236: When the Lifesaver Needs Saving, with Jason Sautel.

In this deeply moving episode, Nole and Kevin sit down with Jason Sautel, a retired Oakland firefighter and the author of the powerful memoir, "The Rescuer." Jason shares his harrowing journey from a traumatic childhood to the front lines of one of America's busiest fire departments.

Jason pulls back the curtain on the "stone-cold lifesaver" persona, revealing the internal darkness and despair that hid behind his acclaimed career. He recounts the moment he hit rock bottom, planning to take his own life, and the painful experience of being turned away by a church in his darkest hour. Yet, in that same moment of desperation, a simple, unexpected visit from a San Francisco firefighter pulled him back from the brink.

This conversation is a masterclass in vulnerability, as Jason details his path to finding faith, the profound influence of his wife Kristie, and the life-altering fire that solidified his belief in God. He also offers invaluable, hard-won wisdom for first responders on navigating marriage, communicating trauma with a spouse, and raising children in a world of chaos.

This isn't just a story about firefighting; it's a story about the universal human struggle, the power of authentic connection, and the hope that can be found even after the deepest wounds.

Get the book, The Rescuer.

https://www.thomasnelson.com/p/the-rescuer/

Jason Sautel on Facebook. 

https://www.facebook.com/GracefullyRescued/

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Transcript

Nole (00:13.336)
You are listening to the fire. You carry podcasts on today's episode. are joined by Jason Sautel. Jason is the author of a book called the rescuer, which both Kevin and I have read and cannot recommend highly enough. We met Jason actually at two separate events. Kevin met him at a chaplain's breakfast, heard him speak there. And then I actually ran into him up at Hume Lake during their first responders conference. Jason's just a really awesome guy. He's got a very heavy, very compelling story.

And in this episode, he just gives us a masterclass on how to talk about his story, the experiences that he had, the lessons that he learned. No, you're to get a ton out of this. Can't encourage you enough to go out and buy Jason's book and read it. Thank you for listening. Enjoy.

What people didn't see on the inside was that I was dying but as firefighters We've been trained to put on that stone-cold lifesaver face because the compassion we give people hurts a lot Sometimes it hurts them and it hurts us so we become pros at Hiding our emotions. Well, I was hiding my emotions but outwardly I would let people know how I felt about Christians because number one I had some Christians, you know, they hey, you're going to hell you're going to hell and when someone's in the worst

they can possibly be in, that's the last thing they want to hear. So I didn't like that. But I also hated the fact that Christians seem to have a happiness I couldn't find,

Kevin (02:02.68)
Welcome back to the FireUCarry Podcast. Today we are excited. We have a special guest, Jason Sattel. Welcome to the program.

Hey, thanks for having me on, gentlemen.

This is super fun and a long time in the making. Jason, we met up at Hume back in, I think it was in March at the first responders conference. Is that correct? get March and May confused. So I was thinking of the wrong month, but yeah. Either way earlier this year, my wife would correct me. In fact, I asked her recently when that was and she told me, but I already forgot, but we were up there and we're in the little gift shop, you know, looking at merchandise, Hume Lake merchandise.

That's correct.

Jason (02:26.03)
Maybe maybe but I was just

Nole (02:41.676)
And my wife points you out because you had on a hoodie for your podcast. Wow. And she goes, have you ever heard of that podcast? And I was like, I'm not sure. think so. And she goes, well, you should go talk to that guy because you know, you have a podcast and you should talk to him and find out what the deal is. And I go, nah, I'm good. Because I'm not a self promoter. You know, I don't, I'm really, really bad at that. And she goes, no, seriously, you need to go.

I'm the same way,

Nole (03:10.264)
talk to that guy. And I was like, no, I don't want to. And she says, no, you go introduce yourself to that man right now. So I did. And then lo and behold, it was you have a wife. Yeah. She knew better, obviously. And it turns out that whenever I'm in a situation like that, and I don't listen to her, I always regret it later. I always think, I wonder who that guy was. I should have talked to that, you know, and so

You're speaking for all men right there, bro.

Yeah, right. It's a little bit of a little bit of husband wisdom there, but we met obviously. And that's when I learned about your book, the rescuer, which you were kind of to gift me a copy. And obviously we had the connection. Kevin had actually told me about you before, cause he had seen you speak. So, you know, as aware of you, but upon reading your book, it really moved me. I was really, I mean, at one point, honestly, I was moved to tears reading your book and

I just absolutely loved it. So I've been looking forward to having you on the show and really glad that we met randomly up at Hume Lake, which was very cool.

It's crazy how God knits these things together and I think those the kind words to do, not to go too much on the book right out of the gate. You know, what you just said right there confirmed some of the prayers that I had work answered when writing this book was, you mentioned it, self-promoting, making about us. Bro, that's last thing we do as firefighters. We make it as a team. But when you're writing a memoir, it's about you and your experiences. So I was in a struggle there.

Jason (04:34.304)
And when I was writing, said, God, I just pray each firefighter or each person that reads this sees a piece of themself in this book. And you know, when you said it brought you to tears, bro, it brought me to tears multiple times having to relive a lot of those stories too, man. So that means a lot. Thanks for saying that, brother.

Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I got to see at the chaplains breakfast and we're big fans of our chaplain Vince Roldan. And I think he came down in Orange County. I don't know if that was a year or two ago, but we got to see you speak and it was great. And then, um, you know, I read the book and I'll be honest with you. I felt uncomfortable in the beginning because I feel like we have some solid tools and I have some great men to work on some things, but there were so many, all too familiar calls that I've kind of like, I want to.

I want to put in the back of my head, you know what I mean? And that sometimes like the jumper, the, you know, some of those calls and it's interesting to know that like, it doesn't matter what fire department you're working for. think we've experienced some of the same things that most people do not. And it made me address like, Hey, am I doing the right things? I got to check in. I called Noel. I said, we started talking about it. And I think that was in a good way, in a good way, it kind of pulled the carpet back on to say like, Hey man,

We got to expose some things because I felt a little uncomfortable. kidding. Going, I've been there. I've been there. I've been there. Maybe I got to look at that.

Yeah, see Kevin and you also again confirmed another thing has been told multiple times. I hear from guys a lot of times. First off, it's an easy read. Let's keep that real. It's a very easy read, purposely written that way. And we'll talk more about, you know, structure and how it's written and how someone helped gave me a hand on that side. But a lot of guys have read it and they've had to close it right away and then come back to it. If someone wants to ask me, there's like, why didn't you write something about a trigger warning in it? I'm not going to do that.

Jason (06:21.172)
Because I'm a true believer that we need to reach out to guys that are struggling, but guys that are struggling, they also need to know their triggers. And when something triggers you how to handle it safely, how to reach out for help. So I left that out on purpose. But the feedback I've gotten from guys was, dude, you've had me re-examine things I haven't looked at in years. There are things I was withholding even from my childhood pre-fire department and into the fire department. Because what I've found during this journey

is I'm starting to learn a lot of guys are like me. They got into the fire department first off because they want to serve and help people. They're giving God gifts and abilities to be able to do the stuff that we were called to do. But they also do it to try to heal themselves from their past, think that if I go get this job, it's going to make me better. And that's I thought, dude, it's an idolization, if you will. And it can even become an idolization for Christians. know, I'm the fireman, I'm the fireman. This is what I do on and off duty. It never goes away. This is who I am. It's how I support my family.

And a lot of that came to life out of it too.

What I really resonated with is that, you know, if you heard you speak, had somebody might think that you're a devout Christian from the start, you you grew up, but that wasn't always the case. And it wasn't for me. was, I was an alcoholic and I got sober pretty young, but my wife was the guiding force that she was a Christian family and said, Hey, let's start looking at churches. And I was struggling. I was really like, need, I need, I knew I needed spiritual help. And we went to this church in Carpinteria and it was like, there was a carnival going on.

you know, it was the weekend of like the thing and they had a ramp and they're like, Hey, we got the skate team dropping in for the Lord. I looked at my wife and I said, we're out of here. You know what mean? Like completely out of here. But I kind of, I wanted to hear your background and it's see if you wanted to talk about your experience. I love the, the first experience you had, like going in the church when you were struggling. And I thought that was really interesting.

Jason (08:00.141)
You

Jason (08:15.854)
Yeah, bro. I mean, so I grew up in Southern California and you guys are going to laugh, but I grew up in Hemet, California back when it was kind of cool to live there. We're country boys. mean, shotgun racks in our trucks, you know, the 80s types of, you know, no one's shooting anyone, meaning that we go hunting after school and stuff. But what sucked, bro, is my mom left to Northern California to go find herself when I was about seven years old. She's still looking for herself, by the way. But she left me with my dad, who's a very abusive man.

And the childhood that I had just really sucked. And I don't want to go too deep into it, not because I'm scared, but it'll just take up a lot of time, but it was worst case scenario type stuff. And it basically made me start hating anyone who had something good because everything good that I ever had was yanked away from me, just pulled away from me, dude. And that carried even into my teen years and into the fire department.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't that fireman that was walking around that everyone hated. Dude, I was the life of the party, the jokester and all that stuff, but that was the exterior. What people didn't see on the inside was that I was dying. But as firefighters being stone cold lifesavers, we've been trained to put on that stone cold lifesaver face because the compassion we give people hurts a lot sometimes. It hurts them and it hurts us. So we become pros at hiding our emotions.

Well, I was hiding my emotions, but outwardly, I would let people know how I felt about Christians because number one, I had some Christians that were, hey, you're going to hell, you're going to hell. And when someone's in the worst spot they can possibly be in, that's the last thing they want to hear. So I didn't like that. But I also hated the fact that Christians seemed to have a happiness I couldn't find, So I was in a bad spot.

But when I was at my lowest and literally just the day before I was going to take my own life, I had a little church down the street from my house and I said, I'm going go check that out. Just something was calling me to go there. So I put on my best board shorts, my best pair of Vans, know, got my surf shirts on everything. Because growing up in even in him, we snuck over to Orange County and surfed all the time. So as long as you guys wouldn't beat us up or try to fight us, but we'd usually win. anyways, I go I go to that church.

Nole (10:30.583)
Yeah.

And as I go walking up, there were two greeters that quickly turned into bouncers and they said, you can't come in here dressed like that. And bro, was, I was ready to die inside and no joke. I just wanted to go inside and this big tough fireman, Oakland fireman who had awards on his walls for pulling, know, making grabs and doing some stuff. was thinking, I just want to hug. I just want someone to be there for me. And I'm not good enough now. Well, my whole life I was told I've never been good enough.

