyond that, there's not a whole lot that you can do. Be compassionate and empathetic about their concerns. Listen to them. Doesn't mean you have to take action on what they say, but hear them out. And just in the long run, I think it will, it helps rounds the edges. Rounds the edges.

I don't know why I put an S on that. It helps round the edges. Number three, what are things you did or know others did to have a successful relationship in the military? the opposite of that. What do people do that made them have an unsuccessful relationship? Let's start with the unsuccessful. Don't develop a substance or alcohol problem or an inability to keep your dick in your pants. If you go out and get fucked up and cheat on your significant other, the writing's on the wall there. That is kindergarten arithmetic about what is going to happen and what should happen.

the people that I saw whose relationships struggled the most are the ones who they became closed off they had two lives one of the lives was complete and utter immersion into the military where everything that they did and thought about while they were at work was the job and the second life which is where they did exactly the same things but had another person a significant other in their life. And they lost their connection. They, they grew apart. They were, and I saw this happen where people would start families and the job was all consuming. And I'm going to tell you right now, the job is going to suffer last. Your personal life is going to suffer first. You make it through a military career or an experience. And then you get out of that

and you're in a relationship with somebody that may not even recognize anymore. And I'm not, I'm not trying to put fault on either side of that, but it is a very challenging thing. Your relationship can grow based on the military dynamic, where it only functions because you're gone so much. It only functions because the social circle for both spouses is completely and utterly intrinsically tied to the military. You have no friends or social circle outside of the military. Neither does your significant other.

You get out of the military, and let's say you make a move away from the military. both of you have lost that, but you're still in the same house together and you're like electrons bouncing off the walls. And very infrequently you will collide, but the nucleus ends up shattering. From my own experience, anybody who listens to the podcast knows that I went through a divorce. I have three kids. The vast majority of our marriage was when I was in the military. And I am as guilty as anybody that I just described of completely an unlawful. utterly committing to a degree to a job and everything else suffered other than the job.

And it sucks. There are a lot of things that I wish I could have changed. I would have made an emphasis to have a social circle outside of the people that I worked with just for a healthier work-life balance because otherwise you have a work-work balance and no work-life balance. I would have carved out specific time away from anything to do. do my occupation and whether that's a vacation a year or a well what's that thumb that just came up i have no idea what that was whether that be a a weekend a month a day a month an evening a

month where you can focus on each other communicate openly honestly regularly those would be the things that I would recommend. That's what I have seen work the most. And, you know, I think with any marriage, military or not, it's not about, it's not about the occupation. I mean, there are obviously some occupational, there's some weight associated with certain occupations that is not necessarily associated with others. But it's about having the right people on both sides of the equal side. You're going to need if a military, somebody who, especially the special operations community, you're going to need somebody who is independent, who can function without you, who is a self-starter that doesn't rely on you for everything. The downside of that is they can learn to live without you,

and they may not need you or want you in their life as much as you would want to be when you come home. That's a very tenuous, shaky bridge to navigate. It can be done, but it's difficult. So that's the advice I would give on the relationship side. And I would just say from the individual going into the military, and this is something I'm very cognizantly trying to change my own vernacular about. I'm trying to stop using the term military career. I'm trying to start using the term military experience. I think the way that we talk to ourselves, the way that it informs the way that we identify with ourselves.

And I was 18 when I joined. I was actually 17, but I obviously didn't go in until I was 18. If I had done 20 years, I get out when I'm 38. And if I define who I am by my career, because that's how it's always discussed, it's going to be really hard to put that in the rearview mirror and look forward out of the windshield. And I'm just trying to change because the way I talk to myself is just as dangerous as the way anybody else does. I'm changing the way I talk to myself and I'm intentionally saying military experience as opposed to military career. That's what it was.

Yes, it was a career. I get that. And I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to be cognizant of the weight of the words that I use. My experience was that. It's not who I am. It's what I did. And I want to take those experiences and do something positive with them moving forward in my life. So that would be my last piece of advice. So be careful with how you frame that career to yourself and potentially use terms like experience or whatever may work for you. Last question for today. a 26-year-old paramedic, and I've spent the last eight years in public safety. So, damn, right out of high school. I tried college right out of high school and wasn't mature or motivated enough to succeed in that area. I ended up getting hired as a firefighter and worked my way through paramedic school.

