Women On The Front Lines: Firefighting, Trauma, and Transformation With Ashlea Dillard

Today, I sit down with Ashlea Dillard to explore the realities of life as a firefighter and paramedic, the pressures placed on women in first responder roles, and the mental health battles that often remain hidden behind the uniform. Ms. Dillard begins by walking us through her unexpected path into firefighting after initially pursuing nursing. Once she stepped into fire culture, she discovered a tight-knit community defined by teamwork, problem-solving, and high-stakes decision-making. She shares stories from her early years on the ambulance, the transition to the firetruck, and the unique challenges she faced as one of the few women in a male-dominated field.

As our conversation continues, Ms. Dillard describes the subtle and overt pressures that come with being a woman in the fire service—from constant performance scrutiny to the emotional toll of proving oneself capable in a culture shaped by masculine norms. She explains how burnout developed not from large-scale emergencies, but from the accumulation of routine calls, constant sleep disruption, and never-ending administrative tasks. We also discuss the shift in fire and EMS work over the past several decades, how unpredictable calls can escalate instantly, and why the belief in being indestructible can put responders at risk.

We then transition into the turning point of Ms. Dillard’s career: confronting the emotional, physical, and spiritual effects of burnout while managing graduate school, clinical training, and a demanding 48-hour shift schedule. As she recognized the need to prioritize her own mental health, she made the difficult decision to step away from the fire service and complete her transition into counseling. Today, she works as a licensed professional counselor and clinical hypnotherapist specializing in first responders, military members, and their families. She shares how her podcast allows her to amplify stories, offer insight, and build community by helping individuals reconnect with their identity outside of their uniform.

To close the episode, I ask Ms. Dillard what young people should know before they enter the first responder field. Her reality check offers a grounded perspective on danger, complacency, training, and the need for intention behind the mission. 

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and it is always such a great honor and opportunity to host someone on my show when I was previously on their show. I think it's great to you really let get, to learn about people differently when they're a host and when they're a guest.

And it's just so awesome to get the opportunity. I'm also excited about today's episode because when people think of first responders, police officers, and firefighters. It's typically a man they picture and I feel like the women in first responder kind of position, they don't get the acknowledgement and recognition that they deserve.

It's just like people instantly go to the the man and then when it's paramedic EMT side, then they think a a woman. But there are a lot of women around the world and around the country right now serving as police officers and firefighters on the front lines. And we have one of those here today.

So I'm super excited for this interview to tap into that. Ms. Ashley Dillard, so great to have you here and could you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. I'm very excited to be here and excited to have another conversation with you. It was fun hosting you on my show and getting to know you.

And I almost showed up in my hat today 'cause I was like, he's gonna wear a hat. I should bring my right. I don't have an official cowboy hat, but you know, I wanted to, 'cause our vibe is there with the hats, so I liked it. But yeah, thank you for having me on the show and I'm really excited to be here and it's been quite the journey for me to get to where I am.

But also I love bringing the female perspective out to everybody to get a little bit more understanding and to also inspire a lot of other females to use their voice and speak up and share their stories, whether it's first responders, military, anything like that. We're a very powerful force and I am all about sharing the voice and getting, getting us out there.

So, yeah, I guess if you want me to dive into my background, I'll give you a little glimpse of how it all looks. But I. Am a retired firefighter paramedic. I retired just short of 10 years. I spent time on the ambulance and spent time on the firetruck as a medic as well too. So I had kind of a mixture of everything together.

Had no idea initially that this is where my life would take me. I went into everything. Anticipating that I was gonna become a nurse. So I've always loved the medicine side of stuff, but once I got immersed into fire culture and EMS, I thought this is the coolest job because it's never the same and I don't have to sit at at a desk for nine hours a day and do the same job over and over.

And I really, really loved the intricacies of problem solving and having to think quickly on your feet using the resources that you have available to you in the moment. And just getting to do a lot of really cool stuff. I always would say, like, working in EMS, being on the ambulance, or even with fire too, is like you kind of have your own little like.

Doctor's office with you that you get to go and do some really cool stuff, whether it's like stopping and starting people's heart or innovating people and putting tubes down their throat. Or like one time I got to pull a chunk of steak outta somebody's, like, airway just like crazy cool stuff to get to do that.

I mean, what other job is that possible? So it was such an awesome, awesome career and I'm so happy to be in the season where I am on the other side. I get to be a different kind of helper now than I was before. And I made some choices for myself to put myself as a priority and advocate for me. And that led me to where I am now.

So I'm a full-time licensed professional counselor and a certified clinical hypnotherapist. So I do a lot of work with first responders and military in the mental health support side. And I've taken my non-traditional approach to things in life and incorporated that into my practice. So a lot of the modalities and a lot of the work that I do is not traditional therapy at all.

But I absolutely love it and I absolutely am honored to be able to show up for my brothers and sisters who are online still or those who are retiring or have retired. But just to have this commonality and this shared experience together that I think opens up so many doors for us understanding one another.

And you don't have that block of. Is this person culturally aware of where I'm coming from or understanding what the job has been like or the stress and the demand of the job. So yeah, that's kind of the whole story most of where I came from. So, yeah. Right. And I think your definition of cool stuff and everyone else's are a little bit different.

I'll call it unique opportunities because when I was a nuclear operator in the Navy, in any military position you come across a lot of what I would also call cool stuff that I think civilians would be like, that is not cool, that is just a gruesome day. But you know, those unique opportunities, it's like not many people experience that.

And so it is something to really cherish. And I wanna go back to, you talked about once you got immersed in the fire culture, that's kind of what brought you over out of nursing. What was that immersion experience? Yeah, at the time I was doing some programming and kind of working with a fire department closely on their physical fitness, mental, some of the mental side, but mostly physical fitness.

And so that was my first like exposure, taste into the fire service. And what I had learned was this feels like a really cool like group of people. It feels almost like a family type sense. And again, with the, just not knowing what kind of calls were gonna come your way and just having like, never having it be the same.

But what drew me in the most was this sense of like, this feels like a community. It feels like a group of people to connect with and to do this really cool job with. And so that was. Probably, I would say the biggest draw into it is like, how, how cool of a work environment is this going to be if this is kind of showing up to work with some of your best friends every single day?