And then the church confirmed it. Now hear me out, this is a pre-Christian speaking, meaning those guys weren't the church, but they were the face of the church. They confirmed it and they said, you can't come in your dress like that. Then, because I just stood there and thought, bro, I would pull any one of you out of this building if it was on fire or resuscitate you, anything that we're called to do, but you're saying I can't come in. And I was so pissed, dude, I guess my hands were kind of clenching up and stuff.

They said, you need to leave now. they're, giving me a trespass, right? I'm like, well, they're following me as I'm walking away. Tears are mine. And that was it, dude. I was like, forget it. I'm done. And that was the moment I didn't feel peace, but it was the first time I, my life, felt silence. Cause the evilness that had been chasing me since I was a child, but basically said we got him now. And I was just like, I'm going to end my life. And I don't want to just leave it there because that's a really tough point.

Praise God that he used a San Francisco fireman to save my life. And the coolest thing about it is this San Francisco fireman didn't even know he did it, nor is he a Christian. So anyone that's hearing this story, I'm not bashing the church, I'm not beating up the church. I mean, they're wonderful, but my first experience of walking in for help was really tough,

Nole (12:21.442)
Yeah. And that really highlights something that I think, I mean, it's a really common story. I think we've all probably heard it a dozen times, although your experience is, one of the more extreme that I've heard personally. But I mean, you highlighted it when you said that those two gentlemen outside that church there, they were not the church, right? Those are just people. And when people are hurt by quote unquote, the church, especially, well, not really, especially

whether or not you're a believer or not, it can be easy to just look at that and go, no, I'm out the church. But when you look at it from the perspective of the church is just built up of broken, confused, hurting people. It doesn't make it right what happened to you or what has happened to so many other people that have been hurt by the church. But it makes it a little bit more understandable when you realize that just because someone is

inside the doors of a church, it doesn't mean that they've got it all figured out. In fact, far from it. They're no different than the people on the outside in reality, except for that hopefully they know Jesus is their savior. But you know, we've all seen it. That doesn't mean that you perfectly execute life. That part of the book,

Well, there's a couple of other things that kind of draw from that since we're there. Number one, people always, where is that church? Who are they? Like, I'm not going to tell you. It was just what it was, was a couple of hugely legalistic guys that were just being legalism that you can't come here without a suit and tie, you know? And that's garbage in my opinion. me, legalism truly...

is immaturity in a certain area of your faith is what it equals to me that because you can't follow the word of God, you take a worldly legalistic view on things. But what I tell the guys that read that and get mad, I said, don't get mad. said, actually do what I do. Hold that section up like a mirror and look into your life and see if there's anything you're doing that's pushing a non-Christian away. Just do that for me. And then the second thing to kind of get out of that is just

Jason (14:28.92)
Be welcoming to people. That's it. Just be welcoming, man. And I don't want all negativity to come out of it, but that, you guys hit the nail on the head. That's a big bullet point that people pull out of the book all the time. And I want people to understand that we're not all like this. And the last thing I'll say about is think about, I work in West Oakland or worked in West Oakland, one of the busiest firehouses, just a few doors down from where the Black Panther Party started, just a beautiful, rich, diverse neighborhood full of amazing people.

But imagine if I ran on a certain person, and maybe they were a certain color and they treated me bad. Then all of sudden they say, well, all of those people are like that. Bro, that's racism, that sucks. I'm taking it to next level because racism is disgusting. It's one of the biggest sins there is. But just because a Christian treats you bad, don't think of the whole body of Christ being like that. Just think of that as they're having a bad day, they're in a bad spot, or flat out they're just a jerk that needs to work on their sanctification.

I like that. I like that analogy.

It's amazing how God works as I like grow in faith. You know, I, I'd always struggle when people are here. I, God told me this or I heard this. It's been my experience that God works like that. And like all of a sudden a San Francisco fireman calls you in your darkest moment or, know, somebody calls me and I feel like that to me, that's God speaking through that guy. don't know if that was your experience.

Big time. mean, dude, so when I was ready, I was at the point of no return, my biggest thing was I didn't want to become a bad memory for another firefighter or cop sitting there having their Thanksgiving meal and thinking, oh, I ran on Jason who killed himself. You that was my biggest concern was not becoming a bad memory. So I had a plan that was going to make it where you knew I was gone, but you were going to find my body. And it had to do with surfing and paddling a longboard as far out in the ocean as I could. There's a lot of stuff.

Kevin (16:20.014)
You're swell. Let's go, Brody.

Yeah, you know, and so it had all of that and everything. But what happened during that time is when I was done writing my note that made it very clear and I was getting ready to go into my truck and drive down, because I only live 15 minutes from Bodega Bay, was a firefighter buddy of mine from San Francisco who's like exact opposite of mine. I'm always dirty and gross. I was like, take a shower type of firefighter. He was that, what do we call back in the day, the metrosexual, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, we those guys.

But he drove a 300 ZX. drove a pickup truck that never got washed. But we're best friends, man. And when we first met, I actually thought he was hitting on me, but he doesn't roll like that. Not judging me, just he doesn't roll like that. like, who is this guy? Because he met me in the gym. Well, he's that type of guy. also is like, bro, two minutes out, going to have pancakes. I just got off duty. Well, that means he's basically sitting in your front yard, that type of buddy. That's like, no. And all of a sudden, he comes walking up.

And like all firefighters, cops, anyone, any first responder does, we're assessing the situation, sizing up situations and people. He walked up, he's like, bro, he just looked at me, he didn't say anything. He looked at my truck, he's like, wait, ropes, cinder block, oh, you have your Glock in. It's like, we're going to breakfast. We're going to breakfast. And it was at that moment that things started to change. And I want to be clear to anyone who's lost anyone out there, because I know there's a lot of guilt that people have of, I should have, should have, should have.

And I want to be clear on this. If I was going to, I was going to, and no one was going to stop me. OK, no one ever saw the signs of me. Even guys at the firehouse where this story was written from 20 years ago came in like, didn't you tell us? And again, I fall back on that stone cold lifesaver. You guys, I wouldn't let you see it. I wouldn't let you see it. So we always look after the fact that I can't believe that guy did it. And then we try to find the signs. And sometimes I think we make up in our head the things we missed. But just by showing up at a brother's house,

Jason (18:15.596)
and saying, hey, let's go have some breakfast. It changed me. And he didn't sit there and preach to me, talk to me. He never even once asked about the situation, but he hung with me until he knew I was in a better space, dude. And it was just, it was amazing to tell you the truth, man. And like I said, this brother is still not a Christian this day. And you know, he beats me up all the time. We go back and forth, but I love him like a brother still because, you know, he helped save my life.

That's super humbling. like, really appreciate the distinction there because I mean, Kevin and I have talked about it on this podcast, because obviously we've lost, we've lost people in our department that have taken their own lives and you know, coming from my military background, I've lost friends that I served with to the same thing. And that is a really common thing you hear guys talk about is I didn't know, right. And we just wish that we had known so that we could have done something, but

This is a unique job though, right? Like you literally wear a costume. literally wear a costume. like, I think it's so common that guys that no one I talked to, like they burn it down on their four day, you know, they burn it down and then they can come in or if you want a pig, put on a costume and say, what's up, it'd be a great fireman. And it sounds like you're a great fireman. You're doing all the things. And then privately you're in this private battle. And I think that's such a common, weird duality, right?

It is dude, mean like if you look at my house, the guys even joked, know, my house wasn't something I loved. It was basically a middle finger to my past because bro, I didn't even get my first bed until I bought it with my overtime check from Cal Fire back from fighting, you know, the Malibu fires or anything, the big fires in 93 kind of stuff, you know, the historic fires that we tend to get down in your guys area in the fall and stuff. But I didn't even have a bed, bro, until I bought one myself. I just slept on a nasty.

Excuse my language, a nasty ass mattress on the floor with cockroaches in a nasty duplex in Hemet, California, dude. And so when I would go home to my beautiful house, it didn't bring me joy. I didn't even have TV on, dude. I would sit there and stare at the TV with just like Simon Agarfunkel or just some sort of old crooner music playing and stuff to try to get out of my head.

Jason (20:23.566)
But then, you know, like if I went out and hung out with the guys and I'm not advocating drinking, if someone ever tells me, oh, I need to go get a drink, I'm like, yeah, we're gonna talk why you need that drink first off, you know, but that's a whole other subject there. But even when I went out and hung out with the guys, dude, I was filling a black hole inside of me that would just eat it up and spit it out. You could never fill it up. I had the truck, I had the boat. And like I said, I don't want people to think I was this like total down guy during that time. I hung out, did stuff, worked overtime, did strike teams, took trips to Cabo, but dude.

There was no joy in any of that. And I would get a moment like, wow, this felt good. This is awesome. Then it was gone in the black hole inside of me. It was even bigger. And I tried to fill it with something else. And it finally came to a point where I couldn't fill it with enough garbage. This world said would make me feel better. You know, we all know that Christ is going to ultimately plug that hole in me. But dude, it's a bad thing. Like you said, you go to work. There were times and I'm not advocating this, but I would go to work and I'd plug an IV in and.

take a little oxygen and get ready for shift, you know, stuff because of the night I had, dude. And then after I would do that, I still felt horrible during that shift and it wasn't a hangover. was what was missing in my life is what made me feel so horrible.

It's also common, think too, to, think how many guys that we talked to that have a similar background though, it wasn't all roses growing up. a lot of the dudes that I know are a little rough around the edges and how we passed a background check is a mystery, right? But, but I think that, that, that type of personality draws you to wanting to go in and do hard things, right? But I think that can also cause if we haven't addressed that black hole.

and then you start adding in sleep deprivation and some traumatic calls over and over and over that black hole can grow pretty quickly.

Jason (22:05.774)
Yeah, know, joining the department, like I said earlier on, hoping it would save my life. And I started when I was 18 and the story behind it's just even crazy to be in an 18 year old that was, you know, skateboarding and a crew said, hey, why don't you think about being a firefighter and all this stuff? I mean, it was just kind of crazy the way it became a firefighter, but joining the job at 18, which I'm not claiming to military and our military guys, of what brand and gals, regardless of what branch you work, God bless you for what you do.

But I think about it that at the age of 18, we're still children, dude. I'm 50. I look pack and I was a child. I was a child, but I'm a child who's on the back of this engine now. I remember my first call at CDF was we ran two man engines back then and I'm working in Henwick, California. And we pulled up on scene and my captain goes, I'm gonna go do an LZ. Bro, I didn't know what an LZ was. All I know is I have my little case, which is a first responder bag of it. And our oxygen bottle's probably empty or stale.

