Sense of Soul - Fireproof Survivor and Hero

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul I have Battalion Chief David Hollenbach (retired) the author of “Fireproof: Your Grand Strategy for Transforming Failure into Fuel for Your Future.” He is an international best-selling author, professional speaker and member of the National Speakers Association. Additionally, David is a John Maxwell certified speaker, coach, teacher, and DISC Method Trainer. He owns and operates David Hollenbach Consulting, LLC, and the hosts the popular podcast “From Embers to Excellence.” David Hollenbach is a veteran of the United States Navy with a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Barry University. A major focus of research for his capstone was how strong, positive leadership can influence the culture of a large organization.  He has spent years as an instructor, coach and mentor helping others define and realize success. Although he no longer works as a servant to the community, his passion for service to others remains stronger than ever. Personal development topics like self-leadership, self-awareness, communication, healthy relationships, and self-care run throughout his book FIREPROOF, as David R. Hollenbach, III emphasizes the importance of uncovering one’s core values and finding one big WHY. Check out David’s website https://www.hollenbachleadership.com Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers. Also recieve 50% off of Shanna’s Soul Immersion experience as a Patreon member, monthly Sacred circles, Shanna mini series, Sense of Soul merch and more. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Follow Sense of Soul Podcast on Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/SenseofSoulSOS

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul.

It's time to awaken. Today we have with us international best-selling author, professional speaker, and coach, David Hollenbach. He's joining us today to tell us about his best-selling book, Fireproof, your grand strategy for transforming failure into fuel for your future. David is also the host of the popular podcast, From Embers to Excellence, and I cannot wait to hear David's story. David, thank you so much for being with me. Hello, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Doing well, doing well. You know what? Mandy used to podcast with me. She's my best friend,

but I was listening to your podcast and learning all about you. your story just hit so hard with the stories that Mandy has. I would definitely suggest having Mandy on your podcast. Yeah. Her story is a lot like yours in many ways. You guys have a lot of similarities. So Mandy, I'll just tell you real quick. So she had anaphylactic shock when she was 18 and the fire department came. They saved her.

Afterwards, her and her mom decided to go to the fire department and bring him some steaks and say thank you. And she ended up meeting the people that saved her. And she actually ended up giving an award to one of the firemen named John Woodruff. After that, she moved like six different states and moving back to Colorado. And it had been 18 years. And in the middle of the night, again, she had anaphylactic shock. They saved her, but she was in a coma for 11 days. She's so almost didn't make it. When she finally recovered out of therapy and everything, her and her mom again went to deliver steaks to a different fire station. The first

fire station was station six and this last one's station 13. So she goes in and she's meeting everyone and she meets the man who saved her. And he says his name is John Woodruff Jr. Holy shit. And his dad had passed. But they became like good friends. And they still are. That's such a cool story. I know.

He's my hero, too, because he saved my best friend. John, we've had him on before talking about much like what you talked about in your book. I mean, I'm definitely sending him your book. You know, I want him to listen to your podcast, hear your story. Yeah, I'd love to have him on my podcast or just talk to both of them. Oh, that would be amazing. And, you know, John also said that, like, in all the years, like, only a few people have ever done what Mandy and her mom did to go and give the firemen gifts or just saying thank you. They don't hear that a lot. Yeah. And I think people just don't know that they can do that or maybe they feel funny about it.

But those few times that people brought us stuff, man, it was always really emotional and just really, really cool. Yeah. You know, poor Mandy, she's really had a hard you know she also had a brother who died in iraq and now that's what she's doing actually she's a veteran guardian and that's what she's been doing her path just led her there but we've also had on her brother's sergeant who was with him when he died in Iraq. It was a horrible story. I mean, he wasn't even supposed to go out.

He had his first child born 11 days after he died. He was supposed to go home. And Sergeant Thomas Campbell reminded me a lot of your story as well, because he goes around and speaks now that there was a moment that he shares. He literally was going to end it and something stopped him. And now he does kind of like what you do. You know, you turn that pain into purpose. You're getting me all choked up. Yeah.