So that's, that's really what pulled me into it. And all the rest of it was just kind of icing on the cake when it came to the other stuff that we got to do. Right. So you definitely had a very enthusiastic experience about it, but was there anyone in your family friend group or at the workplace that kind of was hesitant about you joining or tried to convince you otherwise?

I didn't have a lot of, aside from like my brother, I didn't have a lot of anybody really who had been in the fire or police or any kind of service like that before. So there was always a question around as a female, do you think like. This is a good idea or do you think you're gonna be able to do the job?

And I think less of that came from people who were close to me because they had, luckily enough, had a very good support system. But honestly it came from that perspective came from a lot of other outside people, whether it was I don't know, like necessarily what your experience through going basic training was, but fire Academy can be like a make believe version of basic training where they try to make it feel very military and that kind of thing.

But there's a lot of that around like telling you you're not gonna be able to do the job, you're not strong enough to do the job. Do you have the mental capacity to do the job? Especially as a female, because we're kind of seen in that feminine light anyways. So the questioning of. Can you be able to handle this?

And I, it was really interesting. I was having this conversation the other day with someone else kind of asking me a similar question and historically through the fire service, like it was very rare to have a woman on the fire department. And some of the women who I worked with was really like honored to work with them who had been on the department for 20 plus years.

They started back, I mean, in the early eighties when it was really not a thing for a woman to be a fire fighter. And it was not easy for them at all to try to fit in or to try to almost this constant feeling like you always have to prove yourself. You always have to show that you are just as strong as the guys.

You can do everything just like the guys. I mean, there is some validity to that as well, is like, we all need to be able to drag 170 pound person out of a burning building if we have to. But there is still some of this around, like if you can't do it, like the guys, you can't do it, which is kind of bull crap because our, the way our bodies are made are so different and our strength is held in different places.

And so just because your upper body is different than a guys doesn't mean you're, you're not capable to do the job. But not everybody sees it that way and not everybody supports the strength. And I have, I had a lot of people actually when we ran calls. That kind of made sideline jokes about like, oh, when are the guys gonna get here?

Or like, are you sure you can lift this person because don't you need the guys here to be able to do that? Or aren't you just the girl who works on the ambulance? Like, you kind of alluded to that earlier, but there's a lot of stigma around in the public too, about how you, are you really capable of doing this job And it is it, it takes a big mental toll on us.

I think as females and I, I would imagine that this is very similar to the military as well too, as if you're a female in some of these places, and especially some of these specialized units is like, the mental pressure that puts on you in general can be a lot and it can be exhausting and it can.

Constantly put you in this place where you're feeling like you're, you're never good enough, or you're always trying to measure up and let alone be accepted in an environment that is mostly male dominated Anyways, so I think most of it came from outside people rather than just the people close to me that were questioning whether or not I could do the job.

And yeah, it, it kind of sucks. It's not, it's not great. I know the military, although it's supposed to be a politically neutral organization, it does follow this four year cycle as we've seen historically. And so it has fluctuated a lot in terms of. Like when I was in, women had a different physical fitness standard than the men and I believe now it has changed back to one standard across, and it may have been so for age as well.

I know when I was in, it was different based on age. They may have done away with that as well. I don't keep up on the physical fitness standards, I don't worry about that stuff anymore. I used to follow it when I first got out I was reading the Navy news and they were talking about like how long you can now get your eyelashes and you could put hands in your pocket and I was like, no, I need to need to separate.

Oh wow. We'll get into that conversation in a little bit, but I think one thing I want to address is, you kind of mentioned the mindset and intensity of the firefighters bootcamp, so to call it, was there a high failure rate from what you personally witnessed? Was it something that broke people pretty easily or was it a lot of firefighters made it through?

Good question. I think with my. I have to think exactly how many people, I think we started with 30 something and it was a collection of departments around that sent people into academy. And I think we had three people who ended up not finishing and none of the, it, it was only me and another girl, two girls out of 30 people total.

So already you kind of have a spotlight on you when you're the, the two out of the 30 who are females. But it it, it can be for a multitude of reasons, whether it's physically it could just be a lot to your, your body to handle. Mentally it can be a lot as well. And, but I think it's more. I don't know that I would say that it's necessarily like the breaking point for people.

I think nowadays it's coming after people are through academy and once they kind of get an idea of what the job really entails. Right. And 'cause I mean that's not really real life. Everything is so controlled in that environment and the the situation. Same with military boot scenarios. Yeah. It's not really real.

So when you're finally dealing with the public or you're finally in like really serious, dangerous situations, things tend to shift for people. But I think across the board, like most of the time, unless it's changed, it was a long time ago that I went through too, but you're kind of gone in with like, they want you to fail in a certain aspect.

They want to prove that you're mentally weak or that you're. Because that's their method of like trying to weed people out or to think if you're not strong enough to do this, you're not gonna be able to do the job kind of mentality, which I don't necessarily always agree with. But yeah. So I don't know if that, I can't put like a for sure.

Yes, it is. It weeds a lot of people out. Okay. I was just curious 'cause I know like, bootcamp is its own filter and then a school, and then if you have more specialized schooling after that, each is a filter of its own. And at any point did you personally, truly, genuinely think about quitting? Or did you kind of have a mindset what was kind of keeping you going through it all?

Yeah, it's interesting how it all played out to be the way it was anyways, so before I had even gotten hired. So like there's a difference between working on the ambulance. And versus working on the fire side, you have to go through pretty stringent application process. And there's, at that time there was like hundreds of people applying for only a few spots.

So when I went through the process to get hired on the fire department, it was actually right after like one of my close crew members and friends had killed himself. And the only reason like that the spot was open was because it was like technically his spot. And so it was a weird kind of dynamic.

Going into it with this like, right. I really wanted to, like, I, it was my like goal and aspiration. I wanted to be on the fireside. I wanted to do that, but it felt very like bittersweet knowing that I had lost my friend and I was kind of there in his place. So I think that added a different element for me too, this different stress to it.

But there, I'm sure my family would say as well, there were many days on the drive home that I was like in tears of asking, questioning myself, like, why the hell am I doing this? Like, why, why am I putting myself through this? Que some questioning or doubting even myself, like even though I knew I could do the job, like I knew I could do it, but just that questioning and doubting that.

Gets, it really plays with your head. It really messes with your head when you get into that spot. And some people have the total opposite experience from me and they loved it and they would go back and do it. I always joked like I would go back to paramedic school 10 times over rather than I would go back to Fire Academy just 'cause, just 'cause of the way it was.