And I'm treating this guy that just got whacked by a car way out in Riverside County and he drives off and I'm there alone and this guy is dying. I'm like, why is this guy? He's snoring. Is he going to bed? What is he doing? No, the dude was dying, man. But I'm 18 years old. But the kicker was that was one of the worst moments of my life because I was not trained to be in that position, bro. And people say, why did you go to EMT and paramedic school? Was it the percentage like, no, bro, because that experience messed me up.

What are

Jason (23:32.942)
I didn't know what to do and that was the worst feeling I ever had. But what sucked about that experience, which is also a blessing, happened when I was in a child. So here I am, this guy that had been just a few years earlier, has taken a beating if he even asked for new clothes to go to school and stuff. Now I'm sitting there trying to save lives, bro, and your brain's trying to process it all. And especially when you can't process it through the Holy Scriptures, it's a rough spot to be, bro.

I feel a lot of people where I was going with that was, you know, folks in the military, they're in the same thing, man. I mean, you're sitting there playing basketball in front of your house, your buddies, and then you go and someone's screaming at you for a few months. The next thing you know, you got a rifle and you're going to war. And I'm not downplaying that. I'm just talking how it is, man. It's traumatic. It's as traumatic as I was standing in the street, even though no one was shooting me. I felt like I was that guy dying because I didn't know what the heck to do. And I was so scared at that moment.

Yeah, that's heavy. That's heavy.

So you had your buddy who, you know, I think spiritually intervened in your darkest moment. And how long have you been on Oakland at the time by that?

I've been about 10 years at that, about eight years at that point. Yeah, yeah. It's where somewhere, yeah, about six years. What I try to do is be a little vague on the times, right? there are people who research it because every call in that book is real. And the lawyers who vetted it, we were very cautious. So what we do is we don't give the exact timeframe. But what I say is the early 2000s is kind of when it was, was back.

Jason (25:02.958)
back in the Oakland fire heydays where I tell the guys, we didn't wear turnout pants to fires. We didn't do that until 2010 and we don't wear masks and bottles to the roof. it was just, yeah, the way that Oakland was, like I said, we went to LA one time for the fireman's Olympics and all of us were looking around like, dude, that's what firemen are supposed to look like? No way. We're just a bunch of dudes that hung out in the ghetto and stuff.

We never wore uniform shirt. You were not allowed to wear uniform shirt or district cause it could cause more problems because people would see as an authority figure as opposed to a cool fireman. we just, yeah, man, that's just how it was, you know? So it was, it was a different era then too, but I want to be clear on this. It was an era that started to change because we were kind of trained up by like the Vietnam guys, right? And there is,

They were trained up by the World War II. So you had the baby boomers that were trained by the greatest generation, then Gen X, you know, is kind of trained by the baby boomers. And it was a time where we never talked about anything. It was just shut up and do it again. I remember on probation coming back from a third alarm fire and we had three fatalities. And like you say, Oakland's no better than anywhere else. But because of so many people packed into such a small old town,

We get a lot of fatality fires and our horrible claim to fame is we're number one per capita in the United States for many years. But we come back and all those old gentle giants, they would just go to bed after that. And here I'm like, dude, I was just overhauling in a room with two dead people. What the heck is going on here? Because we shut up and just did it and got ready for the next one. Well, I don't want to be that sissy guy or this wimpy guy that if you want to go toe to toe and talk fire, talk and tack this.

I'll go right there with you, okay? But what I do is I try to quote, bring that clout, if you will, and say, guys, I wanna make telling our stories normal. I wanna normalize that. Because if we tell our stories, it tells all those people that are those stone cold lifesavers that have their masks on, it'll tell them, hey, that guy's gone through what I've gone through, or that girl's gone through what I've gone through. And then you can start conversations. And conversations is where help.

Jason (27:13.066)
starts you don't know where it's found dude in my my true honest opinion on PTSD.

What were some of your first steps trying to climb out of that hole?

It was a meeting a hot chick in a restaurant. Super smoking hot chick, but check this out. As beautiful as she was 23, 24 years ago that we met and my wife, Christie, she's just as beautiful today, but there was always something more about her. Even in the restaurant when I was sitting there, I saw a girl who had something like shining out of her. I mean, not even a joke guys. I'm not like prophetic and the light of heaven was shining on her or out of her, but every move she made,

You

Jason (27:53.346)
matched how she was talking or what her faith was, even though I didn't see her faith. Like when she was talking to a little kid at the table next me, she was legit, right? She was making sure people were cared for at a restaurant, know, old school qualities. She had some qualities and basically put, I wanted more of what she had, dude. That's what I wanted. I wanted more of what she had. And by doing that, we started dating and she quickly realized I was a train wreck.

She's got a project ahead of her.

Dude, so she's like, we finally came about maybe three, four weeks in and she goes, listen, I'm in love with you. No joke. Well, funny thing was, don't tell her this, because I don't want to know. I was in love with her too at the time, but I got to be the tough guy in the story. Right. But she said, but I'm not going to continue to date you unless you come to church with me. Now, she never said I had to be a Christian. Hear me out on this, because you can't force Christianity on someone. But she knew I needed to have the body of Christ around me to hear the gospel message.

because I was too much for her, you know? And so when she looked at me and she said, you're so broken and I don't know why all these bad things have happened to you, but I know that God's gonna use them for good someday, at line still sticks with me. And she truly said that to me. And I went to church with her, but don't get wrong. We pulled up to the church parking lot, bro, Kevin, we're sitting there and you know, being a young fireman, I wasn't rich, I wasn't broke and stuff, but I had plenty of money to make and she was poor because she was a starving student in nursing school at time.

I think I offered her like $2,000 on a trip to the mall if we didn't have to walk into the church. Oh yeah. I was like, I don't want to go in there. They're be mean. And this is where I want to add on to the story of being turned away from the church. When I showed up to that church, it was so welcoming. So cool. I mean, I'll get it wrong there. When you go up to church, sometimes there are those fake, hello, how are you? You know, and that's cool. At least they're trying, but everyone there, including the pastor, they were so legit, dude. They were so real and so kind hearted and

Kevin (29:28.622)
Whatever it takes, lady.

Jason (29:53.14)
they were just humans, they weren't trying to be holy. You know, they're just being real and they're Christians and they're there to build each other up. And it just really resonated with me. And that's what started the process of me converting to Christianity.

That's wild. How long were you going to that church before you considered yourself a Christian?

Probably about maybe six weeks. Now, check this out. The pastor invites me out to to lunch and we're hanging out and he was getting to know me. And normally I wouldn't go to lunch with a pastor or something like that. At that point in my life, I only go to lunch with guys that are really don't be firemen. Obviously, that's who is in my life. But this dude was real. You know, he was like, dude, I always wanted to be a fireman, you know, and you know, just really cool about it. He started asking me real legit question. What's it like? Like, what's it really like inside of?

not what we see in backdraft and all that. And, you know, I was explaining it to him. It felt good to talk to someone that wasn't a firefighter about what we experienced. And then he says, Hey, we're friends, right? I said, yeah. He's like, you know, I just need to tell you something. And he, because he got to know me pretty quick, goes, I love that you're rescuing people. You're doing all this stuff and helping people, but dude, you're kind of self centered. Like, okay. I'm like, and I want to throw back. Well, so are you, but the dude invited me to lunch, took me lunch and be cool and slice.

Boom!

Jason (31:07.47)
Okay, well, bro, let's hear it. And you know, it's like when your officer or the senior fireman wants to bring some of your tins, you just, you want to hear me like, damn bro, really? And so he says, I love the fact that you love helping people. I love the fact that you love being a paramedic, but I keep hearing this term of we and I, I, my crew, I, my crew, you keep on talking about you guys, know, but Jason, where did your gifts and abilities come from? Where did you want?

from dude because if it's just you that's self-centeredness but if you recognize that you were called to this job that you recognize you were given some gifts and abilities to maybe do stuff that other people can't do bro then it's not self-centered then you're saying thank you God for this and bro it was like you know the seed planted I'm like huh try to push back on that one even you know and I wasn't an atheist at the time I was just a nothing at the time you know and so he planted that seed

Being around Christie, and then I started having a bunch of series of events where I recognized every time something really good happened, that the black hole inside of me wouldn't eat up, was surrounded by quote, a Bible at the time. You know, meaning that like we're on a run and I had to tell this old lady that her husband of seven years had passed. And I had tears in my eyes, and I never do that dude, you know? And I was just doing what we like to do at our station was we were redressing the guy, taking out the tubes and we're gonna put him back in bed, because I wanted his wife to see him.

as she had last seen. I didn't want her to see him laying on the floor, you know, as a code, you know, it says, go down the hallway to tell her like, Hey, your husband, I couldn't say dead dude. I'm so tears are starting to well up. This little like five foot two lady puts her huge King James Bible down, walks over me and says, it's okay, son. He's my love is with Jesus, bro. Want to talk about the

Ultimate, I mean, you want to talk about grace being important. I mean, there is no grace greater than the one that God can give us. There is no greater grace than that. Can't even be compared to, you know, the gift of salvation through Christ alone. But emanating that grace, I've never seen a greater point in my life than her that she just lost her world, her husband of 70 years, but she was more concerned about my pain at the moment. I mean, right now it gives me...

Kevin (33:23.608)
Yeah.

And the devil in the darkness can't take it away from me. Couldn't take that away from me. So as all those events led up and just to tie it in, even though I'm kind of long winded right now, I want to finish this part for you. It was about one in the morning. We're just outside of downtown on the west side and a downtown fire hits off. And I'm thinking, dude, don't go to a second alarm because I'm tired. I think we do a fourth alarm total. But when we got there, it was an old Tribune building in Oakland because of our subways and bar trains.

big underground downtown section. So we just have the tunnels and all this type of stuff. And there's a fire in the basement. It was about three floors underground, but we couldn't get to it. And so I knew, I thought where the fire was, Cappy, he was off talking to IC and we had a new kid with us. So I said, Hey, we're pulling the static two and a half inch. And I said, let's get this to the front door. Don't charge it. Just get it all ready. And I'm going to go inside and I just want to see where the access to the fire is. Cause it wasn't really that smoky.

But as I was pushing into this fire, bro, a different feeling hit me. A darkness that I had my entire life as a child was in that fire with me, And as it started getting darker and hotter, I wasn't turning around. I kept pushing forward on my own. had no crew around me. had no, I was basically breaking every rule that we break. And at that time the only people that had radios in the OFD were the officers. So the firefighters, we didn't have radios. So I'm in there alone, no communication, you know, push.

Yeah, I'm about 60 feet in to to a 100 by 114 story building all brick built in the early 1900s trying to find a basement fire. Can you say stupidity? Right. All of a sudden, when I cut to the back wall and I couldn't go any further, everything behind me lit up, everything, dude. And when I looked down, my pants were even burning and I was tripping because the heat was insane, but it wasn't like a flash over insane heat. Right. And I didn't know what happened, but I thought that the the floor had collapsed.