What was really interesting was that he shared that when he told his stories, there were parts in the stories he could always feel his voice would crack. And that got less and less. And actually he noticed that his voice would crack this part of the story. And then the next time he told the story, it stopped cracking at that point. So it was like, you know, sharing was very cathartic. It was very healing. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. It is. Yeah. So were you like John Woodruff and his father? I know you share the name of several Davids. Yeah. So my grandfather, David Senior, he passed away when I was eight,

but he was a World War II Army veteran, served in the South Pacific, decorated. I actually have the rifle that a lone Japanese soldier tried to ambush my grandfather's group. They were on patrol. My grandfather was at the back of the group, raw materials were scarce. So what the Japanese were doing is their magazines, you know, it was a bolt action rifle is what they carried. And that the magazine that they would load their rifle with would have five rounds. And the first three rounds that they would fire would be paper projectiles. And then the last two were actual lead projectiles. My grandfather got shot with a paper projectile and said that he thought that he had been shot by a real round, like he could feel the blood running down.

He felt his chest rip apart and was just freaking out. And it took three guys to go, dude, you're not. Yeah. And they would see that it was like a form of psychological warfare. And so I have that rifle. It was my birthday one year, and my dad gave it to me. And it was like, you know, so I have that. And so one year for Father's Day, I took my dad to the gun range. I had ammunition made that could be fired in that rifle.

And we went to the gun range and I broke that out and we shot it. And pretty nice rifle. Wow. So your grandfather, even though you didn't really know him, you know him through stories. Yeah, well, I mean, I grew up with him being very present. And when he retired, you know, he was a mechanic for Caterpillar. He was, he worked on big diesel engines, and he retired and moved to Orlando. You know, my dad was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, which is where my grandfather stayed. And then when he retired, he moved down to be closer to us

and we got to spend time with him before he passed away. And my dad, when we moved to Orlando, he became a firefighter and years later, you know, I ended up working for the same fire department. And my dad actually lives, you know, not too far, maybe two miles from where I'm at. I'm curious to know, we have this one guy on he, he joined the military just to be closer to his dad so that way he could talk stories with him because his dad never would talk about some of the stories. Did your dad share stories with you? Well, my dad

still really hasn't talked about and I feel like his era and my era, I know that I've seen a lot more than him. That doesn't matter. The quantity doesn't really matter. Like, I know that he moved out of operations into investigations, like after he almost died. He, he was in a stairwell in an apartment or like a, yeah, it was a interior stairwell in an apartment building that was on fire. The roof came in, collapsed in the stairwell and, you know, the whole stairwell collapsed. He had burns. And I remember it was after my mom and dad had

gotten divorced and I didn't see him for a little while. And then when I did see him, you know, his ears were scabbed up. He had burns on his neck and his back and stuff. But it wasn't long after that that he moved into investigations. And then, like in the 90s, he ended up moving from the fire department to the state fire marshal's office and to like the law enforcement arm of the fire service. And, you know, he worked arson investigations. And so he did see things, but the days of him helping people to like when I went into the fire service, there was enough time where. Like he just retired maybe five, six years ago, like 44 years in the fire service. I worked with people, you know, men that he worked with. It was interesting working with those guys. And, you know, a lot of them were pretty grizzled and, you know, they, they had a different mindset and a lot of them are, you know, they're dead now, either they drank themselves to death, you know, heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, motorcycle accidents, probably alcohol related. And then several, you know, flat out committed suicide.

And, and I think a lot of times those suicides aren't reported as suicides, because either they're a motorcycle accident or a car accident. And, you know, or, you know or yeah they'll they'll put it down as an accidental overdose or something like that yeah yeah and that's how you came to write your book because you wanted to share your story so you're no longer a fireman no no i um actually I signed my papers the day before Thanksgiving in 2019. And really, it wasn't until 2020 that I actually started recording the podcast and I had already written a lot of my book. You know, my brother passed away in 2010 from a drug overdose. And that put me in a really dark place. And I wanted to do something meaningful that would maybe shine a light on how great of a man he was. And just by maybe living up to what I thought he should have become or had the potential to become. And so I was writing a book, a leadership book,

and when, and it just kept on evolving. And as I evolved, so did the book. And then when I left the fire service, I was a very different person. And what I thought was important years before is very different from what I feel is important now. You know, of course, leadership is important. But, you know, there was areas that I failed as a leader, because I wasn't leading myself to I wasn't holding myself to the standard that I was holding everybody else to. And, you know, I was making poor decisions in my personal life and ended up affecting my professional life. And a lot of it was just me trying not to hurt and chasing adrenaline and, you know, dopamine and, you know, all the feel good chemicals. That's what I was chasing. And, you know, the fact that I survived is unbelievable.