But yeah, there were a few times where I was like, I don't know if I really wanna do this, but Right. I made a commitment and I knew, like I knew I could do it. And I did have, there were people who were incredible supports to me, like from my own department, other lieutenants, other chiefs that said like, you're absolutely you can do this.

Like, don't let them get in your head. Don't let them question you. And I also had a really, I actually ended up tapping into some really cool therapy modalities while I was in academy, which helped a ton as well. One of my mentor therapist, he's, he gave me a really good perspective on it, he said is like, you have to find a reason to get through this.

You have to find a purpose to your mission. And for me that was knowing that I have to get through this. I have to get through this drill. I have to get through this confined space maze because somebody on the other side is gonna need my help. And that really, like flipped a switch for me is realizing, okay, I, I gotta not make this about me.

I gotta make this about the bigger purpose. And trusting my capabilities, trusting my skills, and knowing I can, I can absolutely do it for sure. And one thing I do want to address, we talked a lot about, already, you mentioned it being a family, a community, great support, but from what I've seen, military side and in any civilian organization as well, that is.

Mainly male dominated and there are fewer women. There's typically an increased rate of sexual harassment or just harassment in general towards women. Is that something you've seen across the firefighting field or personally experienced, or would you say it's just a very tight knit group and that is just not even something that happens?

I would say I was lucky enough to not have that be a huge part of my experience. I mean, I have, and I think in the seat that I am now, I see it so much differently as you can see how much pain and suffering there are in other people. And I'm, I would actually, I know that, but on the military side, like the relationship side of things and the way that people.

Move through their relationships and the dysfunction that are in re relationships bleeds over into your work. And so there were so many people who had dysfunctional relationships or they had stuff that they were dealing with that I think it's almost that trauma bonding experience that people get. I'm not sure if this is a military thing either, but which can often lead to a lot of like inappropriate behaviors, whether it's people, everybody sleeping with everybody or like divorce is happening and affairs happening.

That kind of side I think was more prevalent. I know of, and I've heard of other departments and scenarios where girls, like, that's like the harassment side is a real thing. But luckily enough like that wasn't my. Experience for sure, but you, but seeing the pain and suffering and the dysfunction in people that led them to other behaviors was for sure, for sure a thing.

So I'm glad you brought up relationships, because that was one thing I wanted to mention because I did see it on your website and it's something that we've kind of talked about on the show, which is when you are in a certain field, whether it is more beneficial to date within that field or outside of that field.

So in the case of first responders firefighters, dating firefighters or police officers, dating police officers, because you mentioned that trauma bonding for the one part, but also understanding the stress, the workplace environment, this schedule. But sometimes people say it's better to be in a relationship where your partner takes you outside of your comfort zone into a totally different world and you two balance each other out.

What have you found kind of works best within the first responder field? Good question. I think honestly to have the other person outside of it is the best case scenario. I know of and work with a lot of people who are both first responders in some capacity and just based on the schedule alone, that can make it really difficult if you have somebody else who works, 48 hours on, 96 hours off, or the four twelves or however the schedule works.

Like day shift, night shift, all all the way between holidays, weekends, oh yeah. It's, it's. Not on call, on standby. Oh, I know. It's terrible. Yeah, it's not, it's not a consistent schedule. And I, a lot of people who have that, like both people are first responders is they may see each other only once every 10 days, which like, that's hard to maintain a relationship.

If you don't have that intentional time together and the data that you have off if you're both exhausted or the next one's preparing to go to work like that can make it very difficult. But what happens I think to a lot of us is we get so immersed in the world, so em immersed in the culture that our entire friend group.

Becomes first responders as well. And so if you have that relationship, that's someone else, like you doing the job, so you're never getting out of it, you're never like, you're never walking away from the job. Because what do we do? We all sit there and we tell like war stories. Like, oh, well this call, like, right, this is crazy, or this, or, I hate the way this is going at work.

Or blah. It's like, you're never out of it. You're always, you're, you're bonded again through that same thing and you're never getting out, which I think is incredibly unhealthy and like, it's just a mess. It's a mess when people do that. So I, I think the best way is to have your other person do something else.

Like what, whatever that looks like, if they're a banker or they, do landscaping or anything. Or podcasting. Podcasting, anything. Right? It helps keep you. Connected in with humanity in a different way other than being a first responder. So it's not impossible. Not saying it's wrong or you can't do it, but it's tough.

It's very tough and that's why we kind of joke about it. But we have between all of us military first responders, like the highest divorce rates out of everybody, and we're talking like two, three marriages within the course of a lifetime. Like that's a lot. That's, that's a lot for most people. For some people that's a little, but that, that's something that we all know someone, at least one person who's, they're on their fourth, fifth or sixth marriage, I don't know how they do it, how they have the time or money, but it, it happens.

I'll say one thing that is hard to balance 'cause I can relate to this being within the military group and then within the nuclear community, which is an in smaller group. It's like when you're with your friends, those are the people who understand your humor, especially the inside jokes. Or you can understand your complaints about work.

So it's like these are the only people you have to talk to about that. But at the same time, you want to try to separate it. And it's hard, because a lot of people, we call them like negativity sponges, and they just want to vomit and complain about work the whole time because they need to do that.

And it's hard 'cause you want to be there for them, but then now you're just thinking about work. So it is definitely a hard balance and. I have found it hard to, connect with civilians. Well at least when I was active duty a lot more than now, especially dating wise, because I would work a 12 hour shift and then I would go on a date with a, a woman and she would complain about her five hour, shift at a T-shirt store, and I'm like, I can't, you, you have your phone, you're on it.

Half of the time, I'm, in a submarine doing reactor training, no phone in uniform, always getting yelled at for no reason. There's always too much dust somewhere, even though we clean every single day, so it's, it's rough. I think it's very common. In fact, there's actually an app. For anyone who's a first responder military interested, there is a uniform only, like.com, like kind of like the farmers only.com for military members only.

It's specifically for first responders and military members. I can, I think it's called uniform dating. I think it's pretty straightforward like that. Nice. So something for y'all to check out if you do wanna keep it in house, but I think it is so important to, yeah, have a partner who pulls you out of that and can still talk to you about it and, and ask about it, but also offer, a fresh perspective.