Jason (35:21.39)
And I'm yelling out of my mask mayday mayday mayday and I started praying at that time to you, dude I'm like God. I don't want to die like this I just I don't want I don't want to die and I wasn't saying like a sinner's prayer thing But I was truly I was so scared to die That I didn't realize that that fear was coming from the separation of Christ at the time Well long story short as I was advancing through there We were in a photo processing shop of the Oakland Tribune building the newspaper building

and all the chemicals were starting to melt from the heat under us. And I probably, you know, my clumsy butt kicked some stuff over. That's why my turnout pants were on fire was I crawled through it. Well, it came through some vents and lit everything up. Well, praise God. People say, so did Jesus run in and rescue you? I'm like, no, a pack of dumb firemen with a two and a half inch came in to rescue me, The brothers came to rescue Right. So, so they, they pulled me out of that fire, dude. And

Those are mates.

Jason (36:17.6)
is I'm looking around, yeah, my legs were blistered and my turn up pants were all blue from being on fire and everything. And I'm trying to convince the chief I don't need to go to the hospital. I'm cool and everything. Something just came over me at that moment, dude. And I was just like, I started thanking God. First time in my life, instead of Christine, I started thanking him. And I went home and on my way home, I stopped to see Christie and I was, dude, I was still shaking. I mean, don't get me wrong. It was like one of those moments where like, I can't.

Even though looking back on it, I wasn't as close to dying as I thought I was, because I don't want to steal away the glory from guys that have been in that situation. But it was a pretty hairy situation that I was in. It shook me to my core. And when I talked to Christie about it, bro, her answer was, said, you know what? I finally believe what you believe. And she looks at me, she's all, duh. I'm like, really? That's the moment? That's what happened.

moment

Yeah, this is movie moment. This is where the hero and heroine go for it. Jesus. Right. And so I tell guys to finish up with that. say, so did everything get better at that point? I said, well, my eternity was locked in. If anything happened in the on the job or off the job, I knew I was going to be fine eternally. But, I kept going to rapes. I kept going to shootings. I kept going to fires. And this fallen world was still fallen. But I now had clarity.

yeah, you're waiting for the- yeah, yeah.

Jason (37:37.646)
things that I thought were my fault were not my fault, things that I could work on, I was now given a light in that area of my life to work on it, dude. And that's what I tell the brothers out there, That is the moment everything changed for me. And so from a worldly standpoint, did everything get better? Eh, you could say, eh, no, but I have clarity. So yes, but eternally, dude, I'm locked in, man. And that's what it's all about, dude.

Yeah, I almost find the Christian walk is a harder walk. You know, when I was out there partying and doing my thing, it was very selfish, very self-centered. had no responsibilities, no care in the world. But when I wanted, and I became a Christian, seemed like well, responsibility and character and you know, like all those things that was a challenge to me. Cause it's not, it's a, it's these are former care. Like I don't have those characteristics and I had to build them. And I think.

Very similarly, have a very similar wife who wouldn't point me in the right direction, but I feel like it is a challenging walk. It's not, it's not an easy walk, but I'm glad because nothing good in my life has come easy. Everything that's good has been hard.

Exactly, dude. you know, like with your wife, think about it. You know, that cheesy line people go from the Jerry Maguire movie, you complete me. Bro, scripturally, let's talk about that. be one leaves their parents to become one. OK, God gives you your one, which is your wife. So when people say, who's your accountability partner? I'm like, Christy, my wife, she has to be my ultimate accountability partner. Obviously, I talked to the brothers about stuff that maybe she may not be able to put insight on.

but she is our one. So you have someone to work with now, dude. Is marriage and that relationship work? Yeah. Is the relationship with Christ and growing in him work? Yeah, but it's such a good work because you crave it now. You don't crave chasing the bottle. You don't crave going to the bar. You don't crave partying. You crave chasing him now and knowing that when you hit those hard parts to work on, that it's so rad.

Jason (39:38.54)
And now you still get to enjoy hanging out with the guys, going to a party or this. You just have a way now that you're gonna handle yourself when you're there and still enjoy all these gifts he's given you, you know? And so that's why I tell the guys, man, just chase him, dude, you know? And talk to me if you want to know more about him because I'm not gonna go all geez on you because as a non-believer, bro, I'm not coming out of gate and preaching to you. That'll happen in church. I'm just gonna give you some testimony.

Did you have a strategy when you're with your wife to, know, so many guys and I've been guilty of it for sure. She's like, how was your day? It was either good or bad. You know, she's like, you need an app? I might need an app today, but I really didn't want to give her the gory details. And, and let's be honest, fires are fun. I hate to see somebody's thing burn up, but fires are fun. But I think the hard ones, the hard ones are absolutely hearing those haunting cries of a wife who just lost.

of their 70, you know, and having, we don't get a whole lot of training, but having to explain that, that they are gone, they're gone forever. We've done everything we can. And I think sometimes as paramedics, you give these, you give the families hope, Hey, that we're unleashing the box. We're innovating. We got an IO in, we're pushing all these drugs. The reality is most of the time people, it's not the movies, most of these people's paths, right? Majority. And so did you have a strategy, you know, coming home with your wife and telling, telling her.

Maybe not the gory details, but telling her enough to be having that accountability partner and helping her, she can walk you through.

you're in my lane now. So this what Christie and I do is we actually speak all over the United States about husband and wives going through this because now being more senior, we can pour into the lives of the younger firefighters. You know, and I think also not being in the firehouse gives me time to reflect back into those stories and those what you're talking about even deeper and share it without quote caring what people are going to think. Even though I do care, they think so, right? But to answer your question on that, I make it very clear to the young guys, one of the

Jason (41:35.554)
biggest lies told to us firefighters is that our wives can't handle what we deal with. Bro, BS. Let's talk to God about that one. Two became one. God gave you one. She can handle what you're going through and she should be your number one to go to. Now, do we give the gory details? No, but I remember telling Christie one time, a little girl was hit by a car. And this car is only 70.

anyone knows what a car can do to flesh at 70 miles per hour, especially a six year old girl. We're clear. The scene's been painted, right? And then I said, it just really sucked, babe. That was all I need to say. It really sucked. A little girl got hit by a car and her mom was there and the neighborhood was there. And my biggest thing was I didn't want her mom to see her little body the way I was seeing it. So I'm trying to wrap her in a yellow blanket. It was just, the scene was chaotic, babe. I'm still processing it, you know?

She knew, our wives are brilliant, amazing women or your spouse if you're a woman in the fire service, know, our spouses are amazing people. God gave them to us as our number, they're our number ones. It's not the brothers, it's not the church, it's not, I your wife is your number one, dude, here and now. Obviously Christ is bigger, but when he's in the middle of that relationship, she can handle it. My advice to the young guys is,

Don't listen to the lies, but yes, we have to be smart. We don't need to come home and give the exact details. Like I've told Christy a couple I've gone too far, know? And she's like, honey, that wasn't even funny to me. You know, I was talking about, you know, stuff. And like one time she came home from work and she's a labor and delivery nurse and she's like, honey, we lost a baby. Well, I went firehouse on her. said, well, you better go back to work and find it before you get fired.

way. Yeah, like or where the guys the firehouse are dying left like bro, you really said that like I did you know, they're like, they worked on that. But my thing is it pour pour into your wives and let them pour into you don't hold back but make sure that you're cautious and we don't want to discuss people with what we've seen. But we can't hold it in either brother because it's not fair to our families. And when you talk to the fire wives, which Christie does

Jason (43:47.34)
That's their biggest fight is they don't know what their husbands get to do. And again, not trying to sell my book, but so many wives, my wife says you need to read Jason's book because it shows you what these guys do every single day and stuff. So that's my answer, my long version answer to that question.

That's great. I had a pastor tell me like, we've tried to help a lot of guys in our world. And he said, your number one ministry is to your wife and hers is to you. And very similar to what you said, he said, you you need to come home and create time and literally prioritize time with her to talk to her about what you went, what you did the last 24 hours. And I think they're dying for that communication. And one of the things that I learned is that I'm not,

You get to home, you start doing projects, start getting busy, start doing your things. But we learned to try to like take walks. don't know if you guys do that, for some reason, if you get me off the couch and you get me outside and we just go walk the dogs around the neighborhood, all of a sudden my wife says I just start verbally vomiting, you know? I don't know if that's helpful for anybody out there, but the walks have always been pretty good for us.

Well, it's huge, dude. And you hit the nail on the head there because we have to create stuff that works for us because what works for you may not work for someone else. You and your wife need to come up with that. And it's super, super important to do that. And yes, Christine, I will take walks. Well, actually, our silly thing is world now. So we go down and garden. That's my face. It'll burn. Nice. But I have like an acre garden, which more like a farm, you know, and that's our time to go down there and we just hang out and we're.

putting stuff together, then we start bickering because we're getting hot and we got to get this done. Everything. But it's like a good, you know, people say, I don't fight with my wife. You're a liar. Come up. Right. Come up with a cool way, you know, and stuff, but you need to come up with those ways. And so I'm very clear to the guys that you need to do that. But I'm also clear. Another thing is a lot of times if you think about it, we make it about us. my shift, my bro.

Kevin (45:26.711)
Nonsense,

Jason (45:43.668)
They're just as equally if not important what they're going through to their struggles of their stay at home mom or maybe whatever type of work they do, even though it's not emergency work for crying out loud. We're not the freaking Superman here. We don't wear capes. We're not better than anyone else. They wear the same freaking cape if we're going to go that route, you know? And so don't put us on the pedestal and our jobs on the pedestal. They need to support us, bro. We freaking come home and support them too.

And again, come up with tools to do that because there were times I would leave the firehouse so busted and broken, even as a Christian and a long time Christian, where I'd already be looking for ways to pick a fight with Christie when I came through the door on my drive home. I know there's other guys that probably experienced that too. And what I say is slow down, dude. Slow down for a minute. Recite scripture. Think of five good things about your beautiful wife. Reset your mind. Don't walk through the door just ready to unload and unleash.

Come in with a Christ-like heart as you enter that house and hit it that

Yeah, and I think you can hide in the fire department too, right? If you want to be away from the home, you want to, you can sign up for overtime. You could trade for guys. can, yeah, I'll get that. I'll do that. You can hide instead of deal with the reality and face, you know, whatever's going on at home. And then that's not good either.