I've got some pretty crazy stories about really stupid stuff I've done. So you're a miracle. It's interesting that we would have this conversation. So on Sunday, my fiance and I went to get massages and we found this massage therapist, Reiki practitioner, energy. I don't even know how you would describe her. An older woman, you know, is trained in her craft all over the world and very intuitive. And some of the things that she said to me were pretty crazy. You know, she was first time I ever met her. And she was like, you've died or came very close to dying a lot of times, haven't you? What?

Yes. Yes. Wow. Do you feel like you ever had like a near death experience? Oh, no, I know I have. When I was 16, I had a freak tennis accident. I was running to jump over the tennis net. And at that time, I was, you know, I was an athlete. And, you know, doctors tell coaches and athletes not to use heavy weight while they're growing because of the growth plates in their bones and I've been told that but I don't think that I fully

understood the gravity of what I was doing to my body. And it was that macho, you know, you're working out to get as strong as the next guy or stronger. And my legs were a lot stronger than my bones. And when I went to jump over the tennis net, my quadricep actually popped the top of my tibia off. And I collapsed. And that piece of my tibia broke into three places. The patellar tendon came detached. My quadricep, you know, contracted up into the middle of my thigh. And it was extremely painful. And I had multiple surgeries to be able to save my leg because I developed compartment syndrome. They sent me home to let the swelling go down because it was such a severe injury. They didn't want to operate while my leg was so swollen.

So before I was scheduled to have the surgery, I developed a very high fever. I was in extreme pain. You know, they had to do an emergency. I can't remember what it what the procedure was called, but they filleted my calf muscle open and removed a piece of my in your muscle, the pressure builds up and it can essentially rupture and become necrotic. And basically you end up either losing the limb or dying. And, um, how old were you? I was 16. And, and I remember in the hospital after the surgery to save my leg there was people around me in a circle you know and they had their hands on me and they were praying and all that stuff and I remember being above myself and seeing it wow and I hadn't thought of that until this Sunday when she was saying something because she was like, well, tell me about that. And she was like, no, that's not what I'm feeling. And I'm like, I don off of a three-story building.

The roof of a three-story building landed on my face, should have broke my neck. There was plenty of stuff below me that had I hit it would have impaled me. When I fell, I tried to jump out. I knew I was going. So I tried to jump out to clear everything. And I just ended up doing a header and just ended up with compression fractures in my lumbar spine. And incredibly, I recovered faster faster than any like even the physical therapist thought that i was committing fraud like he actually reported me to workers comp yeah and the spine surgeon i think tried to get that guy fired. He was like, you know, I'm the one that prescribed this physical therapy. You know, I don't know who you think you are, but I'm a surgeon.

Stay in your lane. And so, yeah, it's really strange. All of these things that injuries, you know, I've had plenty of traumatic brain injuries. I, I do have issues with that, but you know, a lot of that stuff goes hand in hand with PTSD. I had a lot of trauma in my childhood that, um, I haven't read my book in a while, so I don't know how detailed I got about it. I do know that I alluded to some of it, but I had a traumatic childhood and bad stuff happened to me when I should have been cared for better and uh it's a story that a lot of people have and the fact that i've survived

so many things i'm at that point now where i'm like well i mean i must be here for some kind of reason you know like beyond the other stuff that i've done. Like I, I know that I've done some good in this world, just in the fire service, but I feel like there's still a lot more to be done and just trying to touch people. And, you know, So it sounds like when you were in the fire service, that the recognition and the titles and for the good that you were doing, I mean, it was real authentic good you were doing, but you were really feeding off of the identity part.

And it seems like now what you're doing is more authentic and it's coming from the soul, from the heart, from a place of love. Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, so during my time in the fire service, it was very cyclical. When I was a lieutenant, I had these bracelets made up for people on my crew that stood out as leaders in the fire service. And on it, it was our station and shift, Maltese Cross, American flag. And it said, ductus exemplum, be humble or be humbled. Ductus exemplum is Latin for lead by example, and be humble or be humbled was something to keep us humbled, but also as, I don't know, for others, when they see us, you know, we need to carry ourselves in a way that people know that we're there to help, that when people see us arrive on scene, they know things are going to get better.

