249: It's Not for Those Who Need It, It's for Those Who Want It

Nole is missing in action (at the firehouse!), so Kevin steps up to the mic for a powerful solo episode. Fresh off the high of the Fire Up Program's Class 14, Kevin shares an immediate and personal debrief of the weekend.

He discusses why it's so difficult—and so necessary—for first responders to take a "tactical pause" away from both work and family to reset and build resilience. This episode is a raw look at the power of brotherhood, the importance of servant leadership, and how to take the lessons from the mountain and apply them directly to your family and your life.

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Transcript

Yo, welcome back to the Fire You Carry Podcast. It's just me, Nole and I have just got back from class 14 of our own fire up program last night and Nole went straight to work. That's why we had nothing as we normally schedule our podcasts every Monday morning they get uploaded, but we have nothing. So I'm going to try to put together something and maybe a little recap of the weekend while we're missing Noel and then we'll get back to our regularly scheduled.

programming and looking forward to 2026. We got some, we got some great guests coming up. I hope you guys stay tuned. If you've listened to this podcast at all, you know that we started a nonprofit called the fire program where we take guys up to the mountains to a camp and there's like 250 acres up in crestline and it's amazing. And we work on how to be better men, right. And how to be more resilient in life.

And it started out with just some friends and it turned into a nonprofit. And now we have guys from all over the country coming and it's one of the most humbling and powerful and special weekends that I've ever been involved with. And it just seems to be getting better as we get better. And it is amazing. So I can't tell you enough how powerful this weekend is and how important it is in my life to be surrounded by great men.

who are pushing each other to be better in all facets of their life. It doesn't make sense and it's really hard for us as first responders or firemen to go one more weekend away from the family, right? Because the reality is, you know, we're gone like 50 % of the month. I say that all the time and we feel some guilt, right? I feel guilty when I'm gone. And so I know a lot of us, we will do some family trips or river trips or do whatever to have a weekend to yourself is

It's kind of against the nature of most firemen to say, I kind of want to be selfish this weekend and work on myself. But what I've realized, and I think what my wife and my family have realized is we need a reset. I absolutely need to be removed from work and also be removed from home and take a tactical pause. Go up, surround myself with men better than me and see where I'm falling short or where I'm doing good.

Nole (02:44.768)
and just take stock and say, maybe there's something I'm lacking, maybe something I'm missing. And up there, man, I just, I'm, I'm overwhelmed with the friendships that I've made. They're not friends, they're brothers, the guys that run this fire up program with me and know they're brothers and brothers will call you out, man. They'll call you out. And if I'm whining about something or something like that, don't point the finger right at me and say, that's your fault. You need to step up. This is where you're short.

And I'm so glad I am. I'm and it's more than glad. I'm. I'm humbled and grateful that I have people like that in my life. You know, we have guys like Kevin Tobias, who's been retired for like eight years, who's our most one of our favorite captains and one of the most respected guys was a captain on our fire department for like 24 years, who comes up and volunteers his time with Del Mora, who's my Kenobi's father-in-law.

And they're just the greatest example of servant leadership on this planet for me. Like leadership, we have some great people and there's all kinds of people talking about leadership from MacArthur to Jaco to all this stuff. But to see it in the flesh and to watch actually somebody do it is incredible. In the Bible, I'm learning the Bible. I'm reading the Bible. It says like Jesus came to serve, not to be served.

And if you look at a lot of the leadership things that I've been taught from guys like Dave TiVo and other people, it says that servant leadership is the highest pinnacle is how to serve others and make them better. And that's such the case with these. These are the embodiment of those, of those principles, right? Like Tobia, who is our cap, our former captain and one of the greatest men I know. And I'm a huge mentor in my life. And so is Dell. They've been married for.

40 and 50 years, they have all life experience, they've got grandkids, and yet they come up and don't want the shine and don't want to have these major roles of speaking or listen to me. They cook for us and they throw down. They're way better cooks than any of us. They're phenomenal at what they do. But it's this idea of being of service so that we can pour into the guys that come in and pour into ourselves and they get better.