And so what was your dating life like? Did you date first responder and first responder in, in crash and burn out? Or did or were you one of those two to three divorces or are you in the five, six range? What a juicy question. I love this. No, I gosh, this is gonna cause me to go back into the archives.

I would say for. Most of my career I think I did, I didn't date overly seriously, just kind of, off and on, I suppose. And then, yeah, I had the same trouble like. Going out with civilians, it was, it could always be the same rodeo of like, oh, what's the worst call you've ever been on? Or, wow, what's that like to be doing that?

Or just kind of the same, you kind of could expect the same five questions coming from somebody, right? If you're military, it's have you ever killed anyone? Oh, geez. It's like the first question they ask. Yeah. Oh, we need to stop asking those questions. Really stop. But yeah, and then I, towards the end of of my career, I actually met my husband who so no, I was not, I'm not one of those people who is on the fourth or fifth marriage.

I think I watched a lot of people in a lot of dysfunction within their relationships, and I was like, I'm gonna learn from you guys and not do that in my life. So, but I met my husband actually very. Organically at a country bar here in Colorado at a concert. We were both in line at the merchandise line together and we just kind of randomly met each other and it was like, sounds like a movie.

Serendipitous. It was, it totally was like a movie. And I was like so rude to him. I didn't want anything to do with him. I was like, no, I'm not here it is Girls Night Out. I'm not here to put the vibe out or anything. But yeah, he was, yeah, he just, it just fit, it felt right. It was so like natural. The way it all came together and he was kind of from the country, so that was an interesting dynamic.

But funny enough, he's retired Air Force, so he was a mechanic in the Air Force. And so we have that commonality. Uniform on uniform, yep. Yeah. But we're both not in it. So that was actually really helpful too, as I was still in it and he was not to kinda understand, but there were even times though that I would come home and I was so burned out or I was so just like when you're.

I'm sure for you too, you remember, like when you're in it, you don't realize like a lot of your behaviors or even your conversations are like not normal conversations on the outside. So like the sarcasm or being really sharp or just like coming at each other. 'cause that's what we do. We sit around the table and like it's relentless.

Like you, you're going after somebody. Right. And I found very quickly that that was not a good tactic to take at home. Or within the relationship. And he, he was actually like, why are you being so like, short with me? Or why are you being so cranky? And I'm like, what do you mean? I didn't even see it.

I wasn't even as, I was so tapped into like, this isn't normal. But yeah. So that was, that's my experience with it. And I always like, it took me a long time to unwind this identity of I'm Ashley, I am a firefighter paramedic, is like, that's not who I really am. That's not the essence of who I am. But I held on so tightly to that identity that it did shape a lot of things, like with relationships or how I interacted with other people.

Like a almost wearing it like a mask in a way. So for sure, that's one of the huge issues in the veteran field, especially for the people who were in for 20 or more years. Like their job title became their whole lifestyle. And that's why a lot of first responders have a high death rate shortly after their retirement because if they don't establish a new identity and purpose and get into a new lifestyle, they kind of just.

Die. And it's a, it's almost a natural phenomenon, but it's, I've seen the studies on it and I was first introduced to it by my mother because my father was getting ready to retire from being a police officer for 25 years. And, she described it as imaginative, Superman just became Clark Kent.

It never went back to being Superman. It's different when you can go back and forth. She said he's, he's hanging it up for good, the Cape. And so he really struggled with that, and my father was the kind of person who I know a lot of cops who do this is, they're driving down the street on their day off.

They're like, oh, that's a, and they'll say the code number, this and that. Like they're just reading them off left and right. They're like, on the job, but I get it, you get trained to see this stuff, so I, I've definitely dealt with it with a lot of veterans in general, or a lot more security mindset oriented or paranoid or not a bit of both, and I totally get that.

Mm-hmm. So you talked about the identity being a huge part of you, and from an outside perspective, I'm like, well, you still kind of are hanging onto it to a certain degree because of the podcast. Do you feel like you are clinging onto it or you've given it a new meaning and purpose to still keep some of what you had while still prospering and not just being stuck in the past?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that's very, it's a very good reflection you have there, my friend. It is, I look at it now as like a costume that my. That I wore for a while, like it was looking down and breaking down into the very essence of who I am. I know that that's not, like, that's not who I am. And I think really realizing the how easily that can shift or change, whether you get hurt or you, something happens, you can't do the job anymore, is realizing like it's not, it cannot be something that you hold onto.

So now it's just part of what I look at as part of my story. Like it's, it's part of a costume that I wore for a point in my life, but it also allows me to connect with other people in such a unique way. So it's really the springboard to the work that I get to do now because. I can understand, I can relate to a lot of the stuff like what this feels like to do this job or what this takes on a toll on your home life or how it is to date as a first responder.

Like all those things. It helps me to relate to that more. But funny story, I, a couple of years ago, I was going to register. I'd gotten a new car and I was going to register it. And I, 'cause the big thing, right? Being a firefighter, I don't think military's as much this way, but for some reason like fire, we love our stuff.

Like we love our hats, we love our shirts, we love our stickers. Like we want people to know we're a firefighter, like without them even asking. So it's kind of a funny joke, but everybody has firefighter license plates and so. Because like I had shifted and done so much work on this, like dismantling of my identity and like coming into the essence of who I really am.

I was like, I don't want fireplaces anymore. I was like, I kind of almost had a resistance to it. I was like, I don't want, I don't even wanna drive around with these plates. And sure enough, like the way that it all works is the lady at the DMV was like, well, do you already have existing plates? And I was like, yeah.

And she's like, well, you can buy new plates. They're like 300 bucks on top of already like paying a shit ton of money for new registration. But I was like, are you freaking kidding me? Like I'm gonna have these plates again. And I was like so determined to not have them. And I was like, you gotta just let it go.

Like you, you have to just accept that it was part of your story, but you know, it's not who you are, but just let it go. Like let it be what it is and not be so. Wrapped up on the other side of like not wanting anything to do with it. So I kind of am aiming for a balance between the two and the quote I've made to summarize, I really like this.

Keep it, don't lead with it. And I think that's, such a big difference. So for me, like I am a veteran and I always will be, I don't lead with it, I don't shake people's hands and I'm like, Hey, I was a veteran. Because what happens if I say that is then they'll say, I almost joined.