And so I taught leadership for a long time, and I would use that phrase not only to help the people I was teaching, but also to remind myself that, I mean, there was a lot of times where I got caught up with my accomplishments and got a little too big for my britches. And I would get, you know, chopped down a rung or two, you know, and then sometimes like all the way down to the bottom of the ladder. But, you know, I know I'm not the only person that that's happened to it. You know, when you talk to people, everybody has those experiences. It's what we do with them that matters. And I feel like a lot of times people that teach leadership, their message is all about, here's what you need to do. Here's how you become a great leader. You know, these are the characteristics of a great leader.

But they don't ever talk about what happens when you screw up. What do you do when you screw up, when you don't feel worthy of people's respect and followership you know when you don't feel like you're worthy to be in charge of the people that are following you and that happens a lot and a lot of times what happens is they get depressed or they overcompensate and dig you into a deeper hole reminds me ofs me of my son, my oldest son. When he was 12, he had instability of his shoulder. There you go. You know, trying to do the most when you're young, that competition.

So by the time he was a senior, I mean, he had so many issues with his arm. He couldn't even throw. His team won state that year. I mean, alongside, well, he didn he didn't play you know because he couldn't and he was you know all of his buddies from like four or five years old playing baseball you know was forever and everyone goes off to college you know and everyone's asking what college you're going to he's not going to college you know sadly my dad died on on that same day on his graduation day same day as the championship game bad for him just so sad and he looked at me like coach me like which base do i go

where's my fans to cheer me on i mean like he had been so used to at a boy, you know, and even me, I'm guilty, was guilty, like always putting on Facebook and stuff, his accomplishments. And he felt loved that way. And then now when there was no more accomplishments, there was no more home runs. He didn't feel loved anymore. And he didn't know where to go when he looked at me to tell him what base to go to and what direction. And I just, it was such a huge thing for me as a mother, because I was like, oh, what have I done? What have we done? The whole family, the community, the coaches, the teachers, what have we done to these kids, putting so much on them and only praising them when they do good? And it's taken him till he's 25, almost 26, taken him till now to finally find just himself without all that.

It was 2020 before I, I mean, it was all stuff that I'd read, that I'd studied, but to really feel it at the core and understand its truth. Yeah. I mean, I was in my forties. So. Well, thank God they have a little bit more awareness, but it's so true because like, even in my son's life, I mean, it was my dad, his dad, my brother, right? He wanted to be like them, right? This was like looking up to all of the male figures in your life, wanting to, you know,

do it. I mean, he was going to be a baseball player before he was born. That's very unfair. However, there's so much more to him, right? He has so much more. And yet he didn't get to discover that until he hit rock bottom, really. And which happens for a lot of us. What was your rock bottom?

It was 2019. And I thought I had hit rock bottom in 2001. I've been in the fire department for a little while by that point. And I'd seen a lot very early on. There was a series of calls that had me going, man, this is insane. These guys walk around like it's no big deal. But the shift prior, I had and we picked him off the ground. And we were getting ready to get off shift and somebody ran into the bay of the fire station saying that some little girl had just got hit by a car. I mean, like a block from the station.

So, you know, I grabbed the EMS bag and ran over there. saying that some little girl had just got hit by a car. I mean, like a block from the station. So, you know, I grabbed the EMS bag and ran over there. They brought the fire truck around. And when I ran up on scene, the little girl was in the middle of the road. All the traffic had stopped. It was a pretty busy road. Her group of friends had ran across the road through traffic to go to their bus stop. And she tried,

she was a little bit heavier, a little bit shorter. Her legs weren't as long. She couldn't run as fast as them. And the car that hit her didn't see any of them and hit her full speed. It looked as though she had been hit and her right leg with a machete and it was dragging behind her and she was conscious. But there is a look that people get when they experience that trauma. I mean, I've seen some horrific things, but it's crazy when you see it in a kid's eyes And she was clawing her way on the road. Her shoes were like 50 yards away and she was just dragging her leg behind her. It was this look of terror.