Oh, it's huge. know, I once Christie and I, okay, I caused a fight. I was like, you know, my biggest thing is I cannot go to bed until even that last speck of crumb is off the counter. Everything's perfect. Put back where it should. You know, the hyper vigilance when it carries into the cleaning aspects is such a dangerous part of our job to carry over home. But one day I did look at her and I'm like, for crying out loud, sometimes being at work is so much easier because everyone got their job. And then Christie looked at me and goes, you didn't marry an Oakland fireman. You married

Jason (47:33.612)
me. Okay, another thing, how are you gonna push back on that? You know, and I had to think about that because again, it was a me and I think, you know,

And I think my wife stays at home, she's a homemaker, but egotistically, I would minimize her problems. And I failed miserably at that. I'm like, do you know what we just did like four hours ago, you know, at four in the morning in the ghetto, and you're complaining about your second refrigerator in the garage being broken. me a, you know what I mean? And I'd start getting all pissed off, but you know, through some counseling or like that is her structure fire. That is her.

And it doesn't mean like yours is yours and hers is hers, but I can't minimize whatever she's going

you know, and we're not totally egotistical or I forgot the terminology of guys who always gaslight all the time on purpose because it's a true psychological disorder. I forgot it name of it. But anyways, we can easily go there and start gaslighting without realizing we're gaslighting just because of the hyper vigilance. We got to shut it off because our hyper vigilance is telling us we've now assessed the situation.

The broken refrigerator is so far down the list on A, B, E, F, of things we got to do to put out this structure fire that is stupid. We're not calling our wives stupid, but then we start wondering, why don't they think like this? Why are they so- Or another thing that we do when you're driving down the road and you're always looking ahead and leaving your outs and doing all this stuff. And maybe your wife is not, or somebody riding with is not. They're doing that where you start getting angry that they're, why aren't they thinking like this?

Jason (49:09.006)
Bro, that is such a dangerous thing to do. And so I always remember guys, remember you didn't marry a firefighter. Okay. Married your wife. All right. Take it down a notch. She is not. And I'm not saying I would ever call Christie dumb or stupid, but I'd sometimes wonder why isn't she assessing these situations like, right. Because she's

I'm gonna do Stove and Reifers on Mondays. Take that out of the equation. Sometimes she's gonna move the spoons, right?

You know

Dude don't do that in the salad bowl gets put in the wrong spot.

I mean it would kill you in the station. you come home. Yeah, I'm like I feel like a stranger where the spoons

Jason (49:45.358)
Oh yeah, tell you, you're telling me the kids could, she like, I ran out of time. What were the kids doing? They came back to me the stairs, she like, they're three and six. Exactly. They could do it. So yeah, dude, I totally, hear you on that. My wife, she's part-time nurse in homeschools, the kids and all that. And same thing, was like, and they're older now, they're 19 and 17 and stuff. And then our oldest, who we adopted, he's 26. But like I said, I'd come home and even minimize that.

mean, here she is teaching the kids and I'm like, whatever, you ever had to sit through an EMS class or something or teach a paramedic program? Come on, dude. So yeah, we're definitely pros at that. And I truly feel it becomes from our hyper vigilance. And then our hyper vigilant goes right into everything that we're told is important on the job, which is getting the fire out. You know, it's great, quickest thing we can do to save life, get the fricking fire out, whatever it takes, right? You know, let's get the airway going. You know, let's do these things. We need to get blood flowing. got it.

Gotta get the cardiac perfusion pressure up right away. Why aren't you doing CPR properly? Gotta get the right depth. Dude, we can't take that home. That's stupid. It's stupid. But we gotta come up with ways to make sure we don't.

Yeah, it's almost like you have to your hat around backwards and say, that life is over. I got a new job at home and I can't act the way I acted there. Right. Yeah. How did that, you know, I had a challenging upbringing and perceived challenging upbringing similar to yours. And I think when we had kids, that was profoundly life changing to me. But I do think I put a little too much into the kids saying, I'm going to give them a better life. I'm going put attention to them. I'm going to do this. And I definitely.

put the wife on the back burner and I kind of put the kids first trying to be the best dad I could ever be. But I want to hear your experience as a father, how that might've changed you being a single man doing your own thing for a long time to all of a sudden, boom.

Jason (51:33.87)
yeah, poor Christie, dude. So being raised by a single man who was, you know, and my dad has a lot of, you know, even to this day, we're not close whatsoever. A lot of struggles and being a Vietnam vet, but being raised by that. And then at the age of 18, being raised by a pack of firemen. And then at 20, I mean, and so I didn't get married till I was 28. So I had a lot of the rough neck, blue collared, you know, fire house, Dr. Phil inside of me, you know?

When she came along, so there was a lot of unwrapping that she had to do. But you know, with the kid part of it, dude, I was scared to death to be a dad because I was so scared the worst parts of my dad that did enter me would come out into my kids. And I wanted to do everything in my power to not let that come out the snapping really early, which does at times.

give you something to cry about.

that type of stuff, you know? And so, yes, I gave my kids everything 100%, you know, like you said too, because we're so blessed to be in a position where we get that steady income to do that. And so my biggest fear was the worst parts of my dad come out of me, but I also wanted to become best friends with my kids, but done right. When people say, you can't be best friends with your kids, I'm like, the hell you can't, yes you can, but done properly at their age group and to father to son.

When my kids come up and wanna play a video game with me, bro, I may hate that stupid video game, but guess what? They asked me, they wanted to spend time with me. So as a friend, I'm gonna go spend that time with them. You know what I mean? And so I did that type of stuff. The parts that I made mistakes, especially with our adopted son, cause he came from such a bad past was I didn't let him fail and let him lean into Jesus to pick him up. I'd always be there for him.

Jason (53:20.814)
I was the guy who put in the phone call, hey, you know, he's in the Academy now, you know, like, except Oakland, I won't let him go to work Oakland, even though they've recruited him Oakland fire. If you're listening to this and no, you're not getting Alex. LA County. Yeah, go get some of that. No, but no, not letting my kids fail on their own. think that's what Christian parents a lot of times do is because we speak for them. We do this, justify things for them that we need to let our kids.

Forget it,

Jason (53:48.686)
fall down, we need to let our kids mess up when they talk to an adult, we need to let our kids experience what we experienced growing up so you can learn that respect. Otherwise, how are they learning respect for adults if we're just always giving it to them? Okay, be respectful, talk like this, do everything, know, let them be wrong. You know, like when a school teacher called one time and said, and this was our oldest when he was going through public high school, she said, your son did this, this and this. So I apologize. And I said, well, I'm sorry, I'll talk to him. And then when I looked at him,

I said, yeah, dude, you probably were being an a-hole to her. I'm sorry, dude. I know for a fact you weren't. I'm not standing up for you right now. And I'm not even gonna tell you how to make that right. But dude, you're an a-hole to a woman? No, man, that's not cool. And then later on I asked him, said, so how did you handle the situation? I didn't say go and apologize or go do this, but I made it very clear from man to man, because he was, you know, at 17 years old at that time, you're an a-hole dude to her. That's straight of what it was. And it's all your fault.

go handle it, you know, and I walked away. Well then as a younger child too, it's like, you know, when they fall and hit their head, okay, well, I'm sorry that happened to you. What happened? I was running to where I should have been running. Oh, okay. Then guess what? They run where they should run again, they get hurt again. Like, wow, so we're starting to realize, you get hurt every time that happens. You let them experience instead of save them all the time, you know? And I think our generation, your generation, we were given that a little bit, maybe to an extent that was kind of crazy Gen X, we were treated crazy.

Yeah.

Kevin (55:14.636)
That was it. I'm a Gen X kid too of the eighties and nineties. And I mean, there's no cell phones. There's no whatever. You just rode your bike. You figured it out. You know what I mean? You fought with a homeless here on the road and figure, you know I mean? It was just what it was. But I do think it is a different world and our kids don't navigate that. And they always have, you know, GPS trackers on everything that they have. And it is a different world, but I do want them to have, I feel like you and I might've had a little resiliency because we didn't figure it out on our own a little bit more and we're your latch key kids or whatever. But,

Yeah, I do worry about that. of like, hey, letting them fail a little bit is okay. Right. And not having to pick them up on everything and let them figure it out.

Right. If you know, everything needs to be done for their age groups. Cause I always hear like the next latest and greatest parenting scheme to come out and buy this book and parent this way. I'm like, whatever, dude, my 17 year old is way different than my 19 year old. My 19 year old is way different than my 26 year old, dude. And so I just look, you know, it's a paramedic system. I assess them. What's their gifts, their abilities, what are they strong in? What are they weak in? Okay. Why like kids weaken in area.

I'm weak at don't even ask me to tie ropes and knots, dude. I can't figure out a brandy knot. You rescue system guys get and I worked at truck company, but I mean, I had a guy, the rescue guy with me at all times when we were doing stuff. But it's like so often as parents, we push our kids. well, we got to work in these areas where he's weak. No, no, let's not. Let's just look at that, recognize that and realize why would I train my kid into something they're weak on that they're never going to get put that fricking pressure on them?

That's it.

Jason (56:46.05)
Now make them, I'm not saying don't learn stuff, but those are the things that I've kind of done parenting-wise is I don't take it super tough, but there's a lot of things. We, Kristi and I, we made the choice to hold the line. Now do I joke behind the kids back to my wife's the ultimate enabler? Yeah, but all wives are the ultimate enablers. And they need that because right, we need that counterbalance to our jerkness, you know?

Yeah

Kevin (57:11.822)
Yeah. And let me hear your perspective on how you expose the kids to Christianity. I'm always conscious of my background, not to be that, you know, the khaki packs Christian. I call them that was like, Hey buddy. And then it's kind of shoving it down their throat. want them to make their own decision on their own time, but I also want them to know Christ and have a moral background and like, and do that. And I don't know where, I don't know where that balances. You know, Mike, my kids are younger. They're 11 and 12. But yeah, I just, I definitely want them to hear.

you know, truth and, and lit and you guys homeschool your kids. So that's a little bit easier, but I want them to hear from us a little bit, but I also don't want to shove it down their throat. that makes any sense.

No, dude, it totally makes sense. like, you know, we can't make anyone a Christian. Like when someone says, I've been a Christian my whole life, I hear where they're coming from. Like, no, there's a point. You know, when Jesus says, let the children come to me, children don't have a mind that can cold fully comprehend the gospel. So they're all saved. You know, I want to be clear on that. But there comes a point where they're like, wait, hold on. So if I don't have Christ my savior, I'm not going to heaven. And I've seen that in two of my children and I'm not going to throw it out there to my choice.