And then they'll go into a story about how they almost joined or. Or if they don't say that, the other 50% of people will say, oh, my uncle was in the military, or my father was in the military. Or this, it's either they know someone who is, or they, almost joined, or they'll say, oh wow, do you know so and so and don't name some person on some base that you've never even been remotely close to.

So it's it's what happens, it's like I interviewed Danny Johnson, a comedian the other day about comedy, and I performed comedy and we said, you never lead with, you're a comedian. Because the first thing people would do is ask you, oh, you're funny. Tell us a joke. So, oh, of course.

Like, don't, don't lead. Let people ask you, and I have found that works very well. So, it's like, Hey, you're just Ashley. And then if people ask, well, what did you, what do you do? Or what did you used to do? Or, then you can get into it. But I think it's important to keep it, not lead with it.

And I think with the memorabilia, it's. A lot easier for firefighters. I think compared to police officers and military members, they get the least hate, they, they save lives. That's it. With the military, I've heard people say stuff as far as like baby killers and you look at the whole Vietnam War veterans and how they were welcomed back and even, the different opinions around nine 11 and stuff like that, police officers over years we've seen it get, just get more and more hate.

But when it comes to paramedics and firefighters, it's like those are the good guys, that's, the publicly social acceptable opinion. So I think it's a lot easier to put that stuff on your car and hope it doesn't get vandalized, but, mm-hmm. Yeah. And then what I want to get into is, we've talked a lot about Erving, and you mentioned, around around 10 years, which I assume is firefighting the same as military where 20 years is retirement, or is it a different number?

Yeah, pretty much 20 to 30. There's some folks who've done 30 years. That's the typical normal amount of time. I guess you could say that most people aim for doing that in a career. I only bring that up to say basically you were halfway, which is kind of when people, either get out or stay, typically they're more inclined to stay 'cause they're getting closer.

You mentioned some mental health issues. Putting yourself first, so at the peak of these 10 years, I imagine is kind of when you had to make that decision. So what was going on in your life at that moment as well as in the years kind of leading up to it? I, 'cause I assume it's something you kind of let you know, sit for a while and build up and build up.

Yeah, absolutely. Because. I mean, I had worked really hard to get the PLA to the place where I was, especially being a female, like on a fire department. Like this was the, a lot of people refer to it as the golden ticket, like you're set and all the schooling, all the training, everything I had done to get me where I was like I was set for 20 years to just stay.

But what I had started to notice is like, I think I had mentioned it briefly before, but I was at a really like ultimate place of burnout. I was not excited to go to work to do the job. I was, even the night, the day before shift, I had so much like. Anxiety and angst against going to work. Like it took everything to be able to go to work and then it was just like, ah, man, I gotta be here for 48 hours.

But you were so enthusiastic when you started, so what changed? Was it just time took its toll, responding to call after call or was it different particular events? I think it was, I mean, this isn't such an interesting conversation that comes up is like, in my case, my standard, that's not this way for everybody, but it was so much of the mundane, the routine stuff that I think is what actually started to wear on me rather than the big calls you wanna call it is like, you know mm-hmm.

Either the fires or the, the intense medical calls or car accidents, stuff like that. It we're talking about like the everyday calls of people calling because. They want us to come fix their hot water heat here because the plumber is gonna take too long, or they need us to come change the channel on the tv.

Or it's the same, homeless person stuck in a tree as you see on tv. Yeah. Well that's cool, right? I mean, like, that's awesome, but that's not, the reality of the job is so different than what I think. Yeah. What they put on TV essentially. This like, oh, you're gonna do, I have like six structure fires in a, in a day and it's, oh, like the, what is it?

Chicago Fire Department. All those shows are so dramatized. I've never seen them. I've seen the commercials. I'm like, this has to be so dramatized. Just from some of the interviews I've had. But one, there, there is a anime about firefighting that I, I've watched a little bit of, and one of the things they joke about is like all the paperwork and they're like, this is boring.

Who wants to do all this paperwork? Is that true? Is there a lot of like, incident Oh yeah. Reports and stuff like that. And especially as a paramedic, right, because you're the one taking the lead on patient care and you're primarily the one taking care of people. And so yeah, you might be on this call for an hour by the time you get dispatched and you get to the, wherever you're going, you do what you're gonna do, whether you're gonna transport 'em to the hospital or not.

But then, yeah, you come back and now you have like a 30 minute to an hour long report to write after that. You think about insurance numbers plus calls, right? Yeah. 20 calls in a day or 20 calls, 48 hours. It's a lot of paperwork. It's lot of just that everyday grind I think is that is what started to really wear you down.

And when you go into this like very optimistic and excited and like wanting to make a difference in the world, and then you realize like. What am I actually doing? Like how is this, how is this making a difference? And you just feel so disconnected from your mission because it's just, it's just crazy what people call 9 1 1 4 now and people oh yeah, it's a massive tax.

You can look at those videos on, on, on YouTube and the internet, like craziest 9 1 1 calls and it's unbelievable. I think that happens to a lot of military members too. A lot of people join the fight and they don't pick like a combat thing because they think, oh, you're in the military, just go fight. Like, no, not everyone gets firearms training, like to the degree that you would want it.

Not a lot of people go out into the field like you would want. You end up doing a lot of mundane things like that. It's why we need some AI enhanced firefighting suits and paramedic suits that just like, do all the paperwork automatically. That way you can focus on the mission. But I guess for now the pen is mightier than the fire act.

So. Yeah. And make that a t-shirt. We had joked about that. You should. You should. That'd be awesome. No, we joked about that as like, how could we send out like a drone to go triage these situations and see like, do you actually need help or not? Like, do you, do you need us to respond out or not? And say like, no, like your, your emergency doesn't qualify.

You call 9 1 1 as a robocaller. Or people would go nuts over that. Oh, I would love it. It would be great, but yeah, it's just nuts. English Finish. Press one or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm bleeding. Do you think this is an emergency? Yes or no? Yeah, it's yeah, it's just a lot. I think honestly that's where it was for me.

It was less about I mean like, yeah, of course you're around death a lot, a lot of death in a lot of different ways. And that does take its own toll. It's so. I really appreciate you sharing this 'cause like so many people would've thought it was like, like you said, being around such morbid things, responding like I had a person on my show once.

Say, when you're a first responder, you are the first responder. That means it is the most chaotic and messy it can be. It is just like a, a nightmare, especially for car crashes and stuff like that. And you think it would be that. Yet. Interestingly enough, my father was the same way as a police officer for 25 years.