Like she was trying to get away from something that was trying to get her. And, you know, she was young enough and, you know, I'm sure she had some lasting effects from it, but we were able to save her leg. But when we went back to the station, the oncoming shift, some senior guys and we're all sitting at the table inside the apparatus bay. And I was like, man, we've been seeing some pretty crazy stuff the last few shifts like you guys have been doing this for 20 plus years like do you guys have nightmares or anything like how do you guys deal with seeing all this stuff and this guy slammed his hands down on a table

pushed his chair back from the table. Jesus fucking Christ. You believe this kid? Listen, I tell you what, you're getting ready to leave. Take your ass down to Home Depot, fill out an application. You'll do fine there. This clearly isn't the job for you. If you're already worried about having nightmares, Jesus. And he just walks away. And I was like, no, I'm good. Like, I was just concerned about you guys. Like, you guys have seen way more than me. Like, I don't know. Jeez.

And for 15 years, I never said anything. I just shoved everything down. And I ended up, I was the chief of special operations, heard a call, get dispatched. building. And I'm hearing all the updates, multiple patients arrive on scene. A car had been run off the road. It had almost did a 90 degree turn through oncoming traffic, you know, hopped a median through oncoming traffic into a parking lot, through the parking lot, through the front wall of this building, through an interior wall, and crashed into the back wall. It was a daycare center, and the first wall that he ran through was the front wall, and just beyond it was a room full of three and four year olds that were sitting down in their little chairs for snack time

and the second wall they ran through led them into a playroom where four and five year olds were and when i arrived on scene it was chaos there was a little girl it was chaos there was a little girl that didn't survive she had some pretty traumatic injuries

and there was my guys were already there using jacks and just doing a coordinated lift of the car. There was multiple children underneath the car. And from the moment that I got there, when I arrived, there was still four children underneath the car. And... got there when I arrived there was still four children underneath the car and after that call I had like my first real breakdown and uh and so I I sought help I was encouraged by some of the guys that I work closely with. They were like, man, you gotta go see somebody. And I had heard about this program that most people have heard about the Pulse Massacre, which occurred on my birthday. I would have normally went to the call, but I had my county cell phone turned off. It was the nightclub shooting, the Pulse nightclub.

In Florida. Yeah, in Orlando. And so University of Central Florida, after that incident, they opened up a program that was originally designed for combat vets. They opened it up for law enforcement and fire rescue. And so I was accepted into that program and it helped. But it wasn't like I just stopped running the calls. You know, I was still working. Like the trauma stopped. And so 2019, well, let me rewind. In 2001, well, actually December 31st, 2000, I was arrested for DUI.

And that led to my termination from the fire department. I ended up fighting it and getting my job back. But that was, I was actually working for a roofing company when I fell off the roof. And, and I thought that I would never be able to go back to the fire service. I thought I had hit rock bottom at that point in time until 2019, when I really experienced it. There was a series of three calls that really changed a lot about me. Right near my office, when I was the chief of special operations, and it was right near headquarters, is this Chick-fil-A that I would go there like once a week. I knew quite a few people that worked there.

My daughter's piano teacher was like a manager there. And, you know, I would talk to the different cashiers and stuff, and they were always really cool. And there was this one particular teenage girl that was always so sweet and, you know, happy and everything and and the reason i'm bringing her up is because when i arrived on this scene she was sitting in the front yard hysterical covered in blood. She had called 911 when she got home from work and found her mother.

And they told her to hold direct pressure on her mother's wounds. And so this is what the scene was, what actually happened. This teenage girl's twin brother had some issues. I don't know how else to say it nicely. Not that he deserves that, but he decided that he wanted to kill somebody and decided to kill his mother and used a kitchen knife and tried to decapitate her so when they told her to hold

direct pressure on her mother's wounds she was trying to hold her mother's head on and her brother walked around the house, put him bloody handprints on the walls and had to keep going back and dipping his hands. And, uh, Oh my God. Did they catch him? Yeah. He's in jail? Yeah. I mean, he confessed to everything. It was just really... Drat.

She was getting ready to graduate from high school. And so a couple months after that, I arrive on scene. It came in. It was going to be a heavy extrication. There was another auto accident and an intersection north of this accident. Traffic was stopped. This woman was in a hurry and decided to hop the median and make a U-turn. And I'm sure other people had done the same thing in front of her. And when she 350, huge pickup truck, T-Bonder, full speed. The front bumper of the truck had come into the passenger compartment so far that the bumper was probably a foot from the inside wall of the driver's side door. So I'd crushed the driver and everything around her. And the car ignited and was on fire when I arrived on scene.