Bro, you're like, oh my gosh. And you're like, and you're just like, wow. And they're asking the questions, but they were also a little older when they asked the questions. Now, how did we get to that point? By a lot of screwing up, bro. We screwed up so much. I truly believe I forced too much, especially on our adopted kid that the church and hanging out with church kids were gonna make him better. And it put a stress on him, dude, because he fit in with them, dude. He needed to go hang out with my fireman buddies, maybe that weren't saved, but were high quality people mixed with Christian because

as a Christian, we want to make sure that our friends are Christians because friends who give you advice. Now we have true friendly with a lot of people, but you don't take that advice from a non-Christian because you don't know if it's backed up. So when they say don't, you know, make sure that you keep your friends heavy with Christian. That's why is get true scriptural advice. He wasn't ready for that dude. And he would go to those big church events and all the kids are loud and everything. They all have friends and he's off to the side. But the thing was he was a

Jason (59:16.302)
stud and football and everything. He's like the fireman's fireman dude. He's a thinker, aggressive and all that. But when he was at those events dude, he struggled. And I realized like, dang, I'm pushing too hard. So what we started to do then was realize we're going to live our faith. Cause what's the Bible say to the world? Live your faith. Does it say do it different with your children? Well, yeah, you have to raise your children. But I want my children to see my hypocrisies. I really do. When they see me screwing up,

I want them to see me recognizing those screw ups. Then I say, yeah, dad really effed up on this one. You know, because I have a 17 year old, 19 year old. Do I cuss them? No, but I'm going to be very clear and talk their language. Dad effed up. He really messed up on that one in front of mom and did he? And they'll say, yeah. Now I'm not letting my kids parent me. By any means, we don't let them parent us, but let them observe us and say, all right, guys, what would you guys do in this situation to try to get mom and not be if you had a wife or something? You don't teach that way.

Or when we're walking out of church and we're talking smack about someone, you know, when we just heard we don't do that type of stuff. Catch that and tell the boys, hey, I was wrong. So I think one of the greatest things we can do to help our kids wanting more of Jesus is to show them how much we need them and how much we mess up and how he cleans it up. So let them see our faith, let them see our screw ups, let them see the joyous moments and, then

course, them the truth. So when someone says, I want my kids to experience all religions out there, I can't do that as a Christian. I cannot do that because I have to give them the truth. Now what they're going to do with the truth, that's up to them. But I also know that I have an impact on their outcome by the way that I have stewarded my faith in front of them.

That's super huge. Yeah. I'm, slowly learning that, you know, you want to try to be this facade. have two girls, you know, that's the provider, the protector, but I've seen the most powerful thing that I've done. You know, I've come home before and I was having slept for three days and I was really irritated and started yelling at everybody. And then later on the day I had to sat, sit him down and say how wrong I was. And I think that was the most impactful thing is when they, you know, when I admit that I was wrong and I apologize to them.

Kevin (01:01:31.662)
And I say, I'm not perfect. I'm a sinner. I'm working on it. I'm trying to do the better things. to watch their response is pretty powerful. I think as a dad, mean, that's a great point is sometimes just show them your your fail tees and I always have to be perfect.

Yeah, and what are you doing by that? You're teaching them the doctrine of repentance. That's exactly what you're doing right there, you know? Noel, you are back, bro. Are you at the firehouse right now?

Yeah, but we're not supposed to talk about that.

No, are you chilling your drug right now? You know, I don't off your lawn or right on. All right. Well, welcome back sir, even though I'm not the host.

I honestly, I don't care. We're all good.

Nole (01:02:08.75)
Thank you.

Yeah, we were talking about kids. They've raised three kids and the balance of bringing Christianity to the kids and how, but not the chavna down their throat, which is always an interesting balance.

Yep. we, we also hit a lot of stuff about, you know, they come into Christ and the stuff about the book and no, know you were asking me earlier before we started about processes of writing and all that kind of stuff. Did you still want to hit any of that stuff now that you're back with us?

Yeah, I wanted to dig into a few things about the book, but one of the first things I wanted to ask you about that was what was the process like of writing it? And I know you had a gentleman assisting you, but not in the sense of what I've been aware of in the past where people have ghost writers, right? I know it wasn't that type of process. So I was curious how that went and when, what you thought about that process and maybe how it came about writing it that way.

Yeah, he was my AI before there was AI bro. It's pretty awesome. Just kidding. No, check this out. especially as us and are you both paramedics? Okay. Not well, even better mate or any type of report writing or anything that we do, we do it in blog form. So even if you go to a guy's post or something, you look at it. It's very descriptive, but it's blog form. Okay. Well,

Kevin (01:03:07.789)
I am.

Jason (01:03:21.738)
not being a professional writer, we haven't been given that gifts and ability, true writing and knowing how to craft and arc and pull stuff together. You don't write a book, you craft a book together, meaning you put all the stories in place. But think about it when the editor says, hey, describe yourself. All right. At that time, a six foot one to 10, you know, it does. It comes out to play during the story of kind of what you look like. You don't just sit there and say, is the press ready to take my life? It arcs out in the story.

That is what professional writers do. Now, respectfully said, very few professional writers, though, have a lot of content that they can write, you know, unless they're writing, you know, total fictional type stuff and they're doing that. But even they have people come alongside of them and help them do stuff, too, with the edits. So like my book went through 10 different edits. Nothing got changed, but it brought the story out better. So David, my buddy, who is a professional writer, would come through and he would say, hey, all right.

So check this out. The transition isn't working here, but he knew I couldn't be fake. So he's like, let's look at another time in that period where we could arc the story in. So it makes a little more sense without changing the content. And that's why you don't want fakeness in there, because you could make a story fake. Like when you turn them into movies, that's where a pseudo the fakeness has to come in, because you can't just.

read a movie to the audience, you gotta put in the big old fire scene and catch their attention. But in word crafting, you have to catch their attention by making it smooth and flow. And no disrespect to anyone who's self-published a book, praise God that you guys can do that. I'm too stupid. I dropped out of school in the 10th grade. I don't know the difference between a verb or a noun then. I still don't know it to this day, but I can tell you a flippin' story and I've been blessed with a gift of attaching scripture to it, not that.

my story's backing up scripture, but it's just giving some testimony and some tangibles along the scripture. So that was the process of doing it was I wrote a book, but no one would read it. And so I had to learn the processes of how to get someone to help me make it readable.

Nole (01:05:34.382)
That's really interesting. Was it ever, were you friends with this gentleman before the process?

No, okay, this is the part YouTube's fireman can beat me up. My agent connected me with him.

No, see, very curious about that

retired at the

was just finishing up, dude. So it was, it was one of the worst days of my life during that time is when the doctor walked in the emergency room or into the surgery room and said, you're never gonna be a fireman again. Bro, being a Christian for 20 years at that point in my life, being told that I was broke because I was like, I'm chasing the fireman. all I've ever had. How's my family gonna surprise? I'm nothing now. Holy idolization, right? Dude, mean, at the moment time, I didn't recognize it, but it was during those deepest,

Jason (01:06:19.788)
darkest days when I'm sitting home and just popping Vicodin and not going to rehab, meaning physical rehab to get my hip and my back better. My wife said, need to start telling your story a little more. Tell your story. She kept encouraging me. So I did. And I started telling it churches and I started going to men's retreats. And as I started getting healthier and stuff, came to light that people were actually following what I do.

My Facebook page was growing into like, you know, a hundred thousand people or something. Not that I care about social media, but it does say that your stories are resonating with people. And so from that point forward, when people kept telling me I need to write a book, I said, I don't know how this goes. So like anyone else, I went to Google. How do you publish a book? And then I learned it was actually easier to get a movie contract than it is to a book contract with. Yes, with one of the big five publishers, because think about this.

Yeah.

Nole (01:07:06.473)
interesting.

Nole (01:07:10.54)
Right.

Everyone can write a book in America. Not everyone claims to be an actor, right? I'm never going to claim to be an actor. None of us from what I'm seeing here has the face to be one first time.

Correct.

That's why we're on podcast.

But not everyone's saying, but everyone says they're going to write a book. And that's a beautiful thing. I'm not shooting this down. But when you have 200 million people saying they're going to write a book, there's now a lot of filtering that goes through to see who has a story that's worth publishing. I'm talking as a publisher. So publishers say, how do we know which ones are worth publishing? Well, the best way to do that is to find people who quote have followings, which I have my own view on that, because some people get following just because they're doing

Jason (01:07:53.262)
click click on the beach all the time and they have awesome bodies or something so they get followers. But I had a following. I said, okay, well you have to have an agent to even get into a publishing house. Then I saw how hard it was to get an agent. So I said, well, I'll try. I sent off like three little letters on their websites and the first one comes back, bro. And it says, please do not bug us again for six months.

Please do not submit to another agency for six months until we decided we want you. So I'm like, hell no. Really? This is how you operate? is, imagine as a fireman telling another fireman that, yeah, come back. You know, don't talk to the other fireman, just me. But when I prime bro, when it went full and full vent, when again, scripture, I type, who do you guys think you are? Really? This is the rudest response ever. I fired it off. 10 minutes later, my phone rings. It says lady and she's an agent.

out of here. Yeah.

Jason (01:08:48.952)
who are you? Well, who are you? And we just all of a sudden started hitting it off because the realness worked and stuff. And so I scored an agent right then. And then she submitted my book to Christian Publishing Houses, which Harper Collins owns Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is the largest Christian publisher in the world. It's just their division. She submitted to them and a few others and all three of the different publishers came back and they wanted the book because it was just something that they've never had from a Christian side.

And the funniest thing was why I went with Harper Collins was because they said, Jason, we're gonna be honest, we've never done a memoir of anyone who's not famous. I'm like, so should I be offended by that or what? They'll go for Dale Earnhardt Jr. who, man, he has three million people following him. But let's be honest, what's his story? dad was a rich race car driver. Now he's a race car driver. You know, it's kind of like that firefighter's kid who was kind of handed the job as opposed to someone who had to really pull themselves out of the gutter to become a fireman.

Right, right, right.

Nole (01:09:36.718)
What does he have to say?

Jason (01:09:47.64)
both are firemen, they're great firemen, but who has the quote richer story of trying to get in the job, you know? So that's what they looked for. And dude, by the grace of God, man, they said, let's go. And it was the absolute most scariest day of my fricking life, dude, going, okay, so now I'm gonna be putting my whole life out there for the world to read. And then my biggest fear was the fireman. was like, that's gonna be the me and eyes, you know? I've, of all the reviews,

Of course.

Jason (01:10:17.322)
And here's blowing myself up here. I was told on Amazon that I have one of the highest rated books of all time, even though it's not the most sold books, but to have a 4.8 rating after you look on there and there's a thousand ratings, that says a lot in the book world. like, okay, cool. But the fireman side of it, when they come in and they're like, it's all about you and that was a hard thing to swallow at first. But then one day,

I'm going to a breakfast where the Oakland retired guys get together. And mind you, I retired before I was 50. So I even had the shame of that, dude. You know, I was like, all right, I put in 27 years by then go the full route. You people like, yeah, but you work busy houses. was going to the fireman's breakfast. Like, do you just walk in, pretend you're a new kid walking in the firehouse, take your beating, right? So I walk in like, here's the famous author. I'm just drinking my coffee, drink my coffee. They're finally done.