He would say, son. I had to drag a dead body down a, a, a stairway. Her head hit each stair bump, bump, bump didn't bother me. I had to perform CPR on infants who drowned, didn't bother me. But man, if I had to go stand in court or do paperwork, oh man, I hate that stuff. And it's like I mm-hmm. I know people who were in the military and they're like, you could do any submarine thing or combat thing, but then if I had to do it stuff, the computer's not working.

Oh man, I, I'd rather do anything else than that. So it's, I get it. Yeah. It's like, but it's so interesting because there's a lot of people, like, I found this as a nuclear operator. We were all saying, we want to be out there in the action. We feel purposeless, just sitting here watching gauges and all the guys in the field were like, we wish we were in that air conditioned room watching the gauges.

So, it's always a grass is greener kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And they all compile upon each other. Right. So you have all these little calls, all this little, the little stuff. And I mean, you're. Talking about like whether people work all different kinds of shifts. We had 48 hour shifts. So really you're not, it was a blessing to get to sleep through the night, but usually you're not, so you're up running calls, you're sleep deprived, you have all these little calls of things that you and don't really need you.

And then you put, so now you missed out on sleep and you're like, I could've been sleeping, but you called me. Exactly. Because you thought you smelled gas, but you just left your stove on for too long. Yeah. Or just, yeah, that's how it works. And then try to have a good attitude for that. It's hard.

And then, and then you put the big calls on top of it, right? And then you put like the, well, I'm five reports down and now we just had to go run a cardiac arrest, which, that's gonna be its own thing. And it is. So it's just, it's a lot. It's a lot. And there's a pressure too now, I think for like.

I mean, you gotta fit training in there too. So like Right. How you get training done, there's a ton of like extra duties in terms of like pub ed type events. There's, like all different training people. Like I was a field training officer for paramedics, and so now you're training somebody and that's, it's a whole thing.

'cause you're, it's just a lot, like, there's just a lot that goes into it. I think it's what it. Used to be isn't what it is now. And I've even asked, like some of the guys that retired after 25, 30 years was like, if you were just starting now, like, do you think you would be here for this long? Do you think you would be here for 30 years?

And they're like, no way. There's no way. The job is so different now that Wow, it's not sustainable. Yeah, it's crazy that, that is really unique right there. I I love that. And is it a task of society in the sense that like if you're new, if you're one of the new people, you get all the worst calls or the small calls?

Or is it like whoever is on shift, like y'all are responding together? How does that work? Yeah, I mean, you're, if you're on shift and the call happens in your district, your station is going. So there's really no like picking and choosing. It's whatever comes your way. Oh, that's good. You go. So yeah, there's, there's no getting to pick.

You go when they call, when the, that's good. Tones go off you go. No, I think that that helps prevent toxic work cycles because I, I saw in the military, at least on my ship, you would get to the ship and they would, and I don't support this, they would call you a nub, a non-useful body. And you would get tasked with all this stupid stuff by people who were slightly more advanced from you.

Maybe it was a few weeks or a few months and it wasn't, it was just them not wanting to do their job and then they just pass it off to you 'cause you're new. And then what happens is you get to their point and then you want to task it off. 'cause you had to do it. When you were younger and newer, so then the people below you get it put on and it creates this cycle and it's can be a very vicious cycle to break because my buddy, he tried breaking it and they were like, oh, if you don't want to act like a, a senior in rate and you want to act like a nub, then we're gonna task you with our work since you wanna try to be fair and, and support and stuff like that.

And you had to get higher ups and stuff. So it was just a, it can be a very mess. So when everyone is like going out to the job, I think it creates a much healthier work environment. Yeah. We did have like typically your first years, what we call a probe, your probationary officer or not officer probation in your spot.

So technically you can get like fired at will pretty much is that, but it, it is an interesting. Timeframe where you're kind of, okay, you've gone through fire academy, you're coming back and now like this is your time to basically be kind of the grunt and prove yourself. So you have a lot of the extra tasks of like laundry dishes, clean, like you're expected to, like kinda, you mentioned a joke about the dusting thing, but that was kind of real too, is you're expected to do, be doing something, be busy all the time.

It's that to, to look busy all the time. Not hard. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yep. But it can create a lot of stress on people to, to be in that spot because again, you're trying so hard to fit in and you're trying to like just relate with other human beings in the midst of doing this kind of work and running these calls.

And yet, like you, you feel very closed off or isolated and like you shut off a lot of who you are. In order to just kind of blend in. And so I think that takes a big, that's what I'm seeing now too on my side in my practice, is a lot of people who are just a couple years on are like feeling this because it's this big pressure around that and the insecurity that that breeds in people because they're just constantly feeling like they have to prove themselves in All right ways.

So, and so you talked about feeling, burnt out, no pun intended, and now you're trying to, you have to make this decision. So being burnt out from all the mundane stuff, I mean, what was the internal conflict looking like? Because like you said, you had worked so hard to be there. You, you didn't wanna get that up.

What was kind of like the deciding final factor that you were like, no, I'm leaving, like this is it? I think several things came into play for that one. Of the main things being so towards, closer towards the end of my career, I went back to school to finish my master's in mental health and clinical counseling.

And after that you have to go through your internship and practicum to go through the rest of the process to get your licensing and everything like that. So what I was having to do for the last year or so, my career was due all of it at the same time. So I was working 48 hours on shift and then I was having to go to my internship and work three days there.

So I was really never getting a break. Right. So, and that was gonna have to be like the way it was for close to two years. 'cause you have to hold your pre-licensure for two years here in Colorado. So I was looking down the path of what that was gonna be like and realizing this is going to be a lot. And having to decide like, okay, where are my priorities going to be on that?

More importantly, like I was mentioning, the burnout that I was seeing, I was so salty. I was so salty and like didn't not want to do the job. I got really good at taking on a lot of extra projects, and so I had a lot of extra things on my plate too that I just was not, I just felt like very dead-ended.

I wasn't getting anywhere and putting in all this effort and not feeling like I was getting much return back, um hmm. Was a huge part of it. And then also, like, I started to see physical symptoms show up. So it was constantly exhausted all the time. My hormones like started to shift drastically, and I just wasn't, I never really felt like my best self.