Nole (05:14.089)
And what happens inevitably is we gravitate to those great men and pick their brain while they're up there that weekend, while they're throwing down. And for me personally, I had a little issue that came up and it's been stewing in my head. I was, I was able to talk to them. I was able to talk to them and ask them advice and, really just say, what do you guys think about this? And they talked about it. They gave great advice. I trust their advice.

they're right, you know, and we prayed about it and I felt way better. And I feel like as men, we're afraid to ask a question. We're afraid to tell somebody that I'm struggling in a certain area because you don't want to look weak. I'm a fireman. I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I do hard things, right? but man, don't we need sometimes to take a tactical pause and say, this thing has been stewing in my brain and I don't know why. And I can't really let it go is to ask a friend.

And I need those mentors in my life. And I, we've talked about this at length. Mentorship is critical. So those are a couple, but you also have guys like Chris Ruano, who is just a stellar human being. He's just an incredible man. And it's not just the fire thing, which he is top notch. He's supervised, he's super in the camps and what he does is incredible. And, but what he's designed in his life with his marriage.

with his boys and to see the fruit of his fatherhood. We've had both of his boys come up to our program to hear what they're doing in their lives and how he continues to father them as they're in their twenties. It's wild and it's, it's great. I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Like I don't have the greatest example of what fatherhood looked like. And I'm, feel like sometimes I'm flying blind. have no idea what I'm doing, but it's really nice to have guys like Chris Ruano, Katie Dell.

Todd Bradstreet, these guys that I can say, there's the blueprint, like that. I don't have to reinvent the wheel or figure it out. These guys are doing some things that are successful. I can just duplicate that success. If Rwano says it's important to pray with your children, then I should pray with my children, right? And I see the fruit of that. These kids, their kids are really well adjusted. They are not doing what I did.

Nole (07:40.038)
at 20 years old, which was running the streets and causing chaos and bringing wreckage into everyone's life. I was an idiot, right? And I see their kids doing really well. And so what's nice about that is I can learn from these men and follow some of their blueprints, make it my own and make it my family's own. I'm not trying to be them. I can just take some of the things that they're doing well and put it into my life. And that doesn't typically happen when

we're just getting coffee or we get up with the families for a camping trip or something like that. It only happens at the fire up program where there's a focused time to talk about these things where I don't have the pressures of work or the pressures of home, or I'm not worried about my checking my email or getting back to text messages. I can, we can just talk. And it's, I think it's incredibly valuable for me. And it seems to be that

most of the guys, I would say all of the guys that had the very similar experience as I have when they come up to the program, we get to share each other's successes and failures and throw out ideas on how we can all get better. You know, and it's, it's not just, some of our older guys and mentors. mean, this class we had Garrett Barker, Kaylin Plouffe, John Engel, Todd Bradstreet, Noel Lilly. They're just stellar human beings.

And I'm in awe when they get up to volunteer to tell their story and to try to help another man. And it inspires me because these are great dudes doing great things, trying to grind down the road like we all are, but trying to be of service as well. It's inspiring. And I can take something from each of them and put it in my own life and make it better. So I'm rambling about this, but I was on 10. I was on 10 coming home from this thing. And last night, my wife could see it.

She was like, Whoa, Whoa, this is the Kevin I know, right? Whoa, this is the Kevin I know. And I hadn't was present with the kids and we were playing and we had a family dinner. And from RUANNO suggestion, we started thinking about 2026 and having like kind of a vision. Like, what does our family do? What do we want to do? Where do we want to go? what are you into instead of the normal of like, get up, get your shoes, get ready for school, get your homework done.

Nole (10:04.935)
You know, I got an overtime. I'm trying to get, get in the shower. Like it's just very task oriented through the week. And that's okay. That's part of life. That is what it's normal. But I realized as I take a tactical pause for myself and try to be of service to other men, I need to do that with my family. And it's, it was Sunday last night. We sat down as a whole dinner. had some, made some tri-tip, some baked potatoes.