And because of the traffic, it delayed the arrival of the fire truck. And, you know, they were pulling the hose line when I walked up and I could see the woman burning. And there was people screaming that there was a baby inside. The trunk of the car was open. There was a stroller on the roadway. There was children's books everywhere. There was a car seat. You could see a car seat in the back that had been smashed.

And when we put the fire out and we were able to cut the car apart and remove the woman and the car seat, we that you know there was no baby in the car seat thank god but that baby doesn't have a mother anymore and uh it was just a horrific thing this it's like this helpless feeling when you're the person that's supposed to make it better and there's nothing you can do and i said there was three calls and the third call was the one that really i was about to get off shift had a lot of paperwork I needed to finish up before I gave pass on to my relief. And this call came in and they had started coding calls as potentially violent situations. If there was any indication that something violent had happened. And a lot of times

it was nothing that I needed to go to. I was a battalion chief. And so when that call came in, you know, I knew I had all this work. And so I was angry. I was like, oh, this is bullshit. And a lot of it was, you know, I had that short fuse. I was not enjoying my life, of myself. I was working overtime all the time. I was working as many shifts as I could to stay away from home, to stay in a place where I felt like I was at the top of my game, where I felt that I was valued and all that, you know, and so I was working a lot, but when you work more, you're seeing more crap. So these are just three of the calls that happened to like be very, very vivid. They're the ones that stand out the most from that time period that I can pinpoint as having a pretty deep effect on me.

And so as I'm responding, dispatch updates and says, caller states, he just walked in, shot my mom, and shot me. And I went from being angry at going to a bullshit call to heading warp speed. I arrived on scene. You know, the area that I would work was not a great area. And we ended up putting ballistic vests and helmets on every unit in the apartment complex put on my ballistic vest and immediately you know deputies were waving me frantically towards the uh apartment building and i mean they they were running everywhere you know know, shotguns, AR-15s, you know, they're all like looking for the bad guy. And what they were looking for was if there was an additional bad guy, because the guy that perpetrated this, he knocked on the door. It was his ex-girlfriend.

He knocked on the door. She opened the door. It's about six o'clock in the morning. She opened the door. It's about six o'clock in the morning. She opened the door and he shot her in the head twice. It's a one bedroom apartment. Mom had the bedroom. Her 14 year old daughter had her bedroom in the living room. That was where her bed was. And she was in bed. And as soon as you walk in the front door of the apartment and look to the right, there's her bed. So we shot mom, leaned in, and the girl was hit with four bullets, five gunshot wounds. The first bullet went through her arm. She was trying to block or cover up. The

bullet went through her arm and hit her in the head and then the other three hit her in the chest and back and she was conscious and uh she's the one that called 9-1-1 and uh looked very much like my daughter, same age. So when I walked in the door, the mom is laying there, eyes open. I could see the injuries. Checked for a pulse. Couldn't feel a pulse. And then she gasped for air. And it seemed as though she was looking right into my eyes.

And it was agonal respirations. She was not going to survive. I knew the priority was the girl. I called for the units to come into the scene

and called for an additional rescue. They went right to work on the girl i had grabbed the mom and moved her into the living room where we could work on her if we needed to and when we put the monitor on her it was showing that she had a heart rhythm she didn't have a pulse but but there was a rhythm, an electrical rhythm. But it was pretty bad. And when they packaged up the little girl and they had her on a backboard and they walked her past her mom, looked over and um you know there's a sound that i've heard come out of parents out of people that have lost somebody very close to them

where they've witnessed it and they realize that the person that they love is gone. And it's this guttural sound of anguish. And when she looked over at her mom, that was what came out of her. And, yeah. that was what came out of her. And there was nothing that we could do to save her mom. We did save her though. And I'd went to,