Like, I just wasn't feeling, I wasn't feeling good and I, I just felt very. Yeah. Like just toxic in a way, I guess in a, in a lack of a better way to put it. And I knew Plan a Harder was gonna lead me to more of that, and I had to really sit with myself and ask myself, right, am I willing to sacrifice myself for this job?

Literally, like, which, we do, right? We signed, we took the oath that we would, but it was much more than just running into a burning building. It was literally like, am I okay with this trajectory for the next 10 years? What that would do to the, my whole life, my relationship, my family, my body, all those things.

Like, was I willing to sacrifice all of that and like, it just couldn't, like, it got to the point where I knew it was not gonna be good. So I made the decision to, to leave. Right. And that was quite a while ago. And we know you've been doing a lot of mental health work since then. Both on yourself and with others.

Could you tell us a little bit more about the podcast and your courses? Yeah, so the podcast is a little over a year old now. We just had a year, like a couple weeks ago. So that was exciting. I was there. Well, I wasn't, I know I wasn't there. I was there the day before and then I posted about it the day of.

So I was, I was there through, through the internet. I know, I guess I should have set a building on fire to celebrate so that firefighters had to do their job to keep your show running because you need firefighters. Right. But I didn't do it. So next, next time the two year is always, it's gotta be traced back to a birthday candle though.

That was like just Oh. Someone used a personal handheld flame thrower to light it instead of a, a match. And so started accidental fire. And then, there was a sofa chair in the front yard that said, Ashley Dillard, congratulations. And so that was kind of suspicious. Absolutely. And then just drop off some cupcakes later on to the station and you'll be good.

Yeah. Please eat these exclamation mark. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the podcast was my own adventure in like getting myself out there and growing and just like a divine inspiration to have a voice and to put my voice out there and realized very quickly when I moved into my own private practice. You can only see so many people at a time.

And so I was really like, how can I connect with more people? Mm-hmm. And get out there. So I decided to start the podcast and yeah, it's just so, it's been a cool journey to listen to and reflect on where that has come from. Right. And watch myself grow through it where I was like, oh, I can't even stand listening to myself.

And now there we are. Right Now, you go back to the old episodes and you're like, no, I really can't stand listening to myself. I thought that was awesome, but compared to my new content, that's just, you know how it is. But that's every podcaster I know. I think we don't really like, well, some podcasters like listening to themselves talk.

I've posted 'em on my show before. Oh. But anyway, episodes in a description, but No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, yeah, I think not gonna name drop, but the episodes are in a description. But no, I, I think that's good that you made the choice to leave. I think that's something too with the military where it's one of those things, like if you're perceived as a quitter, you're kind of guilted and you actually really hit personal with, with the, but this much money and training was put into you, who's gonna stand the watch in your place?

Like there, there's a lot of that, like shaming and holding it over your head, and then of course, forget the higher ups. What, what is my family gonna think? And then on top of it, like you said, to be one of the only females to make it through that program, to then have that like, oh. Told you women couldn't do it, no woman could do.

Right. Be you're kind of carrying all of womanhood, on, on your mantle, so. Mm-hmm. It's, it's a really tough position to be in. And like I said, the military creates a lot of that intentionally to a degree for some people and unintentionally for others, and I'm sure reenlistment is one of those times where there's a lot going on with, with that kind of stuff, but sometimes it's accidental.

Sometimes people don't have bad intentions, but a lot of times the higher up are trying to, get you to stay in and, and I get it, but ultimately having people who are dealing with mental health issues. On the job in charge of a reactor in charge of running into a fire to respond in charge of performing medical procedures can be very dangerous.

You, you want watch standards and first responders, yes. But you want competent, concentrated, in the moment focused ones, not ones who are anxious or depressed or suicidal. It can become a very dangerous combination. So I really encourage every leader to really look at mental health as Del we've had a lot of work done over the past few years to really make it less stigmatized and less stereotyped and make it something that is a, not a taboo conversation, but there's still a lot of change that needs to be made across all the first responder bases, all military bases.

Some of them are getting different guidelines and courses. Some of a lot of them are being told to make their own program and it's a lot to task. Some fire captain who just fights fires for a living has never done anything else to make a mental health program with no mental health background. So I do think there is some responsibility that needs to be had higher up in all of these organizations that says, Hey, these are the guidelines we're putting forward because these are the best of the best of the best for the, for the mental health based on the research, the, the knowledge of the experts and based on the structure and lifestyle of the people that we're passing this on to.

So it's gonna be different for firefighters than it is for police officers, different for each military branch, different for each division from nuclear operators to, combat side to medic side. All very different lifestyles. Same military structure, but very different lifestyles to a degree. So I think that's so important.

And your podcast. Obviously it's a mental health resource show, especially for first responders, but would you encourage non-first responders to listen to as well? One, to get insight into the world of first responding, but what else can they get from it? A lot of this stuff, I assume, is applicable to all walks of life.

Yes, it is for sure. And it's morphed kind of like my mission with the podcast continues to grow and change as I do too. So it's become a platform for people to just share their stories and share experiences and for me to get to gab a little bit and share some expertise if, or not even call it that, just say like, things that I've learned that have helped me within my life on the mental health side or learning about certain topics or like how to have different kind of communication tactics within your relationship.

All different kinds of things. But it has opened up into this really cool place where I think of. What happens when we all sit around a fire is like you're just sharing stories with one another and this old wisdom that comes with that and how that's truly my mission behind the PO podcast is to allow people to use their voice and share their stories.

And that's what my husband told me very then our very first launch the podcast was like, if only one person listens to it and it impacts them, then it was totally worth doing this a hundred percent. And that's the take it. Yeah, that's the take I have is like, if somebody hears somebody's story and that changes everything for them, then like, why do I not do this?

So that's kinda what it's turned into. If it's, it's not just for only the first responder or only the firefighter, anybody could listen to it and resonate. With some kind of commonality because we all struggle with a lot of the same stuff. It just depends on what your costume looks like, right?

But you're still the human underneath it. And we all struggle. And that can be found within all the stories that are the people that come on the show, or the lessons or the missions people have. And that's really kind of where the podcast has gone. And I'm excited for the future and your episode coming out here soon and Woo.

Yeah, it's all kinds of exciting episode coming out it for the two year anniversary. I was just kidding, but Oh yes. I think you'll have to come back for two years, right? I think if I were sitting around a fire, I'd want it to be with a bunch of first responders. That's the best crowd to be sitting around a fire with in case anything goes wrong.