And we did high lows for the day. Like, Hey, what's, what was a high, what was low over the weekend? Actually, we did high lows and funny stories come out of that. And then it was my turn to lead to my turn to lead to talk about spiritual things, to talk about what happened on my weekend and how I felt spiritually and how I connected with God and I connected with men. And I had some tools that I got from guys like Rwano and Katie and Dill and John Engel and Todd Bradstreet.

and Garrett Barker and Kaylin, I got tools from these men and I want to try to implement them in our family. And they were open. They were receptive to it. Right. They said, Hey, let's do it. And so we, but it's not just what I want to do. I was able to ask them what they want to do. What do you, anything that you guys have a goal or a vision on for this coming up year? And it was everything from my one daughter wanted to get 10 pull-ups. Awesome. Let's go get it. Let's work backwards. We created a plan.

other daughter wanted to start a lacrosse team. Awesome. I haven't heard that before. Let's do it. I asked my wife, said she wanted to take a trip with just the four of us somewhere fun. All right, cool. Let's figure it out. And it was just a family strategy planning meeting that came because of the fire up program that said, I need to do this with my family as well. And to say, what can we look forward to? How can we work backwards? If we want to take a trip, that means that I got to work a little bit and we, and

we got to save some money and we got to make a couple sacrifices throughout the week, maybe a little less in and out and Starbucks and they're all on board. But it's neat to have like a shared common goal, a vision to encourage them in their dreams and their goals and their aspirations. And to do it together as a family was really powerful last night. And that was always because it came, it's the fruit of going to this retreat, this FARA program.

Nole (12:28.71)
And you know, there's, too many things to explain about the weekend. I mean, it's just endless. I, and you really have to experience for yourself. It's almost impossible to explain what comes out of this thing, but there are guys like Rob Katz who's who came, who's just a complete and total stud. And it was amazing to hear how many similarities we have in our lives. Even though I've never met the man, we feel like we've had parallel lives.

I can immediately tell like somebody like that. I'm going to have a long friendship with, and there's guys like Jose Garcia and Logan Dylan who flew out from Colorado. These two men are not firemen and they, they got on a plane, I guess, because of listening to the podcasts or finding it online. have no idea, but they bought a plane ticket. They flew into LAX rented a car and came up to this weekend. And this is actually Jose's second time coming out.

That says so much to me about what kind of man that is who wants to get better, who wants to fight for his marriage, who wants to be a better dad, that they're willing to get on a plane, spend some money, make some sacrifices and get out here with a random group of strangers from LA. And I'm so glad they came because I think we were able to help them in some of their struggles in life and they were in turn helped.

to fuel me and to help me. And again, they're across the country, but I feel like I have two brothers in another state and that anytime I'm going out there, I'm going to hit them up. And it's really neat to make this giant world a little bit smaller. You know, we had, you know, some other friends, Justin Stratton and Danny Trevesio, just stellar human beings, just unbelievable. And

Danny is one of our peer support guys and he brought up his dog and I can't even explain how powerful that was. Justin is just an absolute stud as well for Cal Fire. And to learn with him, to share with him, to grind with him, to get down on some workout stuff with him is inspiring to me, right? And so, I mean, we can go on and on and this makes probably no sense to anybody unless you were there. But man, man, I hope.

Nole (14:51.495)
I hope you get a chance. hope you, I hope we not get a chance. I hope you look into this. This is, we were talking about the FHIR program is not for those who need it. There are a lot of people that need this. I think it's for somebody who wants it. I think it's for somebody who has that, that inner fire that says, that's humble enough to say I can improve in some areas and I can learn from some things and I can also help somebody else. I think you got to want it. And if you want it,

We have another one coming up in January and I'll tell you, there are lots of things out there. It doesn't have to be our thing. And, and I know our thing is insane, but I do think that there's something special. There's something magical happen and it's not magical. I believe God is in the room. God has taken this thing over and we just got to keep the doors open, but it's been my experience and it seems like countless other guys, probably over 200 that have come through, but have similar experiences. And that to me shows that.