So then the demon seed, was my nickname in the fire department came out and I go, all right fellas, besides your retirement money, who here is still getting papered up from a fire we ran back in 2002? Raise your hand. You're a jerk. You know, take the beating, but shut back while staying humility moment of like, you know, it's at the dinner table. Just you sit there sipping your coffee as the guys are tearing you up. You're just absorbent. Then you're going to drop the grenade back when the time is right. You know?

Yeah, that's appropriate. that's good point off, bro. I love it. Was there anything that came out of writing a book once it was out that was a surprise, something that happened after the fact?

That's how you go.

Jason (01:11:52.814)
Okay, you guys are gonna laugh so hard on this one and this is gonna show my true Idiocracy if that's a word or stupidity So a month after the books out all of sudden I'm getting all these messages from firemen, which I thought we're gonna hate it asking me about PTSD and I'm like, why are all these messed up firemen getting a hold of me? I'm like, this is a book about turning people to Christ about Christ and Christ alone, right?

And I'm getting mad. one day I'm talking to Christie and my agent, my publisher, like, this is ridiculous. I don't know why this is happening. Christie, as she always does, goes, yo, idiot, you put your suicide story in there. Like, yeah, I was going to be about God. But like, you know, you're asking, it's so crazy how God's going to use things. We think it's going to be one way. And yes, has it blessed people? I don't want to pat myself on the back. Christie and I get over 200 emails and messages daily now.

Jason (01:12:48.258)
Like she's like your Facebook page is 730,000 people or something. I'm like, okay, cool. That just brings more stress because more people are watching me. So watching, you know, not realizing and believe it or not, it made me relook back at my PTSD and struggles. And if I'd really had been tackling them head on now, have I had any suicidal ideation for 20 years? I have not, man. I'm going be honest with you because for me,

The biblical way that I walk through it and continue to walk through it, Christ keeps giving me a place to put it when any of the pain comes back has kept me from that. But there's a lot of undressed issues that woke up in me too during the writing and also the feedback I got from it.

Yeah, yeah, I imagine. Was there anything that you did expect would happen from writing a book that didn't materialize?

I'll tell you right now, dude, I was going to be a New York Times bestseller right out of the gate. OK, you guys, that's we're going to smash this. Yeah, right. So every writer we say, well, it only helps one person. That's good. I'm going to call BS on that, dude. I'm not writing anything or giving them, you know, God gave me a message to give and put out there to people. Well, I didn't know how to handle it because self-promotion is not what firefighters do.

But someone came to me and said, you're not self promoting, you're promoting the story God gave you. And so it didn't explode like I thought it would out of the gate. Plus it dropped during COVID and all this other stuff. And there's a lot of behind the scenes things that happened in the publishing world. Bro, it crushed me. I'm not gonna lie, it crushed me. Not that I wanted to be this big famous guy, but I wanted to get it in people's hands. Why would you publish a book to have it never sold? Like people say, well, I'll write a book, but I'll never promote it. My advice is don't then write a fricking book.

Kevin (01:14:35.648)
Yeah, you gotta promote it.

But don't do self promotion promote the story. God gave you to bless others. That's what you're promoting Yeah, and so yeah, and so then about a year and a half two years after that is when the unexpected happened and the book started exploding I get a call. He had sold out in Australia. Hey, it just sold out in Europe. Hey, it just Wow Well, I'm getting calls from all around the world, you know, and then it started

I like that perspective.

Jason (01:15:02.434)
finally taken hold here in America, you know, because people weren't sure about is this a Christian book, is it non-Christian book? And then it exploded. So what didn't happen was it didn't take off out of the gate like I wanted it to, but like my wife said, the way God has used it even four years after the fact, which is where we're at now is blowing our mind every single freaking day, dude.

That's really cool. I feel like that's kind of like the, a lot of podcasts and things spreading really the best way to spread, you know, this podcast is just word of mouth. Like if I tell Kevin, Hey Kevin, listen to this. Or if he tells me, Hey, no, listen to this. I will do it versus seeing an ad somewhere or something. that word of mouth, when someone reads your book and then tells their friends, Hey, you need to read this. They're more likely going to go do it, which is that building a momentum over time. Right. And four years is a long, I mean, that's a long time.

But it must be, it's, sounds like it's pretty rad.

Yeah, every day it's getting bigger and bigger too. So it's kind of crazy, dude. When the sounds overwhelming, not touting the cells by any means, because that's all about. But when you see how many have sold, because that tells you how well it's getting out there, it's mind blowing. But what's even better? I'm going to give you one story. And I know we're kind of going long here was we're in a PIC and doing book signings is something I hate. I hate it, Podcasting is cool because I'm talking with two other dudes. I don't think of the audience listening, but.

for

Jason (01:16:26.126)
to sit there and have people show up and want your autograph. Bro, I'm an introvert trapped in an extrovert's body, you know? So I don't get energy from people, but I love people. You know what I mean? Sure. But I don't like the spotlight on me. And we're sitting there at FDIC and there's like 200 firefighters deep wanting me to sign their book, not my autograph, but to sign their book. And I realized that if I didn't sign their book, I mean, can grace away from them because obviously it touched them.

If someone said this, book helped them and I went so humble like we're supposed to, Oh, it wasn't me. It was Jesus, bro. That's actually a crappy thing to say at that moment because you're still in grace way. Cause some dude comes up to you and says, thank you for helping me. And then you say, well, it's all Jesus, but it was all Jesus. You know what I mean? But Hey, my obedience in following Christ helped you. And that's a blessing on so many levels. I learned to just shut up and accept that dude. And so as I was there, all of sudden,

I'm signing a book and this dude has tears in his eyes and he doesn't mind. say the department he works, he works at Buffalo Fire Department in New York and he has tears in his eyes and he had his two sons there and they said, mommy, why is daddy crying? And all of a sudden she goes, because this man's book touched his life so much. Bro, Nelson here, I'm not crying, these are allergies. I'm gonna eat. Bro, it's just that moment.

The impact that it had on people just blew me away, dude. that's, again, not about me, but was just seeing the fruits of your labor is sometimes a huge blessing.

Yeah, man. That's awesome.

Kevin (01:17:57.966)
That's very cool though. Obviously you have a gift to tell a story, you put in the work and put it in a book. sometimes you just got to let God do his work from there. You know what mean? Like you're uncomfortable with that. And I know you as a hard charging farm in Oakland like that. I can't imagine us sitting there and somebody wanting an autograph from you as awkward as hell, but it's where God wants you to be. you're touching dude's lives all over the world. It's just.

If you would have told me 10 years ago that that's where I'd right now, I'd call it OPD and have you 5150 out of my fire. I'm get out of here, man. Yeah. So no, it is a cool thing to be. And you know, the lesson about that is I just want the guys to remember, tell your freaking stories, dude. I don't care if it's big or small or whatever, it's going to impact someone. I guarantee it's going to impact someone. Just tell your story.

So before we wrap up, you have two things that are after my heart, donuts and surfing.

Let's go.

We have, I don't know. Do you guys have a tradition? Our tradition is over time. have to bring in, uh, something, you know, and most of the time they bring in donuts in the morning. Yeah. Nolan, I hate this because we try to eat clean, you know what mean? But I'm also just a total deviant. And like the other day I I'm okay. Like ghetto donuts. I'm not like, but this dude brought in the dough nuttery from beach, which is by far the best apple fritter on the planet. Yeah. And he no defense of it. I just smashed two of them.

Jason (01:19:17.866)
Nice, dude and apple fritters are my thing. And you know, we have the greatest donut shop in our district on San Pablo. Cause you know, like in Oakland during that time in a city as big as ours, we only had one fire inspector. So think about how many food inspectors we probably had in the city too, you know, in the hood and stuff. But anyways, I would get donuts from Mr. Way's donut shop.

And the coolest thing about it was in the morning, was donuts in the afternoon. was takeout Chinese. So they were using the oil to fry egg rolls and you've had an egg roll infused apple fritter, bro. Sorry. Your little flush place down there. They've got nothing on my hood. Apple fritters. I'll go toe to toe with you. You know, as a new kid, yes, you bring donuts, but you know how it is. Even as a senior guy, you just want to show your love to the crew and you know,

Every eventual agreement and yes on on when you're we call it CR classified relief is our old school term for overtime when you're working CR Yeah, you're bringing it whether it's buying an awesome dessert or you know swinging by a shop to get something Yeah, you're you're getting paid a little more to be there for the day So you give a little more when it comes to hooking the guys up to you

That's great. And I live inland now. I'm about an hour from the beach, but there's something spiritual to me about just getting in the water and that first duck dive or whatever it is. It's almost baptismal for me. sounds ridiculous, but I don't know. I know you said you're growing up surfing on these and I saw you have a love of Maui there, but is that something you still try to get out and get in water?

bro as much as I can you know like I say my red face from gardening and going out in the cold because of salt water because remember in Southern California I grew up on beaches when I moved up north there ain't a beach up here it's called a coastline dude it's way different we're not fighting for space dude like you know I was down there at trestles not too long ago like what the heck is happening down here is what on

Kevin (01:21:07.66)
reverse. I've surfed like Ocean Beach in San Francisco and thought I was going to die every second.

Yeah, northern, but so what it is is south. You guys get beautifully formed waves. You know, the sandy bottoms are so awesome. I mean, up north, we get mountains of water to just hit the beach, dude. You know, and so the quality we get is not, mean, it has to be a great offshore breeze. You got to have the swell just right. But yes, I still do it because when I was about 15 and I was thrown out of high school,

I moved down to San Diego and I spent most of my time skating, surfing and couch. I was never truly like homeless, you know, but I had family and friends down there. So that's when surfing really got into me and really got away. Inland, I was a skater my whole life, you know, skating all the empty pools and everything. But bro, you're right. You're not re-grounding yourself in mother nature, the energy of this world. Cause if you are, let's have a talk cause it's gonna kill you. Okay. But re-grounding yourself in God's creation.

and experiences might and his peace out on the water is what you're describing, dude. When you go under and then you come up and then you're out. And then let's be honest, especially up here in Northern California. know sharks, they love to chill in Southern California like most people do, but they come North to eat. You're also the lowest man on the food chain out there, you know? And so there's just everything about it as being in his creation and being away from the physical noise of this loud fallen world.

and out there in the water and just concentrate on the next ride, know, just looking back for the next set coming in, where to set up all that. Bro, it's a great way to just shut down. And even if you're not reflecting on the Holy Scriptures, God tells us we need to shut down sometimes, dude. And what a great time to shut down, but it's even more awesome when we shut down and recognize Him during that time.