I don't, I don't have to do anything. Just smile, wave, and watch. And one thing I want to get into to close up the episode. We've talked a lot about firefighting, and I wanna focus in on the reality of it. We talked about the bootcamp, quote unquote experience as long well with the work experience itself from the day-to-day calls to some of the effects of burnout, what would be the reality check that you would give people, young people who want to join first responding?

We definitely hope this conversation has not discouraged you from joining it, but has opened up your eyes to a new perspective on it. And we definitely encouraged you. If, if you wanna pursue firefighting or police officer work, super encourage it because, a lot of people aren't doing that because of all these stereotypes and stigmas and it's, it's a real shame and it's putting a greater burden on the people who are doing it and are doing the right thing.

So we definitely encourage you. But you know, Ms. Dillard, what would you say is a reality check for them, you would say is like the biggest thing that kind of slapped you in the face, so to speak, when you were going through either the academy or just your day-to-day life?

I think that we get the Superman slash I'm indestructible mentality a lot because we get to do a lot of really cool stuff like I've alluded to and you, it's things that you're, you can feel very cool doing I guess, but you don't realize that you still are. Operating within a human body or that you're not, like, things can still happen to you.

And luckily enough, I was never, I, we never had like a line of duty, death or anything at my department, but there were people who got hurt in different ways from, getting burned through your bunker gear or tearing your rotator cuff or all kinds of different stuff. But I think the reality check comes with like, you're not invincible.

Like things do happen. You are going into a very dangerous and unpredictable environment, even not just on the fire side, but a basic medical call can be more dangerous than a fire. If I was on several different calls where people had. Weapons in the room or next to them that we didn't know about. You have lots of different situations where people are on different drugs and substances where you're literally having to, like I get one time the, we ran a call, a guy who was on methamphetamine and tried to be like the whisperer, of like, let's just keep people calm and chill and not provoke them.

Right? But the, in that case and scenario, people are very unpredictable and like anything can set them off. And a another firefighter, one comment he made, that was it. And this guy went from a zero to a hundred and literally. Quicker than we could have even imagined. He unbuckled all of his seat belts and he was fighting us in the back of the ambulances we're driving down the road.

It was me, another female, and then one male firefighter. And like, if you wanna talk about a situation where you feel totally helpless and out of control, that was it where I couldn't get to my narcotics to sedate him. Like there was no holding him down. Right. People are so strong in certain cases and the reality check of like, whoa, like this could actually, this could happen.

This could, result in some very serious, like things that come up for people, we don't often realize that. And so I think just remembering like, not that you need to be hypervigilant or be like ultra paranoid all the time, but just you can't get into this career thinking, oh, I'm just gonna be Superman and be the hero.

But you have to realize, like you gotta be smart about what you're doing. And you need to take care of yourself. Like you alluded to mind, body, and spirit like is a non-negotiable. If you wanna, I think if you wanna do this career, you have to put yourself as a priority and you have to take care of yourself in all of those ways so you can have a healthy career and you can work 20 years if you want to.

Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is just realizing you gotta have a really good why as to why you wanna do this job. And no, you can get through it. You can get through any training or you can get through any call that comes up, but your mission needs to be really, really intentional going into this kind of work.

You're not just doing it for the sticker, you're not just doing it for the license plates. Like it's so much more than that. So

I agree 100%. I think that people forget you had the balance of life and death in your hands and they, people do get that, indestructable mentality and reactor side, we call it complacency kills, because any day you could have a reactor incident that could be on a huge scale that, it could be an international issue.

But you go day in and out with no issues and you get lazy. People start done decking logs, which is, they're just writing down the numbers for gauges and other systems that they're not even reading. They just, oh, it's always at this number, or it's almost always this number. And that could be the day actually.

It was always, down at zero and you needed that. So I think, when you respond to a call and you respond to another call and another call and you never get burned, you forget that fire burns. You forget that you're a firefighter, you think you're a fire immune. So I think it's definitely a important mindset to have, and it's one that's hard to keep because everything you do constantly kind of reaffirms that you are indestructible or that you are, impervious.

And so something that you have to actively keep at the forefront of your mind, and it can be something very difficult to do. So I definitely agree with that and. Ms. Dillard, just real quick you mentioned courses as well, and I know people can work with you one-on-one. Who specifically would that best be suited for?

Yeah, so in the work that I do mostly around like hypnotherapy and some of the specialized counseling that I do really can fit anybody. But particularly like, because I love working with our people, so first responders, military, or their, I do a lot of work with their spouses too, so kind of that whole.

Genre people is a specialty that I dive into. But yeah, if you're looking for some non-traditional type methods, if you've tried therapy before and it's been a disaster or you're looking for like a different kind of tool to come at stuff with, is like, I always recommend to people like, just keep trying till you find something that works for you.

And yeah, I, I love the work that I do. I'm like so blessed to get to do this and that this is my job. So it's my honor to sit with anybody who comes to see me. And yeah, I love to work with anybody who wants help and is sick enough of their suffering and wants things to change so. A hundred percent. I think something that's very unfortunate in our world is that a lot of people are sick of something and they don't make the change.

They just accept it in very defeat. And even worse, they turn it into self victimization and a pity party. But we have the ability to enact change and it's all about planning that out and taking that action. So ladies and gentlemen, if you wanna take action today, you can reach out to Ms. Ashley Diller through, we're gonna have her website and description below where you can find her courses, as well as our podcast.

A huge thank you to all our first responders. Like I said, there's so much societal hate going on, even though y'all are risking your lives to, uphold the law to respond to incidents. And people don't realize how much firefighters and police officers do, they had this pretty mainstream image about what that is.

But when again, like we mentioned in the very beginning, the amount of different calls that y'all respond to, what a, a amaze most people. So, Ms. Dillard, thank you for what you do as, as a former first responder, as well as what you do now, working in that community. Like I said, I think it's so important to have not just women in these, services, but sharing their story as you are.

Because most people, I have found the ratio of women who are willing to share their story as a first responder or a military member, is significantly less than the men. Not just because of the proportion of men to women, but just in general as well. So I really appreciate what you do and I know we'll connect again.

Yeah, absolutely. I am honored to be here and excited to be part of the work you do too, so, yes.