This is not what I have created. This is not what Noah's created. God has created this thing and we just have to keep the doors open. All right. So I want to kind of give one specific thing though that was really special. We have the great captain, Chris Rwano is one of our founders and one of our leads and he's just literally the top 1 % of men for me. He's, he's the best of the best, but we, go over this thing and we might've mentioned it before, but we have an exercise that we do.

during one of his breakouts after his talk on life and leadership about what are the three things you are currently known for? Think about that. And we broke it up a little bit differently this time. We talked about what would your coworkers say? What would your work say? Who are you? What would your coworkers say? Who are you? What do you do? Right? What would your wife and family say? Is that different than what?

your wife and kids would say, like who you are. And the third one was what would you say who you are? And I thought that was really powerful to break it up that way. We've done this exercise many times before, and it was really interesting to think about, Hey, does work say I'm tired? I'm lazy. I'm grumpy. Does my wife say I'm tired, lazy and grumpy? Do I say I'm lazy grumpy? Does work say I'm just a jokester?

Nole (17:18.485)
Does work say, does it differ? Right? And it might not be bad, right? Like work is work, family like is family life. But if I polled them, if I polled people at work and I polled people at home, and if I'm honest with myself, it's interesting to think about what others perceive you as or who you are. And then how you perceive yourself. And the last part of this exercise is what would be the three things that you would want to be known for?

Right. And I love that, that Rwanda poses this question because if I look at the three things that work, my wife and my, and myself would currently say about myself. And if I'm an, and if I'm 86 years old and I'm, I'm in a con home somewhere and I had friends and loved ones around me and I'm near dying. Do they match? Right. Do the match what, what I would want to be known for.

And if I'm honest, they currently do not match, but that's okay. I got work to do. Right. And I can improve and take action steps a little bit every day to get to the point where if I would want to be known for as a man of God, as a loving father, as a, as a, as a present husband who loved and cherished his wife, uh, as a whatever it may be.

I can take little daily steps now. I don't have to quit. I can take little daily steps that add up over time so that what I would want to be known for, our legacy, whatever that may be for you, could match up. And I think that's a really powerful exercise to do. And I encourage you to do it. Hopefully you do it at the FireRub program. And I'm not trying to steal any of Chris Ruano's thunder.

or rob anything from the program, but it's a really important question to say, just take a pause, journal, write about these things and say, what are the three things that you want to be known for? And way too often we hear this common theme, especially with firefighters, that their identity, their identity or their legacy is tied up into their career. And it's fairly natural for

Nole (19:41.825)
anybody in any man in any career that that's your identity. I'm a doctor. I'm a lawyer. I'm a firefighter. I'm an IT guy, whatever. But when that's taken away, what are you? Who are you? And we had Todd Bradstreet, who is a chaplain. He's also a, has master's degrees in theology and he's a certified clinician in biblical counseling. He helped quite a bit go over

the facts, the facts of who you are, who you are and who God sees you as. And man, we got to take ownership in that. We got to start believing in what the Bible tells us who we are. I am a child of God and inheritor of the throne. Well, let's start acting like it. Right. And I'm rambling because I'm by myself. No, it's not here. Solo episodes are terrible, but

I really like to have you think about what are the three things you're known for and what are the three things that you want to be known for. And if they don't match, which mine do not, I got work to do and I don't have to be overwhelmed by it, but I can look at these buckets of my life, of my faith, my family, maybe my fitness, my career and my service work.

And I can see, can take little daily actions on those five things to get to the point where at the end of my life, whenever that may be, might be tomorrow, who knows? That somebody could say, like, my legacy is not the fire department, it's something else. And these are what these people would say. Hopefully by that point, my legacy matches what I would want to be known for. So I throw that out there. I thank you guys all for listening.

I'm looking forward to like we look past we've done this for five years and man, it's just an amazing journey. It's been an amazing journey. We've had some amazing guests this year and you know, we're thinking about maybe throwing out some past episodes over the year doing a little recap and always onward to next year. We will probably do this even if two people listen because I enjoy it. We get so much out of it and I can't thank you guys enough for listening. So

Nole (22:06.52)
Check out fireupprogram.com. We have classes coming up in January. There should be some dates in 2026. Noel will be back at a regularly scheduled program coming up soon. And we've got some great guests for you. So thanks so much. Sign up for the Fire Up program. And till next time, this has been the Fire You Carry podcast.