Nole (01:22:54.958)
Yeah.

No, if you're not familiar with surfing, you know, the minute you go out there, you can be humbled immediately. And I think that's a great thing for me to remind myself that I'm almost in charge of nothing. I can be swallowed a whole by this gigantic thing. And no matter how bad ass you think you are, you know what I mean? And for me, it's very humbling, but also, you know, it's a great outlet. But I think, you know, we've talked about PTSD and Christ and those things, but I think all those, there are tools like getting out in the water or doing other things or getting exercise or.

are helpful for you if you're struggling out there.

Totally, dude, you know, when I was like being down south, a six foot day is where I pretty much pull the plug. You know, that's anything more than that. Now I come up north, I'm like six foot day, nothing's happening. The warning to the surf, I'm not claiming to be a big wave surfer. You know, those guys that do down half moon bay, they're freaking nuts have at that. You want to climb a 30, 40 foot wave, that's on you. But I'm going to be honest, up where I'm at, we're, you know, eight to 12 footers, dude. And someone who doesn't know anything about surfing, they're like, oh, that's not that big. Okay.

Shit.

Jason (01:23:56.334)
Come come out with me for a day and stuff and you like you say you will be humbled in about three seconds flat if that's when hyper vigilance comes into play big time, you know, and stuff of like, no, I'm not stopping right here. I'm riding this one all the way into shore because if I stop right here, I'm being the white water and I'm toast, dude. I'm not going to able to paddle out of this. So I need to do it. Or I purposely want to get caught in a ripcord so I can get pulled back out safely. You know, there's things like that that people don't think about. So, yeah, dude, it's a.

It's great to reground and it's humbling as can be.

I love it. Well, I've been on Jason Sattel dot com and I've got your book and I know there's an audio book version of it, but I wanted to see where else I would highly recommend if you can get is there a schedule for some of your speaking stuff? I loved your speaking. I thought that was as powerful.

I'm going to start posting. So like Fireman, that website's pretty much garbage. haven't updated here. need to get going. Where I tell people to go for the book is rescuerbook.com. So it's just rescuerbook.com. It's one of the publisher put together. So it'll give you all versions, all different places where you can buy it. Amazon's always the cheapest is what I tell folks. Don't worry about me getting any money. Just go get it as cheap as you possibly can or borrow it from someone. But I would, you know, I want to get it as many hands as possible. For speaking engagements, dude, I'm going to start posting those because

I'm having to learn that game a little bit because what I've learned is every time we, say yes to something, I'm saying no to a whole lot. Meaning when I go to a speaking engagement, like my favorite one so far has been the firemanship conference, which I highly encourage, I'm gonna encourage guys from the West coast to get out to this thing, man. It was just awesome. When you say yes to that, you've now locked yourself into a minimum of three days, a travel day there, a day of speaking, a travel day back. Well, I like to extend it out a little more to hang on. So.

Jason (01:25:42.168)
I'm having to learn to schedule my speaking out now because I have so many asking, but it has to be the right fit too. If it's at a church, I need to be very clear that the message I bring, they're gonna be able to support it. They're gonna be able to back up and teach the whole gospel to someone and stuff and walk people through, disciple them and that type of stuff. For a fire department one, I'm not always showing up bringing Christ crucified as the main message, but if they're not gonna accept my faith based side, which...

I won't say the word, but the heaviest hitter in the United States, they're not a big fan of that side of it. I won't speak there, dude. It's just not my cup of tea. You got plenty of guys who go out there and teach tactics and teach all this stuff, you know, where if I was to teach tactics, I'd get you in trouble. Cause I'd say like, yeah, you spill two in, two out garbage, go put the fire out. If the roof is stable, you're fine. When is it time to, you know, how do you know when it's time to leave a room? When the fire kicks your ass out of the room, you jump out the damn window. Where'd you learn those lessons?

I didn't want to hit the ground so I hooked the ladder and make sure I didn't fall to the ground and take some class. I'm the wrong guy to teach those classes and I'm not. I would get, I would get guys in trouble nowadays. You're like bottle shmoddle, dude. You know, it's a car fire. You know, don't trust me. Don't hear me out on this stuff. know, don't stand in the smoke. You'd get on a car. A car fire is a dumpster fire. Don't stand in the smoke, but don't waste your pack on that. I'm sorry. But so.

In the county you'd fit in great. Yeah

Jason (01:27:05.272)
So when it comes to tactics, I've learned that, you know, Oakland, that's why we're probably not invited a lot of times to teach places and stuff. Cause like you guys in other places, show up and get the job done with your knowledge, with a well-equipped crew, with your experience and all that. you know, training's a good thing, but if they won't let me bring a faith-based portion to it, I just can't do it, dude. Cause it's what I've been called.

you. Respect that.

Kevin (01:27:34.36)
I think just in our short time, feel like chaplaincy and theft are not... And I think that's because we've had so many damn suicides and so many damn deaths that maybe they're just grasping at salt. I don't know.

Well, people are tired of being told no, like people are tired of being told don't bring faith into it because I get it. Not everyone there is believes what I believe. But why can't I bring it in there and tell the guys that do believe or what I say is I'm putting a tool in the toolbox. Imagine if a ladder company showed up and all we had was the halogen, a couple of axes and that's it. And every other compartment was empty. We don't need to go to those other compartments. I'm not going to the airbags all the time. But when I need the fricking airbags, I fricking need them, dude. You know, so.

My thing that I tell departments is I'm putting something in there for the faith-based group. But hear me out, as a Christian, if I show up and I recognize someone is not a Christian, I'm gonna recognize that they're, quote, blind and deaf, not deaf and dumb to my beliefs, but they can't see them and they can't hear them, just like I am deaf and blind to their true core beliefs. It doesn't mean I love them, don't love the person. I accept them 100%. Therefore, I'm not gonna preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. I'm not gonna tell them,

to go and get Christian help, Christian counseling. I'm gonna tell them, go get the help that's gonna clear your head out, get you healthy, but don't get me wrong, even if you don't want it, I'm gonna be praying for you while you're getting that help. And when you approach, like I was at San Francisco and I ran that line on them, and dude, was accepted fine. No one was a jerk to me. No one was spitting at me, cursing me. I could tell people, probably say about 90 % of people in the room didn't share my faith.

But when we walked away, if you're authentic and you're real and you say this is what did it, and you don't do it in a dick, I'm sorry, jerk sort of way, you don't do it in jerk sort of way, and you don't come hardcore at people, bro, they'll hear it. And you're planting seeds also, which is a cool thing. So that's why I departments are getting more open because they're so scared of the passive, oh, well, Christians, because you need to have the gospel of Jesus Christ get into heaven, they're an accepting of everyone. I accept everyone. I accept everyone.

Jason (01:29:40.526)
That's a whole separate thing. You want to talk about the doctor of salvation. We'll talk to that off to the side, but not in a group of people that I haven't been called to talk to it about. When you hit departments like that, I think they fully accept it, you know, and then coming from a retired standpoint, I really don't care, but I do care, you know.

Well, I love the boldness of it because like the culture, that's what I loved about the book is no matter where you are, every fire department is the same, the guys are the same, you know, but the boldness about speaking about A, your darkest times and then B, getting out of that and then speaking the gospel was just really powerful. And I love to hear that. It was encouraging to me, even though it was challenging in the beginning, it was encouraging me to say, we can do the same, you know, like we do, we do have this platform and others that we can speak about our darkness and that

relatable to people. And then we can also speak about what's, what's been working for us. What's, what's the truth. Right. And so I really appreciate that you did put yourself out there and I encourage everybody to go get the rescue or go on rescue book.com and we'll put links to the show notes and all that.

Yeah, and what you guys are doing is just equally as huge, if not bigger, man. I understand the world of podcasting is mundane, sometimes people listening or all this stuff. Keep freaking doing it because we need all this is another tool in the toolbox we're throwing out there, dude. I don't know if people are going to come to Christ for anything that we said today, but maybe something resonated with someone where they're going to go to an AA meeting or they're going to have a talk with their wife or they're going to bond with their kids a little more. They're going to settle down and not come from off duty so hard headed sometimes.

I guarantee you one of those messages is gonna come out. I don't know which one, dude. So that's my encouragement for you two brothers. Just keep doing what you're doing, because I love this podcast. I'm looking forward to promoting it out where I can and get the guys listening to it.

Nole (01:31:23.224)
Thanks brother, really appreciate that.

This has been the Fire You Carry Podcast.

Nole (01:31:40.136)
podcast listener, I got something for you. A little different. I am looking to transition out of the production side of this podcast. And I just thought I might tap into you, our audience, who we appreciate so deeply and say, if you are a young man who has some free time,

and would like to learn the process of producing a podcast, editing, publishing, all that type of stuff. I would be happy to teach you that. And we would be happy to talk to you about working out a deal on having you do that for us here at the FireUKerry. I love the process of editing and producing this podcast. It has been a blast, but it's time consuming.

And I am at a point in my life with the program and this podcast where that time could probably be better used elsewhere. So I am looking for some help in the editing and production side of this podcast. So if you're interested, reach out, let me know. It can be a local thing. You can come learn in person or we could do it remotely. A lot of different ways to make it happen. But my email is in the show notes. Reach out to me if you are interested and we'll talk. Thanks for listening.

and we'll see you next week.

Nole (01:33:35.438)
about what I'm about to say. I'll probably put at the end of the episode. So I was sitting, I'm at work, right? I'm on duty and my captain, captain's like going around the table. He's like, can we got anything? And I'm like, I'm wide open. I just got to work on, we're running our program next weekend. So I got a bunch of stuff to do with that. And then you send me the texts. You're like, Hey, where's the link? And I was like, that's today. So I was actually going to miss it myself.

Don't worry about it, dude. Like I said, I just, feel horrible whenever I miss something, man. That's, know how it is. I remember one time, you know, I was off probation and we were talking back in like the nineties and stuff, but my phones were ringing. They're like, where are you, dude? And I missed a train, you know, like, oh, you know how to crush it, you know? And it's one of those things, bro. But I appreciate your guys grace.

Do you ever? The worst is I've done it twice. I drove into work and they're like, what the hell are you doing here, bro? I'm working. I'm like, no, you're not working today. It's not. I'm like, what? I've done that twice.

Yeah, no, I've never done that. If you knew my work ethic, the last thing I'd do is show up to work on my day off. It's an Oakland thing. Everything that you Southern California guys are like all about, we're kind of like 30 years behind and stuff. Yeah.

Yeah.