I'd went to the hospital to check on her. I didn't know if she had any family or anything like that. I went the following shift to just confirm that she had survived. And I felt that she would make it. And so I brought a sweatshirt because I know it gets cold in the hospital. I bought her a stuffed animal, like a dog. And I wrote her a letter. And. and I don't know how much time had elapsed but when she got out of the hospital

her father had flown in from Puerto Rico and you know she wanted to meet us and so her father brought her to the us and and so her father brought her to the fire station and took some pictures with her and

you know hugged her and you know we were talking earlier it's it's kind of a surreal moment in time, you know, where you feel good that you saved her, but you feel this guilt that you couldn't save her mom. and I told you I signed my papers the day before Thanksgiving 2019. It was a blessing

in disguise because I was taking steps to get help, but nothing was actually happening. And then I made some poor decisions in my personal life, a series of poor decisions in my personal life that led to my termination. And those were the papers that I signed the day before Thanksgiving. I felt as though I'd been robbed of my identity, of my livelihood, of my purpose, of my daughter's respect. And I didn't feel as though I deserved her love or I didn't know how she could. And I continued to make poor decisions, drinking to excess so I didn't have to deal with the reality of what my life had become you know

and then one night I had already been drinking decided to go to a bar close closed that bar down, and people there, they were like, hey, you're not driving, right? Oh, no. I'm waiting on a lift. And when everybody left, parking lot was empty, I got in my truck, and I decided I was going to drive my truck into a wall. This is my rock bottom moment, but I didn't realize it yet. And I made the decision. I rolled my windows down, unbuckled my seatbelt,

put my accelerator to the floor, aimed my truck, let go of the steering wheel, and looked up to ask for forgiveness. And on my visor, it's a picture of me holding my daughter on the day she was born. I slammed on the brakes and everything went black. And I have no recollection from that moment to the next morning when I woke up in my bed. My truck was in my driveway. I was alive. And I'd never felt so ashamed or pathetic in my life. And I couldn't believe that I had almost done that to my daughter. And so, man, that was when I made that commitment to myself and my daughter that I my podcast to speaking about my experiences

helping anybody that I can and you know one of the realizations that I had was that, you know, I had basically said, this is my identity. This is who I am, you know, the career, the job, that was my identity. And I think so many people do that and lose sight of who they really are and what their purpose is, what they're meant to do in this world, and how great an impact they can have. We have to determine our purpose for ourselves, but everybody just wants to feel happy. That's hardwired into us. We all want to be happy.

We all want to be happy. We all want to feel fulfilled. I mean, it's written throughout history's philosophical writings, religious writings. We're here for one another, and that sense of fulfillment that we're trying to experience, that we're trying to feel the purest form of that is when we help somebody else achieve something that either they didn't know they could achieve, or maybe they were working really hard to achieve something. And you're the person that lifted them up, that showed them the way that gave them the skills or encouragement, whatever it is, when you see that your investment in that person helps them achieve what they were trying to do, and you see that look on their face, you know, you weren't doing it for yourself,

but that selfless purpose, that reward, that feeling of fulfillment, I mean, you can't get anything more pure than that. And I think we lose sight of that. We get caught up in chasing whatever we think we want to be or whoever we think we are, making money, whatever it is, we're chasing the wrong thing and we lose sight of what we need to stay focused on. And that's the people in our lives that mean the most to us. And if we can invest in them,

work really hard at developing ourselves to make ourselves better able to add value to those around us. When we can do that, that's what gives us purpose, and that's what gives us reason to keep moving forward. Even when we find ourselves flat on our face, what is it that gets us to get back up? And sometimes it's that other person that's been there. You know, we can be that person that just is a hand up, you know, somebody that can dust that person off and go, hey, man, this isn't it for you. There's more fight in you. And don't worry, because I'm right here. and I'll pick you up again if you fall. Thank God.

Your daughter must be so proud of you. You must definitely be her hero now. She's pretty awesome. She's pretty amazing. And I'm sure the amount of people that you've saved with your story maybe has tripled the lives that you saved as a fireman all those years oh I all I can do is just

I don't know. I'm trying. You know, my greatest fear is dying because of my children. So when you were talking about, you know, that last call and yourself, you know, yeah, it's always been my greatest fear dying not for myself but because of my children like I just want to make it through their lives you know to their you know functioning actually the episode that I am editing right now to go out is a woman who her father died. He was a cop in LA. He was killed by someone who was investigating and she didn't realize she had PTSD until she was like 40, you know, again, I'm glad that, you know, there is these programs now, you know, people are

encouraging each other to get help and talk. And what would you say to those who are listening who, you know, might want to take that first step, but maybe just need some encouragement? There are a lot of resources. Actually, on my website, I have a resources page where I actually have links to resources that are available for veterans and first responders. People can reach out to me and I'm connected with quite a few different nonprofits that serve veterans and first responders. You know, a lot of veterans don't want to go through the VA. A lot of first responders definitely don't want to go through their agency or their organization. You know, law enforcement, they don't want to be taken off the job or seen, you know, seen unfit for duty. I mean, that's their career.