As cliche as it sounds, I always wanted to help people, but after eight years of running 4,500 calls a year and working 24 to 48-hour shifts, I am exhausted. I find it hard to deal with the public in a positive manner. I find myself angry more often than not when dealing with issues that most people would have the common sense to avoid entirely. I tried moving to slower stations and even changing jobs entirely, but so far I've had a hard time resolving the burnout at all. Any tips or recommendations for returning to my normal? Or that my current mindset and feelings are my new normal? Well, first, I would say the fact you recognize a shift in yourself and you want to get back to that, is a very positive thing. I know I say it all the time, but in addition to changing jobs entirely

and going to slower stations, I really recommend you find somebody to professionally speak with. Go through your department. There are nonprofit organizations if your department is not supportive or you don't want to be transparent with your department. Go talk with somebody who is an expert in developing structures and protocol for dealing with exactly what you are. talking about. Forty-five hundred calls a year seems insane to me. I feel like that's probably the standard. And how could it not impact the way that you view humanity? Because nobody calls 911 to report they're having a great birthday. They call it to tell you that grandma just keeled over at the table or there's a domestic violence incident at a birthday party and now you have to go pick up

the trash from that. So I look at this from the perspective of though what is your what is your normal worth to you, the normal that you know that you have deviated from. And then let's put this into the perspective of maybe somebody that you would respond to on a call. You get a call, somebody's passed out behind the 7-Eleven. And you recognize who it is because you've probably run this call every day this week. And by the description of the person, you know it's going to be a repeat offender, a return customer, if you will. And you get there, and it's somebody who is in the throes of addiction. pick your flavor meth fentanyl both heroin whatever it is what does that person need i mean they're normal is so fucked and so shifted i mean let's strip out of that the chemical dependency aspect

and all of those things what would the recommendation for that person be you have to remove yourself from the substances you would hope that they could get out of that situation but they need to detox and they need to go to rehab they need to have some level of rehab so that they can return hopefully to the person that they were before. And it's prescriptive. It's relatively easy to make that prescription, not that it would be easy for that person to complete, obviously. But we know what needs to be done. Apply that lens to yourself.

Look at yourself as if you were a patient on one of the calls that you are responding to. The things that you need to do might need to take a long. longer time horizon than you've already given them. And like I said, I would start with the mental health approach. From there, though, decide how important it is for you to go back to that normal. Because if it's that important, you may need to take a desk job and not for a month, not for six months. It might take you a year. And the people that I have talked to that have directly dealt with addiction to go back to the prescriptive model of the person you're running calls on, it's not overnight. It's a struggle for years sometimes, for them to even start approximating

what they used to be before. Now, obviously, that's an extreme example talking about ingesting chemicals, but you might need some time to downregulate from what is required of your job. So write yourself a prescription. And if it's not working, change it as need be. That might include you finding another job. And if you're normal, returning to who you were, who you were and how you felt about the world, is that important to you? Try other things first that wouldn't require such a lift and shift and catastrophic change in your life. But if it comes to that, dude, you're going to have to do it. And I say that because hopefully you got a lot of sand in the top portion of the hourglass ahead of you, or a lot of distance left on that.

that lap around the track. The sunken cost fallacy is super real. I've been doing this for eight years, so I've got to stick with it. Bullshit. Bull shit. Changing what it is that you're doing will provide for you opportunities that you don't even know potentially exist. Saying yes to other opportunities will beget opportunities, will beget other opportunities and experiences. And who knows where it's going to be. My advice is don't feel shackled to where you are. Define what it means for you to go back to that normal, seek out as much professional help as you possibly can, prescriptively make changes that should impact the working environment. And if none of that is working, make a shift in your life that will net you a much more fulfilling and hopefully longer life,

as opposed to saying, hey, man, I've been at this for eight years. So might as well stick with it. That is a choice for sure. You can make that choice. But as all choices, they have consequences. And I would hate to see somebody have to suffer those consequences much later into life when those demons, they come out of a closet at the times that you don't want them to. And that's it. Kind of ended on a little bit of a little bit of a lower note, I guess. So yeah, let's all go out there in skydive and send me your videos when you're on your back,

spinning out of control, wondering how much time you have left before you pancake yourself. All righty then. See Monday.