Same with firefighters. You know, you don't want a doctor to say that you're unfit to serve. That's a real fear. And you don't want to be viewed as weak to your fellow firefighters, law enforcement buddies. The culture is changing very, very slowly, but it is changing. It's just, I think that until the leadership of these organizations make it a priority, because the culture does have to change. It should be part of the training. I actually just read an article in Fire Engineering Magazine where there is training available. You know, a lot of times, so CISM or CISD, critical incident stress debriefing, critical incident stress management,

that sort of thing. There's a lot of programs and a lot of organizations have teams that it's like peer support type of thing. But the way that it's established, it's after the traumatic event. And a lot of people don't want to be forced to talk about what they just saw. Especially with somebody that wasn't there. And then, you know, they might be working with people that they don't particularly like or trust or, you know, the dynamics are different everywhere. But taking care of the people before events happen, that's imperative. And to know that you're safe, if you are struggling to be able to say something. Yeah, I don't think a lot of first responders feel like

they can say something without being criticized, you know? Or viewed differently or whatever. It's also nice to know you're not alone in it because it seems like for a while there, you just decided you weren't going to say anything anymore and you're going to be alone in it. Yeah. That affects your whole life, right? It affects your relationships. And so that's one of those things where, you know, I struggled with for a while. You know, I know, I mean, I taught leadership for years. And one of the things that I left out all the time was the importance of, you know, that self-leadership piece where you evaluate yourself where you're at, you know, mentally, emotionally, and taking the time for yourself.

Because if you don't, you know, how can you be there for the people that you're leading? How can you recognize when they're struggling? And I mean, if more leaders would step up and, and come forward, these are the things that I've dealt with. These are the mistakes that I've made. This stupid decision I made, I can directly tie to this event, knowing that I was struggling with stuff. I wanted to bathe myself in alcohol to not feel what I was feeling.

Yeah, numb at all until they finally find a place to put it instead of pushing it down and covering it up. David, I just, I respect you so much for being vulnerable and sharing your story. I admire you and your courage. I think this is what a hero is. I'm very thankful that you had me on your show and allowed me to share. It's as good for me as, you know, maybe somebody that needs to hear it.

You talked about your website, but can you share what that is and where they can get your book, but can you share what that is and where they can get your book? And are you a mentor? Yes, I'm a coach. I'm not a licensed therapist or anything like that, but I am a certified coach and yeah, I've got a lot of certifications. So yeah, people can connect with me on social media. They can go to my website, hollenbachleadership.com. I do groups. I do go and speak at events. You can email me from my website. There is resources on the resources page. And I've got quite a few interviews on my podcast where I speak with mental health professionals that specialize in PTSD, working with veterans and first responders. If where you're at, you don't know who to reach out to, you can always shoot me an email and

I'd be happy to help you connect with a group that's in your area or, you know, I'd be happy to talk with you and yeah, hollenbachleadership.com. You can buy my book there or it's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I know it's in some bookstores. If you like to go and actually have the book in your hand and they don't have it at your bookstore tell them to get it well thank you so much for all that you're doing i appreciate you know your willingness to share with others if anybody out there listening is struggling you know just don't give up even if you feel like you've put yourself in the situation that you're in don't give up. Even if you feel like you've put yourself in the situation that you're in, don't give up because everybody makes mistakes and it's what we do with that experience.

It's an opportunity to become better. I know, I truly feel this way that if I had not gone through the stuff that I'd gone through, if I had not made the stupid decisions that I made, if I hadn't lived the life that I lived, I would not be the man that I am today. I would not be the father that I am today. And I would not be able to help people the same way that I'm able to help them now. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure thank you thank you thanks for listening to sense of soul podcast and thanks to our special guests for joining me if you want more of sense of soul check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sons of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.